Chapter Text
✎
“Idealist,” the Physician addresses after Aleph has left the room.
“Hm?” The Idealist looks up from his papers. Had something happened when Aleph read the letter? No matter! Poetry will always be more important. The Idealist hums as he continues scratching his pen, the ink swirling around on the page like blood on water. A metaphor here, some hyperbole there, a touch of simile, and now the Physician is shaking him by the shoulders.
“What did you tell Recoleta?” he interrogates.
The Idealist holds up his hands in a pacifying gesture. “And why, my dear friend, are you asking?” A bloodied scalpel dancing on his throat silences that train of speech. “I corrected her punctuation error on page thirty-six. That was my only contribution to the letter!”
Years of reading the Physician’s gestures allows the Idealist to infer that he is narrowing his eyes. “…You expect me to believe the contents of her new manuscript were written by mere coincidence,” he says slowly.
The Idealist moves the blade further from his neck, fingertips grazing the Physician’s gloved wrist like the caress on a lover’s face. He lets out a soft chuckle—for who would ever love someone as wretched as his other? The Idealist shakes his head, partially due to the comic he sees in his own simile, then shrugs his shoulders. “Alas, Physician, I was not listening. Could you explain to me, perhaps?”
The Physician grows quiet, before hesitantly speaking. Was something heavy on his mind, then? Was it something that could be removed by his barbaric “surgeries” and the incision of the knife? “Recoleta… it appears she has taken a ‘break’ from The Rise and Fall of Sanity. In this time, she is writing a story for her collection, Ficciones, titled ‘El Aleph,’ likely a story loosely inspired by Aleph himself… with some ‘creative liberties.’” The Idealist falters. What?
Before he can so much as speak, the Physician continues. “It is about a human man who seeks ‘the Aleph.’ The man has two other unnamed personalities, whom the story is centered around, and they engage in forbidden romance—”
“What?” the Idealist shouts. “Y—you can’t possibly be saying—”
The Physician nods solemnly—ah, if only he could apply this solemnity to his patients—no! Now is not the time! The world is ending! Er, the Physician nods solemnly and speaks again. “Aleph,” he says, grim, “in his quest for the best critique, has tasked us with recreating the plot of this story.”
A silence of pure shock and horror seals the Idealist’s throat, disarming him from emitting his usual remarks. He is petrified, frozen in place; his mind, dazed. A tip of the Physician’s hat lower over his mask snaps the Idealist back to reality, before he grips the Physician by the collar and begins shaking him furiously.
“What? No! Merlin, please—please, please help me convince him to abandon this plot! We are both well enough literary critics! Please…” The Idealist’s voice is desperate and he breaks down into sobs, ah, sobs that flow faster than—no! No, no, no—again, this is not the time! He is panicking!
The Physician turns away. “…I tried to convince him.” And thus, their fate is sealed. The Idealist clings to the Physician’s bloodied poncho as he slides to the floor in tears, before his now apparent lover steadies and addresses him awkwardly. “The story is twelve pages. This will pass fairly quickly.”
The Idealist blinks away his tears, lets go of the Physician’s clothes, and stands up with a newfound determination. Twelve pages, only twelve pages of hell he must endure…! “I… what is the first scene?”
Despite the mask, the Physician is clearly grimacing. “They… they kiss,” he eventually says. “We will not. In the next scene…”
✎
“She’s seventeen! I—is she allowed to write this? We’re—we’re skipping this, right?”
阝
“It appears we have burned through the entire script,” Merlin says. The Idealist collapses in what is presumably relief.
“It’s over…” the Idealist gasps. “It’s finally over!” If Merlin is to infer, he is probably thanking every god and historical figure. The pure joy in his face, however, is erased by Merlin's next words.
“Since we did not enact any of her work, we have failed the task. If we are to succeed—”
“—we must faithfully recreate every scene in the story,” the Idealist finishes, horrified. “No… no!” He is wailing, an irritating buzz disrupting the order in the sterile room.
Merlin looks towards his scalpel and twirls it in the air, a nervous habit he was never able to break. “We shall begin with the first page,” he states plainly, attempting to mask his wavering voice.
The Idealist awkwardly shimmies towards Merlin, tentatively places a finger under the latter’s chin, and tilts it upwards. He hesitates.
“It’s for the sake of transcendentality,” Merlin reasons. He knows he is lying to himself, but he would rather keep his sanity. He prides himself in being sane.
The Idealist considers this, swallows, and closes the distance between his lips and Merlin’s masked ones. He freezes. Both are still before the Idealist suddenly pulls away, covering his flushed lower face. Realization dawns upon him as his mouth opens slightly in horror, fully registering the consequence about the same time as Merlin does.
“We…” The Idealist begins his sentence with a dry mouth. “Neither of us will be able to forget this.”
“The deed has already been done. We must march forward.”
The Idealist steels his resolve. “‘For the sake of transcendentality,’ Merlin.”
