Mazzaroth - The Only Thing I Have Left Of You

13th October, 1988

The more days pass, the more I realise why he chose that letter as his name.

It stands for loser, but also for larcenist.

He stole the card that Rae and I worked on for an entire afternoon. Ayla tried to get it back, but failed, saying that L was protecting it as if it was a dog helping a fawn survive a hyena. And what's the only weapon he has in that situation? His teeth.

L tried to bite Ayla's hand when she got too close to the plastic-coated paper.

Ayla found it funny or, at least, was laughing as she told me about it, perhaps not realising how dangerous it was, especially since Watari has never denied the fact that L has rabies, and he clearly has some symptoms of it.

In the furious form of this disease, the animal (L, in this case) or the human presents hyperactivity, hydrophobia, severe or uncontrolled excitability. The patient is restless, agitated, moves uncontrollably, has hallucinations and high levels of confusion, with abnormal behaviour, which may include biting others.

The only symptom I have not seen in him is hydrophobia, but I have a plan to test it. Since the garden plant sprayer is not safe enough, because it may still have traces of insecticide, I have to wait for the cleaning staff to run out of products so I can get it from them. I checked the other day and one of the two they had for the windows seemed about to run out. I managed to estimate another week of use before it finishes.

As for the rest, L is a weirdo, who thinks he's an undisputed genius, who never stands still, beats people up and sits in a twisted way. He thinks my hatred for him is some kind of rivalry, something that gets him on edge, because he thinks it's a competition, which is a clear sign of confusion on his part. Furthermore, he has the impression that I am a threat (hallucinations) and, for whatever he does, he always seems to take my actions into account, showing his obsession with me (abnormal behaviour). Finally, he has recently demonstrated that he is capable of biting others.

Clearly, he has rabies and Watari is keeping this from us, assuming he does know, which makes the situation both dangerous for us around him and favourable, because it means he has not been vaccinated and is risking his life.

However, I wonder why he didn't get it. Watari took great care that I was up to date with all the doses I should already have had, and although my case had an aggravating factor, I am sure he did the same with the others. So why not L? Did he tell him he had them all and he believed it, or did he not care to check? I sincerely hope it's the latter, because if the symptoms become clearer, it will be easy for Rae and Ayla to gradually distance themselves from him and the project, without their future plans being affected.

Needless to say, I haven't spoken to Watari anymore and the situation with Lex has reverted to the initial one: of mere cohabitation without interaction.

On the eleventh, he took off his cast. Fortunately, it was the nine in which we implicitly established this pact to stay away from each other, because now that he is not restricted, I cannot go up or down the stairs and get away from him in that way, even though it happened more than once that he would reach me. However, the variable of possible friendship is now removed from the picture, so there should be nothing to push him in my direction.

In fact, it is certain. I am in the canteen now and he is sitting at his usual table, further to the right than me, and I have not seen him turn to my direction once. As sad as it is to have to accept it, it is necessary. The only thing that matters is the fact that he has no negative feelings towards me, which was confirmed by the way he behaved on the ninth.