"You should also understand," Yuonamaru said slowly, "if you want to escape … it's not just a question of who goes up first."
Constantine snorted softly through his nose, like a musical note, but also like a question mark.
They both wanted to kill each other, but now they both realized that they might not be able to kill each other. The remaining question was how they could cooperate with each other to escape — or rather, how could they believe that the other was indeed cooperating with them.
"Whether the person who goes up first can survive depends on whether the person below can keep an eye on the darkness for him …" Yuonamaru said slowly in a low voice, "After the first person goes up, whether the second person can climb up smoothly depends on the person in the escape tunnel doing the same thing."
She gave a lazy laugh. "Can you trust me? Sometimes, even I don't trust myself. "
Yuonamaru's intuition told him that she did not finish her words — he did not want her to live, but he wanted her to say a few more words.
"My desires, my goals, my life … those things that I think I want, how do I know that someone doesn't tell me every night?" Constantine said softly, "They say that when people are sleeping, the subconscious will be more receptive to hints."
If she had not been looking at the darkness in front of her without moving, he would have almost thought that she had forgotten the situation at hand.
"I never let people know where I sleep." Yuonamaru laughed.
"Me too. But, there's me … Every day when I'm about to wake up, I have to kill all the people who appear in my dream … so that they don't follow me during the day. "
What a coincidence … Yuonamaru was no stranger to the feeling of waking up from a pool of blood.
The people who were killed before waking up from the dream would float up again in the darkness of the night. Tonight, in fact, was no different from any other night in the past.
Perhaps he was also dreaming now, which was why he met this woman.
He could not let this woman follow him during the day.
… Presumably, Constantine had the same idea, right?
"We don't need to trust each other," Yuonamaru said, sweeping the debris on the table with the tip of his foot. He only took a step closer to her, and was almost touching her shoulder. "We just need to keep each other by our side."
"You mean …" Constantine didn't suffer any flesh wounds, but when he spoke, it was as if the thick stench of blood blew past his ears. "As long as we stay close enough, we don't have to worry about the other person looking away?"
It was so - when they were close to each other, it took only the look of one to check the advance of the darkness; and if he wanted to save himself, he could not lay hands on the other.
"I don't mind." Constantine's voice was a little hoarse. "The problem is … do you dare to hug me?"
Yuumaru licked his dry and cracked lips. He had not had a drop of water since he got up from the club table, and now he felt the dry itch of longing in his throat.
"No need."
He pretended not to hear Constantine's drawn-out, disappointed "Oh!" He reached down to unbuckle his belt and handed the other end to her. "Fasten your arms with this," he said.
He could feel her hand gripping the leather strap. Every flip and stroke of her fingers was transmitted through the strap to his hand. He couldn't turn his head. He could only stare at the rolling darkness in front of him.
"Before I fasten it … I want to ask, who should go up first?"
"I'll do it." Yuumaru suppressed his gasp and said, "I'm tired of looking at this darkness."
"Then, you can't fasten it on your arms," Constantine said with a smile. "You should fasten it around your neck."
"Why?"
As he asked the question, he had already retracted his belt and wrapped it around his neck in an almost docile manner.
"Although this passage is for escape, and I've added a ladder for easy climbing … it's still a ventilation duct after all. After you climb up, if you shrink your head back, I can't do anything to you down there. "
She seemed to sigh, but also seemed to be teasing him. "If I pull, you have no choice but to stick your head out, so I can rest assured, right?"
When the black buckle went through the hole and fastened below his Adam's apple, Constantine's voice sounded like it came from a dream.
"Good dog."
Yuumaru couldn't hold back. He grabbed her arm, wrapped the other end of the belt around her wrist, and tied it tightly into her skin. Although he didn't look at her, he exerted all his strength, as if he wanted to cut off her blood vessels. Constantine's voice trembled in pain.
"There's no need to tie a dead knot." She stroked the belt on her wrist and asked with a smile, "Are you relieved now?"
Yuumaru took a deep breath, and his gaze slowly moved up from the darkness. As he raised his head, his gaze finally broke away from the darkness and fell on a dark square exit on the ceiling.
The buckle of the belt under his Adam's apple rose and fell as he breathed.
He turned his eyes away from the escape hatch and fell on the side of Constantine's face. Half of it was light, and the other half was abyss.
She was looking at the darkness in the dressing room. He was a little surprised that she didn't turn her head and let the darkness engulf them both.
Yuumaru stretched out his arm and felt the handle of the simple ladder from the edge of the exit.
"I'm going to pull the ladder down," he reminded her, watching as Constantine quietly took a step to the edge of the dressing table. She put one of her narrow and thin feet outside the table, and the tip of her foot turned in a circle, as if she was tempting the darkness to pounce on her, as if she was tempting him to reach out and push her down.
Yuumaru used a little more willpower to turn his head and pull the ladder down.
He endured the pain in his leg and quickly climbed up the escape hatch. Because of the length of the belt, Constantine retreated to the ladder, her wrist in the air.
