Billy returned, as agreed, two days later to the manor—a structure so alien in design that it seemed less built than exhumed from the dreams of a dead god. Its windows resembled half-lidded eyes, peering inward rather than out, and its walls were etched with the fossilized grammar of extinct tongues, as though the very stone was attempting to speak a truth long since buried beneath the weight of forgotten aeons.
He entered the grand hall and waited. And waited. Until the silence itself began to wrinkle and gather in the corners, like some sentient dust. Then, deciding inactivity was more unbearable than the unknown, he wandered.
He became lost in a maze of chambers, each belonging to a different civilization of the earth—or perhaps of post-earth. The objects within the manor moved only when not observed; when watched, they froze, as if uncertain whether they belonged to the realm of things or thoughts. Soon, Billy was unsure if he was the one moving through the house, or if the house was moving through him.
"So? What do you think? You seem... impressed."
The voice arrived from behind him, like a murmur the walls had forgotten and abruptly remembered. He turned, slowly, and beheld an old man with a pale mustache and attire that shimmered with an obsidian sheen. His smile felt like a mask worn too long—fixed, involuntary, grotesque.
Billy managed a smile in return. "This place... it's built in a way that suggests it doesn't belong in our world."
The old man stepped closer with weightless tread, as though his feet refused to mark the floor. "Perhaps you're right. There is an old legend about this manor. They say the first patriarch of the family constructed it—a stranger with a ship that sailed not oceans, but crossed into places man was never meant to go. Lands drowned in terror until they petrified... beauty so absolute, it rendered death a gentle dream by comparison."
He gestured to the statues and walls. "These relics—none originate from any known continent. They come from regions the world has forgotten, or perhaps has deliberately chosen not to remember."
Billy let out a skeptical whistle. "Maybe I should've chosen the manor instead of the money. But you haven't told me your name… I feel like I've seen you before."
The man offered a shallow bow. "Butler. Head servant of this house."
Billy extended a hand, as though sealing an unspoken bargain. "Since you're the one in charge… I want to see the girl."
Butler bowed again. "This way, sir."
The corridor to her room bled a kind of dreary silence, where time itself seemed to crawl across the floor like a wounded thing. As they walked, Butler spoke:
"Mister Simon ordered constant surveillance. Every breath, every flicker of her eyes, even her sleep posture is recorded. She receives care beyond even the heirs of royal blood."
They arrived at a wooden door, carved with designs that obeyed no geometric logic—more like intentions etched into bark.
Billy opened the door.
The air thickened instantly. The room was pink, almost absurdly so, dominated by a massive bed—and atop it, a skeleton... slowly being dressed in flesh. Life was reassembling itself with invisible fingers.
He shut the door behind him and was greeted by two expressionless dwarfs.
Butler offered a calm explanation: "Do not worry. Merely guards."
Billy paid them no mind. He approached the metamorphosing form. Stood before it. Gazed.
Then spoke, with the guiltless tone of one who does not seek forgiveness:
"I don't know if you can hear me… or if you're even capable of hatred. I used you. Not out of malice—but something worse: greed. I never gave you a name—not because you didn't deserve one, but because I never saw you as a person. Now that it's over… I wish you one simple thing: death."
He fell silent, as though his words had exhausted him, then turned.
Knocks at the door.
Butler opened it. An elf entered—clad in a gown more akin to mist than fabric. She bowed lightly.
"Mister Simon awaits you, Mister Billy. Your payment is ready."
Billy cast one final look at the girl. Then left, wordless, like a chapter concluded.
---
Days passed. The slaves submitted detailed reports on the girl's condition. Within a week, flesh had returned. A month later, she was walking again.
Simon, who had seen Billy's account himself, sensed something unnatural. The damage had been less severe the first time, and the recovery slower. Now, the reverse.
He demanded verification.
The experiment was repeated.
Boiling oil. The girl was thrown into it again. No care. No observation. No attention.
The results astonished them.
By the end of the first week, she had already regained her flesh. But then... the regeneration slowed. Declined. As if something within her cracked with each revival—as though time itself began to protest her return.
Simon observed in silence. He wrote nothing. He merely... waited.
No food. No drink. Instead, he ordered four great iron pillars, planted in a wide square. At each corner, a metal shackle was fixed, and the girl—now naked—was chained under sun and wind, exposed without mercy. Slaves and servants were assigned to watch her every moment.
Her body, or what was left of it, began to regenerate. The outer flesh returned. But the inner organs—those responsible for motion, for comprehension—did not. She existed in profound silence. Unmoving. Unfeeling. Unaware.
A week passed. Hair began to grow again. But her body was infested with insects. A month later, worms were devouring her alive. Her regeneration continued—but more slowly than the rate of her consumption. Yet still, she endured. Slowly. Inexorably. Until the organs returned.
Full restoration took seven months. Far longer than Simon had anticipated, even with decay accelerated by worms and insects.
She was returned to "rest mode," as in the original test, and left for three more months—an attempt to recover her mind.
But at the end of that span... nothing changed. She behaved as if her consciousness had abandoned her. She moved like the blind, or the mad: walking into walls, falling, getting up again, repeating the pattern. She could see—this much was confirmed by the physicians. But she did not perceive.
Except in rare moments, when a familiar person entered. Then, and only then, she responded—sitting, eating, allowing herself to be carried. If a stranger entered, she turned feral. Tried to escape. Bit. Struck.
Observation Report:
> "She does not react to the dwarves monitoring her, as if they are invisible. She recognizes food, distinguishes between people, but behaves randomly, as though her mind cannot retain anything. Not merely insane—but as if consciousness itself is absent."
"Damn it… what is this nonsense?" muttered Simon, rising from his wooden chair. He paced, pondering the disparity between her first and second resurrections, and the uncanny nature of her behavior.
He summoned sorcerers from all corners of the world. They attempted to enter her mind, to extract even a sliver of memory, a name, an origin. But her mind was... a void. Some claimed she was mad. Others theorized her soul had been shattered by an entity beyond knowing—or obliterated by lost magic.
Yet surveillance reports contradicted them all. She could react, emote, recognize.
Simon found none of the explanations satisfying. He pressed on, launching a campaign of long-term experimentation.
Two years of trials.
He cast her into pits with beasts, drenched her in shadow-magic, offered up souls to see if "awareness" could be forced into her.
Nothing changed.
The monsters tore her apart—no scream. The souls vanished—unclaimed, devoured by nothingness.
Only one discovery stood out: if all her bones were crushed into dust, she would begin to reconstruct. If the bones were utterly destroyed, she would reappear—somewhere else, precisely 15 kilometers from the site of her annihilation.
Once, a great beast swallowed her whole.
Then she was found a month later—beneath a tree, half a body, regrowing once more. And stranger still, she did not age. Her form, her face, her flesh… remained unchanged.
She had become an enigma that no longer stirred excitement in Simon's mind, but unease. This was no gift—no triumph over death—but a mockery of life itself. He did not seek immortality to become a mindless husk like her, an eternal shell without memory or self. He did not wish to inject into his veins something that might dissolve his very awareness into oblivion. And yet, he did not possess the luxury of time. His body was withering, and his mind—though sharp—had begun to fray at the edges, thread by thread, with every passing day spent without a definitive answer.
And so, the experiments began—experiments not to study her… but to forge from her ruin a cure for the inescapable rot of mortality. A true elixir of eternal life.