.
Throughout the duration of their seemingly relaxed dialogue, Morris masterfully wielded his linguistic abilities to subtly address a range of issues with Garloni. Through this tactful exchange, he and Duncan gradually determined the strange cognitive state of Garloni, the female apprentice.
Every trace of memory related to the shipwreck that Scott Brown had experienced six years earlier had been completely wiped from Garloni’s mind. This erasure was not limited to the memories themselves, but it extended to the entire cognitive framework that had been constructed around those events.
Death, with its far-reaching impacts, sets off a ripple effect in the social circles of the deceased. The subsequent management of the aftermath, periods of introspective reflection, emotional turmoil, as well as subtle alterations within the home over the course of six years – none of these can be addressed by a mere memory wipe and replacement.
Incredibly, within Garloni’s mental schema, the event of “Scott Brown dying in a shipwreck six years ago” had never transpired. Furthermore, the resulting emotional, social, and behavioral reactions that would normally have been sparked by such an incident were also absent. Garloni was under the impression that she had lived peacefully in this house for six years, patiently waiting for her teacher’s return. In her mind, her teacher had indeed returned and was currently resting in a room upstairs.
The shrill whistle of the kettle interrupted the conversation in the living room, and Garloni immediately stood up to attend to it, apologizing, “I’m sorry, I’ll go turn off the stove.”
Taking advantage of the brief moment when Garloni had left the room, Duncan turned to Morris, who was seated across from him on a separate sofa, “Her cognition has been tampered with.”
“We need to thoroughly search this house,” Morris suggested in a hushed tone, “If Brown is truly here, he must have left something behind while he was still in his right mind—he sent me another letter not too long ago, in which he had begun to piece together some of the truth.”
“… Let Garloni rest for a bit,” Duncan whispered back, almost too softly to hear.
Morris agreed with a nod, and during their short exchange, Garloni had already returned from the kitchen—she brought with her a large tray laden with warm ginger tea and some cookies. The woman, whose skin had a stony gray hue, set the tray on the coffee table and looked at her two guests, apologizing for the delay and inviting them to warm themselves with some tea.
“Thank you,” Morris responded, before gesturing towards the nearby sofa, “Garloni, please sit here for a moment. There’s something I’d like to discuss with you.”
“Ah… alright, Mr. Morris,” Garloni replied. Although she found the request slightly peculiar, she did as asked and sat across from her mentor’s close friend, “What would you like to discuss?”
Morris met Garloni’s gaze head-on, “The Romonsov inequality system.”
At the mention of this, Garloni’s eyes widened. A tidal wave of knowledge, memories, and logical conundrums surged into her mind, overwhelming her. Before she had a chance to process the onslaught of information, she was overcome by a potent wave of fatigue, likely her body’s protective response to the cognitive overload.
She succumbed to the sleepiness, falling into a serene slumber, her snores steady and her sleeping posture peaceful.
Duncan watched this unfold without betraying any emotion, pausing for a couple of seconds before asking, “How long will she sleep?”
“That depends on her intelligence quotient. Heidi was out for twelve hours, and Garloni might take a bit longer,” Morris shrugged, “Folklorists usually aren’t very adept at mathematics.”
Duncan was momentarily at a loss for words, and after a pause, he stuttered, “Why did you use this method on your own daughter?”
Morris’s expression was complex: “Heidi was convinced that she had surpassed me in her hypnotic abilities. As a father, I sometimes can’t help but feel a strange urge to prove her wrong.”
Sensing that the conversation needn’t continue, Duncan glanced at the stairs leading to the second floor after a thoughtful pause.
“We can now carry out a detailed investigation. If Garloni’s account is true, her teacher should be in the upstairs bedroom at this moment.”
They ascended the creaky old staircase, the electric light illuminating the second-floor hallway, as Morris and Duncan set out to find the folklorist who had apparently “come back from the dead.”
The second floor was straightforwardly laid out, with a single hallway connecting all the rooms. Most of the doors were unlocked, and they were able to quickly evaluate the situation in most of the rooms. They finally stopped in front of the last door on the left side of the hallway, the only locked area on the entire second floor.
Morris stepped forward to try the door handle, his brow furrowing slightly: “It’s locked – from the inside.”
