Afterimage (1)
Afterimage (1)
The room lay in darkness.
Three days. Maybe four.
Her sense of time had dulled long ago.
The heavy curtains draped over the window refused even a single thread of light from the world outside.
They were a thick, solid boundary severing this room from the rest of existence.
The air inside was heavy and stale.
Serepina lay on her back, staring at the ceiling.
A blank, white ceiling. Nothing else.
She had been staring at it for a long while.
Her gaze had lost its focus, drifting across the empty surface.
Occasionally a clump of dust drifted into view, then slipped out of sight again.
Outside the door, in the corridor, a tray sat abandoned.
Cold soup, bread gone stiff, a water glass coated in dust.
The dormitory servant brought food every day, and at the next mealtime cleared away the untouched meal.
At first, they had knocked.
'Miss Serepina, you must eat.'
Sometimes she heard the careful voices of friends who came looking for her.
'Serepina, are you okay? Open the door.'
But now, no one made a sound.
More precisely, they no longer knocked—not since the day some empty-headed fool had come by to apologize, insisting that Ravin had visited, though why they'd thought that, she had no idea.
Serepina pushed herself upright, the movement slow and labored.
After days of doing nothing but lying still, her body felt impossibly heavy.
Every joint creaked and scraped, rusted solid.
She sat on the edge of the bed and stared blankly down at the floor.
A few strands of fallen hair lay there.
Serepina had loved Ravin.
At least, she believed she had.
And Ravin had clearly loved Serepina.
If he hadn't, he would never have said what he said at the end.
The memory, the voice, still coiled in her ear.
'I like you, Serepina. I think I love you so much. You've heard it every day, so it probably doesn't mean much, but I mean it.'
"I know you mean it. I love you too."
Serepina's lips moved without sound.
'Even if you won't believe me, even if you're always blaming me for everything I do, even if you let other people push you around, and the moment they start running their mouths about me, you'd rather believe them—those goddamn people you've never even met—over me, I don't hate you.'
"I didn't hate you either. The truth is, I didn't want to break the engagement. That day. I should have defied my father. I should have grabbed Levina by the collar and made them take it back, somehow. I should have."
Serepina let out a dry, bitter laugh.
She buried her face against her knees and stared down at the floor again.
Because she knew herself well enough to know that even if she could go back, she'd do exactly the same thing.
'No matter how hard I try, no matter how many hundreds of times I say I love you, you never say it back. I don't hate you for that.'
"......I'm sorry. I really am."
'And I hate myself. I hate the me you're going to abandon. I always pretend I'm fine, but the truth is, I feel like I'll die without you.'
"You weren't abandoned by me...! No. No, you're right. I did that. I abandoned you. I'm sorry. I won't ever do it again. So... so......."
'Maybe that's why. I can't bear to see you with someone else. Not while I'm alive.'
"......."
She had thought Kyle was just a classmate she'd gotten close to, a kind of colleague.
Someone who had simply helped her out when she was drifting on the fringes, with the other students keeping their distance because she was Ravin's fiancée.
She'd only been friendly because Kyle had helped her, because Kyle was one of the group she always ended up with when they hunted monsters or tackled assignments.
All of it was excuses.
At the very least, it seemed she and Ravin had never managed a proper conversation—a real exchange between them.
She'd always told herself there was no point trying—Ravin was Ravin, he'd never listen, he'd just dismiss it as nagging—even though she'd been so happy when he'd said they should forget the broken engagement, get married, and go live somewhere quiet together.
I was the one who never changed.
Even now, Ravin whispered in front of her.
'Someday, when the time's right, we can just get married and live off in some secluded corner together, you know. Honestly, I think that alone would be enough. There's no real need to go back.......'
She reached out her hand, but couldn't touch him.
"Yes! Let's do that! I was thinking a small villa, even if I get cast out of the family—after I graduate and work with the others and Kyle...!"
Only after the words left her mouth did she realize she was making the same mistake again.
'Don't stay by Kyle's side.'
"Ah, right. You're right. From now on, I will. I won't see him. I won't see anyone."
'I hope you never become happy.'
Her breath stopped.
The scene before her eyes distorted.
The Ravin who had suggested they live together in some secluded corner began to char and burn.
His skin slowly melted—first bone-white, then red, and finally black.
