Rolan's chest tightened. The image burned into his mind so violently that his vision blurred around the edges.
He stumbled back. His jade bow faded into fragments of light. He tried to focus again but his eyes disobeyed him.
His breathing had become short and quick, shoulders jerking with each desperate inhale.
He flinched when he felt Keres' touch on his shoulder.
"Hey! What's with you all of a sudden?"
Rolan's mouth opened up to respond. But no meaningful word could escape his lips. Just inaudible mumblings that mirrored the panic and horror written into his gaze.
"Hey! Get a grip." Keres clenched his shoulder tighter, yanking the archer.
Something had happened. Something terrible, perhaps to Milan.
A deep frown creased Keres' face.
His thoughts spun with dread but then an indistinct noise echoed from close by.
What was that?
Both gazes simultaneously turned, searching for the origin. Neither of them spotted a thing.
But Rolan's color sank deeper.
A clearer huff rang out. It was loud but sounded slightly muffled, as if someone had exhaled into a gigantic metal pipe.
And just before Keres could activate the Seventh Dimension, Crescencia's voice echoed through the invisible pipe. Grim and steady.
"My name is Crescencia and I have committed a terrible act."
Keres' pupils stretched wide. His muscles stiffened as her words continued.
"I won't ask for your forgiveness. I won't ask for anything else. Just listen closely."
"My Flash Phantasm is an invisible piece of metal that lets me reshape and resize it however I want." Her words echoed to a pause, the faint sound of her breath distorting through the metallic tunnel.
"Shaping it with my chakra, I can split it into super powerful blades and cut things down with crazy speed."
"But when I use the recall principle, I can undo any cut I've made in the last forty-five seconds."
"So she isn't really dead yet," Keres' mind jolted. "But she will die if I don't use recall within the next thirty seconds."
His heart thrummed loud enough to drown out the reverberations of Crescencia's voice.
"…you can still save her… decide fast!"
His breathing seized, his hand trembling to his chest, squeezing to quiet a heart that refused to cooperate.
***
Darkness. Then red.
Darkness again.
Screams echoed, blasts boomed in the distance. Smoke seeped through every crack, every vent, every broken seam, magnifying the dread and chaos that overcame Walden Heights this morning.
Emergency alarms shrieked through the corridors, red lights bouncing off walls, illuminating the horror.
From the reinforced metal doors that were juiced into molten sludge like overcooked wax, to the brutalized corpses pasted unsparingly in almost every corner of the six floors of confinement. It was blood and ruin everywhere one could look.
Toxic gas hissed through the air, burning the throats of all those who wandered unprepared. It didn't matter if they were a guard or inmate, their bodies were shriveled into desiccated husks before they could find escape.
Buried several floors below ground was a chamber known as:The Incessium.
No windows, no sunlight, no way to possibly track the passage of time. Only cold candlelights, drain grates, a podium, and the sophisticated torture devices that existed nowhere else on the planet.
A place no prisoner ever spoke of because all those who became aware of its existence never made it back to the surface.
The Incessium's hallway wasn't spared on this occasion.
Lathal fumes, blaring alarms and flashing beams of red light swept through corridors that were usually dark and hollow.
Boots drummed as four gas-masked officers escorted a lone prisoner down the hallway.
Two among them were unarmed and held onto the prisoner's arms, guiding him by his sides. While the other two, holding triple barreled Chakra Guns led from in front and behind respectively.
The prisoner was shackled in almost every way possible. His arms and legs were cuffed with chakra-slated restraints. And his whole head was confined in a sealed metal box that made respiration far more excruciating than what any mortal could possibly bear.
They reached an elevator and the man leading the way passed his C-gun to Officer Uriah, the other armed guard among them.
He then stripped his glove and placed his left palm on the elevator's scanner. Chakra shone and the elevator's doors slid open after a double beep.
He stepped inside, hurriedly tapping the panel—but before the others could follow, a violent thrum split the air. Another deafening zap immediately followed. And the two unarmed guards dropped to the floor with dying screams.
Before he could turn—
"Don't move." Uriah said, pressing the barrels of his C-gun against the lead officer's crown. "Hands up where I can see them… slowly."
