Chapter 3
His shoulders lowered slightly as he shut the book tightly and placed it back onto the shelf while swallowing hard.
He had no idea what had gone through those people's minds when they committed such vile acts.
Liam let out a breath. Only then did he realize that he had been reading while standing for a full hour, completely unaware, lost in the tension of the information before him.
Liam took the pocket watch from his jacket. His eyes widened as he said, "Huh? It's already half past nine? That was fast... damn."
He slipped the watch back into his jacket pocket. After that, he hurried out of the library and immediately headed toward his younger sister's friend's house.
Yesterday afternoon, shortly after he woke up inside Zavi's body, Isabelle approached him while he sat in the living room and asked for his help carrying her belongings on Sunday.
At that moment, Liam had only just realized that he was talking to someone he did not know. But through his memories, he knew that the young woman was the younger sister of the body he currently inhabited. Isabelle.
To hide his confusion, he agreed to Isabelle's request and asked for a clearer explanation.
Now, Liam hurried toward Isabelle's friend's house, whose address had been given to him that same day. The house was still located on Cosdever Street; Number 25
The trip there took around ten minutes by horse carriage. He got off at a four-way intersection and decided to turn left, where there was a narrow alley connected to the crowd of people. His steps were calm and steady as he walked along the sidewalk path, glancing one by one at the house numbers with hopeful eyes, eager to arrive soon.
"Five more," he whispered softly while quickening his pace even though his breathing had become uneven.
Not long after, he arrived. He bent forward slightly and let out a deep breath for several seconds. Then his eyes fixed on the number twenty-five plate attached beside the door.
'Is this really her house? But where is she now?' he thought in confusion while looking around.
Liam closed his eyes for a moment, having no choice but to try. He climbed the small steps ahead and stood there silently, gathering his resolve before, with full hesitation, positioning himself right in front of the door.
For a moment, his hand froze while holding the bell rope hanging to his right.
Cling... Ting... Ting...
The soothing ringing echoed briefly from inside the house and entered his ears. Since it was Sunday—a day off from work and school, and also a day for people to visit church—the residents of the house instantly panicked, and two of them hurried downstairs to check.
His ears could hear hurried footsteps filled with urgency, and those steps grew closer and clearer every second.
Reflexively, he swallowed hard.
Afraid he had come to the wrong house.
The door opened. A woman with long black hair draped over her shoulders, bright blue eyes like seawater, and a floral rose-patterned head covering that gave her an elegant charm stood before Liam.
"Excuse me... I'm looking for Isabelle," Liam muttered hesitantly. "Is she here?" he asked, his breath briefly caught as he looked at the two women in front of him furrowing their brows.
One of the beautiful girls, the owner of the house, slightly shy but actually mischievous by nature, gave a faint smile, instantly releasing the panic that had bound Liam's chest.
"Could you perhaps be Isabelle's older brother, Mister Zavi?" she asked to make sure.
Liam responded with a nod, not knowing what else to say because he had absolutely no interest in talking further, especially to a woman.
Without any pause, the girl—the homeowner herself—insisted that Liam come inside, telling him not to hesitate because Isabelle was in her room. However, feeling uncomfortable, Liam refused and chose to wait outside until his sister came out.
'Troublesome. I don't feel comfortable entering someone else's house even if the owner already allowed it,' he thought, unaware that he himself had already entered another person's home before.
He waited while sitting on a chair on the house terrace, his cheek resting against his hand as he watched the people passing by on the street ahead. Around five minutes later, Isabelle came out of the house, standing at the doorway with two fairly large boxes beside her.
Liam glanced sideways. Just from looking at them, he could already conclude that he would have to carry those two boxes all the way home, a distance of hundreds of meters or perhaps even farther.
Even so, he would still do his best to make his younger sister happy as he glanced at her chatting with her friend.
"I'm going home now. See you later," Isabelle said softly. "Don't forget about that plan, alright?"
"Alright, be careful on the way," they replied while glancing and smiling at Liam, who looked gloomy while carrying the two boxes.
'Uh. Feels like I'm being messed with,' Liam complained inwardly.
Isabelle stepped down from the small stairs and held onto her brother's shoulder, telling him to get moving already.
Liam gave a bitter smile after witnessing such cruelty.
