The air in the attic grew heavy, pressing on Pace's thumping chest.
Poet was looking outside the window, his face lightly illuminated by the multicolored light filtering through the stained glass.
He sighed before turning his head back, calm as a sage. "What are you talking about?"
Pace's eyes narrowed as he pursed his lips, hesitating just for a second—deliberating on his word choice.
"Do you really take me for a fool?"
Poet turned around, leaning against the windowsill. "You really are persistent."
"If it's her you're worried about, don't be. Images created by the virus can't understand anything related to it. To her, our conversation is as good as gibberish." Pace tilted his head toward Elvia, who wore a blank expression.
Poet exhaled, looking upward. "No matter how many times you ask, the answer will be the same."
'He really does think that I'm an idiot,' Pace added in his heart before speaking out in a serious tone.
"That was your voice. The 'cease to exist,' and then that… freak suddenly disappeared. As if it never existed in the first place. Now…" Pace leaned in closer. "You can beat around the bush all you want, but I know for a fact that you're a chain's gate user. That's the only way to explain those 'mysterious' circumstances."
Poet looked to the left, facing away from Pace, clearly at a loss for words.
"How do you even know about the chain's gate? Ugh—this doesn't make any sense. Why does an image know about the chain's gate?"
"An image? Who—me? I'm the image? Eh?" Pace said, his inner voice slipping out.
"Yes, you—ugh, leave it!" Poet paced around the room, angry stomps echoing through the attic.
'Hehe… to think his calm and cool personality was nothing but a mask. Is he trying to create one of those badass stories for the virus? No—off topic.'
Pace leaned back again, closing his eyes as he began to wrap his head around everything that had happened.
'It is quite weird though. Based on the data we had on the virus, it should only affect the brain of the infected individual during the dormant state. But then why is another person in my nightmare? Then again, there's also the possibility that he is still an image, just thinking of himself as a human.'
Deep in thought, Pace moved his arm to his shoulder, applying pressure to the wound.
'No—but that doesn't explain how he remembers the virus. And I know based on previous attempts that images absolutely can't remember anything about the virus or the things related to it. Wait… is he not created by the virus? Could it be that he is also one of the infected?'
'Ugh—there's no point thinking about it. The virus is too mysterious anyway.' Pace concluded his thought, pushing himself up from the ground—
SMACK!
Pace groaned in pain as he fell back onto the floor with a light thud. In front of him stood Elvia, rubbing her forehead and wincing in pain. In one hand she carried a small plastic bottle filled with water, and in the other, a piece of white cloth.
"What were you doing?" Pace asked in a low tone, getting back up to his feet.
"Ouch… what do you think, dumbass?" she said in a coarse tone, flailing the items in her hands. "Did you really have to get up at that one bloody moment? Ugh."
Pace sat in a daze for a while, unable to cope with the sudden tonal whiplash. Coming back to his senses, he looked at Poet. "She's always like that?"
"Huh?" Elvia said, raising her voice. "What do you mean? You got a problem with me, Mr. Roach?"
"Mr. Roach? Seriously? That's the best you could come up with, Miss Divine Ditz?"
"Will the two of you shut up?" Poet's irritated voice bellowed from beside them.
They looked over at him, speaking in perfect unison. "NO!"
Poet looked back, his face contorting in anger as he gave the two a calm, gentle, and horrifying smile.
***
"You didn't need to hit us that hard!" Elvia protested in pain, clutching her head as she curled into a ball on the floor.
"Exactly! I'm injured here, you know." Pace joined in.
Poet cracked his knuckles in response before sighing and looking back out the window. "You told me that images don't understand anything related to the virus. Then what about you? Why do you remember it?"
Pace scratched his ear, wiping his wounds with the clean water. "You already know why."
"So you are also a human…?"
"Precisely."
Poet clutched his head, crouching down onto the floor. "But that doesn't make any sense. Why are two people in the same nightmare? The data logs said the nightmare is crafted based on one's fears and is exclusive to only one person."
"The virus has always been too mysterious to make any sense of. But since you just mentioned data logs—" Pace said, standing up, "it's safe to assume that you're also in the Red Cross Army, right?"
Poet nodded in response, a finger brushing his chin as if deep in thought.
"Well, there's no point racking our brains over it. For now, we need to find a way to escape. Which reminds me—what's your domain again?"
Poet's eyes shot to the left, avoiding Pace's gaze. "Do I really have to answer that?"
"Yes—"
Poet sighed, drooping his head before answering. "It's Truth."
'Truth? Wait a minute—you mean he has the Gate of Silence? If I remember correctly, it allows you to temporarily make anything you say true. So that's how he killed that thing. But this gate belongs to General Rudolf. Something's wrong. Is this another one of the loop's changes? But then what gate does the general have? Ahh—did someone interfere with my loop or something? But who—how?'
"That reminds me—you idiots never told me your names," Elvia suddenly spoke out, standing up from her curled-up state—almost like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon. Only this one had a rather poisonous split personality.
"Mine's Pace."
"I am—"
Before Poet could finish speaking, hasty footsteps echoed through the hall, and within a moment, the door to the attic slammed open with a bang.