Chapter 514: Journey Into Schiller's Past (Part 1)

Stark, who was standing by the door, was stunned for a moment. For a moment, he did not react to the logic of Schiller's behavior.

Hiding in the closet because of fear of outsiders? But when the two of them came in, the young Schiller did not stop them. If he was afraid, he could have simply not opened the door for them.

Stark paused for a moment, then walked into the bedroom. It was a very small bedroom. The bed in the bedroom was converted from a baby bed. It seemed that the young Schiller had not slept alone in this room for a long time. He should have just left his mother to sleep on his own.

Stark walked around the small bed and came to the front of the closet. He gently pushed the door and found that the door did not move at all.

He put his finger into the gap of the door and wanted to open the door, but the door was still motionless. Stark took a few steps back again and looked at the closet.

It was a huge solid wood closet, which looked like a handmade product of the last era. There were some cartoon stickers on the door. Judging from the height, it should have been pasted by the young Schiller.

Stark looked around and found that the gap between the cabinet doors was actually very small. The cabinet was dark. If you didn't stand at a specific angle and in a specific light, you couldn't see Schiller in the cabinet at all. In addition, Schiller didn't make any movement at all, so it was difficult to find that there was a child in the cabinet.

After observing for a long time, there was no other clue. Stark could only squat down and align his sight with Schiller in the cabinet. The two of them looked at each other through the narrow gap in the middle of the cabinet door.

At this time, Stark found that Schiller's eyes were not looking at him, but were always staring at the place where he had stood before. Stark stood up, took two steps back, turned around and walked to the bedroom door, looked at where he was standing, and there was nothing unusual there.

Steve also came over. The two stood at the door of the bedroom and could see Schiller's eyes. Steve looked back at the living room and said, "He may be looking through the door into the living room."

Hearing this, Stark walked quickly to the living room, looked back to confirm the direction of Schiller's sight, and then took a step forward and stood next to the sofa.

He found that Schiller's sight seemed to be on the sofa. Stark flipped the sofa and found nothing unusual. When he moved the sofa, the carpet in front of the sofa was wrinkled. Steve, who followed him, shrugged his nose and said:

"Do you smell it? It seems to smell blood..."

Stark stood up, looked around, and then set his sights on the curved carpet folds. He took a deep breath and seemed to have some premonitions. After Steve moved the coffee table away, Stark lifted the carpet.

There was blood underneath.

This carpet, which seemed to have no problems on the surface, was lifted up, and there was a large round dark bloodstain underneath. It looked like it had dried for a long time, but it still had a strange smell.

In an instant, Stark turned around and set his sights on the photo of a family of three that he had casually placed aside.

He picked up the photo frame and pressed his fingers on the photo. His knuckles turned slightly white. Obviously, the answer he guessed made him feel a little suffocated.

Steve looked down at the bloodstain, then turned to look at Schiller hiding in the closet. He turned and walked back to the bedroom, then squatted in front of the closet, looking at the young Schiller through the gap, and said:

"Don't be afraid, we are not bad people, can you open the door? We will protect you..."

Young Schiller did not answer, nor did he look at his face, but just stared at that point, as if he was concentrating on something. Steve took a deep breath, he heard footsteps behind him and turned his head, Stark with a pale face appeared behind him.

The two came to the bedroom door, Stark held the photo frame in his hand, and then said:

"This is Schiller's conscious world, everything here is actually 'images', that is, they all represent a memory of Schiller.

"After I first entered the Palace of Thought and toured here, I tried to develop my conscious space, so I understand that some things in the conscious space are not what they seem on the surface, but symbolic. "

Steve turned his head and looked at the pool of blood under the carpet. He said, "I am sure that it is human blood, but the blood flowing out of any person will not present such a regular circle, and it is just blocked by the carpet. This may mean..."

Steve's tone became low: "...a tragedy happened here."

"In the psychology books I have read, it is mentioned that when people remember something, they will instinctively grasp the stimulation point. Perhaps Schiller, who witnessed a tragedy, was stimulated by blood and bloody smell. Therefore, the image of this tragedy in his memory is the blood under the carpet."

Stark sighed and said, "Based on the existing clues, we can probably infer what Schiller encountered in his childhood..."

