Missing Link (2)
Abel felt a chill.
Cain's expression as he stood there, unconcerned and soaked by the rain, carried an emotion Abel had never once seen in another person.
Run.
That must have been what the feeling signaled, but Abel forced his fluttering emotions down and gave a strained smile.
"Is something wrong? Why do you look like that?"
"Abel."
Cain hadn't acted on anything yet, but simply saying his brother's name sent a shiver through him.
'How free are we, really?'
If the god was indifferent anyway, what difference would it make to act on a thought?
'I can't.'
In that sudden insight, Cain found a single brake.
'Killing a sibling—that's wrong.'
So wrong that it seemed to bind even the limitless freedom the god had laid out.
"Abel, I—"
Just as Cain opened his mouth, a sound came from the bedroom.
"Who's there?"
When Rululwa stepped out of the bedroom, Abel turned to Cain with an awkward smile.
"I'm scared because of the thunder… ugh!"
Even now, after so much time, Cain could not remember what happened in the next instant.
For a blink the world went pale. When Abel came to himself, a knife was buried in his chest.
The first murder.
Abel could not understand what had happened to him.
"...Why?"
When the large body thudded down, Rululwa blinked and stood frozen, trying to make sense of it.
'What's going on?'
Why had Cain stabbed Abel?
'Why isn't he breathing? Is he dead? Like the animals, like the ones we eat… is he really dead?'
The aftershock of raw emotion, unprocessed and vast, pierced her lungs.
"Ahhh!"
Rululwa collapsed, helpless, and Cain stared at his brother's body as it cooled.
'I killed him.'
Thoughts crashed in.
There were so many he could have spent his whole life on them and still not finish.
'Rululwa is mine now.'
Cain forced himself to turn away from that truth and focus on his original intent.
"Rululwa."
Even as Cain approached, she could not bring herself to blame anyone.
That is what firsts do.
Even when something has actually happened, you first doubt the reality rather than the result.
"Abel is gone now. He's disappeared from this world. It's just you and me left."
"Brother—"
Rululwa was bewildered.
She had never labeled anything as bad or evil, so Cain's words carried a perverse logic.
"Come here."
But when she walked toward the bedroom led by Cain's hand, she made up her mind.
'I love Abel.'
Even if she had to spend her life with Cain, that would never change.
"No. No, brother! I can't be your wife!"
"That's not true."
There were only about sixty siblings at most; for a newly begun humanity, choices were scarce.
"It's already done. Abel can't be brought back. Now you will be my mate."
Animal desire made his head feel like it would burst.
For a moment he seemed to lose half his reason and give himself to that urge.
But when she let out that plaintive cry, everything snapped into focus for Cain.
"Rululwa."
The look she gave the man who had killed Abel—
'I, I…'
It held a loathing so pure it seemed capable of killing a soul without steel.
'What have I done?'
Cain recoiled from his sister as if he'd touched something white-hot.
"No, no, it's not like that."
He told himself it had happened simply because it could. That was all.
"Rululwa, please… don't look at me like that."
"Waaaaa!"
Covering his head, Cain burst from the room and slipped in the blood on the floor.
"Ughhhh!"
Abel's fixed eyes stared up at him.
"No—!"
Thunder and lightning tore across the sky as Cain barreled out the door.
Crash!
The rain drenched him in an instant, feeling to him like Abel's blood.
Crash!
"No!"
Cain couldn't see ahead. Everything terrified him; he only wished time would stop.
As if pursued from behind, he pounded on Lilise's door.
"Mother! Mother!"
In the end, there was only one person he could cling to.
"Who is it?" Lilise looked Cain over with a stare that made him feel heavier than the rain.
The troubling blood on his chest.
"Mother."
Cain choked on the words.
"I killed someone."
Lilise savored the confession with a composed face, then gripped his wrist.
"Come in first."
Meanwhile, in Abel's house after Cain fled, Rululwa's sobs echoed in the rooms.
"Abel, Abel."
Only now did she realize something that must never have happened had happened.
"Ahhhhh!"
Rululwa clung to Abel's corpse and wailed.
"No! You can't leave like this…!"
Shock hollowed her mind; her pupils rolled up and the whites showed.
"Uh, uh?"
At that moment a door creaked open.
A silhouette taller than a man filled the doorway and Rululwa's focus returned.
"Fa—"
Lightning cleared the darkness.
"Father." "Drink this."
Lilise handed Cain a warm cup of tea.
"Thank you."
He wiped the water off with a towel, perched on the bed's edge, and sipped.
"Haah."
His hands still trembled, but simply being in his mother's home was a comfort.
He had never actually come here before. Whatever Lilise did in this house, the children had accepted as natural.
"What happened?"
Cain answered Lilise honestly—about the jealousy toward Abel, his expectation that Rululwa would come to him if Abel were gone, and the flash of action.
