The old Hajidan would have curled up in a ball and waited to be eaten. The old Hajidan would have cried.
But I wasn't him anymore. Or maybe I never was.
My hand started to tingle again. That cold sensation was back, crawling up my forearm like icy spiders.
If I wanted answers, I needed to catch Ginta. To catch Ginta, I had to survive this forest. To survive, I had to listen to the damn screen.
"Alright," I breathed out. "Zero out of five essence. Let's see what happens."
I stepped out from behind the rock.
The nearest hound snapped its head toward me. It let out a gurgling growl that sounded like water in a drain. The other two turned, their yellow eyes locking onto me.
They didn't hesitate. They didn't circle. They just charged.
"Oh crap, they're fast!" I yelled, scrambling back.
The first one leaped, its jaws snapping inches from my face. I swung the branch instinctively, smacking it in the side of the head. It felt like hitting a brick wall. The branch shattered into splinters.
"Oh no!" I shouted, tossing the useless wood aside.
The hound recovered instantly, shaking its head and lunging again. Its claws raked across my chest, tearing through my shirt.
I expected pain. I braced for it.
But it felt like a cat scratch. Annoying, but not lethal. My skin felt harder, denser.
"Is that all you got?" I grunted, kicking the beast in the stomach. It yelped and flew back a few feet. I stared at my leg. Did I just kick a hundred-pound monster like a soccer ball?
The other two were on me now. One bit into my shoulder, the other went for my leg.
This time, I felt it. A sharp sting, followed by the pressure of crushing jaws.
"Get off!" I screamed.
I didn't think about it. I just wanted them gone. I shoved my palm into the face of the one biting my shoulder and pushed with my mind.
Whoosh.
The cold blue fire exploded from my hand. It didn't spread like normal fire; it engulfed the beast's head in a flash of azure light. The wolf didn't scream. It just stopped.
It fell to the ground, its head encased in a block of blue ice that was smoking.
"Holy..." I gasped.
[ESSENCE ABSORBED. +10 JINK.]
[PROGRESS: 1/5]
I felt energized, like drinking a double shot of espresso straight to the brain. The fatigue I hadn't even realized I was feeling vanished completely. The bite mark on my shoulder knit itself back together in seconds, leaving not even a scar.
The last wolf backed away, whimpering. It looked at its frozen packmate, then at me.
It turned to run.
"Oh no, you don't," I muttered. "I need five."
I pointed my hand at the fleeing beast. I focused on that cold feeling in my gut, pulled it up through my chest, and released it. A bolt of blue energy shot from my fingertips, striking the wolf in the hind legs. It tumbled, frozen mid-stride.
I stood there, panting, my hand still raised. The forest was quiet again.
"I did that," I whispered. I looked at my hands. They were trembling, from the power vibrating under my skin. "I'm a monster."
"No," a voice in my head. "You're a survivor."
I walked over to the frozen beasts. As I got close, the bodies seemed to dissolve into particles of light that drifted into my chest.
[Essence Absorbed. Progress: 3/5]
I didn't feel sick about it. That was the scariest part. I felt good. I felt strong. And that terrified me more than the mutants.
I checked the sky. The clouds were darker now, shifting from grey to a bruised purple. A storm was coming, a bad one. I had to find shelter, or better yet, I had to find Ginta before the rain washed his tracks away.
I kept moving North, following the faint trail of broken twigs and disturbed dirt that I assumed was Ginta's. The power in my veins made me faster. I was jumping over fallen trees that I would have had to climb over before. I was hearing sounds, the scuttle of beetles under bark, the wind whistling through the pines, with a clarity that was overwhelming.
After another mile, the trees began to thin out. I came to the edge of a ridge overlooking a small valley.
And there he I saw a man.
He wasn't alone.
I dropped to my stomach, crawling to the edge of the cliff to get a better look.
He was standing near a collapsed radio tower. He had a device in his hand, something that looked like a bulky satellite phone. He was pacing back and forth, waving his arms aggressively.
I squinted, trying to read his lips, but he was too far. But thanks to whatever this Jink system was, my hearing was dialled up to eleven. I focused, straining to catch the sound waves carried by the wind.
"...told you, the subject is stable!" He's voice drifted up to me, faint but clear. "No, he didn't mutate."
Vessel?
Could it be that he's talking about me?
I leaned forward, straining to hear the rest. My boot found a patch of slick moss on the rock ledge.
Skrrrt.
I lost my grip. My body lurched forward, sending a cascade of loose gravel clattering down the ravine.
"Damn it!" I hissed, scrambling to regain my balance, but it was too late.
He snapped his head directly toward my hiding spot with mechanical precision. Our eyes locked.
He raised a hand and snapped his fingers.
A harsh, blaring siren erupted from the tower, cutting through the thunder.
Whoop. Whoop. Whoop.
"Secure the perimeter!" the man shouted, stepping back into the shadows
.
From the tents surrounding the tower, the heat signatures I had seen earlier burst into motion. Five soldiers in full tactical gear rushed out, rifles raised, flashlights slicing through the gloom.
"Freeze! Down on the ground!" one of them screamed, spotting me on the ledge.
"Wait, I'm not—"
I didn't get to finish the sentence. Two of them opened fire.
Bang! Bang!
Bullets chipped the rock inches from my face.
And then, decide to move. I didn't plan a counter-attack.
A cold electric shock jolted the base of my skull, bypassing my brain entirely.
[THREAT DETECTED. DEFENSE PROTOCOL: ENGAGED.]
My vision tunneled. My fear vanished, replaced by a cold, robotic calculation.
I moved so fast the raindrops seemed to hang suspended in the air. I closed the twenty-foot gap in a heartbeat.
The first soldier was raising his rifle.
My arm lashed out. I didn't even have a weapon. My hand just coated itself in a jagged edge of blue ice, forming a temporary blade.
I slid past him.
I didn't feel an impact. I just felt... resistance, like cutting through wet clay.
The soldier behind him turned. I spun, and slashed horizontally.
It was over in three seconds.
I skidded to a halt in the mud, my chest heaving. The blue ice on my hand shattered and dissolved into steam.
"Stay back!" I yelled, spinning around to face them.
"I warned you to—"
My voice died in my throat.
The soldiers weren't moving. They weren't arresting me.
The first man fell, his tactical vest split diagonally from shoulder to hip. The second man simply collapsed, his upper body sliding off his legs in a gruesome heap of gore.
"No..." I whispered, backing away.
I looked at my hands. They were drenched in red. Warm, sticky, metallic red.
This wasn't the black sludge of the mutants or the green ichor of the beasts.
This was blood. Human blood.
"I just killed them," I choked out.
I stared at the bodies. They were probably following orders. They weren't monsters. They were people.
Why? Why did I do that?
I grabbed my right arm with my left hand, digging my fingernails in until it hurt, trying to confirm that this limb belonged to me.
"My body... it moved on its own," I stammered, shaking my head violently. "I didn't think. I didn't want to kill them!"
It was like something else was driving the car, and I was just trapped in the passenger seat screaming at the windshield. Sometimes my instincts were kicking me harder than I was thinking, but this? This was different. This was murder on autopilot.
"No, no no no no," I whimpered, wiping my bloody hands on my pants, but the stain wouldn't come out.
[COMBAT ENCOUNTER RESOLVED. +50 JINK.]
The blue screen popped up, It gave me points for slaughtering human beings.
"Shut up!" I screamed at the air, swinging my fist through the hologram.
I couldn't stay here. If more came, I'd kill them too. I knew it now. I was a weapon, and the safety was broken.