#78

07. Delirium

“Come to your senses, Inette.”

My head was shaking uncontrollably up and down. It seemed I was being held by someone, but my entire skin was boiling as if I had been laid in a cauldron in the kitchen. Shadows and light alternately fell on my thin eyelids, making my closed eyes flicker with dark red and yellow. And the voice urgently calling me was…

“Can you hear my voice? Please listen.”

It was Johannes.

The problem was sleeping rough with a sick and tired body. Additionally, my mind, which had been tense and curled up due to constant stress, had suddenly relaxed after reuniting with Johannes.

Johannes himself seemed to have lost more strength than usual, taking considerable time to recover, and I fell asleep while being held by him. I remember the rustling sound when Johannes covered my body with his coat. At some point, he also seemed to have brushed off the night fog dew that had settled on my head.

It was after that when I completely lost consciousness. Though I probably just looked deeply asleep, sensitive Johannes must have had a bad feeling and tried to wake me up. If he hadn’t checked on my condition then, the darkness of that forest might have been the last darkness of my life. In any case, Johannes moved me to an inn he had spotted earlier.

Johannes’ rapid breathing falling on my forehead, the humidity of the inn, the musty smell of mold, and something like a shocked expression were vaguely felt even in my hazy consciousness.

Unfamiliar voices murmured from all directions. Well, they must have been quite surprised when one or two people covered in blood from head to toe barged in at dawn. Johannes’ urgent voice shouting to call for a priest was heard, and soon followed by the sound of a wooden door being flung open. Johannes laid me down on the bed.

Apparently trying to be considerate in their own way, the surface of the bed, thickly filled with straw, touched my skin. It’s a pity for them, but even under normal circumstances, it would have been an unsatisfactory sensation, and that day it felt like sharp blades. However, I couldn’t even utter a short complaint and just seemed to groan. My entire body felt like a cold ball of fire.

My consciousness, which had been barely maintaining itself, flickering several times, finally went out completely then. I’m not sure exactly when even a fraction of sensation returned.

“…Disinfect after removing the pus… blue solution…. And bloodletting…”

At a time I couldn’t tell if it was day or night, what resonated in the back of my head was the voice of an unfamiliar man. It must have been the priest. The man’s voice coming from behind me sounded muffled as if echoing from deep inside a cave. I didn’t even think to be wary. My eyelids were too heavy for that. In the end, I just listened without even opening my eyes.

“…So this side… These seem to be wounds caused by a whip.”

The priest’s voice gradually became clearer. His tone was noticeably tense for some reason. I could soon figure out the reason for that tension. It was because Johannes’ low voice followed immediately.

“Don’t state the obvious. Tell me something I wouldn’t know just by looking.”

It was a cold tone that was more fitting to describe as sharp rather than strict, unlike him. A moment of silence. The tip of something long and dry slightly touched my back. Only then did I realize that I was lying face down.

Soon after, the priest, who already seemed to be barely breathing properly, continued with an even more frightened voice.

“Yes, um… this side. It seems to be a very recent wound, and although it looks deep and large, it’s actually not that wide as it’s overlapped on a scar of the same shape. The width is about two finger joints…”

“Not wide?”

“Pardon?”

“…Can’t you see this back with your eyes?”

“I’m sorry.”

“…Continue.”

“This side appears yellowish, indicating it’s a relatively old bruise. It seems to be about 2 weeks old. Probably…”

“Traces of kicking.”

“That’s right.”

“I told you to say things I wouldn’t know just by looking. Don’t make me say it three times.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Then…”

“What about the bones and muscles.”

“Yes, actually there’s a slight fracture here… Yes, this part… It’s amazing. How have you been able to move all this time…”

The voices of the two men faded away from my ears again, but the conversation centered on me continued for a long time afterward. My consciousness was hazy, so I couldn’t hear all of the conversation. However, I still remember that Johannes, who had been pressing the priest as if he would devour him, gradually spoke less.

At times, Johannes even seemed not to hear the priest calling him. A silence as if he alone remained in this space, as if he had pushed everything away. That indescribably miserable silence was tangible on my skin. Especially the presence of the priest, who was fidgeting with his behind, not knowing what to do in the frozen air, remains particularly vivid in my mind, as if it were just yesterday.

Do you know that a half-monster is more terrifying than a complete monster?

It was probably the very night I was bedridden in the inn. That night, a black storm that hardly seemed like autumn’s raged. I regained consciousness feeling a chill after suffering from a nightmare I can’t even remember now.

My whole body felt like it had been soaked in cold water. I shivered and pulled the blanket up over my shoulders. Just as my fever had subsided a bit, my sweat-soaked body was gradually cooling down when a cold wind blew in through the suddenly opened window.

