Ch.124Ch.8 – And Then There Was Nothing (9)

That’s impossible. A snake, not a lizard, couldn’t slither down such a steep slope.

Even tears wouldn’t flow down a wall on such an incline.

“Assistant. Do you see a snake?”

I said I did.

“Don’t be afraid.”

Emma wasn’t there.

What was there was just a snake wearing Emma’s clothes. With its head raised, flicking its red tongue, it was a two-headed snake covered in scales. One head stared straight at the central hall, the other directly at me.

“Don’t be afraid.”

Each time it whispers, its split tongue flicks and brushes against my chin. I feel its moist, cool, and rough texture beneath my jaw.

“It’s fake. It’s fake.”

Snakes fall from the sky.

Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Like slugs clinging to my body, like sticky spider webs refusing to fall off. Something cool and rough burrows between my clothes.

It digs into the nape of my neck, coils around my shoulder, burrows into my armpit, then twists once around my body and slides down my side.

I can see its rough, cold, sharp scales scraping my skin like sandpaper, like sharp branches leaving cuts.

The hem of my shirt gradually stains with blood as it writhes and thrashes, as if trying to settle on my navel, as if trying to usurp the place of the umbilical cord,

Sinking its teeth into my stomach as if trying to feed false words into my body like nutrients, like that great mother and father,

The obscene and holy snake with the woman’s breasts and man’s genitals, with limbs and wings, trying to make me its child, mating with me,

To conceive a child half like me and half like itself, finally taking my body, flesh, and blood to drip blood from its fangs toward the world, drop by drop—

Hissss—

My right arm has already become a snake

With a massive, plump body and five heads extended like the legendary Hydra, it writhes and I cannot take my eyes off it, one of them

Glaring at me, coveting me, how can I call this my body, is this truly born of my father’s essence and my mother’s flesh

Hisssss—

The snake sprouting from my body finally tries to take my neck, like a python coiled around a sturdy tree trunk, like a fallen person turning to dust, a snake grows from within, branching into infinite paths

Hisssssss!

What is impure, not born of human body, should rightfully return to impure paths, my lover, father, mother, the hungry snake eating its own tail, the Babylonian whore mating with its own flesh to bear children, the beast with a different name inscribed on each head, I wish for the beast’s child to return

With each scratch of a scale sprouting from my body, stronger and tougher scales sprout like new buds covering my body, is this what you wanted?

Coiling around my neck, enjoying the joy of suffocation, is this the sweet comfort of prey caught in a hunting snake’s coils?

A pleasure worth trading for death grows from the tips of my toes up my legs, will you suspend my breath until I reach ecstasy?

Yes. I will.

“It’s a lie.”

The snake wearing Emma’s clothes whispers.

“■■■■. Don’t be ■■■■. Don’t fall ■■ ■■.”

Some hiss, some are muddled, some inaudible. Somehow the snake seems to be wailing. The snake’s vertically slit pupils look at me. In those pupils that contract and dilate

I am not there.

I feel myself blinking.

I blink hard enough to bring tears.

Who am I?

[If you don’t know who you really are, think about the people beside you. Who you are in their eyes is the real you]

If that snake is real, why am I not reflected in its eyes?

I look at the snake sprouting from my right hand. A snake with five heads raised. The snake is alive, writhing, moving, but nothing is reflected in its eyes.

I am not in the eyes of the snakes pouring down from the sky like pain.

I see a red python writhing on the floor.

I see the python looking up at me, hissing.

I see myself reflected in the python’s eyes.

I am there. I try to reach out, but I have no hands, only a five-headed snake.

The python writhes in agony. It tears at its own neck. Stinging. Gouging. It’s a necklace. The python pierces its flesh with the necklace. A broken heart-shaped necklace.

Fighting back nausea, I raise the snake on my right hand. They are quiet. Thinking I can at least offer my neck, I feel for my neck. A necklace. A cheap necklace. The end is sharp.

I forcibly tore off the necklace. The back of my neck stings as if scraped by wire. The corner of the broken heart is sharp. As if it would draw blood if held tightly.

I clutched it. Until it hurt. Through my right hand, red and hot, too hot for a snake to ever reach…

“Snap out of it! It’s a hallucination!”

I saw Emma. I was kneeling on the floor, clutching the necklace in my right hand. When I opened my fist, I felt a sharp pain. It had dug into my hand.

“Snake! Snake! Get off, get off!”

The bank was in chaos.

“It’s a snake! The snake is eating me! It’s a snake!”

People screamed, looking at their fingers and arms. As if they should never see them again, they stomped and screamed in pain. Some stabbed their hands with broken pencils.

“The snake’s fangs are biting me!”

Someone who had struck their hand in panic raised their bloodied hand and cried.

“A snake bit my hand! A snake bit my hand!”

I tried to help them.

“Don’t go outside the barrier!”

Emma shouted. Above us was a translucent semicircular barrier like a soap bubble. Snakes still seemed to be falling from the ceiling, but they fell beside the barrier and crawled around. I asked what those snakes were.

“It’s a curse from Yig’s priest, hard to remove without the noon sun!”

The masked figures were nowhere to be seen. Only people calling each other snakes and screaming at the sight of their own hands.

“Snake… snake…”

Aurora’s voice.

I turned. Aurora was trembling, trying to aim her gun. White foam at the corners of her mouth, her eyes half-rolled back.

“Snake…”

And the gun barrel was pointed at me.

When I took a step toward Aurora, she convulsively raised her gun. The pistol kept slipping, perhaps from her sweat-soaked hands. She seemed afraid to even look up at me. Behind us, screams continued, and Emma’s body kept staggering.

