* * *

  As they arrived back at the wooden house, El suddenly stopped just before the man opened the door. A brisk current of air blew against the wall, creating a cryptic whisper that brushed against his skin, with only a sliver of the crescent moon visible in the darkness.

  He took a few steps to the side and peered into the dark alleyway between the wooden house and a nearby concrete building. There, a barbed-wire fence blocked the way to the deeper part of the alley, gleaming under the faint yellow light of a lamp attached to a pole, which dimly illuminated the pathway around him.

  "What's up, kid?" the man asked, noticing El's hesitation.

  "Is that...?" El began, turning his head to the man, his voice trembling slightly.

  Placing a hand on El's shoulder, the man explained, "Beyond that fence is what people call the Downtrodden Region. Known by many as the underside."

  "You mean those kids earlier?" El asked, his voice quivering without him realizing it. It was as if he had glimpsed a reflection in the absence of light, piercing through the shadows. Even without the man explaining it clearly, he somehow understood a section of the underlying connotation behind it.

  "Yes… Let's go," the man invited, urging El to follow him.

  After the man closed the door behind them, a mix of uncertainty, confusion, and a cold glimmer of hope settled quietly in El's chest. It felt much like the excuses he had made throughout his life in the village, as he continuously resisted the grip of death itself.

  * * *

  Letting himself fall onto the bed, El let out a sigh. Whether it was heavy or light, he couldn't tell. After a moment of staring at the ceiling, he turned his face toward the window, where the curtain was still ajar.

  And he found… nothing. Only the night remained.

  'What is it that I was sad about? I wonder…'

  His eyebrows knitted together as he closed his eyes.

  After mulling it over again and again, he finally reached an imaginary crossroad in his mind, where it felt as if his consciousness was being pulled by an unseen force to some unknown destination. The path was filled with flashing symbols and shapes—triangles, circles, squares, and unknown alphabets.

  His heart raced, and his ears hummed with overlapping white noise. Images flashed in his head—strings of chaotic pictures flipping, alternating, shifting, and colliding against one another. Myriads of emotions clashed together, accompanied by whispers that buzzed in his ears intermittently.

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  Initially, everything was extremely unclear and vexing. However, suddenly, it all went silent. The images paused into a blurry scene that was hard for El to discern. His heart gradually calmed, but his body was soaked in sweat.

  It wasn't long before he heard a young girl's voice calling out to him, as the indistinct scene in his mind seemed to shift slightly.

  "Hey. What's your name?"

  "You mean me?"

  "Yeah, of course. Who else is here?"

  "Ummm, like you see on my shirt. It was C-013."

  "Kekekek, not that, silly. I mean your name. Your real name?"

  "I… I didn't have one."

  "You didn't have one?"

  "Yes…"

  "Well, sorry about that."

  "It's fine…"

  *Bzzzztttt*

  Once again, white noise filled El's mind. He tightly clenched his fingers, his eyebrows frowning even harder. Eventually, the start of that conversation flowed back again. But this time, it wasn't what El had expected. It was a familiar voice, filled with a breathy, scratchy sound.

  "I hope you die a terrible death. Your bones crushed by the jaws of beasts. Your flesh gnawed by maggots. Your eyeballs rotted while you were still alive. Your blood’s drained by witches. Your skin is peeled by shifters. Your brain sucked by devourers. I curse you... I curse you... I curse you… die, die, die, die, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE!!!!"

  El abruptly opened his eyes, inhaling sharply. Propping himself up to sit on the bed, he gave himself a helpless smile.

  "What did I even expect? It always ends up like this," El stated bitterly, still panting from the mix of emotions, especially considering how he had listened to that grating man's voice cursing him in horrendous anger every single time he tried to dig deeper into his messy memories. The words were always different, but the underlying message was the same: basically, it wanted him to die.

  Another noteworthy detail was that the unpleasant old man's voice, likened to a steel rod scraping repeatedly against the flat surface of a mirror, always succeeded in making his brain feel itchy. He really wanted to rub it, if only that were possible.

  *Knock knock knock*

  Suddenly, knocks reverberated through the room. El subconsciously flinched.

  "Yes?" he asked out loud, trying to sound brave, though he felt a twinge of fear. Whether it was a ghost or not remained to be seen, but El was certain it was the man who had knocked on the door.

  And… there was no reply to El's question.

  * * *

  *Gulp*

  At that moment, El's heart, which had barely managed to escape its flighty state, suddenly restarted itself with a giddy roar, fully awake.

  Sharpening his ears, El caught the sound of wind blowing outside the window, growing stronger by the second. It seems like it’s getting close to rain.

  Bringing his focus back to the matters at hand, El heard the low creaking of heavy footsteps approaching from outside the door, accompanied by the grinding sound of something heavy being dragged across the floorboards.

  *Krrriiieettt… Krrriiieeettt… Krrrriiieetttt…*

  *Ssssaassaaakkk*

  *Thud*

  The noise ended with a heavy object thumping against the ground right in front of his door.

  *Gulp*

  Swallowing hard, a cold sweat timidly covered El's back, caressing him with the realization that something was terribly wrong with what he was facing.

  "El, are you there? Open the door?"

  It was the man's voice, undoubtedly. Yet, for some reason El couldn't quite understand, he sensed something odd about the voice and the presence behind the door.

  It was… eerie.

  Especially today, his ability to vaguely pick up on the emotions of those around him was heightened. So, how was it possible that what he discerned radiating from the other side of the door was nothing like what a human could possibly emit?

  It was filled with… malevolence and ice-cold grudges.

  * * *