"I thought it would be fine." Cain wiped his eyes.
"If it could be done that way, then it was okay. Mother, what should I do now?"
Lilise felt sorrow.
She understood more than anyone the hunger to possess the one you love.
"Come here."
When Lilise opened her arms, Cain fell into them with a face full of despair.
Her pupils trembled at the force of it.
"It's been so long since I've felt someone's warmth."
"It's okay, my son. Mother is here. I will protect you, alright?"
Cain realized.
"If one person supports you, you can live again."
"Ha."
Lilise made a low sound and stroked Cain's chest.
It was a pull she could not resist.
There would have been endless excuses if she wanted to make them, but in truth there was none.
Two bodies, surrendered to unbearable spasms, gradually lost what little reason they had left.
Cain had nowhere else to cling to; the mixture of murder and forbidden lust had him frenzied.
That was probably why.
'I'm mad.'
Lilise fought desperately to clear her head.
'Stop now. I can stop. Cain will listen to me.'
Her lips parted.
"Now, this—"
But at that moment Lilise glimpsed a crystallization of desire, as if a memory of longing had congealed.
'A serpent.'
The most beautiful serpent in the world seemed to whisper.
Take me.
"O—oooh."
A deep, suppressed hunger welled up like a volcano; she felt compelled to seize it.
'I will have him!'
She clung to the solid body and gave herself over.
Lilise's screams filled the room.
"Ahhhh!"
A pleasure beyond reason poured into the other world.
"Covet! Steal! Kill!"
Inside the whirl of demonic magic that crossed restraint's border, the two of them suddenly understood—
'Sin.'
This was sin.
Fear and shame flooded their bodies, but the pleasure only intensified and swept through them.
'We touched the forbidden fruit.'
Good and evil.
For the first time since humanity's birth, a line had been drawn between right and wrong.
"Lilise!"
When Adam shouted, Cain was struck like lightning and toppled from the bed.
"Ah, father."
Even Lilise, lascivious though she might be, could not bear the shame and yanked the blanket over herself.
"Wh-what are you doing here—"
Adam's eyes flashed with the light of the Gaiaen.
"Have you finally become beasts? Have you thrown away even the last chance to reach heaven?"
Lilise glared viciously.
"You're always thinking of heaven! Do you think Gehfin will call if the Gaiaen prosper? It's over! I do not exist merely to bear children!"
"Oooooh!"
Light poured from Adam's eyes like a waterfall.
'Forgive me.'
They had failed Gehfin's will.
With the last rule of the Gaiaen broken, Ultima could no longer remain.
"We have made sin!"
Adam strode past Cain in a single step, seized Lilise by the throat and crushed.
"Ugh!"
When her neck went limp, Cain sank down, legs trembling.
"Ah, father."
Adam looked down at him.
"...Leave."
Who could he blame?
All the brothers of this land were the product of what had happened between Adam and Lilise.
"I too shall bear this sin."
Under Ultima, whatever you hunted or whomever you took to bed was right—until now.
'Murder and incest.'
There were now acts that must not be done, relations that must not be formed.
Good and evil had been defined.
"We are no longer perfectly righteous. Bound to cycles of feeding and breeding, we will commit endless sins."
Adam said.
"No one can escape this root cause."
They called it original sin.
After Adam left Eden, Cain lay face down on the floor, hands over his head.
"Wha—aaah! Why! Why!"
Cain had only tilled the earth while Abel tended the sheep; that had been their life.
"Why me! Why Abel!"
What could he do about a cold world, about laws that had chosen Abel over him?
"Ugh—"
How long did he howl?
When the storm finally eased and dawn began, Cain snapped his head up.
'I have to leave.'
He could not bear to face his brothers.
'But where to?'
The world was nothing but brothers, and Cain realized there was nowhere to hide.
It felt as if the whole world judged him; as if someone would come and kill him.
The first twinge of guilt.
Before full daylight, Cain left Eden and wandered the world without aim.
He found no freedom; his body grew gaunt but his mind kept turning.
'Why did I do it?'
If death could fix it, he would gladly die then.
Dry tears ran down his face.
'I should have held back. I had dozens, no—hundreds of chances. Why did I—'
Cain dropped to his knees.
"Stop it. Let me go. I can't bear this another moment! Stop!"
Caught in the noose of guilt, he felt himself crack.
"What did I do wrong! Abel could have killed me! Anyone could! That doesn't make it evil!"
He sobbed anew.
"O god, please let me live. If only that hadn't happened, if only I hadn't done that…."
A dense mist rolled up before his eyes and a building of gold took shape.
Cain stared as if entranced.
Maybe because he was losing his mind, it felt as if the building itself spoke.
Come. No one will be able to blame you.
It was the Hall of Evil—Melkidu.