Chapter 130 – Saint (1)
What can I say?
I have never experienced anything like this in my entire life.
Isabella searched for a way to express this feeling, but she could not find the vocabulary to describe any experience in her memory.
It was so awkward for her.
A collection of wood and metal felt in her hand, but the ring wrapped around her finger was as warm as the summer sunlight.
It’s probably because I’ve been holding it for a long time.
We covered Grace with a blanket, so she wouldn’t notice, so she’s trapped in the heat, so it’s natural.
The object in her hand was heavier than she thought. Alone, the pattern of a tree branch engraved on a metal cylinder shines at a glance, illuminated by a light that gives a slight warmth from behind.
It’s metal. Even if it has the same volume as wood, it is bound to be heavy. It’s natural.
Acrid smoke rises. I often saw smoke rising when I blew out the candles next to my bed before going to sleep. The smell was more pungent and stinging than candle smoke, but it was not incomprehensible.
When she pulled her finger. It was natural that her hands were shaking violently. It was written in the letter that came with this item. Furthermore, it is an object that pushes an iron ball with the explosive power of gunpowder.
But.
Tinnitus attacks me. I felt a static yet high-pitched noise hitting my eardrums. She tried to recall what the sound was before tinnitus occurred, but she could not easily recall it. At best, when I was young, in a quiet study with no one around, a big, thick book fell on the floor.
When the thick sheepskin leather falls to the floor, echoing throughout the large room.
That was the limit of the expressions she could come up with, but they were extremely inadequate.
If the sound that echoed in the study echoed a thousand times at the same time in one place, would it have been similar to this?
As soon as she felt her fingertips catch on something, the hook she thought she had pulled lightly made her hand flutter as if it had been hit by a heavy piece of metal.
There was definitely a sparkle flashing at the end. Just a fleeting moment of her makes you wonder if it really wasn’t her own illusion.
However, the lightning that shot out from the small cylindrical entrance was so bright in the dark cave that it could not have been an illusion.
It was something she had never experienced before.
“… Ah.”
Isabella looked away from the tip of her gun at the calm voice.
At the end of my gaze, Grace was still standing.
Is it a monster?
The moment that thought passed by, a change occurred that could be seen at a glance.
Bright red stains began to appear on the damp shirt Grace was wearing.
It was a strange moment. It was like watching the process of a red rose bloom in an instant.
“…”
Grace moved her hand. Isabella was shocked for a moment, and she was once again surprised at the fact that she was surprised.
Are you trying to make fun of me?
She looked for a smile on that ugly face, but Grace didn’t smile. He brought his hand to her abdomen, traced her stain, then brought it in front of her face and stared at it.
Immediately, I rubbed it with my index finger and thumb. She also pulled the two fingers she was rubbing against each other.
And she smiled incredulously.
“Ha.”
It was neither sincerity nor ridicule.
“This is my first time shooting… The seasoning is just right…”
With those words, Grace clutched the gunshot wound and his knees hit the floor.
Isabella unconsciously and reflexively pulled her hand to her chest, but was startled by the intense heat she felt at her fingertips and threw away her gun. The gun slides across the uneven floor and stops in front of Grace, who sits down.
“… Ugh…”
The sound of a wounded animal came out of Grace’s mouth. However, she was still smiling brightly.
Golden eyes shone beneath the trembling eyebrows.
“… Huh, huh, huh… Hey.”
Isabella couldn’t take her eyes off Grace who was talking to her. Her shadow became darker.
No. It was not a shadow, but blood gushing from the stomach.
“It seems that luck is on your side until the end… ?”
Pure admiration shone from the fading gold of her light.
It was a sound made by suppressing a moan that was trying to escape from the gap between clenched teeth. Isabella couldn’t close her eyes. Even though her eyes were stinging after being open for a long time.
“… Haha, idiot.”
She laughed and cursed in a quiet voice. She may have sounded hoarse because she was weak.
“… Look at you… “
-Sharply.
Grace fell down without finishing his sentence.
Isabella looked at her, frozen as stone in her place.
She couldn’t understand. Even trying to understand the results before her eyes, brought about by a force weaker than lifting a small ball, was overwhelming.
