Chapter 70

Chapter 70:Recollections

"That was how it had all started. It was just another ordinary day on the construction site, and things had been progressing quite well. Maybe even a little too well, looking back on it now...."

Once he had opened up, Gil began to recall that day and the start of his nightmare in vivid detail, while El leaned nonchalantly against him, listening attentively to every word.

"Oh? And how was it going 'too well'?" El asked, tilting his head.

Gil replied, "Well, that bastard of a manager hadn't given me any trouble all day. Normally, he's always looking for excuses—petty things he thinks I didn't do right. Basically, any cheap pretext to dock my pay or just ruin my life. Anyway, bizarrely enough, that day he had backed off and left me alone, so I was actually going to be able to go about my business in peace. But, being as paranoid as I am, I still made sure my work was completely irreproachable. You know me."

"You might hate what you do, but you always make sure nobody can say a damn word against your effort," El chimed in smoothly.

Gil nodded with a touch of quiet pride, while El, wearing a playful smile, nudged him lightly. "And then what happened?"

Gil's expression darkened as he continued his tale.

What happened during that day—it was at the very end that everything started to spiral out of control. Without needing to be prompted, Gil pressed on:

"You know, the guy decided... well, it was the last day of my trial period. So normally, I should have been paid on the spot, just like all the other workers."

El couldn't help but frown slightly upon hearing that. "I still can't believe you put up with a guy like that for so long."

Gil, knowing full well where his friend was going with this, chose not to argue for once and simply shrugged. "Hey, I was completely broke back then, I needed the cash. Besides, you're always lecturing me for not letting things go—for letting my pride get in the way. The one time I actually listen to you—"

"Oh no, you know very well that's not what I meant," El countered gently.

Gil let it slide and moved forward. "Anyway, using the pathetic excuse that he didn't have any cash on him, he told me he'd pay me another day." Gil's tone turned bitter. "Did the bastard really take me for a three-year-old?"

Gil looked at his friend as if expecting a comment, but without waiting for an answer, he pushed past the memory.

"Anyway, for me, that was the absolute last straw. I was sick to death of his behavior, and I wasn't going to keep letting him walk all over me like that. After months of taking his trash... no, it was too much. So I decided to give him a piece of my mind, and damn the consequences—I didn't give a single shit anymore. But just as I charged forward, right on the verge of driving my fist straight into his teeth..."

Gil stopped mid-sentence, vividly recalling the sensation he had felt at that exact second. Closing his eyes and grinding his teeth, he muttered, "It rang out loudly inside my head, followed by this vile, sickening feeling of being watched by someone... or something."

"Hmm," El noted carefully. "Was it someone... or something?"

"It was someone," Gil said, his expression darkening even further. "The first time I felt that gaze, it was so completely devoid of emotion—radiating such sheer, inhuman coldness—that at the time, I couldn't help but compare it to some monster. El, you know me—I'm pretty sensitive to that kind of heavy intent. So when it kicked in, I immediately tried to figure out where it was coming from. I quickly came to the conclusion that someone was watching me from somewhere high up on the construction site. And he was clearly in league with the manager. Not wanting to linger and find out, I took off at full speed."

Gil let out a heavy sigh. "For a moment, the gaze vanished, and I genuinely thought I had managed to escape it. Feeling exhausted from the day, I thought about slowing down for just a second—not long, just enough to catch my breath and figure out where to run next. That's when you called me."

He looked at El with a faint hint of playful reproach, even though he knew it wasn't logical.

El raised his eyebrows, offering his characteristic, easy-going smile. "Oh? Was I in your dream too?"

Gil let out a faint, dry smile, though his eyes flickered with lingering tension. "Yeah. With that damn villain laugh of yours, asking if I had gotten myself fired from my job."

"Hmm," El hummed, offering no further comment, letting Gil keep talking.

"I quickly brought the dream version of you up to speed on what was happening," Gil continued. "But we had barely decided on our next move when someone came from your side and told you that the manager—the guy I had wanted to punch—had just been iced by someone. In normal times, I would've celebrated the news. Unfortunately, it seemed that after taking care of him, it was my turn. The gaze came crashing back, and I felt that this time, running simply wasn't going to be an option."

Gil relived the scene as he spoke, but a sudden strand of doubt flashed through his mind.

After all the time I've already spent awake and processing everything... why is this dream still so unnaturally vivid and clear in my head?

