[Warning: This material contains references to suicide and self-harm. If you or someone you care about is struggling, know that help is available. Contact a suicide prevention hotline to speak with someone who can provide support.]
☪︎ ִ ࣪𖤐 𐦍 ☾𖤓 ☪︎ ִ ࣪𖤐 𐦍 ☾𖤓
“Fa, Father…?”
Carlothian forced out his voice, but it was so faint that it couldn’t reach anyone.
“H, Honey…….?”
His mother, Violine, called for her husband, Atrapha. Carlothian raised his gaze to look at his father’s face. And there, he noticed a sinister glint emanating from his father’s black pupils.
His pupils were dilated, and the light emanating from them was uncanny. The large, shining full moon passed through the terrace, illuminating the room inside.
“Ple, please stop, Father…”
Carlothian reached out his hand. His fingertips trembled. Then his mother called out to him.
“Carlo…thian…”
She spoke with a strained voice, barely able to make a sound.
“Run…….”
Young Carlothian barely managed to move his stiffened limbs and crawled out of bed.
He tried to somehow get out of the room and alert someone, but he couldn’t muster the strength in his legs.
He crawled across the floor and got under the bed. His mother’s struggling voice was frightening. His father, choking her, was even more terrifying.
He could only cower and tremble under the bed. Pathetically. Foolishly.
He heard his mother’s voice from above.
“Ho, honey…….”
While Carlothian hid under the bed, Violine slowly raised her hand to look at Atrapha, who was choking her.
His eyes were clouded with a dark aura, and they were also flickering with madness. Violine thought something was wrong. Something was wrong with the man she loved.
“Guk, khek…”
The man’s hand around her throat trembled. Whether he had some sanity left or was simply tormented by an unknown madness, veins bulged on his temple.
“It’s not your fault, ah, no…”
Violine tried to comfort the man she loved, even as he was strangling her to death.
If she dies here and her husband returns to his senses, she doesn’t want him to blame himself. She wants him to keep living.
“…….”
“…I love you.” And the last words were muffled in her throat, unable to come out.
Thud.
Carlothian saw his mother’s arms fall under the bed. He clamped his hands over his mouth and struggled to keep from screaming.
His mother was dead. By the hands of the man she loved.
Carlothian’s brain, paralyzed with fear, stopped thinking altogether.
Gasping, young Carlothian breathed heavily as he peered into the room from under the bed.
Creak, thud.
His father’s footsteps descended under the bed. Carlothian moved further inside.
“Cough, ugh…”
It was his father’s voice. Whether crying or moaning, the indistinguishable sound mixed with the air.
He wandered around like a lost beast, restless and eerie.
Thump, thud, thud.
With each slow step of his father’s pacing around the bed, Carlothian felt like his heart would stop.
Time passed, and the night deepened. As the moon tilted and the black sky slowly began to turn purple, dawn approached.
And just like that, the day broke.
Atrapha stopped dead in his tracks and stood dumbfounded, as if looking down at the bed.
Carlothian remained paralyzed with fear, still unable to emerge from under the bed.
“Oh, no…”
Ah, this is crying. His father was crying. Carlothian finally removed his hands from his mouth, thinking that Atrapha had regained his senses.
Thud, thud.
His father’s footsteps moved away. Toward the terrace.
Carlothian slowly crawled out from under the bed and looked at his father. He was opening the door to the terrace.
“F, Father?”
His voice cracked after not being able to breathe properly for so long. At the sound of his voice, Atrapha turned to Carlothian.
The apricot-colored curtains carefully chosen by his mother fluttered in the dawn breeze. Carlothian felt their eyes meet. But then…
“Father!”
Carlothian hit the floor. But it was already too late.
Thud!
With a loud noise, his father’s figure vanished before his eyes, over the terrace railing.
Wide-eyed, Carlothian stood frozen in place for a moment.
Oh, no. No. What just happened? Is this a dream?
Carlothian staggered, unable to control his confused mind. Then, as if denying reality, he went out onto the terrace and grabbed the railing.
What had just fallen? Where did his father go?
He looked down slowly, and then.
“Aaahhh-!”
Stretched out on the ground, his father’s body lay contorted.
He sank to the ground, clutching the floor, trying to process what had just happened.
What about on the bed? There lay his mother, murdered; her throat was strangled.
Carlothian let out a scream and crumpled to the floor, grabbing his head and crying.
The emotions he had been unable to process due to the shock and terror now overwhelmed him.
“Aaah, aaah-!”
At his scream, the sound of someone running approached. Carlothian struggled to push away the hands trying to hold him back.
“Young master! Young master!”
“Good heavens, madam!”
“M,master!”
It was chaos. Carlothian lost his grip on reality and promptly fainted.
That night, to him, was nothing short of hell.
☪︎ ִ ࣪𖤐 𐦍 ☾𖤓 ☪︎ ִ ࣪𖤐 𐦍 ☾𖤓
The tragedy of the Denaves family: the Duke of Denaves, who returned victorious from war, unable to overcome the trauma of the battlefield, murdered his wife and then committed suicide.
Carlothian’s hand in mine continued to shake. I looked at it and realized that he had strangled me too.
‘Come to think of it..’
Just like when his father killed his mother.
For the first time, I felt guilty for him. So much that I hesitated to ask him to kill me.
‘I can’t believe I just remembered that important thing.’
I clamped my mouth shut and bowed my head slightly.
‘…I’m truly sorry.’
Then Carlothian’s face crumpled.
“You…”
“Yes?”
“Why are you apologizing?”
No, showing such obvious signs of being hurt, what is he talking about?
“You weren’t… you weren’t originally like this.”
“…….”
Hmm, how do I explain this? I’m not the Ariadeline you knew. I can’t say it like that. Then I’d be treated like a crazy person.
He might believe it easily since we’re experiencing this regression together, but if I said I’m from another world and this is actually a novel, they’d lock me up in a mental institution, not a temple.
“You don’t know much about me.”
That was all I could say.
Carlothian’s eyes flickered for a moment at my words.
“I’m sorry, cough, for hurting you.”
I had no choice but to tell him.
“But you know, cough, you’ve also looked at me through the lens of your own prejudices, haven’t you?”
You also constrained Ariadeline to the image of a villain.
Carlothian’s eyes widened significantly.
He had never had a proper conversation with her since their arranged marriage.
In his memory, Ariadeline had always been someone who tormented and hurt Dorothea.
She wasn’t the type of person to apologize and get hurt by others.
But when he asked her to go to his mansion, she smiled broadly, excitedly moved her feet inside the carriage, and walked away.
Each scene shook him.
Rustle.
Somewhere, he could hear the sound of thick glass cracking.
The small spots of incontinence soon spread in all directions, shattering into a million pieces.
Through the shattered glass of his prejudices, he saw Ariadelline clearly for the first time.
“…….”
But the words of apology did not easily come out. His stomach churned. Confusion filled him.
In the end, he spit out another word instead of an apology.
“I’ll tell the High Priest that I’ll take you with me. You might face more abuse from that priest if you stay here.”
With that, he left Ariadeline’s room as if fleeing. His steps were quick, giving her no chance to catch him. Carlothian glanced back at her as he left the room. She didn’t look back at him. Only her tousled blonde hair was visible.
Click, thud.
Then the door closed. Carlothian stood in front of the door for a moment before briskly heading towards the High Priest’s room.
His mind was in turmoil. He had just seen another side of the woman he had always thought of as a villain.
‘Please kill me.’
Her expression as she said that sparkled with hope. It was an emotion Carlothian could not understand.
Now, we’ve reached an understanding.
Please kill me, this place fething sucks and your face irritates me, thnx