Doctors were taking much longer time before they allowed Elias to leave the hospital.
Not that his body was in bad shape, physically he was all right. Some internal shock, a few bruises, dehydration and exhaustion. Everything else was the actual problem. The long questionnaires. The recurring psychological assessments.
The doctorly glances which were shared with each other whenever doctors believed Elias was not listening. They did not say this directly, but the message was obvious.
This boy tried to die once. He might try again.
So they kept him.
For observation.
For assessment.
For safety.
Elias received it all, with the same expressionless composure, which causes him to reply when told to reply, nod when told to nod, never to dispute.
They might inquire about his feelings, his family, his plans, but he answered him concisely, coldly, and vaguely, so vaguely that it vexed them even more than a single word of weeping.
On the fourth day, one of the senior doctors finally sighed and closed the file.
"We are going to release you" said he, rubbing his temples. "However, you will have to come back to make follow-up checks. Psychological counseling is obligatory. Don't miss it."
Elias nodded.
"You must not be left long alone, you see", said the doctor.
"Nobody to watch over me", Elias answered to himself.
The doctor paused. "…I know."
This was the reason why he frowned deeper.
By the time Elias was able to walk out of the ward and had a skinny plastic bag in his hand pinned to his wrist, containing his belongings, the hallway was colder than ever.
Too quiet.
Too… wrong.
He rested against the door-frame, trying to bring himself into balance, and that was when he caught sight of it.
There was something crawling on the hospital floor, black.
Not crawling—scooting.
Initially Elias believed that it was a shadow caused by the fluorescent lights. Then it came closer on and the form was more distinct. It was a woman. Or something that was like one. There were long, twisted curls of black hair floating around the floor concealing the majority of her face. Her half upper formed a kind of unnatural angle, and her legs propelled her in short jerking movements, bone to bone, rubbing against tile.
Her neck bent too far.
Her limbs bent the wrong way.
Elias stared.
"…Ah," he muttered.
Something, too, was creeping along the surface on the opposite wall and also close to the ceiling. A man, an aged man, at least an outline of one. His eye sockets were pits, and his mouth smooth stretched skin. Down went the insect, crawling downwards, fingers penetrating the wall as though he had never been subjected to the power of gravity.
Elias exhaled slowly.
"I see," he said flatly. "So that's how it is."
This world was supernatural.
And, through some means or other, he was able to see ghosts.
His heart ought to have been bounding wild. his legs ought to have failed him. His breath ought to have choked in his throat. Elias was always afraid of ghosts. He was a fan of horror books and movies, but at a safe distance. Reading and watching was put under control. Predictable.
This wasn't.
This was real.
But nothing could make his face change.
His body reacted, yes. His palms were cold. His spine stiff. His stomach turned him upside down. His face was still straight, and he had strolled on, with a steady stride, and had passed, as though there were no objects in the passage.
He never recognized the crawling woman on the floor.
He never gazed about the ceiling thing.
All he did was pretend that they did not exist.
Pretending will help, he said to himself, *perhaps they will cease to exist, also.
The city welcomed him in the outside with noise, color, and life.
And death.
Ghosts were everywhere.
They were right next to bus stops, hanging around people, hanging between vehicles at crossroads. There were those that were so human that they looked like humans at first sight.
Some were turned into melodies that were unrecognizable, their shapes made contorted in anger, hurt or something even worse. Elias got into the bus and sat in the window and looked directly in front of him and saw three translucent figures hanging to the handrails above him with frozen faces in silence screaming.
No one else reacted.
No one else noticed.
The bus moved on.
"So… it's only me," Elias murmured.
He fingered his fingers, which stabilized him and reached out to his phone. A habit. A distraction. Something familiar. The screen was turned on, and the first thing that he looked at without thinking was his bank account.
The number made him pause.
"…One million?"
It wasn't a dream. It wasn't a hallucination. The numbers remained unchanged regardless of the number of times he turned his eyes.
Severance payment.
Compensation.
A clean cut.
It is what the Evan family are saying: *We're over with you.
Elias felt nothing about it. No anger. No bitterness. Nothing more than a heinous platitude, reading a line in the story of someone. After a couple of stops he got out of the bus, purchased new clothes, plain and dark-colored.
Ghosts were all the time in pursuit.
As soon as he entered it the smell changed.
The pressure lifted.
The silence became… clean.
Elias paused in the door and turned his head slowly round to the left and the right.
"…There's nothing here."
No crawling shapes. No lingering figures. No murmurs scraping the fringes of his ears.
His shoulders relaxed in the first time after he had risen in this world.
The house was an old one that was well maintained. Wooden floors. Shelves neatly arranged. An oily odor of incense in the air. Elias laid aside his bag and rolled up his sleeves, and started cleaning, not as he felt inclined to it, but because motion was a way of thinking.
This was the time he discovered the notebook.
A little red book, which was hidden in a drawer.
Rules and Regulations.
He flipped it open.
The contents were… strange. Not business instructions but a guidelines.
The funeral parlor is voided of low and mid-grade spirits.The trench coat in the wardrobe is woven with anti-spiritual fibers. Wear it when leaving the premises.Do not invite spirits inside.Do not answer voices calling your name after midnight.
