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ADELINE STOOD IN FRONT of me with such innocence—innocence that did not match the painting that was sitting behind me. All this time, this sweet little girl has been standing beside Claudio as his pet. She's been telling our dear master everything that we've said and done without his presence.

     I should have never let my guard down. I should have known that such innocence is never what they seem. Out of everyone here, I should know that better.

     "I painted this during the entire time I was in the manor. This painting is a reflection of the hatred and pain I have felt as a resident of this forsaken town," Adeline says, walking towards the painting behind me.

     "You can speak," I say in surprise as if it wasn't so obvious already.

     "I could always speak, but I was just never heard," Adeline replies, taking a paintbrush and dipping it in the paint that was on the palette.

     The art studio was silent as Adeline started adding some details to the painting. I continue to stare at her. I was still too shocked even to say a single thing, or rather, I couldn't fathom that this was the real her all this time.

     Was this even the real her?

     "I am a child who grew up with terrible adults. Dr. Giovanni was the only one who reached out to me. He told me his story and his plan for revenge, and at that moment, I knew that we have the same purpose, and I will serve him with no question to achieve that purpose," Adeline explains, her hands carefully moving with the brush.

     "But my role here is done. The plague is almost complete."

     "Role? Was this all just a role to you?" I ask her next, and Adeline stops moving her hand like I clicked a switch. "Was everything about us even...real? Did you ever see us as your comfort or your family?"

     Adeline was quiet for a while, but then she started to giggle. That same giggle that Lino and I heard that made us feel completely thrilled because we thought she was finally opening up to us.

     "How about Lino? He took care of you like you were his own. Was that fake too, Adie?" I continue to ask, and Adeline finally puts the paintbrush down to look at me.

     "Marcelino treats me like his sister, and it's sickening. She was the one who was supposed to be in the manor, but that stupid soldier took the blame for her crimes. That's not an act of love but an act of foolishness," Adeline reveals, surprising me.

     So the patient named Doll Face wasn't exactly Lino; it was his sister. Then that means the picture we saw in his room was her. That means Lino took the blame and went through this hell for her sake.

     "Family? How disgusting that word is," Adeline says as she walks towards a drawer. "My family didn't love me, so why on earth would I care about strangers who are even criminals."

     "You're a criminal too, Adeline. You're willing to kill the lives of innocent people who have nothing to do with the things that happened to you in the past. You are willing to sacrifice hundreds, and you—"

     "Do not lecture me, Bishop Lancaster," Adeline suddenly tells me, making me stop midsentence. "You have committed crimes of your own, so don't act like a hero in this story. You helped with the plague too, and you will continue to help until the very end."

     "And what if I don't want to help anymore?" I threatened her, and Adeline looked at me and laughed before taking something out from the drawers. I checked what it was, and to my surprise, it was actually a gas mask.

     "You know, Bishop, Winter told me something about you. Some very interesting things," Adeline says as she starts wearing the gas mask.

     "W-What are you doing?"

     "He told me about how you're the overseer of your system. He told me that your role is to make sure all alters are at bay and to make sure that mistakes do not happen," Adeline continues to say, securing the mask in place and making me take a step away from her.

     "Adie, what are you doing?" I ask again, moving even further away from her.

     "Bishop," she calls out, looking directly at me with a cold expression. "You're not the host, aren't you?"

     The moment Adeline said those words, smoke suddenly started to engulf the room. I look around and realize that this smoke wasn't smoke at all but gas. I immediately try to cover my nose, but then three nurses in similar gas masks enter the room. My eyes start to burn, and my body becomes weak, making me fall to the ground as if I have completely lost all my strength.

     "Carry him to his room," I could hear Adeline instruct, and the nurses grabbed me by the arm and lifted me from the floor.

     I try to stay conscious as the nurses drag me to the exit. But as soon as they pushed the door open, a tall man wearing a suit approached me.

     Tears start to pour out of my eyes because of the poisonous gas. The tall man wearing a familiar mask walked closer to me until his face was only inches away from mine. I tried to reach out to his neck, but my hands couldn't even move anymore.

    "Master..." I weakly call out.

     I could hear a low chuckle behind the mask that he was wearing as master Claudio reached out to touch my cheek. I couldn't even feel his touch because my body started to feel numb.

     "How was your trip?" He asks with an almost sweet-sounding voice. "I bet you're wondering why I agreed to it. Well, I wanted you to know what heaven felt like. I wanted you to have hope. Because starting today, you will be in hell, and that memory will be your ultimate torture. Doesn't that sound exciting, my dear Bishop?"

