Chapter 14

I walked into the class without a hitch. Everything was smooth as if I had done something like that countless times already. In the back of my head, I knew the way to walk and how to present myself as the class representative: dignified and elegant. It was simply natural to me.

The only task I had to do was follow whatever my body instinct was doing. Nothing more, and nothing less. For a brief moment, I was but a soulless doll.

However, even when I released the control of my body, the first thing I tried was still not to talk to the shadow people in the class but to find C. Why? Because until that moment, it was his voice that gave me hope.

When there was only despair inside me, his comments about this world showed me there was still another person I could share it with. The darkness that enveloped my entire being was blasted away.

I was walking in a pitch-black tunnel with no hope of escaping, and he was the one who shined the light on me.

All thanks to his ridiculous comments.

A weird person, he was.

No one knew how fast my heart was beating because of that, nor they could ever come to understand. In a situation where you suddenly knew everything was just some dumb game made by a pervert somewhere, it was already hard to remain sane.

I wondered how C figured out he was inside of a game. Even I could not believe it completely. Did he feel any disturbing emotions? Because I certainly did. If so, how did he get through all of that, though? Did he get any help from anyone?

Questions kept on piling up in my head with no signs of stopping. The more I thought about C, the heavier my chest became.

One would expect to be suspicious, fearful, and doubtful in my shoes. Yet, I felt nothing like that.

Rather than being anxious about all the coming questions, I felt an indescribable sense of calm.

Like there was a voice telling me as long as it was him, I would not be alone.

And above all else...

I wanted to know if there was any reason behind it for my sentience. Personally, I had no idea, to be honest.

What I did know was that I was frantically looking for him. Strangely, I had a feeling that the cloudiness in my memories could be solved by C and C alone. As for Han, it was not yet time for me to think about that person.

Be as good looking as he was, he was not someone I longed for in my heart. My chest did not ache when I was thinking about him. I understood that compared to C, he was more vivid, but he did not feel real to me. In fact, it was too forced how I could remember everything about Han.

My body could not be controlled entirely by me, but my mind was entirely mine. I could think for myself. Nothing and no one could ever take it away from me.

However, the moment I entered the room, I was baffled and almost lost control.

...No. Even the word 'baffle' could not illustrate the exact feeling I experienced.

To put it simply, I had a Big Bang in my head.

It was as if I received another sense besides the five basic senses, an eye-opening sensation. Immediately, universes were created in a fraction of a second. And all the neurons I possessed reacted the same way at once, sending endless waves of electrical impulses to every cell within me.

Like a deer in the headlights, a moth in front of a lamp, I could not do anything else.

There he was. Sitting next to the column and staring at me, oblivious of what he had been doing to my heart.

He looked just how his image in my mind was.

The fog in my memories instantly cleared up upon seeing him. At that point, even when I still had many questions, I got a notion.

That he was the one holding the key to all of this mess.

The only one.

Classmate C had a blank face with no facial features on him. Although I made out something that looked like two thin strokes of eyebrows on that featureless face. Quite hilarious. Furthermore, although he looked more or less like a faceless ghost, I did not feel that he was off. Not at all.

I wanted to walk toward him. I wanted to ask him how he came to understand the truth about the world he lived in or whether or not he had found a way out yet.

But my whole body was stiff as a stone. No matter how hard I tried, I could not do and say what I desperately needed to hear. I just walked in and asked for some kind of Math assignment.

And in addition, my chest felt like it was on fire. I felt like something was about to burst. Not only that, but I felt like crying and bawling my eyes out until my throat had been made a complete mess.

One more thing I made out from that first interaction between us was a specific feeling of seeing a lifelong companion after many years.

It was unbelievable, considering I had never seen Classmate C before.

[ In short, she is a graceful member of society, our current Class Rep, Laura. ]

That same voice that I had been hearing appeared inside my head again. The owner of the thoughts, Classmate C, thought about me while I was walking. He was even complimenting me, which brought the heat up my ears. Even though what I was doing was not totally by my will, hearing a compliment from the heart of C was soothing to my already fragile mental state. He gave me more confidence than he could ever imagine just by sitting there.

Already, he was closer to me than anyone else.

After that statement, I started coming to each desk to collect the papers.

I will skip through this part because you should know by now how things went after listening to his words.

Classmate C never expected his voice to be heard that loudly inside the minds of others. Poor guy.

I do not know how you people think, but the way he appeared so listless was adorable.

If my body were in my control, I would have smiled at Classmate C. Being complimented wholeheartedly by someone was always a nice thing, after all.

But then, I heard a horrific thing.

[ Although Laura is an innocent girl, she will die at the hands of Rachel. ]

[ She had to put the paper-knife inside her mouth, chew it, and swallow. Quite a brutal way of killing someone, for sure! ]

I started to see a scene upon hearing C's monologue.

