The great magician was a child,
Or that's what I saw…
Could I even trust anything here in the Vessels? Anything?
Don't think about it, Nathan. Don't think. Don't think.
"Dear ladies and gentlemen." he said, sounding exactly as I remembered him. "The only rule for tonight is to stay awake, It'll be such a waste to this great show."
What a lovely rule,
What a pleasure, haha.
Agh—
If he said 'stay awake' then somehow we wouldn't stay awake by chance, we have to force ourselves to do… and of course, that didn't sound like an easy task.
"We're doomed."
I couldn't do anything besides taking a deep breath, making sure to calm myself down completely.
Yeah,
What could affect me after all what I witnessed? Halloween party? A boy who could do magic tricks?
I always believed that a huge part of being unaffected becomes of these things was to believe that they can harm you.
Wasn't it always the case?
From the very start till now, the only 'harm' I got was something I did to myself while running or so.
So, for now… all I have to do is to make a barrier. Nothing is real, nothing could be harmful unless I make it this way.
Crazy rule but surely better than just watching and waiting for things to happen to me…
"Take out your tickets, everyone." The magician spoke, the only light on the room was on his face. "just bring it up, up. Look at the numbers on it.".
Four, three, one, on—
The ticket turned to a butterfly even before I continued to read.
Golden-red butterfly that fluttered away before coming to rest on the back of a seat in the middle of the opposite rows.
The magician snapped his fingers afterward, and I found myself sitting there, in the place the butterfly rested on… without even a blink.
"Now we could start, your seats got organized."
Yeah. Everyone else in the stadium got a new seat as well… and somehow the new setting was far more chaotic than the first one. There was no pattern to where humans and anomalies were, the level of randomness was terrified.
"We shall witness the show without any worries then."
"...?"
My body froze, I couldn't even let myself look to my left to see who said that at that level of certainty.
That voice—
I really wanted to vanish.
Out of all the people in this crazy place, The Ethics' Vampire was the one who was sitting beside me.
Agh—
My stomach twisted already.
And why was he just too relaxed as if all of this will be a nice show from now on?
I tried my best to avoid looking at his side when I tried to look for the twins and Adeline. Then when I didn't find them anywhere, I looked to my right to see, and a silent scream burned my heart beside my throat.
What The—
Aaaah.
What in the world is Silas doing here?!
How. When.Why???
Agh—
I was wearing my mask so he couldn't even know who I was.
But still, what's happening?
My brain was about to burn out when I remembered that I mustn't believe whatever I see here.
This maybe a lie.
Yes.
It was a lie…
If he was really here then why seem like 'Silas' not as some kind of crazy being with a disgusting head?
"The show is forward not on my face." That Silas talked to me, then when he looked at me he simply raised an eyebrow. "So you showed up finally? How dramatic."
"...?"
His voice wasn't Silas's voice. A bit husky… and when I focused a little bit on his face, I observed that he seemed older, as if this one was in his early forties not thirties as the one I knew.
"Excuse me, Do I know you?"
"Nice joke."
His small laugh was identical to Silas's one, and that gave me a bad feeling.
He was him, but not him at the same time.
"This show is nice."
"Yeah." The show in front of us was a normal one, until that moment at least, rabbits and so on. "Peaceful, somehow."
"Something crazy always happens after you say this word. Won't you learn from all the things that happened?"
His sarcasm was utterly annoying… and the way he was treating me as if I was the person who thought I was made me confused.
Wait, Nathan.
I was putting a mask on so it's possible that I could be someone who knows?
"I'm not the reason for those things to happen, why should I pay attention to details like this?"
I answered, not having any idea about why I was going on with this.
The show was still feeling normal. So I focused on the 'Silas's copy' again before taking my phone out to check something else first.
My face.
I needed to see my face before anything—
And when I saw it I just hoped that the ground would swallow me whole and just spare me all this craziness.
It was me,
Older too—
A copy paste of Tristan's photo…
Agh—
What a mask…
"I must've never trusted that damned system."
"What did you say?"
"Nothing."
I rubbed my face with my two hands and when I realized that it was a mask but still felt this real, a shiver ran through my spine.
Was I walking around wearing this as if it was a mask that won't show my face when it was literally my face?
Agh—
Agh!
You stupid.
You even gave that man from the Disaster Management Authority the tickets using this face!
I was watching the show while thinking about how I could bury myself somewhere after this, when something off happened on the ground where the show had been held.
The rabbits who were just running around stopped. Their bodies shook in a strange way before a bloody massacre happened.
They started to kill each other. And when the blood filled the ground the magician just stopped from playing with cards and laughed.
His laughter made me choke in fear.
"My bad, my bad." He clapped his hands and everybody in the place did the same. The rhythm of the clapping was terribly weird. "My rabbits decided to take a break…"
"...?"
"Now we don't have rabbits. What do we have to do?"
He hummed thoughtfully then laughed as a normal child.
"What about getting new rabbits?"
Without any kind of introduction, five human beings were standing where the rabbits used to be a moment ago.
Humans…
No,
Something was inhuman about them.
When I gave them a focused look to know what was the difference, my hand automatically raised to my mouth, hiding a gasp.
Their eyes were no longer human eyes. There was cotton there, as if it filled their eyeballs.
"They must be anomalies who tried to have things they mustn't even touch."
"...?" Eh?
I looked at Silas's older copy in disbelief.
Excuse me? They are humans! I don't have any idea how I knew but they are humans!
Was he cold-blooded?
No. Wait… maybe he couldn't see them as 'humans' in the first place?
Anomalies see humans as anomalies too.
"What do you mean by 'touch things'?"
I asked while trying my best not to look at the humans who were acting like dolls in the magician's hands.
"Came here in the first place?"
"What?"
"Entering this place without a proper ticket is something, let alone putting their eyes on someone else's precious things."
So everyone here without tickets would be treated like a nameless doll sooner or later?
There's too many humans here without tickets! Too many!
Agh—
"So you still feel pity about them?"
"...?"
"Trying so hard to make us look at them like 'other humans'."
…?
I would never think about anomalies who treat humans like this as 'other humans'... did Tristan or whoever I lookalike thought about this in a loud voice?
Seriously?
Oh, wait. Nathan.
You're not supposed to think about all of this in the first place.
"I don't know." I answered too late. "Those things are too complicated."
"And you hate complicated things." He was making fun of me, even if his tone was even. "But despite hating it, you are the one who could deal with it the most."
"Haha. How funny."
"Saying the truth will always make you mad."
"Normal enough." I left my shoulders, trying to put an end to this conversation. "Love complicated things is for weirdos."
I needed to make sure that the other three were fine, so I finally decided to touch the sticker to talk to them.
No response came,
I tried again and again but there was still no response… then when my nervousness reached the highest point, I used Silas's earpiece and kept my voice as low as I could.
"Adeline, Adeline, where are you?"
"We—" she coughed, her voice dry and shaky. "Somewhere in the storehouse."
"What?!"
"It seemed that our tickets got stolen the moment we've told to read the numbers."
"...?"
"Who?"
"Someone from our team could do it."
"Where's Dean and Drew then? Are you okay?"
"I don't know where Drew is, but Dean is near here, unconscious."
"...?"
It was then, not even after her words, when two huge anomalies dragged three people to the middle.
Drew was there too,
Seeming a lot like a soulless body.