Chapter 37 Chapter 36 The Words on the Palm

Leon was awakened by a piercing sound. For a while, he put the tone into his dream, but the content of the dream had long been lost in his memory the moment he woke up.In his dream, there was Natalie, the basement, a door that looked like a safe, and a long dark passage.However, he could not continue the dream because of the strong auditory stimulation.Leon couldn't continue to ignore the ringing phone, so he opened his eyes. Who could it be? It was dark in the bedroom.Leon fumbled for the light switch on the bedside table like a blind man.As he turned to the side, the smell of fresh laundry and softener hit his nostrils.For a brief moment he thought angrily that Natalie had deliberately ignored his superstitions and put on new sheets just as the new year passed.Then he realized that the new sheets were the smallest of the things he had to worry about right now.

The ringing of the phone in the corridor drove away Leon's drowsiness.The empty side of the bed brought him back to reality and wide awake. I'm alone, damn it. "Alright! Alright! I'm coming!" Leon shouted angrily.When he pulled back the quilt, he couldn't help wondering whether he drank too much or too little yesterday.His voice sounded hoarse, his mouth felt parched, and his throat was stuck, as if he had swallowed shards of glass. Speaking of shards of glass.I have to remember to fix that lamp that fell from the ceiling a few days ago. Before going to bed last night, Leon took off his clothes, and now he looked around, but he couldn't find jeans and a thick cotton T-shirt. What lay on the desk was a set of blue overalls with suspenders, and a pair of boots under the chair. He only had I only wear these shoes when I go to the construction site.

Hell, how did these equipment appear here? Leon was still in deep sleep, a sleep that seemed to exhaust him rather than refresh him.He shuffled out to the corridor naked and grabbed the wireless phone from the main unit. "Hey?" Leon heard the sound of static first, and he thought it might be his adoptive parents trying to call him from the cruise ship he was traveling on, the one he had given them as a Christmas present.However, a slightly hesitant familiar voice sounded next to my ear: "It's me." "Sven?" Leon touched his thinning hair in puzzlement, it felt like it hadn't been washed for a long time, it was dirty and hard.

"What the hell happened to call me in the middle of the night?" "What midnight? It's already afternoon." "what?" Leon went to the kitchen, wanting to get something to drink. "Don't talk nonsense." As he opened the kitchen door, the postcard Natalie had left him, the one with the Van Gogh sunflowers, had just come loose from the message board and dropped to the floor. "I'm not in the mood to joke right now," Sven said.At this moment, Leon stood motionless in front of the refrigerator as if the soles of his feet had taken root.

"This is impossible!" Leon's eyes turned to the LED clock on the refrigerator door, the green numbers blurred by tired eyes.Even so, the number still proves what Shi Wen said is true, and the time displayed on it is "17:22". It's impossible, I can't sleep that long.Leon felt as tired as if he had just helped someone move. "I'm sorry," Leon moaned, "did I miss some important appointment?" Leon vaguely remembered that he had a client who was throwing a birthday party recently. "Yes. But I didn't call for that." Although Shi Wen spoke very intently and slowly, he had to pause every time he said two words.

"You sound very excited," Leon asked cautiously in order not to hurt Shi Wen.He couldn't bear it when someone directly talked to Sven about his language barrier. "What happened?" Did we lose the contract for the new hospital? After Natalie left Leon for seemingly no reason, Leon has been numbing himself with work these days.Focusing on making architectural models day and night, I never stepped out of the house or entered the office once.Therefore, Shi Wen came to Leon's residence and took the model away. "That's what I was going to ask you. Are you feeling better?"

"Better?" Leon opened the refrigerator door and took out the milk, "Why do you ask?" "The last time we met, you were completely out of your mind. I was so scared by you that I ran away from your house. Later, I blamed myself for leaving you there alone, but the fact of the cat was disgusting." "What meeting? What cat? What are you talking about?" Leon directly drank the milk in the Tetra Pak package.As long as Natalie was taking her ridiculous vacation and avoiding him, at least she couldn't blame him for ignoring her because he was busy with work.That's the only benefit of his involuntary singleness.As long as Natalie could return to Leon again, he would be happy to give up this benefit.

"I mean yesterday, when I brought the architectural model back to your house." Sven stuttered even more excitedly. "Send it back?" Leon only remembered that Sven took the architectural model.They haven't been in touch with each other since then. "Yes! Send it back to your studio," Sven insisted, "I put it on your desk." "If it's a joke, let me tell you, it's not funny at all." Leon put the milk back in its place.At this moment, he found ink marks on the palm of his right hand. "laptop?" Leon stared blankly at his hand, as if that hand was not his, but belonged to another strange body.

When did I scribble the word "laptop" all over my skin?Why should I write? Leon was even more confused when he noticed that he was also misusing his left hand like a notebook. 07-05 Leon couldn't think of any reason in this world to explain why he had to write down these numbers.Because he didn't need any reminder at all to remember this date.The date of the car accident, on which Leon lost his biological parents. "If you don't believe me, go and check for yourself!" Shi Wen demanded. "Check what?" Leon asked absentmindedly. "Check out that model."

Leon nodded absently and said, "Okay, I will." Leon left the kitchen, with an ominous premonition rising from the bottom of his heart.When he stepped into the studio, that premonition turned into a terrible reality. It started again. The evidence was right in front of his eyes.In the middle of the desk.The model, the one he'd made the past few days, was in its place again.Sticky notes were taped to the model, noting what Sven wanted to change. "Are you okay?" Leon heard his partner ask.Although nothing is normal anymore for Leon, he replies that everything is normal.

