"What are you waiting for?"
"What am I waiting for..." I mechanically repeated the question, as if it were a password to the subconscious. "I don't know."
"No. You know, you just... don't want to accept it. How convenient to hide behind 'I don't know,' when in reality you know everything down to the smallest detail. When your heart has long decided, and your brain is just ashamed to admit that decision."
"I won't go against the others, even if it costs me my life..." I say it as if it's something noble. Though in reality, it's just fatigue. "Enough of that for me. Why do we always have to make only those decisions?!"
"Because your fate depends on it!" the voice sounded like it was banging its head against the walls of my logic. "Or are you suggesting another option?"
In my head, only emptiness... that phrase is the only thing I could offer. But I won't go for murders. No way.
"Think straight!" my inner "I," like a rejected double of the real me, raised his voice. "Everyone in this game is against us. You can't avoid the fate prepared for you, they want to get rid of you!"
"Or are you going to endure all these humiliations from them?" he continued. "Allow yourself to be thrown out like pitiful, unwanted trash? I'm sick of looking at such a... pathetic self."
And that day, I changed. No, not just changed. I disappeared.
In my place remained a shell, into which something new had moved. Cold. Purposeful, ready for despair and steps that the real me would avert my eyes from.
A new personality.
A new mask.
A new version of me, created for one goal — a dream.
I accepted it like a sentence. Voluntarily. And my old "I," the real one, human, full of fear and doubts, was... sealed. Buried in the depths.
That's the price of a dream. If there's even a drop of sympathy left in you, you won't be able to walk this path. You'll fall and never get up.
You'll shatter, and you can't be glued back together.
To go to the end, you need to become a mechanism.
Merciless.
Decisive.
Unthinking.
I'm not the only one like that. Yahweh went through it too. You also cast aside your real self, stifling the inner voice that begged you to stop.
You were never one who would joyfully kill, but you killed, you walked over bodies. You... changed. No, you didn't change, you pretended to be yourself. The real you stayed there, inside, chained by silence and fear. And yet...
We're the same.
"It's because of your essence that you can't raise a hand against them now!" I said to myself and at the same time not to myself. "They sense it and take advantage of it."
"But you have me." the voice inside me became quieter, but only quieter, not weaker. "I won't let them harm you. Even if you want it yourself. I'll do it instead of you. The perfect crime, delegating will to your own shadow. Just trust me. You trust me more than anyone, right? I'm the only one who understands you. Who sees what's happening inside. No one will hear a heart screaming into the void. No one but me. You're tired, you don't want to be thrown out."
He continued.
"So why then do you accept their lies? Why accept the guilt they're imposing on you?"
Again.
"Just rely on me. We're... together."
Again and again.
"Together, there are no barriers for us. Not one, even morality."
...
"Yeah..." I muttered. "You're right."
If I just sit in this room, doing nothing... then they'll... get rid of me. Write me off. The game will continue anyway, just without me.
"Exactly. So don't let them do whatever they want. Show determination."
I'll show them... I'll show my determination to win this game.
While one of the participants drowned in his own thoughts, the others were fully immersed in rummaging through grimoires, trying to fish out even a crumb of truth. Perfect detective chaos, everyone on edge.
"It's already getting dark," Hov drawled. "The sun is setting, and we're not even close to the solution."
"We still have time. Even if the next phase begins, we'll be all together. That gives us an advantage, the killer is alone. Whoever isn't the killer is in the library," Yahweh said.
I'm betting more and more on the witch. Every night she makes a move, just to confuse us, as if she herself enjoys this devilish game of chess.
Even if she doesn't kill herself, she forces it. She instills, she manipulates, pushes, whispers, they'll hinder you. Get rid of them.
"Hey, you there, found anything?" Kamiki inquired.
"Not yet. Too many grimoires, and the right one is nowhere. Most of them are magic, spells, and the rest is ballast," Hov replied, as if he were asking about homework, not the question.
"By the way, about ballast." Yahweh suddenly perked up. "It seems the first owner of the mansion was into variations of worlds and alternate realities."
"What? What are you even talking about?" Hov asked puzzled.
"Here, in the book, diagrams of Earth and its 'reflections' in other planes; interesting."
"Alternate Earths? As if one wasn't enough..."
"All this is cool, of course, but off-topic. We're looking for something about our inscriptions," Kamiki interrupted their educational conversation.
"Yeah, let's not get distracted. Though... these books can kill, literally. Open one and hello, curse."
"I'll step away for a bit, get some water. My eyes are already blurring into lines," Aragi said, which from the side looked like dodging work.
"It's dangerous to go alone, especially at this time." Morgana.
"Then I'll go with you." Cheryl's words followed.
"Thank you. It won't take long."
Might as well check on Enua... I have to prove his innocence. Cheryl and Morgana are on my side, with them, we can uncover the truth. All that's left is to translate these lines, if we understand what's in them, we might get to the real killer. After all, everyone is sure these inscriptions are the work of the criminal.