(Hovar), standing at the doorway of his room: "Rozen… wake up and join us… we picked some fruit, and grilled two fish!"
(Rozen) sat up the moment he heard the creak of the door opening, and saw the shy eyes of (Hovar) taking in the upper part of his body, which was bare and revealed muscles drawn with strange clarity. Though he was slightly thin, his muscles were sharply defined and firm. The moment he noticed her, he pulled the blanket up to cover himself to the neck.
(Hovar) closed the door.
(Rozen) whispering: "How strange… was that what I was missing?"
He put on his shirt, then his old guard uniform, and went to wash his face. The moment he reached the bathroom and opened the tap, his face tightened when cold water poured out, and he washed his face in complete irritation. Questions kept crashing through (Rozen)'s mind, one after another.
"How did they build this shelter? What tools did they have? How did they connect the water? And where did they get the breakfast they wanted?"
He stepped out and walked through the corridors, his eyes fixed on the walls while anger burned in his chest. He hated the illogic of it.
Then he collided with (Rilaf), who had been about to begin cursing until she saw that it was (Rozen), towering over her. But what planted fear in her heart were his dead eyes.
From the very beginning, the young man had been deeply blank toward her, giving off nothing but an aura of evil and aversion. (Rilaf) lowered her displeased face and walked away in silence.
He followed her.
Her body broke into sweat from the tension. He was like her shadow, never leaving her. A minute passed, and she was almost at the reception so she could go out for breakfast. She could no longer bear it, so she turned on him in anger and shouted in a muffled voice so no one else would hear:
(Rilaf): "Stop frightening me, you madman… why are you following me? I understand how rotten your soul is, and I will never stand in your way again. Just do not come near me!"
(Rozen) whispering: "Calm yourself. I only want to go out, and I did not remember the way well."
(Rilaf), opening her mouth in embarrassment while anger still burned in her eyes and chest, then calming down: "I will not go up before you… I will not be at ease with that…"
She stepped aside.
(Rozen) looking at her in surprise: "Thank you."
Something in her uneasy self softened, and the young man passed by, climbed the stairs, and opened the door in the ceiling.
He stepped out and drew in the air deeply. The feeling was comforting after the clear suffocation of the shelter. (Rozen) looked at the top of the shelter, which was completely buried underground, and felt that he had an idea for solving the problem of the air and its failure to renew itself.
(Jorvir), taller and broader than him, tapping him and pulling him by the neck into a warm embrace: "The most bitter and miserable one among us. It seems the task of cheering you up will be an entertaining one."
(Hovar) smiled while (Kirv) prepared the table. The moment (Rozen) saw it, his head nearly heated up.
(Rozen): "Where did you get this table from?"
At once the mood changed. (Hovar) grew uneasy, while (Rozen) felt a muscular tremor and a chemical shift in the muscle of (Jorvir) wrapped around his neck.
(Kirv) smiling: "That is a story more complicated than the Lady herself. You will reach its answer soon enough."
(Rozen): "Soon enough what? I am not waiting for a festival or a book signed by you… I want an immediate answer."
At once, the muscle in (Jorvir) tightened, and he grabbed the collar of (Rozen)'s shirt. (Rozen) struck him hard in the chest with his elbow, knocking (Jorvir) down to the ground. Then he grabbed him by the throat and pinned his head into the grass.
(Rozen): "Never touch my neck again, or I will make your neck long for air!"
(Jorvir) raised his hands in surrender, a broad smile rising over his face, while (Kirv) ran toward them.
(Kirv): "Rozen, please, take it easy!"
(Rozen), raising his finger straight toward his face: "You in particular, shut up."
(Kirv) stopped and fell silent.
(Hovar) clutched her dress and began to tremble. Silence hung between them, and the air was thick with threat.
Then (Rilaf) quietly came back up, and the moment she saw the scene, she turned back into the shelter and shut the door.
(Kirv), after five seconds of that strange moment: "Rozen, let reason rule… I know how tense you are, but we are not your enemies."
At that, (Rozen) released (Jorvir)'s throat, and (Jorvir) breathed again in relief.
(Rozen), his voice edged with annoyance: "Do you think I am stupid enough to waste the only chance of survival? What use is there to me in harming you? I only want answers to my questions. I do not care if I seem annoying or intrusive…"
(Kirv), cutting in: "It is impossible for you to be intrusive, Ro-"
(Rozen), cutting him off in turn: "Shut up and listen! What is the difference between you and her if I am denied answers in a world I never chose to exist in?"
