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Undefined forms and noises incoherent were all that would unravel in the swirling blackness, day after day, memory after memory. It was like Adalia’s sense of time was no longer congruent, or maybe she just didn’t care enough to keep track of it all anymore.

Either way, days would whirl past my eyes in spans of slippery seconds—a literal blink-and-you-miss. I did my best to follow along though, and from what I could see, hear, and guess—Adalia was on a steeper descent down the hill of denial.

The first memory was strange, an outlier, yet also very much familiar. It was just Adalia lying in bed for seemingly the whole day. Tossing and turning in place until her beddings were pulled from the mattress, and ended up swathing her body in crumpled sheets. She tried, but she simply could muster the energy to leave her bed. Too sleepy, I suppose.

Then I blinked, and suddenly I was plunged into the morning sun of another memory, another day. Adalia was out on another one of her listless strolls, only slower, clumsier, absentmindedly scraping the farmyard fences with fingernails that had grown concerningly acute.

The scene evaporated into smoke, drifting to the other end of the room and I followed it into the view of another memory, Adalia again—in silence, in discomfort, having fallen off her bed with her blanket slinking after her, clutching a stitch at her chest that had her squirming in stifled agony. I couldn’t tell too well, but I presume the small ebbing blackness was her nails having pierced through her flesh as she attempted in vain to contain her persisting pain.

A blink of an eye later, and she was fine again. Not a scratch, not even a scar, bounced back healthier than ever unusually quick, sitting beneath the shade of a tree in the middle of a tranquil town square.

Indeed, the quiet was particular. A prominent lack of villagers filling the ambiance, the village streets, just a scattered two or three every once in a while.

.....

I suppose Dad had long selected his chosen warriors at this point, and he certainly had not spared when it came to quantity.

Then somewhere in the barren monotony, he came hobbling over… one of the very many few that had been spared from going. Liamel heartily greeted every person he slowly meandered by. None waved back at him. Still, with his head held in a blissful high, he soldiered on and upon catching Adalia in the corner of his eyes, he gestured at her too.

She didn’t reciprocate.

There was nothing more left to discern within this memory, yet we stayed, the shadows continued to linger… despite everything gradually blurring away from focus, everything—except for him.

The moment he had glanced away, through Adalia’s eyes, he became the center focus, she gazed forward, and in silence, we watched him go… slowly turning into an indescribable splotch in the distant darkness before the memory finally completely faded.

More memories would materialize and play out like a stage play in a grand theater, and they would follow this spiraling pattern. Adalia just kept getting worse with every manifestation. It was as if she was being dissected each and every day, and every time she was picked apart, there was also something new for her to lose.

I watched as her outings to the village grew less frequent, and considerably briefer. She had become more restless, more prone to sudden outbursts of annoyance at the noises of the village, and she grew a fondness for redder, bloodier meats for her meals over time, a fondness she actively resented with every relishing bite. One memory, I watched her try to muster a sincere laugh in a mirror time and time over, before she shattered it into pieces when she found that she ultimately couldn’t. Then soon, eventually, even her anger had left her.

Between her seemingly unending descent into despair, Liamel would offer some levity. Every few memories, he could be seen through the murky pane of a window shuffling along, his cane and limp a helpful distinction amidst the swarm of other shadows up and about. In these rare times of respite, Adalia would just watch him, waddling from door to door, villager to villager, a pouch of coins strap to his hip steadily growing bigger.

I could more or less guess why he caught her interest. Here was another person deemed helpless and frail from the very moment he was conceived. Yet they couldn’t have been more polar opposites. He braved his days in spite of it, whereas she kept herself shut away because of it.

What was different?

Why was he the way he was? And why was she the way she was?

Still closely at watch, slowly, in a gradual slant, I saw Adalia cock her head at his hunched figure. That thinking tilt whenever something struck her as genuinely peculiar.

Liamel was peculiar.

“A human has been watching you,” Amelia’s voice boomed from the inky fog of another memory. “For many days now…” from a coalescing black, a familiar haughty figure emerged, tossing a bulging bag of coins by the bedside. “It’s that collector… the cripple—it’s left me—what’s his name?”

Adalia heaved herself in the opposite direction, her bed, coming undone by the seams from accidental tear, creaking with her sluggishness.

“I don’t care to know it.”

“From what I surmised, he does not suspect you in the slightest, not just yet,” She walked over to the window, parting a gap in the thick blindings that hadn’t been there just a few memories ago. “He just seems… keen, I suppose.”

Adalia just sagged even more into the feathers of her pillow, leaving her sister to finish the rest of the discussion all on her own.

“Regardless, it’d be wiser to kill him now while he’s still unknowing. Curiosity is dangerous left unchecked,” cold and calculating, Amelia continued to contemplate. “No one cares much for him, that much is certain. There is little risk in it should he ever so abruptly disappear one day… or perhaps even by tonight itself.”

I did a turn, glancing back at the lifeless lump on the bed. No reaction, no consideration… Adalia was just a giant lump of indifference.

“Have you been… feeling better, sister?” Amelia inquired in an extremely soft tone that really did not befit her. “I noticed you have stopped… leaving the house as of late.”

