785 Delving Through Regrets, Part Glimpses and flashes were all that persisted after that last one.
Just fleeting monts.
Undefined forms and noises incoherent were all that would unravel in the swirling blackness, day after day, mory after mory. It was like Adalia’s sense of ti was no longer congruent, or maybe she just didn’t care enough to keep track of it all anymore.
Either way, days would whirl past my eyes in spans of slippery seconds—a literal blink-and-you-miss. I did my best to follow along though, and from what I could see, hear, and guess—Adalia was on a steeper descent down the hill of denial.
The first mory was strange, an outlier, yet also very much familiar. It was just Adalia lying in bed for seemingly the whole day. Tossing and turning in place until her beddings were pulled from the mattress, and ended up swathing her body in crumpled sheets. She tried, but she simply could muster the energy to leave her bed. Too sleepy, I suppose.
Then I blinked, and suddenly I was plunged into the morning sun of another mory, another day. Adalia was out on another one of her listless strolls, only slower, clumsier, absentmindedly scraping the farmyard fences with fingernails that had grown concerningly acute.
The scene evaporated into smoke, drifting to the other end of the room and I followed it into the view of another mory, Adalia again—in silence, in discomfort, having fallen off her bed with her blanket slinking after her, clutching a stitch at her chest that had her squirming in stifled agony. I couldn’t tell too well, but I presu the small ebbing blackness was her nails having pierced through her flesh as she attempted in vain to contain her persisting pain.
A blink of an eye later, and she was fine again. Not a scratch, not even a scar, bounced back healthier than ever unusually quick, sitting beneath the shade of a tree in the middle of a tranquil town square.
Indeed, the quiet was particular. A prominent lack of villagers filling the ambiance, the village streets, just a scattered two or three every once in a while.
.....
I suppose Dad had long selected his chosen warriors at this point, and he certainly had not spared when it ca to quantity.
Then sowhere in the barren monotony, he ca hobbling over… one of the very many few that had been spared from going. Lial heartily greeted every person he slowly andered by. None waved back at him. Still, with his head held in a blissful high, he soldiered on and upon catching Adalia in the corner of his eyes, he gestured at her too.
She didn’t reciprocate.
There was nothing more left to discern within this mory, yet we stayed, the shadows continued to linger… despite everything gradually blurring away from focus, everything—except for him.
The mont he had glanced away, through Adalia’s eyes, he beca the center focus, she gazed forward, and in silence, we watched him go… slowly turning into an indescribable splotch in the distant darkness before the mory finally completely faded.
More mories would materialize and play out like a stage play in a grand theater, and they would follow this spiraling pattern. Adalia just kept getting worse with every manifestation. It was as if she was being dissected each and every day, and every ti she was picked apart, there was also sothing new for her to lose.
I watched as her outings to the village grew less frequent, and considerably briefer. She had beco more restless, more prone to sudden outbursts of annoyance at the noises of the village, and she grew a fondness for redder, bloodier ats for her als over ti, a fondness she actively resented with every relishing bite. One mory, I watched her try to muster a sincere laugh in a mirror ti and ti over, before she shattered it into pieces when she found that she ultimately couldn’t. Then soon, eventually, even her anger had left her.
Between her seemingly unending descent into despair, Lial would offer so levity. Every few mories, he could be seen through the murky pane of a window shuffling along, his cane and limp a helpful distinction amidst the swarm of other shadows up and about. In these rare tis of respite, Adalia would just watch him, waddling from door to door, villager to villager, a pouch of coins strap to his hip steadily growing bigger.
I could more or less guess why he caught her interest. Here was another person deed helpless and frail from the very mont he was conceived. Yet they couldn’t have been more polar opposites. He braved his days in spite of it, whereas she kept herself shut away because of it.
What was different?
Why was he the way he was? And why was she the way she was?
Still closely at watch, slowly, in a gradual slant, I saw Adalia cock her head at his hunched figure. That thinking tilt whenever sothing struck her as genuinely peculiar.
Lial was peculiar.
“A human has been watching you,” Alia’s voice bood from the inky fog of another mory. “For many days now…” from a coalescing black, a familiar haughty figure erged, tossing a bulging bag of coins by the bedside. “It’s that collector… the cripple—it’s left —what’s his na?”
Adalia heaved herself in the opposite direction, her bed, coming undone by the seams from accidental tear, creaking with her sluggishness.
“I don’t care to know it.”
“From what I surmised, he does not suspect you in the slightest, not just yet,” She walked over to the window, parting a gap in the thick blindings that hadn’t been there just a few mories ago. “He just seems… keen, I suppose.”
Adalia just sagged even more into the feathers of her pillow, leaving her sister to finish the rest of the discussion all on her own.
“Regardless, it’d be wiser to kill him now while he’s still unknowing. Curiosity is dangerous left unchecked,” cold and calculating, Alia continued to contemplate. “No one cares much for him, that much is certain. There is little risk in it should he ever so abruptly disappear one day… or perhaps even by tonight itself.”
I did a turn, glancing back at the lifeless lump on the bed. No reaction, no consideration… Adalia was just a giant lump of indifference.
