(The Lady): "Did you truly think you would escape me?"
(Rozen) opened his eyes, swollen and stained violet from the rabbits' torture. They had attacked him the instant he was found again in the lilac room, under the Lady's will.
(The Lady) continuing in her feminine voice: "I will burn Snow Nexus to the last corner if you vanish from my sight again. I will conscript even the weakest of the ghouls and the monsters. I will send every ghost and every specter. My eyes will know no sleep while my Rozen is away from my sight."
(Rozen) did not answer. He was holding back a cough of blood in his throat.
(The Lady), her tone turning deeply tender and sympathetic: "I still wonder how you found that blind point. Do not worry, I have fortified it with the strongest shields I possess. It does not matter… come now, tell me, my Rozen… how am I supposed to endure your absence from me? How am I supposed to endure the chance of reaching the happiest days of my life?"
Silence was her answer.
(The Lady) laughing hard: "…"
(Rozen) lowering his head: "I am no longer angry with you."
(The Lady) humming with interest: "…"
(Rozen) lifting his hot head toward the wall, hoping its surface would cool him with its lesser heat: "I do not feel anything toward you. None of this even feels real anymore. You went too far in hurting me. Even if you do something worse, my mind no longer resists. If I am tortured, it stops thinking. And if the torture stops, my mind forgets it at once."
(The Lady) laughing in surprise, then speaking in a different tone: "Do you think your words will change your condition?"
(Rozen): "Every time you speak, one feeling beats inside me with a single sentence: 'Who is this speaker?' And once I remember you, your value fades. You have lost my fear, and even my interest, completely. Torture me and reach your happy days, and if you do not, it is all the same."
(The Lady) replying at once: "Oooh, what is this boldness? Has wretched Rozen reached stoicism just now? Good for him. Honestly, I do not care whether you still feel pain and humiliation as before or not. Your disgraceful appearance is enough for me."
Her voice vanished after (Rozen) chose silence. His face remained calm, and blood dripped from his nose.
One of the rabbits entered and stood before (Rozen), who sat with his head resting against the wall. (Rozen) looked at him calmly. The rabbit raised his left foot high, while the one looking at him did not even blink, then crushed his head with one stomp that killed him at once.
(Rozen) woke, his face resting in the grass of some garden, while the dark night wrapped his frail body.
He turned and looked at the stars, then smiled after realizing their falseness. They were two-dimensional, no matter how distant they appeared.
Someone leaned over him, someone he had not seen in some time. It was (Specter). She looked at him quietly. (Rozen) looked at her pale, thin face. Her features were faint. He could hardly distinguish her nose from her mouth, and had it not been for the dim glimmer in her eyes, he would not have known they were there.
(Rozen) whispering to her: "You are the ugliest thing my eyes have seen in a very long time."
(Specter) looking at him with quiet interest: "Rozen, right? I am sorry, I am no good at remembering names, and my mind does not analyze with the efficiency everyone else has."
(Rozen) looking at her with deep sympathy, for reasons he did not understand, her weakness and innocence touching his heart: "Do you have retardation, or something like that?"
(Specter): "Most of the ghosts hint that I do…"
(Rozen)'s gaze softened, then he asked: "What is your name anyway? Is it Specter?"
(Specter): "I do not think so… ghosts are male, and specters are female. But my own name, specifically? I do not think I have any name at all…"
(Rozen) lifting his head, then thinking and murmuring before saying: "Your name is Fliora."
(Specter) looking at him in surprise: "Really?"
(Rozen) smiling: "Yes."
(Specter) lowering her head: "And how exactly did you know that?"
(Rozen) rising with a charming smile: "A butterfly brought me a message about it. It said quite plainly… that specter's name is Fliora."
(Specter): "Strange. In any case, there is no use in naming me that. I will most likely forget it."
(Rozen) looking at her with pity and a quiet smile, then asking: "Why were you in the Recompense of Pain?"
(Specter) looking calmly into the emptiness, then beginning to sway right and left, making it clear that she was trying to remember the reason, and after several seconds saying: "I truly do not remember. But I do remember the punishment. I was left in a dark room for a week, or something close to that… In any case, my mother keeps hinting that I am extremely shameless, and that I have no path to manners. The problem is that I truly do not remember what I did, so perhaps she is right. But I do not feel that I was disrespectful in any way. Nothing at all happens in my day, ever since my being began to exist here."
