"Did you have fun?" I asked her.
"Uh-huh." Liz nodded.
"You could've added a little more emotion, then I'll believe you."
At least it wasn't another yes.
She tried to smile but still had this anxious look, as if something was troubling her. She'd been like this ever since we came out of the amusement park.
We were walking down the rugged dirty path winding along the fields.
"Which one was your favorite?"
"... The one that looked like the snake?"
She meant the roller coaster with the long drop.
"Oh, that one? It was oka—"
Someone was standing on the dirt road.
A child.
A white-haired child.
With a limp, I stepped forward and blocked Liz out of their view. Then, grabbing her arm, I pulled her along as we turned back and ran into the fields.
"Robert?" Liz nervously called out to me.
As I blinked, the child appeared some distance away in front of us.
I pulled Liz and began running in the opposite direction, but then the child was already there, standing in our way, this time a little closer than before.
"No need to be like that, sir. Today, I come in peace."
I turned to Liz, not knowing what to do or where to run next.
"It's been a while, sister," the child said.
"What do you want from us?" I shouted as I forced Liz to stand behind me.
"Nothing. I just wanted to say hi. See how my sister is doing. Too bad you don't remember anything, do you?" The child grinned through its words.
It was talking to Liz.
"Not while we're in this form," it said. "These bodies are fresh." The child raised its tiny hand to look at its palm. "They're fragile, but I could make them work."
"What do you want from us?" I yelled.
"I got tired of waiting. I was thinking I could speed things up a little."
The child took a step forward.
Liz came out from view and stood in front of me.
"That's cute," the child said, snickering. "No matter how long you've been with someone, you'll always learn something new about them."
"I don't know you," Liz said, her voice tense.
"Aww, you always say that. It breaks my heart every time." It put a hand on its chest with a smirk. "Tell me, sister, how many times do you think you've said that to me?"
"What?" She stood rigid, confused.
"A hundred times? A Thousand times? Ten thousand times? A hundred thousand times?" The child looked down at its own feet. "I'm so tired of having to repeat the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again." It ground its black doll shoe against the red clay.
They'd met before? And it'd heard that from Liz hundreds of thousands of times? That's not possible—it had to be exaggerating.
The child gave a broad smile and put a hand out in front of it. A dainty hand, white, like a tube of marshmallow.
"Come to me and all will be well. Everything will be okay."
Liz was petrified. From the corner of my eye, I could see a bead of sweat rolling down her temple.
It stood there, smiling, patiently waiting for her to respond.
"Give me your hand."
"No!" she yelled.
It was as if for a brief moment, all the winds were sucked out of the atmosphere as the fields went dead silent.
The child turned up at the sky, took a deep breath, then sighed. "There are some things about you that will never change."
The child took another step forward.
"Get back, Robert!"
"Are you sure about this?" the child asked, smiling. "You're young into your new cycle. The body won't hold."
"Leave us alone!" she yelled.
"You're going to make me cry, sister." It was doing the mocking gesture. "No problem." The tone went up and down in a playful manner. The child stepped forward. "I've already had these conversations memorized."
I knew I had to protect her—to get between them and pull Liz away.
We just had to run as fast as we could.
But my legs refused to move.
Liz got into her fighting stance. "Stay away!"
The child continued to close the distance without breaking strides.
Now she was already standing right in front of it.
It reached out for her hand.
Liz tried to jump back.
She wasn't fast enough.
It already got hold of her left hand.
"Aagh—" she knelt on the ground.
I could hear cracks.
"Liz!"
"Run!" She screamed, her eyes opening wide. "Run, Robert!" Her voice cracked.
What could I have possibly done for her?
These beings with their inhuman strength.
I was an ant under their feet.
The child extended a hand at me.
The next thing I knew I was lying in the fields. The sky was reeling.
Liz.
I tried to get up, ignoring the sharp pang in my chest that impeded my movement.
Turning my head, I looked left and right, looking at the tall grass stretching endlessly around me.
Where am I?
Then I noticed their small, blurry figures from a far distance.
The two of them were about three hundred meters away from me.
