"The... Schrodinger's cat theory?" Her eyes widened at the response as she listened into the kid's words. "Yes! It says that a cat inside a tight box is both dead and alive right? And he is trying to use it against us humans to test if it is possible in real-life!" The sister exclaimed softly while gripping onto her laced fingers tightly.
"So basically... now it's Schrodinger's zombies..." She spoke while tapping her chin with her bloodied hand, with the hair clip still tightly gripped. "Is that... what he tried to do to the monsters down there? Just asking... maybe by chance you have heard it?" She asked with a feeling she was getting somewhere, an eagerness turned inside her mind as she watched the children's scarred faces.
"But firstly... are you being mistreated? Like abused?" She asked, knowing the answer is already valid the way their faces were red here and there. "No... it is resulting thanks to the maniac feeding us weird substances to make our body function to its maximum before he placed us inside the tight, dark cabinet." The little girl replied.
She fell silent with the words, it rang back and forth around her ears as she lowered her gaze to think for a short while. The tight, dark cabinet... is something the monster had said before I killed it inside the abandoned hospital... so it was true! I should have question them more, what a huge opportunity I have missed...
She silently smacked her forehead as the children stared at her with completely blank minds and a blank look at their faces. "You look hurt badly yourself... you look worse then when our father secretly comes to check on us." The eldest boy spoke while pointing at her stab wound and her soaked sleeves.
"Oh this..." She looked at her own situation with blood spilling to be ground from her hands and wounds. "Don't worry... this isn't mostly mine. I am fine, I can deal with more severe injuries over a very long time, so it shouldn't be a problem for now. But what is the more concerning matter is about this vary experiment... I need more details." She firstly flashed a smile, then slowly turned into a much more stern expression.
"No..." The youngest spoke while looking at her this time, all of the faces stared at her with an odd curiosity. "I don't think you will be able to stand it much longer... why are you so desperate to sabe us when you are dying yourself? I have seen my mother die... and I know you are going to die mid-way if a monster ever attacks you again. Let alone... the maniac."
"It is true... but..." As soon as she started to explain from her side that she was indeed alright, the kids interrupted her at once and started speaking in a synchronized tone. "No no no! You must have a reason similar to father's if you are this desperate to save us! You all are greedy the way you are!"
Aefia's eyes shrunk to a point it was unavoidable it had caused a complete wreck inside her mind by now, destroying everything she wanted to ask and know about in an instant. "Is that... what you think?" She stood up while speaking to the kids with a shadowed eyes. Her fist clenched at her sides as she turned determined and pulled open the door, meeting with the standing dead body of their father.
"If I am determined... I would have been like this a long time ago." She spoke while glancing at a shiny item covered in glowing red blood and pulled out the chain from within the pocket and pushing the body out at the end, and leaving the door open. "This key... It opens the cell you are in... Am I right?" She asked as the kids nodded. "Good... then I am discarding it." Saying this, she flung it away in the air and watching the kids' horrid face.
"What?! Why?!" The eldest spoke with a shocked face as he watched the girl standing at the edge of the door with her footsteps being left in the form of blood. "Because... I have no use trying to rescue you..." She replied with a smile with shadowed eyes. "And my reasons for trying to save you... was because I want every children to get a childhood... unlike what I have suffered since I was eight." Turning a full ninety to now face the children from the end of the doorway.
The children went into a questioned state as they watched the girl. "Then... you must be..." The sister spoke while stepping back a little bit away from the bars. "Yes... I was a member of the Mafia... and I think your father's death is proof enough I have stayed there for seven whole years. Not a single month gap." She answered while glancing at the twitching body on the ground. "Ah... There goes a new monster..." Her eyes turned alive with the colour of red that reflected against them.
"Are you going to fight it?" The children anticipated at first, with pure hopes she hadn't just shown them her revengeful side too. It was a very severe and tense situation where Mr. Wayond's body slowly picked itself up and she stepped back, at the edge of the steps. "No... I will let him see you one last time. I am a merciless Mafia underboss after all." With a final smile, she turned away, making the situation marinate inside the children's minds.
The body, which had now turned into a monster, growled at the children as it bent forward to pounch onto the cell bars and break it open with bare force. He rushed forward, with his hands bared and the children screamed at the sight of the face that was bloodied and with his eyes rolled all the way to the back of his head. Finally, the youngest spoke up. "I am sorry! We didn't mean to judge you wrongly! We were just afriad of being scammed again!" He shouted with teary eyes as the monster chewed onto the metal and ripped it apart piece by piece.
The children screamed in fear as their dead father's beast blood splattered against the inner sides of the cell, as the sharp metal edges punctured the inner walls of his mouth, ripping apart his skin and making his mouth seem wider. Until eventually, the gap in the cell bars was wide enough for the beast to enter with no problems, and one of his feet had reached inside to feast on his own children's meat.
