Chương 112: Fragmented Tale

Uncertain steps. Trembling like a leaf caught in a hurricane. Constantly looking over her shoulder… Until not so long ago, this young woman, at the peak of her youthfulness and beauty, had been simply working as a caretaker in an orphanage. Being present, helping children who had lost their most crucial pillars–Or been born with unsteady pillars–Had always been her calling. Even when she herself was still little, she had always been drawn toward offering a kind hand to others.

Yet, recently, things had turned to horror for her and many others. The orphanage had been beset by a force of evil. Wards… Too many of them had fallen victim to it. It should have been the caretakers who fell first, not those they were supposed to provide for. All had fallen victim to terrifying nightmares for a long while, she herself had remained unaffected. Her steadfast will great enough to resist the call of the trials, but everything had eventually turned dull and… Negative around her. It was not natural.

She knew that it would have been smarter for her to leave. There was simply no way for the caretaker to allow herself to leave the wards behind–Thus, she stayed, and ended up facing countless nightmares. She was able to resist and win most of them at first, but they got progressively harder and harder until it seemed like the trials were completely stacked against her, doing everything in their power to ensure that she would lose. Now… Here she was. Her name was Mari, and she was scared. Terrified, even.

Instead of the more common settings of the nightmares, she had found herself transported into a foggy forest of tall trees… She had been informed that this was a 'final' trial, and that she had to collect seven pieces of evidence before… Something… Caught her. Mari had no idea what this thing could be. Would it be the most common creatures? Would it be one of the rarer ones she had had the displeasure of meeting? Or would this final trial pit her up against something even worse than all of this?

She did not know, and she would prefer never to have to come face-to-face with her hunter. Thus, she proceeded carefully, not daring to light her lantern without good reason. Although the difficulty had spiked in the later trials, she had not lost all of those incredibly difficult nightmares. Mari had a good head on her shoulders–It was necessary to be able to deal with children all day long. She didn't spend much time with the older wards. She was mostly focused on taking care of the much younger ones.

To deal with this every day, it was obligatory for a caretaker to be calm and patient beyond belief… She moved carefully, like when the children were asleep at night. Mari spotted a strange structure in the distance. It was rather blocky in shape, the material used to build it was covered in a peculiar pattern… The sort of pattern that was more at home on the walls of a bathroom than on the outside of a building.

Mari was wary of entering a closed-off space, but it was pretty easy to guess that the evidence she needed to gather was to be found inside such conspicuous places… Therefore, after a few moments, she slowly made her way inside. She had no other choice but to use the lantern to see. Which was fine, with walls and a ceiling around, the light would not be spotted from a distance… The lantern turned out to be designed in a very peculiar way.

Rather than shining light in all directions like a regular lantern would, this one focused the light through a single exit point, meaning that she could only illuminate what was directly in front of her. This meant that the beam of light was very bright and reached far, however. So anything out of the ordinary, she would notice immediately.

After walking around quietly for several minutes, she was beginning to worry that this place was actually a maze of sorts, but she soon ran into a dead end–A dead end with a piece of paper nailed into the wall. It was stained with what looked like dried blood, but its content was still largely decipherable. Mari felt inexplicably drawn to reading it. On closer inspection, it was a piece of what was called 'newspaper'. Mari had only ever seen such a thing once on a visit to a big city…

Only the larger cities had those, and they typically only had a single one. Newspapers required the consent of the local authority and the crown's authorisation to even exist. They were required to be sanctioned twice. As such, they were always under the control of the royal family and the local lords. Still, what was written here wasn't about how good a city's economy was since the new lord had arrived or some nonsense like that. It was darker.

[LOCAL BUSINESS ACCUSED OF GROSS NEGLIGENCE: One week ago, a local family restaurant, known as 'Harvey's Diner', was pointed at in the disappearance of two young girls. Later on, it was revealed that three more had gone missing on the same day, their disappearances reported only later by their families. The owner had vehemently denied that the missing girls had anything to do with his establishment–An Investigation launched under direct order of the lord proved otherwise.] The piece was torn at that point, not giving any more information. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. Mari reached out, and the object disappeared into a small puff of smoke. You have found: 1/7 pieces of evidence A system window appeared before her–Something that normally never happened, never had Mari even interacted with the system in such a manner, she was not part of the small group that could view it.

In this nightmare, for some reason, she could see these panels. Mari was about to turn back around, but suddenly felt the strong urge to turn the lantern off and hold her breath. She didn't know why, but trusted her inexplicable instincts with her life all of a sudden. … She could hear faint footsteps inside the structure. They were slightly echoey, not nearby. Nonetheless, the caretaker stood still, making herself as small and quiet as possible.

