Catherine closed her eyes tightly, then opened them, ultimately unable to ignore it and turning back to look. The corridor she had definitely turned her back on was reflecting light that shouldn’t have been visible beyond it.

She frowned. She backed away and looked diagonally at the path she had taken, then blinked once more.

Though she knew it couldn’t be possible, she momentarily wondered if she had mistaken the direction. However, it didn’t take long to realize that something was definitely wrong.

A few seconds were enough to confirm that both the path she had taken and the path she had seen just moments before were exactly the same.

“What… is this.”

It was like dropping ink on paper, folding it in half, and rubbing it. The two corridors on either side of the turn were identical.

Catherine stood there blankly, unable to proceed further. It wasn’t because she was afraid or didn’t know what to do. Since this was clearly the evil thing’s trick, she understood what it wanted from her.

The flickering light at the end of the identical paths wasn’t moving away at all. Like it wanted her to follow either way.

She had no choice. With no way back, only identical paths remained before her eyes. Whichever way she chose, knowing that what lay at the end wouldn’t be different, there could be no real choice.

“I will show you what you desire.”

Suddenly, she recalled the evil thing whispering those words. Catherine groaned softly. The evil thing might be planning not to let her go until she saw everything. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have forced her to ‘see’ in this manner when she tried to return.

Tap. Tap. The sound of a cane striking the floor continued from the far end of the corridor. That sound seemed to urge her, asking what she was hesitating for, wasn’t there only one choice before Catherine?

Though the distance was too far for the sound to be heard, it rang sharply like it was bouncing from all directions, and Catherine finally raised her head irritably.

Since you want to show it so badly. Fine, I’ll watch. Catherine swallowed the lumpy breath rising from deep within like chewing, then stepped again into the dark corridor. She walked between the long glass windows where light faintly shone.

She strode quickly through the shadows cast like bars and stepped onto the edge of the reddish range at the end of the corridor, at the end of the pitch-black hallway.

It didn’t take very long to get there. Catherine breathed shallowly and turned her gaze inside the reddish light. Seeing a familiar scene, Catherine unconsciously hesitated.

It was… the landing.

The place where young Saul had desperately clung to his mother and screamed in the not-so-distant past. The former Count was there. He stood motionless in the exact same spot where his wife had been standing.

Holding a lamp, he stood blankly and frozen, his gaze cast down toward the bottom of the stairs.

For a moment, an indescribably eerie premonition flowed down her neck. Catherine’s shoulders trembled as she inhaled. Air pushed in heavily, scraping past her nose tip.

With her tongue tip, she pushed out the dryly stagnant air and carefully took a step toward the former Count who stood without even the slightest movement.

With each step closer, the view of the stairs leading down from the landing began to reveal itself little by little. As Catherine walked closer through the dark red light tangled with the Count’s black shadow holding the lamp, she could clearly feel the weight of the strange silence that seemed to press down on everything around them.

It felt suffocating.

But Catherine didn’t stop. Another step. The light reached down to the bottom of the stairs, to the area where the boundary of the landing was visible. Catherine’s gaze also slid down following the light. However, before long, both her gaze and her steps came to a complete halt.

In the midst of the entirely black and dark surroundings, a color so contrasting it stood out was reflected. It caught Catherine’s attention. The pure white thing lying alone in the middle of the darkly stained stairs was as clear as footprints in clean snow.

It was a shawl. In the middle of the stairs, a white shawl lay like a flowing stream. Catherine’s gaze followed the direction it had slipped and stopped. Though she wasn’t walking, there was something that appeared faintly at the edge of the unstably flickering light.

Catherine unconsciously held her breath. She felt the substance of the ominous premonition that was overwhelming her slowly raising its head. Even though she couldn’t clearly see the answer buried in the black darkness, she could intuitively know whose it was and what had happened to them…

She could finally understand that suffocating silence. And the Count seemed to feel the same thing as Catherine.

“……”

A small sound of lips sticking together and separating brushed past her ears. And like that became a signal, the sound of something moving came from below the stairs.

