Staring into the mask's unusual lenses, he finally realized…
These things are there solely to hide his eyes completely.
"...I don't think so. I would have remembered."
"Hmm, all right. Then I'll see you later… Mr. Nobody."
…
The door to room 442 closed, and Noir's footsteps could be heard on the stairs.
Two minutes later, when the sound of footsteps had completely faded, the door suddenly opened.
"…" He barely had the strength to stay on all fours.
Opening the door, he crawled out onto the landing and quietly closed the door behind him.
Mr. Nobody then crawled up to the next floor
On the way, he ran into a familiar junkie puffing on a cigarette.
"What, bad day?" the guy who actually lived in 442 said in a slurred voice.
"More like a week, Harry… Let me have a drag."
Sitting down next to him, he took a drag and burned through nearly half the cigarette, then crawled on.
Soon, the door marked 443 on the thirteenth floor was before him.
Holding the bracelet up to the lock, it opened just as the door one floor below had.
Once inside his real apartment, Mr. Nobody crawled with his last ounce of strength to a small window.
It was covered with thick black fabric that didn't let in even the slightest bit of night light.
Lifting a small corner, he picked up the binoculars lying nearby and fixed his gaze outside.
The view from the window looked directly at the only streetlight in front of the house.
A minute passed.
Another…
He was already beginning to fear that a voice would suddenly sound behind him, saying, "Looking for something?" But, fortunately, that didn't happen.
Finally, Noir's figure appeared right in front of the lone streetlight.
He stopped in the flickering light and, tilting his head to the left…
as if sniffing his own shoulder.
Then Noir shrugged and, without looking back, walked on. Soon his figure vanished into the night.
Mr. Nobody covered the window with the cloth again and leaned his back against the wall.
Pulling the mask off his face, he realized that cold sweat was running down his face.
"Paymax… I beg you, tell me my eyes deceived me."
"…I don't think that's the answer you want to hear from me."
"Then say it."
"Your eyes did not deceive you. This man is indeed without…"
"…Without a shadow. Fuck my life."
After those words, he closed his eyes and blacked out instantly.
The use of the radiance of the constellations affected not only his physical state but also his mental one.
For all 13 hours of sleep, he was haunted by terrible nightmares.
…
A high-pitched child's voice could be heard humming a tune.
"Ding-ding-dong, ding-ding-dong, Nobody's at your door."
"Knock-knock-knock, knock-knock-knock, Nobody wants you more."
"Tip-tip-tap, tip-tip-tap, Nobody's coming in."
"Tip-tip-tap, tip-tip-tap, Nobody owns your soul."
"…Damn, how did I even think to set this crap as my alarm? Paymax, turn it off."
The cheerful children's song stopped.
Rubbing his eyes, he pushed himself away from the window and pulled down the blackout curtain.
Bright sunlight hit his eyes, forcing him to squint immediately.
The room was about twenty-five square meters.
It contained a long sofa situated right in the center, a large round table, and a floor mattress behind the sofa.
There was also a long bookshelf against the wall, holding various souvenirs from his orders, technical gears, his pride and joy—a vinyl record player, a small model motorcycle, a dartboard, and even a gray cat figurine with black ears.
"Paymax, turn on the music," he said, heading toward the bathroom.
"What would you like to listen to?"
"Classic."
"I'm playing the Rap Playlist."
Soon, the apartment with its peeling walls, saturated with the smell of cigarettes and coffee, filled with heavy, pounding beats.
At first glance, there was nothing special about the bathroom. A toilet, an enclosed shower, and a sink with an electronic mirror.
Turning on the water, he rinsed his hands and face, then applied shaving cream to his face.
"…" For several dozen seconds, he froze, staring at his own reflection in the silver razor, which resembled a small knife in shape.
His eyelids were red. It seemed he had been crying in his sleep.
*Squeak…* Without a word, he started shaving off the week-old stubble.
…
Now, on the white table, stood a mug of fresh-brewed coffee, an ashtray, and a puzzle.
Besides those, three items were always there… Two paper notebooks and a black pen.
It was practically impossible to get such things in Concord, and both notebooks were gifts.
The first, with a black cover, which appeared to be opened and filled out much more often, was a joint gift from Schrodinger and Marcel.
The second, with a red cover, was always opened only to the first and last pages and was a gift from Tasha and her brother. The set also included five black pens.
"The Phenomenon of Nobody" read the inscription on the black notebook's cover.
"The Phenomenon of Disappearance" read the inscription on the red notebook's cover.
After taking a sip of coffee, he opened the first notebook.
The first pages of the black notebook were divided by a black line into several columns. Each was filled with either a dash or a question mark.
Each of these symbols represented someone's life… There were 43 such filled pages.
The 44th page was marked by an inscription.
"Past Life Debt — End." The inscription read.
After the inscription, the division into columns ended, along with the dashes and question marks.
From then on, each line was occupied by only one full name. This continued all the way to page 46.
"…The first one this week. Morak Summers."
After writing this name in black ink on yellow paper, he turned to Paymax.
"So what about those three Dirty Baals? How should I write them down?"
"It would be more accurate to write their names in their native language. I'll show you the symbols, and you can mark them with numbers for yourself."
"Numbers won't work…"
"Then write down—Kus, Lus, and Dus. Kus is the driver of the car. Lus is the one who turned to dust. Dus is the one whose face you smashed to a pulp."
"...Got it."
He filled the next three lines with symbols from Dirty Baals' language and the names Kus, Lus, and Dus.
"By the way, what was the name of that waitress that the crazed Morak Summers killed?"
"Sara Modax. With all due respect, there are many reasons why including that name on your list is unacceptable and…"
"With all due respect, I don't care about any of those reasons, Paymax."
Soon, the name Sara Modax took the fifth spot, and the notebook "The Phenomenon of Nobody" was closed.
"And yet I am once again forced to advise you to start a third notebook. I recommend a white cover, and the title is up to you. I assure you that if it existed right now, it would already be filled with many pages."
"…And I'd forgotten that after ten percent of the friendly mode, you get this chatty," he noted with a smirk, but did not comment on Paymax's suggestion.
Finishing his cup of coffee, he changed the genre of the music playing and bore into the red notebook with his gaze.
He couldn't even remember the last time he'd opened this notebook.
That only happened when incidents like the recent one occurred, with the boy and his mother near Marcel's bar.
"Haa…" Sighing, he lit a cigarette and opened the red notebook from the end, not the beginning.
On the last page, only two lines were written right in the center.
"Darkness? Shadows?"
"Big Brother???"
Without much thought, he wrote the phrase on the next line from the bottom.
"A man without a shadow?"