He grew quiet for a moment, getting lost in his own thoughts.

Seeing him go silent, El nudged him again. "And then what happened?"

"Well, the ones chasing me caught up with me right outside the apartment. And it was obvious they weren't planning on letting me walk away. Still on the phone with the dream version of you, I told him..."

Gil looked directly at the El sitting right in front of him, and suddenly feeling a bit embarrassed, he quickly shifted the subject.

"Anyway, I had decided to confront my pursuers. I was sick of running."

El didn't call him out on the sudden pivot and let it slide, though the corner of his lips twitched upward into a subtle smirk before settling back to normal.

"And that's when I met the owner of that gaze," Gil spat out through gritted teeth. "Hector."

"Oh? Hector, you say?" El interrupted, repeating the name as if searching through his memory. "Hmm, I don't think I've ever heard of—"

Of course you haven't heard of him, it's something straight out of my own head, Gil thought, feeling a brief pang of confusion, but he pressed onward.

"That bastard came out of nowhere inside the apartment. I don't know if he had killed the people inside too, but the place was completely deserted. A real horror movie set, I tell you. Pitch black, neon lights flickering off, and the guy was wearing a mask and a heavy cloak. Yeah... a gray cloak and a mask. And with him was another guy who, for whatever reason, apparently held a massive grudge against me."

"A gray cloak and a mask, you say?" El interrupted again, his tone suddenly turning remarkably serious.

"Yeah. Why? Have you heard of someone like that?"

Realizing he might have made his friend uncomfortable, Gil paused.

El quickly reverted to his usual casual self, waving it off with a dismissive gesture. "No, no. I just thought that kind of outfit sounded like something right out of one of those fantasy books you keep around."

"Oh," Gil replied. Being so deeply immersed in his memories and his narrative, he failed to catch the subtle anomaly in El's initial reaction. "Right. But that's where things really started to go downhill. When that guy arrived... well, you know me, I'm not the type to remain passive. Since running away wasn't working, I decided to tackle the problem head-on. I charged straight at him, determined to throw down. I really tried, but..."

Gil trailed off, his voice catching in his throat.

El looked at his friend with a warm, comforting gaze, silently encouraging him to go on.

Though somewhat reassured, Gil opened his mouth several times, but the words refused to form.

Come on, it's just a stupid nightmare... he told himself, trying to force up his courage.

After a bit he said:

"I lost. No—it wasn't even a matter of losing," Gil admitted with a bitter, self-mocking smile. "Let me not even call it a fight. It was more like a one sided slaughter. The guy was clearly playing with me from start to finish. I wasn't able to land a single solid punch on him."

Though near the end, I managed to use That a bit and almost got him...

Gil kept that detail to himself, assuming El would probably just think he was making excuses.

"And after that... he knocked me out me," Gil said, a heavy blanket of depression creeping into his voice. "When I opened my eyes, I found myself in the middle of a dark holding area with a bunch of other people who had apparently been kidnapped just like me. And we were told to prepare for a 'test'."

Gil couldn't help but let out a derisive but somewhat bitter laugh at the mention of that so-called test—not noticing that El's expression had shifted in the background, his brows deeply furrowed, though he refrained from interrupting.

"You're not gonna believe it, El, but their 'test' was literally throwing us into some kind of underground arena for their own sick entertainment while they unleashed these monstrous creatures on all of us. And the worst part was that we didn't have a choice if we wanted it to stop. You either had to kill one of those monstrosities yourself, or wait until our numbers dropped to a quarter. There were more than a hundred of us."

How many was that again? Gil knew El had always been great with calculations unlike himself.

"And I don't think they were going to graciously stop once we hit that number anyway. Even if they did, whether I'd be among the ones left standing was a whole other story. And there was something completely unnatural about that arena, too..."

Thinking it was all just a dream after all, Gil didn't dwell on the detail any further.

"But you know what?" Gil flexed his arm slightly, forcing a sharp grin onto his face. "It takes a lot more than that to bring me down! Against all odds, I managed to kill one of those beasts. Ha! You should've seen the look on their faces! Though mine probably didn't look too great either back then..."

He distinctly remembered his dream self bleeding out on the cold stone, but added, "I got a good laugh out of their reaction, though. That's what counts."

Gil smiled warmly toward El, who was staring back at him with an intensely complex, unreadable expression.