Blood was pouring from Arsh's eyes, nose, and mouth. Yet, he stood completely still, silently watching the man screaming in front of him. The blood first reached the level of his feet, then his knees, and quickly rose to his waist.
'Hold on a little longer, I'm just getting started,' Arsh thought. He didn't stop until Millway disappeared beneath the blood, while still screaming.
It had been going on like this for four nights. For four nights, he had spent his sleep tormenting Millway. Each time, he would take him back to his village, leaving him alone with walking corpses, or letting illusory people tear his flesh apart.
Even so, he knew that a man like this wouldn't feel remorse just because he saw the people he had murdered in his dreams. Not even once in his dreams had he tried to apologize to the lives he had taken.
Whenever he entered his dreams, he always found him in the exact same place, searching for a key. Now that Arsh could keep him trapped inside his dreams for much longer, he tormented him just enough to satisfy himself before returning with him to the room where the dream had begun. He was curious about this key. Today, he intended to find out what it was.
When Millway found himself sitting in the chair at his desk once again, he looked around in confusion for a moment. Then he immediately began rummaging through the papers scattered across the desk. One thing Arsh had noticed about dreams was how quickly the dreamer forgot the fear and emotions caused by what had happened only second ago. Millway also had already completely forgotten the bloodbath from moments before.
That bothered Arsh. The satisfaction he felt from tormenting this man wasn't enough if the suffering lasted only for a moment.
"The key... what or where? Where did I go wrong?" Millway began muttering again. Soon, as usual, Arsh would appear before him, and as usual, the moment Millway saw him, he would grab him by the collar.
Until now, Arsh had never tried talking to him. Today, he would see if he could learn something.
"What did you do?! What did you do?!" Millway shouted, pulling at the collar of Arsh's shirt as if to tear it off.
A mocking smile appeared on Arsh's face.
"I took the key from you. I took away the one thing you've been searching for your entire life. Now, the thing you're looking for is at the bottom of that well with me."
"The well... the well..." Millway muttered. "I have to go back. I have to find that dagger."
'A dagger?' Arsh thought.
"It's too late now," Arsh said.
He had no real reason for saying it. He was simply trying to play along and see where the dream would lead.
"No... no..." Millway muttered to himself. "I can find more people. This time, if I use the dagger... how much blood will I need? Another village... somewhere far away. Two hundred... three hundred people should be enough... No, no... we can't move the sarcophagus back. I'll have to arrange something from here..."
He let go of Arsh's collar and started to pace back and forth across the room like a madman. While watching him Arsh was trying to piece together the meaning of his rambling. He was wondering whether he had understood correctly.
"That won't be enough. You'll need more." Arsh said after a moment.
"Not enough? Not enough?!" Millway shouted in fury. "Then I'll spill the blood of this entire city if I have to! But I will open that sarcophagus!"
Then he grabbed Arsh by the collar once again.
"This is all your fault, you damned brat! If you hadn't taken that dagger, we would have opened the sarcophagus in that cursed village. I wouldn't be hiding like a rat now, and I wouldn't have had to endure all this humiliation. The key to all that power would have been in my hands."
"What were you hoping to find?" Arsh asked. The mocking smile faded from his face, replaced by a chilling menace of a predator.
"All the siuni... a complete record of every siuni humanity has ever possessed. Every single one of them... thousands of them... they're all inside it," Millway said, pointing to the sarcophagus that had suddenly appeared.
This time, he moved away from Arsh and dropped to his knees beside it.
"Every siuni ever wielded by mankind... gathered within a single body. Just imagine that kind of power. Imagine how strong they could make you with just a little blood to support them. If there's anything close to immortality... anything close to becoming a god... the secret is inside this." He let out a mad laugh.
After listening to Millway, Arsh decided that this part of the dream had dragged on for long enough.
Now, he knew the reason why his father, his grandfather, and the other villagers had died. In this man's twisted ambition, they had been nothing more than sacrifices meant to open the sarcophagus. Yet, he had misunderstood everything. He had slaughtered all those people for absolutely nothing. When in reality, a single drop of blood would have been enough.
All it had ever taken to open the sarcophagus was a single drop of blood drawn with the dagger.
Arsh took control of the dream once again. This time, he wrapped his left hand around Millway's throat, lifting him until his feet dangled in the air. What would have been impossible in reality was effortlessly possible here.
As Millway struggled desperately for air, Arsh slowly pressed his right hand against the man's chest. He could feel his nails piercing through the flesh. Even though it was a dream, the sensation felt too real.
Slowly, his hand sank deeper. Before long, his fingers had closed around the heart, which was pounding faster and faster beneath his palm.
He began tightening his grip, little by little. Throughout it all, he never took his eyes off Millway's face, carefully watching every change in his expression.
A moment later, the heart crushed in his hands, and the dream came to an end.
...
When he returned from the dream to the void, the girl was there waiting for him.
"You haven't shown up for days," Arsh said, trying to suppress the emotions lingering from the dream.
"I was looking for what you asked me to find."
"Did you find it?"
"I did," she said with a smile.
Then delicate, lace-like patterns began to appear across her body of light. For a moment, she looked almost exactly as she had the first time Arsh had seen her, lying inside the sarcophagus.
The girl placed the tip of her finger against a spot on the right side of her abdomen. When she pulled her finger back, a thin silver thread trailed along, drifting in the air. Then, she flicked the thread toward Arsh, and it rippled through the air, beginning to take shape.
"Take a good look," the girl said. "This is Mes's unfinished siuni."
Arsh carefully burned the symbol into his memory.
"Thank you," he said. Then, calmly, he asked, "Did you hear what Millway said?"
"Yes... I'm sorry. I didn't know I was the cause of it."
"You weren't the cause. The cause was a wretched man's greed," Arsh said, rasing his voice withouth realizing.
"But is what he said true? Do you really have a record of every siuni? Is that how you found the one needed for Mes?"
"Yes."
"That's why you didn't want me telling anyone, and why you didn't even tell me."
"Yes."
"But now I need to come up with an excuse. I can't just carve this siuni onto Mes's arm out of nowhere."
"...I can only let you tell one person. Just one. People are greedy, just as you said. If you speak of it, someone will definitely come after it this time... I wanted to protect you. I wanted to protect the duty entrusted to me."
"A duty you don't even remember," Arsh said.
"I will remember."
"…Anyway," Arsh said after a brief silence, "I think I have a way."
A faint smile appeared on his face.
"There's someone who can take care of this for us."