Curse the Mainframe! 464 Los

Jess breathed harshly, her pants echoing within the silent walls.

Her hands started to shake.

Suddenly, all the blood drained from herself as she came back into self-awareness.

She found herself staring into blank black eyes.

They were devoid of any life.

She felt like she was being choked by an invisible hand. For a moment, she even thought that perhaps it was Charuru's ghost that had come back to take retribution on her for the unjust death that she had suffered.

Shaken, Jess stepped back, her knife clattering on the stone floor.

The world turned, and she found herself down on the ground, having slipped on the blood that flowed out from Charuru's numerous wounds.

Jess' heartbeat sounded so much louder in her ears, and the silence rang loudly in place. She felt like her entire world had focused down on the sight of Charuru's lifeless body.

Never before had the silence felt so mocking towards her. Even when she had killed the other prisoners here before, there was always the sounds of jeers or sneers and cursed shouts towards her.

This time, however, the silence was all around. Even their breathing was hushed, as if they knew what kind of sin she had committed.

The silence… it was incomparably harsh.

She couldn't breathe.

She pulled at her clothes, but even when her shirt collar was unbuttoned, the oxygen didn't seem to want to enter her lungs.

Jess never thought about the what would happen to her if Charuru ever left her side permanently – she hadn't meant to go that far.

The only thing that she had been planning to do was to vent her anger, yet in a fit of madness she had accidentally killed the person who had been by her side the longest.

The ache that overtook her forced what remaining breath in her lungs out.

Her eyes shook, and she felt like each breath she breathed in like a dagger to the lungs. It felt like she was filled with icy cold water.

Jess suddenly laughed – her laughter started small, then grew louder and louder, until the only thing that filled her ears was the harsh sound of her maniacal laughter.

She clutched at her face, her eyes wide and crazed.

It was a good thing that no one could see her now, because they would have all their views of her shattered.

The only thing heard in the dungeons was the sound of Jess laughing to herself madly.

The prisoners could all hear her maniacal laughter, and they wondered if Jess Evans had finally lost her mind.

It seemed that she had accidentally killed the person whom she had been paying so much attention to.

However, none of them had any sympathy for the crazy woman. She was just simply… too evil. Most of them who were locked down here was because they couldn't accept the way that she had started to run the sect.

When they tried to do something about her, they were all slapped with the label of 'traitors' of the sect, landing them down here.

In the cell opposite Charuru, Jonath Evans looked coldly at the scene. While his heart chilled a little, he was filled with incomparable coldness.

The gentle Jess Evans had always been a façade, and they were deceived by her gentle face.

Jonath Evans was Charuru's cousin, but they had grown up like siblings. When Charuru told him about her plan, he had also been willing to go along with her.

Klyse Evans had been his benefactor as well, and the thought that he could have been wronged by Jess Evans and her ilk made him sick to the bone.

How could they turn on each other just because of a position of power?

Klyse had already been willing to step aside for the sect master position – in fact, he had been travelling around the world precisely because he did not want to encounter such a thing.

He had always thought that it was fishy that Jess Evans had been the one who stepped up to become the sect master in the end, but he never thought that the things that happened went so deep that he couldn't even see it.

Actually, even if he ignored everything, he really couldn't believe that Jess went as far as to kill Charuru, even in a fit of anger. He didn't believe that she was really blind to everything that happened while she was 'angry'.

Did she really not see that expression in Charuru's eyes before she died?

Jonath closed his eyes briefly, feeling the pain. His heart ached for his poor sister.

Truly, she had loved in vain. She wasn't willing to see Jess go down this route anymore after she found out the whole truth, which was why she had made a move. She didn't want Jess Evans dead, but she did want her out of the position of power.

'Absolute power corrupts' was not a saying without reason.

Jess had been relatively kinder before she had ascended into her current role. Now, she was stone-cold and unwilling to have anyone acting outside of her interests.

She couldn't tolerate a single grain of sand in her eye.

But Charuru had been in love with the woman despite that. Not for the first time, Jonath wondered really love was truly that blind.

Perhaps, Charuru had long since seen the signs, but she had convinced herself that she was seeing things, being lied to over and over again.

Once the illusion shattered, Charuru could no longer bear it.

Now, even after Charuru had her life given away, Jess was still behaving like a lunatic. He wondered if she even regretted it.

Then, ridding himself of any extra thoughts, he closed his eyes, acting like how Charuru had before. A single tear slipped down; his sister's face burned into his mind for all eternity.

Jess did not deserve Charuru's love. She probably did not even know why Jess had been so disappointed in her, and she was blind to the fact that she had been loved so deeply that it was practically a physical pain.

How much anguish had Charuru gone through the day she decided to go through with her plans?

Seeing how Charuru hadn't even said a single word in defence after being hit so harshly by Jess, he knew that she was, in a strange warped way, trying to atone for her sin.

Jonath breathed harshly, gritting his teeth.

The maniacal sounds of laughter echoed loudly in his brain, like they were bouncing off and around his skull. The shrillness and madness of her laughter seemed to suit her more than her gentle façade of innocence.

All of a sudden, the laughter stopped just as abruptly as it started.

At this time, Jess forced herself to stand up even though her limbs all felt weak. She didn't blink as she looked at Charuru's blank eyes and the faint smile that was left on her lips, as if she were satisfied before her death.

She didn't understand.

Her heart clenched tight in her chest, she turned around and her eyes slipped close of their own volition.

Then, she opened them again and strode out.

She couldn't bring herself to look back.

Chapter end

Report