Leon walked to the desk and stroked the roof of the emergency room on the model with his index finger. "Was I there? Did you speak to me?" "Say something more or less. You seemed to be in a trance and said some random nonsense." Sven's stuttering became more and more obvious.It took Sven twice as long as usual to finish the sentence clearly.Leon's brain was working like a broken handbrake, the slower Shi Wen spoke, the more time Leon had to recall what happened here. Leon closed his eyes. "I'm sorry, I'm afraid I can't count to three right now." "Yesterday you couldn't count to two. You were a different person then, Leon." I know that when I'm sleepwalking in my deep sleep, that's how I've always been. "Don't get me wrong, but as your best friend, I have to ask you something." "What's up?" "Are you on drugs?" Leon shook his head vigorously: "No, that's not the case." Things get worse than that. Shi Wen didn't seem to believe Leon, and continued to ask: "My younger brother was addicted to LSD. Every time he smoked and became excited to a certain extent, he would appear in a state of blank expression and trance, just like you yesterday Same as when you're talking crazy nonsense." "It's possible, but I swear to you, I wouldn't touch anything like that." My dark side is presented in another form. "So, your phenomenon is really only caused by Natalie's disappearance?" "Wait a minute. Who told you Natalie was missing." "You!" Shi Wen shouted into the receiver in surprise. Leon snorted angrily: "Nonsense! Natalie just wants to take a few days off. Didn't I tell you that she wrote the card?" ...I need some space... so that I can clearly understand how our relationship should continue... "That's why I called you, Leon. Because I don't know, what should I believe. First, you told me that Natalie should have had a fight with you and left you. When you wake up in the morning , she is no longer here." "That's right. You also suggested that I wait and see and divert my attention from work." "I thought you had done what I said. Then, when I was at the party, you called me and said you might have hurt Natalie. Yesterday you told me again emotionally that you might have killed Natalie Locked in the maze behind your closet." "What?" Leon laughed incredulously, "Now I should ask you seriously, are you taking drugs?" Leon left the studio, wanting to get some clothes to wear.The heating was not turned on all night, and the room was extremely cold.Leon coughed lightly. "It's not funny at all, Leon. Honestly, I don't know, what made me worry about you so much. Was it what you said yesterday, about hurting Natalie, or you locked Natalie in your closet In the maze behind, this fact that you don't want to remember, makes me feel worried for you." "It has nothing to do with willingness or not..." Leon corrected Shi Wen as he walked towards the bedroom.Leon was unable to finish his sentence due to the tingling sensation caused by the punctured sole. "What's the matter with you?" Leon's angry curse aroused Shiwen's doubts. "Sorry, I don't know what I stepped on." Leon bent down to check the soles of his shoes.He picked up what he had stepped on, unable to believe he was holding this in his hand. The last time Leon wore a similar device was in the distant past, when he was still receiving treatment from Dr. Wowalt. "Anyway, you give me the feeling that you are completely at a loss." Shi Wen continued.But Shi Wen's words were overshadowed by the slowly rising tinnitus in Leon's ears.The tinnitus sounded that Leon's migraine was about to attack. Or, something worse than this happened. Leon was holding the headband he had just picked up from the floor, and he was holding another piece of evidence in his hand, which was enough to prove that Leon's sleepwalking symptoms at night had recurred. When did I buy this camcorder? The camera lens is dirty, and a wire hangs loosely by the side.The motion-sensing head-mounted camera has a clumsy, clumsy feel, as if it's been whipped up in a hasty situation by someone who's too stressed to concentrate. Or, that person wasn't made while conscious. "You even wanted to show me a video. According to you, it was when you were looking for Natalie in a deep sleep state, and you took a video of yourself looking for Natalie." Shi Wen said. a video? Because of the tinnitus, Leon had an unreal, almost schizophrenic feeling.On the one hand, everything Shi Wen said seemed reasonable; on the other hand, Leon felt that his friend Shi Wen seemed to be speaking to him in a language he couldn't understand. Leon tucked the receiver between his chin and shoulder so he could have both hands free to study the headband and the camera.If what Shi Wen said about the video is true, then it should be able to be played again. Leon wanted to go back to his studio and start his computer.But then he remembered the words written on the palm of his right hand. laptop. There is only one mobile computer in this house. "Are you still listening?" Leon heard Shi Wen ask. Leon didn't answer, and went straight to the bedroom. After reaching the bedroom, Leon first pushed the chair aside, and then picked up the neatly folded, dirty blue overalls from the table. What the hell is this... Leon expected to find Natalie's laptop under the overalls, but he didn't expect that there would be a USB flash drive inserted into the laptop, and the lights were flashing rhythmically. Leon opened the laptop, started the computer, and curled up into a ball, as if afraid that the machine would wake up from a static state with a deep and loud roar. "Hey, Leon. Why aren't you talking?" Because I have nothing to say.Worse, I'm afraid I'm missing a part of me. A replay window of the video file appears on the computer screen.Seeing this picture, Leon suddenly no longer felt cold.His entire body was paralyzed, and he no longer felt any external stimuli. Leon's right hand was tightly clenched into a fist, and the nails were sunk deep into the flesh.Before answering Shi Wen's question, when he was still hesitating whether to press the replay button, he let go of his fist, moved the mouse to the screen with his index finger, and pointed to the playback place. "What's wrong with you now?" Shi Wen asked in horror. No.Nothing happened. The video file was not opened, but a dialog box popped up asking for a password. How the hell do I remember what password I picked while I was asleep? Leon was so frightened that he held his breath.Then he slowly spread his left palm out, his eyes fixed on the pair of numbers separated by a solid period. 07.05 "I'll call you back right away." After saying this, Leon hung up the phone.Next, Leon entered the date of the accident into the computer. The video is on.