12 十二
'Do you want to catch me?'
Mirrors speak.
Feather looks around and every mirror is repeating these words.
'Can you find yourself?'
'Is the world you are living in real?'
Feather doesn't answer.
All these questions are meaningless.
A mirror's white smoke cover fades.
Feather and other club members including her ex-boyfriend were searching and collecting items at a supernatural place.
They are never the first ones to come. The government has a special group dealing with supernatural incidents.
If there is a murder, it is usually a man-made crime. People who got involved into a supernatural incident will disappear and others' memories about the missing people will be gone. At Feather's level, she and other students don't have a way to know firsthand information.
'Feather, if I need to go through the information input this time, I don't have time for my term paper.'
Feather's ex-boyfriend looks worried.
'I can do the information input for you. You are welcome.' Feather was very considerate.
'...Thank you.' He gave an embarrassed but polite smile.
When they were busy doing their job at the place, no one noticed that female head stuck out from the ceiling. She stared at him and licked her finger as she was very hungry.
A member of the club saw her and she disappeared after a blink.
No other member realized it.
Feather looks at the mirror. It is her very recent club activity. There was a haunted abandoned classroom building in a nearby university. They sneaked in during a holiday to investigate. It was a little cold at that time but they didn't find anything.
They didn't find the list of missing students or any witness. They just took photos here and tried to find something from the photos. There was nothing else they could do.
She didn't see the woman on the ceiling when she appeared. She just felt her back a little cold and thought the night had cold winds. Now from this mirror, Feather somehow believes that there was really a female ghost.
That member who saw her was sick after the activity. Then he resigned from the club without giving any excuse.
The time matches well.
The mirror also shows her something else she didn't know.
For example, her ex-boyfriend was on a bed with a charming sexy lady having sex.
Feather even called him during that time and asked him why he sounded strange. He told her that he was sick.
Feather didn't doubt him but she felt weird. Now she understands it clearly.
She wouldn't have been so calm if the sexy lady didn't look exactly the same as the female ghost.
Maybe she has got used to seeing sex in any situation in Kyas' Magic Castle.
Even when he was hanging out with Feather, the female ghost was attaching to his back as her arms stretched straight on his shoulders.
No wonder his face was blue and he couldn't walk properly. His energy was drained out by the female ghost.
He even prevaricated with her that he studied too hard.
'He betrayed you.'
'What Age is today's? We can date if we like each other. We can break up if we don't like each other anymore. There is no betrayal or such.'
The mirror ghost thinks she is right.
Has the outside world changed so radically?
The mirror ghost shows her these for a long time and Feather watches it like watching a movie without getting too emotional. The mirror ghost feels embarrassed.
Are they a normal couple?
She even cheers when she sees her ex-boyfriend having sex with another lady.
The mirror ghost doesn't know what to show her.
This mirror ends and pauses at the scene when her ex-boyfriend refused to go to this amusement park with her.
Feather's nerves are touched by this scene.
It would be awesome if he brought the female ghost here. How exciting it would be.
The second mirror shows her parents.
When they first entered the scene, they crawled out from the corpse heaps in a war during the early 20th century. We are not sure about what they have eaten but they came back alive.
They looked just like an ordinary living person but they stayed young and did not get sick. They didn't have other friends and they chose to get married after staying together for a long time.
When her dad accidentally cut his finger when he was peeling an apple for her, there was no liquid blood flowing out but only solid blood like a guttering of a candle. Feather didn't notice it and he went back to the kitchen and used a lighter and melted the solid blood. Then he pastes everything back to a normal position.
The corners of Feather's mouth cramp after seeing this.
It is true that she didn't notice such strange things of her parents such as that they never aged for years.
They never got sick, not even a cold.
They never went to a hospital for a health examination.
The Whites didn't have the ability to have children, but they wanted a child. At the same time, they didn't want the child to discover that they weren't living people.
In order to hide their identity, they pretend to be normal and move constantly. For most of the time, they chose distant villages.
Every time they moved, they had to pay a lot to the illegal identity traders.
Luckily, they both looked common and around 30ish so that they didn't stand out among people.
