Watching the lifeless body of the mad Gren Vegor lying on the cold floor of this dark, green illuminated room, Theron didn't have any feelings other than lamenting and relief.
Lamenting because he was indeed feeling sorry over the loss of such brilliant mind – even if it was at the same time deranged, but he also felt relief for overcoming this danger upon his life.
Just like he told the dying madman, no matter how much he respected him as a fellow researcher and admired his ingenuity and resourcefulness for achieving so much with so little, it didn't change the fact, nor outweigh the importance of keeping this second life of his intact.
He wasn't really some normal five-years-old kid either, to shy away from what should truly be done to protect their own life, and instead only be able to cry their eyes out because of fear and immaturity.
Guiltless in conscience, Theron started thinking of leaving this room after wiping the blade of his concealed weapon clean of blood on the lifeless body's clothes and retracting it back to place.
He didn't know how much time had passed since the hit that rendered him unconscious and until he woke up, but it couldn't be just a few minutes. He was even willing to bet Frank and Alicia were already worried sick because of his delay in getting back home. The only variable existing now would be how long this delay had lasted so far.
Just thinking of Alicia's murderous glare as she imposed curfew hours and the need for exit permits - just because he wasn't home on time as he always was - broke Theron in cold sweat. He needed to be fast and get back home as soon as possible!
But there was one more thing he needed to do before he searched for a way out. Something that was worth withstanding Alicia's wrath.
Looking over to the table the deceased Gren Vegor had sat at and the closed book he wrote in, Theron walked towards them first.
With just a slight effort, he climbed atop the stool and sat on it; his legs dangling in the air while the book with its leather cover was quietly sitting in front of him.
By opening it and turning its yellowed-out pages one by one, Theron began reading its contexts.
At the start it held the school notes of a student; they were simple and showed the hardworking attitude of their writer. But then, all of a sudden, the organized notes were replaced with phrases filled with sorrow and pain; only for madness and hatred to leak from each of the words that followed soon after.
Something that now would forever stay untold must have happened to the young writer, twisting his mind in ways incomprehensible to normal people.
In Theron's case though, who was reading through them, the feelings etched deep in the book pages with every word, felt familiar to him.
Feelings he only felt when he was betrayed for the first time in his past life by a person, he thought to be a sworn brother of his. He had placed his trust in that person and shared his ideas and notes for a couple of important subjects he thought of, and that person turned and stabbed him in the back, taking everything and claiming them as his own.
Shaking his head to leave the pained memory lane, he turned the pages of the book one by one, only glimpsing at their contexts of ever-growing madness, right up until the first diagram, accompanied by the writer's mad theory presented themselves.
Finally finding something interesting, Theron carefully read the pages over. After reading through a couple of pages about them, they proved to not be anything special after all, but the writer's way of thinking had sparked and fueled his interest.
Quickly rummaging over the next pages, Theron's interest over what they entailed grew more and more with each mad theory and complex diagram he laid his eyes upon. Weird experiments would sometimes be noted down to test the theories; their specifications extremely detailed and calculated. Although most of them didn't agree with Theron's values and morals as a human being, they didn't cease to amaze him with their ingenuity.
When he got to the last bunch of pages, there were theories not even him could get his head around, while when he read his name and the experiments the writer had intended to test on him, they got his hair rising, spooking him on the spot.
"Damn! These are experiments devised for hell torture! Fortunately, I managed to bring him down before I was subjected to them, otherwise I don't think I could have survived through them!" Theron exclaimed in shock.
But, taking a minute to think these theories and the complex schematics for them over again, they were indeed amazing in their concepts and thought process. If they proved to be correct and practical, their results would be no short of outstanding.
And while the experiments' instructions and applications of some of them are hair-raising and inhuman in their practice, if he got to tweak them a little and remove the procedures that were threatening to the subject's life, he theorized there would not be any limits to what he could accomplish if he followed them!
This book and its later pages were too precious for Theron to leave behind!
As a seeker and engineer of what energy - in all its essence and forms - was capable of, he would do anything that still fell under the spectrum of his values as a human being to pursue this world's energy potential and pinnacle; even if that anything fell to its very borders or was tethering towards the other side.
With the light of two lives' goal in his eyes, he grabbed the book and jumped off the stool. After tucking it beneath his thick jacket and making sure it was secured in place, he began looking in earnest for a way out.
Although he only spent ten minutes reading through the book, those were ten minutes longer of his absence that would fuel Alicia's wrath.
It wasn't long before he found a lever on one of the four walls. After pulling it, a hidden wooden door opened and revealed a dark, dimly lit passage behind it.
Not finding any other exit, he swiftly moved his legs and reached the other end of it in no time at all. Another similar lever was impended in front him, on what seemed to be a stone-bricked dead end. Pulling it down just the same, he entered a storage room filled with shelves and baskets with fruits and vegetables respectively on and inside them. Opening a door to his right, he found himself inside a dark, but familiar grocery store, the "Greens For You!".
While he thought it to be the case, he was for sure glad to have ended up somewhere he had visited once before. At least now, he wouldn't need to waste any more time finding his location and the way back home.
Quickly proceeding towards the main door of the store, he unlocked it with a key he had found on the counter behind him and pulled it open; relief and satisfaction washing over his body and mind as he was thinking that this ordeal was finally over, with a souvenir under his jacket to bring back home and study to boot.