After what seemed like hours, Isabella stood up from her seat. No, she was going to wake up.
Kwadang!
Her shoe slipped on something, and she fell on the floor. Only then did she feel that her trembling legs were wrapped in warm wetness.
To my displeasure, she had wet her urine.
“…”
Isabella stumbled out of her seat. Her eyes quickly search the cave. Soon, something comes into her eyes that were acting like a crazy person.
Reach out her hand and grab it.
It wasn’t as heavy or as strong as I wanted, but I hope it’s enough.
Kwasik-
The sound resonates.
It was quieter than the broken voices of girls who once lost their way while exploring in this cave and burst into tears.
Kwasik-
Warm water splashed from the dents in her corners, soaking her face and eyes. It was hot and stinging, but she didn’t care.
Pakak-
“Ah!”
Rumbling!
Her box went down on her hands, which were slippery in Grace’s undried blood. She stamped her little finger. Although my senses had become numb due to the crazy rush of adrenaline, it was still enough to make me let out a small scream.
Her screams were covered by a loud thunderclap that struck at exactly the right moment.
As Grace said, she was lucky.
Kwazijic!
The box was broken. Her bare hands touch Grace’s body. Hot and sticky blood gets on her hands.
Isabella hastily removed her hand and wiped it on her clothes, as if she had been burned by a fire. There were marks left on both sides. A trace that won’t disappear.
I overcome with heat. It could be said to be a feeling of exaltation.
Isabella got up quickly. She had only one thought that filled her head.
I have to be clear. I can’t go back anymore. Now I can’t hide it or cover it up with anything.
I can’t stop anymore.
The only thing that brought her out of her stupor was the feeling of water under her shoes.
Puck-, Puck-
Puck-
Ignoring the numb feeling of my toes, I continued for a while.
I couldn’t remember when I stopped. When the blood began to harden on the tips of her shoes, sticking to her hair and onto her shoes?
Maybe it was when I realized that Grace’s head was turned at a strange angle.
What I felt at the tip of my little finger was not simply a feeling of heat and buzzing. It could have been when it started to feel painful enough to make the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.
One thing is for sure, from the first time I saw it in the cabin until now. That’s when she realized, somewhere deep in her heart, that the golden eyes that were staring at her would never open again.
She was able to accept the fact that Grace would never move again.
Isabella slowly turned her body and walked with difficulty towards her lit fire. The only warmth, the only light here.
If only I could throw myself into that fire and die out like a moth to a fire without a single thought.
But she couldn’t. Unfortunately, she wasn’t a moth to fire.
So, she passed the bonfire and collapsed in front of the smelly, damp rag.
She didn’t even have the strength to walk, so with her trembling hands and feet, she crawled to reach the place where she once forced herself to go.
It was next to Siana, who was still thin and gaunt as if she were dead.
“…”
She stretched out her hand and grabbed Sianna’s bony arm that was next to her. It felt lukewarm, almost cold.
“… You know.”
Grace’s hoarse voice, no.
It was me.
It was the sound I made.
“Actually, I am.”
She opened her mouth, but she couldn’t spit it out easily. Like a dumb person, like a stupid goldfish, like the people she laughed at and looked down on.
She wriggled her dry lips, trembled, and could barely breathe as her heart raced.
What did I have to say?
No. It’s not like I have to talk about anything.
What do I want to talk about?
It was the first question I asked myself.
Her cleverness, which had been telling her what to do until now, disappeared as if it had been taken away in an instant.
Slowly, she began spitting out whatever came to mind.
“The night before my mother’s funeral.”
When her father told her to say his last goodbye, her father silently and mechanically kissed her cold lips and said platitudes that were not even in her mind, then looked at me and said the same thing.
“What did I say?”
Kissed her mother’s cold lips. And then she hurriedly took a step back and turned around to meet her father’s cold gaze.
Urges Sianna with her shaking hands. Her thin, dry hands were so dry that her own long, thin fingers covered her thumbs.
“Huh? “Aren’t you curious about what he said?”
My voice is shaking. The words are blocked as if something is blocking it.
