Metropolis of Ashes

[Volume XIV] - (58) - Calling into the void - [I]

...

In the sudden warmth, that surrounded me, my head fell to the floor, being pushed by a rampaging body, hitting the ground with a heavy force. The sudden brightness blinded my, used to the darkness, eyes, making them tear up. The accumulation of the pain kicked in, triggering the waves of tears drop through my beaten up face. The heavy body that suddenly shoved me back, on the floor, weighed me down, making it hard to breathe. His arm was being pushed into my throat, suffocating me, probably unconsciously. The eyes of his, widely opened from the state of mania he was in, have now become crazy from the overbearing confusion. The low sound of the working machinery surrounded us, as we suddenly realized that we were inside of the elevator. The door I was leaning on, opening behind me out of nowhere, stopped my head from being minced by the unstoppable force of this man. Falling onto my back, his body followed mine, his fist urgently wanting to strike the opponent. Yet, it never met with the target.

The shock messed up with my head, my heart beating chaotically. My brain couldn't comprehend the chances... of this. If this place was powered up by the Cube, how would the elevator suddenly power up, if...

From between my fingers, a bloody stream soaked down to the floor. Struggling to open them, I saw a small scrap of gray material covered with crimson liquid. I held my already heavy breath in. Have I...

The shadow was casted on my face, as he lifted his head above mine. With his hair, clumped with blood, hanging above me, his, as always, freezing glare was pinning me down to the ground.

He then grabbed me by my hair, and forcefully pulled my head up in the air, causing me to grimace in pain. Being so close, eye to an eye, with his terrifying person, my stomach swirled from the nauseous fear, as he spitted the words in my face.

"You should have stayed dead." — He pushed my head back to the floor, making it crush with it with an impact.

My loud yell sounded in the whole elevator, as he got up from me, to the panel of the elevator. Leaving me in an agonizing state, a living corpse on the ground, he pushed the button, and wouldn't look at me even once, the elevator going all the way up.

•••

The large group of the intern scientists, wearing white coats, was walking through the rooms of the laboratories, all watching different kinds of mechanisms behind the new energy renewal methods. Fascinated by the actual technology, the new wave frequencies he felt coming from the tangled apparatuses, a brown-haired man in glasses was inquisitively observing the moving parts of the machinery, as well as the traveling light beams through the dark space. The loud chatter and questions coming from around, and even the faint pulling of his sleeve, all of them were not important before the image of the rapturing future.

But the one pulling his arm, wouldn't give up easily. Gripping his cloth stronger and stronger, she decided to go for the last resort act. Putting a cold hand on his face, he immediately regained his consciousness, with a scared expression growing on his face.

Meeting his eyes with hers, being woken up from a beautiful dream, Bellus felt slight disappointment. His thoughts have wondered far with the waves around, the frequency just right to astray. He recently discovered he was able to do things like that, astral project and float away with the current of the electromagnetism. So uncontrollable, dangerous, it would unexpectedly invite him to the unknown of the space, so far from the humanity.

But the violet eyes, teary from the anxiety, have made him come to Earth. And the feeling she now transferred, or rather a thought, made him immediately come to think about the thing that was wrong. The sudden sense of hope.

"Asha?"

He glared around the crowd, but couldn't seem to find anyone with a storm of brown, curly hair, and a pair of sharp eyes.