Little Pietro froze. He found himself back at the roadside at some point, still holding the unmelted ice cream.
And his mother was smiling as she stepped onto the crosswalk.
Before he could work out whether that had been a nightmare, at the distant street corner-
"Hooonk!!!"
The truck horn, like death demanding its due, sounded right on time for the second time! The rampaging heavy truck came charging again like a wild beast.
"No!! Mom, come back!!"
Little Pietro was scared out of his wits. He desperately tried to rush over and grab his mother's hand.
But in this mental abyss meticulously designed by Solomon, no matter how hard little Pietro tried, his young legs felt as though they were mired in thick sludge, too heavy to lift.
He could only watch helplessly as the tragedy repeated itself before his eyes for a second time, without the slightest deviation.
"Bang!"
Blood splattered again, the warm blood even spattering his face.
"Why... why am I so slow! Faster! Let me run faster!"
Little Pietro clutched his hair in despair and wailed.
But the illusion showed no mercy. Like a cold, heartless god looking on from high above, Solomon watched this young beast struggle in desperate straits, constantly restarting this Möbius strip called "despair."
The third time... the fifth time... the tenth time... the thirtieth time... the forty-ninth time...
In this cruel, endlessly looping hell, little Pietro helplessly watched his mother die before him a full forty-nine times!
From his initial terrified sobbing, through his desperate struggles, to his eyes turning scarlet at the end, their corners nearly splitting.
Utter despair, bone-deep grief, and furious rage at his own helplessness burned wildly through little Pietro's brain and every part of his body, like oil poured onto a blazing fire.
These extreme