“Hiiik… get away… get awaaay…”

Aurora trembled and cried. I approached her.

“Hiiik…!”

Aurora raised her gun. I said:

“Look at me. Aurora. It’s me. It’s me. Not a snake.”

Aurora kept trying to turn her head away. But her eyes looked at my hand.

“I know. That I must look like a snake to you. But believe me. I’m not a snake. Evil magic has spread here. Put the gun down.”

“Lies…”

Aurora cried.

“Lies, lies, lies… you’re a snake. You’re a snake… I won’t be fooled. I’ll never be fooled…”

“I won’t hurt you.”

I stepped back.

“Trust me. Whatever I look like, I won’t hurt you. Look. I’ll put this down. So you put the gun down too.”

“Liiiies!”

Aurora wailed. But her pupils shook from side to side. She seemed unsure what to do.

I looked toward Emma. Emma appeared to be struggling just to maintain the barrier. People in the hall were now screaming as they stabbed their own eyes with their fingers. People who had gathered outside looked through the windows in horror, but no one dared to enter the bank.

I took out my necklace. The necklace I bought in the German Quarter. The necklace Aurora and I shared. The jagged edge was covered with my flesh and blood, and the chain was broken from being forcibly torn from my neck.

“This. Remember?”

I gripped the necklace chain and shook it. It stung because of the wound on my hand, but I succeeded in catching Aurora’s attention.

“The necklace we each had one of. The conversation about superstitions. Santa Claus. Remember?”

Aurora’s gaze fixed.

“…Did you eat?”

“No.”

“…You ate. You ate! You ate that person! Spit it out, spit it out! No, no, no no no no!”

It backfired. Aurora thinks the snake swallowed “me” and then spat out the necklace! Aurora clutched at her chest with her right hand.

“No, no! That can’t be, he couldn’t have died like that! He’s alive, right? He must be alive, lies, liar. Disgusting snake…”

Aurora’s eyes flashed with madness. The gun barrel no longer wavered. It aimed directly at me.

“Shoot.”

Aurora twisted her body. The snakes that had fallen from the ceiling but were crawling on the floor, blocked by the barrier, gathered together. As if building a pillar, they climbed over each other and writhed into a human shape. And it was mimicking my voice exactly.

“It’s fake. Shoot it. It’s bewitching you. It’s the evil magician’s spell.”

The writhing snakes whispered. Aurora looked with surprised eyes at it, then at me, back and forth.

“You’re fine. You’re a snake…”

It was the opposite. She was seeing the writhing mass of snakes as “me,” and the real me as a “snake person.”

“Kill it. Shoot that fake.”

The writhing snakes whispered. Aurora nodded and aimed her gun at me. I lowered my arms.

“I trust you.”

The hand about to pull the trigger stopped.

“What?”

I spoke slowly, deliberately. I mustn’t rush.

“Whatever you do. I’ll trust you. It’s okay to shoot. Just aim for the heart. Don’t… shoot the face. I don’t want my face to be a mess.”

Aurora lowered her arm. She looks at me with tear-filled eyes. She looks at the writhing mass of snakes beyond the barrier. Finally, looking back at me,

“…Is it you?”

she asks.

“It’s me.”

“Are you there?”

“I’m here.”

“But you’re a snake.”

I tried to smile.

“What. Did you stop liking me because I’m ugly? I’m disappointed then.”

Aurora’s lips trembled. She seemed to be trying hard to smile. But her eyes were still unsteady.

“I… I can’t trust myself…”

“It’s okay. You’re just confused for a moment. It’s okay, take a deep breath…”

Aurora shook her head and raised the gun.

“I can’t trust myself.”

The gun barrel points at her temple.

“Aurora!”

Aurora finally smiled.

“I don’t know which of you is the real you. Maybe both are fake, maybe both are you. But either way, I can’t shoot you.”

The sound of a spring being pulled. The sound of a hammer being cocked. The sound of a drum turning.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

Aurora pulled the trigger.

I threw myself forward.

The pistol is pushed far away.

The bullet lodges in the ceiling, sending down stone dust.

Dong…

Like being hit with cold water, goosebumps rose all over my body.

Dong…!

It was the clock. The sound of the large grandfather clock in the hall announcing noon.

Dong…! Dong…! Dong…!

The people in the hall stopped their frenzy. Those who had been watching from outside finally rushed in. Crying, groans of pain, the sound of ambulances and police sirens could be heard.

“It’s noon…”

Emma, who had thrown aside her staff, collapsed to the floor. She leaned against the wall. A cold hand touched my cheek. Aurora’s hand.

“Is it over?”

“It’s all over.”

Aurora sobbed. She buried her head in my chest and cried.

“Hic… hic…”

It wasn’t just crying sounds. She was swallowing them. Like a child who had been scolded that there would be no gifts if she kept crying, Aurora somehow forced herself to swallow her tears. Emma staggered to her feet.

“We need to go.”

I comforted Aurora. Her legs had given out, and she couldn’t stand straight. With Emma’s help, I carried her on my back. Each time she swallowed her sobs, I could feel her fragile body trembling as if it might break. Neither of our bags was visible. Emma gave a hollow laugh and brushed her chest. Probably meaning the item was safely there.

The hall was chaotic. We pushed through the crowd as if carrying an injured person out. Eventually, we made our way to the streets of Arkham. The noon sun shone overhead, and shadows had no power. Hoping that Aurora would receive the sunlight meant for me too, we entered the alleys of Arkham.