'Tis calm indeed! So calm, that it disturbs
And vexes mediation with its strange
And extreme silentness.
Samuel Taylor Coleridgde, Frost at Midnight
PROLOGUE
"DO YOU HAVE EVERYTHING ready?" Somewhere in Venice, within an enclosed and dense forest, stood a man, a sword stripped to his back and a scar marring down his perfect features. The trees ruffled his neatly trimmed hair, giving him a dark and foreboding look. The few rows of his suit were unbuttoned and undone, showing off a well-built and toned chest.
There were a few rustling heard in the bushes, but eventually, a tall, grey-haired man graciously emerged from the shadows, cigarette casually hanging in a scowling mouth. "Did you really have to fucking call me all the way here from town? Do you have the slightest clue in how extremely fucking difficult it was to trudge all the way here on foot?" He huffed, furrowed his eyebrows at the lack of response, and slowly fished out something from his pocket and lit another joint; puffing a few smokes out of his nostrils.
His friend frowned at this and discreetly swatted away the pollution coming out from the grey-haired man's mouth. "Hayato, you know how important this is to us." He gave him a hard look. "If you actually aren't as solemn as I thought you were, it'd be best for all of us if you just leave." The grey-haired man paused, eyes flickering over to the raven-haired man in disbelief; then, in a matter of seconds, he had the latter slammed against the wall, sneering.
"Don't you fucking dare tell me what to do, you fucking bastard," he snarled. "I know how important this is to us. So the next time you try getting rid of me, I'll shove a dynamite down your damn throat to make you shut the hell up." They both remained quiet at this declaration, a heavy veil of silence engulfing them.
Then, the raven-haired man laughed and shrugged the arm off. "Of course, of course, how could I possibly have thought otherwise?" He tossed Hayato a thin smile. "And it's Takeshi to you, not bastard."
Hayato gave Takeshi a look that you would give a retarded fool and shrugged. He lit another joint. "Like I would call an idiot by his given name... "
Takeshi smiled. "Well, he used to do it."
Pause. Everything suddenly turned still.
And still was never a good thing. Never. Not when it was about them. When it was about Vongola.
About him.
Hayato stopped smoking and Takeshi takes a step back, head lowering down and regretting the words the instant they came out of his mouth. The world seemed to have caved in on itself.
Hayato turned to look at Takeshi, face unreadable. "Do... do you really think we could get him back?" His voice was uncharacteristically small, and very, very, unheard of. It was a sign of vulnurability, and Takeshi didn't know how to handle that. Not when his partner so rarely showed weakness.
Gokudera folded his arms neatly across his chest, fists curling around his joint in a tight hold.
Takeshi stared at him for a while, contemplating, before turning his head away, avoiding eye contact. "I don't know," he replied tentatively.
In lieu of a reply, Hayato scowled and threw the cigarette to the ground, twisting it with his polished shoe. "If you don't know," he growled, glaring, "then don't bother answering." He turned on his heels and left without saying another word.
Takeshi released a breath of resignation and racked a hand through his black locks. He should've known better than to call Hayato all the way from town, but he desperately needed information, one that his companion didn't seem willing enough to give.
"None of us know, Hayato." He turned his head to miserably look at the darkening sky; thunder seemed to roll in behind a condensed bank of cloud. It's a sign that it was going to rain soon. "None of us know."
ONE
It was dark and eerie inside the tiny cell - and every now and then, a vague beam of moonlight would pour through the cracks of the wall. The ramparts were dour and covered in cobwebs, every nook and cranny eroded and timeworn, basically giving the small space a very uncanny look.
The only sound I heard was the dripping of water from one of the gaping cracks of the cavern-like walls, the dull pit-pat sound of raindrops resounding through thick walls and the whimpering of the other children as they fumble with the shackles that bounded them to this hellhole. The youngest of them let out a startlingly loud wail, big fat tears rolling off their face as the elder rubbed shaking and comforting circles around his back, whispering reassuring lies into his ear.
The other new experiments came in about a month ago, but now they had bandages loosely wrapped around their cranium, crimson blood seeping through the whiteness of the damped cloth. The reluctant ones were thinner and soulless and their skulls were chipped off, dead, a reminder to the newer ones that this was the end result to children who don't listen. Who don't obey. Only seven of them remained; the others had died within a week. Their bodies dumped down the moors.
The child beside me played with the dirt, drawing stick figurines that resembled what might've once been his family. He's young; far too young to be here.
But then again, what else is new?
Rough footsteps came blaring across the left corridor, sending shockwaves of dread climbing up and down each child's spine.
