Those eyes were bloodshot, filled with uncontrollable madness and fear. Even though the gatekeeper's words soothed the woman's spirit and brought her back from the brink of collapse, they failed to completely heal the shadow of fear that remained in her mind.
Agatha had seen this kind of look many times, so she just looked at it calmly. After using her eyes to calm the woman down further, she spoke: "The 'he' you mentioned refers to your husband, right? He returned home again - but you know, he died a few years ago."
The woman's shoulders trembled violently. She lowered her head and grabbed her hair, as if she didn't dare to look Agatha in the eye. She just kept repeating: "He's back... He's back... But I know it's not him..."
"How did you... kill it?" Agatha frowned and asked, "Do you remember the details of what happened?"
As she spoke, she reached into her bosom and pulled out a bottle of medicine. After she opened the bottle cap with one hand, the calming aroma in the bottle quietly spread and gradually enveloped the surroundings.
The gatekeeper's potion took effect. The long-haired woman on the sofa seemed to breathe much calmer. She raised her head slightly, looked outside through the gaps in her hair, and said in a low voice: "I... I hit the back of the thing's head with a hammer, and then it fell down. But even though its head was so deflated, it didn't die. Instead, it struggled to get up. I kicked it further inside and closed the bathroom door... It was banging inside and making scary screams. It was early in the morning.
He kept yelling for ten minutes before he stopped...”
The woman paused, and calmed down for a few seconds before continuing: "Later, I secretly opened the bathroom door... and the thing disappeared..."
Agatha nodded gently, and while reconstructing the events in her mind, she asked again: "Then how did 'it' appear? Do you remember the process of his 'return'?"
"I... I don't know," the woman shook her head, her tone filled with horror, "He... it suddenly appeared at home! The door was locked, but I heard noises in the living room, and when I came out of the bedroom I saw that thing... It was wearing the clothes my husband was buried in, walking around in the living room, and there were sounds like rotting mucus coming from its body..."
Agatha's expression suddenly became serious. She turned her head to the side. Before she could speak, a guard reported, "We checked the entrances and exits of this house. All doors and windows showed no signs of damage, and all windows were locked from the inside."
The doors and windows were closed, the door locks had not been damaged, and the "fakes" appeared directly in the residents' homes.
Compared to the above-board "invasion" and "attack", this phenomenon that seemed to appear out of nowhere... made her even more alert.
And there are more points worth paying attention to in today's case.
Agatha lowered her head and looked at the woman on the sofa.
She still remembered the cases she had come across before today, especially the case found at 42 Fireplace Street - the folklorist who returned from the dead and the female apprentice who was severely cognitively polluted without knowing it. In such a typical case, the surviving party was unable to distinguish the "fake" in front of them.
But the woman in front of him could tell.
She is not affected by cognitive pollution
"Ma'am," Agatha began, choosing her words carefully, "how did you know that the 'monster' was not your husband?"
"Is there any need to ask? My husband... He died a few years ago. There's something wrong with that thing. How could it be my husband?" The woman became a little excited. "What's more, that thing walked towards my child... My child, he pointed at that monster and called him daddy. He... He was controlled by that monster. He must have been controlled by that monster. He..."
"You think your child is controlled by a monster, so you strangled him?" Agatha frowned and asked, "Do you know that you were..."
"I didn't choke him! I was just trying to pull him back, not choking him!"
The woman became completely excited and even jumped up from the sofa, as if she was going to pounce on the gatekeeper in front of her, and her bloodshot eyes once again regained their previous look of fear and madness, so that even her sanity seemed to have evaporated - the guards standing nearby reacted immediately and wanted to hold down the poor woman who had lost her mind, but Agatha reacted faster.
The gatekeeper raised his cane and tapped the woman's forehead gently.
The latter fell asleep instantly.
"She was terrified," the female captain with short black hair shook her head, "This kind of thing is really... "
"No, it's not just a shock, it's another form of intellectual contamination. She is in a state of temporary madness, but has retained the basic ability to communicate," Agatha shook her head, her brows furrowed. "She is not affected by cognitive and memory interference. Although I don't know the specific reason, she obviously recognized the nature of the 'fake'. But 'seeing through the truth' itself is a kind of damage to ordinary people."
