Exposed

And I had no idea what had happened. Their power was enough to warp time and space, and that fierce battle looked to me like nothing more than mingled patches of color, constantly shifting. All I knew was that the ground around me shook. Only the little house protected by the railing remained unchanged.

The earth cracked, and the sky abruptly changed. That patch of land seemed to erupt into a vast blaze, firelight illuminating every inch. It was not the soft red and yellow that made people feel warm. Those colors leaned more toward decay, like old rust and dried blood.

But only that small patch was like that. I stood a little higher and gazed into the distance. It was pitch-black, but I could still tell that nothing had changed, stretching as far as the eye could see. Beneath my feet, too, was the familiar scene. Only that small patch seemed to have been severed from everything else.

Then space warped once more, and the surroundings instantly returned to normal. Jason stood in front of the railing, about twenty meters away. The trees and grass there were all gone. There was only an enormous black shadow, as though something had scorched the ground. He stood there, grinding that shadow beneath his toe, and more black smoke rose in waves.

Only about ten minutes had passed since I had come out of the basement with the gun, but Jason certainly did not look as though he had been through a mere ten minutes.

I could not spare a thought for anything else and hurried over. The wounds of all kinds covering Jason's body were slowly healing, giving off black smoke and sizzling sounds. His clothes looked burned, tattered and ragged. The machete in his hand was nowhere to be seen, and even his mask had several corners missing.

His emotions had not yet subsided. He stared at the shadow on the ground-but it was no shadow. It was clearly a huge puddle of pitch-black slime, which was slowly diminishing.

Jason's skin had returned to its bluish-gray color. Noticing me approach, he raised his head to look at me. I froze there as though he had stopped me in my tracks. It was too frightening. I could not describe the look in his eyes just then...

Overwhelming emotions lurked within them, immense feelings all mixed together, like a barrel packed with explosives, lacking only a lit fuse.

I stood about two meters away from him. He did not blame me for crossing the railing, nor did he question why I had not come closer. He simply stared steadily at me. From a distance, perhaps nothing seemed different at first glance, but I, who spent every day and night with him, knew with utter clarity that something seemed to have changed in his eyes.

How could this happen?

An inexplicable, unprecedented fear surged into my heart. It was not that he had failed to notice me. This was how he was looking at me...

It all began with those uninvited guests. Naturally, those demons had not come empty-handed. They had brought the third Necronomicon, which had remained sealed in Hell. They had intended to use it to restrain Jason, but it had never come into play until the very end, when that greater demon laid down its final curse.

Not on Jason, nor on me, but on the Necronomicon. He knew that power would ultimately return to Jason's body, so in its final moments, it whispered and chanted.

"I bestow upon you my most precious pair of eyes, granting you the ability to see into people's hearts and perceive their true nature, solely to understand him, solely so that you may understand him in his entirety, so that you may see what humans truly are-even the one you have chosen as your anchor."

A rift.

It yearned to create a tiny rift in that steadfast relationship.

Even the slightest rift would suffice.

To see whether it could crack that unquestioning guardian's obsession, faltering though it was. Even though he knew it might never see the day the two of them fell apart completely, it still had to do this. It was a demon's instinct.

Jason felt it.

At first, there was pain, endless pain, like saline soil where nothing could grow. Yet seeds kept sprouting without end, forever growing toward the sun. He watched that seed become a tree that filled the sky, only to be snapped in half by wind and rain.

Even nailed forcibly back together, it was nothing more than an empty semblance. Then a volcano erupted, and lava buried the place completely. Life never returned, and it seemed to fall into eternal deathly silence. Then other figures appeared.

These were from after he had come to this forest. Jason did not need to blink or breathe, yet those fragmented thoughts poured in more densely than rain-he was experiencing the initial probing, the goals, the calculations. Every smile, every act of tenderness seemed to be a weighing of interests.

But slowly, something changed. Something familiar to Jason mingled with them, like cracks appearing in a thick layer of inorganic soil, allowing more to seep in, little by little.

After that, what he felt more of was the anxiety and remorse from when he had been captured, the foreseen sacrifice, the willing devotion, coming one after another. Then, over the years, those cracks finally converged into a little river, flowing slowly beside him, peaceful and gentle, but never running dry.