"Alright, listen here you brats!" Swinging the prison door open, a stubbly man came strolling through the door, looking extremely worse for wear. His accent was thick, an inflection that belonged somewhere in the far north maybe; Scotland? I don't know; I've never been there myself. He looked like he belonged to a carnival, or, more befittingly, a circus. His moustache practically reached his stomach, and it was singed on the end, and unstylishly curly, a dull brown of sort. The children stilled.
He looked around the room, scanning the perimeter, as if bored. "The boss wants one of you to come to the laboratory; didn't tell me which one though, so I'll just pick whoever. You all best behave yourselves!" The new children let out a stifled scream. I tried distinguishing what was going through their heads; with the bandages and the bloodied and soulless body, it was quite obvious that they knew that they were the guinea pigs for the actions taking place in this facility. Their fear was evident on their face.
The man turned to look around the room and circled smoothly around each child, a ferocious grin curling around his lips in some kind of twisted satisfaction as the children continued their silent crying.
Then, his eyes met mine.
"27," he called, reading the mark on my neck. The number rolled off oddly on his tongue, as if spoken in an alien language.
I stood obediently.
"Yes," I replied. The children looked at me fearfully, as if they were afraid whatever would happen to me, the results would also reflect on them.
He motioned for me to come closer, so I followed suit. The hold he had around my hair didn't feel as painful as it probably should've. "Today is your lucky day," he said, grinning. His breath smelt of alcohol and something else; a ghastly odor that hung between the two of us.
I dimly noted in how the bounds around my feet were set loose, but my hands were still bounded by the metal shackles. An angry red blossomed on my too-pale skin, wrapping around my thin legs like a scar. He smiled knowingly at me, as if expecting gratitude. His fingers lingered on my leg a little too close to my thighs for comfort. "Come along now then." He jolted me, shoving me towards the exit of the cell.
Out of nowhere, one of the children shot upwards with such speed, the others' didn't notice him but of a scant second later, when he was running towards the agape door. The man holding my wrists stood suspiciously still, watching uncaringly as one of the facility's precious experiments try and make a run for it.
Instead of encouraging his efforts, I shot him a dull glare.
Turn around, I urged. He continued for his little escapade, his eyes lighting up with hope.
Turn around, I urged again. The man beside me yawned and lazily fingered the pistol strapped to his side. This boy didn't know what dangers awaited him if he doesn't stop his thoughtless efforts in escaping.
"Turn around.. " I whispered, but it was far too quiet, a clamor of words lost to the wind, and I watched, expecting the inevitable as the child paused midway to the entrance and cry out in sheer agony as one of his legs got shot, blood seeping out profusely from the bullet wound. His eyes blazed with such astonishing pain that I had to avert my eyes elsewhere, forcing myself to be ignorant. It was the same routine everyday: the heartless beating of the disobedient, the lectures, the trauma, and the uncountable experimentations.
Witnessing another's suffering would always leave an aching hole throbbing in my chest, regardless of my efforts into trying to be unaware, to be insensible. It forced me to acknowledge the fact that this world was twisted, that these children were no better than guinea pigs.
The man whistled and tucked the gun back to its holster. "Whoa, he almost made it through, didn't he?" He laughed, a dry, rusting sort of sound, and shook his head, as if he was actually expecting us to whoop and applaud the scene, and took four long strides towards the bleeding body, stepping on the injured leg and twisting it with his shoe, eyes shining with joy from the pained reaction he got. "Listen here you little shit... " he trailed as he kicked the boy's face. A few rows of his teeth got knocked out. I noticed this all, even if I didn't want too.
"Nobody can escape this place," he whispered – almost delicately, almost gently – into the shaking child's ear. "This is your home now, we are your family. Be glad that you're still alive." He kicked the body towards the wall and the boy stopped struggling, the will to fight back seemingly leaving his tiny form as he fell down the ground with a dismal thump.
I noted that he was the child who drew the stick figures of his family. He must be one of the seven to still be alive.
He turned to look at the shaking figures of the children who had witnessed the entire thing. "Be glad that you're all still alive." The children muffled another scream. The eldest child hugged her brother tighter to her chest, preventing him from seeing the bruised and possibly dead body of the young boy.
The man turned to me next, smiling amusingly at my obedience. "You've been here the longest, eh?" He grabbed my wrist, pulling it towards his face as he studied it with a malicious glint within his murky orbs. "Then you'll surely enjoy what the boss will do to you up there in the laboratory." He grinned.
