NOVEL NEXT Chapter 60 - [Who Killed Cock Robin?]
Where did everything go so terribly wrong?
What is bothering me so much?
The boy posed these questions to none other than himself.
Could this have been averted had I not cowered from the rain?
No, if only I had been more obedient from the start.
Instead of acting based on my own judgments and decisions, if I had simply followed orders as I had always done previously.
Then this tragedy might never have transpired.
“…Robin.”
Drenched in crimson, the boy returned to the bedroom, to the girl’s side.
“Robin, I…”
And he beheld those eyes that had once twinkled with such incandescent radiance-
Now extinguished into empty, hollow emerald voids bereft of all light.
“I… I was the one who…”
Tremulously uttering the girl’s name as he grasped her arm, the boy found himself at an utter loss.
What could he possibly say to her? What words could offer any solace?
I’m sorry? It was my fault? It will be alright?
What consolations could ameliorate such harrowing torment…? What should he say?
“…Araignée.”
Clinging to the motionless girl while floundering in indecision, a hoarse, ragged whisper reached the boy’s ears – the girl’s voice, yet tinged with an unfamiliar, spent rasp.
“…Robin…?”
Not the vivacious lilt he had grown so accustomed to, but a voice drained of all vitality.
Instinctively raising his gaze toward that feeble utterance, Araignée’s eyes met Robin’s ashen countenance twisted into a ghastly rictus – a perverse mockery of a smile.
No, could that wretched contortion even be considered a smile?
Gone was that radiant, sunshine-warm beam that had once dazzled him.
This haggard, pained grimace seemed an unstable, almost bestial baring of teeth more than any true semblance of mirth.
“I followed her… because she said she could reunite us…”
From that vacant, hollow smile, Araignée sensed an overwhelming dread more viscerally potent than any he had ever experienced – an existential terror transcending his comprehension.
“Since Carmen was someone I knew… I trusted her…”
The barren oasis, the starless night sky concealing its luminous pinpricks.
The withered, desiccated rose, the serpent rendered impotent to swallow its intended pachyderm prey.
“…I’m sorry, Araignée.”
The Robin Araignée had cherished, the Little Prince traversing that hallowed desert, was no longer there.
“I should never… have believed… in fairy tales…”
Only a pitiful child remained, abandoned with shattered limbs amidst that arid wasteland’s desolation.
“…Don’t say such things…”
Why would you apologize to me?
“Robin did nothing wrong…”
You are but an innocent child, deceived by the machinations of adults.
“The ones who were wrong… were the adults…”
They are the ones who committed unforgivable sin, the malicious adults who inflicted these agonies upon a helpless child.
“I should be the one to… instead…”
Curse me instead.
Me, the wretched spawn of that vile creature, powerless and incompetent to prevent any of this.
Me, the imbecile fool who dared defy her only to meet such ruinous consequences.
“…Araignée.”
Yet Robin didn’t condemn Araignée, merely tenderly caressing his cheek with a mournful, bittersweet gaze.
“…I have a request.”
“…A request…?”
And in that instant, Araignée comprehended the implication behind Robin’s remorseful apology.
“…Robin…? What are you doing…?”
For Robin had grasped Araignée’s hands, guiding them toward her own throat.
“…No.”
No.
“This, this can’t be. Not this, anything but this.”
Araignée wasn’t a fool. He understood full well the profoundly disturbing significance behind Robin’s gesture.
“No, please don’t do this. Don’t ask this of me. I am the one at fault, so…!!”
And so he instinctively attempted to wrench his hands from that fatal stranglehold poised against her neck, thrashing in desperation.
“…Araignée.”
Yet he found himself powerless to resist.
Those once lustrous, celestial irises that Araignée had so adored – now drained of all starry incandescence, overflowing with utter, all-consuming desolation instead.
“…Nngghh…!?”
Thus rendering them all the more breathtakingly beautiful in their infinite, profound sorrow.
“Araignée, help me.”
Only then did Araignée comprehend the full extent of Robin’s shattered condition:
Robin could no longer dream.
Not now, perhaps not ever again.
Her palette of whimsical reveries had been irreparably shredded, the canvas of that once vibrant imagination now rendered a tattered, mutilated obscenity.
For the Little Prince was a child first and foremost before any exalted fairy tale royalty.
Small, delicate, fragile – a mere child stripped of her innocence’s sanctuary.
“…Don’t… Robin…”
Tears – rivulets of liquid anguish mingling raindrops and perspiration yet slightly warmer, streaking down Araignée’s pallid cheeks.
“Araignée, let me-“
Yet heedless of those plaintive droplets, Robin voiced the edict Araignée had desperately yearned to defy with every last fiber of his being:
“…Let me sleep.”
If Robin had sought vengeance against Araignée, no retribution could have been more utterly devastating in its genius.
“…Okay…”
For Araignée had already been thoroughly and irrevocably tamed by her – he could never disobey his master’s commands, not even this one.
“…Goodbye… Robin…”
No matter how abhorrent the directive.
Who killed cock Robin?
I, said the Sparrow,
With my bow and arrow, I killed Cock Robin.
Who saw him die?
I, said the Fly,
With my little eye, I saw him die.
Who caught his blood?
I, said the Fish,
With my little dish, I caught his blood.
Who’ll make his shroud?
I, said the Beetle,
With my little needle, I’ll make the shroud.
Who’ll dig his grave?
I, said the Owl,
With my pick and shovel, I’ll dig his grave.
Who’ll be chief mourner?
I, said the Dove,
I mourn for my love, I’ll be chief mourner.
Who’ll carry the coffin?
I, said the Kite,
If it’s not through the night, I’ll carry the coffin.
Who’ll sing a psalm?
I, said the Thrush,
As she sat on a bush, I’ll sing a psalm.
Who killed Cock Robin?
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…Who killed Cock Robin?
I, said the Spider,
With my two hands, I killed him.
The one who saw him die, the one who caught his blood, the one who made his shroud.
The one who dug his grave, the one who became chief mourner.
The one who carried the coffin, the one who sang the psalm.
They were all me, it was all me.
All the birds of the air
Fell a-sighing and a-sobbing,
When they heard the bell toll
For poor Cock Robin.
Yet the Spider couldn’t bring himself to shed a single tear, for his decimated heart could weep no more.
Shattered beyond the capacity for mourning the Nightingale’s demise.