I watched black mist suddenly burst from around Jason at first, distorting his form, before he slowly recovered and was filled in, finally becoming more solid, as though he had been through a... winding journey. I guessed the outcome was probably good.

I slowly approached Jason. The look in his eyes gradually changed too, slowly recovering until it finally became the one I knew.

Jason had indeed recovered, and was even better than before.

Jason understood everything Luo Ya had experienced from beginning to end, but he had never cared about Luo Ya using him, the impurity of his feelings for him, his calculations, or his selfish desires.

Jason's world had always been simple to the point of cruelty. There was no right or wrong, no weighing of interests, only one unquestionable obsession-wherever Luo Ya was, his protection would be there. Even if those feelings had never been pure from beginning to end, he would carry that undying obsession and guard him until the end of time, until the moment the gates of Hell opened for him once more.

He had simply realized that Luo Ya did love him, and joy exploded like fireworks in his mind.

But this was clearly no place for a conversation. I took Jason's hand, and he held mine in return. He did not seem to have had time to become warm yet. His flesh felt cast from iron, firm and icy cold, as I slowly led him toward the house.

Only after we entered the house did I breathe a sigh of relief. Then I began asking him softly, "Did something happen? Come back with me and tell me slowly, all right?"

Jason obediently let me take his hand and silently followed my pull toward the house. He sat on the sofa. The first-aid kit was in the cabinet by the stairs. I rose from the sofa. I needed to fetch some water first, then find a clean towel...

Instinctively, I tried to pull my hand out of Jason's, but he held it tightly.

I reassured him, "I'm going to get the first-aid kit and bandage you up. I'll be right back, all right?"

He said nothing, and I had no idea what he did, but the sizzling from his body grew increasingly intense, like meat frying in a skillet. Soon, every wound on his body had healed. If not for the grime covering him, his ragged clothes, and the missing corners of his mask, it would have been as though nothing had happened.

I understood that he really did not want me to leave right now. I sat beside him and wrapped my other hand around his.

I asked him, "Did those things scare you? Did they do something? Did they threaten you?"

He still did not answer, remaining silent. After staring for so long, those blue eyes seemed a little too intent.

If he did not want to speak, I would sit quietly with him. But this was no solution either. I had to get something out of Jason.

I moved gently closer and stroked his back, again and again. "Let's take a bath, all right? Then get a good night's sleep. I'll stay with you. I won't leave."

He said nothing, but did not resist my guidance either. I led him upstairs to his room on the second floor. His room was very tidy. The dolls of all different poses and colors looked out of place, arranged in a full row on the cabinet near the window, as though they were truly alive and sitting there.

The only one on the bed was the teddy bear I had given him at Christmas.

Farther inside his bedroom was the bathroom, with a partitioned platform separating the wet and dry areas. Jason's clothes looked as though they had been burned. Some parts were stuck together and would not come off at all, so I simply took scissors and cut them away.

I had him sit on a stool, rolled up my sleeves, and rinsed him with the showerhead. My heart was not calm. This was my second time bathing Jason, but it was completely different from the first. Back then, he had been nowhere near as intelligent as he was now, but he had still felt shy and covered himself tightly. Now, however, he let me do as I pleased, seeming not to care anymore.

I could not help wondering, What did this mean? Did it mean his humanity was dwindling, while the part belonging to the darkness was growing? Was it the influence of those monsters the fox had brought? Would they come again? If so, would Jason become more and more...

My thoughts grew increasingly tangled, and my spirits sank lower and lower. Jason keenly noticed this. He reached out and wrapped his arms around my waist. I froze. Water flowed down his shoulders onto my waist, soaking almost half my clothes.

The connection in my mind opened, and his voice came into my head, brief and firm.

"Don't be sad... I'll protect you... They won't dare come..."

I was a little dazed. He had heard every thought in my head clearly, including the matter of why he was not covering himself there.

"...They said... The person you love can look..."

When Jason said this, something was slightly different about his voice, but at first listen, it sounded no different from his usual flat, unruffled monotone.