Time of the Blind Beast - Chapter 16

It was a steady rhythm. As he matched his breathing to it, he felt somewhat better.

“…Does it hurt a lot?”

Dr. Brehman’s voice reached his ears. Ezekiel tapped his forehead lightly with Rose’s hand.

“My insides feel like a mushy mess. Absolutely filthy.”

Her fingers twitched, but they didn’t pull away.

“What’s the diagnosis?” he asked again, impatiently.

There was a brief silence. Ezekiel clenched his teeth, knowing full well what the result would be. Every doctor who came to examine him seemed to follow the same script, always falling into silence before delivering the news. He was sick of this silence by now.

“There’s good news and bad news.”

“Start with the good.”

“That pain you’re feeling… I don’t believe it’s necessarily the worst sign.”

“Why?”

“A completely dead body part doesn’t feel pain.”

From his experience on the battlefield, Ezekiel understood instinctively. When wounded soldiers were brought in, the medics would amputate the useless limbs to save what was still alive. The severed limbs, once healed, no longer caused pain. Rarely, there were cases where soldiers claimed to feel pain from their missing limbs, but those who had watched their limbs be cut off while conscious could be expected to lose their grip on reality.

“The fact that you feel pain means your body is reacting to stimuli—it’s still alive.”

“My eyes are still alive?”

“That’s my judgment.”

It was an unexpected glimmer of hope.

“What’s the bad news?”

“I don’t know how to treat it, or if it’s even treatable.”

But that hope was dashed in an instant.

“Do you know how many kinds of poisons exist in the world, Major?”

Of course, Ezekiel had no knowledge of such things, having never studied medicine. He waited in silence for Dr. Brehman to continue, and the doctor sighed deeply.

“There are too many to count. Aside from mercury, arsenic, and sulfuric acid, there are poisons like belladonna, digitalis, and poisonous mushrooms. Then there’s venom from snakes, scorpions, and frogs, as well as plant toxins like aconite, water hemlock, and jimsonweed. These poisons are often mixed to enhance their effects. Based on how the poison affected your vision, I suspect neurotoxins were involved, but that’s probably not all. To be honest, with my current knowledge and ability, I can’t say for sure. And if I make a mistake, I could make things worse.”

In the end, the result was the same. Though expressed more gently, it was still a refusal, much like the doctors who had bluntly said they couldn’t help.

A smirk curled at the corners of Ezekiel’s lips, but even that was a bitter, hollow smile.

“Try it. Even if it’s a mistake.”

“Pardon?”

“I don’t care—just try.”

There was an ominous undertone in Ezekiel’s demand. It was neither a suggestion nor a plea; it was chilling.

Dr. Brehman looked at him, but there was no response from Ezekiel’s blind gaze.

“I think you misunderstood my explanation.”

“No, I understood perfectly. But is there anything left to lose at this point?”

“……”

“If my eyes are completely destroyed, at least the pain will stop, right?”

He was utterly fed up with the endless string of doctors who came with unchanged diagnoses. As his frustration hit its peak, he lashed out at the repeated despair.

Had hope ever felt so distant?

Even when he was trapped in a fortress, surrounded by enemies and fighting for his life, he hadn’t felt this powerless.

That’s what it was—powerlessness. Ezekiel had never experienced a situation where he could do nothing. He had always been a soldier who, no matter how impossible the mission seemed, would somehow complete it. As a leader of men, he had never once said, “I can’t,” or “It’s too hard,” and he couldn’t afford to. He had always used even the slimmest thread of hope to raise the morale of his soldiers and lead them into battle.

If this were a problem he could face with his own strength, he would have confronted it head-on.

But medicine wasn’t his field. And the doctors, with such ease, told him things were impossible—words he had never allowed himself to utter. Every time, they shattered his spirit and stole his hope. This constant failure was driving him mad.

In a fit of impulse, he muttered, “I should’ve just gouged my own eyes out.”

The room fell into a deathly silence. No one dared to speak.