I began limping in their direction, moving as fast as I could, powering through the pain in my body.
That thing was still holding onto her hand. It was saying something to her.
After a while, it let go as it stood up and left.
"Liz!" I screamed her name. She was too far away to hear me. I tried calling her again.
It was only then did I notice the blood soaking my arms, my shoulders, my face, my knees—raw, crimson grazes clogged with dirt covering almost half of my body.
Liz just sat on the ground, unmoving. She sat like that for a long time.
The wind started blowing.
The leaves bristled as the metals on turbines creaked from a distance.
She raised her head and looked around, probably searching for me. Then she stood up and slowly walked in my direction.
It probably took ten minutes for me to reach her.
"Are you okay?" she asked me.
"I'm all right. Your hand."
"It's fine now."
The hand had healed on its own.
A little too fast.
"Did she break it?"
She nodded.
"Did it hurt?" I asked her.
She shook her head. Of course it did. Why did I ask her that?
"Let's go home, Robert." Her eyes were dull and lifeless.
She pulled me up and let me hang on her shoulders.
"What did she tell you?"
"Nothing. Just a load of nonsense."
We walked home together without exchanging a word.
Whatever that child had told her, it'd obviously had an effect on her.
Another spider came for us that night, just like any other evening.
Liz put it down in an instant, like usual, without much struggle. I dragged the corpse to the back and put it next to the mounting pile. The sharp pain shooting from the bloody bandaged grazes spanning across my entire body made any movements or physical exertions incredibly trying.
Now was probably not the right time to ask her about it. She'd tell me when she was ready. I should just pretend like everything was normal while still keeping an eye on her, just to make sure she was doing all right.
I lay down the cold floor in my room and closed my eyes.
It wasn't as if I could sleep at night anymore—I just needed to lie down.
Maybe she'd tell me about it in the morning.
Tomorrow would be a new day.
...
...
Zzzzhkk—
I woke up to the sound of tearing.
It sounded like paper.
I looked at my watch and saw the time at 1:29
I'd been lying down for two hours.
Zzzzkkhh—
She hadn't gone to bed?
As I limped toward the room entrance, I peeked my head out into the living room.
Liz was chewing on something.
"What are you doing??"
With a limp, I rushed into the living room and held her hands down against the desk.
She was about to tear off another page of her school book and stuff it in her mouth.
What was it, Literature?
Geography, Physics.
One page on top was showing an illustration of a duck swimming in a pond.
Then I noticed the red book on the table. Some of the pages were also torn out and missing.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" I yelled at her. "Why are you doing this?"
What's happening?
"What did she tell you?" I shook her shoulders as if to wake her up and break her out of a trance. "What did she say?"
She was muttering something while her eyes were fixed on the torn books on the table.
"What did she say?" I asked her again.
"..."
"What's that?"
"... me."
My heart was pounding in my chest.
"I can't hear you, speak up."
"... me."
"What did she say?"
"I'm me."
Cold chills began to creep down my spine.
My hands froze as I tried to keep them on her shoulders, although I instinctively wanted to let go, and to just take a few steps back from her.
But then I saw it.
I saw a ball of tear roll down her pale cheeks.
It was the first time I'd seen her cry.
Although she didn't look sad—it was hard to explain.
It wasn't grief. It wasn't fear.
Her eyes were empty, as if there was nothing behind them.
I took a deep breath to force myself to calm down.
It's fine. It's just Liz.
Everything is still under control.
I'll be all right.
We'll be all right.
What should I do in situations like these?
How would Margaret handle it?
I put my arms over her shoulders and gently pat on her back. "Hey, it's okay, it's okay. I'm right here. Right here with you. It's all right, we'll figure it out, eventually."
I waited for a moment before I said to her, "You can tell me. What did she say to you?"
"She... she told me that I'm not myself... One day I'll remember."
Tears began to overflow once again.
"She's wrong," she muttered, her voice trembling.
Despite all of her ideas—despite all the strange things she'd told me at her apartment that day, a small part of her still wanted to believe in her own free will.
