(POV Bill)
In Chloe's dimly lit and silent room, illuminated only by a beam of moonlight piercing through the window, Bill sat frozen beside the bed, his gaze fixed on the pale face of the girl lying unconscious because of him.
A faint scent of antiseptic and wilted lilies hung in the air, mixed with the sour smell of his own regret that felt acidic in his throat.
Each breath he took felt heavy, his chest tight with self-hatred directed at himself, at his disgusting and unforgivable actions.
In the corner of the room, Henri stood like a stone statue, his arms crossed over his chest, his jaw clenched.
He had heard the sound of Chloe's body falling in the corridor, and when he came out, he found a panicked Bill carrying the girl back to her room.
At first, he was confused, but after hearing Bill's stammering and desperate confession, the confusion quickly turned into a cold rage that now emanated from his eyes staring at Bill with unmasked hatred.
At that moment, amid the tense silence, Chloe's eyelids fluttered.
She regained consciousness!
Bill and Henri immediately leaned forward, their breaths held, their faces filled with worry.
Chloe's foggy eyes slowly opened, and as her gaze fell on Bill, an instinctive fear made her flinch slightly, her body tensing for a moment.
However, she quickly composed herself, forcing her facial muscles to form a fragile smile.
Seeing her like this, Bill couldn't help but bite his lip.
Chloe shifted her gaze to Henri. "Henri... can you leave us alone for a bit?" her voice sounded weak, almost like a whisper, but there was firmness in it.
Henri hesitated, his eyes glancing sharply at Bill. "Chloe..."
But Chloe just shook her head slowly. Reluctantly, Henri nodded.
As he walked to the door, he paused for a moment and turned back, looking at Chloe once more with a deeply worried gaze before finally stepping out, closing the door with a soft 'click' that sounded so loud in the silent room.
Since earlier, Bill had kept his head down, not daring to meet the eyes of the girl he had hurt, his disheveled hair covering his face full of regret.
Chloe took a long, trembling breath, her forced smile still in place. "It's okay, Bill," she said, her voice slightly trembling. "I'll... pretend I don't remember what happened before." She paused, swallowing. "So... just be your usual self, okay?"
Every word that came out of her mouth felt like daggers stabbing straight into Bill's heart.
Her kindness, her undeserved forgiveness, felt far more painful than any anger or curse.
He stood up from his chair and walked out of the room, not daring to look back.
Chloe, alone in her room, stared at her friend's back disappearing behind the door, her brave smile finally crumbling, replaced by silent tears beginning to flow down her cheeks, soaking the pillow that felt cold.
The silence left by Bill felt so painful.
***
(POV Furina)
Furina, in the depths of the unfamiliar and deadly forest.
After unconsciously walking too far ahead, Furina turned back, only to find that Charles and Arthur had vanished.
The giant trees around her towered high like prison towers, their dense canopies swallowing almost all the moonlight, creating an eternally eerie atmosphere on the forest floor.
Strange sounds echoed among the tree trunks—the whispering wind that sounded like murmurs, the rustling of dry leaves that sounded like footsteps, and the calls of unseen birds that sounded like screams.
A cold fear began to creep up her spine.
With her heart pounding hard, she began walking back to where she last saw her friends, each step hesitant and full of caution, her eyes constantly glancing at every dancing shadow.
At that moment, she arrived at a small clearing where they had separated, the sight greeting her making her blood seem to freeze.
Several rifthounds floated silently in the air, their distorted bodies swirling around the place!
Furina immediately hid behind a large tree, her body trembling uncontrollably.
She tried to back away slowly, but her trembling foot stepped on a dry twig.
CRACK!
The sound was so loud amid the forest's silence.
Instantly, all the rifthounds stopped and turned toward her, their eyes unnaturally glowing with a terrifying light.
Without thinking, Furina turned and ran, pure panic giving her strength.
She ran blindly, ignoring the thorns scratching her skin or the tree roots making her stumble.
Occasionally she looked back, only to see the rifthounds chasing her easily, their bodies appearing and disappearing in flashes of dimensional distortion, getting closer every second.
Because of the panic, she no longer looked ahead.
At that moment, the ground beneath her feet suddenly vanished.
She screamed as her body fell into the darkness.
She landed hard at the bottom of a deep pit, her ankle twisting with sharp pain.
Above her, one of the rifthounds floated, peering into the pit, its strange head tilted to the side.
Furina held her breath, pressing her hands over her mouth to stifle her sobs, and pressed her body against the damp, musty-smelling dirt wall, praying that the shadows in the pit were enough to hide her.
After what felt like forever, the rifthound seemed to lose interest and darted away.
Furina finally let out a relieved sigh, her tense body slumping to the ground.
At that moment, her eyes began adjusting to the darkness in the pit, and she realized something.
She widened her eyes instantly and couldn't say a word.
She wasn't alone!
In the other corner of the pit, a figure sat with a straight back, staring at her.
It was an old man!
He wore ragged and mud-stained clothes. His face was deathly pale, his skin taut over his cheekbones, and his eyes stared straight at Furina with a cold, empty, lifeless gaze.
Furina felt a fear greater than before.
The old man looked like an undead, but there was a terrifying intelligence in his eyes.
While scooting back, her body trembling, she asked in a hoarse voice, "Wh... who are you?"
The old man didn't move, a heavy silence enveloping them at the bottom of the pit.