They all felt sympathy for him, including (Rilaf), who had heard everything. Their hearts softened toward him.
(Kirv), speaking at once: "The shelter was not built by us. There was once a traitor among the Lady's ranks. He managed to draw this limited patch outside the reach of her sight. Speaking his name is difficult, because she made us forget it after she discovered him and placed him in a small cage until he killed himself."
(Kirv), pointing to the river: "This river serves only two purposes: fish, and supplying the shelter with water. And that tree you see there."
He pointed toward a distant and enormous tree, stripped of leaves, then continued:
(Kirv): "That tree is what exposed him. He could not create it, but it brings out some fruit from its roots, and we have to dig to get it."
He raised his fingers so (Rozen) could see the mud packed beneath (Kirv)'s nails.
(Rozen) in bewilderment: "This does not seem logical at all… how did you communicate with him… no… how…"
(Jorvir): "He had been her loyal servant, leading servants unlike the ones you knew in Snow Nexus. The story is very long."
(Rilaf), stepping out from behind him: "I support your right to know, but I am starving."
Everyone sat at the table by the bank of the flowing river. (Rilaf) and (Hovar) shared one side, while (Jorvir) and (Kirv) shared the side nearest them. As for (Rozen), he sat on the side that let the two young men separate him from the two girls.
He did not eat as much as they did. Instead, he remained deeply puzzled, looking at the river and the few fish swimming through it. Then he looked behind him, trying to see where the river's head ended, but (Hovar) cut into his thoughts with shy hesitation:
(Hovar): "The thing I cannot understand about you, Rozen… why did you not submit to her? I will begin the story of the beginning in this world with that question. There were eleven of us when we were brought to the Nexus. Back then, the Lady was not as savage as the one you saw. She chose instead to establish a system that carried us inside it. It was not comfort, not at all. In fact, quite the opposite. Most of her laws were made to make things harder for us. The monsters, the ghouls, the beasts, and the ghosts were not there from the start. There were huge numbers of nameless beings. The first months were deeply strange… and then everything turned upside down in our last month in the Nexus, after the Old Man started wandering and drinking. We were expelled from schools that had no meaning, denied food, and the Old Man was tortured brutally. The moment he came out without his mind, she ordered all of us killed and tortured for no reason, and she did it. The least among us died nearly twenty times in that month. She kept repeating over and over that we were worthless and had never benefited her in any way. Six of us killed themselves after she announced the only way of escape. And the moment they did, the Lady began repeating your name without stopping. Only then did all her calm vanish completely. The Old Man alone submitted and turned coward, but all of us submitted after just one week of that month. I mean, what were we supposed to do against her? Even with our knowing a good number of loopholes… what were we supposed to do with them? But you… you kept dying and being tortured in the ugliest ways. Why did you insist on suffering in so many of those cases?"
(Rozen), shaking his head: "What a stupid question…"
(Hovar) opened her mouth, then shut it again, hurt by his rejection.
(Rozen), looking at her and smiling at her weakness, then answering in a dismissive voice: "I doubt you were watching with your mind… that lunatic enjoys hurting me. If I grow still, she comes to drag me into some trap. And though she does not need any mistake to torture me, she enjoys making me feel disgust toward myself. She wants me to keep regretting actions that share no evil in any place at all. The law of release goes against the root of my soul. I will not take my own life, and certainly I will not end my breath for someone else. If I die, I will not be the direct cause of it. I cannot take away my own chances of survival. I cannot burn my own fortune with my own hands. I cannot, and I will not, deny myself a life worthy of hymns that gladden my spirit. And if I live in a Nexus that knows nothing but silence and screaming, I will never kill myself for my own sake, so how much less for the pleasure of a whore like her?"
The moment he finished speaking, their very beings shook with brutal force, enough to make them feel that she had heard him.
The place trembled violently. It kept shaking for half an hour. Most of them thought it was an earthquake that had struck them, until (Rozen), looking toward the Nexus and its walls: "…This is madness."
Day turned into night.
The others looked toward the changing Nexus, and saw Gothic buildings rising from the ground and being enclosed by walls of immense height. Though it was all still held within the same space, the city grew vast and rose upward.
Then they heard the Lady's weeping voice from far away…
muttering words that exhausted their chests.