Section 203: Puppet of the Past

Fio and Lorrin smashed open the fourth door and rushed into the bathroom. As they dragged the alien out from the corner and killed it, Malin heard a whisper.

"Painted in the basement, while I wait for you upstairs... Stop killing my children, aren't you looking for me? Come, find me, and let us end all this."

Malin turned to glance at the girls and the self-proclaimed most handsome guy from the Central Administrative Province and realized they seemed not to have heard any noise at all.

Looking up at the ceiling, Malin suddenly began to miss her youth, when she, in that same tone of voice, would talk about their hopes for the future. Sometimes, they even mentioned that when they grew old, they must return to the orphanage where both of them had come from and rightfully belonged.

It's called coming full circle, she said... It's just that Malin took ten years to understand that she had no future in his future.