The Forgotten Field

The moment he realized it, a crushing weight settled over his chest, as though he had swallowed a lump of iron.

Feeling as if the ground beneath him had collapsed away, he sank onto the floor and leaned against the side of the bed.

Even as his mind drifted into a haze, his eyes remained fixed on her diary.

[You've grown much thinner over the past few months.

You must be burying yourself in work again without giving yourself any proper rest.

After lecturing me so much about taking care of my health... why won't you take care of yourself?

I know I have no right to say any of this, but I wanted to run up to you and scold you until you couldn't get a word in.

I wonder... how would you have reacted?]

The tightly pressed handwriting revealed traces of irritation and anger.

But the sentences that followed were far calmer.

[Sometimes I imagine walking up to you and speaking as though nothing had happened.

Have you been well?

Were you hurt anywhere?

Has work been difficult?

Why is something so simple... so impossibly difficult for me?

There must be something broken inside me.]

After that self-mocking confession, several blank pages followed, as though she had stopped writing for a time.

The entries resumed after he had departed on campaign once again.

[Autumn has finally arrived.

The wind always blows so much in Kalmor this time of year.

Did you know?

Whenever the wind sweeps across the fields, I can smell that gentle scent your hair used to carry.

That's why...

No matter how painful or sorrowful this place becomes, I can never bring myself to hate it.]

He read those lines again.

And again.

Afterward came ordinary records of daily life.

Khan still occupied most of her thoughts, but there were also brief impressions of books she had read in the library and snippets of conversations she'd had with the maids.

There was nothing particularly remarkable about any of it.

Yet he read every single word with relentless care.

Because every one of them had been written for him.

[Today I ran across the fields with Khan.

On and on through the endless grasslands.

Even though my heart felt ready to burst, strangely enough...

It didn't hurt.

For the first time in my life, I was happy simply to be alive.

Perhaps God sent me a gift.

Perhaps He thought that even my life deserved one truly radiant moment.

I'm so glad Khan came to me.

When my final breath comes...

I'm sure this is the moment I'll remember.

That even my life once contained a joy that felt like heaven.]

He remained on that page for a very long time.

The words scattered across the paper felt like countless long, sharpened needles piercing straight through his eyes.

At last, after sitting frozen for what seemed an eternity, he turned the page with trembling hands.

Blank pages followed.

Just as the thought crossed his mind that perhaps the wolf had filled the emptiness enough that she no longer needed to keep a diary...

He came upon a page that had been torn in half.

Carefully unfolding the ragged sheet, which looked as though it had been ripped apart by hand, he found the remaining half covered in frantic black lines and ink smeared beyond recognition.

Turning another page, he found words so badly distorted they were almost impossible to read.

[I'm sorry, Varkas.

I'm so, so sorry.

Please forgive me.

No... never forgive me.

Just please don't die.

I wish I had died instead.

I want to die like this.

I wish someone would just kill me.

The truth is... I never wanted to be born.

I'm sorry for being born.

I'm sorry for wanting you.]

Although no date had been written, he knew immediately when she had written it.

His entire body convulsed as though his insides had been ripped apart.

He hurriedly turned the page.

More frantic writing continued for several pages, but the ink had bled so badly that none of it could be deciphered.

He stared at those black stains, which looked almost like dried blood, for a long time before continuing to turn page after page until another clean sheet finally appeared.

There, the handwriting was steady once again.

[I can't erase the sight of you collapsing, coughing up blood.

Every night I dream that I'm holding you while your body grows colder and colder, screaming your name.

If Khan hadn't stayed beside me...

I'm sure I would have done something foolish again.]

He stared at those lines as though nailed in place.

Only after a long while did he lower his gaze to the next passage.

[Maybe it's shameless of me...

But I want to escape this pain now.

I don't want to hurt anymore.

I don't want to suffer anymore.

So every day...

I pray.

I pray that this love will die.

That I'll love you only until today...

And when tomorrow comes, this love will already be dead.]

His entire body froze.

It felt as though his heart had dropped straight to the floor.

The hand gripping the diary trembled so violently he could no longer control it.

His eyes fixed on the final line written at the bottom of the page.

[But when dawn comes...

I'm sure I'll think of you all over again.]

His vision blurred into a field of white.

Cold droplets slid down his face and splattered onto the diary.

He hurriedly wiped them away.

More drops continued to fall.

Slowly, he lifted a hand and touched his face.

Warm liquid covered his cheeks and neck.

He absently wiped it away before suddenly realizing—

The stream had begun beneath his own eyes.

Tears fell one after another, pooling in his palm.

As he stared blankly at them, the world before him began to collapse.

Watching helplessly as his own arms and legs slowly crumbled away, he finally raised his head and looked around the room, where darkness had already begun to settle.

The hallucination that had begun with his own body had spread throughout the entire room.

The bedroom gradually melted away, its outlines dissolving into an endless sea of darkness.

Soon...

He was alone.

Completely alone in a world where nothing else existed.

Then, somewhere beyond that empty void, something began to scream.

It was the same sound that had echoed inside his mind for months.

That desperate cry tore through every nerve in his body.

In the next instant, an overwhelming pressure crushed him from every direction.

He gasped violently for breath as both hands slammed against the floor.

It felt as though some enormous creature were devouring him alive.

Every bone and every shred of flesh throughout his body seemed to be crushed into dust.

His organs twisted and ground against one another beneath unbearable agony.

His fingernails broke as he clawed desperately at the floor.

It felt as though thousands of jagged shards were scraping the inside of his skull.

The world before his eyes dissolved into crimson.

All the pain he had suppressed until now surged back like a tidal wave.

A broken, animal-like sob escaped between his parted lips.

The realization that the sound was almost identical to the agonized screams that had haunted his mind was the last coherent thought he had before he collapsed completely.

Everything he had built upon illusion came crashing down.

Nothing remained for him now...

Except endless suffering stretching into eternity.

Nothing...

But pain.

* * *

Rain began to fall before dawn.

After sitting in a daze for an unknown length of time, Varkas slowly lifted his head, drawn back to himself by the sound of the rain.

At some point, a healer had apparently come and gone.

A calming incense candle now stood beside the bed, releasing thin streams of smoke into the room.

He silently watched the pale smoke dissolve into the darkness before lowering his eyes to the diary once more.

After wandering through the room like a ghost and searching through every one of her belongings, he found another volume she had left behind.

The new diary was filled with anger, sorrow, and despair directed entirely at him.

[You killed our child.

I begged you so many times, but you never even pretended to listen.

I can't forgive you.

Not even in death will I forgive you.

This time...

I'm going to kill the love I have for you.

No matter what, I'll kill it.

I'll tear it into pieces until not even a trace remains.

I swear I will.]

The entries that followed continued to condemn him.

Scattered among them were equally merciless expressions of self-loathing and bitter self-contempt.

He read every line over and over again, as though carving wounds into himself.

Her pain.

Her resentment.

Her despair.

He swallowed every last bit of it without leaving a single word behind.

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