Oh, I know, I thought as he tugged me towards the blinding entry. I know everything that you do, and you sick bastards are going to burn in hell for all the nonsensical bullshit you guys attempt to force onto these kids. I could feel it in my bones. These inhuman experimentations, the uncountable bodies rotting away in the moors, left nothing as foxes and jackals make their meals out of the entrails and intestines of the failed experiments... But what could I do in such an impossible situation that I have no control over? I feel sorry for them, but that's as far as my interest goes.
"You look pretty good for an experiment," the man beside me said, alerting me back to reality. "Why don't you and I head for my room later on this evening and have a little fun?" He winked at me. My stomach churned with repulsion.
Instead of shooting down his offer, I gave a sullied nod.
He grinned and let his fingers trail behind the small of my back for a brief moment. Only for a moment though, because someone else came into view, the whiteness of their lab coat nearly blinding me. The doctors really do like their color – never mind the fact that white wasn't a color at all. The added presence of another didn't really ease down my nerves, if anything, the white lab coat made my stomach stir more in uneasiness.
"27." He nodded at me in acknowledgment, before turning his gaze over to the obese man beside me in approval. "You chose well, Adam."
Adam belched and laughed. "Of course I chose well!" He patted my head like he was praising me for a job well done. "This kid here followed suit without a single peep coming out from his mouth."
The doctor nodded and smiled thinly. Adam's disheveled and ugly demeanor seemed to bother him greatly. "I know." He took my shackle bound wrist, and with a swift tug, the metal bounds fell to the ground with a dull thump. Adam stepped back and did a double take of the situation, eyes rounding with disbelief.
"Ready for today's experimentation, 27?" he asked, smiling warmly.
I nodded. His smile grew.
He ushered me into the spiral steps, his expression easygoing and warm as he casually dismissed Adam with the flick of his wrist.
We continued our way, the coldness of the marble tile hard and rough against my bare feet.
"A few weeks back," the doctor started, smiling. "The last experiment gouged his eyes out with a nearby scalpel one of my careless students had left unattended and slashed his chest with it; right across his essential organs. We didn't even have time to react to this, and his head was severed at that time, having gone into one of our daily researches. So we decided to dump his body down the clearings. Anyways, the foxes needed feeding." His tone was so light and casual; he could've been talking about the weather.
After a while, we arrived in front of a white door, beautiful in its simplicity, yet the insides were morbid and saturnine. It was a place of blood and the conducting of tests results.
The doctor gave me another cryptic smile. "Shall we continue?"
I nodded. He opened the door.
The place was as white and as disgusting as I remembered. The smell of blood and anesthesia hit my nostrils, and the doctors clutching a load of documents to their chest whirled to look at us, gloves and other varieties already worn over their body out of old habit. They fidgeted; an action that didn't go unnoticed, and eyed me, excited for what awaited me on the cold surface of the table that laid across the room.
The doctor beside me smiled again. "Let's begin now, shall we?" He looked at me expectantly.
Wordlessly, I started walking towards the table in the middle, settling down and watching as the doctors fussed around me. Their motives weren't mentioned, never were, but it hung in the air like finely printed words, clear for me to see. I nodded to show I heard and understood. He walked over to me, a tube with a nozzle and piston in his gloved hands, and injected the vile into my raw skin. The liquids made me feel dizzy.
He smiled and pulled the syringe out and motioned for the others' to reel in a jar of sorts. The smell of blood and rotten eggs made my eyes water.
Majority of the occupants in the room were watching me with something like mild hunger blazing in their eyes, like I was an animal for display. They appeared starved almost - hunger to do ungodly things, and anticipating for the impossible to happen. Now that they were away from the place that comprised of rules and moral fundamentals, they were free to do things to us as they see fit.
The doctor who walked me here gathered several vials and surgical tools from the various cabinets around the room. His expression was one akin to a madman's.
He turned to me, smiling. "We're going to give you a few organs from an animal, and see what happens, alright? Then you'll be out in no time at all." The message, if you don't struggle, wasn't mentioned, but was heavily implied.
Suddenly, my stomach twisted into tight and uneven knots once he squirted the disgusting vials into my bloodstreams, and my vision was tarnished with red.
Kill them, a dark, voice inside me urged, like a prayer, making me itch for the nearest blunt object I could get my hands on and stab the doctor in the chest with it.
The doctor gave me a reassuring smile and laid me across the table, still casual and easy going as if he wasn't going to rip open a child's body. "This would only take a few moments, an hour or two at most, okay?"
If I'm still alive by then. But I nodded against my own better judgement.
Kill them. The doctor smiled at me.
He strapped the leather bounds across my torso and legs and I closed my bloodthirsty vision, willing myself to go to sleep.
