Chapter 154 Volume III - Epilogue
Sometime after I left the academy and Aiden, when I finally arrived in front of the hospital, I realized that my whole body was shaking.
Am I nervous? Yeah... I definitely am. I'm even... a little excited.
I want to run to my mom's room, I want to hug her, I want to show her the plant and shout 'You'll be fine'.
I'm going to be calm though, everything has to be fine and in order. Today should be so wonderful that I shouldn't ruin this moment with unnecessary excitement.
I took a deep breath, tapped my cheeks once or twice with my hands, and calmly entered the hospital.
When I entered the hospital, everything I had just been thinking about suddenly went out of my head. I felt as if... I had suddenly become someone else.
Calmness? Ruining the moment?
Hahah... When will I ever be this happy again? Shouldn't I just enjoy the moment for once?
Spending a week with Aiden seems to have made me start thinking like him... but I'm not going to complain about that.
I would normally go to the reception to inform them about the visit, but I didn't care this time.
Ignoring the reception desk, I went up the stairs, each step making me more and more insensitive to my surroundings and thinking of nothing but my mother's beautiful face until I was in front of her room.
When I got to the door, I paused. There was a feeling inside me that I couldn't make sense of, a feeling I hadn't tried to feel for a long time...
I took another deep breath, took the dimension button containing the plant that would be my mother's medicine out of my pocket, broke it, took the plant in my hand, and put a wide smile on my face that felt real for the first time in a long time.
I knocked on the door. Then started to wait.
My body trembled even more. My excitement enveloped my whole body and I felt as if the world had stopped.
Seconds passed, but I waited.
Sounds disappeared from my world, I focused only on the door in front of me and the sound that would follow.
I kept waiting.
But, even after a minute... there was no answer.
I paused for a moment.
Is she asleep?
I knocked again.
My mother had always taught me to knock before entering a place and to enter when I got a confirmation. If I didn't get an answer, I could go in after the second knock to check.
Again, there was no response.
"Mom? Are you asleep?"
I knocked even harder this time, but I didn't wait for a response this time. I opened the door and went in.
"Mom-"
I stopped.
No, I didn't stop. I just... stood perfectly still.
My mother was in bed, really asleep.
I raised my hands, but my muscles refused to let them up.
"M- Mom?"
My voice trembled. The hand I had raised, the hand that was reaching for my mother, freed itself and just hung there.
Just now I felt as if the world had frozen, now... it felt as if the whole world was closing in on me. Just now I felt as if I couldn't hear all the voices, now the voices were blurred together.
My mom had a look on her face that I had never seen before. One of her hands was hanging out of the bed and the other was on her stomach.
There was a red stain on the sheet under her hand.
The world stopped coming at me, the sounds stopped making sense.
My whole body trembled again, but this time not from excitement.
Dream...
It must be a dream. No... it must be a nightmare.
I put a smile on my face and tried to take a short step toward her.
I failed, stumbled, and fell to the ground. The plant that was to be my mother's medicine also fell to the ground, but I didn't care.
"Mom...?"
I got up and walked to her again.
The world didn't spin, voices didn't blend, time didn't stop.
"M... Mom?"
I walked up to her and took her dangling hand. It was cold, pale.
My mana began to recede, my skill activated, and I examined my mother.
A single word appeared in my mind. A word I didn't want to hear, a word I didn't want to see.
"Ahahah..."
I smiled. I laughed sincerely.
Nightmare. It has to be...
And yet the world, time, voices... Everything continued to move normally, as it should, as it does in reality.
"Ahahah... It's funny, even my skill is telling me nonsense... Mom? You hear me, right?"
A breeze from the window hit my face and I looked outside.
Birds kept flying. People kept walking. The clouds kept moving. The city, kept on living.
"Pfft... Ahahahahah!"
I wiped my teary eyes with the sleeve of my sweater and activated my skill again. I thought about the information I wanted to get, looked at my mother's body and the same word reappeared in my mind.
<<------------------------------
Dead.
------------------------------>>
"Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah!!! Do you see, Mom? Can you believe...? My skill calls you dead, you... YOU!"
Why doesn't the world stop? Why does time keep moving forward?
I'm having a nightmare. But... I didn't know nightmares were so real...
I put my head on my mother's blanket. Tears kept coming out of my eyes, my nose ran, and I just waited. I didn't think anything, I didn't listen to anything, I didn't want to see anything.
I just waited. Detached from the world, denying that this was reality.
And yet, as if mocking me, everything continued to exist as it should, as it normally does.
"Dead... Dead... Dead... Dead... Dead... Dead... Dead... Dead... Dead... Dead... Dead... Dead... Dead..."
I mumbled, I hiccupped, but I didn't lift my head. I tried to raise my arms, but to no avail, I tried to raise them again. Again... again... and again... Until I did what I wanted.
I hugged my mother, her cold and pale body.
The tears in my eyes let themselves go, soaked my mother's blanket and I sobbed again. I sniffled but they kept flowing.
And I waited, just waited.
I waited to wake up, even though I would never wake up.
I waited for my mom to get up, even though she never would.
I waited for a miracle, even though that miracle would never come.
I kept waiting... until I realized there was no point in waiting.
--Volume III: Games in the Dark--
--The End--
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