I Will Die for You, My Darling! - Chapter 31
Chapter 31
Arietta suddenly felt acutely aware that all of this was a dream. Only upon entering this lucid state did she realize she was reliving the past through it.
‘This distant past… it still lingers in my mind?’ It was quite astonishing. While awake, no matter how far she stretched her memory, she couldn’t recall anything beyond the repeating year. ‘To revisit these memories like this…’ Her childhood felt both novel and tinged with a familiar nostalgia. ‘There must be better things to dream about than this.’ Arietta delved deeper into her mind.
Certain points remained locked, refusing to open. ‘I must have truly lost them while repeating the regression,’ Arietta thought. It was a shame, but there was nothing to be done.
Still, she could salvage a few more memories. Her mother’s warning, for instance. ‘Don’t give your heart to a man of the Downstream.’
‘What makes men of the Sky City any different?’ Arietta wondered, then as now.
And Isaac’s piercing gaze. ‘You’re horrible.’ In the fleeting reality where every moment slipped away, she could only read defiance and rage in his dark eyes. But looking closer now, she saw something else. Loneliness. A tiny flicker, seemingly buried beneath his defiance. Perhaps the flicker of misery she sometimes glimpsed in his gaze stemmed from that solitude. Perhaps that’s why she kissed him.
‘Loneliness can twist even hatred.’
The dream, in which Arietta had been cozily revisiting her distant past, began to shrink. Pillars rose, walls sprung up, and a chandelier descended from the ceiling like a falling snowflake. Arietta accepted the dream’s transformation without resistance.
She closed her eyes briefly, and when she opened them, she was sitting in a plush chair. A comb was in her hand. A mirror stood before her. It was the vanity where she always met her death.
The dream seemed to be chiding her. ‘Your leisurely stroll down memory lane ends here. It’s time to face the end.’
‘Yes, it is time.’ Arietta combed her long hair, just as she always did when December 31st arrived. Isaac would be here soon, and she needed to be breathtakingly beautiful.
Bang!
Right on schedule.
A beast’s heavy body crashed against the door. Arietta continued combing her hair, her face impassive. The force of the impact tore not only the door from its hinges but also splintered the frame and part of the wall. A dark beast, its back hunched, entered Arietta’s bedroom.
She had been surprised the first time. She had hoped Isaac might visit her on New Year’s Eve, but not like this. She hadn’t expected him to shatter the door instead of knocking or opening it.
She saw Isaac in the mirror. A black tiger.
Isaac was the sole success of the “Enhanced Lifeform Synthesis Experiment,” conducted by a Sky City mage in Downstream. After the experiment, he gained the ability to shift freely between human and beast form.
Unfortunately, that memory remained firmly locked. ‘Why was Isaac a subject in the experiment?’
‘Did Maud, his boss at the time, order it? But Maud had no reason to.’
‘Or was it Isaac’s own headstrong choice? But how did he maintain his position under Maud afterward? She despised insubordination.’
‘…Or was he abducted by the laboratory?’
Nothing came to mind. While she was lost in thought, the beast with blazing golden eyes merely crouched behind her. ‘Those eyes used to be jet black.’ Arietta sometimes missed Isaac’s original eye color. It was the colorless gaze, stained with a multitude of emotions, that had captivated her.
Yet, her love hadn’t faded. Even with the change in eye color, Isaac was still Isaac. The only man who made her heart race. The only human she ever desired.
