Chapter 220 For All the Alices (5)

A memory from some time ago.

An isolation room without even a speck of light.

Her younger sister leaned against the cold glass wall, crying quietly.

"Sniff, sob..."

One arm was wrapped in bandages.

Who knew how terrible today's torment had been. A few needle marks showed through where the bandages failed to cover her skin.

"Ugh, sob..."

Though she tried to stop crying, her younger sister couldn't seem to rein in her surging emotions.

Allie silently watched her fragile sister.

It had been a day no different from usual.

So why were her emotions such a mess today?

"Liss."

Allie carefully approached her sister.

At the same time, she gently stroked the black hair that resembled her own.

"S-Sis..."

Perhaps she hadn't wanted to be caught crying.

Her sister hurriedly looked away.

Allie crouched in front of her anyway.

Her slender fingers wiped the tears from her sister's face.

"You're ruining that pretty face of yours."

Dark wet spots appeared on her white sleeves.

Allie forced out a few cheerful words.

"It was hard today, wasn't it?"

Clinging despair ran down her spine.

Her sister was a wreck.

Arms covered in needle marks, surgical scars scattered across her body, dark circles from days without sleep...

She was battered all over.

Looking at her sister, Allie unconsciously thought of a mirror.

'...I must look like this too.'

The sisters were alike.

But if there was one thing that set them apart...

"You made it through today too. Good job, little sister."

"S-Sis... It stings when you rub your cheek against mine."

"Ah, sorry. That's where you're hurt. Are you okay? Does it hurt a lot?"

"N-No... I'm okay."

Allie didn't cry.

The girl had never once cried in front of her sister.

Rather than cry, complain, or despair, she always covered herself with a bright, false smile.

'Because I need to comfort Liss.'

An obsession.

The pressure that no one but her could protect her sister.

"That's a relief! The wounds aren't deep."

So whether she was exhausted or in pain, Allie had to smile.

The corners of her mouth, forced upward, looked truly pitiful.

An isolation room without a trace of light.

Chilly glass walls.

Even in such a place, she wanted to protect her sister's life.

That was why Allie often indulged her sister.

"Sniff, Sis..."

"Oh dear, my little spoiled sister! Don't you love your big sister too much?"

Whenever her sister timidly opened her arms, Allie hugged her as though she had been waiting for it.

Emptiness welled up inside her, but she hid it beneath another layer of deception.

Her sister was still at an age when she needed care.

An age when she should have been throwing tantrums, crying, and acting spoiled.

"Sis, Sis..."

"That's right. Good girl, little sister."

When she thought about it at night, wasn't she that age too?

But Allie couldn't be spoiled by anyone.

She had become the one who indulged others far too early.

The role she had chosen for herself always gnawed at a corner of her heart.

On nights when her resentment grew too thick, she sometimes hated her sister, as though all this were Liss's fault.

'Because of Liss... Maybe if Liss weren't here...'

Anger with nowhere to go.

But once she came to her senses, she immediately blamed herself from the depths of her heart.

Self-loathing, disappointment, and love for her sister mixed together and made a mess of her mind.

'I'm sorry... If only I'd been a better sister...'

Allie was always exhausted.

Some days, the operating table felt more comfortable than the bed in the isolation room.

On the operating table, she didn't need to act out emotions or care for anyone. She could scream for herself alone.

"I'm scared..."

Her sister murmured softly in her arms.

Allie naturally wanted to agree.

'Me too.'

Big sister is scared too.

Big sister wants to let go of everything too.

Big sister wants to cry her eyes out and be held by someone too.

"Ugh, sob..."

"It's okay. Everything will be okay."

But Allie was endlessly powerless in that white room.

She could only be the big sister who took care of her sister.

"Come on, take a deep breath. Breathe deeply with me."

"Sob, hoo..."

How long would this continue?

How long could she keep living this life, playing this role, putting on this act?

Allie always spoke of hope while holding deep despair inside.

Behind her bright smile lay every kind of curse, resentment, and self-reproach.

'Why?'

Why had everything turned out like this?

Why did only I, only we, have to live like this?

If only I could die and get Liss out of here.

"Sis..."

The longer life went on, the more of a mess it became. The harder she struggled, the deeper she sank.

Whenever that happened, Allie pretended not to notice.

Words as warm as the warmth she fabricated.

"It's okay... It'll definitely get better."

The girl had half given up.

She didn't know how her sister saw that version of her...

"...Really?"

"Of course. Have you ever seen your big sister lie?"

"How? In what way...?"

"Um... For example? Maybe a prince on a white horse will come save you..."

"..."

"You might meet someone who'll save you someday. That's how life is."

"You always say things like that, Sis. That someday it'll be okay, that we have to believe it will be..."

"Do I? Still, we have to. That's the only way we can live."

Words spoken as though whatever happened, happened.

Allie smiled with difficulty.

"You have to keep believing tomorrow will be better."

"..."

Belief.

Allie hated that word.

She had believed all her life, yet salvation had never come.

"Okay? You can definitely be happy."

"...Yeah."

She didn't even know what she was saying, but her sister nodded.

In that deceitful moment, Allie held back the tears gathering in her eyes.

She only hugged her sister tightly so her expression wouldn't show.

"That's my little sister! You listen so well."

"Mmm... Sis, my cheek hurts..."

Allie had given up on her own life long ago.

So she had only one prayer.

Please, God.

Even if You must kill me, let my sister be happy.

* * *

The moment Viktor's finger touched her, memories flooded into her mind.

Unknown blankly accepted the surging waves.

"...Liss."

