Flip the Coin [BL]-Chapter 495; || What you sow
Henry’s POV
Too few people to say he pulled in a whole city, like the one we had left already.
Too many people to say only those in the vicinity, besides the fact we had been in an airplane, and it wouldn’t make sense to have them all close to us and, consequently, beneath us.
Not everyone he had ever seen, but everyone who had at least left a vague impression on him.
And regrettably, Elisa was one of them.
I let go of her, and she stroked her neck before walking to the next mirror with a spring in her step, as if nothing had happened.
I looked back at my own reflection.
If Kenny had sucked in this many people... then his state when we leave won’t be good, just like last time, but worse...
... maybe this is even the reason I can’t find him here.
I gripped my own neck, feeling air leaving my body, and the act of taking in new air had become far too strenuous.
No, as long as we were inside here and as long as everything worked, it meant that he was fine.
Later is later; now is now.
Still.
I punched the mirror in front of me, the pain far too short to calm me before darkness engulfing me again.
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN..."
Whip, light, "JUMP!" push, fall.
I ran directly out of the circus tent this time, passing the onlookers on the hay path and hearing the violin; the man on stilts walked towards me, placing a flyer into my hand.
Instead of taking it, I grabbed his wrist and looked at his face beneath the big elaborate hat.
"Kenny..." No, not Kenny.
Gaunter, making his cheekbones more prominent, an eerie smile on his face, older than Kenny, his pupils red and smaller than average.
"The giant." I pulled him further down, intending to pull him off the stilts, but he didn’t budge at all, his expression not changing for even a second.
Kenny had assured me that the giant was no longer alive, and I believe him.
So this had to be an embodiment of him.
I let go of the giant and saw him straighten himself up; he continued to walk on the stilts, giving out flyers that displayed the woman on the coin to other people.
He took the dirt path to the left, and I followed him, bypassing Mrs. Howard and the staff sergeant again.
"HENRY! COME HERE!"
"Later, I am searching!" I bellowed, my nerves pulled taunt.
"COME HERE AND SAY THAT AGAIN! AND YOU!" In the midst she was apparently addressing someone else.
"AGAIN WITH THE ICE CREAM?!"
I ignored her, watching the giant leisurely walk and continue giving out flyers. Some took them, some pocketed them, some threw them away, and some read the flyer as if there were some genuine information on it.
Inside the wagons that alternated with vendors on each side were more people, some I didn’t recognize, but one I did.
"HEY, YOU!" The thin long-haired man sprang up upon seeing me, grabbing the bars as Mrs. Howard had.
I looked for a sign in front of his wagon but didn’t find one—only Kenny’s grandma seemed to have that honor.
"YOU! I KNOW YOU! WHERE IS THIS? A PARALLEL WORLD?" It was the long-haired gay man from prison who had angered Kenny and had his hair cut short as a result.
So he had leveled up.
And grown his hair again.
I nodded at him to answer his question before putting my finger on my lips, as if to tell him it was dangerous to continue yapping.
The gay man looked horrified and became silent, looking around paranoidly for danger.
I hadn’t stopped my steps, just briefly looked away, and the giant was gone again.
I turned around and jogged back to the circus tent in case the giant had respawned there again.
He wasn’t there, and I noticed that the little clown playing the violin at the entrance of the circus tent was gone as well.
Taking a deep breath, I turned right again on the dirt path, planning to see what came after the mirror path before I’d reset my position again.
Past the spectators, past the booths, past the wagons, and past the little empty spot with the mirrors, I found Patrick and Harry.
And the state attorney, together with Detektive Norman.
The state attorney was strapped to a stool above a water container while Patrick and Harry happily threw cakes in his face.
Every time they hit him directly in the face, he fell into the water container beneath him before getting pulled back up.
As for Detective Norman, she was beside the water container and pulled the handle each time to send the state attorney inside the tank or pull him out.
Ha. And the most interesting part was that the state attorney’s eye color was more intense than an ordinary human’s, more intense than the last time I saw them.
Either he had also worn contact lenses in the warehouse, or he leveled up in the meantime.
He tried to break free from the straps and not suffocate on either the cake or the water, clearly fighting against the two forces against him.
