"Catastrophes aren't intelligent enough to choose. They don't discriminate—they only destroy whatever lies before them. Perhaps the feet were the first thing it touched. The first to respond."
Henry placed his papers on the table and released a light breath.
"Does a person die the moment the catastrophe is discovered within them?"
Ayrton replied without hesitation, his voice steady.
"Yes. By then, the catastrophe has already taken full control."
Kayden kept staring at Ethan's feet longer than necessary, silent—then spoke in a low voice.
"Maybe… maybe it's because the soul begins to leave through the feet… they're always the first to grow cold…"
Kayden stopped abruptly, realizing he had spoken something that should not have been said.
Henry looked at him with mild shock—just enough to sense that his brother had uttered something unfamiliar. He quickly tried to shift the topic, but Fiona was faster.
"But the Church says the soul exits through the mouth. Do you still need guidance, Kayden?" Fiona spoke honestly, her eyes fixed on his reaction. Kayden was a good companion—but he always carried a trace of madness.
Henry interrupted without turning around.
"No, that's not it. But the feet become extremely cold—so my brother is right. There's no need for guidance."
Adam examined them all with a scrutinizing gaze, weighing the truth of their words. After a moment of silence, he spoke as well.
"In my life, I've seen many catastrophes—more than I should have. I have great experience. And what he said… may hold some truth. Perhaps the soul does begin to leave through the feet." He paused. "It's a truly unique theory."
Silence flooded the room after his words, thick as fog, until Ayrton finally intervened with a decisive tone.
"This requires further study. But for now—bury the body. The investigation is over."
He turned his back and followed Ethan's body in silence, to where the dead were laid to rest.
Then, suddenly, Ayrton turned and asked Fiona, "What about the other body?"
Fiona sighed as she followed him with quiet steps. "He died naturally…"
Henry kept staring at his brother, as though observing a small fracture that might widen one day. He swallowed his words after a long silence, then muttered as he gently pulled Kayden with him toward the exit.
"Kayden… whatever you say may very well be true. I believe everything you say. But it isn't wise to speak your thoughts out loud here—not here, at least. Still… I will always support you."
On their way back home, Henry's seriousness eased slightly, his voice growing calmer.
"They told me you were the one who killed him. They said it was a clean kill… Father's training wasn't wasted. He truly taught us a great deal."
Kayden lowered his head for a moment, then exhaled. It wasn't a sigh of sorrow—it was closer to a release, an attempt to push something heavy out of his chest.
"I wasn't afraid of killing him. I was afraid of Adam… he shot at me three times."
"He's insane," Henry muttered, bitterness caught in his throat. "When I took his papers a few days ago, I didn't understand much. His thoughts are contradictory, and his handwriting is terrible… yet at the same time, frighteningly precise. He's a great teacher—but we must be patient."
Kayden lifted his eyes to the sky and stared at it for a long time, as if it concealed something no one else could see. Henry noticed the look and raised his head as well—but he couldn't understand what Kayden was searching for up there.
"Time is accelerating," Kayden said, his voice deep.
Henry looked at him in surprise but remained silent, allowing the words to linger between them.
Henry sighed, then spoke cautiously.
"If time is accelerating, there may be an unnatural reason… but day and night still move normally. The day is divided into twenty-four hours as it should be… yet something is not normal."
Kayden smiled faintly as he listened.
"In fact, time passes very quickly at night… and at noon, it has a different rhythm. That's what I've noticed. I feel like time is stealing something from us… little by little."
Whenever Henry spoke, Kayden found himself unable to form a proper reply. His smile faded without him realizing it.
Kayden sighed bitterly, his voice quieter than usual, weighted by thought.
"You're right… let's go home, scholar. After that, I'll help you decipher Adam. You know, they say people with terrible handwriting think so fast that their hands can't keep up."
Henry smiled for the first time in a long while—though it was a small smile.
"I didn't know that. It seems you read a lot… or perhaps you've become a philosopher."
He quickened his pace toward the house, and Kayden followed quietly. They climbed together to Henry's room, their silence heavy with unspoken thoughts.
Kayden sat while watching his younger brother move lightly among his papers. He noticed something strange—Henry possessed an energy that did not come from tea or coffee, but from something deeper. A spark embedded in his soul, igniting automatically every morning, illuminating even his smallest movements.
'He has so much energy.'
As for Kayden, he could not remember a single day when he had possessed that kind of burning enthusiasm. Something inside him had always remained still—rigid… like embers whose fire had died before ever fully igniting.
He sat in his brother's room—a room far removed from chaos, despite being filled with everything that reflected a sharp mind and restless curiosity.
The room was located on the second floor of the palace, directly opposite his own. Its walls were paneled with polished dark wood, surrounded by shelves of old books in deep brown tones. Some bore the family seal; others were written by scholars rarely known beyond closed circles.
'It looks a little like my room…' Kayden thought inwardly.
He picked up a single sheet of paper and tried to read it. He frowned. Tried again. Then sighed in frustration, as though the words carried a weight heavier than his ability to comprehend.
"I don't understand anything," he said aloud, lifting the page in front of him as if it were a mirror reflecting his inner inadequacy.
Henry laughed, clearly enjoying the situation.
"Didn't I tell you? His thoughts must be brilliant… but they're written in unbelievably terrible handwriting."
Kayden set the paper aside while Henry stood and began organizing the crowded shelves of his bookcase, filled with leather-bound volumes. He pushed a few tomes back into place and asked curiously,
"So… have you gone back to studying astronomy?"