Why was the window left open, I wondered, debating whether it would be better to get up now and close it. I finally managed to pry open my heavy eyelids, intending to get up from the bed. And before I could piece together the hazy memories of where I was lying or Johannes’ whereabouts…

I was startled.

In the dark room. Because the sound of someone staggering down came over.

It was by the window. The intruder’s clothes were soaked from the heavy rain, and the sound of water dripping was very clear. Perhaps fatigue makes one lose even fear, I barely turned my limp body like wet cotton to look towards the window. A dark figure was flickering with the storm.

“…Inette.”

It was Johannes.

“Jo…”

I tried to call him, but my voice didn’t come out immediately as my throat had been closed for a long time. Even my focus wouldn’t adjust properly. After waiting for him for a moment, I pressed my throbbing temples, rubbed my eyes a few times, and then slowly sat up.

“…You scared me.”

I scolded him. Until then, Johannes seemed to have no intention of approaching me, just standing there motionless.

“What are you doing? Come here.”

“……”

“Hm? Why are you just standing there…”

Even though it was such a short sentence, I was out of breath. When I closed my mouth in the face of Johannes’ silence, only the sound of the rattling window and the storm whirled fiercely in the inn room.

Johannes remained completely still. Finally, I started to move my waist, and only then did he take a step towards me.

“Inette.”

“Yes, Johannes.”

“Inette…”

I stared intently at Johannes, who was barely visible. Johannes’ state as he called me was not like usual. He called my name repeatedly as if he had forgotten all other words. It was like delirious talk.

“Inette.”

I wondered if he had unusually gone somewhere for a drink. Listening to the sound of Johannes’ footsteps approaching me, I fumbled around the side of the bed. It was just a habitual action, but as is common in any house, my hand touched an unfamiliar table placed near the bed. After confirming the location of the flat, plate-shaped candle, I flicked the quartz in my hand to light it. With a whoosh, the candlelight flared up as if it would break. The edge of the bed suddenly brightened. The first thing that caught my eye was Johannes’ thoroughly wet body standing in front of me. And as my eyes drifted a little lower…

Red thread.

No, I saw a bone with something like human ligaments attached to it. It was Johannes’ knee. Protruding through torn clothes.

“Inette.”

I forgot even to breathe at the horrific sight that filled my vision. The shape of both of Johannes’ knee joints, clearly visible, had not been cut or broken. It was as if it had been that shape from the beginning. As if it had grown according to that purpose. It was there as if it should have grown twisted.

Suddenly, that knee slipped slightly downward. It wasn’t a movement to distance himself from me. Johannes was simply kneeling on the floor by the bed.

When Johannes’ upper body came into my field of view, I saw the back of his hands and elbows, and the skin revealed through his torn sleeves. And even the dozens of bones that had shot up from his back like spears. They trembled and rattled in the air.

When I finally saw Johannes’ face, what covered my horror was, somehow, a faint tear. Black skin like a bronze shell had spread from the nape of his neck to his cheeks. His lower lip was clearly marked where it had been grazed by his own teeth, perhaps because his elongated canines and the position of his jaw didn’t quite match, and his eyes…

They were like those of a dazed dragon.

Yes, a dazed dragon. His demeanor was so pale it was hard to even describe as blue, childlike in a way, and on the other hand, as I had first thought, like someone intoxicated. Like the demon I had met on the night I broke the stone coffin. No, in an even worse state than that demon.

It was strange. His head nodded downward as if he was about to fall asleep. There was no expression on that face. At a glance, even his mind seemed unsound, as if the only thing right about Johannes’ body were the two horns that had grown through his temples on both sides.

“Inette.”

Johannes, murmuring dreamily, propped himself on both arms on the bed, with my body between them. The moisture from his body soaked the blanket. As Johannes put his weight on his arms, a sound that could have been bones cracking or straw creaking mixed lowly with the wind that hit my eardrums.

“Where did you go… in this condition…”

I asked, tracing his long eyelashes wet with rainwater. There was no answer. Only, Inette. Johannes’ eyelids closed slowly and trembled finely under my fingertips.

In fact, I was trembling just as much. I had never seen such a wreck before. I had no idea where to start examining this body that was like a kite with all its ribs broken by the rough wind.

I raised my shaking hand and meaninglessly brushed back his bangs, then hurriedly stroked his eyebrows and felt his shoulders and arms. When the bones protruding from each joint touched my hand, I had to try hard not to show my startled reaction.

Fortunately, there seemed to be nothing that looked like external wounds anywhere, so the last thing my fingertips embraced was his cheek. Johannes leaned his damp cheek against my palm and slowly rubbed it. That gesture was more animal-like than ever before.