Aurex didn't dwell on what Nerrot said. He knew himself well enough not to let someone else's opinion shake him. Still, the comment lingered, not because it hurt, but because it made him wonder. Maybe there was a reason he felt so detached. After all, back in his own town, he was one of the only people who seemed truly awake.
Aurex made a quiet decision to distance himself from Nerrot. There was something about him, too familiar, too odd, that felt like a mirror he didn't want to face just yet.
So Aurex turned his focus elsewhere. If he wanted answers, they wouldn't come from vague conversations. He needed to understand this town, uncover what was hidden beneath its routines and madness. The people. The cycle. The fence. Everything.
Aurex made an effort to talk to the townspeople, hoping to find someone who could help him piece things together. But every time he brought up the black fence, their reactions shifted. Faces paled, eyes darted away, and their voices grew uneasy.
He even asked one of them to come with him, just to stand near it, but they backed off immediately, refusing without explanation. It wasn't just discomfort. It was fear. Deep, bone-level fear. Whatever that fence was, it wasn't just a barrier, it was a boundary no one dared test.
Aurex decided to continue from yesterday. He decided yesterday to count the houses that are in this town. On one point, he will talk to more people, and on the other point, he will know more about this place. He spent the whole day doing that, and indeed, he did find something very odd. The weird thing that he discovered was that the number of people didn't match the number of houses. And a thought came to him, they fight to the death every day, but if someone was left alive, he will be gone for good. So maybe, every day, some people didn't manage to die at a specific time, so they disappeared. And from the looks of it, there is a lot of people who disappeared.
It was sunset; they were probably gathered now and killing each other. Aurex didn't want to go.
Aurex didn't bother heading back out. Instead, he turned his thoughts inward and settled on a grim plan: to kill himself.
He wrestled with the idea for a long time, thinking this might be the easiest way to avoid Nerrot following him and everything else dragging him down. If he could end it on his own terms, maybe he could escape the cycle, or at least find some control in this chaotic town.
Aurex gripped the knife, ready to end it quickly. But just then, a sudden movement caught his eye, someone watching from the second floor of a nearby house. It was the father he'd seen around the town these past two days.
Without warning, the man leapt down, and a fight erupted. Aurex swung his knife to scare him off, but the man was wild, almost reckless. Despite the knife's presence, he lunged straight at Aurex, making it easy for Aurex to kill him in self-defense. Surprised by the sudden attack, Aurex wasted no time after, it was his moment. Without hesitation, he used the knife on himself, hoping this time to break free from it all.
He killed himself, and darkness swallowed everything. Yet, even in that void that darkness, Aurex didn't fully grasp what had just happened, what it truly meant. The line between life and death here was blurred, and the rules of this place were far from clear.