AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is the updated 2022 version of Chapter 13.5. If you are re-reading this part, you may observe some changes from the previous version.

CONTENT AND TRIGGER WARNING: This chapter contains graphic depictions of and references to death and gore that may be upsetting for some readers. Please be mindful of these sensitive themes and other possible triggers. Remember to practice self-care before, during and after reading.

LOKI

"TWINKLE, TWINKLE, little star. How I wonder what you are~"

Who on earth would sing that song?

My back felt the coldness of the floor. Why was I lying in this place? My eyes were already peeled opened but I couldn't clearly make out of where I was. Shadows . . . I saw shadows around me.

I tried to get up from the floor. The throbbing pain in my head made it hard for me to sit upright or stand. . It's like ten hammers were beating my skull all at once.

"Twinkle, twinkle, little star. How I wonder what you are~"

That familiar tune was playing over and over as if it's on repeat. It's coming from the room meters in front of me. Was someone trying to annoy me deliberately by making me listen to that song? Only a few people knew how much that children's song meant to me and how much I hated it.

I pulled myself up again and stood slowly. I finally got to my feet, but my vision was hazy. My head was still spinning. I could not walk on a straight line. I had never been drunk before, but this must be how being intoxicated would feel.

I wobbled on the way to that room where the music was being played. I needed to stop it before I'd lose my mind.

I lost count on how many times I stumbled on the floor. Aside from feeling dizzy, my knees felt weak. I was like a phone drained of all its energy. Maybe there's something in the food and the drink that I consumed. Unfortunately, I couldn't remember how I ended up here.

My left hand pressed against the wall while my right grabbed the doorknob. I turned it and pushed the door inward. It created a creaking noise that one would usually hear in a horror film. The song grew louder which annoyed me more.

The room was dimly lit, but I saw some shadows on the rear part. I looked for the light switch and turned it on.

"Up above the world so high. Like a diamond in the sky~"

When the bulb illuminated the room, I collapsed on the floor with my butt first. I shook my head frantically as my widened eyes stared at the body leaning back on the wall. It wasn't moving like a mannequin. Its clothes were drenched with crimson color. A pool of red liquid oozed from the body and spread up to where I was seated.

I got used to seeing dead bodies every now and then. But this time, it's different. I couldn't stand looking at the familiar but lifeless face of an acquaintance. I couldn't stand looking at Lorelei whose throat was slit, blood rushing down her body. Her eyes were half closed and her lips parted slightly open with some blood dripping from them I clapped my hand over my mouth and averted my gaze from her body.

"No . . . Lorelei . . . How did this happen?" I struggled to speak. ?" My gaze was averted to the writing on the wall just a few inches above her head. It was written in dark red like the color of the blood.

How do you like my offer of friendship?
—M—

"Twinkle, twinkle, little star. How I wonder what you are~"

Even though my body was weak, I mustered all my remaining strength and rushed to Lorelei's side. My hands pressed her throat as hard as I could to stop the bleeding. But nothing happened. Her warm blood continued flowing and slipping through my fingers.

"Lorelei, please don't! Don't die on me!" I yelled at her as I shook her body.

Her pulse was gone. She was no longer breathing.

D*mn it! I failed again! I failed to protect her like how I failed to protect Rhea!

Again. He did it again. That heartless bastard who sold his soul to the devil. He didn't want me to die. He wanted to see me hurt by killing those people close to me.

I embraced Lorelei's body, not giving a damn if the red stain would get on my clothes. She could no longer feel the warmth of my embrace, but I wanted to make her feel that I was here.

I hoped that this was just a bad dream. I hoped that this was just an illusion.

"HEY, LOKI? You awake?"

I took a deep breath. My eyes slowly opened, roaming the room for a moment. Almost everything around me was white. The place also reeked of disinfectant. A constant beeping sound also rang in my ears. I must be in a hospital.

At the foot of my bed, Lorelei rested her head over her crossed arms. Her sleeping face was in full view, her eyes were shut close. Her pinkish lips moved, but no sound came out.

