sonovelo Chapter 62: S2. Resentment Wished Upon The Stars - 5
Chapter 62: S2. Resentment Wished Upon The Stars - 5
Chapter 62: S2. Resentment Wished Upon The Stars - 5
S2. Resentment Wished Upon The Stars 5
Abrahams pupils trembled. It was the dismay of someone who had encountered an unexpected event. Every night, he had envisioned his daughters return in his dreams, but his mind, as radiant as a star, knew that something like that would never happen.
Hence, the embarrassed perplexity.
Abraham carefully chose his words. Were you expelled from that religion? Do you still believe in those strange things? Have you been harmed in any way?
However, after looking into Isaacs eyes, he realized that such questions were meaningless. Eyes were the windows to the soul, and inside her window, there was just one thing; a blinding white that scattered the human intellect. A boiling froth.
Therefore, the old man had no choice but to ask an obvious, commonplace question.
Have you been well?
Isaac smiled. That smile was not as if a daughter was happily responding to her caring fathers concern, but rather like watching a monkey play tricks inside its cage.
Yes, Father, I have been well. My soul is fuller than at any other time in my life and I am spending each day with true significance. It is all thanks to you.
.
Are you still counting those meaningless stars? Those rocks floating in space, merely made from lumps of dust.
They are not meaningless, child. There is meaning in everything in this world.
You still fail to see what needs to be seen, I see. Father.
Despite the conversations gentle tone, the atmosphere and the looks in their eyes did not seem like a dialogue between a father and daughter. Tara intervened between them as if to protect Abraham.
Who are you?
It seems my introduction was a bit late. My name is Isaac. And you are?
Tara.
And what about the rest of you?
Isaacs gaze turned to Bennett and Niolle. Bennett swallowed dryly at the vivid unease he felt and Niolle felt the universe through her gaze.
Darkness, the chillingly black void. Being, yet also not being. Like a swelling egg or a shrinking heart about to collapse on itself. A bizarre universe that human cognition could only observe in fragments.
Aha. You too?
It seemed like Isaac sensed it as well. A smile blossomed on her face; not one of mocking, but one stemming from joy rooted deep within her soul.
Isaac approached leisurely, took Niolles hands, and kissed them politely, filled with affection.
I am pleased to meet you. Your name?
.
Niolle twitched her lips with a blank expression. As if that itself was enough, Isaac nodded; a connection that continued through the medium of silence.
However, it was a one-sided connection. Isaac, through her demeanor and gestures, seemed to be probing Niolle, conveying something distant yet sinister. Almost as if she was a man courting a beautiful woman with piercing, violating stares.
And, just as she was about to say more.
Back off!
Thwack!
Bennett slapped Isaacs hand away and stepped back with Niolle in tow, wrapping his arms around her shoulders. It was to protect her. After all, it seemed as though a white snake was baring its fangs at Niolle.
Isaac feigned a hurt, sorrowful expression, caressing her smacked hand as if it was in pain.
I had nowhere else to go, so I came back. Even strangers welcomed me warmly, so surely, a daughter who has just stepped out for a while. Will be welcome back, right, Father?
Yes, your room has always been kept ready.
Bennett nodded. Niolles ability to quickly grasp even minor details would be a great asset in their investigation; she would undoubtedly be of help this time as well.
Despite being worried about Niolles somewhat strange attitude, he felt it was better than just leaving her to her lonesome. As such, all of you followed Abraham into the noisy machine called a car and headed towards Miskatonic University.
Tara asked if she could try driving and Bennett interjected, telling her not to talk such nonsense. And amidst all this bustling, Niolle remained quiet. The whiteboard and pen did not move.
Niolles strange behavior was due to something that happened the night before.
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#4 : Pitch
Late at night, a whisper reached Niolles ears. Come here. Come here. She woke from a shallow sleep and looked around, only to find Tara sleeping soundly; there was nothing else in her vicinity.
Come here.
The voice in her head even provided a direction to head to. Niolle judged it to be some kind of magic. She carefully left the room and followed the direction that the voice was leading her to.
And at the end of it, she arrived in front of the storage room at the end of the hallway.
Niolle knocked quietly. When she did so, the door opened smoothly, as if slithering. When she stepped inside, she saw Isaac stretching under the glow of the moonlight. She gave her a benevolent smile before speaking.
Do you believe in God?
[I believe in the fact of their existence, but not in the worship that comes with it.]
Have you ever seen God up close?
[No.]
What a pity.
Isaac fluttered her eyelids, as if to find such a belief regretful, and gazed at the vast night sky through the window. Niolle turned her head as well. There was no surveillant in the yard today.
The woman in the white dress rattled on, immersed and drunk on religious fervor.
Humans cannot possibly understand God. It is because they have inferior sensory organs. With their ears, they can only hear a very narrow range of sounds, and with their eyes, they cannot see colors beyond the spectrum of the rainbow.
[.]
However, sometimes Very rarely, there are those born with the fortune to see a bit more. The chosen ones. People who see what others cannot. People who are so very close to God. You and I. Even if we cannot reach full understanding, we can grasp at least a part of it.
She seemed to firmly believe that she was one of these chosen people. And that was the particular driving force behind her religious fervor. While fidgeting her thighs, Isaac sent adoring gazes to the night sky, her excited eyes akin to a person deeply in love.
That clingy affection. The sticky desire that felt almost tangible, as if she would intertwine tongues at any moment if just given the chance to. A flower born from a muddy, depraved mixture of various emotions. A froth, boiling, seething.
Niolle knew what the name of that was. Fanaticism.
I hope you, too, can.. experience this joy. Now is a very good time, you see
Isaac extended a book towards Niolle; an inauspicious book, bound in some kind of leather. When running a hand over its surface, it seemed to emanate a warmth that dead leather should not possess.
Niolle quietly nodded, then left the room with the book held closely in her embrace.
[.]
Niolle had not lost her mind. It was true she held a deep reverence for the vastness, the dizzying difference in scale, the something of the universe. However, that did not mean she had any intention of throwing everything away for it.
Whether in the otherworld or her original world, there had always been something that existed beyond the common sense of those ordinary. Something that mere humans could not touch nor do anything to. Whether it was the power of the Imperial Family, monsters that had reached Sublimation, or the death that one would inevitably face, all of such were something that could not be defied. Something that could not dare to be resisted.
Yet, her belief still remained quite simple; she just believed in the righteousness of saving people and the wrongness of harming them. She also had the courage to act on such beliefs. Therefore
She intended to read this ominous book, obtain information from it, and help Bennett, Tara, and Abraham. Perhaps. Even Isaac. Maybe she could be helped as well.
Niolle opened the book in a corner of the room.
The memories of that night were not all that /genesisforsaken