Eternal Malediction (RE)

The cabin had finally gone quiet.

Not completely silent because old wooden floors still creaked occasionally beneath shifting footsteps and muffled voices drifted faintly through the walls, but compared to the chaos of the day, it felt almost peaceful.

Night had fully settled outside now.

Cold air pressed softly against the cabin windows while dim yellow light flickered from the old bulbs overhead. Most people had already started settling into sleeping arrangements, though nobody truly looked comfortable yet.

Too much had happened too quickly.

Roy stood alone inside the small bathroom on the outside of the cabin.

The room itself was cramped. Old wooden walls, cracked tiles near the sink and a mirror slightly too small hanging above it. The light above buzzed faintly with age.

Water dripped slowly from the tap.

Roy leaned forward slightly against the sink as cold water ran over his hands. Dirt and dried blood washed away into the drain while strands of wet black hair clung lightly against his forehead.

For a while, he just stayed there.

Quiet.

Then eventually he looked up. The mirror reflected him perfectly with the same tired eyes. The same expressionless face.

The same person.

Roy stared at himself silently with no reaction. But beneath that stillness... Something ugly moved quietly inside his chest.

A wave of emotions crashed into him all at once. Everything hit him again at once, like his mind had finally found enough silence to process it.

And still... His face didn’t change.

Roy continued staring at his reflection quietly because strangely enough, the person in the mirror didn’t even look shocked anymore.

Just tired. The kind of tiredness that sat deeper than sleep, his eyes lowered slightly towards the sink.

Water continued dripping from his face.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

The sound filled the silence and Roy thought about the rally earlier.

People shouting about peace like the world could somehow become gentle if enough people screamed loud enough. Idiots. The world wasn’t peaceful; it never had been. Not in their time. Not in this one either.

People just liked pretending otherwise because the truth was uncomfortable. Roy exhaled quietly through his nose because lies are beautiful. There’s a kind of twisted elegance in them. The truth is raw, ugly, and inconvenient. It leaves scars you can’t cover up. But a lie? A lie is like a bandage that never sticks, yet somehow people still cling to it because it’s prettier than the wound underneath. People want to be deceived.

They crave it.

They’d rather believe in a fragile illusion than confront the bleakness staring them down. And me? I’ve made a masterpiece of it. Every smile, every laugh, every "I’m fine" is just another stroke in the grand painting of who I pretend to be.

It’s not even for their sake anymore; it’s for mine. Because if I ever stripped the lies away, what would be left? Nothing worth looking at. Nothing worth saving. That’s why I keep lying. Because in the end, the lies are more beautiful than the truth of me could ever be.

Then other thoughts surfaced.

Tanaka laughing on the bench. Kieran staring silently toward the road. Mella clinging onto his arm earlier, like seeing him again actually mattered.

Weird. The feeling settled strangely in his chest.

For most of his life, Roy had always felt slightly disconnected from people, like everyone else naturally understood something he didn’t.

But recently... Things felt different, not better. Just... different.

His reflection stared back at him with the dead fisheyes, and the woman’s words returned again without permission. Roy’s expression flattened slightly.

Annoying. Why did those words keep lingering in his head? "You should change that."

He clicked his tongue softly. "...Tch."

Roy reached toward the sink and turned the tap off completely, and the silence returned instantly.

Then he kept staring at himself for several more seconds.

Trying to understand something. Anything.

But the reflection only stared back blankly.

Alive.

That word Tanaka said felt strange now too.

People always said living and surviving were the same thing, but Roy didn’t think that was true anymore.

Because surviving was instinct, but living was something else entirely.

Something harder and heavier, something you do out of your own volition. His eyes lowered slightly again. Then... slowly... Roy reached toward the bathroom light.

Click.

Darkness swallowed the room immediately.

And without another thought, Roy turned around, opened the bathroom door, and carried on with his life.