"The medical records in his parents' bedroom show that Schiller suffers from autism. Although the specific type of autism spectrum is not written on those papers, his parents found out about his condition very early and actively treated him. "

"Schiller had received sensory training for a long time, which lasted for at least two years. In the later stage of the training, he was almost recovered, at least he had recovered most of his language ability."

"But, perhaps in the month when the medical records were interrupted..." Stark pursed his lips, his tone slowed down, and it sounded like he didn't want to continue:

"His parents may have been killed."

Stark turned his head and glanced at the young Schiller who was still hiding in the closet, peeping at everything outside through the gap in the closet door. He said: "His parents have received professional training. It is impossible for them to wait until the other party rushed into the house to find out that something is wrong. Maybe when the other party came downstairs or rushed into the corridor, they already knew that they had no way to retreat."

"If you were Schiller's parents, what would you do?" Stark looked at Steve and asked. Steve's face was also very gloomy. He said:

"I will definitely protect my child as soon as possible."

"Perhaps his parents did the same..." Stark lowered his head, and the voice that could not be lowered any lower echoed in the room, like a heavy dusk drum.

"They will make him hide in the largest closet in the house, and more importantly..."

When Stark said this, his tone was already mixed with a trace of painful gasps due to empathy. He and Steve stared at the gap in the closet. As the light changed as the night approached, they seemed to see the mother who appeared in the photo of the three squatting outside the closet, looking at her child through the gap, and making a dying cry:

"Don't talk! Don't make a sound! Don't make any sound, no matter what you hear, don't respond..."

And the child who had just received language enlightenment and was able to express his magnificent inner world through language, just like this, returned to the silent world without a door to the outside world.

Steve covered his face and sat down against the door frame of the bedroom wall. Just like before, when these details appeared in front of him, it was much more cruel than listening to a story.

"For patients with dissociative identity disorder, or multiple personality disorder, when they split their first personality, it is often to escape some reality they don't want to face. I think that may be why Schiller split another personality to escape childhood trauma..."

Stark's tone became calmer. He reached out and pulled Steve up, then said, "Don't stop here. We have to find Schiller. No matter what he has experienced, I think we can treat him, just like... he treated us before."

Stark was in front, and Steve was behind. The two walked out of the room and returned to the corridor. Their moods could not calm down for a long time.

In their impression, although Schiller was sharp-tongued, greedy, a riddler, a spectator, and had a bottomless moral bottom line, he was still a relatively cheerful person. In the process of getting along with them, everyone talked and laughed together, and they didn't think there was anything special.

But often, there is harm only when there is comparison. Stark's parents died unexpectedly, and he felt very miserable. When he learned that his parents were killed by Steve's old teammate Winter Soldier, he felt even more miserable, but now he felt that at least Howard had been with him for a period of time. Although he often drank alcohol, he was still a good father when he was sober.

And the young Schiller they just met was very young. He could hardly speak because of autism. In other words, he might not have said a few words to his parents before his parents were killed.

Moreover, Stark felt that he had not faced the scene of his parents' death. Otherwise, he didn't know whether he would use split personality to escape reality like Schiller.

Thinking of this, Stark quickened his pace. He came to the stairs and looked up. The upper floor was still quiet.

Stark and Steve came to the second floor. There were few rooms here, and none of them could be opened. Stark looked at one of the door handles and said, "Did you find it? If the door handle and lock are special, it means there may be someone inside, and this..." Stark looked at the door handle, which was a very ordinary ball door handle, exactly the same as the handles of the two doors they had seen before. Stark shook his head and said, "There may not be Schiller's personality in it, it may be a place where he stores other things." "That is to say, we have to find a special door handle to find the rest of his people. "Yes, next, you go to the third floor and I go to the fourth floor, and we will meet again after we find the special door handle." After that, the two began to act separately, Steve was responsible for the odd floors, and Stark was responsible for the even floors. The two searched for a long time, and finally, Stark found a special place on the tenth floor. He stood next to the railing of the patio and waved to Steve downstairs: "Come here! There is a very special place here, come quickly, Steve hurried up and came to Stark's side. They both looked up at the sign on the door, which had three big words on it: "Madhouse". ()