Act II "There Was No End"
Darwin watched in distaste as Herman downed his seventh glass of whiskey, each consumed like water.
With his patience exhausted, he asked plainly, "Have you received any word from your superior about Ciel?"
Herman raised an eyebrow, set his glass on the wooden table with a clink, and leaned in, folding his arms. The background buzzed with drunken debates on horse races, factory layoffs, and the Queen's health. The air reeked of wet wool and overcooked meat. A loud laugh morphed into a cough. Darwin's eyes scanned the room, noting exits.
After a moment's contemplation, Herman said in a gravelly tone, "I haven't heard anything."
Darwin bit the inside of his lip, exhaled a resigned sigh, and slumped back on the stool.
Herman picked up his glass and added, "You probably expected that."
Herman studied Darwin, searching for a reaction. Receiving none, he took a long sip from his glass.
Darwin's gaze fell to the empty glasses before Herman. He reached out, placed his index finger on the rim of one, and tipped it back and forth.
After releasing it, the glass rolled to the table's edge, and teetered, then settled near the brink.
"I no longer know what to expect. There was a time I thought I was losing my mind, believing I'd wiped out nearly an entire town."
Herman frowned, sliding his attention onto the toppled glass as well.
Without any signs of emotion, Darwin continued, "Even now, though it's over, I still feel the weight of those lives, as if I took them myself."
Herman sighed. "You eliminated those responsible. At least, that's what you told me. All who wronged this town are gone. What troubles you when they're all dead?"
Darwin clicked his tongue. "Do you think that just because they're dead, I'm free of burden? Believe it or not, I formed bonds with some of those criminals. Perhaps part of this weight is grief. But I suspect it's more than that."
Herman's hand hovered over a glass. He let out a curious hum. "What else do you think it is?"
Darwin's gaze remained fixed on the glass near the table's edge. Instead of answering, he posed an unexpected question: "When something ends," he began slowly, "does it truly conclude? Or does it merely become inaccessible; sealed away and waiting until someone stumbles upon it?"
He didn't blink. "I'm not aiming to be poetic. I mean this literally. What if endings only seem final because we can't access what comes next?"
Herman frowned, puzzled by Darwin's words. Instead of voicing his confusion, he remarked, "You've been left alone with your thoughts for too long."
Darwin finally looked away from the glass, a warm smile forming as he chuckled. "Perhaps."
Herman's curiosity piqued. "Can you elaborate on that?"
Straightening his posture, Darwin considered the request. Herman wasn't typically philosophical, preferring pragmatism unless it benefited his reputation as a reporter. His interest was uncharacteristic.
After a brief pause, Darwin responded, "Imagine finishing a story. No one else reads it; no one knows it exists. Has it truly ended? Or is it merely paused, like an abandoned house remaining dark until someone tries the door?"
Herman shrugged. "If you've read it, it's finished. What does it matter if no one else does? You're not everyone."
Darwin offered a humorless smile. "That's the common belief, isn't it? If you've seen it, done it, understood it, then it's complete. The rest of the world can remain ignorant, and it won't change what's yours."
He ran a hand through his hair, leaving the strands disheveled.
"Perhaps that's why many believe they've reached an end when in truth, they've merely ceased searching. Some things aren't meant to be concluded alone."
Herman glanced sideways. "You speak like someone who has witnessed a curtain fall yet still hears sounds behind it."
Darwin didn't refute. "Maybe I declared something finished because I needed it to be. But recently, it feels less like it's dead and more like it's silent. Waiting for someone slower to catch up."
Before they could continue, the table jolted toward Herman.
The glass that had been teetering on the edge toppled, shattering between them.
Both men looked up to see a visibly intoxicated man. His flushed cheeks and unsteady gait betrayed his state.
He mumbled incoherently before the bar owner's stern voice cut through, ordering him to halt and clean up the mess.
Instead, the man turned abruptly and rushed out the door.
Darwin's gaze lingered momentarily on the spot where the man had stood.
Herman's voice betrayed curious bewilderment, as he asked, "Wasn't that man... deceased?"
Darwin briskly stood up, his chair scraping the floor, and quickly pursued the retreating figure.
Herman's voice called after him, but Darwin was already through the door.
His mind struggled to repress the swell of memories that were threatening to surface.
His face turned ashen as he recalled the one he had believed was beaten and driven to suicide moments earlier.
Initially, Darwin might have dismissed the resemblance as a mere coincidence; a chance likeness between two individuals.
After all, the man he had seen lifeless bore severe facial injuries and burn scars on his face and arms, marks he had assumed were relics of past violence.
The person he'd just chased, however, appeared untouched by such afflictions.