'Damn. This is heavier than I thought before,' he thought while grimacing in discomfort as if his back was about to snap off.
The black jacket he had been wearing earlier, which interfered with the movement of his arms, had now been folded and tucked between the two boxes he carried, revealing his white shirt and the black belt around his trousers.
The combined weight of those two boxes was around twenty-eight kilograms, and it was enough to make Liam's bones scream from within.
After leaving the narrow alley, the two of them turned onto the main road and followed the long sidewalk toward the district border.
However, something felt strange after he turned right at the same intersection where Liam had gotten off the horse carriage earlier.
That stone-paved intersection had a wide open area in the middle, large enough to hold hundreds of people and spacious enough for several circus tents to stand upon it.
And from one of those tents ahead, whispers of amazement and shock echoed along the circular road as though people were witnessing something unusual.
'It's so crowded. Is there some kind of show over there?' Liam thought with interest.
He disliked leaving curiosity hanging for too long. After considering it briefly, he decided to see it for himself, forgetting his original task entirely.
Meanwhile, Isabelle was still talking about family matters, about work, about the future, about how her brother should really start getting his life together soon.
But none of it received any answer.
Her steps stopped. She slowly turned around as if time itself had slowed, realizing Liam was no longer beside her.
'Where did he go? Every time someone starts talking, he always disappears just like that,' Isabelle thought irritably.
Her eyes found Liam on the right side, walking toward the crowd gathered around the Cosdever intersection roundabout.
He raised his hand, signaling the passing horse-drawn vehicles to slow down, then joined the other pedestrians who seemed to share the same destination as him.
Toward the roundabout.
"Excuse me... let me through," he said softly, his voice restrained.
He then ran after his brother and immediately tapped Liam's shoulder once she caught up to him.
"Why are you stopping here instead?" she asked while furrowing her brows. "Come ba..."
Her words abruptly stopped.
Her mouth fell open after seeing what stood before them.
A man wearing a bowler hat was performing magic tricks in the middle of the crowd, his movements precise and full of confidence, leaving the spectators mesmerized by his performance.
On the other side, a man dressed like an occult scholar sat behind a small table, telling fortunes one by one to the people lined up neatly before him.
The applause from the audience brought life to the surroundings as other street performances were being held in the same place.
"What is this?" Isabelle muttered in disbelief.
She did not like the atmosphere there.
She moved closer and whispered, "Let's go home. I don't want to get involved in something like this."
Liam's face, which had been tense while observing the movements, gradually softened after hearing that whisper.
"Yeah, alright," he answered hesitantly.
'Just admit you're afraid of crowds,' Liam complained inwardly.
But before turning away, he carefully observed them once more.
'Something seems off,' Liam thought before immediately leaving the crowd together with Isabelle.
10:45 a.m.
After resting several times along the way, the two of them finally arrived home in Vica, with Liam's waist feeling as though it were about to break. The two boxes, whose contents he still did not know, were placed beside the table near the front door.
His eyes shifted to the right. He only wanted to hurry into his room and lie down on his bed, sleeping for several hours before heading once more to Tezny District.
He staggered forward, but the moment his hand touched the doorknob, Isabelle told him to stop.
Liam's hand froze on the doorknob, as did the rest of his body. A gentle breeze slipped through the ventilation and brushed against him, creating a strangely dramatic atmosphere.
"Take this," Isabelle said while pulling several bills from her wallet.
It totaled eight Pace, and it was insane for a student to possess that much money.
Liam's eyes widened. Seeing the four bills before him, he gave a faint smile and accepted the money without hesitation as compensation for the hard work of carrying the boxes home.
Click. The bedroom door opened, and he immediately went inside. Isabelle turned away while shaking her head. But after taking two steps, a weak voice called out from behind.
"Thanks for giving this money to your brother," Liam said, though Isabelle only heard it faintly.
"Yeah," Isabelle answered briefly with a smile. "Thank you for always helping me without even the slightest complaint leaving your mouth, at least for now."
Meanwhile, inside the bedroom, Liam lay flat on his bed while staring at the ceiling. But suddenly he sat up after feeling a tingling sensation in his thigh, then quickly took the pocket watch from his trouser pocket, listening to its faint ticking while staring at the moving hands.
