Isildar turned toward the two of them and waved his hand through the air as though shooing away two annoying flies. "You're both intelligent, but something is missing. Go… I don't want to see either of you here."
Neither of them argued. They left the house, and the air outside seemed heavier than the air inside. As they approached the police station, Henry suddenly broke the silence.
"What's missing?"
Kayden stopped abruptly at the question, as though the very words had been driven into his chest.
"What's missing?" he repeated slowly, as if the words had escaped from somewhere deep within him without his realizing it.
He raised his head and stared ahead.
Henry began listing the facts. "What is it? Grace is there… She could wake up at any moment. Hazel is still at her house. Hudson…"
Henry suddenly fell silent, his eyes widening in horrifying realization.
Kayden shoved him hard on the shoulder. "Go to him! Save him!"
Henry didn't wait another second. He immediately sprinted toward Hudson's house with all the speed he could muster, while Kayden's heart continued pounding inside his chest like drums.
Kayden entered the police station with steady steps. "I'm one of the investigators assigned to Mrs. Hudson's suicide case," he said, his voice filled with seriousness.
The officer looked up at him, studying him carefully before narrowing his eyes slightly.
"I've seen you before… You're the doctor, right? Henry?"
Kayden froze for a moment, then calmly nodded. "That's right… I'm Henry."
The officer led him through the dark corridors until they reached the room where Grace's body had been placed. Before opening the door, he lowered his hat slightly and spoke in a quiet voice, as though trying to delay the inevitable."You may not find anything… Don't get your hopes up, sir."
"Could I be alone for a while?" Kayden asked, staring at the closed door.
The officer hesitated for a moment, as though the words had caught in his throat. "There's something I need to tell you…"
Kayden quickly interrupted him. "You can tell me later. I… won't be long. In fact, I'm not expecting much either. But seeing something with your own eyes is different from hearing about it from others. What you see with your eyes isn't always the same as what others see."
The officer nodded. Something about him seemed broken, so visibly that Kayden noticed it without looking at him for long.
The officer opened the door, and Kayden entered alone.
The room was narrow, cold, and windowless.
His heart was prepared for every possibility even the absence of the body.
And when he saw that the table where Grace had been placed was empty, he wasn't shocked.
He wasn't afraid. He wasn't sad , Kayden had expected this.
It wasn't like anticipating an imminent disappointment or preparing oneself for failure. It was closer to anticipating destruction itself.
There was no sense of hope.
Only a dark anxiety, an anxiety unlike the illusions of ordinary humans that could simply be dismissed. This was a dark certainty that had planted its roots deep within the soul until it became part of its very fabric.
It was as though someone were standing on the shore, watching a ship sail toward the unknown while knowing with absolute certainty that it would sink.
He could not change its fate.
There was no hand he could extend to save anyone.
There was only the silent wait for an ending he already knew was coming.
It wasn't fear. It was cold awareness.
A mute certainty, like a curse hanging over their heads.
Amid the silence, Kayden thought calmly.
'The anticipation of catastrophe was nothing more than an unnatural feeling. Grace had risen just as silently as she had fallen. Without a sound. Without a struggle. Her return from death was not a miracle. It was merely another passing detail in a much greater tragedy the tragedy of a catastrophe's existence, a tragedy whose course no one could change.'
' The officer knows. I know she's alive. But Hudson doesn't know. Is he alive?'
Kayden left the room and found the officer standing beside the door, waiting for him.
The officer spoke quietly. "Grace left a few minutes before you arrived. I knew she was a catastrophe… I was going to tell you. I left some of my clothes with her so she could disguise herself, but…"
Kayden nodded in understanding. Then he asked, "What did she look like when she woke up?"
The officer raised a hand to his face, trying to recall her expression. "Normal… Completely normal."
Kayden turned, ready to pursue her, but the officer hurried after him.
"You're not going alone. I have a powerful spiritual essence too… I'll help you. Her powers are weak right now, and she's slow… We can catch up to her."
Kayden stopped abruptly, his eyes narrowing suspiciously.
"Then why did you let her leave so easily?"
The officer slowly exhaled.
The answer was heavier than it could be spoken."My name is Noll. I grew up with Grace in the orphanage… Not that child who died at ten, but… the catastrophe. She was my friend since childhood. She was different… mature… She wasn't like anyone else."
Kayden stared at the dark road ahead."She's in the forest now… isn't she?"
Noll slowly nodded."That's right. She's going for revenge."
As they walked at a hurried pace, Noll suddenly turned toward Kayden and asked with a faint smile, strangely out of place amid the tension.
"It must be a wonderful feeling to have a brother who looks exactly like you… isn't it?"
For the first time since entering that place, Kayden let out a short, quiet laugh.
"That's right… We can switch places at any moment."
Elsewhere, at that exact moment, inside Hudson's house, silence hung over everything with an unbearable weight.
Henry opened the door and called out in a trembling voice.
"Hudson?" He called again.
Then a second time.
But only the walls answered him, their response as empty and blind as the void.
Cold seeped into Henry's fingertips.
His body had already begun surrendering before his mind could comprehend what was happening.
He ran through the house, searching for Hudson. But his search wasn't solely for Hudson. He was searching for someone who resembled him.
It was as though he were looking for something deeper some lost sense of reassurance, some thread connecting him to life amid all this ruin.
Henry whispered in a trembling voice, which gradually rose until it was almost a scream. "Don't… Please, don't."
He rushed up the stairs, every step tense with panic.
When he found the door to the upstairs room closed, he froze for a moment.
