That was like the best sensation I've ever felt in my whole entire life. Clarice thought with the abundance of happy hormones overfilling her central system.

“That was also like the most bizarre thing out of all these things. There are two of me, and both of us are Clarice. That's just plain cool don't you think Arpha? By the way, is there a way for me to understand the phenomenon? Like the marrow...energy thing?”

Yen's request is denied. Yen does not have the access to this type of information as the Thousand World's system had just put on a forbidding code for Arpha. Arpha could not tell Yen any more information.

Clarice's expecting eyelashes fell, the tiny sparkles near her eyeballs diminished and lost its vitality at the hearing of the totally unexpected news.

She never thought the ever-so-powerful and omniscient System would deny answering her question, though she guessed it wasn't really System who made the decision, but who was she to blame? The Thousand World's system?

It barely sounded like something she could handle though.

Clarice closed her eyelids for a brief second, trying to overcome her sudden negative feelings coming from System's sudden indifference.

Was System this cold to me before?

Total out of the blue, streaks of scintillating liquids flowed out of her eyes like two departing currents. She thought it would taste like the sea, just way more bitter.

Clarice didn't understand where the sudden tears came from, or what had caused it, but she knew for sure that it didn't seem to stop.

Her tears flowed and flowed until the areas near her face were tainted with traces of these salty fluids.

At that moment, Clarice lost her motivations and any uplifting emotions of ten minutes ago. She felt like a living-dead who was barely hanging on to her life as it slipped away from her, into the wild, up to the sky, to heaven, down to below, to hell, wherever.

She remembered the time when she was in kindergarten. She never understood why these kids, these little vital spirits, were all so carefree and carried liberality on their faces. Everyone was good at making friends, good at social interactions, good at being amiable and friendly.

She was not. She could not even understand the intention behind all of these interactions.

Why make friends when you can spend time reading books about tragedy, writing plots to kill thousands of people, and dressing up like mentally unstable serial killers who looked normal on the outside but possessed a festered, rotting inside?

Why waste all your energy doing unpleasant deeds just to please others?

As Clarice drifted into memories of her past, a man behind a transparent window stared at her with a hate so strong that could have torn Clarice apart a thousand times if looks can kill.

"You never should've messed with her. My love. My only love in life." The man murmured under his breath while his eyes never stopped gazing at the women who now lost all sparkles of hope in her eyes-- Clarice.

That man was Sy. He was Charlotte's first love from his previous life. Their previous lives.

But Charlotte died at the age of 20 from the hands of Clarice. Her bloody hands. Hands dripping scarlet red liquids, mouth chewing, and her face filling with a satisfaction like she was tasting something so good she would die for it.

“How could she? They were best friends...how could she do that to her, to my Charlotte!" Sy's eyes turned red as clotting strands spread throughout his eyeball like the lightning of a summer storm, and his voice signified his verge of breaking down.

“She forgot everything! How could they make her forget as if nothing ever happened?! But Charlotte, MY charlotte CHARLOTTE! SHE CAN NEVER RETURN!”

“SHE CAN NEVER RETURN! SHE CAN NOT! SHE CAN NOT! YOU ARE THE PERPETRATOR! CLARICE YOU RUINED HER LIFE AND YOU RUINED MINE! YOU CAN'T JUST GO ON WITH YOUR LIFE WHILE WE SUFFER!”

“WHY DID THEY ERASE YOUR MEMORIES? WHY!”

And with the shout of that last sentence, Sy opened a case and unlocked it using his fingerprint. He pressed on ared button.

“I WILL KILL YOU! I SWEAR I WILL! I FOUND YOU CLARICE! I FINALLY FOUND YOU! I WAS NOT ABLE TO KILL YOU BACK THEN, BUT NOW I WILL! DIE! DIE! DIE!" Sy was turning hysterical as his fingers smashed the button again and again with all his strength as if it was not a button but Clarice's soul.

It was indeed Clarice's soul.

She fell into darkness, but this time, she would never be able to return.

She had to pay for what she did.

THE END