Tens of kilometers away from where Mr. Hongsu was being placed under arrest, in a place known only to a handful of people on the outside world, miles deep beneath the earth, a young lady did her best to focus through of an overwhelming headache while being blinded by bright white surgical lights above her as constant beeps, hums and clicks of medical scanning equipment that were hooked into her body irritated her to levels she could barely tolerate.
She pulled and twisted against straps that held her tightly against a sanitized medical bed.
"Where is Doctor Semyon!" A vicious growl echoed beneath her tone that belonged nowhere near such a petite lady. She began thrashing, whipping her long black hair around with such surprising force it was able to leave thin paper-cut like injuries across her face and ears.
"I n-need" she screamed towards a large clear viewing glass, "It hurts. I n-n-n."
There were four individuals wearing pristine lab coats busy in another chamber directly next to hers. Three stood behind the fourth, who was seated over a complex looking machine that constantly displayed multiple percentage and numerical data. This man with carried a name tag of 'Doctor Semyon Pertrakov'. He watched the screen with wide hungry eyes.
Doctor Semyon whispered, "The Dark Matter in her is rising"
"But where is it coming from?" another softly responded.
The group watched, transfixed. They could see her through the viewing glass, yet instead they ignored the lady's pleas while they monitored the machine readouts eagerly.
Progress. Progress, after almost a decade of research.
Soon they were throwing questions into the air.
"Is she somehow generating it?"
"Perhaps she's drawing it from another dimension entirely?"
"Can she contain all of it?"
"Can we extract the Dark Matter through her?"
"SEMYOOOOOONNN!" She screamed. Thick, bulging veins began to snake across her face and neck, "I-ITS- ITS TOOOOO MUUUCCCHHHHH! I CAN'T – I CAN'T" with one final futile lurch, the lady silently collapsed back onto the bed.
"There's biological activity!" They hunched closer in excitement to get a better view of the readouts.
"Cellular replication?"
"How?"
"Temperature is spiking!"
SSSSSCCCCCRRRRREEEEIEEIIIEEIEIEIEIE!!!
A shriek of rage and fury blasted outward rattling the viewing window. Her body rapidly began to exude a tremendous amount of steam, followed by an ethereal purple light that bathed both rooms in a radiant amethyst glow.
"What???" all four of them voiced in unison.
The amethyst light was not too blinding as such each doctor viewing watched in delightful confusion as the lady's body mysteriously began to swell, as it did, veins of amethyst light crisscrossed her entire skin surface.
Until. The sound of a weak muted groan filled their ears. Her body burst into a shower of amethyst light particles before rapidly dissipating into nothingness.
Silence reigned. The doctors were transfixed with the readout they were receiving.
One of them spoke first with a hesitant chuckle, "w-we did it?"
Doctor Semyon rose as he spoke, "she f-fused – no –" he paused, searching for the right word. Another doctor else offered it, "Bonded?"
Doctor Semyon snapped his fingers, "Yes!" he looked at his colleagues excitedly, "The Dark Matter is the key. We we're close t-"
"YOU WATCHED ME DIE!!!"
The words resonated in their heads all at once, but as the doctors looked around, fearful of the hatred locked in those words, they saw no one.
"YOU USED ME!!!" this time it was a scream that carried a palpable anger. One of the doctors immediately slumped, profusely bleeding from his ears and nose.
Suddenly, the room was cast in a blinking red light as an alarm blared to life.
"ALERT! ALERT!" cried a female mechanical voice, "ALERT! PERSONNEL CASUALTIES DETECTED!"
Two other doctors immediately bolted from the room, leaving Doctor Semyon behind, who reluctantly went to check on his injured colleague.
"ALERT!" continued the system voice, " MULTIPLE RESEARCH SUBJECTS MISSING!"
He had a weak pulse. So Doctor Semyon reluctantly left him there. Following after his colleagues.
As he entered the corridor however, he heard distant sounds of rapid gunfire, worse yet, his surrounds shook once, startling him.
What could have shaken an underground research facility?
Ming Su watched as security forces locked their handcuffs around Mr. Hongsu's wrists. The dazed journalist didn't say a word as the cuffs clicked. Only then did Ming Su approach.
"Wait." He called out to the guards, halting them, "I need to talk to him."
One of the officer immediately responded, "Sir, we have to take him back to the station for-" Ming Su cut him off.
"When last did you see a person jump across several streets? Or grow two feet taller in a matter of moments. We have to get to the bottom of this quickly, so shut up as I ask him a few questions."
The officer looked deflated but he didn't reply. Instead, Mr. Hongsu was pushed forward, closer to Ming Su.
"What was your gain here? Why attack us with that… thing?"
It was then Mr. Hongsu's eyes focused and he spoke, "You think I did this?"
"No." Said Ming, "Instead I need you to focus so you can tell us where that thing is going. You brought him here."
Hongsu began to shake his head in disbelief, "I have no idea what's going on, I-I" he looked around as emergency services attended to injured people, "Did I cause this?"
"Focus Mr. Hongsu, you brought that thing here. Why?"
"Thing? N-No. No. That was Kim Yoo. He was-is, a-an Umbra Victim. He agreed to come because – his tumor had showed signs of accelerated growth. I-I-I hoped. If his problem was publicized, he may have been able to get help. It was a tumor." He said, shaking his head sadly.
"But. We all saw that thing. We all saw what he – became." Ming Su continued, "where is he going Mr. Hongsu?"
A few moments passed as the elder journalist did his best to remember.
"We. We only just met, but, he complained, in between his headaches, he complained to me how neither his wife nor children bothered to take him to the hospital when the headaches began. He said he had woken up from the same spot he had initially passed out in. No one helped him. He called them parasites." This seemed to have taken everything out of Mr. Hongsu.
"Officers, contact your superiors immediately. We are looking for a Mr. Kim Yoo." He turned to Hongsu, "we will need as much information on him as possible, t-that thing he turned to, it might want to hurt- "
Hongsu raised his cuffed hands to stop him. "I will tell everything about him I know. His address is."
Park Ming Su listened for a while. Then he called his superiors and relayed the strangest tale of his life so far.
Fortunately, the video of Kim Yoo's transformation was already beginning to go viral so his superiors didn't believe he had gone crazy for too long.