Chapter 59

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“One moment.”

Devan stood still.

I frowned, not wanting to be here too long and we had no time to delay.

“We need to hurry.”

“No, isn’t it strange?”

“What is it?”

“Why is no one here?”

“Huh?” 

“Didn’t you say the children live here?”

“That’s because it’s dawn now. Everyone must be sleeping.”

“And there’s no guard?”

I winced. The temple definitely did not protect us, the children with divine powers, with great care. But that didn’t mean they left us all alone.

They didn’t want the children to run away or get injured and lose their power.

So, rather than being a guardian, it was more like a watchdog, always watching the children.

But now……It was certainly odd to see no one here.

“I think they just sat out for a while.”

“Sit out? In the middle of the night?”

“I know it’s not a normal situation right now. Maybe it’s the day of our purification ceremony…..”

It was an excuse that didn’t even make sense to me. Devan frowned.

“And here, the hallway is full of dust. It looks as if it hasn’t been cleaned in years.”

Dust? We used to use the rooms and hallways as soon as we woke up …….

I shook my head roughly. I didn’t want to listen to Devan.

No, I wanted to pretend I didn’t know. A strange sense of uneasiness swept over me.

“It doesn’t matter. It looks like they haven’t cleaned it.”

But Devan did not seem to want to drop his suspicions. He lowered himself and ran his fingers through the gap in the door.

“However dirty it may be, the fact is that dust even collected in the door.”

White dust filled Devan’s fingers.

“…… Are you saying that no one had come in and out of the room?”

“Yes. From the amount of dust, it’s been months, no, years.”

I flinched and backed away.

The strange stillness that had descended on the corridor suddenly gave me goosebumps.

A buzzing fear enveloped my body.

Devan looked at me, stopped in his tracks, unable to do anything.

“Evelyn.”

“….. no.”

I shook my head. And then Devan said out loud the truth we all already knew.

“There are no children here. At least not in the last few years.”

I hugged myself. I couldn’t stand the cold.

“What do you mean no children ………. What is it? You must be mistaken.”

“There are very few traces of human habitation in this corridor. Did you really live here when you were a child?”

“….. of course. Otherwise, how would I have known about this place?”

For a moment Hilda came to my mind.

No way, had she manipulated my memory again? Are all my memories of living here false?

No, perhaps even this landscape I am seeing now is a lie.

Where am I? Is it true that my childhood memory is what I went through? What about me now? Am I really alive and back here?

If I can even create my vision as if I died…. 

“Evelyn!”

Devan grabbed my shoulder. I came to my senses.

“I was mistaken. You were right that you lived here.”

Devan tapped the nameplate on the door.

It was too dark to see, but upon closer inspection it was a small piece of wood.

“Look at this.”

The piece of wood had scratches on it, but looking at it closely, it had writing on it.

“Is it a character.”

‘’It’s a name, to be exact. Turn around, not there.”

I followed his words and turned the nameplate backwards.There it said my name.

“Evelyn.”

I covered my mouth with one hand without knowing it. It was only then that I remembered. What is this piece of wood?

“I’m sure you were here. Apparently, after you left, they wrote the names of the other children on the back and utilized a new name tag…….”

“It’s been ten years, no, more than thirteen years since I left!”

“That’s why it’s strange. Within a few years after you left, this floor was closed.”

“Maybe they moved somewhere…there was no mention of the temple not running an orphanage.”

Devan pulled the door handle that had a nameplate with my name on it.

The wooden clasp broke easily in his hand.

“I don’t think so.”

I approached slowly behind him and carefully put my face through the open doorway.

The room was full of old bedding that had been thrown out.

The cold water that I had fetched in one corner to keep it clean at all times was still there, as was the Bible that I had to read just before I went to sleep.

There was a white layer of dust on them.

It was as if the time in this room stopped a decade ago.

“If you were right and they had moved somewhere else, they would have taken all this stuff with them. There is no way they would have left this place so neglected.”

Dust flew around every time Devan entered further into the room, picking up the Bible and touching the old bedding.

He wrinkled his brow and dusted his hands.

“…..God, that’s enough.”

“What?”

“Let’s go! Time, we don’t have time.”

I just couldn’t cross the threshold.

I didn’t want to go in.

If I entered, I felt that I would return to the seven years old Evelyn.