Something fills the corner with her eyes and her vision blurs. Weird. It’s an unfamiliar feeling.
“I whispered it in my mom’s ear.”
I prayed to God. Sincerely.
“Don’t come back again.”
My mom wasn’t a good person.
She was not loved by her father, and her mother was the only one who could give her love.
Unfortunately.
But my dad was watching. Had to get up on her tiptoes and put her neck on the end of her cold coffin to whisper to her mother.
I didn’t want to do that.
I wanted to be held in your warm arms.
I wanted to cry.
“… “Aren’t you crazy?”
After saying those words, the situation was so funny that I burst out laughing. It was a childlike laugh.
“I didn’t want to lose anything.”
But I couldn’t. If you don’t have it in the first place, you can’t lose it, right? Parents, a sane mind, proper emotions, and love.
“I had nothing.”
I wanted a family.
“I needed people who loved me for who I am.”
It seems like it actually happened, but wasn’t it a foolish mistake?
Who could love me like this? Isn’t it funny?
“I’ve done too much.”
You can’t hide it. No matter how much you wash your body, change your clothes, or spray any perfume.
“I can’t stop now.”
It stinks. The unbearable stench.
“Haha, I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
After letting go of Siana’s hand, she stood up as if possessed, hurriedly walked to Grace’s side, knelt down, felt the floor, and soon found what she was looking for.
She searches around more and finds additional ingredients. She picks one of the scattered iron beads, finds a rolled iron bar, and tears off her sleeve with her teeth for a dry rag.
As she stretches out her arms, biting her hard, her sleeves rip all the way to her shoulders. Moving her muzzle like a frenzied animal, pulling at a piece of cloth with her hand.
I tore off a small piece of cloth.
Now finally-
“… “Where is it?”
Isabella muttered, searching for her last ingredient. Because it was not a very large space, she was able to find it quickly.
A bag of gunpowder that miraculously was not torn open, and the spout was firmly locked.
“… Ah.”
Isabella lifts it with a small exclamation.
Jureuk-
Grace’s blood, and the blood from the bag that had been immersed in a pool of blood from the water she had squeezed out of her clothes earlier, ran down the back of her hand and along her forearm, which no longer had sleeves.
-Until the end.
Grace’s words echo in her head.
-Luck seems to be on your side.
It was indeed so.
She dropped the gunpowder pouch on the floor. Sticks and beads also hit the cave floor with a loud sound.
Suddenly she noticed that the air had become a little warmer and brighter, and she turned her head.
Outside the cave, a forest as clear as a lie came into view.
“Ha.”
The fresh green leaves, the soil that got wet and thickened by the rain, and the smell of rain in the air.
“… “This is.”
It doesn’t make sense.
She looked blankly at the forest.
It was beautiful.
As if to prove that the hell she had just experienced in the cave was nothing but dust that could bring no change to this world.
Something was washed away from Isabella’s heart. One answer flashes through her head.
“… “I can’t die.”
It didn’t matter whether it was the darkness inside her that had just been washed away or the last wisps of reason that remained.
What began to fill that space was the idea of religious truth.
Because God doesn’t want me to die.
I can’t die as I want.
At that time, I felt someone coming from behind.
Isabella turns her head in delight.
There, like a newborn lamb.
A staggering, out of breath, strangely moving being been walking.
Before, it was clearly no different from a corpse.
Even though the drug he had once blasphemously injected to gain base self-interest by using that holy body clearly made movement impossible.
She got up like this and was coming towards her.
“… “This is.”
Isabella tried to say something but covered her mouth with both hands. Because she could be disrespectful even to say it carelessly.
But she felt a fullness she had never felt before fill her heart.
It’s a miracle.
She repeated it to herself over and over again.
Reason has now completely disappeared, and Isabella’s mind and body are exhausted.
On the other side of where she was lying, she saw the empty syringe rolling next to her, unable to recall her presence.
She did not remember that she had used the drug before she had prepared her ammunition.
But it was a minor problem. Isabella no longer focused on what was not important.
She focused all her attention on the saint walking out of the darkness toward the light.
She was an ugly, sick, weak and broken saint.
It was her own saint.
Her God was on her side.
