[Behind the Curtain-2]
*Clang–*
A blood-stained scalpel fell onto a tray.
Doctor: Number 11.
A supremely calm voice spoke from behind a surgeon’s mask, who didn’t even take his eyes away to so much as glance at his assistant.
A clean scalpel was nearly instantly placed into his hand.
— It was a child of only eight or nine, wearing the same uniform as the doctor, a pair of still eyes peering over his face mask.
He expertly picked out the scalpel that the doctor had named from amongst a wide array, even having some at the ready before the surgeon even opened his mouth.
The whole scene felt very off-putting. The boy clearly wasn’t any taller than the operating table itself, yet it seemed like he’d done this a million times.
His gaze swept over the girl lying on the table, but nothing in the emotions of that gaze remotely befitted a boy of his age.
This bizarre surgery continued for several hours until it finally ended. Faint beads of sweat had formed long ago on the forehead of the boy performing his duties so diligently.
Doctor: You take the subject back to the room, and be sure to wait beside her until she wakes up.
The boy’s expression remained unchanged as he gave a light nod.
In a small, gloomy white room, the anaesthetized girl was still under. A hand exposed outside the blanket was gaunt and pale, its bluish veins distinctly visible.
The boy sitting to the side looked out the window upon the lush camphor trees, watching the wind rustle through the leaves, thinking about who knows what.
When he turned to look at the girl, he discovered that her eyelids were fluttering, seemingly just about to open up–
??: You’re finally awake.
The wind blew harder, and the branches shook fiercely, as if in warning of a coming storm.
In the blink of an eye, the scene before me transformed again.
??: This day has finally come!
The man on the screen couldn’t contain his excitement. His eyes burned across the screen as he looked at the person in front of him, the scar across his face becoming more and more prominent.
Ares: And not only that.
The person sitting in the room looked up. He was wearing all white, looking particularly elegant and refined, but his expression was completely detached from his warm appearance.
Ares: What do you think about other worlds?
The person on the other side of the screen froze, eyes burning with fervor.
??: Ares, you’ve entered the Queen’s dreamscape? Has the dream experiment already succeeded?
??: Last time getting that Soloman code, after the experiment failed, all the data got automatically purged.
??: Now, the Queen’s dreamscape is the only portal there that we control!
Something seemed to occur to the man, then a moment later he gave a slight nod.
Ares: The dream experiment is only half complete.
He paused slightly, and his eyes grew profound and still.
Ares: But I have a theory that perhaps another door has been opened.
??: Then the day we’ve been anticipating is soon at hand!
Ares: Before that, there is still much that needs to be resolved.
The man quickly shut off the video feed, and just then there came a knock at the door.
Assistant: Ares, 3684’s lab report is here.
The person who entered handed him a thick report, and on its cover was printed a tiny “S” symbol.
The man glanced at the symbol, but he didn’t open the report.
Ares: Going forward we’ll be conducting a new evolution experimental project. Ask 3684 if he’ll accept.
Assistant: But that project —
The assistant spoke out in surprise, but before he could finish, the words were swallowed back under the man’s steady gaze.
Ares: He will accept.
He spoke as if he was just stating an everyday fact. The assistant lowered his head in self-reproach, then took the experimental project document and left.
Ares turned his eyes back to the report, reading through it page by page at great speed, then picked up a pen and signed his name.
With that done, he stood up and opened a secret compartment in the wall, placing the document in a row of slots all empty except for this one file.
The other row, on the other hand, was stacked full of countless documents, but each one was labeled with the word, “Failure”.
Only file 3684 was labeled “Success”. From seventeen years of records, not a single one was missing.
Rotating the compartment, Ares took out a folder labeled “Queen”, then returned to his desk.
Upon opening it, the first words his eyes fell upon were the name of a place: Twin Leaves Orphanage.
Ares read on through the thin file, and after a few pages the document went blank. Only in more recent entries did the recordings begin again.
The earliest was a report from Prof. John.
This person’s name was stamped over with a red stamp, spelling out in clear letters — “Unqualified”.
There were two photographs in the file. One of the emaciated little girl lying on the sick bed all those years ago. Another of the girl all grown up, a faint smile on her face.
The man looked at that smile for some time, then reached over and took out the picture.
On the window, he wrote the numbers 1908, then he drew an elongated arrow and placed the girl’s picture at the end of it.
Outside the window, the sky had finally broken out into a smattering of rain. His form reflected on the glass, becoming clearer and clearer as the sky darkened.
Ares: What are you looking at?
Suddenly, the man opened his mouth. But there was no one before him.
Me: Is he… talking to me?
I tried to throw off my shock and speak, but I was still unable to make a sound.
The man let out a chuckle. I actually found myself thinking, he looked much gentler when he smiled, more befitting the impression he gave all dressed in white.
Ares: I know you’re here.
I don’t know why, but a calm came over me, hearing the man talk to himself.
Ares: I’m telling you these things now, and you will not remember them later.
Ares: But there will come a day when you can recall everything. Because no matter which world you’re in, you are always you.
A rumbling sounded in my ears, and I wasn’t sure if it was coming from me, or the sound of thunder in that world.
The man lightly tapped his marker tip to the starting point of the arrow — 1908
Ares: Evol was born at this moment, and from then on, many futures have already been decided.
The marker tip turned to the photograph of the girl.
Ares: And you appear here, the only person who can change those futures.
He looked at the photo, a complex expression in his eyes from which I could not see or even guess what he was thinking.
Ares: Sooner or later, you will try to change the future.
His voice turned cold, and he looked slightly upward. A bolt of flashing lightning rent the thick clouds overhead, lighting up the shadows in his eyes.
The rain outside the window fell harder. The torrents snuffed out all light, and the darkness seemed to morph into a murky mirror in which only the man’s reflection showed clear.
For a moment, it seemed like two people standing face to face.
The man looked at the girl’s picture with lowered eyes, and the cold gaze reflected in the glass seemed to be staring through the void, straight at me.
The corner of his mouth perked up in a half-smile.
For a little bit, I couldn’t tell which was him and which was the reflection. Which one was staring at me, and which was speaking to me.
The man seemed to be unaware of the whole thing. Then his reflection in the mirror lifted up his hands — the pair appeared suddenly out of the air, blurry and transparent, as if an illusion created by the light.
A big patch of cracks appeared noiselessly in the glass. The reflection’s last piece of clothing also separated from the mirror surface. The only difference was that there was a bandage wrapped around his eye.
The man before the mirror saw the glass suddenly crack, but instead of seeming shocked, he just laughed.
Ares: You did it after all…
From my line of sight, the two identical men were in a stand off, but also couldn’t see each other.
In this tense atmosphere, a knock at the door suddenly interrupted everything.
Assistant: Ares, 3684 has accepted. He asked that you come to the laboratory.
Ares: Then let’s go.
Without delay, the man closed the file on the desk and departed from the room.
Ares: Have you ever heard of the observer effect?
Assistant: Observer effect? Are you referring to the double-slit experiment?
A blank look came over the assistant’s face. The man just chuckled without answering, and the door closed behind them.
Leaving behind the man by the window, and a person who didn’t exist here — me.
The man held out a hand onto the crack-filled window, an uncommonly cold gleam in his eyes that reflected the unstinting rain outside, and something else too.
Another bolt of lightning crashed.
I saw that the reflection in the glass at some point turned back into the man’s original appearance.
??: You want to change the future… Do you know what’s at stake?
This voice was distant, as if separated by layers of space and time, yet piercing against my eardrums.
The man before me gave me an indifferent look, then disappeared into his reflection.
Then the reflection disappeared too.