In a storage room, there laid three bodies of three male students. They were probably dead. There, I could smell the stench of blood and bodily fluids.

It was disgusting. I felt my stomach rowling itself up.

"HAHAHAHAHA!!! Fucking my man, weren't you??!!" A blond-haired girl pulled a knife on me. Although she was small, she outright overpowered me with inhuman strength.

No. Not exactly me. The 'Laura' who just met Classmate C certainly did not have any white liquid in her vagina.

That person was...another 'Laura'...

But I even felt it as if it was me.

Her hands were touching all over that Laura.

"Beautiful, ain'tcha!" She gently caressed the face.

*Slap*

Kuh!! That hurt!! My mouth...I mean...Laura's mouth was bleeding.

Not stopping there, she continued to the other side.

"Confessing, ain'tcha!"

*SLAP!!*

GAH!!! I could feel everything! Even though that was not me, the pain was mutual between us!

"Okay, that's it. I honestly don't want to do this, but you have given me no choice, class rep."

That Laura resisted desperately, crying and wailing from the bottom of her lungs. I felt the pain inside of her throat as she was yelling.

Rachel stepped on top of Laura's head and pressed it down. In her eyes, I could see nothing but contempt.

She did not think of that Laura as a human.

"You always put on the face of a disciplined student. But I never expected you to be having feelings for my darling."

Not giving up, that Laura tried to hit Rachel's leg.

"I love him! What is wrong with..."

*Bam!*

"GAH!!!?"

GAH!!!!

We 'Lauras' both screamed at the same time. She just stomped the head with all her might. I could see blood flowing out from the back. And behind my head, there was a piercing pain.

"Who told you to talk back?" She looked down at the other me.

"Guh...ah...hah...You...w-will...never...h-have his love!"

"Hahaha! AHAhAHAHAhahaHA!!! GAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!"

Rachel dropped to the floor, covering her face with two hands and laughing maniacally. That gave Laura a couple of seconds to reach for her bag. On the inside was a paper-knife, the same thing I had.

*Krrrt*

"DIE!!!!" That Laura yelled, aiming the sharpest edge at the neck of Rachel.

*Chik*

Crimson liquid splashed all over the place.

Sadly, it was not Rachel's neck, just her hand.

"Laura, dear!"

*Chik*

Rachel took the knife out of her hand while the other me watched in horror. There were no signs of pain or even discomfort on her psychopathic face. She had a crazy smile that gave me an intense fear.

"I've had his love already!"

She closed the distance slowly. The other me clearly was blocked from the exit.

I was also expecting to experience immense pain.

*CHIK!!* *Splash*

"Buh! Gukh!"

A kitchen knife suddenly pierced through her stomach from her back.

It was C.

"I know this probably will reset the whole thing again, but I can not watch this anymore! You are a fucking psycho, Rachel!"

He came for me.

Even when Laura was sullied, even when her heart belonged to someone else.

He still came.

Unfortunately, after his heroic act, C died, and I was forced to eat the paper-knife. Rachel was able to kill the two of us before dying herself. She was an absolute monster.

Yet things did not stop there.

Once, twice, thrice,...

One by one, different scenes where I was saved by C appeared.

He never succeeded.

Even when the number of tries he did was uncountable, C had never pulled it off. Instead, he put himself on the line countless times.

Where did he find such courage?

Where did he find such strength to move on even though it has failed many times? How come he did not go insane?

Why were you so stubborn?

He was impaled, burned, chopped off, thrown off the building,...

All of that was just for me.

Each time he fell down, I would feel a piece of me die off. The mental pain was incomparable to the physical pain. It was in another league.

Again, and again, and again, and again,... C kept on trying. He kept on moving forward, thinking of other ways to divert my tragic fate, even if he was not getting anything from it.

Even if it meant he would die a more horrific way.

I saw them all. My hands were desperately moving forward to hold C's lonely shoulders. To no avail, of course.

He was always on his own, creating his best efforts to rescue me.

I had no idea my uniform was drenched in water. My cheeks were flowing with tears, and I could not make a sound out from my windpipe. A little girl crying for her mommy was what I looked like.

Something was blocking it any time I tried to speak up.

My sobbing.

Why me, C?

What did I ever give you to receive such kindness?

Why did all the other Lauras never remember anything?

Did you even understand that your sacrifices were never something I could repay?!

At that moment, slowly but surely, the memories of the past Laura all started to converge into one single being. Their emotions, be it sadness or happiness, hopes or despair, doubts or trust, were entrusted to the current Laura.

As if they were telling me to make it up to him.

You gave your lives to save an ungrateful piece of shit like me...

What did I do to deserve you...

Please, C.

Please tell me why...

So that I can make it up to you...

First, I would like to say...

"Thank you! Thank you so much!"