(Rozen): "I lean toward what you say. I do not think you were disrespectful either."
(Specter) looking at him deeply: "Fliora, right?"
(Rozen): "…"
He nodded, then stood and left her.
While he wandered in confusion, the guiding whisper returned:
"The guiding whisper: Rozen… what you did was legendary. Next time, you will not be alone. You have nothing to lose. A week from today, a foolish festival will be held, one by which the Lady delights herself. She will be busy designing it, and nothing compares to how occupied she becomes the day before it happens. The two rabbits are nothing but pawns in her hand, and even so, it is clear that your value to her cannot be measured. To be honest, we do not possess a solid plan, but we have discovered another breach in the southeast of the city. There is a closed bakery there, mere decoration, nothing more. Reaching it is somewhat difficult, but it is your only hope for now. You have one week to devise some plan to cross the city's boundary through a window at the back of the house. There you will meet Jorvir, one of those who escaped the city before."
The whisper ended, and (Rozen) shook his head in annoyance.
He returned to guard duty under (The Old Man)'s command after begging him. He accepted after consulting the Lady, and she agreed on one condition: that he kill him first, then employ him. (Rozen) accepted, while (The Old Man) refused until (Rozen) encouraged him, so he stabbed him in the neck with a thrust that made him bleed over the ground until he died. After that, he returned to guarding the gardens and sleeping in his narrow apartment.
He spent the next four days before the festival eavesdropping, studying the city's streets and its temporary structures, and silently planning and analyzing. The festival was like a vast celebration spreading across the city's four quarters. For that reason, (Rozen) asked (The Old Man) to let him continue guarding the gardens, because he did not want direct participation in the great festival's events, fearing he might die again from the simplest act. (The Old Man) accepted. He divided his watch between the northern gardens on the fourth day before the festival, then the western gardens on the third day before the festival, then the eastern gardens on the second day before the festival. After that, with a stern calm that defeated stone, he went to guard the southern gardens on the final day before the festival. They were three small gardens, some nearly abandoned. He divided his watch over them from dawn to afternoon, from afternoon to dusk, and from dusk to dawn. The third garden was the closest to the abandoned bakery.
During that day, he saw tables bursting up from the earth without warning, ghouls carrying torches and foods made from the flesh of monsters, and ghosts hanging banners and papers with care and effort.
The desolate city dressed itself in golden lights.
Two hours before dawn, (Rozen) stood in stillness and silence for ten minutes. He felt hundreds of random sensations moving inside him. Then he walked quietly toward the bakery. The moment he drew near, his chest surged. The door stood open, and the moment he pushed it and its creak appeared,
(The Little Boy) speaking from inside: "It has been a long time since our last meeting."
(Rozen) was stunned. His heart nearly stopped.
(The Little Boy) smiling: "I wish you a good journey."
He passed him without uttering a word. Terrified, (Rozen) turned toward him and found him looking at an empty street. Without any awareness, he entered the house.
The place trembled.
(The Lady), realizing his strange entrance while arranging everything in the southern part of the city, saying in anger: "You little animal! You will not survive."
(Rozen)'s body heat rose in a terrifying way, until he felt himself melting with every step. He ran with difficulty toward the window, but stumbled and struck his head against an uneven wooden plank in the floor. His head split and his right eye bled, but he rose and ran on what remained of his strength.
(The Lady) screaming in a voice touched by the sting of tears: "Rozen! Do not leave me!"
(Rozen) smashed the window with his fist, making his hand bleed, and tried in utter weakness to climb through it, but the heat in his body had grown so heavy that even his eyelids began to droop.
The moment he reached the window's edge, he saw a young man of his own height, long-haired and powerfully built, standing before him and shouting:
(Jorvir): "Rozen! Take my hand!"
(The Lady): "What… Jorvir?! Is that you?! You ugly traitor! Give Rozen back to me… give him back, or I will burn everything and put you in eternal torment."
(Jorvir): "Not if we reach you first."
He seized (Rozen)'s hand and pulled him, dragging him with difficulty and dreadful heaviness through that electromagnetic gel. The moment he passed through it, his heat dropped so quickly that he fainted. (Jorvir) lifted him and ran away.