"Let me tell you on a little secret, well, it won't matter since you'll soon know the real definition of insanity, nay, the true meaning of what is beyond insanity!"
"So beg, bow, and praise the True God! Prostrate yourself, weep, and beg for forgiveness at the feet of his statue,"
"Lest he agrees, for you are NOT the Exalted!"
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☼
A young boy, seemingly around seven, sat joyfully on a dark metal bench, his feet betraying his excitement, as he leaned back comfortably, eagerly gazing with sparkling admiration at a certain girl that stood quite a distance away.
She was perhaps on the cusp of fifteen, standing at a distance and handing the familiar green bill to a man seated in a large pink, sticker-decorated ice‑cream truck made to seduce younger audience into opening their wallets.
After handing the bill, she received three cones in varying colors in a cute-looking carboard holder. With a quick "thank you," she carefully and slowly made her way toward the bench, her unhurried footsteps echoing across the cement pavilion.
"All this excitement… for a scoop of frozen sugar? You really are hopeless," Smirking, she looked at him sideways.
"If I knew sugar could buy this much loyalty, I'd stock a whole shelf of lollipops."
A woman seemingly her early twenties sitting beside a boy leisurely crossed her legs in parody, passively dipping her hand into her pocket and pulling out a new-brand cigarette pack, despite its edges being worn.
As if it were second nature, she boredly removed a cigarette, placed it between her light-red lips, then tucked the box back in her jacket pocket.
She reached into her pants pocket casually as she patted both her pockets to confirm which pocket the lighter was in. Her habit of smoking had caused her to commonly forget which pocket she had placed her lighter in,
Upon discovering that her lighter was in her left one, she plunged her index and thumb into it grabbing ahold of the lighter, whipping it out.
Immediately, she cupped her left hand around it and struck it using her thumb. After a few failed clicks, a small red-orange spark marked its presences; the tip instantly turning into a charcoal black color, smoke gradually rising.
With a sigh of satisfaction, she returned the lighter to its rightful spot, inhaled, and exhaled as she pursed her lips contentedly, pursing them.
"Cough, cough! I told you not to smoke, sister! Even Meilin said it's not good for your lungs. Or mine either." The boy coughed repeatedly, as a light breeze blew the smoke towards his direction.
The woman brought her fingertips to her dark-red and ran her her hand through her shoulder-length hair, giving her a tomboyish look. She looked towards the boy and blew another puff of smoke onto her younger brother's face in irritation, making him cough even louder.
"Tell her," Jing said flatly, head back, another puff escaping. "Maybe she'll ground me again. I worked hard last time."
Xin narrowed his eyes. "You're gonna get lung cancer and die lonely without a boyfriend."
She giggled softly, her dark-red pupils flicking toward the approaching girl, who had now walked across the cement and onto the grass, balancing the ice-cream cones.
Xin frowned in displeasure at the abuse of authority, then slyly pinched the side of the dark-crimson-haired woman.
She yelped and dropped her cigarette.
"What the hell…?" Her brows twitched in irritation, her giggle turning scowl as she stared at Xin. He merely shrugged at her death stare.
"…You loathsome simpleton." She gave a cold smile that unnerved him before her eyes flicked to his foot. He followed her gaze but was too late.
Without a word, she raised her boot and stepped hard on his foot.
Xin groaned in pain.
"This is abuse of authority! I'll report you to Meilin when she gets back, menace!" he sulked, removing his shoe to check his sock.
The woman raised an eyebrow, crossed her arms and legs, hugging her chest.
She narrowed her eyes at him, a smirk on her lips, as if she'd anticipated his tricks. Resting her chin on her crossed hand, she observed him tranquilly.
"Oh, now, will you?" A dangerous glint flickered in her eyes, her voice laced with something more portentous than mere intrigue.
The behavior unnerved Xin so much that he gulped, like a small mouse captured by a bloodthirsty hound.
His eyes flicked between her hands and face, searching for a joke—only cold sweat gathered on his back when he realized she wasn't joking.
Just as he plotted his escape from this eccentric encounter, a light, innocent feminine voice approached. The sound of footsteps on the green grass grew closer.
The footsteps reached them, and the siblings turned their heads toward the voice.
The girl bent her waist to set the container of cones beside them.
Wiping sweat from her forehead, she smiled brightly, panting slightly from balancing the three cones.
Then she took one cone and gave one to each of them before tossing the carrier into a nearby trash can.
"Here is your spot, sister." The boy, as if cued, patted the soon-to-be seat for his sister. She smiled cheerfully and sat, then noticed the ice creams melting in the scorching sun.
"Eat quickly—they're melting!" she urged, scooping a cone into her mouth with her small red tongue gleaming in sunlight.
