Ghost -2-
Laverre shook the spray bottle as she slowly approached me. "Okay. Close your eyes, put your hands on your knees, and stay still. Don't open them until I say you can."
"What? What is it?"
Even when I asked, Laverre didn't answer. She simply aimed the sprayer at me with an indifferent expression. No more words came. I closed my eyes, and droplets of water poured over my face. It was quite cold, sending goosebumps across my entire body.
"...Can't you at least say something?"
Laverre finally responded then. Though her finger kept pulling the trigger on the sprayer.
"It's holy water. Since a ghost has possessed you, we need to perform a purification."
"Usually when people talk about a purification ritual, they pour water over your head. Or make you get in a bathtub."
"Is Mr. Henry going to pay for it? Holy water prices are already expensive these days—where would I get money for that? We have to do it the cheapest way possible."
Her tone was unusually sharp, even more so than usual, so I didn't even think about talking back. It seemed wiser to just stay quiet and wait. When Laverre finally said, "You can open your eyes now," my shirt was half-soaked.
"After you finish eating, go straight upstairs and spray holy water all over your room. As evenly as possible. Spray everything you brought with you, then bring it all out. And don't waste it."
Laverre's voice was especially venomous, unlike her usual self.
"...Got it."
I ate right away, but I was so out of it that I couldn't taste anything. After that, I went to my room. The bag sat alone in a corner. When I sprayed it, the color immediately turned murky. Its deflated, sunken appearance suddenly looked even more pitiful.
"...Sigh. What a fucking cursed life."
I picked up the slightly damp bag and came out. That's when it happened.
Strength suddenly drained from my body. I slowly sank to the floor, then finally collapsed forward. Some parts of me tensed up far too strongly while others went completely limp. The ominous symptoms that started at my toes spread across my entire body in an instant. I tried to stand, but my body only twitched—I couldn't get up no matter what. It felt like the floor was barely keeping me from falling into some bottomless abyss.
An unbearable, maddening fear washed over me. What if no one found me until tomorrow? Forget staying here that long—would I even be alive by then? Looking at my condition, it wouldn't be strange if I died in the next second.
My body no longer listened to me. Convulsions rippled through me everywhere, making it nearly impossible to stay still. After that, I moved with truly desperate effort. I'd felt it several times before, but the primal desperation a living being feels near the abyss is incomparable to anything else. Once I truly sensed I was facing death, my body somehow managed to move just a little.
With trembling hands, I clawed at the floor however I could. Like a caterpillar fleeing from a predator behind it—once with my left shoulder, once with my right, taking a big step with my arms if I had the strength, or wriggling my whole body if I didn't... That's how I dragged myself forward on my stomach, inching ahead.
At one point it felt like a splinter stabbed into my finger, but what did that matter? Right now, pain like that was completely insignificant.
"L...a...ah."
My throat must have gone bad too—calling Laverre's name barely came out. Only a wheezing sound escaped, but I poured every ounce of strength into making it louder. A centipede in human form. I squeezed out sounds as I crawled forward bit by bit.
I was essentially showing everyone that I was in a truly terrible situation—or at least that I believed I was. When death feels imminent, people stop caring about grand things like dignity.
So I crawled forward with everything I had, finally managing to cross one door. I'd used every last bit of strength, so my whole body was exhausted. But if I rested here, it felt like I'd fall into eternal sleep, so I kept crawling even harder.
"...Ha."
A familiar voice reached me. I lifted my head. There was Laverre's face, bathed in sunlight streaming through the window. It was the same face I always saw, but at that moment it felt strangely sacred—like the sun rising in the sky.
"You've really got some nerve. Seriously."
I felt a bit annoyed at the complete loss of my dignity, but with survival now guaranteed, that didn't matter anymore. Laverre approached and grabbed my shoulder. The paralysis vanished instantly, and control slowly returned to my arms and legs. For the first time in a while, Laverre actually looked like a real priest.
I sat there, endlessly grateful to be alive, catching my breath. Both my mind and body were utterly exhausted.