If she's still asleep, then where did that voice come from?

"I'm glad you're awake. I was worried na baka hindi ka na gigising."

That voice . . . No, it couldn't be. It had been months since I last heard it.

I turned my head to my left. My eyes widened when they saw the figure of a girl whose long braid of brown hair was freely hanging over her right shoulder. Her face was pale while her lips were rosy red. When my gaze met her brown eyes, I knew that it's her. I couldn't be mistaken.

My right hand tried to reach her. "Rhea . . . Is that you? What are you—"

"Shush!" She pressed a finger before her lips. "Huwag kang maingay. Baka magising na siya."

"Ikaw, paanong . . ." How on earth could this be possible? How could she still be alive? She had been dead for months. I witnessed it with both of my eyes. I even checked her pulse and confirmed it. There was no way this could be happening.

"You're the detective. You tell me," she said with a smile that I hadn't seen for a long time. Her innocent eyes, her soft lips, her white teeth. Oh, how much I'd missed seeing them.

I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to remember what happened before I woke up in this bed. All I could remember was . . . I was in the clubroom with Lorelei and Daniel Geronimo, one of Moriarty's minions. He challenged me to a tea-drinking game. Whoever survived would get to live and make the other suffer. Daniel lost. Then, my head began to spin. I lost my balance and collapsed on the floor. Darkness cradled me in its arms.

"Natatandaan mo na ba kung bakit nandito ako?" she asked.

Her mere presence here defied the very logic that I had strongly believed in. She couldn't be alive. She couldn't be here anymore. Therefore, she must be an illusion, a figment of my imagination.

That's right. She must be a hallucination conjured by me drinking belladonna.

"You're not real," I groaned as the pain in my head continued throbbing. But I wished that she was. I wished that she was here with me.

She went to my bedside, caressing my unkempt hair and looking straight at me in the eye. Her soft touch somehow made the pain go away. "Hindi ka pa rin nagbabago. You always want to be clever. Tingnan mo ang nangyari sa 'yo."

"Oh, please." I tried to sit upright in the bed. I groaned again as my stomach hurt, but I endured the pain. "You know me better than anyone else."

She turned to Lorelei who's still sound asleep. "Is she the new me in your life?"

"You know that there's no one in this world who can take your place, no matter how many people I meet," I answered in a hoarse voice. "You're one of a kind."

"She seems to have grown fond of you." Rhea returned her gaze to me. "Alam mo bang kanina ka pa niya binabantayan magmula nang dinala ka rito sa ospital? Halos maiyak nga siya habang pina-pump ng mga doktor ang belladonna mula sa katawan mo. She truly cares for you."

Lorelei almost cried for me? Did she seriously think I was going to die?

"You two are somehow alike—your circumstances, your attitude." Since this Rhea was a part of my imagination, maybe she could read what was going on my mind. "Like you, she doesn't easily trust people. She didn't trust you at first. But after everything that happened in the past couple of weeks, mukhang naging mas open na siya sa pakikipagkaibigan sa 'yo. Well, you showed her that you also cared for her."

I shook my head slowly, careful not to hurt myself again. "Nah, I don't think that we're the same. I also don't think that she wanna be friends with me."

"Have you realized that she's spending most of her time in the club rather than being with her friends and doing high school stuff? Like you, she considers the club as her home on campus. She wouldn't be there in the first place if she had any friends that she can have fun with."

"I kinda forced her to join the club. Just because she's a registered member doesn't mean she enjoys being there."

"She could have been an absentee member, but she still chooses to visit the clubroom whenever she can. She finds more comfort in the club than in her classmates. That sounds very much like you, right?"

"Fair point."

The first time I met Lorelei, she had already given me the impression that her idea of friendship has been ruined by whatever happened in the past. No one would just abandon their friends and classmates even if they transferred from one location to another.

Rhea described my roommate's routine accurately. Lorelei always visited the clubroom during break time, went home straight to the apartment after class hours, and locked herself in her bedroom to write on her blog. I couldn't recall her going out with her friends or classmates on weekends. As I deduced on her first week here, she had a past that she's trying to escape from.

