Deep Sea Embers
chapter-566

Duncan found himself staring intently at a small bag of trash that lay before him. It was securely wrapped in a black plastic bag, its opening sealed with a tight knot. Through a tiny tear in the plastic, Duncan could glimpse the remnants of a crushed paper cup inside the bag.

His thoughts churned in a whirlpool of bewilderment and endless questions. When the bizarre phenomenon known as the “great void” had first manifested within the Alice Mansion, he had wondered if it would eventually evolve or change in some way. Upon hearing the mansion’s headless butler refer to an “invasion of foreign objects,” Duncan had braced himself for something truly inexplicable to have intruded upon this already mysterious space. Yet, he had never, in his wildest dreams, imagined this scenario.

The trash bag before him was oddly familiar—it was the very bag of waste he had disposed of himself. Just a short time ago, after coming to terms with what seemed to be an unbridgeable gap between him and his homeland, he had undertaken a thorough cleaning of his single-bedroom apartment. He had then thrown this bag into the strange black mist that lingered outside his front door.

And now, almost inexplicably, that same bag had materialized within the mysterious “great void” of the Alice Mansion and was being labeled as an “invading foreign object.”

As he grappled with a complex tapestry of emotions, Duncan cautiously took a step forward, moving closer to this object that was so incongruously identified as an invader.

The corridor where he stood opened up into an enormous empty space—a void that seemed to have devoured whole rooms and left nothing but a gaping abyss in its wake. The edges of this emptiness looked as if they had been shattered, leaving the floor and walls jagged, almost like broken teeth jutting out from the gums. The trash bag was situated at the very end of this fractured, unsettling landscape. Truth be told, Duncan found the entire situation to be bordering on the absurd.

Yet, the atmosphere among the mansion’s servants was one of palpable tension. The headless butler seemed particularly alarmed, even letting out a cautionary shout as Duncan continued to advance: “Guest! Do not approach! It’s dangerous!”

“Dangerous?” Duncan couldn’t help but feel puzzled. He looked back at the butler, a quizzical expression taking over his face. “It’s simply a harmless pile of garbage.”

Nevertheless, the butler and other servants remained noticeably distant, standing at least ten meters away from the bag. Their low, buzzing chatter seemed to be laced with both fear and panic. Although they were devoid of heads, Duncan could sense that their invisible gazes were filled with a disorienting blend of curiosity and apprehension.

To them, it seemed that this ordinary-looking bag of trash was transformed into something infinitely more terrifying and unfathomable.

“Gu… Guest,” the headless butler finally managed to speak again, his voice shaky and subdued. “Do not be deceived by appearances. I urge you to maintain a safe distance and come back toward me. Exercise caution so as not to awaken this… growing shadow.”

Growing shadow?

For a fleeting moment, Duncan’s eyebrows twitched as if he were on the cusp of a revelation. Could it be that these servants were perceiving something entirely different from what he was seeing?

Duncan shifted his gaze back to the black garbage bag that lay precariously on the edge of the fractured ground. In that brief instant, something astonishing happened—the black plastic bag seemed to “flicker.”

It was akin to the stuttering of a malfunctioning computer screen, or as though a gossamer veil had momentarily drifted across the surface of the bag. During this quick oscillation between light and shadow, the bag appeared to metamorphose into something completely different.

Duncan’s eyes narrowed as he intently observed the bag, almost as if he were expecting it to change form again. And sure enough, it flickered once more.

This time, Duncan caught a fleeting glimpse of what the bag seemed to be transforming into. What he saw was a pulsating shadow sprawled across the floor not too far away from the bag. The edges of this shadow were fringed with countless, quivering, razor-like tendrils. Emerging from the core of this shadow was a dark, undulating mass that seemed to conceal an innumerable multitude of eyes, as well as appendages that looked like a nightmarish combination of tongues and tentacles.

But the moment he zeroed in on this surreal vision, it reverted back into what looked like an ordinary pile of “garbage.” The disturbing images he thought he’d seen felt like illusions, barely skimming the surface of his consciousness.

Quietly contemplating what he’d just witnessed, Duncan found his thoughts slowly coalescing into coherent theories. After what felt like an indeterminate period of time, he finally turned toward the “butler” and asked in a voice that was unexpectedly raspy, “Has there been any ‘foreign object invasion’ here before?”

The butler replied hastily, “Occasionally. The mansion is sealed off, but for some inexplicable reason, ‘external’ objects do find their way in here, and they usually cause considerable disruption.”

“Considerable disruption?” Duncan furrowed his eyebrows.

“Yes,” the butler elaborated, “these foreign objects act like pathogens to the mansion, often leading to decay or warping of its various parts. Recovery typically takes an extended period of time.”

Listening intently, Duncan mulled over this information before asking his next question. “How are these foreign objects dealt with?”

“The mansion will ‘digest’ them,” the butler explained. “You may wish to stand aside. The Cleaner should be arriving shortly to deal appropriately with the foreign object.”

“The Cleaner?” Duncan echoed, his tone brimming with skepticism.

“Yes, the Cleaner is an integral part of the mansion, its oldest component in fact. It is tasked with eliminating any destructive ‘entities’ that have intruded. Once it completes its work, the mansion will gradually revert to its original state prior to the invasion. Ah, there it is—look.”

