Latent Syndrome

Chapter 52 52. Lake House

"The world is like a scale."

"As a citizen of Los Angeles, you have an obligation to contribute to public security."

"You don't look like some idiot with a sense of mission."

"It's all a conspiracy. All of this, everything, is a conspiracy."

"I can't imagine what it will be like, and I have the highest respect for you."

“All leather products require are animal carcasses, and the T-shirts you get from the sales are from Southeast Asian child laborers who died suddenly in sweatshops when they were less than ten years old.”

"Do you believe in the existence of God, Mr. Agent?"

"When an ugly person makes a mistake, he must be condemned regardless of the conscience of heaven and earth; when a beautiful person makes a mistake, he must be forgiven indiscriminately."

“Although the vision of heaven has been described by the sages, the world is still riddled with holes.”

"The blood scab left by the tear... needs to be peeled off."

"You hypocrite, my kind."

The electric current hiding in the void was like countless worms swarming around in the ear.

Those murmurs, those babbles.

The stiff faces all around looked at him with cold eyes, like tourists appreciating a madman.

Everything was like the most vicious curse torturing Colin's mind.

The office is as gloomy as hell, with old-fashioned electronic monitors dedicated to securities operations, in which the dark red and green stock index lines twisted and squirmed like a painter's palette.

In the most terrifying, disgusting, and mind-numbing way, it overflowed from the glass screen, seeped out of all the holes outside the display screen, invaded everything around it, seeped into the gaps in the keycaps, and submerged inside. Completely immersed.

That keyboard, it grew out of ugly flesh and blood, a strange mixture of arthropods, amphibians, birds, reptiles, reflective and turbid carapace, densely packed compound eyes, mouthparts, appendages, and tentacles.

“Are you a catalyst, an invention, or a useless froth produced by an experiment.”

"Or maybe it's all three."

It spoke, stroking its limbs with a completely cold-blooded and hollow body, and said this to Colin.

Colin has had enough of it all, the Bureau, the Abyssal Syndrome, the hallucinations, the SCT, it's all crazy.

Too crazy.

"Stupidity, fallacy, greed."

"Occupy your soul and torture your body."

"As a beggar feeds his lice, you feed your sins."

"Fall, fall."

“Dive to the deepest point.”

"The place where human destiny intertwines."

“The Promised Land of Ultimate Truth.”

Those weird red and green stock index lines spread out from the insect's body, trying to get into Colin's body.

Just when it was about to succeed.

Colin suddenly woke up, grasped the weird flesh-textured line, grabbed both ends and tore it off, causing violent blood to flow out.

The insect suddenly became sluggish and still murmured words of unknown meaning in its mouthparts.

"mu...ti...crown."

It was like a stool suddenly fell off.

Colin woke up again.

…

…

…

I do not know how long it has been.

Colin gradually regained consciousness from the chaos, but his whole body was weak and even his body could not move.

He opened his heavy eyes with great difficulty, and his vision was blurry. His arm... had something like a needle inserted into it, and there was an instrument like a blood collection bottle next to it, which was continuously drawing blood from him.

sound……

An extremely pleasant voice came.

The sound quality with negligible noise is not an ordinary speaker, but the music played by an old-fashioned record player.

My mind was in chaos, my eyes were hazy and I couldn't see clearly, but my ears could hear clearly.

He had heard this tune.

It's Shostakovich's Waltz No. 2.

As the soothing music harmonized his body and mind, his pupils slowly returned to focus from their dilated state.

This is a large library, surprisingly large. Luxurious crystal chandeliers provide lighting here, emitting a soft halo, and a dazzling array of books are piled in every corner.

There’s also a desk-turned-workbench with a dizzying array of tools.

Scalpel, tweezers, scissors, hole opener, dagger, pliers, tool hammer...

Various models, various sizes, everything.

As the orchestral tempo intensifies.

The next scene made Colin's pupils shrink sharply.

Like making insect specimens, some neatly arranged human body parts... were penetrated by iron thorns through the stable structure, and there was a metal base underneath to make them stand upright.

Then Colin saw a familiar person.

About two months ago, I met two people who became official agents at the same time as me in the conference room of the 11th Section underground base.

man……

He was already dead, with his head twisted at an extremely weird angle on the chair. His expression before death was twisted, as if he had witnessed something extremely terrifying.

Even though the orchestra suppressed the mourning, it was only when he witnessed that scene that Colin heard... pitiful and heartbreaking sobbing.

The well-dressed man wearing red sunglasses is torturing a woman, and she is still alive.

"die……"

"There is no peace, it is eternal loneliness, eternal emptiness, torture until the end of time."

"And time...will not end."

"This extreme terror is getting closer to you every second."

Randy put the watch on the side table, the second hand moved crisply, and then scratched her skin with the dagger.

"What flows in you is not blood, but the green water of the River of Forgetfulness."

"You're shaking."

"This infinitely expanding fragrance, amber... musk... benzoin... frankincense..."

Randy sucked the air greedily, and touched her face with trembling hands.

"I'm so guilty."

"Ah! God! Please give me strength and courage."

"Let me look at my filthy heart and filthy body without nausea."

The blade caressed.

The aroma is even stronger.

"This ultimate fear..."

"You like traveling, kid, you do, those scenes."

"Sunlight shining on the meadows under the snowy mountains of the Alps."

Ripping sound.

"The blue waves caressing the Gold Coast slowly."

Flowing sound.

"A clear spring in the midst of an oasis in a dry desert."

Grinding sound.

"Those curse words."

Crisp sound.

"Profanity."

Crackling sound.

"Complaining and moaning."

Blood flowed like a column.

"Drunken, shouting."

The fine lines peeled off one after another.

"Tears, Psalms of Gratitude."

General relativity.

Ice pick surgery.

It enters the eye socket and reaches the frontal lobe.

That's a...

Extreme pain and ultimate fear that I couldn't even scream out.

"It's the echo from thousands of labyrinths."

"It's a cry from thousands of sentries."

"It's also the order coming from hundreds of microphones."

Having said that...

The woman's expression was forever frozen in endless horror and fear.

Randy took out the poetry collection in his arms and found his favorite passage.

"Ah, maggots, dark-hearted companions without eyes or ears."

"Look, there's a happy dead in your midst."

"Please walk right through her body without any guilt."

"Tell me what else to torture."

"This old soulless body, this dead man among dead men."

He closed the book and listened to the Second Waltz, feeling a little intoxicated.

As for Colin, he had never seen such a crazy person.

"You regained consciousness..."

"I'm so sorry, I didn't expect it to be so soon, this..."

Randy looked at his clothes covered in blood and felt a little confused. He added: "I'm so rude. I hope you can forgive me."