Once again, Duncan was in the hospital, but this time he was standing outside a private ward with Cade, waiting for those inside to finish their conversation.It took a moment for Duncan to recover from the disorientation caused by the sudden shift in scenes, which Duncan was already used to by now.It was how the curse usually operated… rather than let Duncan experience a complete memory from start to finish, which usually took place over a span of several weeks at the shortest or several months at their longest… the illusion usually jumped between certain key scenes that were very vital to the overall storyline and would easily influence the whole narrative.Leaving that aside…Duncan took in his current location and frowned, his brows knitting very tightly. Although the location seemed familiar, this wasn’t something that had taken place in Duncan’s original memories.That meant that things had already developed just as Duncan had feared… the plot was deviating from how it original

Shortly after waking up here, Duncan, after considering everything, finally came to a decision on what to do.By this time, the police captain just happened to finish his conversation with Alice and finally left the room.Seeing Duncan and Cade waiting outside the room, the police captain quickly said to them, “Follow me.”With that simple instruction, the police captain led Duncan and Cade to a corner of the hospital, not far from Alice’s room.After stopping, the captain said, “Alright, you two. I’ve finished talking to the victim, Miss Alice, and I’ve managed to convince her not to press charges for what happened to her in the precinct, and the station is going to be covering the bill for her stay here in this hospital. With all of this settled and the criminal involved taken care of, I don’t think there will be any blowback from the press or the public about what happened today. As long as everybody in the station keeps quiet, then we should all be fine.”“That’s good,” Duncan and

The captain left, leaving only Duncan and Cade standing guard outside Alice’s room.Shortly after the captain left, Cade, who had been fidgeting for a while now with obvious curiosity in his eyes, could no longer hold back and quickly asked Duncan the question he’d wanted to ask all this time.“Hey, what were the two of you talking about back then? What is Summit?”Duncan, after hearing Cade’s question, was pulled away from his thoughts and looked at the younger man.For a moment, Duncan didn’t answer but instead stared at Cade for a little while longer.Unnerved by Duncan’s staring, Cade asked, “What is it? Why are you looking at me like that?”Eventually, Duncan finally looked away from Cade, but not before answering.“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Duncan said.“What’s that supposed to mean?” Cade asked with a frown.But Duncan completely ignored that question. He said instead, “Stay here. I need to go inside and talk to the patient. Don’t let anybody in for any reason unless I say so

Alice reacted as well as one would expect to Duncan’s news, considering how potentially fatal it made her situation out to be. She was initially surprised and a little uneasy, her face knitting up with a frown, but overall, Alice was still as calm as she’d always been before.In fact, Alice was so calm that it was kind of strange and creepy, almost like she didn’t care about her own life at all, which in and of itself was very wrong.All living beings possess a biological instinct for self-preservation, and their first instinct when confronted with a danger that potentially threatens their life is panic, then denial.But for Alice, it just seemed like none of those emotions existed for her—so much so that one would wonder if she even had any emotions at all, and if her calm was simply a mask meant to hide the deadness and emptiness within her.Duncan, knowing Alice very well, was used to seeing her like this, but not even he knew what lay beneath the mask of calm that Alice always wor

Initially, when Duncan had started yelling, his loud voice had been heard ringing throughout the surroundings, which immediately drew some attention to the commotion.Cade, who wasn’t far away, had heard Duncan’s voice, causing him to immediately frown.“What is that old guy shouting for now?” Cade wondered, but he didn’t move to investigate the reason immediately, as he was very reluctant to end his conversation with the nurse in front of him.Of the original two that Cade was talking to, only one of them was present, with the other having gone to perform a task.The remaining nurse, having also heard Duncan’s voice, was frowning right now with a concerned look on her face, so Cade tried to comfort her.“Hey, don’t mind the commotion. It’s just my partner being insufferable. That’s how he is, so there’s nothing to be concerned about. I’m sure he’ll dial it down in a moment.”But instead of Duncan’s voice subsiding as Cade had said, he continued shouting with even more urgency, making