"....."
"Meilin!" Hiding behind her, the boy pointed at the older woman, his brows furrowed but voice confident. "She tried to beat me for no reason!"
Feigning a downcast face, he slowly licked his ice cream, his eyes flashing between Jing's stare and Meilin's shifting expression.
"...Is that true, Jing? Did you really try to hurt Little Xin?" Meilin asked seriously, lowering her ice cream.
Jing brushed off the charge, her gaze drifting from Xin back to Meilin. "Of course not—how could you even think that?" she said indifferently, as though Xin's case were hopeless.
But Xin wasn't ready to give up. He had one last move.
"Meilin, she was smoking! Even after you said you despised the smell, and that it's unhealthy, she attacked me!" His words shook with emotion, fingers trembling. "She attacked me regardless!"
"Jing!" Meilin's expression hardened, a vein bulging in her forehead, just as Xin interrupted.
"Don't blame her, sister—it was my fault for not stopping her sooner," he said solemnly—as if entering a heartfelt apology.
Meilin looked at him curiously, as though hearing this newfound awareness for the first time. "...That's oddly mature of you."
But she interrupted him again, freezing Xin.
"Wait a moment…" she murmured, brows furrowing as she inhaled deeply. "Xin… what's that smell? Strawberry shampoo?" she asked, leaning in to catch the scent.
Xin froze.
Jing's face shifted to confusion, then realization, expressionless as she turned to Xin who trembled. "So it was you…?"
Xin's eyes widened in panic, his cone slipping from his grip. He coughed, trying to regain composure. "I wasn't the one who dumped half my shampoo into the bubble machine…" He met their eyes fiercely.
Meilin, intrigued, raised an eyebrow at the unexpected turn.
Jing locked her gaze on Xin. "You just admitted it."
Xin's breathing hiked as he realized his slip. His eyes darted to Meilin, pleading. But she only smiled, letting him own his mess.
He steadied himself and threw out a last defense. "I thought it was a… tactical bath‑bomb experiment!" he blurted.
Jing took a careful bite of her ice cream, trying not to trigger her sensitive teeth, almost dropping it when she looked at him in disbelief.
"That's why you turned the bathroom into a strawberry foam pit? Not plausible."
Xin shrank, hiding behind Meilin's arm. She laughed.
Jing snorted and ruffled his hair roughly. He whined, "You're lucky you're cute, you tiny domestic terrorist."
Xin grumbled, fixing his hair. "It was for science…"
CRACK
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A crack appeared in the memory, as if it were a piece of fragile glass, spreading into a spiderweb of more cracks. Small, tiny fragments started falling off, as if the memory was collapsing.
Yet—
The cracks stopped suddenly.
The boy, who was smiling foolishly at the care his sisters were providing him, raised his dark brown eyes—only for them to be tainted by something dark and black, miasma-like.
Almost as if it were an odd type of fog.
The memory stopped and turned grey-yellowish, except for the boy, who had dropped his smile into something more neutral—his pitch-black eyes, indistinguishable between pupil and iris, looking up.
The boy climbed out of the image, balancing himself at the edges of the memory, as if it had turned into a 2D image, before jumping out and looking around at the dark environment he found himself in.
He closed his eyes, considering what to do, before he felt a shift in his location and slowly opened his eyes.
A mirror was placed in front of him. No, the whole area was filled with mirrors from all angles—whether in front of him, below his feet, on the ceiling, behind him, diagonally at the corners of the room.
All the mirrors of the room reflected one image:
His image.
In front of a certain mirror, he found a grey metal chair.
Instinctively, he knew it was for him and walked to it, his footsteps stepping on the mirrors on the ground, causing them to crack—yet the boy did not get injured, as if his body were a ghost's, with weight.
He reached the chair and stood in front of it, observing it for a few seconds before deciding to try to push it.
To no surprise, the chair did not move a single centimeter from its original spot. The boy, as if nothing had happened, sat on the chair and placed his hands beside him, looking at the mirror in front of him.
Not blinking, he sat like that for a minute, two, three, ten, fifty—
An hour, two, four, eight—
Half a day. A day. Two. Three. Four.
A week.
Two.
A month.
A year.
Ten years.
A hundred years.
A millennium.
Two. No, three. No—no—tens of millennia. No, no, no. A million years had passed.
Time started moving frantically, the gears of time losing their initial meaning and slowly decaying over the passage of time.
The boy's eyes started becoming heavy, his vision starting to blur after not sleeping for a while. He had lost track of time, stopping at the count of around 5,241,093,824,872 seconds.
His eyelids slowly began to close, and his body, still sitting in the chair, started swaying slightly before he completely fell asleep.
"Less than a second has passed~"