"You really don't listen at all, do you? I told you to spray everything you brought, but you only got the outside of the bag wet and didn't touch the contents inside, right?"
Laverre clicked her tongue as she looked at my bag.
My speech was still slurred and clumsy, making it hard to speak properly, but I did my best to answer.
"Uh... I di' tho. Sho' I spway in'ide now?"
"Ha... What are you even saying? Seriously."
Laverre openly looked at me with contempt and waited a moment. Ah. Eh. Ah. Eh. After repeating that several times, I finally managed to speak somewhat clearly.
"I only sprayed the bag... Should I spray inside now?"
Laverre let out a deep sigh.
"Never mind. If it's already gotten to paralysis, it's way too late. Just shut up and come to the living room."
Even as she walked, Laverre didn't say much else. The complete absence of her usual grumbling—like Karena's—only heightened my fear. It was like when my mother used to say, "Just wait until later," as a threat. Laverre was expressing the same thing with her entire body, without a single word.
Had we made it halfway down the hallway? A knock sounded on the door in between. There were no words between the two of us. But that silence held even greater power. It forced my actions. Like pressure. In other words, I was under that kind of pressure. To borrow Karena's way of speaking for a moment, it was basically "Fucking hell, can't you read the room?"
When I stood in front of the door, a voice called out, "Open up!" The moment I heard it, I knew it was Jian. There was no special reason for thinking that. It just sounded like him.
"Password."
"It's me."
If the situation had been better, I would've played the same prank as Karena or Laverre, but this wasn't the time for that.
"Right. Ha. Never mind. This isn't the time. Just come in."
Jian had also brought almost nothing but a single bag, which gave me a strange sense of solidarity. I wanted to talk about it for a bit, but the moment we entered the living room, the sight before me left me speechless.
A wooden chair sat there all alone, with restraints attached to the arms, legs, and neck. The slightly worn exterior combined with these shocking accessories created an utterly horrifying appearance. It looked like they'd taken an escaped death row prisoner, chopped him up, and turned him into a chair. Getting something like this must have been difficult—why on earth was an item like this in the mansion?
"What is this? Why did you leave it here? Were you going to throw it away?"
Jian, who knew nothing about what had happened earlier, asked with an innocent smile.
"We're going to use it."
But Laverre answered with a single, ice-cold sentence.
"Ah... I see."
Maybe Jian was a little flustered by Laverre's unusual tone. He could only give a half-hearted reply and nothing more.
Laverre immediately looked at me. I wasn't sure if it was a glare or a stare, but it was too complicated an expression to simply call "looking." I definitely felt pressure similar to before. It carried the resonance of "Aren't you going to sit?"
But this time, I didn't have the confidence to just quietly obey, so I avoided her gaze.
"Sit down."
It didn't last long. I couldn't defy pressure that had become explicit in words.
"What? What's going on?"
"Just watch. It'll be over without any trouble."
Leaving the still-confused Jian behind, I lowered myself into the chair. Laverre skillfully tightened the restraints. They squeezed my neck and arms enough to hurt a little, but it was still bearable.
"...I'm going to be okay, right?"
"It's not like I'm going to kill you, am I?"
Laverre closed her eyes tightly right in front of me and took a deep breath. It looked like some kind of preparation, but it wasn't anything a priest should be doing. At first glance, with all that tension in her body, it even seemed like she was going to kill me first in order to resurrect me.
"Close your eyes!"
Before I could even fully understand her words, Laverre was right in front of my nose. My body instinctively shrank back, but the restraints left me completely defenseless. The best protection I could manage was pure animal reflex. I squeezed my eyes shut and tensed every muscle in my body.
And then, an impact rang out inside my head. At first, I thought that was the end. Unlike what I'd expected, there was no pain in my body. However, as the ripples of vibration gradually faded, my consciousness began to blur as well. Little by little. Then a little more.
Strength left my body, and eventually I grew drowsy. My eyes closed.