Time of the Blind Beast - Chapter 84

The implication gradually turned into a strange conviction.

Bit by bit, his vision became clearer. With the help of the opium’s effects, three-dimensionality began to form along her frail contours.

It was an ecstasy like no other. Not a single moment could be missed. Ezekiel forgot to breathe and burned every scene into his memory.

Her rosy lips parted, and a faint breath scattered out. Ezekiel quickly pressed his lips to Rose’s and sucked in her breath.

Next came the bridge of her nose. He rubbed his nose gently up and down along her prominent one. As he felt her face like this, her long, neat eyelashes would sometimes tickle the corners of his eyes.

Just like that.

Ezekiel raised his hand and brushed Rose’s eyelashes. She remained still, eyes closed.

“Open your eyes, Rose. I want to see them.”

Ezekiel whispered into her ear. Rose’s eyelids faintly trembled.

Eventually, she opened her eyes. Her irises and pupils were gradually revealed, incredibly slowly.

He stopped breathing altogether.

It was a face he knew all too well. Only the color was different—he knew this face intimately.

It was that woman.

Lisanne.

The woman who had ruined his sight lay before him with disheveled red hair and green eyes.

***

Nights at the detention center were busy. The inmates, confined to a single room, all moved around at once, searching for a spot to lay their bodies down.

Even in a room made up entirely of three gray stone walls and a barred front, there was such a thing as a preferred spot. In the summer, near the window; in the winter, farther inside where the wind was less bitter. On the days when Lisanne had been too unwell to move due to a miscarriage, she had occupied the best spot with the backing of a middle-aged woman. But now that she could move around again, she was inevitably pushed into the coldest area.

“Come on, lie down already. Aren’t you going to sleep?”

The women called out to Lisanne. She didn’t feel like lying down just yet, but if she didn’t secure a space in advance, she might have to sleep standing up. The room was too cramped for all the inmates to lie down at once. Each night, it was common to end up tangled in someone’s limbs or kicked in the head.

Lately, Lisanne woke up multiple times during the night. Groaning, snoring, teeth grinding, and crying out in sleep made it impossible to get any rest. Yet whenever she looked around, she was always the only one still awake and tossing about. The others didn’t stir at even the loudest noises.

One time, she’d woken to the sensation of something stepping on her face—and there, right before her eyes, was a rat. In the pale shadows, she saw its short gray fur, black eyes, and long pink tail. It nimbly climbed over the others’ bodies and slipped out between the bars. Rather than disgust, Lisanne was more shocked at herself for envying its freedom.

“What are you working so hard for? Even if you make that, it’s not going to do us any good.”

The middle-aged woman chided her again.

Eventually, Lisanne set aside the straw she had been twisting diligently. The pile of straw in the corner had been left behind by the guards, telling them to make rope. Rather than being dragged around by chaotic thoughts, Lisanne preferred to clear her head and focus on the task, twisting straw until her fingertips turned red and sore.

“I was like that when I first got caught. I was so bored, I just wanted to do something. I didn’t know then. That we were making our own nooses with our hands.”

One woman took Lisanne’s side, and others began to join in the conversation.

“If they’re making us prepare rope, there must really be a trial coming up.”

“Hey, you don’t know what that rope’s for, do you?”

Lisanne brushed the straw from her hands and looked over at the women. The middle-aged one twisted her lips.

“No one goes quietly after a death sentence. Once you’re out, that’s it, so everyone struggles with all their might. That’s why they tie up the limbs and drag you out. Told you, it’s a noose. You get your arms and legs tied up with the rope you made and then get shot or hanged to death.”

…So that’s what it was.

She’d never heard the backstory before. No wonder everyone was so indifferent to this supposed pastime.

Lisanne lowered her gaze.

They didn’t have to go this far… She didn’t have the strength to struggle, nor the will to escape.

“Same thing if you get sentenced to forced labor. They bind everyone up like a fish stringer, in case someone runs during transport.”

“Damn it, why’s the weather like this again?”

Someone absentmindedly glanced out the window and suddenly let out a burst of irritation. All conversation stopped at once. Taking advantage of the quiet, Lisanne also turned her head toward the small window.