"Not exactly," Kayden replied quietly, staring at the floor. "I asked Colton to observe the sky for me, but I haven't received the results yet. I just feel like time is accelerating in an unsettling way."
Once again, Kayden found himself speaking about acceleration without intending to.
'I've grown used to life here… but it's becoming strange in a way I can't explain.'
Henry raised an eyebrow with genuine curiosity.
"Time accelerating again? And how exactly did you notice that?"
Kayden rubbed his temple wearily, his voice heavy with concern.
"I can't seem to find enough time to sleep anymore. The day passes as if it's running, and the night doesn't last the way it used to… I feel like time is slipping through my fingers. Like you said… it's starting to steal. As if we're running toward an abyss. Or am I imagining it?"
He added the last part with a joking tone—but this time it failed to draw even the faintest smile from Henry, who simply looked at him quietly, as though the silence of the room itself was thickening their awareness of the speeding hours.
"I don't know," Henry replied seriously, trying to maintain composure. "I'll consult someone I trust."
Kayden nodded hesitantly. "I… really don't know."
Suddenly, his eyes lit up as he examined one of the notes more closely.
"Wait! I understood this sentence… 'Some choose to merge the spiritual essence with their hearts, because the heart is connected to all parts of the body.' …That makes sense in a way."
He stared at the paper again, brows drawn tight.
"But… it's not necessary. The spiritual essence is inherently powerful. There's no need for such theories. Catastrophes may be extremely unintelligent, but… after devouring a certain number of corpses, they begin to develop awareness."
Henry moved quickly and sat beside him, eyes widening in shock.
"That's incredibly inconsistent—he was talking about spiritual essence, and now catastrophes? Wait… accusation? Why did you use that term? Could he mean the catastrophe's control over the body?"
Kayden shrugged, confused. "I don't know… it's strange."
Henry leaned forward eagerly, his voice rising slightly as he shuffled through the papers.
"Read more! Translate what he wrote!"
Henry suddenly remembered how Adam had tossed the journals to him carelessly, then left after taking the payment from Ayrton, as if the matter meant nothing to him.
Kayden remained frozen before the page, his expression caught between confusion and irritation. Question marks multiplied in his mind like thorns.
'What did he write here? What does any of this mean?'
"I can't understand anymore…" Kayden muttered slowly, his voice heavy and subdued.
Half an hour passed fruitlessly. Neither of them managed to decipher anything further until Henry found a sheet folded several times, slightly worn at the edges. He handed it to Kayden, who unfolded it carefully and read in a low voice:
"Dated January 4th
To Mr. Adam,
Today, a subordinate died who was close to reaching the stage of integration. However, before his death, he extracted his spiritual essence and forced his pet to swallow it.
We monitored the matter carefully, and on the seventh day after his death, the animal could not bear the burden and died.
I recorded everything for you. When will you return? Did Ayrton truly deceive you?
Everyone is waiting for you. Bring Ayrton.
— William"
Kayden remained silent, his eyes scanning the words again, as though each line weighed heavier on his mind than the one before it. Henry sat beside him, listening in silence, immersed in a mixture of curiosity and unease.
A moment of silence lingered after the reading before Kayden rubbed his eyes in confusion and muttered,
"Is he… part of a society of madmen? Is he conducting experiments on animals?"
Henry let out a short laugh, then spoke in a tone that was half joking, half thoughtful.
"This feels like a twisted scientific gathering… that poor animal. I doubt it even understood what was happening."
Then he looked at Caden, a hint of hesitation in his voice.
"Should we return these papers?"
Kayden thought for a moment, then gave a sly smile.
"Morally? Yes. But rationally? This is a treasure, Henry. Don't waste it."
After a pause, Caden turned toward him again, his voice low but weighted with meaning.
"You seem to handle the instinct to kill rather well."
Henry lifted his head from the papers and offered a faint smile, free of mockery—more like a quiet acceptance of an old truth rooted deep within him.
"That's true… Do you remember how Father taught us?"
Kayden nodded slowly, as if the memory had risen from the dust of his mind.
"I remember…"
Henry stopped arranging the papers and looked at him for a moment before speaking more seriously.
"But Caden… that wasn't your first time."
Kayden froze in place, as if something unseen had gripped his chest. He tried to remember, but the memory felt distant and fractured. His fingers intertwined as he struggled to recall.
Is my memory betraying me now? he wondered inwardly, while the life briefly faded from his face.
Henry continued after a pause, his voice low but sharp enough to reach his brother's heart.
"We were children… Someone tried to break into the house that day. Later, Father told us it was just business trouble. But it reached us… it reached the children."
Kayden sat quietly, as though his body had surrendered to the weight of the memory, his eyes fixed on the floor in heavy silence. Then he whispered,
"I remember… A man thought the family only had one child… but he grabbed me."
Henry replied calmly, his voice steady as though experience had hardened him since childhood.
"I was playing in Father's office, messing around like I always did. Then I heard screaming and things breaking. I searched a bit and found Father's gun… I took it and shot the man. Luckily… I hit him. I'm quite a good marksman."
Kayden turned to him, his features touched by a shadow of a smile that never fully formed—a fleeting attempt to hold himself together amid the flood of memory and shock.
"But you shot me too… and the furniture. You were crying like a mouse with its tail on fire."
Henry let out a short laugh, looking away as if trying to lighten the heaviness of the moment.
"I didn't mean to hit your shoulder that day… I swear I was shaking."
Kayden fell silent for a moment, then raised a finger toward his brother, his voice sharp and clear.
"But you… you're the one who killed him."