The lead officer obeyed, lifting his hands above his head.
"Uriah… what is the meaning of…"
CLICK CLICK
The clicks of Uriah's C-gun forced him shut.
"Hevel, we're in a state of emergency at the moment." Uriah said in a low and steady voice as the elevator began to rise. "No one is coming to save you. So do as I say if you want to see the faces of your wife and children again."
"…"
"Several inmates found the exit but nobody was able to escape. Everyone who made it to the ground floor is in fact dead."
Hevel's muscles stiffened.
"The intruders behind this are few in number but they are very powerful. Don't try anything stupid, you do not stand a chance." Uriah added in a grim tone.
"Where are you heading with this?" Hevel inquired, clenching a fist.
A short pause hung in the air. Then Uriah responded.
"You're going to unlock ace-o-seven's restraints and the exit. Then we escape this place together with them."
Hevel cast the prisoner a sidelong glance.
No one who walked in, ever left Walden Heights. This was a rule of thumb that had been upheld since its establishment.
Visitation was done strictly via holographic projections with the visitor at an assigned station, far away from the facility.
Even the janitors, chefs, guarding officers, medics and wardens were reformed inmates who volunteered to serve, in exchange for better living conditions and a fixed income to support their families.
Uriah was no exception, neither was Hevel.
"I refuse." Hevel declared, a composed defiance laced in his voice.
The elevator chimed, reaching its destination.
"I admire your courage," Uriah lowered his C-gun as the doors slid apart. "But I'm sorry to tell you, you don't have a choice."
When Hevel turned, the blast of light from outside blurred his vision.
He grimaced and walked forward. And as his sight slowly returned, what unfolded before him was a scene that was just as unbelievable as it was disturbing.
Bodies.
Hundreds of them had been stacked into a malevolent tower with ritual precision. Lifeless eyes stared into the abyss, limbs twisted, blood dripping, corpses deformed beyond recognition.
Hevel's legs weakened.
Some of them were still alive. He could easily recognize Inmate 974. An eighteen year old boy.
He was always reserved and respectful. It was hard to imagine him committing the atrocities he had been sentenced to Walden Heights for.
But none of that mattered now.
His breaths were compressed into lethargic wheezes, his face frozen in horror as if pleading for his right to live and being denied even the liberty of death.
Hevel's eyes rose to the top. And a lone figure stood at the precipice of the horrific tower, gazing down at him like he was nothing.
In that moment, an unprecedented surge of rage flooded his chest. Somehow, he needed to return the pain he was feeling inside. Both fists clenched, glistening with fury. But before he could move—
"Ohhh, good timing," a voice cried out.
A teenage boy announced his presence, stretching out both arms. "Storm was just starting to get hungry, your timing couldn't be any more perfect!"
He was small even for his age and had unkempt brown hair with freckles all over his face.
Hevel tried to speak but words couldn't come. Something pressed down on him with suffocating weight.
A shadow.
Dense, towering and heavy.
The ground gave a tremor that mirrored his own heartbeat. Fear gripped him, his skin tightening. Inasmuch as his mind tried to reject the possibility, every hair on his skin could feel it.
The hot, sinister breath and drool of the abomination looming behind him.
"Wait!" Uriah yelled. "You can't kill him. He's the key."
The hulking, bloodthirsty monstrosity turned its head. Five wet, gleaming eyes swiveled in unison toward Uriah.
"Without him, you can't free the Deathbringer, let alone leave this place."
"You… who are you again?" The teenage boy leaned impolitely into Uriah's face.
Uriah grunted, motioning towards both Hevel and the prisoner.
"The one who made all this happen."
"Ohh," The boy stroked his chin. "Hmmm. But doesn't that mean… you're pretty useless now?"
Uriah's brows rose.
"Watch your tone, brat!" He snapped, clamping a hand onto the boy's shoulder.
The boy's eyes flared.
"Get your filthy hand off me!" He yelled, swinging a chakra slated fist at Uriah's face.
CLANG!
Uriah's gas mask flew. But he leaped away in time, evading the worst of the damage.
His C-gun charged up.
