Chapter 33: Tragic

Aileene's world was blue, cold and desolate. The rose-colored glasses that she had worn were shattered into pieces, stomped on by an invisible tide of unstoppable inevitability. She wanted nothing more than to close her eyes and fade away, but as she stares on at the faces of her cousin, aunt, and uncle, she couldn't leave them all. At the very least she had to investigate the death of her parents. It was too strange and out of the blue, plus it hadn't happened in the original plot of Vain either. So she suspected there was something behind these sudden bandit attacks.

And even so, with this knowledge, she still couldn't will herself to leave her room. She wanted to be able to move on and solve whatever mystery she needed to, but these days as more time passes by she felt so weak. She had no strength to move beyond the confide of her room, and it got worse the more her cousin or anyone else tried to help her.

Aileene knew she was better than this, she knew she could truly be able to find the cause of her parents' death if she even stepped out into the sun. But something was stopping her, but she couldn't tell what it was.

Maybe it was how her code was designed.

Or maybe it was her own lack of motivation.

Maybe there was nothing she could do, and she was forced to stand this idle fate of cold, lonely numbness.

Hugging her pillow closer to her body, she turned to her blue curtains which were closed for the most part, except for the slit in the center where a glimmer of faded sunlight shone through into her dark room. Aileene sighed, her face cuddled against the pillow. After a few more moments of stagnated silence, she sat up and ran her hand through her short bob of blonde hair.

Aileene couldn't remember how long she had slept actually since all she had ever done these days was sleep. It was an emotionless cycle that she had kept on repeat for weeks on end at this point. There was no stopping for her.

Dragging her legs off the side of the bed, she stepped onto the floor bare-footed, but before she could move another step. She tripped on the corner of something and fell onto the floor from her seat on the bed moments ago. Groaning in pain, she turns her body to sit on the floor, rubbing her hurt ankle. Aileene saw the culprit to her fall, it was none other than her opened suitcase. Which must've been left open because she needed something yesterday, but after getting what she needed, she had forgotten to close it. Though that was just her guess, her mind was a bit groggy after waking up, so she couldn't immediately remember many details from last night.

Pushing herself off the ground, she glanced at the remaining items in her luggage, though it was a bit of a mess a familiar green-covered book caught her eyes.

Reaching out to pick up the book, she turns to the back cover where the same small pouch was still there and the same small folded note was there. Opening the note again, she expected the same simple three words clearly written at the center of the note.

'I don't regret.'

But to her confusion, those words were no longer there and the small slip of paper, with no noticeable blemishes on it, was blank. This was beyond puzzling to her, either she had remembered incorrectly, or the paper was actually magical in some sense. But magic didn't exist, and it was a miracle this book was even able to land in her hand.

Inspecting the piece of paper in her hand again, she stared at the empty paper as if expecting words to appear on it any time. And it did, the moment her thoughts wandered, a number appeared on the note.

'135'

135? What does that even mean? Was it some sort of clue, or was it—a page number?

Flipping through the pages of the book, she landed on 135. And skimmed through the context, her eyes landing on a line that she couldn't remember ever seeing before.

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