Elias read on, his brows slowly knitting together.
Ghost classifications. Behavioral patterns. Weaknesses. Notes written in neat but firm handwriting, as if the author expected the reader to need this information.
"This is…" Elias muttered. "A tutorial?"
At the final page, a single line was written.
You share the same name as my character, don't you? Didn't you say you could do better? Then try.
Elias stared at the words for a long time.
His grip tightened.
"…So it's you."
The author.
The one he cursed.
A hollow laugh escaped him.
"Karma," Elias said quietly, staring into the empty parlor. "This is karma."
Leaning back on the table Elias heaved a sigh and glanced the funeral parlor once more. The quiet here was absolute.
No crawling shadows. None of the distorted figures stuck against walls. No murmurs in corners. The out-world seemed to be a vacuum, closed in, as compared with this one which was unnatural and secure.
He bent his eyes low again to the drawer which he had discovered containing the notebook. His fingers were about to withdraw when he drew it open once more, and looked more attentively. It is then that he spotted the box.
It was small. Rectangular. Pitch black.
It was plain wood, untouched, without carvings, without signs, at first sight. But as Elias stretched out to it a chill shivered along his arm, so gentle a sensation that he would have brushed it off had not all he had seen to-day been before him.
"…A present?" he murmured.
The box was heavy for its size.
He picked it off and put it on the table, his movements being very slow and careful. The lid was not stubborn when he opened it, but the instant it opened, a sharp metallic smell came out; blood, iron, ink, incense, all mixed together in something very unpleasant.
Within it were stacked neatly those charms. Dozens of them.
Yellow paper with heavy crimson writings, seals over seals, all this reeking of a slight strain of force which caused Elias to feel a throb in his temples. He was able to know that these were not the kind of charms that are used to prevent bad luck even without knowing what they represented.
These were restraints. A mechanisms to repress something which is not to be discharged easily.
"This is too much of that," Elias said to himself.
There was the umbrella at the very bottom of the box just below the charms and seals. Deep red.
Not the red of the lacquer or paint, but the dark, faded red of the old blood that stains into cloth and is forgotten. The handle was black, smooth, cool to touch, and the ribs of the umbrella were cut with slightly visible lines which resembled veins disturbingly.
Elias choked with his breath at the sight of it. The mood in the room changed.
It wasn't violent. It wasn't aggressive. It was simply… aware.
"So this is it," he said quietly.
The umbrella.
It is the thing that does not exist.
This umbrella did not exist in the world in the original novel. Not that it was not important--but because the protagonist was dead by the time he or she would get to the arc where it was to be uncovered. It was one he had in another brief remark by the author, almost as a passing remark.
Too dangerous. Too pitiful. Not suitable for a boss war.
An EX-ranked item.
One that repelled almost all of them physical blows, spiritual meddling, curses, even fate influences to some degree. But the cost was unbearable. Anybody who used it long enough, lost his head, and ate of the same stuff it fed upon.
Cursed miasma.
Resentment.
Madness.
Elias looked on it, and laughed dryly. "…Of course."
Naturally this would be left behind. Of course this would come into his hands.
"I must not have cursed the writer," he talk to himself. "Look where that got me."
Still, his hand moved.
Slowly. Carefully.
The talismans in the box fluttered a minute or two, as though they were responding, when his fingers had touched the surface of the umbrella. The atmosphere grew dense, and pressure was placed on the shoulders of Elias like the hands of ghosts.
He imagined for a moment that something was breathing.
Then—
A butterfly appeared. Small. Red. Beautiful.
It waved listlessly out of the under of the umbrella, the wings being transparent and delicate and faint in the dim light. It flew round Elias one more time, and landed on him, closing down its wings as though it were going to sleep.
Obedient.
Quiet.
As a kid following an applause.
Elias froze.
He didn't move. Didn't breathe too loudly. The butterfly remained in its position, airy as a thought, motionless except in a slight up and down movement of the wings.
Elias swallowed.
He knew what it was.
Not metaphorically. Not vaguely.
He knew.
These butterflies were fed on curses.
On miasma.
On retribution so heavy it stunk the world.
Their creatures were not tender ones. They were not companions. They were collectors, consumers, which only splintered horrors into bits and transported them back home to prison.
And the prisoners were the umbrella.
Those who hold this thing in their hands become insane, said Elias, half mumbling to the butterfly. "You know that, right?"
The butterfly made no reply.
It simply stayed.
Elias waited.
Nothing happened.
No voices. No visions. No madness crawling in his brain.
"…Huh."
He frowned slightly.
Was this what they said was the privilege of a transmigrator?
This sounded ridiculous, yet the proof lay close by. The umbrella responded to him, but did not swallow him. The butterfly sat on his finger, but failed to attempt to creep into his brain.
The umbrella was picked up very carefully.
The instant he did, the temperature in the room cooled down by several degrees. Shadows were unnaturally stretching down the walls, and a moment there was something look at at him everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
Then it passed.
He exhaled shakily.
"Thank god," he muttered. "I'm still sane."
No, he was not going to turn out a hero of some kind.
It was not because he wanted to fight the monster or purge the world or take responsibility.
He just… didn't want to die.