"I know. I know. It's okay..." I tried to force a smile, hoping it would calm both of us down a little. There was nothing to be afraid of.
Despite my effort, my heart continued to pound in my chest.
"It's okay. Everything is okay. What else did she say to you?"
I waited for her to say something.
She turned to look at me with puffy eyes as tears continued to roll down her face, glistening with the golden light reflected from the desk lamp.
"I couldn't understand it..." she muttered. "I couldn't remember..."
She said she'd forgotten.
She'd forgotten the instant she heard it.
The only thing she remembered was how those words had made her feel.
I patted on her shoulders again. "Hey, it's okay. I mean even right now you're still yourself, right? So what's the problem? You'll always be you, no matter what. That is never going to change. What about that kid, huh? What does she know?" I reassured her. "Tomorrow will come, and you will continue to be yourself. You will always be you, no matter what. Listen, I may not know much, but the one thing I can never, ever doubt in my mind is the fact that I'm here, that I exist, okay? And no one can live my life for me. The same applies to everyone else. So I don't think she knew what she was talking about. It's fine, all right? It's fine. Don't worry about it."
Liz sat there, motionless, as if her body had been paralyzed. She sat and looked at the nothingness in front of her.
I helped her clean up the desk, putting the books into a neat stack.
Although I couldn't say it—I knew we couldn't risk being anywhere near that child again. She was no match for it.
But even then, I wholeheartedly believed the things that I told her. I wasn't just saying them to cheer her up.
Whatever that child had said to her, it was wrong.
I jolted upright on the mattress lying on the floor, pulled my leg and clutched my foot, grinding my teeth.
Another bite mark.
If the lights had been on, the sight would've made it even more unbearable.
There was a reason why most people turned away while a doctor was giving them an injection. I caught myself quick enough this time. No shouting, groaning or hissing through gritted teeth.
Good.
The last few times it'd happened, I freaked her out even when we were in different rooms.
One time she'd said she'd put a gag me if it happened again, but then apologized afterward even though I wasn't mad.
The painkillers helped a ton. Although it was getting increasingly difficult to walk, with every step the bites would only sting in a flash before going away after a few seconds, like an ant bite.
The bite marks I could handle.
But the raids every night were simply too much. Especially for her.
All day long, she'd just sit at her desk and flipping through those math, geography and chemistry books. I'd come to expect this hobby as part of her life but now it was starting to turn into an obsession. Those books were the only thing keeping her mind busy, keeping her sane.
If she wasn't reading her school books, she'd be holding onto her red book, closing and flipping it open repeatedly to read the empty pages.
She'd gotten a lot thinner lately. The girl had always been rather small—her skinny frame made her look fragile, as though a strong gust of wind would push her over, even if that was far from the truth.
But she was getting thinner. She was eating like normal. I didn't know why. Maybe her metabolism was changing somehow and she was having a hard time adjusting.
At this point she'd probably have to eat more throughout the day to catch up.
In regards to dealing with the spiders—she tried her best.
Whenever they showed up, she'd learned to aim for the head and end the fight as quickly as possible, then I'd help clean up the mess.
But every now and again, she would forget—she would let herself get carried away.
And she would forget again, and again.
She told me that she wished they'd all just die.
This struggle was pointless. If anything, both our lives had been ruined the moment we came across each other.
She'd never accuse me of anything, but there was no denying she was becoming increasingly irritable, and even more hateful, mostly towards them.
She wanted the curse to end, and was getting desperate.
She was also getting stronger every day.
She'd gotten so strong that I was afraid she might end up destroying herself.
As if her mind was going to explode, and she was trying to keep it all together.
I never had to step in during a fight, yet I was always the one giving out orders, telling her how to go for clean kills and avoid unnecessary violence even though never in my life had I even laid a hand on a live chicken.
I'm sorry, Liz. I wish this could all end soon, and that there was something I could do for you.
The moonlight soaked through the net on the window frame.
Bullfrogs croaked outside behind the crack-filled walls.
Putting my head down, I shut my eyes and focused on the sound of the bullfrogs.