In retrospect, we seemed to be alike—at least in those aspects. Like me, she detached herself from the world. Like me, she found it difficult to attach herself to people.

"Ano ba siya para sa 'yo?" Rhea stared at her. "Is she just a club member or a puzzle for you to solve?"

My eyes blinked. "Why are we discussing about her?"

Lorelei let out a soft moan, moving her head a bit. What time was it? She should go home and take a rest if it's getting late.

Rhea giggled as she turned to me. "You still don't get it, do you? Loki, Loki. Up to now, you still don't understand us, girls."

"Women are complex puzzles," I chuckled. "I can try to solve you and the whole of your gender, but I have other priorities."

"Moriarty, huh?" Rhea averted her gaze from me to the room's window. "Ilang buwan na ba ang nakalilipas? Anim? Pito? Hanggang ngayon, hindi ka pa rin makapag-move on sa kanya. You're always chasing him to the point that it has become your obsession."

Why did she sound as if my quest to bring her killer to justice was a bad thing?

"I'm doing it for you," I said. "Everything that I've done so far is all in the name of justice. I can't sleep well at night knowing that he's still out there, walking freely."

"You're doing it for yourself!" she growled at me. "I understand that my death left a huge void in your heart. You're trying to fill it by hunting down the guy who murdered me. Ilang buwan na ang nakalilipas, pero saan ka dinala ng paghahabol mo sa kanya?"

"Are you sure that you're still a product of my imagination?" Or are you the real thing?"

"I speak and act like how you've known Rhea. Kung buhay pa siya, ganito rin ang sasabihin niya sa 'yo. Look here, Loki. It doesn't matter to me if you catch Moriarty or not. I'm already dead. It won't make any difference anymore. Will it bring me back to life? No. Instead of wasting your time, why don't you get on with that precious life of yours?"

"Once he's caught, that's when I'll finally find peace. That's when I'll move on."

Rhea heaved a frustrated sigh. Not even her words could stop me from my quest of bringing Moriarty to justice. My mind's already made up. "Hindi ka pa rin talaga nagbabago. Matigas pa rin 'yang ulo mo. Kaya ka napapahamak minsan."

"It's the only way I can redeem myself . . ." My eyes looked away. ". . . for the tragedy brought about by my friendship with you."

There's no one to be blamed but me. Until her death, I hadn't fully realized how much trouble I could cause to anyone who got too close. I was a scorching fire. Stand close to me, and you would be burnt. To prevent people from getting hurt, I distanced myself from them.

"You've been like this ever since we met." She showed me her clenched fist. "Noong namatay ako, lalo mo pang hinigpitan ang pagkakakuyom ng kamao mo. You're holding on to your guilt without realizing that it's hurting you. Ayaw mong buksan o luwagan 'yan."

As long as the pain's worth it, I didn't mind holding on for a bit longer.

"Why don't you try to loosen up?" She unclenched her fist slowly, showing her palm as pale as snow. "Why don't you try to let go so you can move on? This will help not only you, but also the people around you."

"Maybe someday, I will." Easier said than done. If only I could, I would. But until my business with Moriarty was finished, letting go would have to wait.

"Mukhang oras na para umalis ko." She kissed me on the forehead and caressed my hair for the last time. "It's nice talking to you again. I missed having conversations with you."

"Wait." My hand reached out to her again. "W-Where are you going?"

She only smiled in response, her braided hair bounced as she walked toward the door. For a second, I almost forgot she was just a hallucination.

Before she could leave, I mustered all of my strength to ask her one last question. The question that had been pestering me whenever I was reminded of her unfortunate fate. I wanted to know her answer.

"Have you forgiven me, Rhea?" I asked.

She looked back at me over her shoulder. "You've done nothing wrong, Loki."

Then she vanished from my sight. The effects of the belladonna must be wearing off already.

How I wished that our conversation was real.

How I wished that she was real.

I closed my eyes and let the darkness cradle me in its arms again.

q.e.d.

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