JUNE 17th, 2014.

‘Those Who Resist’, huh...?

Liam stares at Seth, expecting an answer, but he doesn’t get one.

“Not very social, hm? Oh!” Liam abruptly exclaims, widening his eyes in realization. “You’re worried about being executed, aren’t you?”

What else would I be worried about…?

“Rest assured, you’re safe… for now! The Administration might randomly decide to kill you, so I can’t guarantee anything!”

Seth blinks at Liam in disbelief, as he turns toward Kat with his index finger pointed toward him.

“Is he… always like this?” he asks, with a cocked eyebrow.

“Yep… he contracted a spirit by the name of ‘Marionette’, and it… well, took away his ability to lie. He’s not very subtle about anything because of that.” She replies, sounding dully annoyed like she’s had to put up with this for years.

“My apologies,” Liam begins to say, gently bowing his head, “as Kat mentioned, I cannot tell a lie. If I say anything that makes you uncomfortable, I’m deeply sorry.”

“Then…” Seth begins to say, pointing at himself, “Are you planning on killing me?”

“No, no! As I said, I wanted to give you a warm welcome. Non-independent signers don’t have many places to call home, you know. There’s only so many of us that can live normally in society.” Liam smiles and gently bows his head again, spreading his palms wide toward Seth as he explains.

“So, I can work here?”

Liam, in contrast to just a few moments ago, blinks at Seth in shock.

“Oh, well…”

He glares over at Yasu, who grunts at him unaffectionately.

“Yasu…” he says, closing his eyes and smiling while turning his head forward toward Seth again, “...acting on your own may end up hurting you.”

“And I assume that’s a threat?” Yasu bites back, turning his head to look at the side of Liam’s.

“No… just a reminder. A general statement, if you will.”

The atmosphere of the room is incredibly tense between the two of them for a moment before Kat speaks up and airs it out.

“So, what are we doing with the rookie here?” she asks, pointing over her shoulder at Seth with her thumb as she places her other hand on her hip.

Liam lays one arm on his desk, as he strokes his chin with the other, contemplating.

“Hm… I’ll need to talk to the Administration before anything else…” he trails off and glances over at Seth, giving him a reassuring smile. “...Don’t worry, they usually listen to me. It’s more or less a matter of how long those geezers will take to start the process.”

Mentioning ‘geezers’ caused Seth to notice that he had no idea how old Liam was. He looked maybe ten or so years older than him, possibly in his 30s, but the way he presented himself and spoke reflected someone much older and more experienced.

Something about his presence made Seth think twice before staring at him for too long, but he could tell that this man had lived through a lot.

Liam taps his index, middle, and ring finger in a cascading pattern against his desk, breaking Seth’s train of thought. He looks up at Kat, holding out an open hand with relaxed fingers at chest level, motioning toward her.

“Could you show Seth around the building? Not a full tour, of course, he doesn’t have that level of trust yet… just the necessities.”

Yasu glances over at the three of them with a slightly cocked eyebrow.

“You really think that’s a good idea? Contracted or not, it’s Yggdrasil.”

Liam smiles again, clearly annoyed by his skepticism.

“These are fundamentals, Yasu. You should know, contracted spirits can’t cause a signer direct physical harm. If Yggdrasil did anything here… Seth would surely die.”

Yasu turns the glance toward Liam into a cold glare, staring into his soul.

“And you’d trust a spirit to act logically… you’ve got one too many screws loose.”

Liam smiles, closing his eyes as he lightly shoos Kat and Seth away with his right hand.

“Go on. Yasu and I have things to discuss.”

Kat puts a carefree thumbs up above her chest, lightly nodding as she turns her torso toward the doors.

“Gotcha. Bye.”

Seth watches as Liam waves the two of them bye, barely moving his wrist with an open hand. He turns to follow Kat out of the door, beginning to close it behind him.

“Have fun, you two!” Liam reminds them, as the doors shut completely. Silence falls between Yasu and Liam as the latter clasps his hands together and puts them in front of his lower lip. Liam pulls out a greyish silver lighter with engraved white lilies branching throughout it, flicking it open with his wrist as he spins the spark wheel back with his thumb, lighting a cigarette. As he begins to take a drag of it, Liam begins to speak.

“Now then… your report?”

Yasu blows the smoke into the air, right below an air vent. Liam had one installed since he wouldn’t stop smoking in his office.

“Yeah… the kid synchronized with Yggdrasil,” Yasu says, before taking another drag.

Liam falls silent for a moment as his eyes lightly widen, and he moves his clasped hands to his desk.

“That… does complicate matters. It’ll take more than words to convince the Administration to let us handle him.”

Liam leans forward as he lightly exhales, barely even a sigh.

“I wonder if it’s a coincidence…” he trails off under his breath, thinking to himself.

