No30 Ch10

The moment Liella stiffly raised her frozen head, a woman whose face had melted away, revealing her teeth and eyeballs, grabbed Liella’s face with a powerful grip. Even though she couldn’t see any expression, Liella felt as if the woman was resenting her. The dense teeth that filled the space where her cheeks should have been parted, and a viscous black mass poured out of her eyes and mouth like a waterfall. Afraid of being touched by it, Liella screamed and thrashed.

“No! I’m sorry, sorry, don’t!!!”

“Hah…! Hah… Ha…”

She shot up from the bed, gasping for breath on the creaking cot.

A dream? Was it a dream?

“Sniff, uh… Sniff…”

Her hand frantically groped across the bedsheets in the darkness.

She was disoriented, still reeling from the shock. Where was she now? Was she still dreaming? She couldn’t see anything.

After wandering aimlessly for a while, a clear knock jolted her awake. Liella, who had been panting, stopped breathing for a moment and whipped her head around. A chill ran down her spine as she imagined the dream continuing.

“……”

“Is everything alright in there?”

Fortunately, it was a pleasant baritone voice that came from outside the door. The tension slowly drained from her shoulders.

“…Aslan?”

“I heard a scream and came to check. I’ll open the door for a moment if it’s alright.”

It seemed she hadn’t just screamed in her dream. Liella blankly nodded, then suddenly snapped to attention and called out in a shrill voice.

“Ah… just a moment. I think I locked it.”

She fumbled towards the sound, and as she turned the doorknob, the intense beam of a flashlight flooded in as if he had been waiting.

Squinting against the bright light, she looked up at the figure standing in the doorway. Reality and dream slowly began to separate.

Right, waking up in Room 30 had actually happened. She had definitely come into the room earlier, washed up… and fallen asleep as if she had fainted from the overwhelming drowsiness.

“I’m sorry for making a fuss in the middle of the night. I had a nightmare, and it was so vivid… I guess what happened in the hallway earlier left a fear in my subconscious.”

She moistened her dry lips and tucked her disheveled hair behind her ears. The man in the doorway scrutinized her as she tidied herself, then looked around the room. There was nothing in the room.

“You weren’t sleeping anyway, so you don’t need to apologize. You don’t look well. May I ask what the dream was about?”

“Yes, it’s alright. Well, I opened the door, and the woman from the hallway earlier was standing there.”

At his questioning gaze, Liella haltingly explained the dream.

“She was trying to vomit something into my mouth. Like she did to the corpse downstairs… But I woke up thrashing before that. Thank goodness. It would have been unsettling if I had accepted it and then woken up.”

Seeing his brow furrow, Liella forced a pale smile to ease the atmosphere. She could feel the sharp aura emanating from the man. Aslan stood in the doorway as if he were forbidden from entering her room, then slowly took a step forward and placed the flashlight on the bed.

“Your body may be overly tense in the darkness because of what happened earlier. I’ll leave the flashlight here, so just sleep with the light on tonight.”

“Yes? No. I already used up my three hours for today during dinner. I can’t. I’ll have to live without lights from now on, so I need to adapt.”

Liella’s eyes widened at his excessive consideration, and she waved her hands.

“I’ll be able to fall back asleep if I just have a drink.”

She stood up briskly to show that she was alright, and Aslan slowly moved out of the way with a reluctant expression. For some reason, he had been treating her as if she were fragile glass since yesterday.

She trudged to the kitchen and took out a cup from the cabinet. As she poured and drank the cool water, the cold sensation running down her throat finally made her feel alive. A glance at the clock in the living room showed that it was five o’clock.

Five in the morning. The time when the end of one day and the beginning of another overlapped.

Liella suddenly felt a longing for the fresh morning air. Even though only the gray, dense buildings of the city vaguely came to mind when she tried to remember something. She wanted to see the hope that rose at the end of the night.

Oh, no. Now that she had thought of the sunrise, she was wide awake and couldn’t sleep at all.

“…Can I sit with you for a little while before going back in?”

“If I say no, will you go back to sleep?”

“No. I’ll try to rephrase the question, but I’ll keep trying until I get a yes… maybe ten more times?”

