Chapter 0 – Prologue – Requiem

Beep.

Chloe Aslan pressed the play button on the phonograph.

[ The Madam's heart is slowly failing. ]

Not too long ago, the doctor broke the sad news to her at the hospital.

[ Two years. ]

Chloe pressed the button again.

Beep.

[ I'm very sorry about this, Madam, but I have to let you know that you only have two years left. ]

One more time.

[ I'm very sorry about this, Madam… ]

[ …you only have two years left… ]

[ …two years left… ]

As the phonograph stopped spinning, the sound of weariness came out from it. Only the small squeaks and scrapes of metal filled the room.

Chloe stared blankly at the phonograph. Her blue eyes, which had always been clear, became clouded. It felt as if she could already hear the funeral march. As if she could really hear death coming from the requiem, then experiencing it.

She slowly shifted her gaze, which was still murky. She looked at the back of her hand, already deathly thin.

'I'm… dying.'

She said the words in her mind, the idea too hard to grasp. People lived their lives never thinking about death, even though it was hovering very close.

The same was true for Chloe. She spent every single day of her life as if she would live forever.

'…Two years.'

But now that she was presented with a certain date, it made her realize that her life was very short. She would leave this world after spring, summer, autumn, winter—and then again, one last time.

'Shouldn't I be crying at a time like this?'

She mulled over it.

She tried to feel sad while thinking about her own death.

But there were no tears. Her eyes didn't even feel hot.

'Why?'

The answer to the question came quickly.

It was inevitable. She didn't live passionately in the first place. Her life was more akin to dying than living. There was nothing much she felt dismayed about, considering that she would die only a bit earlier than expected. There was nothing else she could ask for.

'…No.'

Was that really the case?

To this question, Chloe gradually raised her head.

She saw her husband's portrait, which was hanging on the wall at a sharp angle. Her husband's cold eyes, which were visibly striking even through the painting, caused her to shiver.

As Chloe trembled, she picked up her fallen shawl. Then, she took a deep breath. The smell of tangy iron filled her lungs.

This room was full of rusty machinery. These were all the machines that her husband had abandoned. At one time, her husband breathed life into these machines, but now they were discarded, lifeless. Such machines were emitting a rotten smell.

Chloe had a sudden thought.

Perhaps… She was no different from these machines.

She was also living a hard life after having been thrown away by her husband.

'No. That's not it.'

It was ridiculous to think that she was the same as those machines. They were better than her. This, she was sure of. Those machines must have received even a morsel of her husband's attention and interest. She was even less than a mirage that was now out of his sight.

She was a wife who was forced into a political marriage, meant to be thrown away.

That was her position right now.

Chloe lifted her gaze again, then stared at her husband's portrait.

[ I'm very sorry about this, Madam, but I have to let you know that you only have two years left. ]

What if her husband found out about her imminent death?

Would he be surprised? Sad? Regretful?

As she pondered over his reaction, Chloe burst into a peal of laughter.

Her husband.

Her heartless husband.

Her husband, who did not love her.

He would never feel sorrow.

So…

“I'll get a divorce.”

Chloe vowed to get compensated for the five years she wasted on him.