Ezekiel closed his eyes. Whether his eyes were open or closed, the world was still as dark as night. He was utterly sick of this unchanging reality.

Losing his sight didn’t just mean being unable to see. It came with many other losses.

At first, he couldn’t tell reality from dreams. He couldn’t trust himself to know whether he was awake or asleep. After much confusion, he developed a simple rule: if he could see, it was a dream; if he couldn’t, it was reality. Even that wasn’t foolproof. Some nights, even in his dreams, he wandered through pitch-black darkness.

Next, he lost his trust in others. Everyone seemed suspicious—Akenaus, the woman who had betrayed him, and even those who acted with kindness. How could he know what they were truly thinking? They could mock him right to his face, and he wouldn’t be able to see it.

There had been a time when just hearing someone’s voice was enough for him to picture their face, but now nothing appeared. Conversations felt one-sided, no longer an exchange. At times, he felt as though the people he talked to were mere mirages, and the futility of yelling at phantoms made him feel even more hollow and lonely.

He could still trust those like Madam Serva, who had been by his side for years, or his soldiers who had fought alongside him. But time had passed—Madam Serva had aged, now barely able to manage her own frail body, and his men were scattered across the land, following his orders.

As the presence of others grew fainter, his emotions, stagnant and murky like a pool of dirty water, only became more pronounced.

In the end, he was alone.

“Did they plan this?” His voice, thick with bitterness, scratched at his throat.

It was a question he had asked himself over and over.

“Akenaus isn’t clever enough to come up with something like this. He probably wanted to kill me outright. So, was it that woman’s doing?”

Every time a doctor came to examine him, the same question filled his mind. And as he pondered it, his musings would spill out in words. It didn’t matter who he was talking to—the doctor, a servant—they wouldn’t have the answer. And though he couldn’t see their faces, he suspected that their confused or awkward expressions were irrelevant. Without seeing their faces, he found it easier to speak his mind.

The drawing room remained eerily silent.

“If they had just killed me, I wouldn’t be filled with this much hatred. At least then, I would have died as an honored soldier. I would’ve thought they respected me, even a little. But thanks to that woman, who turned me into a cripple, a living corpse, mocking me all the while, I’m now neither truly alive nor dead.”

A bitter laugh escaped him.

Let them lose their sight—would Akenaus have survived even one day like this? That impatient fool.

And what about that woman?

Was she living comfortably with Akenaus, enjoying her life, after leaving him to rot in this loneliness and despair?

“Damn it, somebody say something! Am I here all by myself?”

His mind wavered in the deafening silence.

Could it be that he was alone in the drawing room? Had he been talking to ghosts all along? Had his blindness driven him mad?

It was all because of his eyes—his eyes that kept twisting his perception of reality.

In a sudden motion, his hand reached for his eyes.

That was when—

“Stop!”

Rose’s hands forcefully pushed his away. Judging that her strength alone wasn’t enough to stop him, she quickly wrapped her arms around his head, holding him close to her chest to prevent him from touching his eyes again.

“Please, don’t do this. This isn’t the answer, Major.”

It was a phrase he had heard countless times.

Don’t do this. Don’t do that.

He couldn’t be treated, but he wasn’t allowed to remove the eyes, either. His eyes, caught in a limbo between life and death, served no purpose but to cause him pain. Yet when he tried to rid himself of them, people rushed in, panicked, to stop him.

What a maddening contradiction.

He was sick of the unchanging situation. There was a limit to how much a person could endure, especially when there was no hope in sight.

A wave of nausea hit him.

Ezekiel’s response was cold. “What do you know? Have you ever felt this horrible pain?”

It was a remark that struck her right in her conscience, even though he had no idea of the truth.

Rose bit down hard on her lip. “…No, I haven’t. But I understand.”

“Spare me the hollow words,” Ezekiel replied icily.

“……”

“No, go ahead, tell me. What exactly am I supposed to endure? How long do I have to endure this? I’ve seen dozens of doctors, and every single one of them was an idiot. None of them could offer a cure—they were too busy running away. Will this endless cycle ever end?”