A lump of silence was all that faced her.

“Adalia, if I may just—”

“You may not.”

Amelia went stiff. Just a mere whisper but the firmness of it… I could feel the air grow colder around us.

“I am not feeling better, sister,” Adalia muttered, her voice completely stripped of feeling. “I am going to die soon.”

There was a loud quivering hiss as Amelia sucked in all the air from the room, sterling forward frantically.

“No. No, Adalia, you are not. You’re reverting, that is all. You’re starved, you’ll frenzy. You’re strong, you’ll survive reverting… you just… you just need to feed. Listen, tonight—the collector, the cripple—we’ll feed you the cripple, and we’ll leave, okay? We’ll—”

“I don’t want to feed, sister,” Adalia slowly turned herself upright, facing the empty void of her ceiling. “I don’t want to live.”

“W-What are you saying? Adalia, do you even hear yourself?!”

“I will not live another second of that pitiful existence,” Adalia’s voice rang out in an eerie calm. “Or rather, I will not delay it any further. From the very beginning, I was born to simply drop dead. Unable to feed. Unable to do anything. Dying, sister—that is my singular purpose for existing. All this time, I’ve just been simply avoiding it. But now it is time for me to fulfill what I was born to do.”

“Stop! No, no! Enough of—don’t speak, don’t speak anymore! You’re not in your right mind! You do not mean what you say, you’re not thinking straight!”

“Amelia, I am not going to argue with you. I’m finished arguing, trying… just let me have this peace. I’m tired. Go now, please. Don’t come back.”

I don’t even know what I was hearing, or who I was seeing. I knew it was a distant past, and I fully knew her words would never come to be.

But that didn’t stop me from wanting to shout at her, plead with her, and caught deep in the whirlwind of the moment, I probably would have if Amelia hadn’t beaten me to it first.

She was a stammering, whimpering mess. A shriveled shadow of her usual hubris, and I felt for her, didn’t think any of less of her… seeing a dribble of inky black streaming down her shadowed face.

“Sister, won’t you just listen? I know you’re scared. I am too. But please, don’t do this. I beg of you, please… I… I don’t want you to die… I don’t want to lose you… please, Adalia.”

Yet once more, the lump on the bed did not stir in the slightest.

“W-What can I do? Please, just tell me what to do… I’ll do anything, please! Just… I… just don’t leave me by myself… I want you to stay, sister… please… I don’t want to be alone…”

My hand had long gone numb by this point, but right then, I felt it tingling as the real-Adalia tightened her grip on me even more.

“Adalia!” the floorboards shook, and Amelia fell on her knees pressed up against the edge of the bed. “Listen to me! Why won’t you listen?! Hear me speak! I’m speaking! Adalia! Stop ignoring me! Don’t ignore me! Sister, please!”

I could barely even watch. Amelia’s shouts, the echoes ringing out. That cold, ruthless being of the night that I’ve come to know reduced to nothing more than… this. And then I thought of Sammy, I thought of her pleading like that to me… and I felt a deeper stab in my heart at the notion.

And yet for all her begging, all of the wrenching sobs of her little sister, all Adalia could muster was a groan of discomfort—apparently, her sister was just too loud.

“When you leave today, do not return,” the unmoving shadow on the bed said. “If the transformation itself does not kill me, then in my frenzied state, the people here will. I do not wish for you to interfere with anything.”

“Y-You wish of me? What? You wish—” the whimpering ceased, and in its place came an outburst of confusion and anger. “And how of me, sister?! What about what I wish?! Do you not think of that?! Do you not think of me?! What I want, what I desire—what I need! Just once! A single instance! In all our time together! Have you ever thought once of me at all?!”

It happened then. Slow and calmly like she had everything else, Adalia turned to meet with her sister’s gaze for the first time.

I felt fingers lightly twitch—the Adalia beside me hanging her head low, as the Adalia forward extended her hand, her crudely-shaped finger, gently stroking the strands of her sister’s hair.

“I have thought of you, Amelia,” She said, and in a tonal shift, spoke with so much love and sincerity, like it was all that remained. “I did. I always have. Ever since mother died, ever since you took to caring for me all on your own. I watched you grow strong for me, I watched you get hurt… I’ve also watched you beg, steal, lie, kill… I’ve watched how you suffered, how every second and minute of your life you worry for me. The countless struggles you put yourself under all for your weak, useless, elder sister.”

“You’re not useless, you’re not weak…” with both hands, Amelia took comfort in her sister’s touch, only blotches still trickling down her face. “and you’re all I have, so please don’t go away.”

“And what will you have if I do stay?” Adalia whispered. “You’ll struggle, you’ll worry, you’ll push yourself over and over again, and you’ll claim it all for my sake, all for my betterment. Because you love me just as much as I love you.”

“Adalia…”

“But I’ve seen it all before. I’ve already watched you do all this. Even now, even here. All my life, all I’ve ever done is thought of you, and you know what I’ve always been thinking of? What I’ve come to realize after all this time with you? Come now, little sister, I’m sure you know it too…”

There was a smile. I don’t know how I knew it, I just do… as a shared tear fell from Adalia’s shadowed expression.

“You’re better off without me.”