“Locked from the inside?” Duncan felt a prickle of unease, then remembered something, “Garloni mentioned earlier that she takes food to her teacher’s room daily…”
“That’s impossible, this door hasn’t been opened for several days, perhaps even a week or more,” Morris cut in, his gaze meticulously studying the door before him, a slight glimmer in his eyes, “There’s no sign of damage to the lock.”
“So, Garloni ‘believes’ she brings food to her teacher’s room daily, but in reality, her teacher hasn’t opened this door for many days,” Duncan observed, glancing back towards the staircase leading to the first floor, “The cognitive interference seems to be ongoing.”
Morris didn’t respond, instead, raising his hand and gently knocking on the light yellow door, to no avail.
“Brown, it’s me,” Morris called out, “If you’re in there, open the door. Whatever state you’re in, don’t worry, we can handle any issues you’re dealing with.”
However, no response came from the room.
Duncan looked at the door, feeling a sense of inevitability about the situation.
Finally, he sighed softly, “Let me handle this, Morris. We might be a step too late.”
Morris looked tense for a moment as if he wanted to speak, but no words came out. He simply stepped aside, saying nothing.
Without resorting to any sophisticated methods, Duncan merely stepped forward and forced the door open. The not particularly sturdy wooden door gave way with a loud crash, the lock breaking.
Before them was a room almost entirely cloaked in darkness.
There were no lights turned on, and the windows facing the street seemed to have been obstructed by something, preventing any streetlight from illuminating the room. Only the light from the hallway made a small area near the door visible, and in the corners that the light didn’t reach, shadows seemed to blanket both the ceiling and the floor.
Duncan was the first to step into the room, a faint green ghostly flame flickering in his raised right hand while his left hand felt for the light switch next to the door.
Once the lights were turned on, the entire room came into view.
“What on earth is this…?” Morris, who followed Duncan into the room, was taken aback by what he saw.
A gray-black, mud-like substance was scattered throughout the room, smeared on the floor, walls, and even clinging to the ceiling. Half-melted “mud” dangled from the grimy ceiling, suspended in mid-air like grotesquely swollen blood vessels or oddly shaped stalactites.
Duncan was immediately reminded of the scene he had encountered at the bottom of the ship, Obsidian.
These strange and horrifying “mud” substances bore an unsettling similarity to the conditions at the base of the ship!
Morris’s facial muscles tightened.
In truth, from the beginning, he didn’t believe that his “old friend” had genuinely come back to life. He knew there must be some kind of uncontrolled supernatural phenomenon at play, potentially related to a curse from the deep sea, but… even with a vague premonition before opening the door, the sight before him was a harsh shock.
“These deep-sea replicas… it seems they all eventually transform into this,” Duncan’s voice snapped Morris out of his trance, “We were, ultimately, a step too late. It’s a shame.”
Morris blinked and then shook his head forcefully, as if trying to shake off the disordered thoughts in his mind. He ventured deeper into the room, carefully avoiding the “mud” clusters on the floor, and eventually stopped next to a table.
The table was also covered in the mud, the largest heap of which was positioned between the table and the bed.
“He wrote two letters; at least at that time, he still had some sanity,” Morris said quietly, “He must have noticed something was wrong with himself…”
“His sanity held out at least until the moment he locked this room from the inside. After that, he lost control of the situation,” Duncan also approached the desk, scrutinizing the hardened mud around him and speaking thoughtfully, “These deep-sea replicas seem… inconsistent. Some have no sanity at all, some even retain their original memories and can live like ordinary people for a while, and some… like the captain of the Obsidian, completely transform into an alien form yet retain their souls from beginning to end.”
“Like some sort of unstable experimental product?”
Morris made a casual comment, when suddenly, something caught his eye.
A piece of paper was wedged at the edge of a solidified mud cluster that vaguely resembled an arm.
“What is this…?” The aged scholar’s eyes widened as he carefully extracted the paper, whispering, “Mr. Duncan, take a look at this!”
Duncan immediately leaned in, and on that dirt-stained piece of paper, some almost indiscernible words immediately caught his eye –
“To the investigators, here are the changes that occurred in the final stage of my body:”