She hugged a wall and lay on the ground as the footsteps grew closer, covering her mouth with both hands while trying to calm her beating heart. The footsteps kept coming closer. Their owner was clearly following the same path as Mari… But the caretaker saw no light coming whatsoever. When the person–Or thing–Arrived, they nearly stepped right onto Mari's arm. The young woman felt the air moving as the foot came down.

She felt it as the person eventually turned around after seemingly swinging their outstretched arm around. Mari did not budge for more than ten minutes, even after the sound of the footsteps completely disappeared into the distance. She feared that her hunter had actually noticed her and was playing a sick game, but she had no choice but to eventually move… She followed the wall to her left–She had followed the wall to her right on her way here–And eventually, she stepped outside again.

There were no signs of anything besides her. It seemed like she had truly been extremely lucky and managed to avoid detection by a hair's breadth. Mari still remained as attentive as possible, leading her to notice several things hidden in the tall grasses near the entrance. Bear traps. These traps had no teeth whatsoever, but they would definitely hurt nonetheless if she stepped onto them. She carefully avoided them all and went back to moving. The caretaker was more nervous than before.

It had been very close, and she had no idea whether her pursuer had been here by mere chance or if they had somehow known to look around the area. Mari hid behind every single tree she passed by, carefully looking at her surroundings every passing second for signs of the hunter–She only noticed something as she approached what looked like a dilapidated structure. It looked like one of those places with automaton entertainers. Only that all the colours and joy had been mercilessly consumed by the passage of time.

Just as she was about to enter this place to seek out another piece of evidence, she saw it. Something that scared her more than anything. She had met monstrosities in the previous nightmares, but this was not a monster. It was a person. Not a person created by the nightmare, she was certain of it. There was a shadowy figure standing on the top of a slope further away, clearly looking around. The reason she knew that this was a real person was simple…

Mari was born with an innate ability that allowed her to see a representation of someone's self. Usually, it takes on the form of some sort of creature. Obviously, it often didn't tell that much about a person. This 'self' could represent many different aspects, from personality to elemental affinities, or even the shape of one's soul. It was difficult to tell what she was seeing truly was about.

Naturally, the knowledge that she was hunted by a real person and not a nightmare construct was horrifying, but the shape of that person's self was… Bizarre. To begin with, it was large and completely black, like a shadow. This was immediately not reassuring. The worst part was that it seemed to be… Looking around alongside the person themselves, displaying similar motions.

This was a sign of a strong sense of self, the kind that didn't just imply a strong personality, but a personality that was capable of crushing others. That was the sort of self Mari would see in criminals being brought to the town center to be executed for their heinous crimes… As for the shape of this self… It was a bird of some sort, the beak and wings were easy to make out, and for some reason… Despite everything else, the bird inspired a bizarre sensation within Mari…

It was like she could relate to the person on some level. Like she and that shadowy figure hunting her down shared something in common. Regardless of this, the caretaker did not want to be seen and kept still for another long period of time before the person left. She didn't even dare to take a sigh of relief.

Considering that traps had appeared at the previous structure, she assumed that this place might have already been trapped since the pursuer had seemingly gone by already–Indeed, the doorway had been rigged with steel wires. Mari had no idea whether the broken windows had originally been boarded up or if it had been an action of the stalker to force her to go through the door. Manoeuvring through the wires was a lengthy process that required excessive care, but Mari was a lithe young woman.

She was able to get through after several minutes of contorting into uncomfortable positions. She was on the lookout for more traps, but it seemed that her concerns were unwarranted. She soon reached an office of sorts within the building. The desk was strangely well-kept despite the surrounding decay of everything else. Upon the desk, another bloody piece of newspaper had been stabbed down into place.

[INVESTIGATION PROVES UNSATISFYINGLY SLOW FOR FAMILIES: The business owner continues to deny any responsibility despite mounting evidence of negligence. On the day of the disappearances, the only witnesses were children visiting the establishment. No adults or employees noticed anything amiss. Witnesses seem to point to the fact that two characters of the establishment that shouldn't have been present were lurking around on that day. Glown, The Clown Girl, and an unidentified automaton mascot were walking around the diner. The missing girls were last seen following one of the two characters.] Mari did not know whether this nightmare was inventing a scenario or not, but the mention of such an event made her blood boil nonetheless. The piece of newspaper turned to smoke once again as she reached for it. You have found: 2/7 pieces of evidence Two out of seven… Could Mari actually do it?