C89: Please, help me!

“Hello.”

The voice was unmistakably Mary’s, carrying the same innocent lilt he had heard countless times before.

And yet, for some reason, a freezing dread crawled up Arnold’s spine, as if something cold and slick had wrapped around his heart and squeezed.

‘H… huh?’

His thoughts stumbled, refusing to line up.

‘Run. Run. Run. Run. Run. Run. Run. Run. Run. Run. Run. Run. Run. Run. Run. Run.’

‘I need to run!’

Every instinct screamed that something was wrong.

Yet, his body lagged behind, trapped between disbelief and fear.

“STUPID HEAD! GET BACK!”

Before Arnold could even process the words, someone grabbed the back of his coat and yanked him violently backward!

His balance shattered, boots skidding across damp leaves as he was dragged away from the figure ahead.

Arnold knew this voice; it was Hazel.

“BARRIER!”

The girl in white leapt in front of him in a single fluid motion and thrust her hand forward. Her molten-gold eyes blazed, burning brighter than before.

*Klang*

Immediately, a harsh, high-pitched sound rang out. Something struck something else, hard enough to rattle the air itself.

Arnold couldn’t see it. His Field Vision still showed nothing.

A spark burst out of thin air directly in front of Hazel.

From the point her hand was aimed at, an ethereal crack, like spider webs forming on glass, could be seen shimmering in the space.

‘That!’

Finally, he understood this ability. To create an invisible barrier. This was the same ability that had stopped Lumber’s fist earlier this noon!

Yet…

What kind of attack could crack it like that?

What sort of force could fracture a barrier strong enough to halt a Warrior-path Stagefarer?

“RUN!” Hazel’s shout tore him out of his spiraling thoughts. Her voice was stripped of the smugness and sharp-edged arrogance he associated with her. Now, it was only raw, urgent,...

And afraid.

“!”

She instantly turned, grabbed his remaining arm and bolted, dragging him with her—

“Friend!”

Yet, before they could even take a step—

Hazel snapped her head to the side, at the empty part of the forest.

Her eyes widened, pupils shrinking.

“SHIE—”

*Crackkkk!*

*Pop.*

“...”

Her head burst apart.

Like a balloon. Blood sprayed outward in a violent arc.

Her body collapsed to the ground.

“!”

Blood splattered across Arnold’s face, warm and wet, clinging to his skin.

He felt something soft strike his cheek and slide down. Sticky texture dripping onto his lips.

“...”

Arnold froze. His mind went blank.

He looked down slowly.

Hazel’s body lay at his feet, her hand still tightly gripping his wrist. The warmth was still there. He could feel her fingers locked in a reflex that death hadn’t yet released.

Her once-pristine white attire was smeared with mud and soaked crimson, the fabric sticking to the forest floor. Blood poured from where her neck should have been.

There was no sign of her head anywhere.

Only a trace of raw meat, still spasming around the ragged stump of her neck.

‘S… shit.’

He couldn’t move.

‘Shit shit shit shit shit shit—-!’

His legs refused to respond! His arms felt like lead, numb and useless!

‘Move!’

With trembling effort, Arnold forced his head upward! His body convulsed with an overwhelming sense of dread, every nerve screaming in terror.

‘Dammit!’

In front of him, Mary stood.

The girl calmly reached into her basket, lifted out a small flower, and held it delicately between her fingers.

She tilted her head, smiled sweetly.

A beatific, innocent expression on her face.

“Blossom?”

Izzy’s connection with Arnold was lost.

—

“!”

Izzy’s vision snapped back inside the mansion, to her main body, the portrait. The girl in the painting seemed to swirl in distress, reflecting her internal alarm!

‘What!’ she shouted in alarm, her thoughts splintering.

‘!’ Isa also jolted with her. The young mind hadn’t been connected when Arnold went into the forest.

‘What happened, Izzy?’

‘...’

The young mind shot into the Theatre of Memory and commanded it to replay the most recent events from Arnold’s perspective. The massive theatre flared to life, and she froze, hands clamping over her mouth.

She gasped in horror as the gruesome scene unfolded!

‘Izzy!’

Izzy tapped her chin restlessly, fingers drumming as Isa buzzed around her head.

“What is going on?’

She did not understand.

Everything had unfolded too fast, far too fast to make sense of.

“She’s dead.” Izzy grimaced. Something clenched painfully in her chest, a strange, unfamiliar ache.

“Ah.”

Isa flew over and wrapped her arm around her.

‘...’

Hazel was dead. She had died in front of Arnold’s eyes, right in front of her.

Izzy had helplessly watched her die.

‘It’s not your fault, Izzy.’

Izzy had thought Hazel wouldn’t even bat an eye if Arnold died, judging from her sharp tongue and hostile demeanor before going into the forest, from the way she carried herself, her generally dismissive attitude toward Arnold.

Though they hadn’t interacted much, their exchanges had been brief and often tense, Izzy felt an unexpected grief.

The inspector girl deserved a far better fate than this.

She was strong, capable, and despite her aggressive demeanor, held a strange sense of duty.

She did not deserve to die.

After all, she was the one who had protected Arnold, twice. First, from Lumber’s furious fist, and second, from whatever unseen horror lurked in the forest.

