Time of the Blind Beast - Chapter 20

At times like this, she knew exactly what to do first. It was thanks to the adults who had taught children swimming in lakes or rivers to always take off their clothes before going in. Everyone had the experience of ignoring that advice, only to shiver and feel their teeth chatter even in the height of summer because they played in wet clothes.

Rose hurriedly began unbuttoning Ezekiel’s shirt. The wet fabric clung tightly to him, and her fingers kept getting caught as she tried to undo the buttons. His strength made it even more difficult. As he curled up, his shoulders hunched as if trying to trap any lingering warmth, and every time he moved, Rose was pulled along helplessly, nearly losing her balance. His large frame, curled up in such a tight ball, looked like a mountain.

“I’m not doing this with any strange intentions. It’s because of the hypothermia. You know this too, Major… since you’re a soldier,” Rose whispered into his ear, though she wasn’t sure if her words would even reach his mind, so disoriented as he was.

“It’ll be over soon. Just hold on a little longer.”

After struggling with all her strength, she finally managed to get his shirt off. She threw the sweat-soaked garment aside and quickly wiped down his wet body with a sheet.

That was when the beast on the bed pounced on her.

***

When had his body come to this?

Ezekiel gritted his teeth so hard that his jaw ached.

As if losing his sight wasn’t enough, now his whole body had become a wreck.

All his senses were out of control. He had thought that things would get better with time, but that was clearly a delusion. As time passed, his condition only continued to worsen.

His symptoms were so varied that it was hard to pinpoint what exactly had gone wrong. Moments ago, he had been drenched in cold sweat due to an excruciating, mysterious stomach pain. Now, full-body muscle aches and chills hit him like a hammer. His limbs trembled uncontrollably, his teeth chattered, and his body convulsed like a leaf trembling in the wind. His muscles contracted painfully, and his joints seemed to seize up. He couldn’t even stretch his limbs out straight.

It wasn’t cold outside, but he felt frozen to the core—so cold that he thought he might die.

He let out a bitter laugh.

Cold? Me? Since when have I ever been bothered by the cold?

Being a soldier meant building a resistance to extreme heat or cold. Ezekiel had always been indifferent to the seasons. He had spent many nights sleeping outdoors in the middle of winter snow, and during ambushes, he had hidden without a tent or blanket, spending entire nights exposed to the elements to avoid detection by the enemy.

He had always been healthy and rarely sick. Even when injured, he fought like anyone else and healed faster than most, astonishing those around him.

So this current state was anything but normal. His mind was already clouded, and combined with the darkness in his vision, he felt dizzy and nauseous. The cold that seemed to seep deep into his bones was terrifying.

Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.

Even in his flickering consciousness, he frantically searched for a way to warm his body, but his limbs wouldn’t obey him. He had never realized how intricate the task of removing clothes could be until now.

His instincts whispered to him the one thing that could ease this unbearable cold and pain.

…Laudanum.

He craved it. His instincts slyly coaxed him.

Yes, that’s it. Just a few drops of laudanum. It’s right there, within reach. You don’t need much, just enough to touch your tongue, and this strange torment will disappear immediately.

The temptation was sweet and gentle, soft like Rose’s voice.

Rose probably thought he relied on painkillers because of the poison’s effects, but that wasn’t the whole truth.

The first time he had been offered laudanum was right here, in the Derosa estate. The reason was simple: back at the Valdemaira estate, Ezekiel had refused every kind of treatment.

He hadn’t trusted any doctor that Akenaus had summoned.

“What’s wrong, Ezekiel? Afraid I’ll hurt you?”

Even as the poison burned through his nerves, gnawing at his eyes, he stubbornly resisted, holding his bed as if it were a fortress. Akenaus had shown up to mock him in person, but Ezekiel had remained firm in his belief that no one from the Valdemaira estate should be allowed near him.

Not even his parents were an exception. Whether this had been Akenaus’s scheme alone or a plot his parents had colluded in, the end result would always be the same—they would choose Akenaus, the son who still had all his limbs.