Then, after a long and torturous silence, the corner of his thin and pale lips slowly lifted, forming an odd and out-of-place smile.
The next second, he spoke in a clear and calm voice, as if they had met before.
"You can call me...."
He paused for a moment, nodding.
"Armand."
***
(POV BILL)
After stepping out of Chloe's room, Bill didn't return to his own room.
He just stood in front of the closed wooden door, his shoulders slumped, his hands clenched at his sides until his knuckles turned white.
The silence of the dimly lit inn corridor felt so heavy and suffocating, as if the old wooden walls around him were also staring and judging him.
The flickering lantern light at the end of the hallway created long dancing shadows like ghosts, and the faint scent of damp wood and ancient dust filled the air, feeling like the smell of failure in his lungs.
Every second that passed in that silence felt like forever, allowing his chaotic mind to spin endlessly.
Chloe's pale and fearful face kept flashing in his mind, the sound of that hard slap seemed to still echo in his ears, and the stinging sensation on his cheek became a constant reminder of his disgusting actions.
He had become a monster in the eyes of the girl he cared about most, and now the guilt gnawed at him from within like acid.
This made him involuntarily bite his own lip.
After a few minutes that felt like a century, amid the deep whirlpool of regret, a horrifying and dark idea suddenly emerged in his mind.
A solution!
The only solution!
A bitter and painful smile slowly curved on his pale face, before finally a small, hoarse and somewhat mad laugh escaped his lips, the sound so wrong amid the corridor's silence.
Without further hesitation, he turned and walked with quick and stumbling steps, away from the door, toward the rarely visited back part of the inn.
He entered a stuffy and cluttered storage warehouse, the musty smell of old grain sacks and rusted metal immediately assaulting him.
With panicked and rough movements, he began searching for something, his trembling hands throwing piles of old cloth, kicking empty wooden crates, and knocking over rusted cooking utensils, creating a deafening clatter.
"Damn! Where is that thing?!" he growled to himself, his frustration escalating.
At that moment, he grew irritated and was about to kick an old wooden barrel, his eyes catching a dim gleam from under a pile of dirty straw.
He immediately cleared the straw, and there, lying was an old kitchen knife, its blade stained with rust and the wooden handle cracked.
His eyes widened. As did his smile.
This was what he was looking for!
He picked up the knife, feeling its cold and heavy metal in his sweaty palm, a sensation that strangely felt calming.
He knew what he had to do.
At that moment, something inside his body, the creature that had seized his control and destroyed everything, now began to realize his intent.
"Hey, what are you doing?!" the voice suddenly shouted in his head, its tone now filled with genuine panic. "Put down that knife, idiot! Have you gone mad?!"
Bill only responded with louder laughter, a laugh that sounded like crying.
Regret for having made a contract with this demon from the start now felt so burning. He had sacrificed everything for his selfishness, and now he had to atone for that sin with the only thing still his own.
He stepped out of the warehouse, moving like a shadow along the inn's back corridors, careful so Henri wouldn't see him.
He slipped out through the back door and entered a narrow, dark, and silent alley, a pungent rotten smell hanging in the air.
At that moment, he suddenly stopped, his body trembling violently, a mix of fear and deep sorrow.
In that thick darkness, beautiful memories from his lost past began flashing in his mind: Chloe's cheerful laughter as they walked under the sunlight, Henri's silly jokes that always made him smile, the warmth of their friendship that now felt so distant and impossible to reach again.
Tears began flowing down his cheeks, but his bitter smile never faded.
With both his trembling hands, he raised the knife and pressed its cold and sharp blade to his throat.
"Farewell," he whispered to the night wind, before finally a victorious grin etched on his face. "Demon!"
"NO! DON'T DO IT, YOU CRAZY HUMAN!!!" the voice roared in his head, but it was too late.
With one steady motion, Bill thrust the knife into his own neck.
Sharp and burning pain immediately coursed through his entire body, the sound of tearing flesh and blood vessels so clear in his ears.
Warm blood spurted out, flowing heavily between his fingers and soaking his clothes.
His wide-open eyes stared blankly at the brick wall in front of him, seeking help that would never come, before finally the light in his eyes slowly dimmed and he lost his life, his body collapsing to the dirty ground with a soft thud.
At that moment, a few seconds after the oppressive silence enveloped the alley, Bill's lifeless body suddenly moved slightly.
His fingers twitched, then with stiff and unnatural movements like a wooden puppet, the body slowly rose to stand.
He came back to life!
His head, which had been drooping, now lifted, and a deep and hoarse laugh burst from his throat, a laugh full of victory and relief.
"Who said if you die, I'll die too? Heh, how foolish," he said with Bill's voice, but with a completely different tone.
The body was now fully controlled by something inside it!
He pulled the knife from his neck with a disgusting 'slurp' sound, then shook the blood from its blade onto the brick wall, creating horrifying red splatters.
"As a thank you for giving me full control over this body, I'll complete your contract. See, how generous I am~!" he whispered to Bill's soul corpse that had now vanished forever, before finally stepping out of the alley with a terrifying smile, leaving bloody footprints behind him.
***
A/N: Yeah, this story is getting crazier and darker. I hope you still enjoy it haha!
Btw, I'm still expecting comments!
If you want to read the 7 advanced chapters with a faster update frequency than the webnovel, you can read it on my patreon whose link is below:
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