"He was right. No Schiller could be indifferent..."
Schiller tilted his head back and muttered to himself. Then he bent over and coughed a few times before turning to Eddie. "Cough, cough... My current condition... stems from persistent post-traumatic stress disorder..."
"I am someone... who cannot live among ordinary people. It constantly reminds me that I do not belong with them... that I have failed to do what so many people expected of me..."
Schiller narrowed his eyes, growing somewhat drowsy. He felt a faint pain along the side of his neck, though there was no wound there. The real wound existed upon his soul.
Every illness Schiller suffered and every trauma he sustained was shared equally among all Schillers. No one could escape it, and if someone deliberately tore open a wound and made it bleed, they could not avoid paying the corresponding price.
Withdrawal from emotion alone would not have left him so muddled. The true culprit was still the wound he had inflicted on himself earlier to numb the Superego and attack Moonlight Schiller.
The withdrawal symptoms from emotion and the traumatic stress reactions brought on by his previous psychological scars kept alternating, making Schiller appear incapable of taking care of himself.
But Eddie's attention was focused on Schiller's hands. As a reporter, observing other people's movements and expressions had practically become an occupational habit.
Eddie saw Schiller clutching his neck and assumed he had slept wrong, since he had spent the previous night sleeping face-down on the table.
But then Eddie realized Schiller did not seem to be rubbing his neck. It looked more like he was pressing down hard, as if trying to stop a wound from bleeding.
Yet there was no wound on Schiller's neck. Recalling certain theories he had read, Eddie suspected that