Asher's eyes flung open.
His heart pounded so loudly the noise seemed to echo across the walls.
Something was wrong. He could feel it.
'The girl... here. Mei... over there.' He checked his right side with a sweep of his hand.
Nothing seemed unusual. Alicia and Mei still slept soundly. Was it just him?
No, the feeling became heavier and heavier the more he waited.
The orange light from the grate in the bathroom told him it was already early morning.
An ethereal male voice hummed on his left, causing him to flinch.
"Door. A barrier by which an entry is closed and opened."
Asher stared at where the voice came from. The wall developed a slit down its center as it swung open.
"Mei! Mei, wake up!" He shook Mei fiercely, waking her up in an instant.
She shot up, prepared to berate him. Then Asher pointed at the wall, and her jaw went slack.
The wall opened to reveal a pale, long-haired man about seven feet tall. Strangely, behind the man was a black void where their neighbor's room should have been.
His glossy black hair ran past his waist, covering one of his eyes with a thin veneer of hair.
Asher stiffened, not at the man's bodily appearance, but at what the man was wearing.
The gold-hooped cloak on the man's shoulders clinked ominously as he stepped into their room. He wore exactly the same outfit as Yan, except for golden manacles that clamped around his wrists. The connecting chain of the manacles was severed as gleaming metal trailed down to the ground.
Asher could tell that this man was not a mere Messenger.
"W-Who are you! Get away from us!" Mei was either much more brave or much more ignorant than he was as she climbed to her feet, shielding Bellecote's daughter with her arms. As she shouted at the stranger, he interrupted her with an apathetic glance.
"Silence. The complete absence of sound."
Mei's lips moved, but she covered her mouth in shock as no noise came out.
Asher switched to his E.G.O, but as he leapt off the bed, he was interrupted by the mysterious man again.
"Freeze. To become paralyzed with fear or shock."
Asher dropped to the ground like a dead bird. He couldn't even wince as his ankle smashed to the ground at an unnatural angle, spraining it.
"Death... No, that isn't necessary. Oh, don't glare at me like that, little Ruins boy. Her mother had fallen bravely to complete her Prescript, it is only natural she would wish us to protect her child."
Asher wanted to scream, 'No, she wouldn't!' but his mouth could not move.
He glanced at Mei from the corner of his vision. Her expression was frozen, but from her eyes he could tell she was terrified. Who was this man? How could he possibly bend reality like this?
The man scooped the girl from their bed like Asher and Mei weren't even there.
He cradled her in his arms.
"So this girl will be my successor in thirteen years? The Prescripts are wise beyond my comprehension." For any other person, those words would be laced with sarcasm, but Asher knew that the man was deadly serious.
'A successor? To a Proxy?' Asher was reasonably sure of the man's rank in the Index. He couldn't imagine Yan having this sort of power. For some reason, the Prescripts said Bellecote's daughter was a future Proxy.
The intruder applied the finishing touches to his work.
"Forget. To lose memory of an event or thought." His eyes swept across the room.
Right after he said those words, Asher felt a buzzing inside his brain. It was a prompt from the System.
[Unnatural disruption of memories. Shielding effects...]
Mei collapsed onto the bed. The memories of Bellecote bursting into her house last night were snatched away from her.
Asher didn't know why Mei lost consciousness like that, but figured it was a side effect of the man's words. In order to conceal the defenses of the System, Asher also tried to drop to the floor as she did.
But since he was still conscious, his muscles wouldn't obey him. He remained under the effects of the man's previous commands. 'Freeze'.
Asher's eyes unfocused in a desperate attempt to hide the fact that he was conscious.
The man blinked.
The boy faked unconsciousness so obviously in front of him, but the Proxy didn't kill him like he usually would. The Prescripts had ordered him not to. It had said it was not the right time for the boy to die. The man didn't question its words, merely following them with a reverential acceptance that it was divine.
"You don't know my name yet, don't you, little Ruins boy? But I know yours, Asher."
He chuckled as Asher's eyes refocused in surprise.
