Chapter 31
* * *
I was dreaming.
The third floor of the Sinclair family’s opulent townhouse.
I had been burning up with fever that day, too. It was four years ago; I was fifteen, and with my weak immune system, I lived with illness as a constant companion.
“Your father has finally obtained the medicine.”
One day, my father suddenly came to me claiming he’d found a cure and insisted I take it.
After about a year of doses, I became healthy. Perhaps a bit excessively so.
“Aurora. You must remember that name. If a child by that name is ever in danger, you must help her. Do not forget that even if it is only you, you must help that child.”
And as he watched me, my father had said those cryptic words. Back then, I didn’t know who Aurora was.
Right. Father definitely spoke of Aurora. That if Aurora was in danger, even if it was just me, I had to help her…
Wait, what?
My eyes snapped open.
It was a memory I had forgotten for a very long time.
Why did I have to dream such a thing at this exact moment? And a dream where my late father mentioned Aurora’s name, no less.
As I came to my senses, my vision returned. Sunlight was streaming through the room’s window.
Chirp, chirp. A sparrow was perched on the windowsill.
As I woke fully, the contents of the dream I’d just had began to grow hazy again. Father said I had to save someone, but I couldn’t remember the name. Who was it?
I was leaning against the bed in the middle of the room. I must have drifted off while crying.
I thought I had laid Eden down on the bed, though…
“Looks like you’re finally awake.”
A man’s voice came from above my head.
I could see a man’s long legs beside me. Looking up a bit further, I saw Eden sitting on the edge of the bed, looking down at me.
His blue eyes, staring intently at me with his upper body leaned forward and his arms resting on his thighs, took my breath away.
“……”
“…Oh. Hello.”
Eden didn’t answer. For a while, he just stared at my face in silence, only opening his mouth after some time had passed.
“Exactly what is the situation here?”
Did he not remember me hitting him on the back of the head? Just in case, I cautiously tested the waters.
“You fainted. So I brought you home.”
“……”
“…Haha.”
“…I remember as far as Miss Cherry hitting me on the back of the head. Quite vividly.”
Dammit, he remembered that after all.
“The village has become a shambles. There were far more monsters than survivors. If I’d left you there, you would have been in danger, Officer Eden.”
“There were many people in more danger than me.”
I knew that well enough.
But to me, Eden was more important than people I’d never even met. I couldn’t save everyone.
An uncomfortable silence persisted for a long time.
“Ha. Well, what’s done is done…”
Unexpectedly, Eden spoke as if he had no intention of blaming me.
He stared at me for a moment with a face that made it impossible to tell what he was thinking, and then he gave me his thanks.
“For saving me… thank you.”
“……”
Hearing those words made a surge of tears threaten to break through.
And yet, I hadn’t been able to save Susanna, the person I truly wanted to save.
My tightly set lips trembled.
“What’s wrong with your eyes? They’re swollen thick.”
Instead of badgering and blaming me as I expected, Eden asked something else entirely.
And at his question, the misery I had pushed to a corner of my mind for a moment came rushing back.
“Susanna…”
I kept swallowing my breath. As my lips quivered and I clutched the front of my shirt, Eden looked at me with a slightly startled expression.
“Susanna became a monster… so, with my own hands… with my own hands…”
Yesterday’s shocking reality, which I had momentarily forgotten, scrambled my mind once more.
I felt like I was going to vomit. When I covered my mouth, Eden hurriedly picked me up and placed me on the bed.
“Take a deep breath,” he said, looking down at me. “In and out.”
Blood had rushed to my face from the hyperventilation, making it feel like it was on the verge of bursting. Eden slowly calmed me down.
“It’s okay. Everything will be okay now.”
Eden comforted me without a single change in his expression.
I followed Eden’s lead, repeating the cycle of breathing in and out. I felt the blood begin to circulate properly again, and my breathing grew easier.
“Do you feel a bit better?”
I nodded at Eden’s question.
“Thank you.”
Only then did Eden let out a low sigh and move away from over me.
