22 - The Time of the Blind Beast (15+ Revised Edition)
Chapter 22
4. Dawn's Magic
“Rose, I don’t know if you’re awake… I’ll leave the meal by the door. Please eat it later.”
The sound of footsteps approached stealthily, and after a moment of silence, Anna’s voice followed. There was a clear hesitation in whether to knock or not. Anna soon left, leaving only a brief trace of her presence.
Rose blinked her eyes open, groggy. She pushed aside the hair obscuring her vision and listened towards the door. The outside was deathly quiet.
How many days has it been already?
“…Is it the third day?”
It was difficult to gauge precisely due to the lack of clear distinction between day and night, but since the meals from the kitchen had arrived about six or seven times, it had been roughly three days. Her mind was hazy from the brief, superficial sleep that felt no different from closing and opening her eyes.
…I thought one night would be enough.
She had assumed that if she just got through that night, she would be able to unlock the door and leave. It was an optimism only possible because she knew absolutely nothing. Even by morning, his condition had not improved. In fact, the hypothermia she had considered a dangerous level was merely the prelude to the withdrawal symptoms that would soon engulf him.
While one night might be manageable, deceiving Madam Serva for days was impossible. As soon as dawn broke, Madam Serva returned, and Rose, speaking through the door, confessed the truth of the previous night. She then volunteered to remain confined in the room with him until his symptoms showed improvement. It was a decision made to minimize external stimuli.
Under Madam Serva’s instructions, the hired help brought water, towels, food, and wound ointment to the door. Rose, while frequently wiping Ezekiel’s body and applying medicine to his wounds for emergency treatment, also tidied the messy room in her spare moments.
She attempted to feed him, but each attempt failed. It was impossible to give him anything to eat, as he wasn't merely lying ill but experiencing intense pain accompanied by pruritus and thrashing. Still, she continued to accept the food, just in case. Since she couldn't eat beside someone so ill, Rose also starved herself.
Truly, he suffered from withdrawal symptoms without a moment's rest. When the pain that felt like his entire body was being crushed would come, Rose couldn't touch him carelessly. Ezekiel in those moments was like a beast with only instinct left, devoid of reason. To Rose, it seemed his body was creating pain that didn't exist.
Perhaps intending to overcome pain with more pain, Ezekiel would pound the floor with his fists or slam his body against the walls. Rose would chase him with blankets, trying to shield him from injury or desperately clinging to him. If she had been a man of his build and strength, she might have been able to hold him down on the bed and endure, but lacking that, even with utmost caution, unexpected accidents sometimes occurred.
“Agh…”
He had slammed into the wall three times. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't match Ezekiel’s strength. She also realized that extreme pain rendered one speechless.
“Move, Rose!”
Still, she didn't let go of him.
“Are you planning to get hurt too?”
Even when he yelled at her, she remained unyielding.
“…I was on the same ship as the Major. If you continue to injure yourself like this, Major, I will get hurt too, and if you endure well, I won’t get hurt.”
It was entirely sincere. She also considered it fortunate. Indeed, sharing even a little of the pain, though physically taxing, brought her peace of mind.
Furthermore, there was another torment that drove her mind to its limits.
“I cannot sleep.”
She hadn't understood the meaning of Dr. Briman’s warning when she first heard it. This was on a different level from ordinary insomnia, where one tosses and turns in bed. It was sleeplessness where one had to endure all sorts of pain with a mind awakened by agony. Despite being utterly exhausted, he had not slept for three full days.
Rose had also stayed awake the first night. Now, at the limit of her endurance, she would drift into unconsciousness when Ezekiel’s symptoms seemed to slightly subside. Even then, it was only a brief nap of twenty to thirty minutes at best.
Her head felt heavy, and her eyelids were dry. If she looked in a mirror, the area around her irises would likely be bloodshot. Sometimes, her eyes would sting so much that tears would stream down involuntarily. The bruises she sustained all over her body from trying to restrain him also ached. Yet, ever since Rose declared they were on the same ship, his ferocious demeanor had somewhat subsided.