    "F-fuck you."

     Claudio laughs and pats my shoulders before walking away with Adeline. And as I watched them go, my vision finally started to become blurry, and after a few more seconds, I eventually fainted.

...

I gasped for air as soon as I opened my eyes. My head was in pain, and my body was covered in sweat. I looked around and realized that I was inside one of the patients' rooms. It was dark, and I was in bed wearing the patient's uniform that Wednesday and the others wore.

     Everything was quiet as I slowly stood from the bed. I tried to walk towards the door, but before I even got close, I was stopped by the chains that were around my ankles.

     "N-No..." I say, trying to remove the chains even though I knew that it was impossible for me to do such a thing. "No, I can't be here. I shouldn't be here."

     My hands tremble as I forcefully pull the chains off. I pulled and pulled, but it only left painful bruises on my skin. I let the chain go and looked around the room, searching for a window to escape. But like the bedroom I had downstairs, the windows were also covered shut with plank wood. I tried to remove the planks with my bare hands, but while I was doing so, someone suddenly opened the door behind me, making me stop.

     I quickly turned around to see who it was, and when I saw that it was Claudio, I immediately ran to him and tried to wrap my fingers around his neck. But, like earlier, the chains stopped me from going any further.

     "Giovanni!" I angrily shouted. "I have been good. I have followed your orders, and I have returned as you wanted. Why are you locking me up like this?!"

     Claudio stops just a few inches from where I can reach him and stares at me with a sadistic grin. "How long have you been aware of Tomorrow's existence?"

     "What are you talking about?"

     "For a while, I was convinced that you didn't know who Tomorrow was, but it seems like I was wrong. After all my sessions with you, I always knew that you'd been keeping something from me. You've known about him from the very beginning. You knew you were a patient here, and you knew that you're a criminal like everyone else. You really are something, Bishop. I commend you for that," he says before laughing at himself.

     "But I guess that's the reason why you never ran away. You knew that there was nowhere else for you to go. You knew that you could never return to...where was it again? Ah...in Totten's Landing. You're a wanted man, after all. You were dubbed as the so-called devil's child," Claudio continues to reveal.

     "H-How did you know all this?"

     "You're my patient Bishop. Of course, I'd know," Claudio replies with a smile. "I know everything about you. I've studied you, observed you, and even held you so that I know how to control you."

     The last sentence made me clench my fist in anger. From the very beginning, the smile he showed and the things he said were all experiments that he had to test. I know all that, but it still angers me so. He treated me like an asset, just like the rest of the patients he killed.

     "I found out how to manipulate you. It was easy. It's actually so easy that it's laughable," he continues to say. But as he took a step forward, his expression suddenly changed.

     "But there was a major error in my research," he says, reaching out to touch my cheek again. The room was completely silent, and all I could hear was my loud beating heart. But before I could even make a sound, Claudio suddenly opened his mouth and said, "I fell in love with you, Bishop."

     "W-What?"

     "You were different. You understood me, and I understood you. You saw my flaws, and I saw yours, but despite that, I continued to desire you. You have been the most beautiful thing that I have ever laid my eyes on. I was so jealous of Mateo. Why didn't you look at me the way you looked at him? Why did you show him your brightest sides while you left me with your darkest?"

     "What are you talking about? I don't—"

     "Love me, Bishop. If you fall in love with me, I'll make the pain go away. I'll let you go and give you more than you desire," Claudio tells me, leaning close until our lips are only inches away from each other. I tried to push him, but my body couldn't move. But just when he was about to kiss me, Claudio suddenly stopped.

     The room falls silent again as Claudio suddenly leans his head on my shoulder. My entire body became stiff, but after a while, Claudio suddenly started to cry. I could hear him sobbing as he continued to lean on me like I was his comfort. But then, after all that, the sobbing sound turned into a laugh. And soon after that, the room was filled with hysterical laughter.

     Claudio lifts his head up and looks directly at me, laughing at my face as if he made the funniest joke in the world.

     "You should have seen your face! For a moment, you believed me, didn't you? You thought I really loved you, didn't you?" He asked as he continued laughing while holding his stomach. "I acted it so well that it made my own hair stand. It would have been such a beautiful moment between us, but I guess that wouldn't work anymore because of that damn cop."

     Claudio moves away from me and suddenly removes the leather gloves that he had on.

      "I would have told you that I loved you, and you would have been on your knees, believing every word I said like the hopeless romantic that you are. But Mateo Ricci had to ruin it for me," Claudio reveals, hiding the gloves in his back pocket.