“I want to ask how on earth all this happened, but…”
Eden scanned the room once before looking back down at me lying on the bed.
“For now, rest.”
“No. I don’t think now is the time to rest. The sun is up, so we have to burn them. There are monster corpses outside.”
Of course, I had no intention of resting. If I lay there alone and still, yesterday’s events would haunt me again.
I was afraid those memories would cling to me like sludge and never let go.
Eden observed my expression quietly for a moment, then gave a ready nod.
“I understand. And as soon as I’ve grasped the situation, I intend to head up to the capital.”
Well. Judging by his words, he still hadn’t fully grasped the situation.
“My younger sister is in the capital; I have to check if she’s safe.”
“The capital…”
I let the word out but then swallowed the rest. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that the capital would be the same.
Eden was already someone who viewed me and the Sinclair family with an unfavorable eye. I couldn’t add any more suspicious vibes to that.
I felt bad for not telling him the truth, but Aurora would be fine. There was no way the heroine would die. At least not until this incident was over.
The problem wasn’t Aurora, who was safe, but Eden, who was left here.
I got up from the bed and asked him, “What exactly happened in the village?”
Eden, who was leaving the room with me, fell silent as if chewing over yesterday’s events. After a moment, he spoke cautiously.
“I was at the police station all yesterday afternoon.”
Right. It was perfectly fine until I left Brunel for Kintne. There should have been a few days left until the downfall…
“But then a report suddenly came in. That a murder had occurred at the carriage rental shop.”
The carriage rental shop.
As soon as I heard that, I guessed what had happened. It had clearly been brought in from another region.
Though it was said to be not far from the capital, Brunel was a rural village so small that even people from the capital hardly knew it existed. It didn’t even have a train station.
Yet for the virus to have reached even a place like Brunel meant…
‘The capital is already…’
I stepped out through the front door of Happy House, trying to shake off the ominous premonition.
“But it was already too late. It was similar to what I saw in the garden of this mansion last time. People turning into monsters, and those bitten by the transformed turning in turn.”
Eden furrowed his brow in distress as he recalled yesterday. He soon let out a curse and ran a hand through his hair.
“Dammit, what the hell is all this…”
He continued to curse with a face full of turmoil, clearly worried about Aurora back in the capital.
It wasn’t that I didn’t understand how he felt. I was worried about Harrison, too.
We walked slowly past the vegetable garden.
“Is it these monsters?”
Eden asked me when he discovered the monster corpses I had set aside.
The two corpses—one shaped like a bear and the other like a wolf—lay on the ground exactly as I had left them yesterday. I nodded.
“The wolf one… I think it’s Susanna…”
Unable to finish the sentence, I turned away. It hadn’t been like this when the monster appeared at No. 61, or even when the farm uncle turned.
Ugh. I retched right there onto the dirt ground.
Eden didn’t pat my back or offer a single word of comfort.
However, when I straightened my hunched back and stood up, he held out a neatly folded handkerchief. He did so without even looking at my face.
“I’m grateful you saved me, but my belief that we should have saved even one more person remains unchanged.”
I didn’t answer Eden.
To me, my own life came first, but to Eden, the lives of others were the priority.
It felt bleak that the man who absolutely had to survive for the sake of this world possessed such a mindset.
“I understand. You don’t need to abandon your sense of duty.”
But I didn’t think it was a bad thing for Eden to maintain that kind heart.
In a hellish world like this, people like Eden were necessary. So I hoped he wouldn’t change.
If Eden tried to sacrifice himself for others…
Then I would just have to stop him. Even if it earned me his resentment and hatred.
Then, Eden poured oil over the monster corpses. When he tossed a lit match, flames erupted instantly.
Whoosh—
For a while, Eden and I watched the flames in silence.
Crackle, crackle.
The corpses burned, emitting a foul stench, and we watched them vacantly.
‘I’m sorry, Susanna. For not being able to protect you.’
I prayed for her in front of the fire, and prayed again. It was hard to stop my body from shaking.
I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.
I shed tears once more before the flames.
Eden just stood silently beside me, watching the fire.
