Coloring (1)
Coloring (1)
The first thing I felt was the afterimage lingering on my throat.
The rasp of rough cloth burrowing into skin.
The air-hole narrowing, the sick heat flooding my skull.
The absurd thrashing of a body dangling midair.
Every sensation fresh, as if it had happened seconds ago.
Which, come to think of it, it had. It just took a long time to die.
Stringing myself up by the neck — a stupid idea, in retrospect.
I made a note to myself: from now on, no more choking on bedsheet scraps while drooling out my last breath. I'd jump clean, or blow my brains out with the gun.
I slid off the bed and walked to the table.
A half-empty cigarette pack lay there, a cheap box of matches, and an envelope.
I picked up the pack, tapped out a cigarette, and put it to my lips.
A scratch of the match, the sulfur smell, a small flame flaring.
I touched the flame to the tip and drew deep.
Acrid smoke pushing into my lungs.
A cough threatened, but I forced it down.
I moved to the window and exhaled the gray haze into the dark.
[Collect the Endings! 2/?]
[Reward: Return to the Original World.]
The number had changed.
From one to two.
Was that what passed for progress?
It was still a single digit. Seven more deaths, and that would be it?
A little guidance would be nice.
Someone to point the way. I'd move however they told me. Anyone would do.
Because if it's neither this nor that, I feel like I'll do absolutely anything.
I ground out the cigarette in the ashtray.
Then I walked back to the desk drawer.
It opened with a creak.
Inside lay the solid weight of the revolver.
I picked it up.
The cold metal settled into my palm with a familiar grip.
I opened the cylinder and fed the loose bullets in one by one.
Then I tucked the revolver into my waistband.
Inside my shirt, the chill of steel pressed against skin.
I won't leave it in a drawer again.
The memory of Levina holding my gun was far more sickening than I'd expected.
The feeling that the one thing left that was mine had been taken.
I wasn't in my right mind back then.
Instead of grabbing Levina by the throat, I could've just said a few words and walked out.
What did it matter that she was my sister? Family doesn't mean a damn thing like that.
I needed to push Ravin out of my head a little.
After everything else, dying by hanging had contaminated my mind and left me feeling like I was turning into that idiot bastard.
Anyway, Serepina would be here soon.
Exactly as before.
I sat on the sofa and lit another cigarette.
Haze filled the room.
I stared up at the ceiling with an empty mind, wondering why I'd craved a smoke so badly right as the strength left me, dangling there.
Some time passed.
Faint footsteps sounded from down the hall.
Creeeak.
The door opened with a familiar note.
Serepina.
She brought the same faint scent of lilac. Always did.
"You call for me, and here you are smoking alone — the habit you said you'd quit?"
I hadn't noticed her enter. She was leaning against the door, arms crossed, glaring.
Instead of answering, I raised my right hand in a lazy salute, cigarette still clamped between my lips.
"You know you said that exact thing last time?"
Serepina's face said: what the hell are you on about?
"I don't remember."
Her distinctive footsteps echoed off the floor.
"The wall looks bare, by the way."
She glanced around the room as she spoke.
"Yeah."
At that, Serepina bit down slightly on her lower lip.
She must be thinking about the painting that used to hang there.
Was she already stressed on her way over? She'd bitten hard enough that a tiny bead of blood was forming on her lip.
I'd never once considered before that meeting me might be something she dreaded this much.
Things were changing, change they might.
Serepina had her own burdens, it seemed.
To me, it had always been the same — I was the one suffering through every day of this world.
"That... didn't you say you quit?"
"Felt like smoking again."
Our eyes met across the empty air.
The instant her gaze met mine, she stopped breathing.
Silence.
It wasn't especially awkward.
That was Serepina — whenever she lost her words or something upset her, she'd swallow it down and stare rather than speak.
The only sound in the room was the faint hiss of the cigarette burning down in my hand.
Our eyes met again. She shuddered and bit her lip once more.
"Serepina?"
At my voice, she strode toward me.
Quick, urgent steps.
That hadn't happened before.
I didn't move away.
