“Oh… I haven’t heard that name?” Even his assistant was beginning to forget her.
Alistair rose, grabbing his coat. “To her old, wretched apartment.” He refused to believe that woman could simply disappear. She
must be hiding, playing another game of hard–to–get!
Clara Hawthorne’s old apartment was thick with dust. Alistair searched frantically. He suddenly kicked a bedside table. The table crashed against the wall with a dull thud. Plaster crumbled, revealing a slightly darker, rectangular patch. His eyes narrowed. He walked over and knocked on it. Hollow. He pried it open. Inside, as expected, was a small safe. Alistair sneered. Just as he thought,
she had hidden something.
He expertly keyed in his own birthday. It didn’t open. He tried a few other significant dates of his own. Still no. He paused, then, on a strange impulse, he entered Clara Hawthorne’s birthday.
Click.
The safe opened. Inside were only nine thick reports. Each cover boldly proclaimed: “REPORT: QUEST #N.” From one to nine.
Alistair’s heart felt as if it were being squeezed by an invisible hand. His breath caught in his throat. A quest? A quest for whom? He picked up the ninth report with trembling hands. On the last page, only a few scrawled words, the ink seemingly still wet with hasty finality and resolve:
“Mission failed. Quest abandoned.”
Abandoned… the quest? He violently flung the report away, as if burned. Then, in a frenzy, he lunged, snatching up the first one.
“REPORT: QUEST #1.” His fingers almost tore through the cover as he opened to the first page:
“Rebirth Mission: Heal the Obsessive High Acolyte.”
“Target: Alistair Valerius.”
“Duration: Unknown.”
“First death Flayed and fashioned into a patchwork cloak (1/9).”
Alistair’s pupils constricted violently. All the blood in his body seemed to freeze. What rebirth? What mission? A patchwork cloak He deemed to remember something, recalling abruptly, knocking over a nearby chair Just then, several objects materialized out of
(127
“First death: Flayed and fashioned into a patchwork cloak (1/9).”
Alistair’s pupils constricted violently. All the blood in his body seemed to freeze. What rebirth? What mission? A patchwork cloak… He seemed to remember something, recoiling abruptly, knocking over a nearby chair. Just then, several objects materialized out of thin air in the apartment. A gleaming flaying knife lay silently on the floor. A patchwork cloak, sewn from countless small pieces of skin. A small chalice, polished from a baby’s skull, its edges still stained with blood. A book of sacred texts, its pages steeped in
crimson…
The very objects that existed only in his memory were now all before his eyes!
“No… impossible…” Alistair mumbled, his face ashen.
Suddenly, the dust–laden old computer in the corner flickered to life. A cold, emotionless, mechanical voice spoke:
“WARNING: Host Clara Hawthorne has confirmed departure.”
“System evaluation: Target world has lost its existential value. Initiating recall sequence…”
Alistair felt as if all strength had been drained from him. He collapsed to the floor.
“Host… Quest… Mission…” He repeated the words again and again, his eyes hollow. So, her approaching him, her pleasing him, her enduring all his torments and humiliations… It was all just a mission? To heal him?
And him? His perceived revenge, his perceived control, all the pain he had inflicted upon her… Were they just entries in her mission log? Her countless deaths, merely markers of her failures?
“Haha… hahahaha!” Alistair suddenly let out a low laugh. But as he laughed, tears streamed down his face. He scrambled up, like a madman, smashing everything in the room. Glass shards flew, cutting his hands, leaving them bloody. He looked at his reflection in a shattered mirror shard. His face, his body, were slowly blurring, beginning to pixelate into squares!
