All three personnel inside the apartment unit were on alert. At this hour, at this moment, it was imminent who the person could be behind the locked door.

“Michael,” Radiyana’s tongue slipped. She spoke at an audio range far too low to be heard outdoors. “What does he want now? Still not satisfied without a hand? Fine, I’ll chop the other one off, too.”

“No, stop!” Adam retorted. “I cannot allow this to happen. If I had known before, I’d have put the bullets in your knees instead of Catalie’s.”

“Hush, little detective, don’t you cry,” she smacked Adam’s nose with her hand. “I may not be your wife, but you can call me Mommy. Haha~”

The knocks continued. This time, a voice ushered itself in.

“Open up before it’s too late!” the man’s voice carried more worry than fury. “Please!”

Adam pounced upon Radiyana from her back, wrestling and pinning her down to prevent her from infiltrating his choices.

“Go open the door, Eve. I’m stopping Doestoevsky.”

Evelyn did as she was ordered.

A large burly man in his 40s barged right in, scanning the surroundings with his eyes. His short-trimmed hair and beard were a shade of black so matte, they almost seemed to blend into the shadows. His left hand was missing, with the stump of his wrist dressed in linen bandages.

Michael panted as his body dispelled some of the stress.

“My dear… niece…” he grabbed Eve in a tight bear hug. “Oh, my dear sister’s daughter! Ahhh… Thank God you’re okay. Oh, I missed you. I missed ya so much. My heart… is finally at rest!”

He still hadn’t taken note of the other man and woman still stuck in a knot of arms and legs and awkward positions on the floor nearby.

“Uncle! Are you my uncle M-Michael?” Eve asked.

“Y-yes, dear,” he replied back. “I was so worried ever since I heard about the roads growing more deadly than they used to be.”

Evelyn Bouchie now realized what Radiyana had done. She had attacked and injured her uncle. A branch from her own family tree. She spun round, breaking free from her relative’s embrace, and walked over to her ‘friend’.

She aimed a vicious kick at the Russian’s beautiful eyes when the detective caught her foot midair.

“S-stop! She’s the evil one,” the doe-eyed cutie innocently cried out for permission. “You don’t understand, my Jucas.”

“No,” her Jucas disapproved. “You don’t understand either, my dear nectar.”

“What d’hell’s goin’ on here?” Michael walked nearer. “Son of a Jucas! It’s YOU! God… I should’ve known… now I feel sorry for chasing ya around, believing you were some killer going around and slaughtering people. Even if you were one, you certainly have my appreciation and thanks for keeping my niece safe. Anyways… What’s the issue here? Why are ya busy playing hanky-panky with this disgusting woman here? She’s a monster, I tell ya.”

Adam couldn’t react in time to stop Michael’s kick.

His steel-toed boot collided with Radiyana’s elegant right-hand fingers. Momentarily, her knuckles crunched under the pressure as she let out an inhumanely scream of torment.

“Sir, that’s not very decent of you. Hurting a woman like that” Adam stood back up, leaving his disclaiming wife to grovel on the floor. “I am a detective by trade, so it is in my common interests to arrest everyone in this room before reaching a fair conclusion.”

Radiyana’s heaving sobs turned to laughs.

Everyone paused for passing on the turn to speak to her.

“Fools, all of you,” she groaned slightly as she regained her balance and her standing stance. “None of your memories are real. They’ve all been forged by the Authorities beyond our scope of thinking. Each of us have been born with a detailed profile in the hopes that none of us ever question our existences. In truth, you are all being deceived. Me, myself, included. Aria, my dearie, you have no parents nor relatives in Vicilia. Michael is just a fake memory. He is a total stranger. Vice versa for Michael towards Eve. She’s none of your concern. And, Adam,” she pulled on the proclaimed detective’s ear, twisting it playfully. “You’re no detective. Hardly even a man of justice. I’ve watched you shed blood so eagerly that it’s a miracle that you weren’t locked up in some prison by now. So quit nagging around like babies and learn to listen to reason.”

Michael, Adam and Eve blinked blankly. Their own humble minds were tumbling down a cliff of hope, plummeting to the waters of hysteric nihilism. How could they believe this? How could they believe what they had known all this time? How could she deny everything that had seemed like a whole lifetime of scenic moments preserved in their neurons?

‘It makes no sense,’ Jucas wondered. ‘But the more it does, the less remains to be falsified.’

Radiyana’s face shifted through multiple instances of pain as she massaged her fractured fingers. Her tears were still visible in the golden candlelight, but expertly ignored by her desensitized mind.

“Ow… It hurts,” she told her guests. “But nothing hurts more than the feeling of solitude and hopelessness rummaging through your heads right now, I understand. Ah… ouch… my fingers… please excuse me for a moment.”

She walked to her washroom, finding some first aid materials.

Eve Bouchie and Michael stood glued to their positions, without a word spoken nor an eyelid closed for a blink. Their facial expressions were neutral. Like stone statues they grieved. For themselves. For being fools.

The sound of running water from the bathroom faucet echoed into the bedroom. Splashes were audible.

‘What a world,’ Adam rubbed his ear, red with all the stretching. ‘What… a… world… can I call this a life? Am I even alive? What is all this? An experiment? I daresay, once I am out of this pandemonium, I’m gonna revoke their licenses. I’m all the more curious to know which forsaken government in the world had allowed for such atrocities to be committed under broad daylight. I truly wonder.’

The tap water ceased to produce its sound.

Out stepped the Russian woman, brushing a towel over her right-hand fingers now shielded by splinter brackets.

“So, miss Radiyana. What’s the plan?” Adam became the spokesman for the Bouchies.

“Oh, I have bad news, gospodin Jack,” her dainty lips teased with a smile. “We are increasing in numbers. If too many people are sentient like us, then the authorities will be tempted to punish or eliminate us.”

“How do you know so much about the Authorities?” Adam inquired, slipping a hand inside his pocket.

“Bozhe moy moy, Jucas. You surely are a candy to be cherished,” she reclined on the bed. “I was one of the Authorities myself.”