“For the sake of transcendentality,” Merlin repeats. He no longer believes his lies to himself, but he must, for… who would this benefit? Recoleta?
The Idealist sighs and deflates. “Well,” he says, “the second paragraph…”
“Wait,” Merlin interrupts.
“…Yes, dearest Physician?”
Merlin struggles to determine how to break the news to the Idealist. Eventually, he settles for bluntness—emotional maneuvering was never his specialty. “I have come to a realization just now,” he says, before finding the next words stuck in his throat.
“Go on.” The Idealist appears stressed. Hm, so he is prepared for the revelation.
“I… the experiment has failed.”
“What?”
“In ‘El Aleph,’ the man is not aware of his alternates’ forbidden love. However, Aleph was the one who assigned this task to us… and we may never fulfill the requirements, for how is he to forget?”
The Idealist goes stiff. “So, this—this was all for naught.” His voice is wavering. “Merlin, we… we will not forget any of this either!” He collapses on the ground. Normally, Merlin would berate him for such dramatics, but instead, he falls to the floor as well. This seems to be an appropriate scenario.
The Idealist lets out a weak chuckle. “Look at yourself, my friend… you’ve succumbed to theatrics as well. Have you finally embraced our madness?”
“Yes,” Merlin says, expression grim behind his mask, “for no madness could be as absurd as—”
“You need not say it if you wish.”
“…Thank you.”
Time passes in silence, before the Idealist sits up and carefully moves towards Merlin. “Could we, perhaps…”
✎
The words are caught in his throat. He gets the distinct impression that the Physician’s eyes have widened. “You couldn’t possibly mean… you enjoyed that?”
The Idealist looks away. “Never mind that. I was offering—er, offering a game of chess.”
The Physician stands up. “Very well. I believe I have a set in one of the drawers.”
𐃉
“Are you Aleph?”
Recoleta takes note of the Idealist visibly flinching. “‘El Aleph…’ no…” he mutters under his breath. Recoleta, however, has excellent hearing! Good hearing is needed when running from the police, otherwise they would have ambushed her, haha.
“So you are! See, Vertin, I knew I would find him here!” Recoleta declares triumphantly.
“Recoleta,” the Idealist says, voice cracking. So he has dropped the act! “Why—why?” He breaks down into sobs, and the other prisoners panic. “Why would you do this to us?”
Recoleta is confused. Do what? “What did I do?”
The Idealist wipes his tears and smiles weakly, then raises a finger to point at the central tower. “Perhaps… the ones in power will know,” he says.
𐃉
Maybe the Physician was expecting a demand for other answers, but Recoleta only has one question on her mind! She is a detective now—no, that is too bland. Ah, yes! Recoleta is one of the Savage Detectives.
“What happened between the Idealist and my story, ‘El Aleph?’” Recoleta asks again. “He had a reaction more visceral than visceral realism!”
“Explain to her, Merlin,” a calmer voice says from the Physician’s body. It doesn’t sound like him, but it is the same voice. Recoleta has an inference now.
“No! This—you caused this, Aleph! The pain, that accursed day—the fault lies with you!”
Recoleta’s eyes widen, wider than the cenotes of México. “You don’t mean to say…!”
The Physician, who Recoleta now knows is Merlin, places a hand to cover his mask. Suddenly, a wide gesture tears his arms through the air, and the Idealist’s voice escapes him. “Yes, that’s right, Recoleta! In this prison, we have been simulating your novel—every drop of ink that flowed into our critiques was the result of this grand experiment!”
His posture goes reserved and he tips his hat lower over his mask, and Merlin’s voice speaks next. “Thus, we… we enacted your story as well.”
“You—even page seven?” Recoleta asks with wonder.
“No!” the Idealist exclaims, panicked. “We would never!”
“Do not mistake us for lovers, Recoleta.” Merlin is twirling his scalpel in the air. “For Foucault’s sake, I shot him—argh!” Recoleta has calmly walked over to Merlin and kicked him in the crotch.
“Merlin!” Recoleta scolds.
“That’s Doctor Merlin to you,” he says through grit teeth. He is curled up in pain.
“You assassinated a noble knight of literature! How could you?”
“I’m not dead—” the Idealist tries to say.
“No, no, you are dead,” Recoleta says calmly.
“Okay. Physician, how could you?”
“…How could I. Oh no,” Merlin says.
“Oh no,” Vertin contributes.
“Oh no,” Recoleta adds. Sonetto is the last one to speak.
“…Oh no.” She clears her throat after a moment of silence. “Er, do we fight now?”
ℵ
Aleph sighs and swirls the spoon in the tea he cannot drink in front of others. “What odd memories we have made together, Recoleta.”
The girl in question nods. “Have they gotten married yet?” she asks with absolute seriousness.
“We’re—we’re not lovers!” the Idealist argues from the doorway.
“You just moved your pawn backwards. Is this a forfeit?” Merlin asks, voice coming from about the same area.
Aleph clears his throat. “Anyway, Recoleta, about the most recent revision of Ruinas Gloriosas…”