The Meeting of Three Dead People

Am I... dead?

Alice felt as though she were inside a sealed box. Around her was lightless, enclosed darkness. Something was pressed tightly against her body, leaving not the slightest gap.

She tried to move, but the things around her had wrapped her too tightly. No matter how hard she struggled, it was useless. She tried and tried, wanting to roll over, just a little, quietly turn herself over... Turn over?

Who... was she again?

The darkness around her seemed to gain a soul in an instant. Brilliant colors spread from a single point, staining the entire scene. Alice saw a quill pen writing.

There was no ink, no owner. This was... 0-08.

A pale hand gripped the quill pen from behind. The image traveled upward along the hand. The man wore a pure black, double-breasted clergyman's robe. His lips were pressed tight, his nose high and straight, his facial features like a classical sculpture without a single wrinkle. He was blind in one eye, and the pupil of his remaining eye was a deep blue, almost a profound black. His hair was dark gold, and he wore a soft cap...

He was Ince Zangwill!

The instant she recognized the person who had killed her, Alice finally remembered who she was. The scene around her receded like a tide—only to be fused back together by a strange force just as everything was about to shatter completely.

Alice saw a land glowing faintly in the distance—perhaps it was a land.

Moon flowers, deep sleep flowers, night-scented herbs...

Recognizing several familiar herbs, Alice tentatively called out, "Goddess?"

No one answered.

Alice tentatively took a few steps forward. She did not get any closer to the faintly glowing land, nor did she get any farther away.

Stopping again, Alice called out once more, "Goddess? Was it... was it You who saved me?"

In the silent darkness, Alice heard a gentle, distant sigh.

"Do you really not know what happened to you?"

Alice stood rooted to the spot in confusion.

"An unknown existence erased the original owner of this body from Fate and stuffed your fate into it."

Alice froze in place. The Goddess, who had refused to show herself, apparently had not intended to receive her answer or observe her expression. After speaking, the dream suddenly shattered, leaving her no room to think.

Alice returned to that sealed, lightless darkness—no, that was not quite right. This time, it was not wrapped around her as tightly as before. This should be a rectangular box... Come to think of it, why had she not felt suffocated when it had been wrapped so tightly around her before?

A question she was destined never to answer surfaced in Alice's mind. She dismissed it, remembered the final scene of herself being "killed," and realized that there was a high probability she was inside a coffin.

So Alice shifted her body a few times and reached toward the coffin lid.

Night at Raphael Cemetery.

Azik, his skin bronze-colored, stood before Klein's grave holding a bouquet of white flowers. He remained silent for a long time. Just as he was about to say something, his gaze and movements abruptly stopped.

—The grave beside Klein's, the one belonging to Alice Kingsley, had its stone slab shifted aside. Then, a healthy-looking young girl's hand stretched out from within.

Not a zombie, nor a monster, but a living person with breath, a heartbeat, and a remarkably healthy body...

Realizing this, Azik remained where he was and watched as the owner of that hand pushed open the tombstone, crawled out of the grave, then noticed him standing nearby and hesitantly greeted him, "Hi?"

Getting no response from this stranger whose visit to the grave had been interrupted, Alice quietly opened her Spirit Vision to examine his condition. Once she confirmed that he had not been frightened senseless and was actually quite calm, she decided to continue with what she was doing.

Thus, in that eerie silence, Alice climbed out of the grave right in front of a stranger, dusted the dirt from herself, checked whether her clothes were intact and whether she had any wounds, then buried the coffin again and restored the grave.

"Luckily, cremation isn't popular in this era..." Alice muttered softly. After handling everything, she raised her head, intending to say something to the man, only to stop again.

—A pale hand stretched out from Klein's grave in front of the stranger.

They all fell silent, watching their mutual friend crawl out of his grave and join this awkward meeting.

Klein: "?"

Azik: "?"

Alice: "Um... how about you bury the coffin back first, and then we go somewhere else?"

They suddenly realized that three dead people chatting in a cemetery was not a good idea. The Nighthawks could discover them at any moment.

So, despite his not-yet-healed wounds, Klein painstakingly restored his grave to its original state. Then the three dead people left the scene of the crime and found somewhere safer.

This awkward meeting diluted the grief they had originally been harboring. The three looked at one another, and in the end, Mr. Azik, the one with the most experience in such matters, spoke first. "What do you plan to do?"

"...Promote cremation in this era?" Alice asked hesitantly, not understanding what Mr. Azik was asking.

"..." Klein raised a hand and pinched his brow. He had no choice but to introduce the two of them. "Alice, this is Mr. Azik. He's my teacher. Mr. Azik, this is Alice. She's my... colleague, and also a very good friend."

"Hello?" Alice blinked twice.

"Hello," Mr. Azik nodded. "Have you thought about where you will go next? What identities and faces you will use? You know, to other people, the two of you are already dead."

Alice suddenly understood. She had finally realized what the true focus of the matter was, so the utterly inexperienced Alice looked at Klein.

"...I don't know." Klein's eyes were full of bewilderment. After all, he had not seen Ince Zangwill at the end and was still confused about everything.

"May I ask you something?" Alice turned to Mr. Azik. Only after seeing him nod did she continue, "How are the other Nighthawks?"

"They're all alive." Mr. Azik gave a brief answer, and Klein and Alice both felt their hearts settle.

"Thank you," Alice said. "You mean we need new identities and faces, right?"