"Damn it! No matter how you look at it, this is just wrong!"
Staring at the words before her, Machida Sonoko clenched her fists tightly.
There was no title, and so far, no mention of a protagonist's name.
But the descriptions of their appearance, the details woven into every sentence—it wasn't hard to figure out who the diary was about.
—Ellen.
The witch. The ruthless woman who tormented Viola, fueling their rage and hatred.
The evil being they despised.
This diary told her story.
The story of Ellen before she became a witch.
As an outsider, an adult with a clear sense of right and wrong, Machida could say without hesitation—there was something fundamentally flawed in Ellen's way of thinking.
Terribly flawed.
Yet, when she tried to see things from Ellen's perspective, she found it impossible to say that Ellen was entirely wrong.
Ellen had grown up in the slums, where even survival was a struggle. No one had the luxury to reach out and help others.
So, when her existence started making life harder for her mother, it was only natural that she would abandon her, wasn't it?
But...
Even if her skin was scarred, her joints riddled with illness, and every step brought her pain—she was still a mother.
And when a mother sees her child suffering, doesn't she feel heartache? Doesn't she blame herself?
She must have hated the fact that such a young girl had to endure so much pain.
She must have resented herself for being powerless—unable to afford a doctor, unable to ease her daughter's suffering in any way other than through small, insignificant gestures.
But...
As a reader, Machida understood this.
The mother in the diary, however, had no way of knowing what terrifying thoughts were forming in her daughter's mind.
So when the girl suddenly stopped going outside, the mother simply assumed her daughter's condition had worsened—
That she was in too much pain to play like before. And as a result, she only showered her daughter with even more love and attention.
But for the seven-year-old girl, this wasn't warmth.
It was a prison of her own making.
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'My mother. My mother love.'
'I love my mother deeply, just as she loves me.'
'To me, being abandoned by her is no different from death.'
'Because she is the only one who loves me.'
'If my mother doesn't smile, I can't smile either.'
'If my mother doesn't love me, I can't breathe.'
'Like a drowning person desperately clinging to anything within reach, I held onto my mother with everything I had.'
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Reading this passage, Machida's thoughts drifted back to the witch from the game.
There had been a particular scene where the words read:
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"My parents didn't love me. So I killed them."
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Comparing that moment to this diary—the connection was painfully clear.
The overwhelming desire for love, the desperate need for acceptance…
It had all led to the tragedy that would unfold.
But when did things take a turn for the worse?
The answer soon surfaced in Machida Sonoko's mind.
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The girl's father had his wages cut again.
And the frustration he never dared to express outside the home— He took it out on the two people closest to him.
Ellen. And Ellen's mother.
His harsh words, his violent outbursts, his reckless destruction of household objects—
All of it kept the two on edge.
Then came the night when he roughly grabbed his wife's hand, tearing her away from Ellen. Their fingers, once intertwined, were forcibly separated.
He dragged her into the only private room in the house and slammed the door shut.
The sound of the lock clicking into place echoed through the air, leaving Ellen alone outside.
From behind the wall, there were loud bangs.
The sounds gradually softened…
And then—only whispers.
A familiar scene.
Her parents always had their private conversations where she couldn't see.
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'Bang!'
Machida slammed her palm against the table, her voice trembling with rage.
"That bastard!"
As if working tirelessly just to keep her daughter alive wasn't hard enough, as if enduring all this suffering wasn't enough—
She still had to deal with that man's violence.
From the context, it was obvious what had happened in that room.
It was clear he had raised his hand against the very woman who bore everything for her child.
But what pained Machida the most— Was that while this mother suffered for her daughter, that very daughter couldn't understand her pain.
Instead, the girl believed her mother was keeping secrets from her,
That she was an outsider in her own family, excluded and left in the dark.
Was it Ellen's fault for misunderstanding?
No.
And that was what made it so agonizing.
Machida was furious. She was heartbroken, but she was powerless to change anything.
She could only watch as the inevitable tragedy took shape before her eyes.
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Misunderstanding after misunderstanding piled up, and Ellen's sadness and pain deepened.
She began to feel like a lifeless doll, While her mother remained real, warm, and alive.
And from this contrast, hatred was born.
It all seemed so natural, so inevitable, as described in the diary's words.
Then came another turning point— The death of the black cat in the alley.
And with that, the story began moving inexorably toward tragedy.
—Her mother never came home again.
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Machida froze.
"...What...?"
The woman who was supposed to love and protect Ellen… Was really gone?
So Ellen's fears weren't baseless.
She hadn't been paranoid.
The one who had been naive— Was her.
She had never stood in Ellen's shoes.
She had never truly grasped the weight of her fear.
Biting her lip, Machida forced herself to keep reading.
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A man she didn't recognize started visiting the house.
Her father would take something from him in exchange for money, and soon, a strange, sweet scent began lingering in the air.
This lined up perfectly with a certain scene from the game— The one inside the prison cell.
That "something" was unmistakable.
Left alone with no one to care for her, The girl bandaged her wounds by herself, clinging to the hope that her mother would return and apologize one day.
But on a certain night, she finally received an answer.
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"I'm sorry. You have to get along with your father."
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That was all.
And with those words—
The last thread holding the girl together snapped.
The scene from the game unfolded in even greater detail before Machida's eyes.
The suffocating sorrow.
The deep, inescapable despair.
She felt an unbearable weight in her chest.
But for whom did she grieve?
For Ellen, the child who so desperately longed for love?
For her mother, the woman who had suffered so much misfortune?
Or for her father, the man who had given up on himself?
Machida didn't know.
But there was one thing she was sure of—
By the time the story reached this point, She could no longer see Ellen as just a villain.