Aaaah... the one rather at the top of my list has been delivered to my hands...
"Is that a gift for me, Kenny?" I spread my arms and looked up at the sky, feeling like I was breathing in his scent, that he was watching me, that he was taking care of me.
I turned to the booths on the side and found something I liked.
A gun booth with targets—not real ones but airguns.
I walked to it and saw a man I had seen not long ago. The man, part of the unrest, who gave Kenny his number and who was missing an arm.
Just that he now had both of his arms.
Kenny, Kenny, Kenny, if you include others so much... then... I will get jealous.
I pointed at one of the old Beretta firearms in the back, and he instantly turned around and delivered it to me while wearing a smile on his bearded face.
Surprised how easy that was and sure that this was also the will of the literal god of this world, I walked back to the water play.
I aimed and waited.
The state attorney was fished out of the water again, and a second before the cake would meet his face, I fired.
Like with Dr. Carell, a direct hit in the eye, but this time not death followed, but an excruciating scream.
Then cake, then water, and blood coming to the surface.
I chuckled.
"Kenny, I really like this game." I just wish I could win you a cute plushy.
Maybe a little puppy dog holding a heart—his own heart.
I reloaded and waited for the target to reappear.
Out of the water, the state attorney trembled and tried to open his only eye left to see his attacker through water droplets and sticky cake remnants.
"NO, NO!" He yelled with all his might in between coughs.
"So cooperative," I mumbled, aimed, and shot directly into his open mouth.
He choked, then got cake, then water. I reloaded.
This time he couldn’t scream as he was in the midst of suffocating from the hit and the water he had breathed in while writhering in pain.
He coughed water out; he wheezed. I aimed.
And it was a direct hit again—making him a blind man if he even survived the next dunk in the water.
I blew the end of the Barrett air barrette coolly to show my most handsome side and looked up at the sky.
Did you see that, Kenny?
"Why aren’t you here to praise me?" I whispered, waited, then walked further down the dirt path after throwing the barrett back to the bearded man, who caught it with both hands and bowed.
I first walked in between the people and tried to categorize them; I tried to remember who they were and if I had ever seen them, but in the end, I started to run blindly to the end of the dirt path, the impatience and anxiousness consuming me wholly.
I ran between spectators, smudged or not, who seemed to lessen the further down I ran.
And eventually, when I was the only one left in the dark with just the firs surrounding me, the dirt path ended.
My gut feeling did not disappoint; there was Ethan inside the booth to the right.
Right ahead of me, two meters apart, were two poles, with a thin metal chain in between them.
Ethan didn’t seem as controlled, just dazed.
I stepped up to the booth window, and he, clothed in a steampunk butler outfit and a monocle on his face, reached his hand out as if waiting for a token.
I thought of the paper the giant had distributed, but I didn’t have one on me. The same with the paper planes.
I stepped to the poles and the thin chain, reaching my hand out.
As I thought, a thin wall, a barrier right behind the chain, but there was definitely something behind it.
I have to reset my position again and see if I am right about the token... though...
Taking a closer look, there hung a small lock on the metal chain.
Four numbers.
I put in the number I had chosen when Kenny asked me.
1 for one letter: I
4 for four letters: love
3 for three letters: you
8 because it resembles the infinity sign.
After putting in the last number, the chain fell, and my body trembled with desperate as well as thrilled anticipation.
I reached my hand out; the wall was gone.
Picking up my speed, I flew over grass, up something like a big hill, and when I arrived at the top, I froze.
I watched the carousel in front of me, searching between the figures for Kenny, reassuring myself that every time the carousel turned, he would be there.
A man, a boy, and a girl are sitting stoically on plastic horses that turned against the clock.
Kenny clearly wasn’t there and wouldn’t turn up here.
However.
In addition to the man and two kids, there were five people around the carousel—four wearing orange jumpsuits, while the last one was clothed in a guard’s uniform.
With the chains around their necks, they pulled the carousel.
I covered my face and laughed out loud.
MORE PRESENTS FOR ME, MY LOVE?
Perfect timing because, as you know... a dog abandoned by his god tends to turn—
