Near midnight, Jane Hesta woke alone from the soft bed.
At around six o'clock that afternoon, Mrs. Lavette, who served as the dormitory administrator, delivered about three 29-inch packages, one of which was a black suitcase. Everything from toiletries to a change of clothes was fully provided inside.
Mrs. Lavette was in her forties or fifties and looked as kind and amiable as Valenti. She had short, light blonde hair and helped Jane Hesta send out the first email after entering the base.
After Mrs. Lavette left, Jane Hesta did not pack her luggage at all. She collapsed onto the bed in exhaustion and quickly fell asleep, until the harsh shattering sound from a moment ago suddenly came from the living room, startling her awake.
Jane Hesta slowly sat up and looked toward the living room—it seemed that the mirror she had deliberately pushed aside that afternoon had been smashed after all.
A familiar sound of weeping and comforting whispers came from the living room. Jane Hesta listened in the dark for a moment, and the crying made her feel very familiar... it seemed to be the exact same one she had heard in the bathroom that afternoon.
Jane Hesta quietly got out of bed and heard intermittent conversations coming from the living room. Although she was not sure whether right now was a good time to say hello, her hand was already pinching the doorknob and turning it downward.
To her surprise, the moment she opened the door, the other door diagonally opposite also opened.
"Excuse me?" A silver-haired girl's head poked out from behind the opposite door. "I have to get up for special training at seven tomorrow morning. Can you keep it down?"
Tulan's crying stopped abruptly, but due to this sudden interruption, the amplitude of her sobbing became even larger.
"Thanks." That door quickly closed again, and in the gap of the very last second, Jane Hesta's gaze briefly intersected with hers—those were also blue eyes, and Jane Hesta saw three metal bone studs on the orbital bone of her left eyebrow, along with intricate tattoo patterns on her exposed shoulders.
With a bang, the girl's face in the shadow disappeared, leaving only the band poster on her door to look at the three people in the living room with a provocative and bantering gaze.
The girl who had been softly comforting Tulan all along turned around. "Are you the newcomer who arrived today?"
"Mm." Jane Hesta nodded.
"I'm Liz Fletcher," she revealed a somewhat helpless smile. "Want to come sit in my room for a bit?"
A few minutes later, Jane Hesta sat in Liz Fletcher's room holding a cup of hot cocoa. Afraid she might be cold, Liz gave her a thin blanket to wrap around her bare lower legs and feet.
Liz had short apricot-brown hair, a slightly lighter shade than Tulan's. A faint band of freckles crossed from her left cheek over the bridge of her nose all the way to her right cheek, with not-so-obvious goggles tan lines around her eye sockets and a faint black-and-white demarcation line at her wrists.
Band-aids were wrapped around both the index and middle fingers of Liz's left hand, their edges already slightly curled up as if they had not been changed for several days—Jane Hesta could tell that these were all traces left behind from her most recent mission assignment.
The hot cocoa Liz prepared for Tulan remained on the bedside table, and Tulan had not taken a single sip—she curled herself into a ball, sobbing facing the wall, while Liz still gently patted Tulan's back to comfort her.
Jane Hesta held the hot cocoa, which was equally rich in sweetness and bitterness. After tasting a sip, she did not drink any more.
She silently looked around the room—it was filled with bookshelves of varying heights, every single one packed to the brim, yet even so, a large stack of books still piled up beside the bed and at the corner of the desk. Liz had cut several pieces of gray-white grid bedsheets to cover them as dust protection.
A picture frame hung on the wall by the bed, but what was mounted inside was not a picture, but a well-worn leather holster. It was nailed to the center of the frame, its leather straps hanging suspended in mid-air, already worn down to a whitish color.
Hanging opposite the foot of the bed was a brown button accordion. The bellows looked very clean without a speck of dust, showing that it was used frequently.
After a short while, Jane Hesta put down her mug and looked through the bookshelves beside her tier by tier until she saw a copy of Edgar's Dark Tales Collection, and she stopped.
"Your name is Jane Hesta, right?" Liz called out to her suddenly from behind. Jane Hesta turned back and realized that Liz and Tulan had both rolled over at some point to look toward her side.
Tulan rested her head on Liz's lap, her entire eye sockets and nose red. At the moment, she hugged a pillow in her arms, her brown hair casually tied into a ponytail draped over Liz's knees.
"Mm," Jane Hesta replied. "Miss Valenti Viking brought me over this afternoon."
"I know." Liz smiled. "Miss Valenti sent me your profile this afternoon as well... From now on, until I leave the training base in September, I am your adjutant. Aside from daily classes and training time, you can come to me or Tulan if you encounter any problems."
"I can't be of much help," Tulan muttered.
"Haha, what are you saying." Liz gently tapped Tulan on the head.
Jane Hesta suddenly remembered the pair of icy blue eyes she had seen through the door crack earlier: "And the one next door?"
"Her name is Ligo, she arrived last year," Liz answered. "I, Tulan, and Ligo are respectively the third-year, second-year, and first-year students here. Theoretically, we all have the obligation to provide you with help in the coming time. But Ligo is a bit special; if she offends you in daily life later on, please don't mind it—she is somewhat mentally unstable and is still undergoing treatment."
"Unstable?"
"Usually after Project Group Training ends, everyday life is mostly fine." Liz smiled and answered. "What were you looking at just now?"
"Edgar's Dark Tales Collection." Jane Hesta pointed to the spine. "Someone used to read this collection of stories to me before."
"Is that so." Liz's eyes lit up. "This book is relatively popular in District 1. I managed to get both the upper and lower volumes with great difficulty... Who read it to you?"
Jane Hesta remained silent without answering, causing Liz to hesitate somewhat whether she should not have asked this question. But soon, she suddenly spoke up: "...It doesn't matter, what she read to me wasn't the horror stories from inside here either, but she specifically picked out some... fragments related to interior decoration."
"Decoration? Then she's an expert," Liz felt even more pleasantly surprised. "I remember Edgar held the decoration style of western District 3 in very high regard, and he even specifically wrote an article called The Philosophy of Decoration."
Jane Hesta looked toward Liz: "You like Edgar too?"
Liz shook her head with a smile. "I simply chose this book because I took an elective course in Gothic literature, and apart from the first story The Black Cat, I haven't flipped through anything past it... What about you? Which story in here is your favorite?"
Jane Hesta took down the lower volume of the book. She skillfully opened the pages, and after flipping through them casually a few times, she quickly found the section she had heard and read many times over.
"Would Miss Fletcher like to listen?"
"Please call me Liz." Liz smiled as she looked at Jane Hesta.
"Liz."
"Then... if you please."
Before you continue