The morning mist over the cemetery had dispersed, and sunlight filtered through the branches, casting a cold light upon the tombstones and illuminating Ethan's face. He stared at the engraved name on the stone, his heartbeat chaotic.
Death. Funeral. Tombstone.
These were evidence. Yet why did the covenant mark on his chest burn so fiercely at that moment? Why had he heard the whispers?
Ethan took two steps back, breath coming in ragged gasps, a dangerous thought rising in his mind: perhaps this was all a lie.
But if it were all fabricated, what about the sight of his mother's tears? Her grief had been so tangible, so suffocatingly real, it had nearly choked him.
"Could even my mother's tears be an illusion?" he murmured, veins standing out on his temples.
Thoughts collided violently in his mind, torn into two halves.
One half told him the dossier, the tombstone, and the funeral were real; the other whispered that "the truth had been altered."
Ethan raised his hand and gripped his arm tightly, nails digging into flesh until blood seeped out. He wanted to confirm if he was still in a dream, yet the sharp pain refused to validate either side.
"Who should I trust? What should I believe?"
The wind seemed to answer, yet also mock him. Suddenly, he remembered the creature in the Phantom Town's nightmare rift, which had whispered: "The world you see is only what others allow you to see."
At the time, he had regarded it as a threat. Now, it stabbed into his heart like a poisoned barb.
Ethan trudged heavily out of the cemetery and back into the Bureau's corridors. The cold walls and dark tiles were starkly real, yet he felt this place more illusory than any dream.
The archives door was closed, a sliver of light seeping through the crack, making his heart tighten. Someone was inside.
He held his breath and crept closer. He could hear the rustle of pages and low conversation.
"…The dossier needs to be revised again.""Director's orders. Anything related to the 'Shadow Dossiers' must be locked away.""That boy has started to suspect. We can't let him know the truth."
The voices abruptly stopped. The archives door closed softly, footsteps fading away.
Ethan leaned against the wall, chills running down his spine.
Sure enough, someone had tampered with the files.
He dared not follow immediately, instead gritting his teeth. Doubts coiled like a venomous snake in his mind:
If Ryan truly had been "erased," who had given the order?
Why cover it up with a declaration of death?
Could the Bureau… really be trusted?
A cascade of questions plunged him deeper into a whirlpool of uncertainty.
Back in his dorm, he closed the door and slumped onto the bed. Moonlight filtered through the window, casting faint light across the room. He stared at the ceiling, the covenant mark on his chest still faintly burning.
It felt like both a warning and a mockery—reminding him that he was bound to this conspiracy, mocking him for being unable to escape.
"Am I going mad? Or is all of this just a tangle of truth and lies?"
Ethan let out a bitter laugh. He even wondered if he was still trapped in a near-death hallucination, never having truly left the instant that knife had pierced him.
If everything were an illusion, were his struggles now nothing more than a joke?
Yet another voice rose stronger in his heart:
—"Even so, I will uncover the truth. Even if the truth is nothing but emptiness."
Ethan slowly closed his eyes, his breathing gradually steadying. He understood that there was no turning back. Doubt was poison, but it was also the only thing keeping him lucid.
The knots of contradiction would accompany him as he pressed onward.