In that instant, scattered images from the past flashed before his eyes. Small memories gathered together in a single moment, forming a suffocating weight upon his chest. He slammed his shoulder against the door with all his strength until it burst open.
And there he saw a scene that could suffocate a soul before it ever took another breath.
Hudson. Hanging between life and death.
His body suspended from a rope wrapped tightly around his neck, the room drowning in a heavy silence that refused to scream the catastrophe aloud.
Henry rushed toward him like a madman, grabbing his limp body with trembling hands and lifting him until he managed to lower him to the floor.
Henry was stunned. His breathing faltered, as though his chest could no longer make room for air.
Hudson raised his eyes for a moment toward the ceiling, then toward Henry, his eyes half-lifeless.
He noticed Henry's breathing beginning to choke, as though the air itself had betrayed him.
His chest rose and fell with difficulty, and his face had gone pale until his features seemed almost blackened.
His eyes remained fixed on the floor.
Henry spoke with immense difficulty. "This… isn't fair, brother."
Henry felt a suffocating weight settle in his chest after uttering those words, spreading toward his throat as though he had swallowed a stone that prevented him from speaking. He struggled to raise his eyes toward Hudson and saw something in him that reminded him of dead leaves, stripped of life and devoid of the colors of spring that adorned the world around them.
He spoke in a quiet voice, carrying more bitterness than it did a question. "Why did you do that?"
Hudson answered in broken words. "There was no reason anymore…"
Henry quickly interrupted him. "You could become… a catastrophe."
But Hudson no longer resisted. He seemed to have surrendered himself to his fate, then muttered in a defeated tone, "Report me… so the Church can come and take me. Or… just leave me."
Henry closed his eyes for a few seconds, then whispered,"I feel like I'm standing on the edge of an abyss."
He tried to cling to whatever remained of his rationality and asked, his voice closer to a compassionate reproach,
"What about your family?"
But Hudson's gaze was empty, shattered like a broken mirror. "I no longer have…"
Hudson suddenly stopped.
He hesitated for a moment, then bent toward the ground as though searching for some lost meaning. He quickly raised his head and asked almost frantically, "My family? What do you mean?"
Henry fixed his eyes on him and spoke with unmistakable clarity.
"You know that Grace is a catastrophe. But killing a catastrophe requires more than simply taking your own life."
Hudson froze. Tears began to flow down his face without him realizing it, as though they had spilled from an open wound inside him.
He whispered in a trembling voice, "She's… alive?"
"She's alive," Henry replied with unwavering certainty. It was the only truth he possessed."My brother is there with her… right now."
Hudson suddenly jolted to his feet, rising as though possessed. He stumbled toward the exit, and Henry ran after him. "Where are you going?"
Hudson answered with a voice burning with hope, completely different from the man he had been moments earlier. "To find my wife!"
Henry stopped halfway, stunned by that cry of hope.
Then he asked Hudson, staring down the road, "And where… where would she be?"
But Henry didn't know the answer. He instinctively moved toward Hazel's house, as though his feet already knew the way. Hudson followed close behind, both of them racing against time like men chasing the last flicker of hope.
When they entered the house, they went directly to Hazel's room.
There, Isildar turned toward Henry and gave him a sudden approving nod, as though his arrival had provided an answer he had been waiting for.
As for Hudson, he began scanning the room eagerly, searching for Grace.
Hazel looked at him.
The light in her eyes the same light of the city he had mentioned before was no longer there.
She noticed the mark around his neck, the rope that had nearly taken his life only moments ago, a dark line encircling his throat like an eternal brand.
But she dared not comment.
Isildar deliberately ignored it. Then Hudson's eyes fell upon a book placed carefully beside Isildar.
He tilted his head slightly, his eyes widening in surprise.
"I thought I had lost my book… but here it is. How did it get here?"
Isildar turned toward him quickly, a faint smile appearing on his face.
"Weren't you the one who gave it to Lady Hazel?"
"Bullshit."
Hudson picked up the book and casually flipped through its pages.
"She's too weak to deal with curses… Why would I give her the book?"
A few moments passed before Hudson quietly asked,
"Where is Grace?"
Isildar answered as though the matter had already been decided. "She's… approaching."
Silence descended. Nothing remained but the wait for the ending.
Hudson stood beside Henry, and for the first time in a very long time, a faint glimmer of hope appeared on his face.
But inside, Henry was carrying an entirely different weight.
'I saved a man who was on the verge of suicide, a man about to lose everything…But I couldn't save my brother, not the countless times I should have. And Kayden walked out of a curse on his own, a curse no one else could even touch.'
Hudson stepped closer and whispered, his voice filled with genuine concern and confusion,
"Do you need help? You looked like you were staggering more than I was. You seem like you desperately need help."
Henry stared at him in surprise. And in that moment, Hudson's face seemed to transform before his eyes.
Henry no longer saw Hudson's true features.
Instead, it was as though his eyes had replaced Hudson's face with Kayden's.
His emotions became tangled, and he muttered weakly,
"I'm fine… Sorry."
Hudson extended his hand and pulled out a handkerchief, offering it to him.
But Henry refused, raising his hand politely before placing his palm over his face for a moment, as though trying to hide everything.
Hudson spoke quietly, his voice sincere and clear. "Don't apologize… You did the right thing."
Henry leaned his body against the wall and closed his eyes for a moment.
There was nothing left for him to do but wait.
Wait for his brother to return.
Wait for Grace to appear.
Wait for it all to end.