𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐓𝐖𝐈𝐍 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐃𝐎𝐗 ✓

34: A NEW FOUND ABILITY

"But he had promised, he would turn back, he would live and he would break free..."

...

Year 2076, One Ante Merediem

The siren was too loud at the sudden break of moments, the quiescence falling apart all of a sudden.
There was a whistling one, a loud crash that sounded more like a far-off explosion. The siren grew louder, a rattling noise intensified by a reverberating clamour.

"The machine!" Leaving Sejin between his story telling, Jaden ran across the metallic chambers, one foot at a time in a hurried course and what he saw wasn't completely alien to what he had always feared of.
The whole laboratory was a disaster. Broken cylinders, shards, the dead bodies lying around in their raw epitome.

Jaden stumbled through the debris-filled laboratory, his wide eyes taking in the destruction around him. The room pulsated with an eerie silence that was only disrupted by the occasional flickering of damaged fluorescent lights above.

And it took another blast to shake the man off his feet. It was impossible to predict what would occur next: a catastrophic nuclear reaction may burst from underground pipes, where there is no hope in this ominously perilous metropolis, or it could explode from the water.
Though that scenario remained hypothetical for now.

"Jaden, buddy, what happened?" Sejin was quick on his feet to trail the path following Jaden into the outer, the cursed ratatouille of what was the forsaken result. This had happened once and was happening again.

Jaden looked up at Sejin, his eyes bloodshot and filled with dread. "Professor, this— let's get out of here, please!"

Walls quivered with each aftershock, threatening to collapse upon them. It was clear that what had happened once before was happening again, with devastating consequences.

Instead of trying another emergency command post that could be reached with an elevator or through air vents, that they knew well, they stood right there. And the longer they feigned that the situation was under control, the higher were their chances of death.

Ahyun lay there, bare. Her body wrinkled, pallid, devoid of any blood or life. The green gluten dribbled from the corner of her mouth and onto the floor. Sejin could see an assortment of emptied and shattered jars around her body. Her wrists were slashed vertically, breaking up the smoothness of her light grey skin with a deep river of scarlet that looked like gummy grins.

But Sejin was too hurled into the whole demand, his eyes stuck upon the grief, the pain, the fear for he hadn't just witnessed two bodies on the floor, but a third human standing straight, far too much into the darkness for a perfect deduction but the twin thing in him had recognised the silhouette pretty well.

"Seojin-ah..."

Three hours ago

Tic.
Tic.
Tic.

Three beats later, someone said hello inside his mind. Too bad he was frozen up against the walls of the tiny enclosure of his memories. A pair of ugly blue eyes gazed without ceasing even once while staring through closed eyes.

What was happening? Was it the human body, then? The sensation of unease oscillated in his mind like a lingering echo. It was as if he could feel the pain, anger, and despair that plagued humanity. The weight of their emotions bore down on him, fuelling an unquenchable thirst for power.