The Last Christmas (10) Conclusion
Finally, has this memory reached me.
Until the day of destruction, your 'memory' was entirely mine.
The 'promise' within the next memory weakens our bond.
So, I will no longer permit you to witness it.
“It will be as you wish.”
Priests of the fireflies.
Do not spew curses with those filthy mouths of yours.
“It will be as you wish.”
Well, it doesn’t matter. This memory is already mine.
This flesh is my ‘vessel’, so it will become entirely mine—
“It will be as you wish.”
...The priests of the forgotten ancient gods dared to.
It will be futile. Go ahead and shout as much as you like.
This vessel is already mine, mine.
“It will be as you wish.”
On the day of the end, I will hold a festival with your blood.
After digging up your corpse from the grave and tearing it to pieces—
I will feed it to my children, to make you pay the price!
“It will be as you wish.”
I will kill you, kill you, kill you!
Kill you, kill you, kill you!
I will kill every single one of you without exception!
“It will be as you wish.”
The priests’ shouts continue.
In the pitch-black void of memory where not even an inch is visible.
“It will be as you wish.”
One firefly flickers.
Searching for the precious memory, the promise with Eve—
Elia reaches out her hand to that flickering small light.
ⴕ
Cold raindrops pour onto the concrete floor covered in snow.
The sound of rain pouring into the ears grows louder and louder.
“...El, huik, ria.”
Violet, Treval, Yann, Irien, and...
“Eve.”
Even Eve.
“Please, swallow, swallow so I can live. Swallow it for me, please.”
I couldn’t save her.
“Colok- kulak. Colok... Sorry. Sorry, Elia.”
The vomit medicine that Eve threw up mixed with blood and soaked the front of Elia’s military uniform. The pool of blood beneath her had become a brand new red mirror reflecting Elia’s face.
“Swallow. Eve, please, I beg you. If I swallow this, at least—
“Colok. Hehe. Elia, even wet in the rain is pretty.- Huik,”
She knew. That she couldn’t be saved.
The blue parasite that spread roots throughout Eve’s entire neck.
The end for those who cannot become vessels— that is death.
“It is not the time for jokes. Eve, please—
“Kill me. Elia. Huik, I beg. When I can still... exist as myself.”
Hot tears flow down Eve’s cheek.
She clung to Elia for a while, adjusting her breathing.
“Please, Elia, huik, I want to die for you.”
Her breathing quickens.
The shadow cast below her eyes.
Death was approaching.
“Sorry, huik, sorry, Elia. Huik, I may not be able to keep the promise...”
“...Eve, I will remember that promise. In my heart, forever.”
As if reassured by those words—
Eve smiles while looking at her.
“...I really like you, Elia—”
Eve couldn’t finish her sentence.
A gunshot rang out in the pouring rain.
ⴕ
When she came to her senses, the surrounding scenery had changed.
Now, the ground she was standing on was dirt.
A burning graveyard spread around Elia.
The graveyard of nameless people, the unregistered dead.
She had abandoned everything and eventually returned here.
It was raining, but the raging flames refused to die out.
“...I, the one chosen by you.”
At the entrance of the graveyard.
Looking up at the goddess statue of Erinyes, the goddess of mercy—
Elia muttered in a self-deprecating voice.
“Why... every time...”
Flames roared up from below her feet.
Thunder rumbled above her head.
“You mean choosing only me.”
Witch. This time, only the witch survived alone.
This time, only she couldn’t die.
“I wanted to die. Even for a moment, even for a moment...”
The longing for death engraved in the soul.
“I never lacked for someone begging me to live.”
A harsh, gloomy abyss.
For her, death was soon salvation.
“Yet I endured because there was something to protect.”
307 tombstones lined up in front of her.
“But even the things I had in my hands, you took away.”
And four identification tags clutched in her trembling hands.
“I have now lost everything.”
The identification tags that were alive and breathing until just now,
clattered and fell in front of Private Lupas’s tombstone.
Unbearable memories surfaced.
“-I died.”
Some screamed at her to save them.
Holding their intestines spilling from their stomachs.
Some begged her to kill them.
Their whole bodies burning and melting horribly.
“-I died, and died again.”
Some looked for their mothers like children.
Holding their limbs torn by landmines.
Some hung themselves in the next day’s dormitory and died.
Leaving an irresponsible message saying they were grateful until now.
“They were envious. I wanted to follow them.”