"Die!" He pulled the trigger. Destruction imminent.
Barrels blazed.
But all that followed was a loud and harmonious ring of silence.
"Such a dangerous toy you got there." A faint whisper curled into Uriah's ears from behind.
Wha— His voice died.
His muscles locked. His body froze mid-motion, arm still extended, finger still curled on the trigger.
He felt her. Her dark, silky strands brushing over his shoulders, followed by the featherlight touch of a stranger tracing a finger along his C-gun and outstretched arm.
"Alex," she sighed, voice sharp with scolding. "You know how dangerous these new models are. Are you seriously trying to get yourself killed?"
"I—I'm sorry, big sis Mari." The boy lowered his head nervously and apologized.
Mari abandoned the paralyzed Uriah, approaching Alex.
"This is your last warning." she said, voice cold as steel. "You know what's going to happen the next time you try picking a fight without Storm, right?"
Alex winced, taking shaky steps backwards.
"It… it won't happen again, I—i promise."
Mari's boots clanked against the asphalt floor but to Hevel the world had gone silent.
A slowed and hazy landscape where all he could hear were his own thoughts and heartbeats.
Seconds stretched.
Until—
Reality whipped him.
Uriah's body got ripped in half. No warning, no scream.
Storm's massive jaws clamped, tearing and ripping the man from belly to spine.
His torso-less lower half tumbled, blood spraying Hevel's face and clothes.
His breathing seized. All he could do was watch as the monster's teeth scraped and shredded the flesh and bones of his former colleague. One of the few he thought he could trust.
Terror creeped into his veins, yet beneath, there was something worse.
Something much more humiliating than fear.
Relief. The relief that it wasn't him.
But when he thought about it, how much longer until it was?
He clenched his fists. Even if they held the keys to his fate, he needed to at least know why.
Why they slaughtered these many people. What they aimed to achieve from all this carnage.
His voice came out tight as he faced Mari. "Why? Why kill so many?"
Mari tilted her head slightly and shrugged. "None of them are named pieces so it really doesn't matter whether they live or die."
Hevel paused to process her words.
Then, his voice cracked with anger. "Who are you?"
"Pfft," she scoffed. "I don't think you understand the position you're in."
"Hey! Yori," Mari arced her hand around her mouth, lifting her gaze to the pinnacle of the heinous monument. "Why don't you come help him out of his misery?"
Hevel also looked up and almost instantly, the figure at the summit landed, a thud rippling through the clearing.
"Since you asked nicely, I'll tell you this for free," the girl spoke. Her voice was pleasant but sharp.
She brushed back the strands of her taffy pink hair that had slipped from her twin tails when she jumped. "We're the Seers of Red."
Hevel's eyes shot up.
"Impossible. There's no way you're—"
"Deathbringers?" she interrupted, stepping into the light and revealing a face that was deceptively charming. "Believe it or not, I'm Yori and these are my siblings, Dualex and Mari Ennui-Deathbringer."
Hevel blinked, stunned. And Alex gave a slight wave.
Mari saluted towards him with a sly smile. An air of tenderness contrasting the horrors they had orchestrated.
"And before you go off on any crap about our hair colors," Yori added casually. "Those of us who bear the title 'Ennui' were adopted, rather than born into the dynasty."
"I see," His voice was steady but his nose wrinkled with hate and disgust. "Whatever you choose to call yourselves won't change the reality. You're nothing but phonies, sellouts who betrayed the soil that raised you."
"You're much worse than even those maggots born into the swarm by blood." He gathered saliva and spat it on the floor.
Yori clicked her tongue. "You really crossed the line there, I'm offended," she gave a short sigh. "But it's fine because my eyes showed me how much your hatred for me grew as you spoke."
"And you see, the stronger the emotion you feel towards me, the easier it is to turn you into a nice, obedient doggy once you're caught by my Eye of Enchantment." She placed one finger at the corner of her right eye.
Hevel's pupils contracted. His jaw went slack as he saw the ethereal shimmer blooming in her eye.
"Now," she whispered sweetly, "Get on all fours and crawl to mommy… like the good little doggy you were always meant to be."
***