“A coincidence?”

“‘Seth’. His name.”

Yasu stays silent after Liam’s reply, not knowing what he’s referring to.

“Someone’s not well-read…” Liam quips, looking down at his hands. “In the Old Testament, after Abel was murdered by Cain, a boy named Seth was born… and Eve believed God had sent him as Abel’s replacement. In Hebrew, it means ‘appointed’, or ‘placed’.”

“‘Placed’, huh? Well, if that kid was placed by…”

“...We both know that isn’t likely.” Liam cuts him off, taking on a darker tone of voice.

“As if I’d know,” Yasu retorts back at him, “I don’t have time for books and reading, useless crap like that.”

Liam chuckles to himself, placing the back of his hand in front of his mouth with a smile.

“You really aren’t well-read.”

. . . . .

Kat leads Seth through a seemingly never-ending collection of hallways and rooms, large halls, and various stations belonging to them. There were kind, responsive nurses working in the medical wing near the back of the building as Seth would wave to them, they probably hadn’t heard of who he was, and so they waved back. Kat would glance at him every now and then, not understanding why he reacted the way he did.

“Seth, have you… ever been outside the Outer Layer?” she asks, walking down another hallway alongside him with her hands placed behind her. She looks confident, even in the way that she walks, but she’s approachable and doesn’t have the look of a professional whatsoever. Seth thought that it was a welcome change.

“Yeah. I got kicked out of the Inner Layer after one of my jobs went under.”

“Oh, huh? What'd you do?”

“Detective work, independent though… I was rejected by the Gatekeepers early on.”

Kat shrugs her shoulders.

“Meh, they’re not really all that anyway. A bunch of over-budgeted morons who can’t even hand out parking tickets properly.”

Seth chuckles lightly to himself, as he’s experienced that firsthand. He puts his hands behind his head, as Kat begins to overtake his pace a bit. He’s visibly more comfortable around her than he was when they arrived.

“What about you?” he asks, lightly tilting his head. “What’d you do before—”

“Hey, the cafeteria’s open!”

Kat interrupts Seth, turning to face him and pointing over her shoulder to an open dining hall surrounded by large fold-out tables, the kind you’d see at a school, with benches built into them. Over half of them are already taken by various employees. There’s a myriad of colors of hair and eyes, as well as guys and girls with and without piercings, and accessories… some of them have their suits custom-made, with a few having an obvious hoodie sewed into the collar. They talked amongst themselves, and due to Seth’s experience as a detective, he could tell by their body language that they were talking about training and previous patrols they’d been on.

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More importantly… did she interrupt me on purpose?

The thought subsides as Kat shows Seth the menus, how to order, where the utensils are… the standard basics of a cafeteria. Their available foods had an interesting selection, with dishes from any meal of the day being available to order via large kiosks near the front counters where the food was served. It appeared like a mix of a high-budget cafeteria and a buffet, though the meals weren't all-you-can-eat. Seth ended up ordering a plain dish of beef curry and a bottle of Dr. BGold, his preferred flavor of soda. In contrast, Kat ordered an omelette rice combo with tomato sauce on top and some strawberry milk.

I… didn’t expect that. I’m not really sure what I expected, but I’m sure it wasn’t that.

Seth points at the bottle of strawberry milk, raising a curious eyebrow.

“Is that… good? Strawberries and milk?”

Kat holds up the bottle next to her face, pointing at it with a confident smirk.

“This...? Good? No, no. This is great.”

“Seriously?”

She nods her head slowly in approval, with just as much confidence as the smirk carried. Satisfied with her proclamation, she walks over to the nearest open table and sits down, as Seth sits on the opposite side of her.

I guess I’ll have to try that next time.

It’s worth mentioning that Seth was still very aware of the gravity of the situation he was in, but at the moment, he figured he’d try and relax after the events of the day. He barely had any energy, and if Kat wasn’t currently holding a gun to his head or a knife to his throat, then he figured he wouldn’t worry about it. That being said, he didn’t want to treat her as if they were friends, so he maintained his distance and didn’t look her in the eye often.

This… tastes great, wow…

And despite trying to stay on guard, he hadn’t eaten a proper meal in weeks, so it was inevitable that he’d end up scarfing down his food even in front of her.

Kat finishes chewing on a mouthful of omelette rice before pointing over at him with her fork, staring at how he’s eating.

“It’s not going to run away, y’know.”

Seth, not paying attention to how thoughtlessly he was eating, quickly slows down just enough to talk through mouthfuls of curry.

“Yeah… I know, but… haven’t eaten… like this in… forever…”

Every pause contains a small delay as he chews and swallows his food, not even taking the time or patience needed to savor it.

Kat raises an unimpressed eyebrow as she digs her fork into her dwindling meal.