Feather was born in a small village. Her real parents were unknown and she was left in a mass grave because she was a girl.
The Whites didn't have a child so they brought her back. They didn't think the village was good enough to raise her so they moved to a big city and lived low key.
It was their first time raising a child. Her childhood was in a muddle. The good thing was that Feather didn't cry, even if they accidentally dropped her on the ground. The three beings lived well together.
When she was just a few months old, the Whites kept a goat and fed her with goat's milk. She had bad diarrhea after having goat's milk and was in a state of prostration. Mr. White finally overcame his fear of hospitals and took her to see the doctors...
One time, Mr. White was riding a bike while Mrs. White was sitting behind with Feather in her arms. They ran into an accident that they both fell and Feather was thrown into the air because Mrs. White lost hold.
Feather was giggling in the air and fell onto a tree.
...
Many events have been shown by the mirrors. Feather's vitality is astonishing.
'Aren't you afraid? These two monsters are staring at you days and nights.'
Feather shows great affection towards them at the second mirror.
The mirror ghost thinks Feather doesn't follow the right development.
The scene pauses at the night before she left home for the Abyss Amusement Park. Her parents told her to bring a charge pal if she decided to go out at night. They would worry about her if they could not reach her.
Did they know that I bought the tickets to the Abyss Amusement Park?
Feather's cell phone has been lost somewhere here. It is probably broken into pieces and has become a poop of the monsters here.
If it was still with her, it is true that it would have been dead without a charge pal.
The third mirror shows.
It was that village where Feather was found.
The Whites didn't need to eat human food and they pretended to eat in front of Feather daily.
They didn't care what others ate either.
This mirror is showing a funny scene.
All the people in that village were digging mud in a mass grave area. They were happy to find crimson mud and they put that mud in their baskets. At the end of the day, they brought the baskets back and mixed the mud with water, making crimson mud balls and eating them.
'Are you really human?'
The mirror ghost sees such a scene for the first time in its life. Wtf is this?
'Probably...yes.'
At least Feather doesn't find these mud balls appetizing.
The fourth mirror tells how Feather was born and left.
A woman died in a difficult labor when Feather was still in her womb.
The mud-eating village found her corpse and sensed a life in her womb so they managed to get Feather out and put her on the daily routine of the Whites. They knew that the Whites were still better at raising a child even though they didn't seem to be normal either.
'You are a monster.'
'Something from a dead person's womb.'
Feather rubs her gooseflesh.
What can she do? If the mirror is telling the truth, then her real mother is dead already.
The mud-eating village saved her life but they dug her mother's grave.
She doesn't want to trace her origin at all.
The fifth mirror reflects Feather's close friend, her consultant in the club.
She was a fiction fan and always wore a pair of glasses with her tall pony tail.
Because Feather didn't know her own birth, her friend couldn't predict her future.
Her friend had predicted the future for everyone in the class except Feather and they became friends.
The mirror shows that her friend is actually a fortune teller in the government's special group. She would tell Feather which supernatural places there were after the special group had cleared it. Those places were all cleared and Feather didn't find anything.
'See, she played you and fooled you. Aren't you mad?'
'No, I am not mad.'
Feather rests her chin on her hands. She feels sleepy.
The mirror ghost wants to break itself.
This girl is so annoying.
Wtf is she?
The sixth mirror shows Feather's university. There are locked classroom buildings, girls who died from rapes, floors of evil, the stolen chance for Feather to go to a better school...
Feather finally falls asleep.
People live for themselves. Why would she get mad?
Feather doesn't have a favorite thing. She doesn't care about power or love.
She chooses to let them go and just lives.
These are all temporary sufferings.
She unconsciously and cluelessly chases after what she wanted to know the most.
The seventh mirror is a confused Feather.
She was thinking about the true meaning of life and didn't get an answer so she jumped from a building.
Feather doesn't overthink on such a topic because she finds it boring.
'You are dead already. All you have experienced are just your illusions.'
'Yeah I think so too.' Feather doesn't care and chimes with the mirror ghost.
The red thread is still on her wrist.
Ro sees that Feather's status is well and praises her in his mind.
This game will be a piece of cake for her.