Color poured into black and white like water through a broken dam.

They were all memories of Alice.

Records of her younger sister, who had been forced to live alone in a world without her.

-Sis.

She could vividly feel all the loneliness, pain, self-reproach, resentment, emptiness, and absence that little girl had endured.

Yet after going through it all, the girl had not broken. Instead, she had put down roots as a tougher vine.

Allie quietly watched the changes her sister had gone through.

Scenes replayed before her eyes, showing the girl she had become.

-You know, Sis always said that once we got out of the laboratory, she wanted to travel all across the vast continent... Sis was curious about everything and wasn't easily scared.

-No, maybe even that was an act for my sake. I was always such a crybaby. Maybe Sis always had to smile to hold me. Like an idiot. There's no way she wasn't scared of that horrible place. There's no way she could have been carefree enough to talk about dreams...

When had she grown so much?

While Allie was gone, her sister had become an adult.

She still seemed fragile, but she was now brave enough not to hide behind someone else's back.

-I grew up feeding on Sis's kindness.

Her little sister.

A child so small she could be completely hidden behind Allie.

-When Sis spoke of dreams, I had a dream too. I wanted to become someone like her. Strong, bright, and kind.

-I can't back down. I've run away hundreds of times and hidden thousands of times in my life, but I can't do that this time. This life was passed down to me by my sister. This is the life Viktor saved. If I let this moment go, I don't think I could ever face either of them with my head held high.

She had grown so much that Allie might have needed to look up at her now.

The sister in the memories spoke clearly without tears.

It was a side of her unfamiliar to Allie.

-I'm definitely afraid of Father, but there's something I'm even more afraid of.

-I... want to be brave.

When Unknown heard those words, she could no longer hold back the tears.

A lukewarm line ran down her cheek.

'Liss.'

Tears she had thought had run dry from not falling for so long.

They had not come through countless tortures and repeated traumas, yet a single panorama of her sister's growth broke her apart.

'I miss you...'

Her emotions poured out all at once.

Allie buried her face in her palms.

'You grew up so well... You've become such a beautiful person...'

A faint sob escaped her.

The sister in the boy's memories was so beautiful. That alone made Allie no longer hate her own life.

She had hated herself so much, resented her fate and role so deeply, yet every corner of those emotional valleys was erased by a single picture.

Even after so much time, she was still a big sister.

"Liss, Liss..."

Allie sobbed as though she were collapsing.

The boy, his burn scars covered, carefully approached her.

"Miss Allie."

It was morning by then.

Oz would soon come to the isolation room, and the boy would once again be dragged onto the operating table.

"I want to ask you again. Don't you miss Miss Liss, Miss Allie?"

"I... I, well..."

Allie's voice trembled.

The words were drowned in tears and would not come out.

It was as though the storm of memories had crashed into her, its aftermath slowly swallowing her whole.

-Sis, I love you.

Her red eyes seemed to hold waves within them.

The waves struck her eyelids, bloomed into foam, and ran down in drops.

"...I miss her."

The girl strained her voice.

"I miss her... But I can't go see her..."

"Why can't you go see her?"

"You might be fine because you're an outsider, but I'm not... This nightmare won't let me go. I can't escape this hell."

Words of despair.

Then came words that wrapped around them.

"I told you, didn't I? That I would take care of everything."

"How could you possibly, by what means, deal with this nightmare..."

"Shh."

"..."

"What you need to do, Miss Allie, isn't to question. It's to ask."

The boy placed his index finger against his lips.

When she fell silent, the boy meeting her eyes smiled softly.

"Miss Allie, you only need to say one thing. That you want to live."

"..."

"Then I will make it happen."

"..."

There was neither basis nor logic in those words.

So why did that absurd joke sound so desperately sincere?

Allie lowered her head.

"I also..."

Rattle.

At that moment, the isolation room door opened.

Oz and the researchers stood beyond the widening gap.

<Well, morning has dawned again.>

<It's about time we began the experiment, isn't it?>

Oz spoke casually.

Regardless, the boy waited only for the girl's answer.

"I'm listening."

His black eyes were vast enough to hold the girl entirely.

Allie tightly gripped her completely torn sleeve.

Her tears showed no sign of stopping as she forced out a pitiful plea.

About the heart she had thoroughly ignored, telling herself she had already given up and that it was too late.

"...I want to live too."

Her voice was as small as an ant crawling.

It was so quiet that she thought perhaps the boy hadn't heard it.

"Please save me..."

"At your service."

But that was enough for the boy.

Viktor slowly rose to his feet.

Then he stood with his back to Allie, as though protecting her.

He was pulling a mask over his face with one hand, though she didn't know when he had started holding it.

"Then... I'll bring you to your sister in the blink of an eye."

Shwaaaak!

The next moment, the heads of those approaching them fell.

"Activate. Thorns."

<Oh, my.>

The boy had only recited the activation command.

Oz's upper body was torn apart and turned to dust.

Slice!

In a single instant, a scythe severed the girl's nightmare in two.

The isolation room itself collapsed along the straight line it carved.

Allie blankly stared at the scene.

"How...?"

It was too bewildering to comprehend.

She couldn't even tell what had happened or what movement had passed through the room.

-Of course. Have you ever seen your big sister lie?

Why had that memory surfaced, even amid such confusion?

-Um... For example? Maybe a prince on a white horse will come save you...

Words she had carelessly thrown at her younger sister.

Why did she remember that moment now, of all times?

-You might meet someone who'll save you someday.

-So you can definitely be happy.

Allie felt as though she had encountered light for the first time in her life.