“Have you been… feeling better, sister?” Alia inquired in an extrely soft tone that really did not befit her. “I noticed you have stopped… leaving the house as of late.”
A lump of silence was all that faced her.
“Adalia, if I may just—”
“You may not.”
Alia went stiff. Just a re whisper but the firmness of it… I could feel the air grow colder around us.
“I am not feeling better, sister,” Adalia muttered, her voice completely stripped of feeling. “I am going to die soon.”
There was a loud quivering hiss as Alia sucked in all the air from the room, sterling forward frantically.
“No. No, Adalia, you are not. You’re reverting, that is all. You’re starved, you’ll frenzy. You’re strong, you’ll survive reverting… you just… you just need to feed. Listen, tonight—the collector, the cripple—we’ll feed you the cripple, and we’ll leave, okay? We’ll—”
“I don’t want to feed, sister,” Adalia slowly turned herself upright, facing the empty void of her ceiling. “I don’t want to live.”
“W-What are you saying? Adalia, do you even hear yourself?!”
“I will not live another second of that pitiful existence,” Adalia’s voice rang out in an eerie calm. “Or rather, I will not delay it any further. From the very beginning, I was born to simply drop dead. Unable to feed. Unable to do anything. Dying, sister—that is my singular purpose for existing. All this ti, I’ve just been simply avoiding it. But now it is ti for to fulfill what I was born to do.”
“Stop! No, no! Enough of—don’t speak, don’t speak anymore! You’re not in your right mind! You do not an what you say, you’re not thinking straight!”
“Alia, I am not going to argue with you. I’m finished arguing, trying… just let have this peace. I’m tired. Go now, please. Don’t co back.”
I don’t even know what I was hearing, or who I was seeing. I knew it was a distant past, and I fully knew her words would never co to be.
But that didn’t stop from wanting to shout at her, plead with her, and caught deep in the whirlwind of the mont, I probably would have if Alia hadn’t beaten to it first.
She was a stamring, whimpering ss. A shriveled shadow of her usual hubris, and I felt for her, didn’t think any of less of her… seeing a dribble of inky black streaming down her shadowed face.
“Sister, won’t you just listen? I know you’re scared. I am too. But please, don’t do this. I beg of you, please… I… I don’t want you to die… I don’t want to lose you… please, Adalia.”
Yet once more, the lump on the bed did not stir in the slightest.
“W-What can I do? Please, just tell what to do… I’ll do anything, please! Just… I… just don’t leave by myself… I want you to stay, sister… please… I don’t want to be alone…”
My hand had long gone numb by this point, but right then, I felt it tingling as the real-Adalia tightened her grip on even more.
“Adalia!” the floorboards shook, and Alia fell on her knees pressed up against the edge of the bed. “Listen to ! Why won’t you listen?! Hear speak! I’m speaking! Adalia! Stop ignoring ! Don’t ignore ! Sister, please!”
I could barely even watch. Alia’s shouts, the echoes ringing out. That cold, ruthless being of the night that I’ve co to know reduced to nothing more than… this. And then I thought of Sammy, I thought of her pleading like that to … and I felt a deeper stab in my heart at the notion.
And yet for all her begging, all of the wrenching sobs of her little sister, all Adalia could muster was a groan of discomfort—apparently, her sister was just too loud.
“When you leave today, do not return,” the unmoving shadow on the bed said. “If the transformation itself does not kill , then in my frenzied state, the people here will. I do not wish for you to interfere with anything.”
“Y-You wish of ? What? You wish—” the whimpering ceased, and in its place ca an outburst of confusion and anger. “And how of , sister?! What about what I wish?! Do you not think of that?! Do you not think of ?! What I want, what I desire—what I need! Just once! A single instance! In all our ti together! Have you ever thought once of at all?!”
It happened then. Slow and calmly like she had everything else, Adalia turned to et with her sister’s gaze for the first ti.
I felt fingers lightly twitch—the Adalia beside hanging her head low, as the Adalia forward extended her hand, her crudely-shaped finger, gently stroking the strands of her sister’s hair.
“I have thought of you, Alia,” She said, and in a tonal shift, spoke with so much love and sincerity, like it was all that remained. “I did. I always have. Ever since mother died, ever since you took to caring for all on your own. I watched you grow strong for , I watched you get hurt… I’ve also watched you beg, steal, lie, kill… I’ve watched how you suffered, how every second and minute of your life you worry for . The countless struggles you put yourself under all for your weak, useless, elder sister.”
“You’re not useless, you’re not weak…” with both hands, Alia took comfort in her sister’s touch, only blotches still trickling down her face. “and you’re all I have, so please don’t go away.”
“And what will you have if I do stay?” Adalia whispered. “You’ll struggle, you’ll worry, you’ll push yourself over and over again, and you’ll claim it all for my sake, all for my betternt. Because you love just as much as I love you.”
“Adalia…”
“But I’ve seen it all before. I’ve already watched you do all this. Even now, even here. All my life, all I’ve ever done is thought of you, and you know what I’ve always been thinking of? What I’ve co to realize after all this ti with you? Co now, little sister, I’m sure you know it too…”
There was a smile. I don’t know how I knew it, I just do… as a shared tear fell from Adalia’s shadowed expression.
“You’re better off without .”
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