Yet, the insinuations he'd subtly woven into his conversation with Herman gnawed at him, compelling him to rise abruptly and pursue the figure into the night.
The streets were sparsely populated, the hour still a few hours shy of dawn.
The man, like many in the town, was cloaked in dark attire, blending seamlessly with the atmosphere past midnight.
Darwin found himself scouring the dimly lit avenues when the man vanished from sight immediately after exiting the pub.
After an hour of fruitless searching, he entered a spacious structure to steady his breath, which had grown erratic from a mounting sense of dread.
As he leaned against the entrance, he inwardly cursed his failure to apprehend a drunken man who had barely been able to walk before fleeing.
Once Darwin had managed to regain his composure, he began to survey his surroundings.
He deciphered swiftly that he was standing in an abandoned theater. There was a silent static that enveloped him like a heavy shroud.
The entrance hall was a rotunda, its tarnished sconces lining the walls.
The tiled floor bore the marks of long-dried water stains and footprints.
Despite its spaciousness, the area was utterly vacant, with not even a faint draft stirring beneath the towering archway behind him.
Some gas lamps had long since extinguished, leaving stretches of the hall shrouded in darkness.
The air was thick with the scent of mildew, aged drapery, and the faint tang of wax gone rancid.
The theatre was magnificent, yes, but not in the way that impressed.
It felt preserved by neglect, as though time itself had sealed it off from the rest of the city. A performance hall where no one performed.
Darwin's eyes narrowed ahead before he chuckled quietly under his breath.
The sound was devoid of amusement.
How cruel a coincidence this has been.
His heel scrapped against the stone floor as he turned slightly, preparing to leave.
Suddenly, he paused and drew his gaze to the corridor ahead.
Although it was dimly lit, he was able to make out the brass handrail that traced the stairway coated in a layer of dust.
He inhaled slowly, pausing before striding past the entrance.
His footsteps echoed loudly, as the long tail of his coat trailed behind.
The passage narrowed as it sloped inward, with rows of aged portraits hanging crookedly along the walls.
Tenors, composers, and ballerinas; their faces were either frozen in half-smiles or elegant poses. Many were faded, with the names engraved beneath barely legible.
The further he ambled inside, the more the aroma gradually changed into that of extinguished gas, and lacquered wood.
He passed through a second archway and entered the grand auditorium. A dome loomed above, barely visible in the dim light.
The chains of a grand chandelier overhead groaned quietly, however, the only source of light came from the gas sconces below, flickering as they cast bent reflections on the walls.
Tiered balconies ascended the curved walls like stacked coffins.
In the stalls below, rows upon rows of empty chairs stretched toward the stage; some with frayed cushions, others with backs cracked from long-forgotten pressure.
Darwin's steps slowed as his eyes scanned the orchestra pit, then drifted toward the rear of the central section.
Near the back, two unremarkable seats sat side by side.
For some reason, an inexplicable urge guided Darwin toward them.
He reached the row, and peered down, before taking a seat. The chair creaked faintly beneath him.
Before him, the empty stage lay shrouded in curtains drawn, and unlit footlight.
Strangely, in that profound silence, a melody seemed to emanate from beneath the floorboards.
It wasn't heard with the ears but felt, as if just the wood and stone recalled the tune of a sequence he had heard only once before, many years ago.
Back then, he had entered this very place with no intention of watching a performance, merely seeking to disappear for a while.
He had been an isolated man navigating a city that never acknowledged his existence.
Though his isolation had been a choice, embedded in the belief that forming connections meant exposure, and exposure meant confronting the condition that clung to him like a shadow, Darwin now reflected on that decision with a complex mix of emotions.
Here, in this very seat, a man had spoken to him without caution with no explanations, or demands; just a brief conversation that, in hindsight, marked both a beginning and an ending he had never anticipated.
In one night, he had dismantled decades of self-preservation, surrendering them all to Gabriel. From that moment onward, he ceased to be what he once was and became who he was now.
A long pause stretched in his thoughts before bitterness began to brew within him. 'Ordinarily, one might feel a deep debt toward such a person. After all, he offered me a revered life.'
Nevertheless, Darwin's feelings were far from gratitude. 'But if I could go back; if I were forced to lose everything I have now and live nameless, I still would have killed Gabriel the instant he introduced himself.'
'For all he had done, he owed me his life. And now that I've already taken it... I still feel that he is indebted to me.'
In the quietude of that long-dead hall, Darwin finally leaned back into the seat he had once abandoned. In the end, there was never truly an end…
Merely what had been left was a quiet prolonging of what should have died long ago.
. . .
{You have concluded the exposition}