I just watched her approach, blankly.
She stopped directly in front of me.
Then she reached out with trembling hands and cupped my neck.
A flinch.
Cold fingers grazed my nape.
Her touch was careful. Like handling fragile porcelain.
She traced my throat slowly, as if checking for something.
Her fingers moved to my lips.
A soft, faintly trembling sensation.
She brushed my lips, then my jaw, then my cheek, one after the other.
I kept my expression even, caught her wrist gently, and pulled it away. Then I spoke, low.
"What's this all of a sudden? Not like you."
Serepina stared at her own hand for a long moment, blank. Then she flinched.
And murmured, barely audible, as if to herself.
"......Ah."
A brief exhalation.
She stumbled back a step, as if the strength had drained from her whole body.
I stubbed the finished cigarette into the ashtray.
Smoke rose in a thread, then scattered.
"I— it's nothing. I just wondered if you were hurt somewhere.
I don't know why I did that. I'm... sorry."
"Sit. Your legs will hurt standing."
I nodded toward the sofa.
My voice came out more hoarse than I'd expected.
Wordlessly, like a doll, Serepina sat.
She still had that vacant look. Like someone adrift in a dream.
My mind went to the Serepina I'd met before hanging from the ceiling.
The girl who came every morning, who cleaned, who sometimes asked me questions and told me about her day, who'd get quietly dejected when I didn't answer.
Looking back, maybe tossing her a word or two wouldn't have killed me. But I doubted that would change much going forward either.
The broken engagement had hit me far worse than I'd ever imagined.
What was the right word? As if the world had caved in.
I'm not trying to string together pretty language, poetic phrases. But it's true: I was wrecked enough to want to give up and die.
Because of Serepina. The girl I'd grown up alongside. The one I'd relied on, the one I'd told I loved, more times than I could count. The one whose future marriage to me had been reason enough to live another day. That Serepina.
And now, thanks to some bastard's memories lodged in my skull, I couldn't stop picturing a future where she'd forget me and stand beside Kyle, smiling, happy.
If I'd never known, I could've just gotten drunk off my ass and died quietly in some back alley, loop after loop.
Can't do that now.
"So why did you call me here, Ravin."
"Who knows. I forget. Maybe I was going to suggest we have dinner."
I said it, then picked up the letter from the table and set it back down.
"There was something I meant to give you."
Serepina looked down at the letter, then spoke quietly.
"A stupid letter. Whatever you wrote and sent, it wouldn't move me."
"Oh?"
"Yes. It's always been that way. Nothing ever changed. You, Ravin, you......"
"That again. Tiresome."
I picked up the letter, made as if to hand it to her — and when she reached to take it, set it back down on the table.
Then I set the still-smoldering cigarette on top of it.
Ssss.
The ember hissed as it pressed down, a wisp of smoke rising.
The spot where the cigarette touched the embossed envelope blackened and curled inward.
Serepina watched the scene, blankly.
A series of emotions flickered across her face. Shock, anger, and a confusion that said she couldn't understand any of it.
Still, she said nothing. She only bit her lip and gathered the letter from the table.
Exactly as before.
I just wished she hadn't taken it.
I didn't want to watch it burn in front of me.
"You would've thrown it away anyway. If that's the case, don't take it. I put effort into writing it."
I said it like it was nothing.
Serepina's lips moved — the barest, near-invisible twitch.
But no sound came.
"And if you're not going to talk, you can leave soon. I'm tired."
I sank back deep into the sofa.
And closed my eyes.
I had no energy to keep the conversation going.
Serepina was silent for a long while.
Only the sound of her uneven breathing filled the quiet room.
"......You."
She finally forced the words out.
Her voice was faint, as if submerged in water.
"Are you really, all right?"
"All right about what?"
"Everything. Just... everything."
I answered without opening my eyes.
"If I look all right, I am. If not, then I'm not."
"......"
She didn't answer.
Not a word.
She just stared, back and forth between me and the cigarette-scarred envelope.
Her blue eyes were sunken, tired.
But she didn't get up from her seat.