"Thats wide enough." The girl's voice was heard as the beast in front of them became motionless and fell backwards. The sound of stabbing echoed loudly as her she used her fingers to wipe off the excess blood from the surface of her clip. "But unfortunately... I am only in a desire to kill adults... not kids." She smiled while crossing her arms and looked at the three siblings with a pair of strict eyes. "So... Did you learn your lesson?" She added after a brief moment of pause, a smile popped onto her face as the children nodded until their heads felt like falling off.
"That should be enough manners for now." Her knees were almost giving up, so she unwillingly sat down on the ground and looked at them with a curious gaze. "Isn't anyone of you going to explain this very experiment this maniac wants to continue? I can already hear him descending the second floor steps with walking pace. And to get here, it would take at least ten minutes to reach." Her head rested atop her fingers as her vision stayed at the children who had splatters of blood across their face.
"Well the Schrodinger's–" the sister hesitantly started speaking while Aefia held a finger up at their face with a slightly annoyed expression. "Before that... clean up those blood stains from your face. It looks like I was the one beating you up. And that might give the maniac a wrong idea of me." She added after the child had quieted down and watched them use their sweater sleeves to wipe their faces. They seem to have been here for quiet some time now... given that they might have been here since early spring with the clothing they are wearing untile now.
Their innocent faces looked up at her with a curious gaze as if asking for her next orders. She heavily breathed out while speaking the next line of what she wanted to say. "Do you have any idea of how long has it been here?" The words left her mouth as the children turned their head left and right, then shoke their heads with regret. "Don't worry about it then... but I do have one more question. Do you know any relatives you can go back to if you return to the current world?"
"Even when we have... we don't want to go back." The youngest spoke before anyone else could, as he leaned against the end of the bars. "They would use us for crueling things and also hit us when we do something wrong immediately... and that was why we didn't want to go along with our father who would have sent us to a shelter instead if we rejected the offer."
"Well that's a bad thing..." She thought while looking down to the ground. "I have a place for you three to stay... but you will be put a long way far from the Empire of Margenta." At the end of saying so, she held her breathe and waited for the response. "We will be fine... we will go with you." The eldest replied as he panicked while hearing the footsteps draw almost nearer. "But I think you need to save us and yourself against the maniac if you want to do that!" His low, quivering voice was heard in an exclamatory tone.
"It won't take me time to deal with this monster. But continue with your speech." She straightened as her knees shoke while trying to stand up. The children noticed and gritted their teeth as they watched her stand with her feet stuck to the ground and not woddling, unlike usual humans. "After Schrodinger released the theory that a cat inside a dark, tight box is both dead and alive... he didn't actually conduct this experiment to prove it... it was just a said example until current date... where some wierd science nerd decided to test it out to see if it were true.
"I don't know much, but once he brought one of his friend and they were discussing in front of our room that he was once asked to prove this theory true, and he couldn't do it, so he decided to retry this same test on humans. And right after the friend had made fun of him for doing something this insane, he murdered him, and fed the body to the beasts who practically govern this house.
"While that is what I heard, the rest of the things I had deduced it inside my mind that it was definitely possible the Schrodinger's cat theory had been turned into a new experiment titled Schrodinger's human. Where instead of cats, humans were fed chemicals to maximize their organ outputs and then trap them inside a tight cabinet with heavy guard and locks. This imprisonment took place until one day, the human subject would lose their sanity and the chemicals will deform them completely, turning them into the monsters he controls now.
"As of now, all I know about those monsters and their mindset is... They just want to hunt the human who turned them into this form, trapped them... they want to kill that person and feed on him to see if they would return to their human state again." The child explained in one full breathe as she finished it all in what seemed to be one entire passage to Aefia.
"And... what about experimenting on the creatures? If he wanted to do it on humans knowing the animals were a failed subject... what about on creatures who don't have a powerful mind like humans?" She asked while her mind processed every single one of the details that were just told. It was a lot to take in at a short amount of time, and there seemed to be no other ways to figure out how to fight him with just informations. But since I can't seem to find a way to attack him mentality, I would have to list him down as a mental attack then. So for short... I will need to use physical means.
"He did try to do it on animals... but the animalistic monsters were easily killed by the few humans who came to try and rescue us... and it was a fail." The eldest replied as he stood out to the front and beside the youngest sibling. "And the same way he had sold you that key and watch... he had sold this to other customers too. What didn't go as planned was how you didn't come along for a very long time..." He added with a short breathe.
"But wasn't this pocket watch supposed to be the key for your cell door?" She asked while pulling out the broken watch. "It was... and it was also stolen from the maniac on the first try... which went unsuccessful." He replied while watching her stand up. "But it seems... you have found a way to free us without needing a key." The sister added while her fingers traced the sharp edges of the metal below, from where their father's blood was still spilling from the ends.
As soon as she caught sight of this, she put away the pocket watch and turned around towards the door, where the sound of footsteps were a little too loud around this time. "This maniac is reaching in a short time..." Her hands dusted her coat as she dragged into the dead body with the collar. "I know you said it's alright... but I believe I still owe you three an apology for killing your father..."
"I honestly don't know when I started to embrace my skills from the Mafia trainings all these years ago." Holding her forehead with her free hand, she continued her steps towards the open door, while her eyes caught sight of the maniac coming around the staircase.