Sunblind Serpent: The Zodiac Without A House

Beyond a transit station, there was a passage. However, there were slight geographical deviations from the old map they were using. This had happened so many times that they’d become numb to it.

”It’s usually like this when a Newborn World like yours is awakened into the Prime Continuum,” Rhovan said.

Rafe checked the distance twice. Comparing the current geography to the old map, the next station should have been more than two kilometers away. But they reached it after walking for less than a thousand meters.

The next station had become a temporary resting point. People slept along the platform behind sheets tied to advertising frames, while a medical table occupied the old ticket booth.

When they arrived there, they went their separate ways.

There were no guards or soldiers stationed within this station. This allowed them to investigate and find more clues openly. They still took precautions and divided the work among themselves.

Dario and Rafe remained outside the station to watch out for any movements. Kellan accompanied Silas as the latter searched for clues, although he kept on complaining. Nadia chose to accompany Marek and Rhovan. Meanwhile, Eren was just trying to observe the people within the station.

Marek, with Nadia following him, approached a woman who seemed to be in charge of managing arrivals of people. If Mara had been here, then this person could recognize her.

He showed her Mara’s picture.

She recognized her almost immediately. ”Blonde girl? Complained about the water? The talkative girl?”

Marek closed his eyes for half a second. ”Yes, that’s her. She’s my si—”

”Have you seen her here?” Rhovan cut him off. ”Who was she with?”

Marek immediately read his intention for cutting him off. ’Right, I can’t be searching for my sister, telling everybody that she is my sister...’

The managing woman pondered it and quickly said, ”Oh! I could recall that she was with a woman in silver-white clothes!”

”When did they get here?”

”Previous dark period, I think? Maybe early light?” she responded, uncertain as to when exactly. ”I can’t really remember that well.”

Marek wrote down what she said in his notebook. He then asked, ”Was there another woman with them? Like mid-forties, hospital uniform?”

The woman thought for several seconds before she shook her head. ”No. I don’t remember anyone with the description you gave me.”

Relief and disappointment arrived together, and Marek disliked both. Mara had passed through, but their mother had not been seen with her. He then looked at his notebook as the woman added, ”The girl asked if anyone named Marek Vale had come through.”

”What did you say?” He lifted his head once again.

”I am not familiar with the name, so I told her nobody had come through with that name.”

”Did she leave anything? Like a note or some things for Marek Vale?”

”No,” the woman replied.

A folded paper note slipped and fell from his notebook. It was the same note he got from their home, the one they transferred to. Somehow, the paper’s actual weight became heavier than it should be.

He already knew that Mara might be looking for him, but hearing that she had stood in this exact station and asked whether he had arrived made the distance between them feel more ridiculous than frightening.

’That silly sister of mine...’ Marek thought. ’I just hope you’re safe... Mara.’

For more than a week, all three of them had been roving around the same city without finding one another at all. Mara moved north and west. Amara was trying to follow her trail. And Marek followed both.

It somehow reminded him of something that happened before all of this came to be.

Mara had been eleven at that time. At the hospital’s laundry, their mother had taken a double shift, while Marek had something to do at his school and promised to bring Mara home after that.

The worst thing that could happen was that—he forgot his promise. Not completely, but it somehow made it worse. He was at a bus station at that time. He boarded the bus so peacefully without anything in mind. Then, he did not realize that the bus he boarded went in the wrong direction.

By the time he reached her school, the gate was already closed. Mara was inside the guard house eating some crackers. When she saw him arrive, she just stared at him through the glass long enough that Marek had apologized repeatedly before she finally opened the door.

As Mara walked out, she just walked past him without saying a word.

Three blocks later, she stopped at an intersection and, without looking at him, caught his sleeve.

Marek looked at her small hand. ”You’re still mad at me.”

”Yes.”

”Then, why are you holding me?”

”Cars.”

He glanced at the traffic and said nothing else.

Until they reached their home, she did not release her grip on his sleeve. Amara scolded Marek so badly that he apologized again, and Mara just grumbled as she accepted his apology only after he bought and cooked her some noodles.

Marek turned to his backpack at the moment.

Eleven packets.

Rhovan, who was there during the whole conversation, looked at Marek. ”You are thinking about her.”

Marek did not reply, but his silence already explained everything. Suddenly, the surroundings felt like a different kind of Quiet Room. Something not created deliberately but brought about by memories of one person he held most dearly.

”She knows I’m looking for her,” he said, walking away aimlessly.

Rhovan just followed him. Nadia did the same. They knew that Marek went through ups and downs just to try to find his sister. In fact, Nadia also had a sister of her own—albeit an older one. If she had time, she would also try to find her whereabouts. After all, as a detainee for months, they had been separated for quite a while.

In silence, they went outside the station.

Then, they continued west.

Along the way, they saw a ’Family Request Board’ from outside a station. Looking at it, one line near the middle was a series of texts in a specific handwriting he knew too well.

’So, she had also passed this place...’

Linden City was such a small city compared to big ones, but it felt bigger to him now. Both their mother and Mara herself felt so far yet so near every time he’d find a clue about them.

AMARA VALE — ASKED FOR M. VALE AND MARA VALE.

Below this written text, the handwriting somehow felt tired. It said:

LEFT WEST.

He knew her handwriting too well that every time she wrote labels for his things before, her handwriting would change depending on how tired she was. This one, it somehow translated to weariness.

Marek gently touched the edge of the board, resting his hand over his mother’s handwriting. ”Mom was here too... she was here...”