Twisted Fate (The Music Freaks)

Chapter 4 - Evils Unseen (NEW)

           Delusion. A gentle melody quelled the hurricanes as they spiraled their victims into the eye of the storm. The vortex was quite a place—away from the tumult of the maelstrom but powerless against the wrath of the gyre, watching as contact came to ruin. Perhaps that was the fate of the world: hope sinking into obsession and giving way to the rise of a truly horrendous creature borne from the catastrophic crimes of humanity. Delusion is merely foresight—the haze clearing to reveal the nominal justice as an illusion obscuring total anarchy.

           But just as the poem《题西林壁》"Writing for Xilin Temple's Wall" goes: 'The mountain's true facade is not to be known, / If one is within the mountains themselves.' For the truth is buried and evils left unseen; when ignorance is bliss... 'tis folly to be wise.

           The Kokkuri-san ordeal left Elliot quite enthusiastic for a while afterward. He's accomplished many things: get to know the Music Club members; interact with his subject of infatuation; and receive ambiguous answers to decipher as he pleases. It was like a dream, surreal and senseless—more schizophrenic than a Lewis Carroll nonsense poem.

           But as to what he was conspiring? To escape this world, this condemned overturned paradise of constant burial. Emotions, ambitions, yearnings, truth, justice... none matters in the face of power and ascendancy. Or at the very least, he wished to find comfort in the unlit darkness. For evil can only be overpowered when righteous good is more menacing than the depths of vile savagery.

           As for his infatuation with Milly? Since their first glance, there wouldn't be a last. But to tangle their raveled red string of distance, flowering roses were conjured over his spectrum—blinded or blessed, Elliot could never tell. Just something about her: of self-knowing confidence, of rebellious passion, of electrifying power like a hurricane of ice and blossoms... was impossible to ignore.

           Thus, despite the ambiguity surrounding his subject of interest, he conceded that he'd like to know of her schemes and all that rested beneath the lashing serpents of smoke, the golden core of a ferocious inferno. The feeling itself was nearly enough to suffice, the light of hope. The outcome was never the goal, rather the feeling of being loved was to die for. It makes the days just a bit more bearable.

           However, the waking world has its merits. The warmth of the sun and the featherlight creatures residing in the sky; under the tranquility of the moon with the forever-dancing tides of the world on the other side. The rustling of falling maple leaves, the soft flutter of snow, the call of songbirds paired with the trotting of deer, and the tropics of foreign palm tree dreams.

           The original intent of mankind was to explore this splendid world and its inhabitants, to forge a world like no other. And indeed they have. Transformed the world to be at their fingertips; held the reins to nature's wrath, conquerors of the unconquerable. Every flower of unique qualities, all united by this garden. Yet, there's only one. Borders were drawn, fruits claimed; blood is divided like a river, identities held together by an invisible thread. A history of a thousand years of war, who's one to say?

           Morning dawned once more. Having incredible luck with the magic of coincidence, Elliot surreptitiously 'accompanied' Milly to high school. Maybe it's what it's like as a specter—unsensing, uncaring, but all-seeing—as no one truly saw him anyway. Today, as he unpacked his bag at the lockers, he could sense something off about the atmosphere. It was stifling, the omen of an undetected storm, one that brought forth a twisting, anxious agitation in his chest. He could practically hear the frustration in the air, like the unrest of frantically scrunching up paper.