In his lifetime, Finn had encountered all kinds of people. From humans to monsters, gods to demons, in all shapes and forms. But people like Aoife, who seemed to have everything without even asking for it, were the last person he expected to enter his life.
Once an unwanted presence slips into your life, it becomes the most impossible to remove.
Just an ordinary person, so ordinary that she turned his life upside down, leading him astray with each misstep, filling him with regret, unbearable pain, and unending remorse.
Unknowingly, Aoife had already taken a significant place in his heart, as if nine-tenths of his heart belonged to this woman.
To give her up would be like tearing out his own heart.
Finn never claimed to be a good person. He admitted to being hypocritical, malicious, selfish, with a strong sense of jealousy, torn between possession and destruction.
He couldn’t fathom a future without Aoife. Was there any purpose left if she suddenly vanished from his life? He couldn’t find anyone like Aoife, nor could he bring himself to like anyone the way he liked her.
During the more than 150 days of Aoife’s absence, everyone said he was losing his mind. Five months should have been the limit.
Aoife detested the smell of smoke, and Finn stood in the stairwell, taking a long pause to ensure the smell had dissipated before returning to the hospital room.
Watching Aoife sleep peacefully, Finn felt restless, craving a cigarette.
Fragments of Aoife’s disfigured face haunted his mind.
Aoife longed for a life where ordinary people respected each other, while Finn was accustomed to deceit and deception, where there was only superiority and inferiority, never equality.
They were two extremes, high and low, with no common ground, yet fate brought them together, intertwining their lives into a tangled knot.
Placing a few documents on the bedside table, Finn addressed Aoife, saying, “Aoife, I have investigated everything. I am indeed not a good person, the biggest idiot in the world. Even capable of killing my own flesh and blood, turning them into specimens. I knew what kind of courage you had, your personality, yet I wrongly accused you…”
“Aoife, you’ve been asleep for 19 days now. Don’t you want to see me suffer in agony? I truly regret it.”
“I’m sorry, Aoife.” The last five words came out choked with emotion.
As time passed, the quiet hospital room was filled only with the sounds of medical equipment and Finn’s heavy breathing.
A faint sound emanated from Aoife lying on the bed. Finn noticed it, though barely audible.
“Aoife…”
After a moment, Aoife opened her dry lips, struggling to say, “I never thought… Mr. Snearl, you would have a day… to say sorry too. But does it matter?”
“Mr. Snearl… killing your own flesh and blood must be unbearable… but I suppose you… wouldn’t feel much… after all, that child was not born from you… you can’t understand that pain, or the despair of watching your child preserved in a specimen jar… you will never… never truly empathize…” With trembling words, Aoife began to choke up.
Her eyes still covered by bandages, Aoife’s tears soaked the gauze wrapped around her eyes whenever she thought of the child.
Finn struggled to speak, every word feeling like a fishbone stuck in his throat, trapping all the words he had pondered overnight in his heart.
Seeing the damp bandage on Aoife’s eyes, he said, “Your eyes haven’t fully healed yet. You can’t cry. The doctor said if you cry too much, you’ll go blind.”
Involuntarily biting her lower lip, Aoife sarcastically asked, “You don’t want me to go blind, do you?”
Finn gave a hesitant “Hmm.”
“Of course not, after all, I was just a stand-in from the beginning. My face resembled hers, my eyes too…”
The “she” in Aoife’s words referred to Elisa.
Unbeknownst to Aoife, Finn no longer saw her as a substitute for Elisa. At some point, Aoife had completely replaced Elisa in his eyes. Her face no longer reminded him of Elisa.
And the most distinct difference between Aoife and Elisa was their eyes.
Aoife knew she couldn’t die. For the sake of those who loved her, she had to endure this purgatory, and she keenly felt that the true hell had just begun, with Finn as her tormentor.
Finn called the doctor to examine Aoife, then left the oppressive room temporarily.
As the doctor removed the bandage on Aoife’s eyes and inspected her eyeballs, he asked, “Does it hurt?”
Aoife could see again, looking at the doctor before her, the same one who had performed the surgery on her.
On the operating table, she had pleaded with him to save the child in her belly, but in the end, he had lifted the surgical knife and cut her open. The child had taken its last breath beside her without her ever getting a glimpse.