“So you’re a guy with no manners, even in front of girls, huh…?”

Seth, attacked by this, glances up at her and smiles confidently to himself once he spots what he’d been searching for. He swallows the rest of his food and casually points toward her face.

“Says the one with ketchup on her cheek.”

She opens her eyes, as she had confidently closed them while savoring her food before, putting her finger up to her cheek while trying to find the spot. As her finger ran across it, her eyebrows raised slightly, and Seth knew he’d won that battle. She glares at him, realizing that as well.

“What kind of kid-brained guy comes back with that?” she retorts, patting a napkin against the spot before wiping it clean off.

I might be pushing my luck here, but…

“Messy eaters can’t call out other messy eaters. That’s how it is.”

She raises an unamused, sarcastic eyebrow while staring at him.

“Uh-huh… that’s a lot, coming from the guy who eats like he’s on death row.”

I mean… I could be, I don’t know.

Not knowing how to respond to that without bringing up a topic that would weigh down the atmosphere and his already heavy mind, he decides not to bring it up.

“Do we go back to Liam now?” Seth asks while putting his plate and utensils in a bin that the cafeteria workers will wash later. “We just ate, but it’s getting pretty late.”

The time was 10:32, and clocks around the cafeteria hall reflected that fact.

“No, not tonight. Liam texted me your room number earlier, I’ll show you where it is and then I’m going to go pass out.” she looks at him, noticing the light grey bags under his eyes and occasionally sluggish movements. “By the looks of it, you need to sleep too.”

. . . . .

Kat led Seth down yet another hallway, arriving at a door to the right, identical to every other door that stretches to and from where they stood. The only difference was the designation: P65. Kat reaches her hand over to the hanging lamp near the side of the door and pulls it down, revealing a small compartment inside that contains a key.

Huh. Do all of the lamps do that?

Paying no mind to Seth as he stares at the compartment, she shuts it and inserts the key into the door, turning it.

Klik.

Wow. That’s infinitely better than my old apartment. Just like that.

Opening the door, she walks inside to check the room out.

Clik.

The lights turn with a flick while she searches the room, as Liam had instructed her to do in the text she received earlier. Seth’s eyes were met with a beige interior just in front of the doorway, as it extended outward with a bathroom to the right, and a small desk directly forward. As he walked inside, he noticed that the floor switched to a flat carpet and it lined everything that wasn’t the bathroom. Inside the bathroom, there was nothing special, though a toilet and a shower were definitely a plus to Seth.

Nice. I don’t have to shower with people I don’t know.

Kat stepped aside next to the desk as he looked into the rest of the expanded room… it had the feeling of a small hotel room, with only one twin-sized bed, comforter, and pillow in the middle, with around a meter of space away from the desk in front of it. The gap to the left contained a closet, with the dual doors having mirror panels installed on the front of both. Between the closet and the bed was a small nightstand with a lamp on it, and to finish things off there was a medium-sized AC unit that connected to a vent near the top at the front doorway because it was slightly lower than the height of the main room.

Kat starts exiting the room behind him, as she waves her hand behind her without looking back.

“I’ll come get you in the morning. Try and sleep.”

Kat’s exhaustion was getting the better of her and Seth could hear it as she spoke, watching as she closed the door behind her. She had left the key to the room on the desk to the right of where Seth stood. He sat down on the bed, sighing out of relief.

This has been… one of the most exhausting days of my life. At least the bed’s comfortable...

He brings his feet up and lays on his back, not bothering to take his jacket or his shoes off, and even forgetting to turn off the lights as he rests his head against the pillow, quickly beginning to drift off into a deep sleep.

. . . . .

“What’s the matter, Seth?”

A familiar voice rings out.

A small boy with… white hair.

And pink-colored eyes.

Surrounded by a plain hill, with a large oak tree shrouding the both of them in shade. Protecting them from the harsh sunlight they’d known for their entire lives. It was especially harsh for Gabriel, due to his complexity. The reason they always stayed under this tree.

“Is there something wrong?”

This same hill he always keeps coming back to.

This same hill that will always haunt him.

Gabriel frowns, tilting his head with a sullen look on his face.

“Seth…?”

Just… leave me alone.

“Seth?!”

Leave me alone.

Gabriel begins to shake younger Seth by the shoulders, desperately trying to get his attention.

“Seth?! Are you okay?!”

LEAVE ME ALONE!

“SETH—”

“I’m fine, Gabriel.” the younger Seth replies, putting his right hand on Gabriel’s shoulder, trying to reassure him. “I was thinking about something, you don’t have to freak out like that.”

Gabriel’s eyes widen, putting his hand on Seth’s as it softly stays on his shoulder.

“Sorry… you didn’t reply, and… I was worried.”

And so, his never-ending nightmare began again.