Kill. I felt his haste and whispered instructions to the inexperienced and new surgeons.
Kill—a loud 'boom' ensued in the distance, causing the startled surgeons to lose their balance for a second. They were back up not even a few moments later; alarmed and hysterical.
The warm expression was quickly wiped off the doctor's face and a dark and obscure look replaced it instead. "What was that?" he barked. "If I find out that someone is messing around in the boiler room—" Before he could think of finishing his threat, the walls shook and burst, causing dozens of debris and rubble to crush a few of the surgeons body, blood erupting from their skulls.
The sight of the blood tainting the white and sterile floor made my bloodthirst grew. I was desperate to kill someone. My fingers itched. The knife above my head glinted maliciously. I reached for it.
The doctor's face was one of pure rage, unbothered by his subordinates' bodies that were crushed under the heavy weight of the wall. The alarm blared and echoed around the room, signaling the interference of intruders. "Gather only the necessities!" he snarled, watching as the frantic surgeons gathered the tools and crumpled documents. "Do what you must, sound the rest of the alarms, gather all the experiments, head towards the narrow rooms and make a run for it, leave behind the rest who you decide could not make it—" He couldn't finish his orders, because blood spluttered out from his mouth and his eyes convulsed with sudden pain. He turned to look at me, eyes widening at the glinting knife within my tight grasp, watching with fear as my hand drove it home, crushing his vital organs.
"Thank you for everything," I whispered, "doctor." I withdrew my hand, watching apathetically as his body descended down the ground, chest soaked through with blood and inhaling once, twice, before his body sagged lifelessly, going still, alerting me of his death.
I couldn't believe what I was seeing, yet the blood drenching my bare feet proved my doubts otherwise. The doctor was dead. The one who initiated such horrific experiments on us was dead, gone, deceased, killed by own hands. His blood soaked my fingertips.
This fact filled me with unmeasurable euphoria. He was dead - the sly, dirty fucker was dead. I, we were free. Unbounded no more by the shackles that chained us to this hellhole. There will be no more experimentations, no more nights filled with nightmares and screaming.
The rest of the remaining surgeons inhaled sharply at my sudden display of violence, horrified at the blood soaking the previously pristine floor.
Still my nerves were shot, only one word played repeatedly in my mind, time and time again like a broken mantra that couldn't be stopped.
Kill.
With my hands shaking wildly with bloodlust, I got down on my knees and lashed out, bloodied knife in hand as I drove it home. All the surgeons alike let out a startlingly loud and piercing wail, desperately trying to scramble out of my way. But I was fast and on my feet, and within short moments, I had them all moaning on the ground, a wonderful red hue blooming on their chest, blood fuming out of their mouth, eyes convulsing. Terror was evident in their expressions as I drove the knife down their torso, dragging it with such ferocity that their scream seemed like that of a young child's; inhuman and loud to my ears.
"Pathetic," was all I could say, not a single trace of remorse in my actions. These surgeons were gifted in the fields of science, gifted in surgery. Their knowledge was vast, but they were no match in the face of a threat, of a danger. Of an artificial being, created by their own greedy hands.
They shivered under my scrutinizing gaze, they screamed as I pierced their heart with every force my body could collect, they cursed my being, banning my existence, wailed that I should never have been born. This almost made me laugh, had my chest not felt so hallow. As intelligent as they were, they acted like cowards - all of them; gifted, but weak; knowledgeable, but greedy.
Such was the nature of mankind.
By the time I finished with them, my shabby clothes were drenched through with blood, hair tousled, untamed and matted with sweat, and too-pale face dripping with body fluids. The knife in my hand felt heavy, the weight of it anchoring me down.
The alarm was still blaring through the turmoil that I had created, warning me to leave before someone catches me alive, drenched in the pool of their contractors blood.
So I stood and bolted out the ruined walls, past the rubble and debris, past the corpses of the surgeons, and down the white foyer. My haste footsteps drenched the flooring, the redness obvious against the whiteness of the floor. It was only a matter of time before someone spotted it and followed the trail down the patient room, where they would find a murderer in their wake. I didn't favor the idea of anymore bloodshed, but any other suspicious witnesses of my violence must die.
Fortuitously, I managed to reach the cell of children. Much to my sheer amazement, there were no guards. Not a single one in sight. The alarm must've summoned them all to the laboratory. But they'd be back to check on the spare experiments as soon as they found the bodies.
I took quick advantage of this rare opportunity and quickly opened the lock with as much grace as a sloth, twisting it with my knife. The children let out a frightened squeal at my bloody appearance, but I hushed them with an index finger, eyes narrowing in warning.