It was a practiced, robotic movement; the man's arm swivelled upward to cover his mouth with the tip of his hand. A melodic noise flowed past his lips, his shoulders trembling slightly in the perfect imitation of an amused laugh. But Asher could tell that below the man's smiling exterior was the same emotionless monster.
"I am Section Twelve's Proxy of Knowledge, Esther. You will meet my colleagues soon enough. They might not be as... kind as I am. Yes, that is the word. Goodbye, Asher."
He walked away, closing the wall behind him. One last phrase was uttered from his mouth.
"Seal. To close a gap or crack in an object."
Asher sat up, suddenly able to move now that Esther was gone. He turned just in time to see the wall seal shut, reverting to its original state.
He let out a turbid breath of air. Mei was snoring beside him. Everything seemed normal, except the girl that Bellecote gave them was gone. All traces that the woman had ever been in their house had disappeared, perhaps aside from the board that Mei nailed to the door.
'The Proxy of Knowledge. I have to ask Yan later. No, I can even ask her right now.'
The first time he had met a Proxy in this life. Terrifying. He was helpless against it. How could anyone even counteract a power like that?
The Red Mist fought three Proxies at once and killed them all. But how? How, how, how, how?
He took his phone out. It was almost 6 o'clock.
Good, since he wasn't going to get much more sleep anyway.
Yan's contact on Line seemed to beckon him. He was scared. He was curious. Could he ever reach a state like that? Was he like that in his future life, before the System rewound his life?
A crawling feeling in his mind told him he used to be stronger than that. Much stronger. In his first life, he controlled nine Stars and Nightmares, including the Blood Red Night. She alone was ranked equal to the Index.
But Esther's powers were like a god's. He couldn't wrap his head around how anything could be more mysterious, more universal than that.
"Hey Yan." He texted her without a second thought. He needed someone to share what just happened to him, but he figured it shouldn't be with Mei. She was too weak to do anything about it, so he didn't want to worry her. And her memories were gone, too.
Yan responded within seconds. It seemed she was an early waker. Either that, or her notifications were very loud.
"What's up?" Her tone seemed coy, even behind the glow of a screen.
He thought about what to tell her. Because she was part of the Index along with the Proxies, he had to be careful of his wording. Would she side with the Proxies, or tell them to finish the job if he told her the truth?
"I met the Proxy of Knowledge just now." Short and simple. He would figure out what to say as the conversation progressed.
Yan typed, then stopped. Then typed, then stopped again. The text bubble at the corner informed him that she kept erasing and rewriting her response.
"Are you okay?" Her response was short and simple, too. Their conversation seemed to walk on eggshells.
"Yeah. I'm at Mei's right now."
She didn't respond.
After a few minutes of waiting, Asher figured he had said something wrong.
He sighed as he set his phone to the-
*Knock Knock*
"May I enter?" Yan stood behind his door. Asher was a bit creeped out by how she knew where Mei lived, but he was also happy that she didn't ignore him.
Obviously, he let her in, taking the boards off of the door.
His smile froze as he swung open the door. The Messenger's face was serious; her eyes were closed shut.
"So you remember Proxy Esther?"
"Yeah."
Yan's face trembled as she failed to keep her stoic expression.
"T-That," her voice cracked, "was dangerous, you know? You could have died! What did you do to make him come to you?!"
Her eyes fluttered open, and the watery glare she gave Asher made his knees grow weak.
Her pupils were glittering like radiant sapphires.
"H-How do you remember him? Shouldn't he have..."
"Erased my memories? Yeah, but it didn't work somehow." Asher comforted her as she sniffled.
Yan's mind swirled with confusion. The Proxies never failed. Was this a false memory they planted in him? Or did they let him remember it on purpose?
In the end, she didn't care. All that she needed to know was that he wasn't dead. Her arms quivered before slowly moving upward to wrap around Asher's body. Just this once, she didn't care about the Index at all.
However, something about this didn't feel right to her. Asher couldn't have attracted the Index's attention by himself.
But his next-door neighbor was Bellecote, the woman she gave the 'Death Prescript' to.
Did Asher know she was the Messenger who sent it? Was he going to call her out now, disgusted by her actions?