In truth, Rose hadn't even looked at the injuries on her own body. She was too busy watching him to spare any time for herself.
Instead, she whispered frequently. To him, and to herself.
“It’s okay. It will truly be okay soon. All of this will become a memory that has passed.”
Like an incantation, filled with her wishes.
This was a new battlefield. It resembled war, with sleepless nights, no food, and someone suffering in pain every moment.
But no war lasts forever. No matter how agonizing and difficult, there is always an end.
Rose steeled herself again today.
We will end this war and walk out of this room unharmed.
* * *
If asked whether the hallucinations brought on by opium were good dreams, the answer is simple. They were not. In fact, by normal standards, they were closer to nightmares.
Yet, if asked why he was engrossed in opium hallucinations, the answer is also simple. What might be a nightmare for ordinary people was not a nightmare for him.
Opium hallucinations are based on impactful experiences. Ezekiel’s life could be compressed into two major segments.
The war that raised him from boy to man, and the assassination attempt orchestrated by his brother, who shared his blood and lineage, using a woman who was both his mistress and his subordinate.
Time does not flow uniformly in hallucinations. Unlike ordinary dreams that feel fleeting when you wake up, no matter how long you slept. The hallucinations brought on by wine mixed with opium are long, as if they will never end. They are even incredibly vivid.
Had it not been for his soldier’s ingrained sense of routine and his habit of analyzing and discerning his surroundings, Ezekiel’s days and nights would have long since blurred into chaos. This was precisely why many opium addicts spent their lives in disarray, unable to distinguish between hallucinations and reality.
However, Ezekiel was not tormented even when endless battles raged in his prolonged hallucinations, or when the woman who came to harm him was in the same place. He had countless experiences of returning alive from the brink of death while carrying out combat operations. Compared to the reality of facing actual death and surviving, the horror of such nightmares was laughable. Ezekiel reveled in the war-torn landscapes of his hallucinations.
Moreover, unlike Achenaus, whose face he knew well and who was widely known, the woman, whose name and age he didn't know, was a complete stranger he had only glimpsed for a few seconds upon waking. He was, in fact, grateful for opium's efficacy in vividly replaying the face of the woman he needed to remember and savor until he could exact his revenge.
Thus, the temptation to regain his lost sight was greater than the content of the nightmares. Even if waking up would plunge him into deeper despair over his miserable situation, opium offered a paradoxical solace that temporarily dulled that misery. It was like seawater, which only increases thirst the more one drinks.
“Major, please don’t scratch. You’re bleeding again.”
It was starting again. Insects seemed to crawl and writhe on his skin. Ezekiel scraped his arms and legs with his fingernails. However, Rose had already dulled the tips of her nails, so her fingers merely slipped over his skin with little effect.
He immediately tore at his flesh with brute force. Then, Rose’s slender fingers quickly clasped his strong hand.
“Look, there are bugs.”
Ezekiel flung away Rose’s hand that was blocking him. But Rose didn't let go until the end.
“You’re mistaken, Major.”
“There are bugs crawling on my body, Rose!”
It eventually escalated into a struggle. It was the same sequence every time. Rose tried to soothe him.
“It’s pruritus. You just have a severe case. Please believe me. There’s no way there are bugs on a person’s body.”
“Why wouldn’t there be bugs on a person’s body? When you enter the barracks where the wounded soldiers lie, maggots swarm on every wound.”
Ezekiel retorted.
This was a scene that remained a repulsive afterimage even for him, who prided himself on having seen his share of gruesome sights in life and death. Even while the soldiers were still alive, the insects fed on their blood and flesh, burrowing into them. Especially in the hot summer months, the severe stench added to it, making even the army surgeons reluctant to enter the patients’ barracks.
He imagined maggots crawling on his own body. Then, an unbearable itchiness came over him.