Yuumaru struggled to turn his body in the narrow escape hatch.
"Is it my turn now?" She looked at the darkness in the room and gripped the belt tightly. "Don't let me wait too long, or I'll pull you down when I think you're going to unbuckle the belt."
Yuumaru didn't touch the belt around his neck. The slightest touch could be transmitted to her skin.
He lay in the passage and peeked out from the escape hatch. He looked at the darkness in the room and whispered, "Come up, I'll keep an eye on it for you."
Constantine seemed to hesitate. For a moment, she still didn't move her eyes away from the darkness. She just groped for the ladder.
"When I was eight or nine years old, I lived in a big house in the suburbs. There was an attic in the big house, and you had to pull down the attic stairs to climb in. It was a bit like this simple ladder, but it was much heavier and more reliable. "
Yuumaru realized that this was the first time in his life that his heart was so calm when talking about the big house.
Constantine kept turning her head to look at the darkness, so her movements were naturally slower.
"Once, when he was busy with the other adopted brothers and sisters, I quietly escaped because I was the smallest." Yuumaru stared into the darkness and said, "I couldn't get out of the house, so I hid in the attic. He soon found out … so he pulled down the attic stairs and climbed up to me like you are now. "
Constantine turned her head slightly and stopped again, her eyes still fixed on the darkness. She held the belt and asked in a hoarse voice, "And then?"
"When he was about to catch me, I still remember his bulging eyes." Yuumaru sighed and said. In the darkness, her fingers slowly stroked the hinges of the simple ladder. As early as when he was very young, he knew how to disassemble the hinges and the hinges. "I also remember his expression when he fell."
The hinges had been disassembled. As long as he pushed hard, Constantine's weight would do the rest of the work for him and pull the ladder out completely. At that time, she would fall backward with the loosened handrail into the darkness.
When you fall, don't turn your eyes away.
"I didn't know at that time. There were a few tools on the ground that he was going to use on me. When he fell, they stabbed into the back of his head. That was the first time in my life that the person I killed was also the person I wanted to kill. That kind of satisfaction … If anyone can understand it, it must be you. "
As soon as her voice fell, Yuumaru pushed the simple ladder open.
Although the knot on her hand was tight, it was not a dead knot. All he had to do was pull hard, and the knot would slide off. The force of the simple ladder being pushed down was more than enough.
Perhaps it was because Constantine was already on guard, or perhaps she was too agile, she did not fall to the ground along with the ladder. However, she was a normal human being after all. It was impossible for her to keep her eyes still when she was falling. When she managed to stabilize herself by leaning against the mirror, the mass of darkness had already reached the top of the dressing table. It floated in front of her before it stopped.
If it was her, maybe she could still find a way out of such a desperate situation?
Yuumaru hoped that she would die here, and also hoped that she could float again tomorrow night. As long as she looked at the darkness, before it reached out, maybe she could …
Constantine suddenly raised her head.
In the room where the black fog and dim light were floating, their eyes met.
Yuumaru was stunned.
"I am also tired of looking at this darkness." Constantine looked at him with almost joy, almost greed, and laughed.
She raised her hand and stroked her hair.
Yuumaru understood.
He put his hand into his hair, and with his thick and sticky blood, he pushed his black hair to the back of his head.
"I want to see what I want to see." Her body below her chest had disappeared. Her eyes, which were sunken in the shadow of her brow and the light blue circles under her eyes, were now as bright as diamonds in her flesh. "You still look better like this, don't you?"
… To prevent the darkness from climbing up from the escape hatch, Yuumaru faced the escape hatch and crawled backward bit by bit.
Everything was over. Five seconds had passed since the darkness enveloped her. Constantine and the people in the nightmare disappeared into the night.
As long as he kept walking, he would reach the City of Freedom.
A place where he might be swallowed by the darkness, and it would be meaningless to escape.
Yuumaru did not know when he stopped. When he realized it, he was already crawling toward the escape hatch again.
He could no longer see Constantine, but he could faintly hear her low humming.
Was it an illusion?
“Un-break
heart，
Again … with
you，
can’t
On … "
Because there was no ladder, he half-jumped and half-fell down. In an instant, he was enveloped by the gentle darkness. The place where Constantine was sitting seemed to be empty, or maybe it was because he had lost consciousness.
He never hesitated when it came to the goal he desired.
Yuumaru only had one wish at this time.
Constantine, look at me again.
Previously, I read a comment saying that I didn't want anyone to die, so both of them died ().
Heart is an old song, from the early 2000's. It's still nice. I wrote something with my heart, but after I finished writing, I felt like a piece was dug out. This feeling happened many times in the apocalypse. When the end comes, I have nothing left, and I will float away without a rope.
Anyway, these two people are a different species in the apocalypse … If you say it's love, it doesn't seem like it. Human emotions are too rich and complex. Every light and shadow is a new color. I think it's very interesting to explore. Refuse to generalize, start from me. ()
(end of this chapter)
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