The Monster's Room - Chapter 68
“Only Uncle John understood me.”
Marie realized how John Doe must have seized the opportunity.
“He said it was okay to make mistakes. He never got angry. He always praised me, said I was doing good things. I was supposed to get rid of the bad monsters, and then…”
Marie’s desire to kill John Doe again grew stronger when she realized why the child adored him. That bastard. Exploiting an isolated child for criminal purposes? It was more vile the more she thought about it.
“He said he’d make me part of his family.”
“…You see. About that.”
“But you got in the way.”
Sadly, the child seemed completely uninterested in listening to Marie’s words. The child, using her powers, silenced Marie’s mouth and twisted her expression.
“Because of you.”
Tears of blood from the child started soaking her clothes and covering the floor of the ruined corridor.
“What if Uncle John abandons me?”
“Mm…!”
“I don’t want to be abandoned again. I don’t want to be mocked as a monster. I’m not a monster. I’m going to be part of Uncle John’s family. I’m going to be a person!”
This was the anxiety and fear that Mary Hunt had kept hidden. Negative emotions. They were the foundation of the child’s power and the origin of nightmares.
“If you’re gone, it’ll be okay. Please die! Die!”
As the child’s emotions intensified, her power surged uncontrollably, like a volcano about to erupt. Marie braced herself.
Suddenly, the child bowed their head deeply. Marie felt an ominous sense from this sudden emotional shift.
“Do you know why you were free from nightmares?”
Tears of blood continued to flow from the child’s bowed head, soaking her clothes and covering the floor.
“Because of your power? Because you’re special?”
That was somewhat true. Marie’s unique power resisted the child’s nightmares. But the real reason Marie had been free was different.
“No.”
The child only realized this after Marie had been absorbed into the dream.
“You’ve forgotten what you’re afraid of.”
Nightmares worked only when there was something to fear. Even objects have a purpose or avoid destruction. Marie lacked even that. This was unnatural. So, what was the reason?
“Yourself.”
Marie had erased it.
The source of her nightmares—the very thing she feared most.
The child lifted her head. Marie gasped silently.
The child’s eyes, now bloodied, had empty sockets where they should have been. The pool of blood covering the corridor was all coming from those eye sockets.
“So now, show me.”
A round object flew toward Marie. By the time she realized it was the child’s removed eyeball, it had already seeped into her own eyes.
“What you were hiding.”
The nightmare looked into Marie.
* * *
Marie’s abilities remained largely undisclosed. Primarily, she herself was unaware. They had existed for some time, merely pushing her life into a pit of misfortune.
“It’s difficult to define.”
Researchers could only scratch their heads at Marie’s abilities.
“Is it because there are too few comparisons?”
“Don’t even think about it. Are you sure what you see reflected in your mug isn’t Spiegel?”
“Research isn’t easy…”
So, Marie didn’t dwell deeply on her abilities. After all, she never left the F-49 area. Was there really a need for profound contemplation?
“Should we list it as an ability to gain favor with SCPs?”
“That seems too vague. Should we add ‘se-ual desire’?”
“There are cases with Spiegel and the fluffy cotton doll.”
“Looking at the obsession with Marie Garcia, it’s no worse than SCPs driven by se-ual desire. How should we describe this?”
“We need experiments. Experiments.”
“The image in your mug moved.”
“Please save me.”
The researchers did all the pondering. They struggled and, in the end, described Marie’s abilities with the broad, vague term they despised most.
An ability to be loved by monsters.
It was something that could be passed off if they just accepted it. But Marie couldn’t do that. She found herself staring at the inscribed words, puzzled.
‘It doesn’t seem right.’
Marie’s abilities weren’t limited to monsters. They were random but also affected people. And every single one had gone mad, leading to their downfall.
At this point, Marie had no choice but to question further.
Were the emotions people experienced when subjected to her abilities truly love?
She had to stop there.
But Marie’s doubts went a step further.
Then what about the feelings that monsters have for her?
Marie’s lips slightly parted.
▉▉▉.
Marie denied it.
▉▉ ▉▉.
She denied and denied again. She couldn’t handle the feelings that overwhelmed her. So, she erased them. The doubts, the dimly realized nature of her abilities—all were buried in her unconscious, forgotten. And with that, her anxiety vanished.
She even forgot why she was anxious in the first place.
Liar.
The nightmare mocked Marie.
You knew all along.
Your ability isn’t about being loved,
The eyeball embedded in Marie’s inner self could see anything. What Marie had hidden. What she had forgotten, erased, and denied. The secret Marie had desperately tried to keep was laid bare to the world by the nightmare.
It’s brainwashing.
The truth she had been avoiding overwhelmed Marie.