If there was one stroke of luck in all this, it was that the Valdemaira estate was always teeming with people. The misfortune that had befallen Ezekiel had spread quickly, carried by the mouths of the estate’s many visitors.

Eventually, Ezekiel’s loyal soldiers had heard the rumors and stormed the estate, carrying him away to Madam Serva’s care at the Derosa mansion, where he had finally received his first proper medical examination.

Oddly enough, the first place where Ezekiel had confronted the full pain of his eyes had been Derosa as well. The Valdemaira estate had been too fraught with tension for him to relax and recover. He couldn’t afford to show any signs of weakness or illness there. He had to guard himself constantly, watching out for everyone around him while hiding his own vulnerability. He had to be fine.

That determination had acted like a form of self-hypnosis. In fact, he had experienced less pain while at the Valdemaira estate, as though his mind had tricked his body into suppressing the agony. He had been like a soldier who, even after losing an arm, could continue fighting with a gun in the other hand, or who, even with a broken leg, could still charge forward, unable to recognize his own inability to fight.

It was only after being surrounded by trustworthy people that Ezekiel had finally allowed himself to speak.

I’m in pain.

The moment those words left his mouth, the hypnosis had lifted, and all the suppressed pain had crashed down on him at once. He had corrected himself, gritting his teeth.

“This is truly awful. Damn it, what is this disgusting feeling? What the hell did they do to my eyes?!”

It had been around that time that he had caused an uproar, trying to gouge his own eyes out. The doctor had hastily prescribed laudanum to the increasingly unstable Ezekiel.

“Take this, and you’ll feel much better. Drink it whenever you’re in pain.”

At the time, everyone had agreed with the doctor’s recommendation. But looking back now, Ezekiel realized that the physical and mental torment he had endured had been natural reactions to his circumstances. His brother had become his enemy, and he had suddenly lost his sight. How could his mind and body remain calm and peaceful in the face of such events?

However, the people around him, frightened by the unprecedented situation, had been quick to push alcohol and medicine on him whenever he showed even the slightest sign of distress. Rather than letting him undergo the slow, uncertain process of natural healing, they had demanded a quick recovery through the use of drugs. Madam Serva had gone so far as to keep a constant supply of laudanum at his bedside.

The effects of the laudanum had been remarkable. The bitter mixture of wine and opium had soothed his nerves. The hazy peace that followed had reassured everyone.

The rest was inevitable.

They kept feeding him, again and again.

He had become so accustomed to it that he would even wake up in the middle of the night to find the bottle and drink it without hesitation.

At first, he had drunk it to calm his nerves. Then, he found a new reason to keep drinking it.

That woman.

The woman who had brought about all this nightmare.

The woman whose face he had only glimpsed for a moment, knowing nothing else about her, the woman who might be slowly slipping away into the oblivion of time and memory.

He couldn’t forget her.

The drug worked wonders. One glass of laudanum calmed his body and mind, but if he drank a few more, he could clearly see the face he longed to remember. It was an astonishing experience. During those moments when he was under the influence of the drug, he was no longer blind.

In that strange, surreal vision, somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, Ezekiel saw the woman’s face over and over again with perfect clarity.

It was a vision so vivid that it felt too real to be a dream and too fantastical to be reality.

She had rich, dark brown hair tied up, her large hazel eyes outlined faintly in olive, staring back at him with wide, unblinking intensity.

He scrutinized every detail of her delicate features, as if determined not to miss a single detail, not even the fine hairs on her skin. He never grew tired or weary of looking at her. That was how he had noticed the enchanting, unusual hue of her eyes.

The woman’s startled expression, her slightly parted lips, and the pulse fluttering at her fingertips…

At that point, the woman would always throw poison into his eyes and flee. In the beginning, he had no choice but to watch her fade away into the distance, but now he knew how to stop her.

With a click, he would pause the vision, as if winding back a clock, and pull the woman’s wrist, dragging her back to the past.