It was white.

Snow was falling silently. It hadn’t been long since it started, yet the flakes were already thick and full, as if it would continue pouring all night. Under the dim night sky, the fluttering snowflakes looked like a white veil.

Suddenly, her chest felt hollow. In the North, where Lisanne had spent most of her short life, it had often snowed and rained. People disliked the damp weather, calling it gloomy, and Lisanne had felt the same way while at Milena Girls’ School.

But it was different when she was with Ezekiel. The cold and harsh climate became a perfect excuse to burrow deeper into each other’s arms.

She had met him because of the snow in the first place. If a heavy snowfall hadn’t collapsed the dormitory chimney and made many students fall ill, and if she hadn’t heard rumors about the Derosa estate from the doctor who came for a house call, she would have never thought of running to him.

“Damn this weather.”

“Tell me about it.”

Curses came from all sides.

Lisanne quietly closed her eyes. Honestly, reminiscing was a luxury in this moment. In reality, the other prisoners’ reactions were more accurate. When snow piled up on the streets, prisoners from the facility were the first to be mobilized to shovel it away to prevent icing, and also had to carry away filth. The guards would bind the prisoners’ wrists or ankles and monitor them with guns so they wouldn’t think of escaping.

Chances were, by dawn, they would be forced to wake before first light. Even the sick were no exception.

“Well, at least it’s not a northern facility. I heard snow falls all the time up there. They say every other day there’s a snowstorm, and people’s limbs freeze blue with frostbite, and many freeze to death each night.”

“I heard people there actually prefer a life sentence to forced labor. Life in the facility is harder than labor.”

“I also heard they intentionally send people to the North if they’ve done something awful or caused trouble in the facility.”

“Anyway, if this place really is about to be cleared out soon… don’t you want to see the family you left behind before then? You have a daughter, right?”

Perhaps because the end of the year was approaching, the conversation kept circling around farewells. Lisanne heard the middle-aged woman rustling and shaking her head.

“What good would it do, showing her this mess? It would only break the kid’s heart.”

“Well, yeah, true.”

Lisanne silently agreed. If her mother and father saw her in this state, they would be crushed with guilt over each other. She hadn’t known the outcome when she acted, but in the end, she had always drawn the worst hand. There was no one else to blame. It was the result of her own foolishness.

So even if she missed them, she shouldn’t miss them.

That person too…

The thought of the man stuck like a thorn in her throat. Ezekiel—just saying his name made her chest ache.

The eyes she had ruined with her own hands had healed completely, and she had seen for herself that he had regained all the honor he had lost. Meanwhile, she was now paying the price for her sins committed as Lisanne, not Rose.

She didn’t deserve to miss him, nor feel sorrow. Their season together was already gone.

As she quietly recalled his face, Lisanne pressed her fingers to the corners of her eyes.

***

Ezekiel dreamed all night.

No, he wasn’t even sure if that had truly been a dream. Perhaps the intense longing had finally driven him mad. Yes, he had lost his mind and seen a hallucination. It had to be.

He had taken laudanum to see Rose, but that woman had appeared instead—how could that be? There was no way.

As the hallucination faded, reality became clearer. He sat up and stared at the empty bed. Of course, there was no sign that anyone else had been there. Usually, at this point, he would be overwhelmed with loss and tempted to take more laudanum.

But today was different. He summoned all his patience and reason to recall Rose’s silhouette again. Her delicate frame, familiar warmth, the shimmering red hair, the translucent green eyes that reflected his own face.

And then, the features of that woman—Lisanne—became increasingly overlaid.

Ezekiel covered half his face with his large palm. His skin was rough from lack of proper rest.

“…Rose. What did I see?”

He must have carelessly projected Rose onto some other woman’s face after obsessively conjuring her image over and over with distorted senses. He now realized just how utterly tangled his mind had become.

He steadied his heart, which was pounding like a wild beast.

There was no need to panic. He could just call someone to confirm.

As it happened, someone nearby knew what Rose looked like.

As soon as he composed himself, Ezekiel shook the pull cord to summon a servant.

“Bring Merlot immediately. Hurry.”