The Outskirts (ITZY Shin Ryujin)

11

Lia had led Luke to an area she called the 'safe room'. It was a cellar deep below the house, hidden by the dining table. She told him to stay there until someone came down and led him out. Then she left to, what Luke presumed,  help the others out.

Hours passed in the cellar and Luke had nothing but dust and spiders to not only keep him company but to also entertain him. From his position, he couldn't hear anything happening in his room which somewhat worried him. What if all the girls ended up dying and he didn't even know? What if no one ever comes down to led him out? What if he was stuck in there forever?

His wicked thoughts instantly halted when he heard the creak of the cellar door opening. He scooted to a corner where he was sure no one would see him. Terror filled him at the thought it may be Tinsel or Ryujin. Don't get him wrong, he didn't hate either of them but for the meantime, he was thoroughly terrified of both of them.

Unfortunately, his wish was not granted and the next thing he saw what Ryujin descending the ladder. Once she reached the bottom, she scanned around the cellar before sighing.

"Luke," she uttered. "I know you are in here."

He didn't respond, instead, he searched her face, feeling nauseous at the sight of Ryujin not even having a scratch on her face. He saw Tinsel and saw all the blood around her. How could she possibly not be hurt whatsoever?

"Luke, please respond. I swear I'm not a monster. I'm not trying to kill you."

No response.

She sighed, realising her efforts were just a waste. She almost ascended the ladder before an idea crossed her mind.

She turned away from the ladder with a sigh and took a seat in the middle of the cellar.

"If you don't want to talk, then I will. Lia told me you know a bit about Kingston Blue's inventions. I bet you've already concluded that all of us are one of his many projects, apart from Yeji, of course. I'm not sure whether you heard about them, but sirens were one of his works."

Luke perked up at this and almost blew his whole cover.

"Sirens were meant to basically be humans, only with more functions and powers. The whole idea was that if a siren and human reproduce, then in generations to come, humans would have superpowers and be immortal. It was perfect and everything was going so well until one of his colleagues, Rain Richards heard about the plan and decided to interfere with it. One night when Blue went home early, Richards stole all of his work regarding the sirens and decided to make it his own idea. However, he didn't put in as much research into the consequences as Blue did and ended up making them human killing machines. When he realised the invention had failed, he returned it to Blue and pretended it was all Blue's lack of planning that destroyed the whole idea. Before Blue even had the chance to save the world from sirens, the original one had already escaped and began terrorising the world. Blue did all he could to kill it, he even made his own sirens to kill it but nothing helped. Eventually he did all he could, he sacrificed his whole career to save the Fernians and blew up his factory in order to make some areas more radioactive than others. His inventions were drawn to the radioactivity as they thrived better there and after generations upon generations, they became so used to the radioactivity, they couldn't even live in the urban areas... The original siren was Tinsel."

Although her story was fascinating and almost made Luke jump out of his corner countless times, he still managed to maintain his composure and remain silent. Ryujin sighed.

"Tinsel wants not just you, but all of the humans dead. That's why he's after you. He wants you to leave the protection of our base so his powers are unlimited and he can kill you whichever way he pleases. Please believe me."

No response.

She sighed once more before standing up and heading to the ladder.

"I'll ask Lia to get you out of here, alright?" She uttered softly. "I know you can't exactly trust me, and I know you trust her more than the rest of us."

And with that, Ryujin ascended the ladder, leaving Luke with the spiders and dust again.