VI. Consequences

I woke up multiple times during the night. First it was pain, then hunger.

The early white rays of the sun pass through the planks. I try to get off the stool but pain prevents me from doing so.

I believe I still have some time before the Lady in Apron’s register, so I can use it to try standing and attempt to hide my pain.

She goes into each room every morning to inspect them and check whether a monthling died during the night. Our room, being at the highest point of the orphanage, has always been the last to be reviewed. It gives Decy and me enough time to hide things from her, like the bandages from earlier.

Ever since Decy was transferred into my room after his sister died from exhaustion in theirs, we decided to work together in managing food and items.
I would be the one racing, and he would be the one trading with Mayth.

I never asked how he managed to get his hands on certain things, nor how he could still trade after all this time, but he always managed to never return empty-handed.
He might not seem like it, but behind his shyness and the brown hair covering his eyes, he may hide a certain amount of resourcefulness.

I finally succeed in standing up. I try to walk forward but pain forces me to bend my back in order to ease it. My hands are instinctively drawn toward my stomach, wanting to wrap around it. I struggle to appear natural.
Decy gets out of bed. He seems fully awake. He walks to the back of the cellar and grabs an old broom handle. He breaks it in half against his leg and scrapes away the pointy edges against the ground.

He approaches me and points a finger at my back.

“T-that… c-c-could… h-help… y-you… s-straighten… y-your… b-back…”

I slide the handle through the collar of my dress, letting it run along my spine until it reaches my waist. It is the perfect length and prevents me from bending, although standing straight makes the pain pulse through my entire chest.

I thank him and begin moving around the cellar. I try adjusting the way I walk in order to appear as healthy as possible while we wait for the Lady in Apron.
Decy helps by observing my movements and correcting my posture whenever I flinch.

Quite some time passes, yet no footsteps approach and no door unlocks. We begin to wonder what could be happening.

As I finally manage to walk without making my chest ache, the string of the Lady in Apron’s box echoes throughout the orphanage. Right after it, all the room doors unlock at once, making the walls tremble.

It’s the emergency call. Only twice has it been used since I arrived here. It can mean many things, but the most common are: the death of a monthling, a fire, or a white-noise situation.
She never mentioned using it for anything else.

In such situations, we must all gather on the first floor, in front of the dining-room stairs, arranged in room order.

A torrent of footsteps follows the unlocking sounds. Decy places a helping hand around my waist and assists me down the stairs. Once we reach the second floor, we meet Mary and Febry, whom we let going ahead of us in order to maintain the room order.

We descend to the first floor. Mayth, Apry, and Jurny are already in place.

It is when my foot lands on the final stair that I see them:

Bloody footprints leading toward the closet. Blood hand trails across the walls.

It hits me instantly.
They are my doing.

I had been careless. The shock from last night blurred my common sense.
When I stepped into the blood, the visions i had made me forget to cover my tracks. It leads directly to Mayth’s hidden market…

When I turn my gaze toward the closet, it is wide open. The items that were inside are scattered across the floor outside it. I am too far away to see inside properly, but I would guess I even left bloody fingerprints on the hidden button as well. I-

“Mayth’s Market it reads”

my blood freezes and i see all the monthlings stiffening.

“It might be sabotage or a failed attempt to steal from it. The footprints on the ground led me directly to it, i did not even had to search.”

The Lady in Apron stops her speech and looks at each one of our faces.

“Mayth. Forward.”

Mayth steps toward her. She seems panicked.

“L-Lady, listen to me! I swe-”

The Lady in Apron lifts her metal leg from the ground in a second and hits Mayth directly in the jaw. Her head crashes into the wall and cracks the old planks holding it together. She collapses onto the ground, eyes wide open, drool escaping her mouth while her box faintly produces her note.

“Who got out of their room last night?”

The question I feared the most.
The one that makes us all stop breathing.

All the monthlings glance at each other, trying to gather any evidence on who might have been foolish enough to disobey one of her rules.
Nobody would willingly denounce themselves for the others. Silence remains.

“I am going to ask one final time. After that, I will go deeper in my questions. A bit of advice-”

The air tightens. Her rigid hands slowly close into fists.

“Do not make me do that.”

Another silence. Usually, silence is a weightless thing, a word without fear attached to it. Today, it weighs enough to make our feet sink into the floorboards.

She inhales one last time.

“Alright then. Shoes off.”

We all obey without question.

I have never felt so stressed. A white noise going for my throat would be preferable to this very moment.

I understand what she intends to do.

We do not own spare clothes. We always wear the same ones. If someone stepped in blood, the stain would remain on their socks. Fortunately for me, all my clothes are red, socks included. I could drench them in blood and she would never notice.

The silence is violently broken by successive orders.

“Apry, forward, left foot up.”

She executes herself. The Lady in Apron looks very closely.

“Right foot.”

She lift her right foot. Once inspected, the Lady in Apron orders her to get back in line.

“Jurny, Mary, forward”

They get inspected, Jurny struggles to rise his feet due to his fall during the last race.

“Faster, incompetent.”

They both pass the inspection and get back in line.
Mary is called along with Decy.

Mary passes first, Decy is next.

“Decy, left foot, up.”

“Y-y-es..m-m-miss.” he stutters.

He lift his left foot, she nods, he lowers it. He rises his right foot.

She immediately grabs it.

“There we have it”

His eyes widen in terror, tears forming in them, surprise forces his mouth open.

“W-W-WHA-”

I, myself, don’t understand why she would grab his leg.

She turns him infront of us.
His sock is covered in blood.

My blood.

When he entered the bathroom to help me, he stepped in a puddle of my blood.

“P-P-PLE-”

The Lady in Apron strikes Decy across the face.

“Stutter one more time,” she says,

“And I will make sure you’ll never stutter again.”

His string vibrates, his note plays, the situation is driving him into madness, he does not know what to do, he must defend himself but he cannot help his stuttering.

She grabs his hair and Mayth’s and walks rapidly towards the dining room door. She about to open it when Decy breaks.

“I DID NOTHING!” perfect elocution.

“PLEASE LISTEN”

he screams, damaging his music box in the process.

He tries to point his finger at me.

“S-sh- D-DI-”

The Lady in Apron reaches into the front pocket of her apron and shoves her hand into Decy’s mouth.

“P-PL- DI-hrguugh”

it stops him from speaking further.

She grabs his tongue, pulls it outward, gets a blade from her pocket, put it beneath his tongue and slice it in half.

The song he produces is unlike anything we ever heard. Blood floods his throat nearly drowning him.
His screamed is muffled by it and keeps the glass from his box from breaking.

She opens the dining room, throw both Mayth and him inside, turns on the stove and puts her blade directly on the flame. She looks at us a last time, her eyes emptied, her apron covered in blood again, and slams the door.
Her note is then played locking the diner room.

Culpability.

It wraps its arms around me. They are sharp. They cut through every other feeling trying to reach my mind.

It prevents me from screaming my lungs out, to run in circle and let madness embrace me.

All that happened infront of my eyes was my own doing.

My silence, my carelessness, my stupidity and my cowardice may all have the second role, i am the main actress.

I am rotten.

Not a monthling moves nor breathes. We are as dolls put on a shelf left to dust.

We fear the door might open again to claim one of us if we dare to even exist.

Silence seems to stretch time itself, seconds are felt like hours and not even one hour has passed.

Then, silence is broken anew by Mayhts screams. They are so loud that i don’t understand how her box has not shattered yet.

Then Decy’s remaining voice follows hers, he screams and cries all he can.

No one can break in and rescue him.
I could have done something by just using my vocal chords to speak, yet i did nothing.

He is alone, facing against what i did.