The Advent of Madness: My Twin Sister And I

Chapter 43: Churning Madness

W, w, what...Cold sweat poured from my clenched fists.

My heart began pounding at me from the inside out, rattling my stomach with a sense of nausea.

Screech!

Screech!

Screech!

All of them, one after the other, they retreated, and-

-knelt on the ground, all but Yulei, who held her head down.

Even Hilda turned around and promptly lowered herself, then, simultaneously, as though it had been practised repeatedly:

""I greet His Majesty!""

Their voices echoed throughout the gazebo, digging deep into my rattled heart.

A step, was it a step? Is it a step?

Is that the sound of a step?

What does a step sound like again?

Ah, no, that's not the sound of a step.

But.

It's the sound of steps.

The voices have stopped.

It has been over five years.

And to this day, I cannot forget.

The

loomed behind me.

I could feel

I could hear —through the mad pounding of my feeble heart, I can hear

I could also see the other six.

I could see them looking at

Listening to

But then, their eyes shifted slightly to the side; they seemed to be looking at something smaller than it, shorter than it, standing right beside it-

Esme?

As stated?

Is speaking?

...That's right, I was never able to hear in the first place.

But why is Esme there? With ?

"Psst... Alora~ Sorry for this mess..." Esme whispered in my ear, yet I did not dare turn and look behind me.

"I brought Father along to fix it."

Why?

Why did you bring that along?

"Huh? Yes, Father." Promptly stepping back, seemingly under request, Esme left my side.

Now;

Hilda, Yulei, Vanessa, Jill, Hildekar, Elden, and Nemora all lay there, kneeling, mostly.

Esme was also somewhere behind me.

And their eyes were all staring right behind me.

Not even a metre behind me.

stood.

Silence enveloped us for a moment.

My heartbeat ran so loud that I worried the others could hear it-

-the stitches of Curses connecting my heart together threatened to fall apart all over again;

Still.

I.

...

Huh?

I did not hear a voice.

That was not a voice.

It's-

It's-

The personification of , our supposed father, was gripping my shoulder.

That thing was supposed to be hand.

Yet.

mda;madnessmad

My brain returned.

And, once it did, I realised the obvious.

I was meant to greet .

I was meant to turn around, gaze at .

I must turn.

I must.

I-

I dare not turn.

The reason for it is simple.

Sweat flooded my body, making my clothes stick to my flesh. My bottom felt cold and was uncomfortably shifting, struggling to release from the chair's material sticking to it.

I was hyperventilating, every breath synced with my wildly screaming heart.

Biting my gum, I slowly turned myself towards .

I stood up from my chair towards .

Towards what I feared from the bottom of my broken heart.

Thus.

Having turned.

Having stood.

I saw.

The personification of , as I remembered , as lingered in the back of my mind for years, and as shall for years to come.

lay there.

An amalgamation of in purest sense.

The lay isolated from the world, a veil separating from all that is true; I could not go mad, we could not go mad, for stopped us from going mad.

We should be mad. ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ꜰʀᴏᴍ novelhall.com

We should be crazy.

I may already be both.

But gazing upon the personification of years later, after having already Descended to the First Step as a Defiler;

Why do the others not see this ?

I do not understand, nor do I dare understand.

The personification of still held onto my shoulder as I stared at .

And I-

I-

I can feel a distinct gaze piercing through the ensemble of .

The gaze didn't feel like that of our mother's: a tense look flooded with radically varying emotions.

No, gaze was blank—simple.

Like that of an observer.

I feel no sense of familial love, interest, disdain, boredom, or any of the sorts;

Nought but a plain gaze.

"G-" I bit my tongue and hastily put together a sentence, "Greetings, f, f, father-" The word came out with a tone stenched with reproach and fear.

Is saying anything?

Is speaking?

Slipping my gaze aside at Esme, she looked at me with a loving smile in her golden eyes. Those pretty eyes utterly failed to sooth my heart.

What is doing?

Why is still there, staring at me?

What does want?

To 'solve' this issue?

Spitting out an apology through chattering, painfully clicking teeth, "S, sorry for the delayed g, greeting..." I was trying to find something to say, something to do, otherwise, otherwise, otherwise-

Yet.

released grip.

let go of me.

Still, I struggled to tell whether was speaking or not;

What was contemplating;

What face looked like at that moment.

Does even have a face?

However, I do know this.

It's pounding and pounding.

Beating and beating.

It almost reminds me of .

It's bubbling up, squirming in the pits of my stomach amid the of this . This day was meant to be pleasant, the weather nice, and the world running along like clockwork.

The kids around me were holding a court session of sorts on me, they were still all around us.

And Esme, Esme was right there, looking at me, smiling at me, proud of her decision to bring the personification of .

...

I will kill myself.

So, why?

Why?

Why do you still stand there, personification of ?

Why do you still stare at me?

Why is on one talking, why is no one helping, Esme, Esme-!

...It's coming up.

A mixture of torn flesh, rotten organs and pieces of my heart that had been pulled out of their original position and into circulation alongside the flow of Curses.

An amalgamation of filth.

It's rising.

All eyes were on the personfication of .

All eyes except for eyes and Esme's.

Stop-

The core of my body flinched, sunken into a scrutinizing abyss; a cold, vast, and endless gaping hole of ice.

gaze changed.

And I immediately understood what that change was.

I immediately understood why had come.

Why only appeared now.

After all these years, after all of these days of freedom; it all made sense now.

had given me enough time to get closer to Esme, to build up the lies. had given me enough time to know her friends, her closest friends, and build up even more lies there.

had given me enough time to start caring ever so slightly.

Till...

...till I had built an inescapable castle of lies.

Surrounded from all sides in the lies used to build the facade that is this creature, one leak is all that it needs and the castle will crumble; torn apart by the truth.

My Curses shall flourish.

This Perfect Cursed Doll shall grow.

...And I shall be isolated, again.

Free...

I stared up into the gaze of the personification of .

...yet....

Into where I felt gaze come from.

...not free.

The liquid was rising.

Then, again, I notice another obvious, glaring fact.

A fact born from the chestnut and blue overflowing across my vision from beyond the .

Our mother and the personification of do not align in their goals.

This is not part of mother's plans.

Mother gave me the opportunity to reveal the truth.

Yet, the has ripped that opportunity from my hands and has tossed it aside, leaving me empty and bare before my precious sister.

My screaming heart shivered beneath gaze.

...I see.

The flow of liquids continued to rise.

...Everything has become clearer.

My Curses drowned out the light, leaving none but me and the ;

...Mother and the , to them, Esme is the neutral zone of this Domain of Light.

She shall always remain untouched.

Pure.

Perfect.

...And I:

I am the pawn that belongs to neither side.

A pawn that can be played by either side.

Used by either side.

If Esme is the light side of the board, I, once the board has been flipped, am the dark side of the board; a shadow free to be moulded as they like.

Thus.

There I stood.

In this odd darkness.

Far beyond, at the edge of the faintly outlined pathway, stood mother.

Right beside the , highlighted in gold and the purity of light, stood my sister.

And, right before me, a hands-width away, stood the personification of .