“Do you have a mirror in there?”
The requests for looking inside her bag had come in rapid succession, so she wasn’t too surprised of its presence this time.
“I think I’ve got one,” she said, fishing a compact one out.
“It’s too small. I need something bigger.”
“Couldn’t I just transcribe one letter at a time? I’m sure it’d be much easier - ”
“I need to see the message in its entirety. ‘Take in Everything at Once’, remember?”
Despite his protests, she still felt the need to figure it out herself.
“E...F...I...”
It took her longer than expected, since her mind kept wandering after reading just two backwards letters, and keeping the Tattooed Man’s attention away from her stealing glances off his chest.
“E...L...L...”
After he’d recovered enough to stand up, it was easier to look at him, now that his arms weren’t in the way. They’d been looking for a sturdy reflective platform for some time now, but for some reason, there were a lot of mirrored surfaces that had been warped or smashed by some unseen force that didn’t like shiny objects.
“I... K... I...”
When she finally completed the message, she looked at the results, and was shocked at what she saw. “I think you’d better look at this.”
“Don’t need to. I need to read the message for myself, not have someone else do it for me. I have to make sure that it’s not altered in any way.”
“You don’t trust me?”
“Have you forgotten? ‘Don’t Trust Anyone’. That includes even you. I’ll see for myself, then compare it with your notes.”
“But - ” she started, then decided not to pursue the matter any further. If he was going to be this stubborn, that was his loss. Still, she wasn’t willing to admit defeat. She decided to deftly slip in the hidden message in with his notes. He might not be able to intuitively understand what it meant at first, but at least he’d be spared the pain later. But this plan proved trickier than expected. He always kept an iron grip on his notes, compulsively reading and rereading them multiple times, never allowing her to get close.
He was never going to look at what was written, unless she somehow managed to get him to see for himself. She needed to keep three thoughts in mind:
- He needed to read this message.
- He didn’t want her to remember her personal notes.
- He would only read the message in front of a mirror.
The problem was, she doubted she’d be able to remember these facts. She was already forgetting why he needed to read the message - just that it was important. How did this guy manage to remember so much so effortlessly?
She decided to write down what she could remember. Then she could free her mind to thinking about it later. She looked for her pen and paper, and almost forgot what she meant to write down. But as soon as she saw the note she needed him to see, she remembered the 1st thought. After that, the 3rd reminder came, which could be easily combined with the 1st. Then she hid the decoded message somewhere he wouldn’t find it.
She couldn’t remember the second reminder, figuring it couldn’t have been that important, until -
“What are you doing?”
“Making personal reminders.”
“We need to find a mirror.”
“That’s it!” she gestured. “That’s what I forgot!” she said, writing that down.
“It’s not that hard to remember. What do you need to fill your pretty little head with?”, he asked, grabbing her arm, which made a curious crinkling sound. “What’s this?” he asked, rolling down her sleeve.
It’s debatable whether it was fortunate that he rolled down her left arm, instead of her right. For, instead of her reminder to go to the City, he saw the hidden decoded message she’d been unsuccessfully trying to show him.
“Why do you have this? Were you keeping this from me?”
“It was the only way to get you to listen.”
Without meaning to, he read the message. His mood got progressively darker than she’d ever seen him before. “Is this True?! Why would you do this to me?!”
“It was written on you!”
“But that would mean...” He shook his head. “No. I have no way of verifying this.”
“Why would I make this up?”
“Maybe you want to be punished. Maybe you want to die by my hand, I don’t know!”
“There are FAR easier ways for me to do so.”
“You’re distracting the issue. What Else are you hiding from me?” he asked, rolling down her other sleeve.
The Cure for the Smell is in the City.
“The City? That sounds familiar. Lemme check my notes...”
But the Girl wasn’t going to let this opportunity pass. Once he was distracted, she wrested loose of his grip, and started running before he could find the relevant page. As soon as the Tattooed Man did, and realized that his suspicious suspect was no longer around, he started coming after her.
She looked around, trying to find a suitable hiding spot, but none was forthcoming. There was too much broken and discarded stuff. The only thing in the vicinity was a wild crowd in the midst of a squabble. They were so engrossed with each other they didn’t even notice her. That was when she recalled the last time she was before a crowd. Where somebody made a rousing speech that stalled them by proclaiming two commands.
Out of desperation, she yelled, “See that Tattooed guy? GET HIM!!”
However, since the focus of the crowd was on whoever was leading the group, her little outburst didn’t even register. She couldn’t have known that she needed to get their attention first.
“Oh, come on!”
She decided to blend in with the crowd instead. He’d never find her there.
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