"It's almost eleven already, huh?" he whispered softly while beginning to stretch the muscles in his body.
At exactly two o'clock, Liam planned to head toward the meeting point Leo had told him about in Tezny District.
"There's still time. Better sleep," he said, his eyes unwilling to stay open any longer.
The cool breeze entering through the open window filled his room and swept across his entire body until Liam felt a comfortable sensation.
A minute later, he fell deeply asleep, his black jacket still hanging over his shoulders.
1:35 p.m., Liam suddenly woke up, and once again he had been affected by that nightmare—about Zavi's death repeating itself until he awoke on his own. He could remember it, far too clearly to even visualize, and those final moments before death along with the nausea and horror remained deeply carved into his mind, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up while cold sweat soaked his face.
"Damn. That dream again," Liam muttered while wiping the sweat from his forehead, using his black jacket to wipe his entire face.
His breathing was uneven. His knees weakened the moment he got off the bed, making his steps unstable as he walked while holding onto the bedpost.
He took a deep breath before deciding to leave for the bathroom to clean himself and wash his head thoroughly.
The nightmare he had just experienced was far beyond human logic. Yesterday morning, Zavi had been alone at home. Of course, because he was unemployed.
Ren's whereabouts were unknown as usual—mysterious and indifferent toward his family even though he actually cared deeply about them. His mother had gone to the market to sell daily necessities such as fruits, nuts, and fishery products alongside other people.
Meanwhile, his younger sister, Isabelle, had gone to school with her friend, the same school friend who had visited their house that Saturday, lounging around in the living room before leaving together for school.
Then, at around eight in the morning, Zavi had been inside his room. His neck tensed alongside his stiff muscles, forcing him awake. His steps were weak as he walked toward the kitchen and ate a piece of sandwich with an empty stare, as though something heavy burdened his mind.
After swallowing the sandwich with difficulty, tears slowly fell and soaked his cheeks. At that moment, Zavi could no longer hold it back. For some reason, he suddenly stood up, causing the chair to fall backward as his face abruptly turned pale.
With heavy yet orderly steps, he immediately grabbed a knife from the long table and without hesitation drove it into his own chest over and over again.
The blood would not stop flowing, soaking the kitchen floor and forming a pool across it. At its peak, Zavi stabbed his own heart. At that very moment, he died instantly, his body collapsing onto the floor surrounded by a pool of fresh blood, while the sensation still refused to disappear during those final seconds before his death was confirmed.
Liam stood in front of the mirror, turning on the faucet, catching water in his hands, and splashing it onto his head after remembering all of that again.
The cold water calmed his mind more than before. Liam narrowed his eyes, staring sharply at his reflection in the mirror as several strands of hair fell over his eyes.
"Suicide? Madness? Or some supernatural power?" he questioned himself in confusion.
When he woke up inside this body, Liam had not seen any blood in the kitchen or on his own body, and there were no stab wounds on his chest, as if none of it had ever happened.
"From my observation, it seems he suffered a sudden mental breakdown. I don't know what happened, but he completely lost control of his own mind and ended his own life while something raged throughout his entire body."
"I can't determine the cause. Perhaps during Monday to Friday last week, some of Zavi's memories and activities were partially erased. I can only remember a small fraction of the overall events surrounding his death."
Liam punched the wall several inches away from the mirror several times. His hand turned slightly red, the skin peeling as fresh blood flowed and stained the wall, but he chose to ignore the injury as he rinsed the blood away with water from the faucet.
After that, he left the bathroom and returned to his room to take the two bills his younger sister had given him earlier.
"Isabelle, are you in your room?" he shouted loudly. "I'm heading out. You don't mind staying home alone, do you?" Liam asked while standing in the living room, tilting his head toward the stairs as his right foot kept tapping endlessly against the floor.
"I'm fine," Isabelle shouted back from her room.
Hearing that, Liam felt relieved enough to leave the house. He took the coat hanging on the stand near the front door and quickly put it on.
Several minutes after Liam's departure, Isabelle finally realized something and hurried out of her room as she rushed downstairs.
"Oh no, I forgot I'm alone in the house," she whispered in panic. "So, is he trying to look for work again after getting rejected over and over?"
Isabelle slightly raised her shoulders before steadily walking toward the front door, making sure whether Liam had locked the house or not.