“Scratch... scratch...”
The only sound remaining in the attic was the mechanical scratching of the nib against the paper.
The kerosene in the lamp was slowly running dry, and the flame began to flicker violently, shrinking and stretching, casting his shadow onto the moldy wallpaper like the silhouette of a demon.
Ryan's head grew heavier and heavier. Extreme fatigue and a high fever blurred his vision.
He took a deep breath and blinked hard, forcing himself to stay awake.
The wooden desk in front of him was still there, as was the yellowed, peeling wallpaper.
In his ears, he could still hear the cat-like wailing of the baby in the room next door.
Rubbing his aching temples, he gripped his quill again and, by the dim light of the oil lamp, continued to write on the blank paper, word by word.
Suddenly, whether because his wrist gave out or the inkwell was placed too close, his cuff accidentally caught the edge of the inkwell and knocked it over.
Splat.
A blob of thick, pitch-black ink bloomed without warning across the very last page.
The blackness seemed alive, squirming and spreading frantically across the yellowed paper, on the verge of swallowing and erasing the records he had spent the entire night painstakingly copying.
“Damn it!”
Startled, Ryan instinctively reached out with his right hand.
He violently smeared the thick, black ink to both sides with his fingers!
He was trying to salvage the document before the ink completely ruined the handwriting.
However, the moment his fingertips tore through the thick layer of black ink—
Flash!
A beam of blinding, dazzling, completely heatless, pure white solar light suddenly erupted from the rift in the smeared paper. Like a red-hot iron nail, it drove straight into his eyes!
The instant this pure white, merciless light flooded his mind, Ryan heard a deafening chime of a bell.
A line of ancient text, glowing with faint golden starlight that he had never seen before, branded itself deep into his consciousness like a hot iron:
“The Glory knows no mercy. Beneath it, even shadows are flayed to the bone...”
“Ah!!”
Ryan let out a sharp gasp, his entire body shuddering violently as he woke from the sheer terror.
He panted heavily, drenched in cold sweat, his forehead slamming hard against the edge of the wooden desk.
The gray-white light of dawn filtered through the moldy window frame, casting a cold glow over his face.
The kerosene lamp on the desk had gone completely out, emitting a faint, dry smell of burnt wick.
Ryan clutched his splitting temples as a sharp, metallic sweetness welled up in his chest.
“Cough!”
He spat a mouthful of blood onto the corner of the desk.
Ignoring the blood on his lips, he stared at the neat stack of transcripts on the desk as if he had seen a ghost, his hands trembling.
The St. Jude's Church registries were indeed completely copied. The handwriting was neat and elegant, a perfect official civil shorthand.
But on the very last page, a large, not-yet-dry smear of black ink had been violently parted to both sides by a clear finger swipe.
The path of the swipe was identical to the one he had made in his dream, when he thought he was awake and trying to salvage the document.
Beneath the thin layer of smeared black ink, the ordinary, mundane letters had shifted into a bizarre misalignment.
In the microscopic gaps of the ink, invisible to the naked eye of an ordinary person, faint, heatless, golden glimmerings of truth flowed silently.
Ryan froze in his chair, a bone-chilling dread surging from the base of his spine straight to the crown of his head.
He had no idea when he had fallen asleep, let alone when he had entered the dream.
Every single detail of the dream—the desk, the lamp, the panic when the ink spilled, and even the sticky sensation of the ink—overlapped flawlessly with the reality he thought he was awake in.
In his defenseless dream, he had sewn that sliver of forbidden knowledge from the Lantern into this mundane form meant for Supervisor Morton, without missing a single word.
Outside the window, the thick fog of London's East End began to turn a pale white in the morning light.
He tried to fix it.
Wiping it with a cloth, scraping it with a knife, rewriting it—but the paper was too old, and even a slight scrape caused the fibers to fray.
More bizarrely, after the names were covered by the ink, a faint golden glow began to seep through from underneath, as if something were rising from within the paper.
On the street below, the faint footsteps of street sweepers and milkmen could already be heard.
Tuesday morning had fully arrived.
Ryan slumped back into his chair, staring at the transcript on the desk, stained with ink and faint golden light.
His bloodless hands were covered in sticky black ink.
Yet, at this moment, Ryan slowly curled his lips into a smile—one of utter exhaustion, but terrifyingly clear.
“Haha...”
He laughed softly, and then the laughter grew louder.
“Hahaha...”
“I'm going to die. I'm really going to die...”
He laughed with his head lowered, his shoulders trembling slightly, his voice growing rasper and rasper:
“There's absolutely no way out... System? Are you there? Give me a 'ding,' I beg you. Hahahaha... Fuck you, nothing happened!”
Ryan suddenly stopped laughing and looked up. In his bloodshot eyes, a near-insane clarity and determination slowly emerged.
“No, I can't just wait to die.”
“Even if I'm going to die, I'm going to do it on a full stomach!”
He stood up abruptly, his rickety chair screeching harshly against the floorboards.
He snatched the document folder from the desk and tightly gripped the remaining twenty copper pence in his pocket.
This was originally his entire net worth, calculated to keep him alive until Wednesday and even help pay next week's rent. But now, to hell with the future.
He grabbed his coat and, smelling of mold and ink, rushed straight downstairs.
Ten minutes later, he was sitting in a decent little tavern on the corner, which wafted the rich aroma of butter.
Clack!
He slammed the dull silver florin coin onto the greasy, painted wooden table, embedding it right into a crack in the wood.
“Bring out your best roast beef and buttered fried cod!” Ryan's voice was hoarse and crazed. “And pour me two pints of your strongest porter! Hurry!”
The fat tavern keeper, wearing a black cloth apron, stared wide-eyed at the silver coin, the fat on his face instantly folding into a sycophantic grin.
Soon, the "death row feast" that cost him a full twenty-four pence was set down before him.
The moment the steam hit his face, Ryan felt like crying.
There was thick-cut, premium cooked beef dripping with rich gravy; there was plump, succulent cod coated in crispy, sizzling batter; and there was a dark, strong porter with a fine head of foam that could warm a man to his bones.
In his memories, the original owner hadn't eaten real meat in a very long time.
He began to wolf it down.
His stomach, deprived of fat for so long, practically convulsed with joy.
The piping hot broth and rich dark beer slid violently down his throat, and his cold, stiff body finally regained a touch of living warmth.
The hollow emptiness in his stomach was thoroughly stuffed, and most of the bone-chilling cold throughout his body dissipated.
With these twenty-four pence, he had bought the final dignity and madness of his mortal flesh.
After finishing his meal, his full stomach generated a vast amount of heat, temporarily suppressing even the burning sensation in his lungs.
Ryan wiped the grease from the corner of his mouth.
“Spectacular!”
He strode out of the tavern, plunging once more into the swirling, thick fog of the East End.
Damn it, what is wrong with me? Why was I so impulsive?
Walking down the street, Ryan gradually began to sober up.
He slapped himself hard across the face a few times.
He realized he might have fallen under some kind of occult influence.
Shaking his head, he lowered his gaze and quickened his pace, heading straight toward the archive.
Half an hour later, he arrived at the familiar office building. He grasped the cold doorknob and pushed the door open.
Stepping onto the creaking staircase on the right, he once again made his way to the supervisor's office door.
A knock sounded.
“Come in.”
Ryan pushed the door open and entered.
The office remained dim and cold.
Seeing the supervisor, he found himself calming down significantly.
Supervisor Morton sat behind his desk, not even looking up.
“Three minutes later than I expected, Ryan.”
“...My apologies, Supervisor.”
Rate on N.U.