As she spoke, she raised her head and looked around the small residence.
"Where are the children?"
"He has been sent to a safe place for the time being. He was too frightened and experienced a brief period of suffocation. He may not be able to respond to questioning."
"Well," Agatha instructed, "separate the mother and child temporarily, take good care of them and provide psychological counseling, especially the child. Comfort him well. If the mother and child remember any valuable information, report it to me immediately."
"yes."
Agatha nodded, then walked across the living room to the small bathroom.
On the ground near the shower head, you can also see the marks left by the guards after collecting evidence.
The fake was once kept in this bathroom, but in the end... only less than a test tube of "sample" remained.
This is very abnormal.
Although the counterfeits themselves are of strange nature and their origins are a mystery, at least one thing is clear: they are also made up of a certain amount of physical matter, and even if they disintegrate, these physical substances will not disappear out of thin air.
Agatha frowned slightly and walked around the narrow bathroom twice. Suddenly, she stopped and stared at one place.
She quickly came to the drain, knocked on the cast iron grille with the end of her tin cane, and looked down at the dark hole inside.
The darkness in the sewer is bottomless, as if it is burying all the truth.
"...No way...Damn it!"
Agatha suddenly took a deep breath and realized a possibility, and this possibility even made her hands and feet feel cold.
"Evacuate this building, and move all residents to nearby churches and public shelters," she quickly returned to the living room and gave orders at a very fast speed, "Contact the neighborhood municipal office and close this building... No, close all secondary pipes connected to this building, including sewage pipes and water pipes - and send a team to the nearest sewage treatment plant immediately to check the sedimentation tank and filter!"
The captain was surprised after hearing this series of orders, but she did not raise any questions. Her instinct to obey orders made her straighten her body immediately: "Yes! Sir Gatekeeper!"
After giving the order, Agatha went to the sleeping woman on the sofa.
Why was this woman not affected by cognitive and memory interference, but saw through the truth of the "fake"
Even at this time, Agatha still cared about this matter very much.
At this moment, a guard who had been investigating clues in other rooms suddenly ran into the living room with something in his hand.
"Mr. Gatekeeper! We found this!"
Agatha immediately looked in the direction of the voice and saw that what the other person was holding in his hand was a small plaster statue that looked quite old.
It was the side profile of the Frost Queen.
"A statue of the Mad Queen?" Other guards in the room immediately whispered, "I didn't expect there would be such a thing here."
Agatha looked serious. She walked forward and took the bust, which was about ten centimeters high, and carefully observed the details on the statue.
"... It's an authentic product from that year. The bottom of the sculpture has a special anti-counterfeiting mark," she made a simple judgment and raised her head, "Where is this thing placed?"
"In a secret door deep in a closet," the guard who discovered the Queen's profile immediately reported, "we also found coins and commemorative albums from the Queen's era. It seems... there are people who still secretly miss the Frost Queen."
Agatha didn't say anything for a while, just stared at the plaster statue in her hand.
The Frost Queen... …even today, half a century later, there are still citizens in the city-state who secretly commemorate the queen. This fact itself does not actually surprise her.
After all, it was a glorious era, and that was a once great queen - the passing of a mere fifty years was not enough to erase all traces of the Queen's era from the city-state, and some elderly people who had experienced that era, and their descendants, were still deeply affected by it.
There are sporadic supporters of the Queen among the people - fifty years ago, such secret acts of commemoration would be enough to result in hanging, but today, fifty years later, the ban in this regard has actually been relaxed a lot, and Agatha has heard of such things more than once during the years she has served as a gatekeeper.
In most cases, if it is just a spontaneous act of "collecting souvenirs" by the public, today's guards and sheriffs will not pursue it too much, and sometimes even pretend not to see it, or just give a verbal warning.
The family only collected a bust of the queen, a few coins and a booklet, which was not a big deal.
But thinking about the strange changes that had just occurred in this residence, Agatha couldn't help but think more.
The parties involved in this incident were not affected by cognitive interference, but instead saw through the truth of the "fake". Could it be... ...related to the Queen's souvenirs here