The former Count blinked like someone startled by the rustling sound that stood out prominently in the deeply settled silence.

“…Cathy?”

Unable to produce a complete call, a careful voice flowed from the Count’s lips that had only been trembling for several seconds. It was a tone mixed with anxiety and faint hope, and clearly trying to feign composure to avoid imagining the worst situation he was thinking of.

The former Count carefully pushed his lamp-holding hand a bit more toward the stairs, like trying to confirm that hope.

She could see him clenching his trembling hands in fear he couldn’t hide. The unsteadily shaking light suddenly stopped moving like it was stuck. Then again, it began to slowly crawl down the stairs. It slowly slid to completely cover the stairs and illuminate the landing.

It illuminated the flat floor where nothing could be seen. It crawled a bit further. And finally, the moment the light revealed the form of something that rose in soft curves.

“Catherine…!”

The shocked Count cried out his wife’s name and approached the front of the stairs almost tumbling down. Tap. Tap. Tap. The sound of the cane fiercely striking the stairs erupted. And simultaneously, as the light poured down steeply, Catherine heard a strange sound along with the commotion that rose frantically.

For a moment, the sound of someone sharply inhaling was heard. She couldn’t tell who made the sound. This was because everyone present stopped moving at the same time the light covered the landing.

No, no. Catherine covered her pale cheeks and bit her lips. In fact, at least one person had already stopped moving before that.

White skirt fabric covered half of the narrow landing. Where darkness had covered because the light hadn’t reached before, golden hair resembling afternoon sunlight was scattered carelessly. 

Between it, bloodlessly pale cheeks and dried lips were glimpsed. Under the scattered hair, a strangely black shape remained on the carpet wet with something…

“Good Lord.”

Oh God. Catherine muttered without realizing it. That alone was a shocking sight. However, what shocked both the former Count and Catherine even more was the familiar presence beside the fallen Countess.

Waaah… The identity of the strange sound Catherine had heard was the whimpering of a child held in his blood relative’s arms.

The child, who had been twisting his body here and there like being annoyed in sleep, distorted his face like resenting the blood relative who held him tightly and wouldn’t let go. His small lips could be seen opening like he was about to burst into tears.

However, until the child burst into tears and that sound traveled up the stairs to reach where Catherine was, no one there could soothe the child. They remained frozen, unable to move. Among them, the first to realize the situation and speak was young Saul.

“Fa… ther.”

However, even young Saul only managed to call his father that way. He couldn’t continue speaking and closed his mouth. Young Saul’s face was completely covered with tears.

Silent tears could be seen rolling down his cheeks, which were tightly pulled because he bit his lips hard. Those tears that dripped down wetted the forehead of young David held in his arms…

Even during this, the former Count remained frozen in the position of going down the stairs. The Count’s cheek reflected at an angle was pale like someone severely shocked.

Whether his coldly stiffened lips couldn’t move properly, the Count only breathed heavily through his blankly opened lips, then soon collapsed and sat down on the spot.

Tap. Clatter. The sound of the cane falling from the former Count’s weakened hand and rolling down the stairs rose sharply. The Count seemed to lack even the presence of mind to catch it. 

The cane scraped the stairs almost sliding for several seconds, then soon came to a stop leaning against the last couple of steps.

“Ha, haha… hahaha…”

For a moment, heavy silence descended. But soon, suddenly boiling low laughter broke the suffocating silence and surged up the quiet stairs. The Count, who sat crouched in the middle of the stairs, laughed like someone who had almost lost his mind.

Haha… Catherine… The weakly continuing laughter turned into a groan that seemed about to break. And soon it became crying, and it didn’t take long for it to change into strangely twisted breathing sounds that couldn’t be distinguished as crying or something else.

Hearing that sound, Catherine also could no longer stand and ended up sitting down on the landing. It was a bizarre scene… All this scene reflected below the landing was bizarre. 

However, among all of it, what was most incomprehensible was young Saul looking at his father suffering with a distorted face, like he had anticipated all of this scene.