The butler suddenly raised his arm, pointing toward a spot not far from where they stood. A substance that resembled mud had begun to materialize there. It was dark yet glimmered with a metallic sheen. Its surface was interspersed with countless tiny, crystalline particles, which refracted pinpricks of star-like light as the substance rippled. This “mud” seemed to possess a form of sentience as it slowly crawled and expanded, inching closer to the offending “foreign object” as if it knew exactly what it needed to do.

The outer layer of the mysterious entity known as the “Cleaner” began to undergo a fascinating transformation. Portions of its edge elongated into tendrils that functioned like tentacles. With calculated deliberation, these extensions reached out to probe the immediate area before wrapping themselves around the pulsating shadow.

Captivated, Duncan observed the process with unwavering focus. For him, the bag of trash was inconsequential; it was the underlying mysteries that counted. Why had it appeared in the mansion? What was the meaning behind the surreal phenomena he had witnessed? The true significance had manifested the moment that unassuming black garbage bag materialized within the confines of Alice Mansion.

The act of consumption occurred in profound silence. The Cleaner, this soft-bodied, blob-like entity tinged with a metallic sheen and dotted with tiny specks of refractive light, enveloped the bag entirely. Duncan could feel a subtle, unspoken shift occurring within the Cleaner’s form, as if something within it had been neutralized or digested.

Around him, the mansion’s attendants seemed to collectively breathe a sigh of relief. Their tense bodies relaxed, but only for an instant.

For in the next heartbeat, Duncan noticed the Cleaner, having completed its task, pivot—yes, pivot—in his direction. Its outer layer oscillated, and it almost looked as if a protrusion similar to a head had aligned itself to face him.

A palpable silence pervaded the corridor, ratcheting up the tension to near unbearable levels. Every attendant froze as if bracing for something monumental.

The Cleaner advanced. It moved toward Duncan, but its intentions were inscrutable—neither malicious nor benign.

Duncan’s nerves tightened reflexively. Between his fingers, wisps of pale green flame began to manifest. He eyed the Cleaner warily, his thoughts racing as he pondered the best course of action for neutralizing this enigmatic entity—should it turn out to be a threat—without causing undue harm to Alice’s Mansion.

Then, unexpectedly, the Cleaner came to a halt about two meters in front of him.

The mass of mud-like substance appeared to be retracting its earlier expansion as if reconsidering. In a surreal moment, Duncan could swear that the Cleaner displayed a sense of hesitancy, even confusion. It was sentient—trying to make sense of the human in front of it, yet evidently puzzled as if Duncan’s very presence broke some internal logic that governed the mansion.

Moments later, as if snapping out of an infinite loop of confusion, the Cleaner shifted its focus. It turned away from Duncan as if deciding he was of no consequence and began slithering toward a dark corner of the room.

Blinking in sheer bewilderment, Duncan observed the Cleaner’s odd departure. After a lengthy pause, he shifted his gaze to the butler and finally broke the silence, “What does this signify? Is the Cleaner not receptive to my presence here?”

“This is unprecedented for me as well,” the butler responded, his voice laced with a discernible note of perplexity. “Typically, once the Cleaner has completed its function, it recedes into the background, melding back into the mansion’s structure. It’s never loitered or displayed additional activities as it did just now.”

Duncan’s brow furrowed in contemplation, but he chose not to pry any further. Instead, he pivoted and walked over to the edge of the disintegrating corridor, approaching the exact location where the Cleaner had conducted its mysterious “cleaning operation.”

The bag of trash he had thrown out was now utterly eradicated. Following a baffling series of transformations, it had been assimilated and digested by an equally puzzling force within the Cleaner, leaving no remnants whatsoever.

Yet, the central question remained: How had his own trash ended up here in the first place?

Positioning himself atop a cracked floor tile, Duncan leaned over cautiously, peering into the infinite black abyss that lay beyond the fractured corridor.

For a fleeting instant, he harbored the notion that he might find his own “apartment” suspended within that obsidian void and maybe veiled in a shroud of mist akin to the myriad fragments of other worlds that might be suspended in similar abysses elsewhere.

But there was only unyielding darkness; the corridor led to nothing but an impenetrable void, as if the yawning chasm within the Alice Mansion were a portal to a realm of sheer nothingness.

An almost irresistible urge welled up within him, compelling him to step into that mysterious darkness, to perhaps discover the elusive answers he sought. Yet, at the crucial moment, caution gripped him. Something deep within—his innate instincts—warned him of the inherent perils in that infinite abyss. He knew that now was not the opportune time; he was not yet equipped to navigate that darkness and safely return.

“Guest?”

The voice of the headless butler broke his introspective trance, emanating softly from behind him.

Taking a deep breath as if to expel his thoughts and hesitations, Duncan retreated a step, repositioning himself within the boundaries of the decaying corridor.

“I should leave now,” he murmured, almost to himself. “Take me back to the garden, please.”

In the world beyond the mansion, Duncan blinked as if emerging from a trance. His senses sharply refocused, snapping him back to full consciousness in a matter of mere seconds.

Before him sat Alice, still attentively present.

Remarkably, in the tangible world, only a minuscule fraction of a second had elapsed.