The dead were envious. They seemed to be able to rest in peace.
The girl in the memory slowly broke down like that.
Without resisting her own helplessness even once—
Thoroughly shattered from head to toe.
“Yet I gritted my teeth and endured. I endured.”
With that one will to protect Eve.
With the hope of surviving along with the praying nuns—
“However, you...”
A twisted smile rises from Elia’s face. Despair that seems about to collapse is cut into her voice.
“Even taking away my last remaining things, and cowardly borrowing her body—
Now, even Eve left her last request to herself, calling out the detestable god’s name.
“After making a promise, do you want to tie me to this hell?”
Sparks fly up.
Hot tears flow down.
“What is the goddess of mercy, what is the mother of all?”
The voice was tight with anger.
The national religion of Londinium, Erinyes, the goddess of mercy and happiness.
“Every moment, every time I hear your detestable name...!”
Endless hatred begins to take root. Blood tears flowing from infected eyes flicker with the flames.
“Even once, even once...!”
The suppressed tone finally becomes a scream.
“There was never happiness...! There was never!”
Memories all crumbled helplessly under the goddess’s name.
Even when conscripted without being able to call her mother a mother.
Even in the battlefield full of cold corpses.
Even when sending comrades to the other side.
The words they were accustomed to hearing from them.
“All is the will of the Erinyes god.”
Following the god’s will, the place arrived at—
is this cold graveyard that doesn’t even engrave names?
“I curse you. I curse you.”
The sound of chains dragging is heard.
The foul smell of burning corpses wafts.
Infected beings slowly gathered behind Elia.
She knelt in front of Private Lupas’s tombstone.
“If I die here, together with everyone...”
The cold barrel of a pistol touched her head.
Without a moment’s hesitation, she pulled the trigger.
The click sound and the gunshot that should have echoed don’t sound.
A dud.
She swallows the anger rising to her throat.
A pistol that had never malfunctioned once. The pistol that shot Eve.
She threw the pistol into the mud—
Opening her arms towards the infected beings lined up behind her.
“Kill me.”
You who are twisted, you who possess the qualification of the vessel.
“I want death.”
Then lead us.
“I want death.”
Then create order for us.
“I want death.”
Then make a place for us.
“I want death, death!”
It is not different from what we want.
At the last word, she raises her head.
The infected become a hundred.
The infected become a thousand.
The infected become ten thousand.
The graveyard is now filled with infected beings.
I am the collective of darkness.
We are the collective of darkness.
But the queen’s rule is incomplete.
I, and you, are no one.
Just wandering creatures on the far side of the galaxy.
The queen’s false order and love.
Someone steps out from the center of them.
An infected in white robes. The one who killed Irien.
A fanatic who received fake vaccines from them.
It wasn’t clear because the head was missing.
I do not want worshippers.
This vessel is unsuitable.
Therefore, I killed.
Instead of a mouth, the belly is torn long from side to side and voice spews out. As if answering the rising question, the infected said that.
You and I are already one body.
You are already a part of us.
You are the vessel most suitable for our revenge.
Noble soul, cursed soul.
We desire your complete destruction.
You who have been chosen by the cursed god.
Choose me as well.
But it is not destruction but salvation.
Elia is tired.
Either way, if it gives her death.
“...Then I will make a suggestion.”
Leaning against Private Lupas’s tombstone,
She says with difficulty.
“Take everything from me.”
At the same time as those words, the infected plunges its arm into Elia’s heart.
Ruthless pain stirs her insides.
She had no intention of resisting the pain.
Death had always been what she longed for.
“...Then, only you... follow the ‘promise’ with Eve... and move...”
What remains for her now is only this.
“...If even that promise... becomes distant from me—
One memory.
One promise.
She takes a deep breath.
“...Then, if that is what you want... it is fine...”
In the flames, the red eyes of the infected flash.
Affirmation.
Affirmation.
Affirmation.
They all affirm together.
Then until the day of destruction.
Your suffering will continue.
Break the noble soul.
Nurture anger. Spread hatred.
The vision narrows.
Coat yourself in blood.
Kill and kill again.
Swallow the light and embrace the darkness.
The magic circle of the rank 9 mage Parusia covers the sky of Sector 09.
Then kill these in front of you.
Then hide loneliness in the black light.
Then entrust your body to overwhelming evolution.
The light that kills all life forms.
The light of the end pours from all directions.
Reign.
Reign.
Reign.
Elia closes her eyes.