Asher was a Fixer. Did he hate her for what she did, the people she indirectly killed?
Crazed doubts swirled in her mind, pushed back only by the feeling of Asher's flesh on her own. To empty her thoughts, Yan stared into his eyes as she imprinted her body onto his.
Asher felt a jolt of electricity in his mind. Yan had never hugged him so fiercely like this before. It was like she never wanted to let him go.
"But why did he come here? Doesn't Mei pay tributes to the Thumb?"
"W-Well, it all started last night..." He felt like he could trust her with the full story. Besides, it didn't seem like she was going to let him go without a full explanation.
He began with the knock on the door yesterday.
But the moment he mentioned Bellecote's name, Yan suddenly shoved him away. Asher crashed painfully onto the ground.
Her expression, once filled with joy, now glared at him as if he had been lying to her for her entire life.
"I knew it, I KNEW IT! Y-You hate me, don't you?! You don't have to hide it like they all do! I'm sorry, okay? I said it, I'M SORRY!!"
Yan's glass encased heart shattered from the implications of her misunderstanding. That was the moment the Prescripts waited for. It pushed them closer and closer with coincidental meetings, until Yan's heart, already fragile from years of complete isolation, couldn't take it anymore, breaking at her persuasive delusions.
She ran out, weeping profusely. She didn't even close the door behind her as she streamed down the hallway, waking every resident of his floor with her echoing wails.
Asher blinked in shock, completely dumbfounded. Then he leapt to his feet, rushing out the door as well. Mei called out drowsily behind him, but he was already outside.
He pressed himself against the railing, his eyes scouring the streets, but Yan was gone.
'What the, why would I...??' In his confusion, he didn't connect Yan's outburst with Bellecote's Prescript. After all, it was too sudden for him to process.
Mei walked beside him, still dressed in her nightgown.
"Was that Yan's voice just now?"
"No... I just wanted to get some air."
Asher exuded an aura of melancholy mixed with confusion. Mei had experienced it herself earlier in her life. Heartache.
Asher wondered. Scenarios flashed in his mind, but none of them explained what happened. Mei's hand on his back didn't necessarily help, but he appreciated her sympathy.
"I understand, Asher. I'll cook something for us. Is curry fine for breakfa-"
"No." He shook his head. "I'm going to head out now."
Mei's smile thinned, but she understood why he wanted to leave.
"Don't worry about it so much, Ashy. Come home for dinner, okay? Things will work themselves out. I promise."
He mustered what strength he had left for a confident smile, but he only looked sad and pitiful. He grimaced, pushing Mei back home as he shut the door.
His phone leapt out of his pocket.
'Line, Line, Line...'
"Yan. I think you're misunderstanding something. We can talk about whatever's on your mind. HamHamPangPang?"
She read it.
She didn't respond.
She went offline.
"Damn!" He slammed the wall as hard as he could with his fist. Spiderweb cracks formed on the concrete wall, as well as in the bones of his fingers.
The pain distracted him from the ache in his heart.
'What did I do? Why doesn't she respond?'
He remembered the glare she gave him, full of hate and spite. She blamed him for lying to her, blamed him for faking their moments together.
But when did he lie? When did he fake anything?
Now the ache in his heart had faded away. He was simply confused.
He replayed every single moment they had together this morning. From her serious expression at the beginning, the heated embrace she gave him, all the way to her death glare at the end.
Nothing made sense. Yan seemed a bit more... unstable than before. He hated to say it like that, but it was the truth. He had nearly forgotten how stressful their first encounter was, how emotionless she usually acted. Especially with the past day or so, Yan had been getting much more attached to him, perhaps unnaturally so.
Asher took his phone out of his pocket again, then put it back with a rueful shake of his head.
Yan had blocked him. It seemed that their relationship had gone from something to hate in the blink of an eye.
Asher remembered Mei's words. 'Things will work out fine'.
He sure hoped so. With no way to contact Yan, he really, really hoped so.
The door back home invited him inside. Mei would be cooking breakfast right now. He looked at the street one last time before he knocked on the door.
'Everything is fine, everything is...' Even he couldn't believe his own words.