As she spread her palm and smiled sheepishly, the man leaning against the table let out a short chuckle. He casually swept his large hand over his tired face, which looked languid, then walked over to the long sofa and removed the cushions.

Liella hesitated, then trailed after him, took off her slippers, and sat down next to him. She raised her knees and leaned her head back comfortably, looking at the flat ceiling. An oval light that didn’t let any light in. The shadows on the ceiling grew darker as they receded.

If that monster from yesterday happened to stomp hard on the floor above, this flimsy ceiling would be pierced at any moment. Or if the woman in the hallway happened to notice the light here. If the door connected to the third-floor stairs were to break down.

Even if none of that happened, there was a possibility that one of the three of them could turn into a monster. She had been glancing at Dylan’s complexion and skin throughout the meal, after all, as he was the most injured. Liella knew that she had a side like Anton. No matter how much she tried to shake it off, the fear clung to her mind like an obsession.

It was said that the human brain couldn’t recognize negatives. I won’t turn into a monster, I don’t have a terminal illness. No matter how much she tried to self-hypnotize, her foolish brain couldn’t understand and ended up creating terrible nightmares.

“We’re going to die, aren’t we?”

Liella, who had been looking at the ceiling, spoke softly first. Breaking the brief silence, Aslan replied quietly.

“Eventually, we will. Everyone dies.”

“Not like that. I mean, soon. Quickly. We’re going to disappear from this world soon, aren’t we? Whether we become monsters or die from a terminal illness, and everyone who knows us will forget us.”

This time, no answer came for a long time. He didn’t even look at her. He simply took her hand, which was lying on the sofa, and pressed it gently as if to calm her with his large warmth. Only then did Liella become aware of her trembling body.

She wished she were a teenage girl who blushed at holding hands. If that were the case, she could have overcome her fear just by not letting go of each other until morning.

“I opened the closet to change my clothes earlier, and I found a picture frame deep inside. I was so scared that I knocked the frame over before I even saw the picture.”

As she turned her head to the side, she saw Aslan taking out a cigarette from a square pack and putting it in his mouth. He didn’t light it. He was just listening.

“I was afraid that it would contain someone precious. Family, friends, or a lover. If the recording is true, we’ll probably never see those people again.”

She was afraid that she would collapse even though she was barely standing. Unlike ordinary uniforms, their clothes had their names, not their surnames. It might have been a resolution to turn their backs on their families.

“It’s sad that there’s no one in the final scene.”

“Even if you don’t see the picture, it doesn’t mean there’s no one next to you.”

“What do you mean?”

Her questioning gaze reached his sharply defined profile. Aslan’s eyes moved. The moment her eyes met his unusually black pupils, Liella suddenly realized. Ah, since the moment she opened her eyes, he had been next to her.

The trembling subsided. Soon, Aslan put the cigarette down on the table and opened his mouth in a low voice.

“If you continue to feel depressed, it’s best not to stand guard for a while. Staying awake in the dark is quite boring. All sorts of random thoughts come to mind anyway.”

“…Then who will do it on the days I’m supposed to?”

“Take over my work when I have other things to do.”

Aslan dryly conveyed that he would do it instead. Liella lowered her gaze silently. His strong hand, with its prominent knuckles, was placed on hers in a way that wasn’t burdensome, so she could pull away at any time. Her chest tightened strangely at his continued, nonchalant consideration.

This man, despite his cold appearance, couldn’t just pass by someone who needed help. That hyperventilation back then was the same. He gave his breath to a disease that wouldn’t kill her. She thought he was someone she would have regretted meeting at the end of her life. I wish I had met you outside.

“It’s alright. I’ve already received enough consideration. It’s hard for anyone to stay up all night for two days in a row.”

Liella shook her head gently with a melted heart. So that was, so to speak, an impulse. A mixture of the anxiety that she might die tomorrow and the memory of the salvation she received in that near-death moment.

“If you really want to help, there are other ways.”

“……”

“Want to kiss?”

She saw the hand that was flicking the lighter stop abruptly. Liella looked straight up at him, wearing an innocent mask.

“At least I didn’t think about anything then.”

The man lowered his head and stared at Liella, who was calmly telling him that she would use him. The hair that should have been swept back fell down and scattered straight across his forehead.

“We have nothing to lose, don’t you think?”