His final form writhed like an insect.
A face twisted in agony. Those hollow eyes were staring straight at her.
Blackened hands rose like smoke and reached for her throat.
It felt as though someone was choking her.
She couldn't breathe.
"Hhuup, kuh-heuk...!"
Serepina screamed and thrashed, her whole body convulsing.
She tumbled off the bed, then lay there choking on laughter and tears in broken, ragged bursts.
She lifted her fingers and slowly traced her own throat.
There was nothing there.
Only smooth, cold skin.
Why had she thought she had to hold onto him?
Why had she thought she was the one who had to set him right, to keep him from walking the wrong path?
And why, even as she watched his final moments—she, who had been so full of those thoughts—had she done nothing but shed tears?
Why had she just stood there and watched him turn to ash?
Because of me, Ravin burned alive.
That fact would never change.
This wasn't a question of whether he was a murderer, or a former fiancé she still loved.
The person who for over ten years had always told her he loved her, the person who had seen her not as a family's daughter, a pitiful child, an obedient child—but as 'Serepina' ever since they were young—that person was dead.
I killed him.
The boy who'd been beside me.
Not the Edelgard, not the man seen lately with the Saintess, not some degenerate from nowhere—but the Ravin who had always been at my side. I killed him.
Lying there in a daze, Serepina let out a low sigh as she stared at the ceiling.
Ravin used to say it sometimes.
That Levina, ever since they were children, had always tried to separate them.
At the time, she had dismissed it as childish complaining.
But now that she thought about it, once the engagement had actually been broken off, Levina had looked quite pleased.
What use was thinking about it now?
Serepina staggered to her feet.
She headed for the bathroom.
A stranger stared back at her from the mirror.
Her hair was a wild tangle, her eyes hollow and sunken, her lips cracked and dry.
She looked like a back-alley whore no one would even bid on.
She turned the tap.
Splashed cold water onto her face.
It did nothing to clear her head.
Droplets ran down her chin.
This was how it had always been.
Every time Ravin had begged for help, she had simply stood still.
When he'd hanged himself... had that happened?
For a moment, an afterimage flickered through her mind—Ravin dying, hanging from a rope.
But the searing image of him burning swallowed it up and it vanished.
Once again, she had done nothing.
She couldn't bear the sight of herself—crying, standing still, doing nothing.
Serepina met her own eyes in the mirror.
She drove her fist into the glass.
The mirror shattered, shards cascading to the floor.
Blood ran from her knuckles.
But it didn't hurt.
The image of Ravin's wrist surfaced in her mind—the one she had blasted apart with her magic.
His hand, still gripping the revolver as it fell to the ground.
The red blood spilling over it.
In a daze, Serepina picked up the largest shard of glass from the floor.
The sharp edge gleamed under the light.
She stabbed it into her own wrist.
But it hurt too much.
Far more than she had imagined.
The sharp, piercing pain at the moment of impact, the cold sensation burrowing into her flesh.
"Hhuk...!"
She swallowed her scream and dropped the shard—never mind driving it deeper.
Blood streamed from her wrist.
Clutching her bleeding wrist, she collapsed to the floor.
And wept endlessly and miserably.
She had wanted to share even a fraction of his suffering, but she didn't even have the courage for that.
A soundless weeping filled the empty bathroom.
She didn't know how many hours had passed.
Someone knocked at the door.
Knock, knock.
Serepina, still sitting blankly in the bathroom, registered the sound.
She should get up.
But she didn't want to.
She had always kept still, and it felt as though staying still now would be fine too.
As if doing nothing at all was simply better.
As if that was her assigned role.
Bang!
The door flew open violently.
A female knight stood in the corridor.
She must have smelled the blood and forced the door open.
When she saw Serepina slumped on the floor, bleeding, she recoiled in horror.
She rushed over and pulled her to her feet.
"Serepina! What in the world...!"
She tried to drag her to a physician, or a priest.
But Serepina only hung limp against her, refusing to walk on her own.
"......It hurts."
"Then why do something that hurts?! Everyone's gone mad—you too! You know perfectly well there's hardly anyone left to treat anyone, because of those lunatics lately! The man who should have died is dead, and yet......"
Without a word, Serepina reached up and placed her uninjured hand gently over her friend's mouth.
The knight fell silent and did nothing but keep walking.