     I didn't know what he was planning, but then he puts on a ring on his middle finger and walks back to me. Before I could realize what he was about to do, Claudio suddenly swung his hand on my cheek, making me widen my eyes in shock.

     "Ever since he was a kid, he has always been the clever one. I told you before that Ricci is sharp. He notices things that he shouldn't notice, and that annoys me," Claudio explains, pretending as if he did not slap me a couple of seconds ago.

     I tried to say something in reply, but then Claudio slapped me again. This time, it was stronger and harder. My cheek started to sting, and for a second, I almost lost consciousness.

     "Are you aware that when you left the other day, the police contacted me and asked me to go to the station? An anonymous report stated that I was abusing my servants, but I knew damn well that Mateo made that report," Claudio explains, slapping me for the third time, making me stumble back on the bed.

     Tears unconsciously stream down my eyes as my cheek starts to burn. It hurt so much, but I couldn't even move. Compared to the gentle touch Mateo had given me, this felt even more painful. As Claudio said before, this truly was my torture.

"That fuckin cop! I had to waste an entire day at the station to clear my name. After allowing you to come with him on that trip, he does that to me? Do you understand how humiliated I felt? I, a Romano, was questioned by police officers because I abused you! How dare they?! They didn't even have any proof!" Claudio angrily shouted, walking towards me and slapping me for the fourth time until blood appeared on my cheek.

     "Do you think I abuse you, Bishop? I have been nothing but kind to you! I fed you, gave you a home, fucked you. What more could you have wanted?" Claudio asks, clenching my collar as he looks straight into my eyes.

     My body trembled, but I couldn't even look away from him.

     I was so scared.

     I was so scared of him.

     "P-Please...enough. I'm sorry. I am so sorry."

     Claudio's expression instantly changed when he heard my apology. He slowly lets go of me, and then he reaches out and gives me a gentle kiss on the cheek, making me flinch.

     "If you weren't so careless, Bishop, this wouldn't have happened. So know that this is all your fault. Do you understand? The reason why I did this to you is because you displeased me. You cannot blame me for hurting you," Claudio says, and I bite my trembling lip and slowly nod my head.

     Claudio smiles and wipes the tears off my face before looking at the door. Soon after, nurses in gas masks arrived with two chairs. Claudio moved away from me as one of the nurses carried me up.

     Blood streams down from my cheek as the nurses strapped me on one of the chairs. Claudio, on the other hand, takes his plague doctor mask from one of the employees and wears it before taking a seat on the chair adjacent to mine. He then takes his gloves and wears them again.

     I stare at Claudio as he crosses his legs, now holding a notebook that was given to him.

     The nurses left right after, and then Claudio opened his notebook and told me, "Well, nothing will happen if we continue to cry over spilled milk. What's done is done, and I'm just glad that everything worked out in the end."

     "Why am I really here?" I finally ask him.

     "Are you asking why you're strapped in a chair, or are you asking why you're in this room?"

     "You know what the fuck I'm talking about."

     Claudio chuckles and adjusts himself in his seat before replying, "Well, you missed your session with me the other day, and we can't have that. I promised you that I'll help Winter, and I'll do that till the very end."

     "There's no reason for you to do that anymore," I say with a weak voice.

     "Why is that?"

     "Tomorrow got out," I answer him. "I've been trying to keep Tomorrow out because that's the only way to hide Krimson. If those two stay dormant, Winter can be able to take full control with no problem."

     "Are you implying that Winter can't take full control with Tomorrow around?" Claudio asks, and I shake my head to correct him.

     "Winter can't take full control...with Krimson around."

     "Why?"

     I took a deep breath and looked straight at Claudio's eyes through the mask. And then I grinned and revealed, "It's because Krimson is trying to kill him."

     Claudio becomes quiet after hearing what I had to say, but then he looks down at his notebook and starts writing something down. While he was writing, I tried to move my hand, but it was impossible because of how tight the straps were.

     When Claudio was finished writing, he closed the notebook and said, "May I speak to Winter?"

    I stare at Claudio, the blood on my cheek still dripping from my chin. I couldn't help but laugh at the request. I didn't want to call out Winter, but I'm sure that Dr. Giovanni won't take no for an answer, so instead of agreeing to him, I said instead, "If you tell me the entire story of what happened to your family and why you're doing all this, then I'll call out Winter."

     "My entire story?"

    "Yes. Tell me everything, and I'll let you talk to him."

     I could hear Claudio chuckle as he adjusted himself in his seat again. For a second, I thought he would ignore my request, but then he removed his mask and told me, "Alright then. Where shall I begin?"

to be continued...