‘...’

Despite her abrasive tone and aggressive posture, Hazel was actually soft inside.

‘May you rest in eternal peace,’ Izzy offered a silent prayer for her soul to go to heaven, to find some semblance of peace beyond this brutal world.

‘…’ Isa also went still, closing her eyes.

‘…’

But grief could not drown out the questions.

What had killed her?

Izzy remembered Arnold’s arm abruptly disappeared when he took Mary. And Hazel's head had suddenly and unexpectedly exploded while protecting Arnold.

There was no feedback from Arnold’s senses, only the visible barrier cracking, and then the sound of something like metal breaking.

‘Is it too fast for my eyes to follow?’ Izzy thought back to the bright, cheerful girl she had found this afternoon.

What was wrong with Mary?

That kid. Even now, Izzy still did not understand.

She couldn’t see anything overtly wrong with her.

On the contrary, in Izzy’s eyes, she appeared normal.

‘What are your thoughts about it?’ Izzy asked in their shared mind.

‘Mary is wrong!’

‘? What is wrong with her?’

Isa pointed at the small figure of Mary standing under the canopy in the Theatre, her expression unusually serious.

‘Isa doesn’t know. But Isa knows she’s wrong!’

‘...’

Izzy sighed. That didn't help at all.

They had lost the vessel Arnold. Only Jack and Arriet remained.

However, Arriet was literally crippled because of her womanly week, in no state to be forced into action.

The girl was going through a rough day, so Izzy did not make her do anything more strenuous than simply exist.

Isa was piloting her, albeit just barely concentrating on her, trying to keep the irritation away from Isa’s.

They couldn’t cut off the sense for a vessel entirely, but they could maintain a weak, thin thread of link to reduce the feeling accompanying that vessel.

That left only Jack.

Izzy shifted her attention to the basement. Jack’s body sprawled lazily among the prison shadows.

The brown-haired man stirred, slick green eyes opening slowly as consciousness returned.

She had left him there, made him sleep and lay around the prison cells, hidden from casual view. If one might say, he was just a lazy bum doing nothing.

He might be the luckiest bastard in the world, being fed and kept by Izzy, of all beings.

‘I’ve become a sugar daddy all of a sudden.’ Izzy muttered dryly.

‘Mom!’

‘It’s dad.’

Whatever. Izzy ignored it.

Instead, she controlled Jack and walked out of the basement.

At the same time, they took control of birds circling the mansion grounds, scouting the perimeter for any sign of approaching danger.

In the meantime, Izzy dove into their mindscape and stopped before the black monument at the center of the plaza.

She raised her hand, and white lines of text began to appear as she recorded what had occurred.

“Firstly, there is something off about that priest.”

Father Victor. That guy was just too sneaky and suspicious. She suspected he might know something, but at the same time, she couldn’t pin down exactly what he was hiding.

His composure after hearing about Mary and Otis, followed by his retreat to a secret passage, was too convenient.

“An underground study beneath the church.”

She added another line beneath it.

“The method of entry: rotate the long staff held by the White Monarch statue.”

A secret room concealed beneath a place of worship. The irony.

“And the colony of bats on the ceiling.”

A whole nest of bats, clinging upside down in the darkness, hidden beneath the church for reasons unknown. Izzy guessed that it was to fend off intruders.

‘Why bats?’ she wondered.

‘Cool factor?’

‘No, it shouldn’t be.’

Wasn’t he a church priest? Why would he even want a colony of bats guarding his secret for a ‘cooler’ aesthetic? Izzy dismissed Isa’s childish idea.

“And the inspectors’ power.”

She paused there, thinking back to Hazel.

Hazel’s ability seemed distinctly different from Gregory’s.

‘A different path?’

Hazel could form an invisible barrier from a distance, one strong enough to stop Lumber’s fist, and later, to intercept whatever unseen force attacked Arnold.

If Izzy had to categorize them, Gregory was clearly the mind of the group, while Hazel was the brawn.

Also…

“The forest is extremely, extremely dangerous.”

Izzy had expected it to be dangerous, but she hadn’t expected it to be that dangerous! To destroy a barrier of an Inspector, one that had even stopped Lumber, a Warrior Path Stagefarer, was truly formidable.

That was dangerous alright.

And Mary—

Izzy hesitated, her gaze lingering on the earlier line she had written.

“Don’t trust Mary.”

‘…’

She erased it.

After a moment of thought, she rewrote it.

“Be careful of Mary.”

‘...’

She stepped back, exhaled—

“HELP!”

“?”

“PLEASE, HELP ME!”

All of a sudden, Izzy heard a desperate cry echoing through the trees!

Her attention snapped away from the monument.

In the real world, through Field Vision, she saw a figure running through the forest toward the mansion gate.

‘Huh?’

The small figure stumbled, tripping over roots and uneven ground, but she forced herself back up immediately. Blood trickled down her scraped knee, yet she ignored it entirely and kept running.

“Please, somebody, help!”

Her voice cracked, raw with fear.

Her face was smeared with dirt and tears, hair disheveled, breath ragged as she slammed her fists against the gate.

*Bang. Bang. Bang!*

“Mary?”

It was Mary.

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