The thought is unbearable, and it's enough to make me grit my teeth as I shove all of my fears aside.
Get! A! Grip!
I even give my cheeks a couple little slaps for added effect, and it's when I'm doing this that the professor's voice suddenly intrudes in my mind—-
Are you still there?
The sound makes me jump, and I bite back an expletive.
Halyna!
I think it's the first time I've ever heard the professor call me by my name, but any forbidden pleasure that I could've derived from it is completely ruined by the way he's almost given me a heart attack.
"Don't scare me like that!"
Then keep talking so I don't start thinking something happened to you!
The professor's caustic tone grates a little, but since I can't deny he has a really valid point, I'm about to apologize grudgingly when I notice something considerably odd about my surroundings. "Professor?"
What is it?
I gulp hard and whisper, "I've just noticed something weird..."
Describe it to me.
Although I know I'm being stupid again, the thought of taking my eyes off the man with red eyes frightens me to the core. A part of me is horribly convinced that he's just playacting, and it's that part of me which makes me keep him in my peripheral vision while I struggle to find the words to describe how random fragments of the ceiling and walls have disappeared behind greyish masses that almost look like ghosts struggling to come into life.
"I don't know how to explain it. There are patches on this world. Like this world is sick, and they're covered by...blurs."
What kind of blurs?
"They're almost the color of smoke, but darker. And they're moving, like...an infection that eats up little chunks of...things...while it spreads."
Several moments pass before the professor speaks again.
Can you do me a favor?
Can you go around and describe to me how your captor looks from behind?
What he's asking makes no apparent sense to me, but what's even worse is that doing so would mean having to take my gaze off the man with red eyes.
And I don't want to do that.
The thought alone already has a shiver running down my spine.
But because I also know the professor isn't the kind of idiot who'd ask me to do something pointless, I just grit my teeth and force my still-trembling limbs to move.
Remember what the professor told you, I urge myself. Now that my consciousness is separate from Memory Me, I'm the one who's calling all the shots. Nothing in this world has the power to hurt me, and-—"Holy Greek shit!"
Chapter Twenty-Three
What is it?
"His back..." My stomach turns upside down, and I have to swallow several times before I can finally speak again. "His entire back is gone, it's the same fucking blur—-"
Then it's what I suspect it is.
"A monster?" I know it's not the time to be sarcastic, but I just can't help it.
You have nothing to worry about.
Writhing, grayish wraith-like things are seemingly feasting my captor's back, and he's telling me there's nothing to worry about?
What if I'm next, dammit?
Panic shoots up inside of me at the thought, and I stumble a step back just as my chest starts to tighten, and I find myself starting to wheeze.
Snap out of it, Halyna!
The professor's harsh voice is like a slap to my face, but it also works like magic, and I slowly regain a grip of myself.
I mean it.
There's NOTHING to be worried about.
All those fucking blurs you're seeing are simply the things you didn't actually lay your eyes on.
"B-But—-"
You can't remember what you never saw.
I stare blankly at the writhing, ghoul-like blurs as my mind struggles to grasp what the professor's telling me. "Are you saying...these...things...are basically...memory gaps?"
Exactly.
"So they can't be...alive, can they? Even if they're moving "
Most likely.
"Most likely?" I barely manage not to yell at him. "You're supposed to know everything about this world—-"
Our god bid me to help you because I'm the only one with the necessary skills to help you retrieve your memories. Not once, however, have I said that I know everything about it.
"But surely in your previous experience—-"
I have never had a reason to revisit my past through memory worlds.
I think the professor just low-key insulted me, but whatever. "You should have just lied to me," I grumble.
Lying might make you feel complacent, and you need to be on your toes over there to keep yourself safe.
When he puts it like that, I guess he is doing me a favor, but...it doesn't make me feel any less anxious. More and more, I'm starting to think I've bitten off more than I can chew by coming here, but because I also don't want to risk giving myself a chance to chicken out—-
To hell with it.
The professor told me earlier I simply need to make any symbolic gesture in order to will this entire world to restart, and so I do the first thing that comes to mind, which is to snap my fingers like Thanos—-