To the child who had struggled from the memories of her previous life, wondering if I was crazy, wondering if everything was my delusion…

“…… yes.”

Devan came out of the room without saying anything else, as if he had noticed my uneasiness.

He closed the door of the room and stood in front of me. As if to block my view.

Then he jawed at the front of the hallway.

“Take the lead.”

I took the initiative and started walking.

I kept thinking of the dusty room scenery, but I tried to push it into the corner.

I didn’t want to be swept away by things that had now passed.

“So where are you going? Are you sure there is a hidden space here?”

Devan asked, changing the subject.

I replied, keeping my eyes fixed on the front.

“The location on the drawing is at least this way. All we have to do is to find out what floor it is, but the most likely place is here, in the third basement, where people don’t know about it.”

I’d rather concentrate on this area. Thinking about other things made me forget about what I had just seen.

“The way to the hidden space?”

“You saw the statues in the room earlier. When I saw it, it brought up memories I had forgotten.”

“Statues?”

His gaze pierced the hallway.

It was the end of the hallway, too dark to see anything.

It was the kind of darkness more suited to the presence of the devil than God.

“You mean it’s over there?”

“Yes, I’ve never been in, but…… If there’s a secret space in the temple, it’s probably there.”

I swallowed.

Since earlier, I felt something stuck in my neck from the moment I saw the children’s room.

At last, I said it out loud.

“……The children……”

Devan stopped.

I slowly turned around and made eye contact with Devan.

“Evelyn.”

Devan shook his head as if telling me I didn’t have to talk.

He looked regretful. For walking into the room for no reason and leaving a subject I didn’t want to have dusted off.

“Where did the children go?”

I said with a sigh. He did not answer.

When I was there, the temple kept gathering children. But now there was no one here.

There was no sign that anyone has ever lived here. There were children who had come in, but there were no children who came out.

“…you’ll find out later.”

Devan passed me and trudged on.

Later. Could it be possible?

I bit my lip and looked down.

The dust that was accumulating as I walked scattered everywhere, which seemed to speak for these long years.

Finally, Devan reached the end of the hallway and stopped.

He looked up to the point where his head was bent back, as if speechless.

“This size….”

There was a statue there.

A sculptural statue through the ceiling, or more accurately, the calf of a sculptural statue.

It was a large, intimidating figure of God, so large that you bend your neck as far as it would go and still not see beyond it.

Standing beside Devan, I shook my head.

“It had the same arrogant, condescending look on the face. That reminded me. This is the space.”

“I see.”

“This sculpture is the temple spire.”

“…… huh.”

He laughed.

“There’s a clock in the middle of the spire. Everyone in the empire looks up at the spire to see the clock. The truth is…”

“Do you see God in it?”

“I know that’s what you meant.”

“Is it enough to look up, even if you don’t have a heart?”

“How do you know what they think?”

I approached the God’s calf.

“When I was a child, I didn’t understand what this meant.”

“That’s understandable. A part so huge sometimes makes it impossible to imagine the whole.”

The statue was made of plaster, and from close up I could see cracks, large and small. I explored the cracks.

“No, the priests strictly prohibited people coming here.”

“If that’s the case, why don’t they just stop them from the beginning?”

“I agree. Perhaps they felt a sense of superiority. It is not God that everyone looks up to…. …They will think it is them.”

The crack slowly opened with a click as it moved sideways.

‘’It’s a secret place in the calf. Do you ever really worship God?”

“That’s what I’m most curious about.”

As I was about to enter the God’s calf.

“Wait a minute, let me take the lead. I don’t know what kind of things are going to happen.”

Devan stood in front of me.

I nodded my head in agreement, wondering what in the world he was going to do, even though he had no sword.

Devan went inside, slightly bending his body.

I followed closely behind him. Then I frowned unconsciously.

A bright light was shining in front of me, unlike anything I had ever seen before.

“What do you see?”

I asked softly into his back.

“……It’s so blinding, I have no idea what……..”

Devan’s voice stopped. His feet stopped as well.

He stood tall in front of me and remained motionless.

“Devan?”

I put my hand on his back to look straight at what appeared to be a blur. I felt a light tremor.

“Devan, what’s wrong?”

He suddenly turned around. Then he hugged me as I was.