Two hours.
That was too long for soone who had already made a difficult decision.
For the first thirty minutes, Samael maintained a certain excitent.There was sothing almost… purifying about the idea of graves.
But as ti passed, the enthusiasm began to wither.
He grew impatient.
He paced back and forth.
Sat down.
Stood up.
Sighed.
Finally, he threw himself onto the couch.
There was nothing to do.
He turned on the television.
Changed the channel.
Changed it again.
And again.
Nothing interesting.
Until, out of sheer exhaustion, he stopped on a random channel.
A reality show.
Samael frowned.
"Reality shows still exist?"
He found it curious.
The world was on the brink of constant destruction. Nightmare Creatures, Nightmares, Awakened dying every single day…
And yet, there they were—people arguing about relationships inside a house full of caras.
But… it made sense.
The mundane masses were still the majority.
And they needed entertainnt.
They needed to forget.
Even if only for a few hours.
Even if it was a lie.
Even if it was empty.
As much as it hurt his pride to admit it, it was… strangely interesting.
Especially the naturalness.
The ease with which the participants talked.
Approached each other.
Touched.
Connected.
If Samael went to a place like that and ended up with his face plastered across the dia, people recognizing him on the street…
He was absolutely certain his heart would stop.
Literally.
Still, the show hooked him.
He was far too curious.
And soon he was completely imrsed in the argunts, alliances, and small emotional betrayals.
What intrigued him most was the ease.
So people simply… connected.
As if it were instinctive.
As if there were no fear.
As if there were no calculation.
It was almost incomprehensible to him.
And there was sothing mildly embarrassing about admitting it, but…
Despite being eighteen years old in both lives, he had never had a girlfriend.
He had never even co close.
Watching those participants flirt, exchange glances, form couples within days…
It was surreal.
Samael realized sothing uncomfortable.
He was strangely conservative.
He had never noticed that before.
To him, it was completely unacceptable to be with soone just for the sake of it.
And when a betrayal happened on the show—
He genuinely felt bothered.
Cheating like that.
So lightly.
In front of millions of people.
"How low…" he muttered.
Only then did he realize he had been watching for almost an hour.
An entire hour.
If he had stopped to think, he might have noticed sothing even more disturbing:
Even mundane humans can exercise mind control.
Not through Aspects.
Not through abilities.
But through dia.
Narratives.
Editing.
Emotional manipulation.
It was terrifying.
No less effective than certain Nightmare Creatures.
There was a mont when Samael found himself arbitrarily rooting for soone he didn't even know.
ntally defending absurd decisions.
Feeling genuine indignation.
He blinked.
Confused.
"Am I… really doing this?"
That was dangerous.
Not in a physical sense.
But in a ntal one.
Diverting attention.
Creating artificial involvent.
Making soone care about illusions.
Perhaps the world was on the brink of destruction precisely because humans were like this.
Easily distracted.
Easily manipulated.
Even so…
He didn't change the channel.
He stayed there.
Watching.
Waiting.
And for an hour, he didn't think about graves.
Or guilt.
Or broken dreams.
Perhaps that was the true purpose of the show.
And perhaps…
He had realized it too late.
Nearby, a perfectly put-together woman was walking toward Samael's house.
Her lavender-purple eyes made her stand out easily among the masses.
Elizabeth was irritated.
What kind of person calls asking for help to build graves? she thought, crossing her arms as she walked.
She had been comfortable at ho before the call.
Sitting.
In silence.
Reading.
Which, in itself, was already curious.
Elizabeth had never been the type to read for pleasure.
But after seeing Samael completely imrsed in books for days, she had grown curious.
She looked for sothing with an interesting the.
And found it.
It was the story of a man who went to another world and spent five hundred years there.
A cruel world.
Brutal.
Political.
When he was finally on the verge of creating a supre power, he was cornered by enemies.
No way out.
So he blew himself up.
Left the outco to chance.
And, strangely… it worked.
He returned five hundred years to the past with all his accumulated experience.
The political construction of that world was hypnotizing.
Raw.
Cold.
Strategic.
And she had to drop all of that…
To dig graves.
Elizabeth sighed.
She needed to set boundaries.
Samael was getting far too comfortable.
Any minor difficulty, and he would call.
Ask for help.
And the worst part?
She always helped.
But just imagining him doing that alone gave her chills.
She was a perfectionist.
Samael… was not.
He did things carelessly.
Sloppily.
And that irritated her deeply.
She arrived at his house.
Entered without ceremony.
As always.
And found the sa usual ss.
Clothes thrown around.
Objects out of place.
A faint sense of permanent chaos.
Elizabeth closed her eyes for a second.
"I swear, if the next ti I co here this place isn't clean, I'll kill him."
She looked around with disapproval.
At this rate, the next call would be to save him from a mutant rat that had taken over the house.
She had never t anyone so ssy.
Then she saw him.
Lying on the couch.
Completely absorbed in the television.
He hadn't even noticed her presence.
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow.
"What are you watching?"
"A dating reality show," he replied distractedly, eyes still on the screen.
She blinked.
"You like that kind of thing?"
"I don't."
He still didn't look at her.
It was the end of the episode.
Elizabeth crossed her arms.
"That's rude."
She began looking for the remote to turn off the television.
That was when Samael casually said:
"Hey, Liz… have you ever dated?"
She froze.
The question ca so spontaneously that it caught her off guard.
Especially coming from him.
She clearly rembered how uncomfortable he usually was with that kind of subject.
"No…" she answered slowly. "Why?"
There was a faint note of concern in her voice.
Had he undergone so kind of brainwashing from watching that for an hour?
"Nothing." He finally blinked and seed to return to the real world. "It's just that this reality show managed to make jealous of people who date."
Elizabeth stared at him.
For a few seconds.
Then she brought a hand to her face.
"Please… don't ask to help with that."
She almost pleaded.
Samael wasn't ugly.
But he was… complicated.
Finding soone for him would be a logistical and emotional nightmare.
"Of course I won't," he replied, offended. "I'm a person of morals. I wouldn't date in a frivolous way."
Elizabeth narrowed her eyes.
"You just admitted you're jealous."
"Jealousy isn't a lack of morals."
She sighed, defeated.
"Let's go before I give up on you."
She turned and walked out quickly.
"Hey, wait for , Liz!"
Samael jumped up in a hurry, turned off the lights, and ran after her.
The television went dark.
The couch stood empty.
And for the first ti that day, the waiting was over.
It was ti to build graves.
It was ti to try to silence ghosts.
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