Hamish looked at the intravenous tube on Elisa’s arm, keeping her alive as her body gradually grew thinner, and her life slowly became fragile.
Hamish didn’t know how long he had been standing until his legs became numb and slightly tingling, snapping him back to reality. He looked at the clock hanging on the wall and saw that it was already nine-thirty.
Elisa still had vacant eyes, as if she had no intention of sleeping.
He softly murmured, moving his lips, “Elisa, you should sleep.”
As if a machine had been switched off, as soon as Hamish finished speaking, Elisa closed her eyes obediently, extremely well-behaved.
Hamish listened to her steady breathing and reached out to touch Elisa’s pale face. His fingers trembled when he saw the wound on her neck.
“You endured it so fiercely. Aren’t you afraid of pain?” Hamish muttered to himself, a pained expression on his face that even he didn’t know.
Hamish sighed deeply, moved the chair next to the bed, and lay on it. This way, it looked as if he was sleeping next to Elisa.
Lying on his side, Hamish wanted to hold her while sleeping, but he knew he couldn’t touch Elisa in her current fragile state, as delicate as a cracking crystal.
Hamish couldn’t sleep, propping his head up and gazing at Elisa’s sleeping face. The surroundings were quiet, so quiet that he could hear the ticking of the clock in the room.
It wasn’t until the middle of the night that Hamish, in a daze, suddenly heard a sound. He opened his eyes and saw a figure sitting up abruptly in the darkness. Startled, Hamish fully awakened and in the darkness, he saw Elisa sitting on the edge of the bed, her head lowered as if sleepwalking. After a while, she raised her head and stared with wide-open eyes towards the window. After staring for a long time, she suddenly reached out towards the window. Seeing that she was about to fall, Hamish grabbed her collar and pulled her back onto the bed.
Hamish initially thought she was sleepwalking, and it was best not to startle her when she was in that state, so he didn’t make any noise. But after pulling Elisa back, he saw that her eyes were wide open, staring straight ahead as if there was something outside.
“What are you looking at, Elisa?”
Elisa pointed outside and said, “There’s a child crying outside.”
Hamish choked up, feeling his heart tighten as if it was being held by a pair of hands, the pain making him uncomfortable. He held Elisa tightly, wrapping his arms around her. “No, you heard it wrong.”
Elisa didn’t believe him. She struggled, wanting to open the window and look outside, but Hamish held her tightly, and she couldn’t break free.
Elisa was becoming anxious and was on the verge of tears. She shouted, “I heard a child crying. He’s outside the window, calling for me to hold him. Let me go and see.”
“We’re on the eighth floor. There’s no one outside the window, let alone a child.”
Elisa didn’t listen, persistently saying, “Then he’s downstairs. I want to go down.”
Hearing her incoherent words in the middle of the night was eerie. Hamish grabbed her foot as she reached out and pulled it back, tucking it under the blanket.
“You heard it wrong. There’s no child.”
“I didn’t hear it wrong.”
Hamish covered her ears and leaned close to her face. “Elisa, you really heard it wrong. Your ears deceived you.”
Elisa stiffened in Hamish’s embrace. After a while, she shook her head in confusion and helplessness. “No, that’s impossible. Ears don’t deceive people. If they could deceive, why doesn’t he believe me?”
Her words seemed nonsensical, but Hamish understood. The “he” she mentioned referred to what happened today when Lila fell down the stairs. He believed what he heard and saw, so he unilaterally concluded that Elisa pushed Lila.
“I was wrong, Elisa. I’m sorry. There’s no child outside. If you want, we can have more children together. We can conceive and give birth to many, all for you.”
The window reflected their figures, Elisa and Hamish. Elisa stared at it fixedly, but her eyes missed the reflection and gazed at the starry sky outside.
It seemed like there was one more star in the sky.