Illusion Report

"Kill me,"

Brianna tilted her head back, speaking to the dark muzzle of the gun Morando was aiming at her. She was sitting on the very sofa she and Morando had picked out together.

"At least if you kill me, I won’t be decomposed by the Nest. I won’t give birth to its residents."

Morando lowered the gun for the second time, then raised it for the third.

She was a shooter famous for her calm, steady, and precise hands. Brianna had never seen the gun in them tremble like this.

By then, their conversation—the arguments, the crying—had already gone on for over an hour. The future felt like the sky outside the window: pitch-black, with no sign of dawn.

"I really am Brianna," she said, lowering her head.

"...Impossible," Morando said, her voice pleading as she covered her face with her free hand. "Tell me the truth. What did you do to her?"

There were a thousand pieces of evidence to prove she was Brianna.

She could recount their shared experiences, their intimate secrets, or unlock her phone with her password...

Impersonating someone always leaves slip-ups and loose ends. But when it came to proving who you were, every moment of your past life was a confession, each one a knife twisting deeper into Morando.

A few minutes later, Morando aimed between her eyes and pulled the trigger.

An empty click.

At some point during Brianna’s story, Morando had quietly ejected the bullets. It seemed Brianna had been too absorbed in her tale to notice.

Morando said it was because she knew she would pull the trigger. She couldn’t take it anymore, couldn’t bear to listen—but at the same time, she had a faint realization that the person in front of her truly was Brianna.

She couldn’t bring herself to actually kill her, yet she was afraid she’d act on impulse. So, while she still had some reason left, she had removed the bullets.

"It’s not just the body..." Morando said, staring at the floor. "Even your personality and your tone... they’re not quite the same."

Brianna was silent for a moment.

Pretending she hadn’t heard, she changed the subject. "I’m just propping up this man’s body. Even if you shoot me between the eyes, I can’t die a second time... After all, I’m already dead. The bullet would only pass through this man’s brain."

"Is that so," Morando said quietly, her eyes red-rimmed and spiritless.

The bloodshot veins didn’t suit those blue eyes; it was as if they tainted their purity.

"After I came out of the Nest, when I look down, I can’t see the shoulder blades on my legs anymore. I don’t know what happened to the body I left in the Nest. It’s probably still by the scaffolding, stretched long—"

Morando buried her face in her hands.

Ever since she’d come to believe that the man in front of her was indeed Brianna, she hadn’t seemed able to properly look her in the eye. Now, Morando cut her off with a groan. "Please... stop."

Brianna clenched the fabric of her pants, feeling as if she were plummeting into a void. Somehow, the disappointment was so sharp she wanted to cry.

She had thought that once she saw Morando and proved her identity, everything would get better.

"If I had given birth to a resident, it would have hunted you down," Brianna said, unable to stop, her voice bordering on despair. "To keep you from danger, I desperately crawled into this man’s body..."

She hadn’t wanted to say it. She hadn’t wanted to use it to beg for mercy.

But she couldn’t care about that now. For any reason, on any grounds—all she wanted was for Morando to be gentle with her again.

"I’m sorry," Morando said slowly. "I’m so sorry. I should have been by your side. Then you wouldn’t have ended up like this..."

’That’s not the answer I wanted to hear,’ Brianna thought, stunned.

"I’m still me, I’m just in a different body," she said, as if pleading for help. "Right? You think so too, don’t you?"

After half a minute, Morando said, "...Yeah."

She wasn’t just placating her.

To be fair, Morando tried.

She got Brianna a change of clothes, drew her a hot bath, and examined her new body, testing to see if she still felt thirst or hunger. Discovering those physiological needs were still present, she bought her all her favorite foods. To help her recover from the terror, Morando did breathing exercises with her, listened to music, and chatted about trivial things...

For a few hours, as long as she didn’t look down, Brianna could almost believe it had all been a dream.

"The Nest is full of strange things. Maybe one day, an Illusion will appear that can help you change back."

As the sky began to lighten, Morando gently patted her on the back. "If there’s a solution, I’ll get it for you, no matter the cost."

Brianna felt that everything really was getting better.

Until Morando said, gently and naturally, "You should sleep. You’ve been up all night. You take the bedroom. I’ll grab a pillow and blanket; I can sleep on the sofa."

...She was going to sleep on the sofa?

It seemed... that’s where she was supposed to sleep.

Brianna sat on the bed in the darkened bedroom, staring blankly at the wall, not feeling the least bit sleepy.

She had just gone to the bathroom—she’d drunk a lot of water with dinner—and she hadn’t expected it to be the first of her trials and torments.

Afterward, Brianna had scrubbed her hands frantically, turning the hot water up until it was scalding, but she still couldn’t wash away the feeling.

She didn’t want to touch Morando’s bedding with these hands. Propping herself up, she sat numbly on the bed, not knowing what to do next.

Completely on autopilot, she followed her muscle memory and reached for her phone. People always unconsciously reach for their phones; even in her state, she was no exception. She had picked up not George Green’s phone, but Brianna’s.