"I heard the new girl killed her entire family."
"Throwing someone that dangerous in with Magician—won't that cause trouble?"
"The other wards are even worse. Only Magician can suppress a lunatic like that..."
"Listen, this is my latest invention—the Magic Stethoscope. As long as you press it against the wall, you can hear the sounds next door." A playful and lively voice sounded beside her ear.
Vill-V opened her eyes.
This time, it was no longer suffocating darkness.
Instead, it was a dim and icy "cell."
The walls and floor were covered in cold, hard white tiles, making the entire space appear bleak and monotonous.
In the corner, a single bed had been deliberately placed far from the door. The bedding was neat, covered with a white sheet.
Beside it stood a somewhat worn wooden chair. On it lay a medical record and a pen, and—stacked together—a set of Russian nesting dolls.
Aside from the bed and the chair, there was almost no other furniture inside the room, let alone decorations, making that stack of Russian dolls appear especially abrupt.
The only source of light in the room was a single incandescent bulb hanging high from the ceiling, casting a pale glow over the space.
The entire room was so empty that only the smell of disinfectant and echoes remained. Every subtle movement would trigger a long, lingering reverberation.
This was a ward. And from Vill-V's experience, this was no ordinary psychiatric ward.
Five centuries into the Information Age—who would still use long-obsolete incandescent bulbs?
Hiss—
Her whole body ached, her mind splitting apart.
"Where is this?" Vill-V's voice was hoarse, a metallic taste lingering in her throat.
"Hi, you're awake."
A girl's voice came from not far away.
Opening her eyes, Vill-V saw a young girl with messy hair. Even so, it could not conceal her delicate features.
She was sitting backward on the worn wooden chair, her left hand toying with the pen, her right holding a listening device made from a sheet torn out of a notebook.
It wasn't a traditional paper cup, but shaped like a spiral shell.
"You are...?"
The petite girl leaned back against the chair and spread her arms proudly. "Me? My name is Vill-V, the greatest Magician of the Twilight Era..."
The girl's smile—
Click. In an instant, the girl lunged forward, arriving right in front of Vill-V.
"Hey, hey, what about you? Why were you brought here?"
"Vill-V..." Hearing that familiar name, Vill-V muttered, "I don't know."
"Your own name?"
"My name?"
"I'm called Vill-V?" "Vill-V" said uncertainly.
The girl chuckled lightly and shook her scarred finger. "Sorry, that nickname already exists."
"Well, since you clearly don't remember anything at all, I'll just call you 'Please Enter Your Nickname.'"
"Mm." The girl without a name, without power—Vill-V—answered timidly.
"What, you're actually accepting that?... Shh, someone's coming."
Cold footsteps echoed from outside the cell, gradually approaching the one where "Vill-V" and the others were confined.
It was a green-haired woman dressed as a doctor. She opened the iron door and said:
"Vill-V, it's time to leave."
"I'm heading out. If your past is too painful, then use Vill-V's name and past instead—I grant you permission!" "Vill-V" brushed the dust off her knees, stood up, and prepared to follow the doctor.
"...Sorry." The nameless girl curled her knees up against her chest.
Vill-V walked up to the doctor, but the doctor did not look at her. Her brows were tightly furrowed.
"No, not you. The one I called... is her."
Planck walked over to the nameless girl and looked at the lifeless-eyed child.
"...Sorry." The nameless girl continued apologizing to herself.
"...Sorry." Her hollow gray eyes showed no ripple in response to the outside world.
"Oh, you were looking for her." "Vill-V" said as she walked over, rolling up her sleeves. "Great Swindler, stop acting like a broken recorder and just—wake up!"
With that, she threw a friendly punch right at her face.
Pffft—
...
Vill-V regained consciousness and found herself in a cozy room.
Her father was reading her a bedtime story, while her mother sat beside them scrolling through short videos on her phone.
A trace of confusion appeared in Vill-V's eyes. "Strange. There's something wrong here."
Not to mention anything else.
Here, Vill-V's body was still that of an eighteen-year-old girl, yet she was placed inside a baby crib. The dissonance was glaring.
Vill-V climbed out of bed and walked toward the door. She discovered that the door was open, and beyond it was pitch black—it was clearly late at night.
Rubbing her eyes, she stepped out and tried to turn on the kitchen light, but it wouldn't switch on.
"Mom, the power's out again. I'll leave my door open to borrow some light."
It would be even better if I could borrow Mom's phone to light the way.
Walking toward the bathroom as she remembered it, the dimming light made Vill-V's heart grow increasingly uneasy and fearful.
"Don't you dare throw ghosts or burglars at me. This is just a dream... As long as I believe they don't exist, they don't exist."
Following the living room to the bathroom door, she stared into the pitch-black interior and mustered her courage to step inside.
The moment she entered, hurried footsteps suddenly rang out from the living room behind her.
"It's fake, all fake. Just an illusion." Vill-V repeated to herself inwardly, but fear still gripped her, and she could not help turning her head.
The instant she saw who it was, her pupils shrank and her hair stood on end.
The figure was identical to herself—also Vill-V. But this one wore a black plastic raincoat and held a fruit knife in her hand.
Raindrops fell from the raincoat with a steady drip, soaking into the wooden floor of the house.
Mud coated her bare little feet, leaving striking footprints across the polished floor.
If her parents saw that, they would drag her down to the basement again.
And this Vill-V showed not the slightest trace of fear. Her eyes were vicious as she headed straight for her parents' room.
"Wait!" Vill-V called out to the ill-intentioned girl.
The girl halted and looked at her. The viciousness in her gaze softened slightly. "Vill-V, Vill-V, I have to kill them. Otherwise, they'll kill me—kill you—and kill her too!"
"That's not certain. Nothing has happened yet."
The girl with the same face as Vill-V twisted into a grimace. "No, everything has already happened! Before they drag her into that secret basement, I have to kill them!"