"Stay quiet if you want to be freed," I whispered urgently, and this all silenced them, but their eyes were wide and their mouths hanged open. Either from relief or fear, I couldn't tell.
With one last twist, the lock fell down with a clatter, now wet with the blood I brought with me. I swung open the cell and motioned for them to get out, movements rushed with quickness, each child instantly got up, fighting and tumbling over each other, wanting to be freed of the claustrophobic cell. Their thin cheeks were flushed scarlet from dried tears, and they each looked at me with an emotion akin to gratitude. I responded with a dulled tilt of the head.
My feet were still sodden with blood, and I realized that I couldn't possibly have that if we wanted to break free from this place. So I ripped open a part of my clothes that weren't as bloody as the rest of me with as much haste as I could must, and tied them around my feet.
The only one who didn't come out with the same urgency as the others' was the bloodied child from minutes or maybe even hours ago lying limply on the ground. I cursed at this and told the children to stay put, not wanting them to wander off in such a dangerous facility. I raced towards the batted figure of the injured body, and picked him up, not bothering to apologize for my ungentle actions. His eyes went wide, tears springing forth to life.
"Be quiet now," I whispered in a rush, "and try not to make any noise." His hold around my neck tightened, despite his injuries.
"Thank... you," he whispered, throat scratchy and voice hoarse. But there was genuine gratitude there too. "Thank... you... Thank... you so... much... onii... chan... " I ignored the honorifics and ran out. Most of the kids were bounded by shackles, but I didn't have time to cut them loose with my knife, already I heard footsteps coming through my left.
"Come," I whispered. I ran towards the other direction, away from the voices. The children followed suit, trying to run as far as their small legs could carry them.
Still, I heard the footsteps, and they were urgent and heavy, alerted by the missing experiments that I had freed. I whirled my head left and right, desperate for a way out, and then I saw a window, wide enough for all of them. I skidded to a halt, and ran towards it, poking my head through and meeting the sight of a huge clearing. Just a few feet away, a cluster of trees stood proudly amid the stormy weather, a bunch of oddly shaped figures in the darkness of the night. There wasn't a single soul standing guard outside.
I released the boy within my grasp and carefully placed him on the other side. The children got the general idea, and they all left, as hastily as their injured body could allow them, running towards the cluster of trees, far away from this place. The eldest child struggled to pull her younger through, her tiny form limiting her, so I carried them both and placed them on the other side. Unlike the other children, they both looked at me, smiling.
"Thank you," they both said in unison. Their gazes had a depth to them that put me on edge. They eyed me with eyes full of gratefulness and admiration; like I was their hero. This thought dismayed me. I was far from a hero, far from a saint. I was a killer; a cold-blooded one. The corpses of the doctors were enough of a proof of that.
But I nodded regardless of my thoughts and instructed them to leave. They both followed through with this order, although, much to my confusion, were a little reluctant to, but the footsteps behind me seemed to solidify their resolves to leave and so they did; but not before throwing a look at me that I couldn't fathom. They disappeared into the cluster of trees, following the other children.
I seized the knife out from the insides of my clothes, and in time, I was surrounded – ambushed would be a better phrase – by men in dark suits, rifles and pistols in hand.
"Where are the other experiments?" The leader, at least, I assumed he was anyway, demanded me, voice wary, taking a step forward.
I responded by holding the knife across my face. "They're dead," I deadpanned. "I killed them."
Their shoulders squared and they tensed around me; they believed it, I know they did, what, by my bloodied clothes to the knife in my hand, the lie came off so easy to believe.
"Did you also kill the doctor?" His tone was cold now, hard as ice.
I twisted my mouth into a satisfied smile. "Yes."
Without warning, they discharged their weapons at him, and I dodged their artilleries with practiced ease, the knife in my dripping palm felt like an old friend. I had no other reason to not let my bloodthirst show; the children were gone, maybe even safe. They'd go to the nearest station, call for help, and they'd be lead back to wherever they came from. There wasn't any other reason for me to hold back now.
Kill. I hurdled myself towards them, dodging their ammos, stabbing their chest. My legs felt light, freer, my whole body seemingly having a mind of its own. My knife slashed a man's torso, and as a result, his blood splashed over my vision, momentarily blinding me and adding to the bloodied mess that was my face. Their aims were wild, shooting everyone else but their main target. I assumed that my movements were a blur to them; I zig-zagged across their troop, disappearing and re-appearing before them, slashing them with the blade of my knife, chopping their tendons, their arteries, the parts that would instantly kill them.
The scene was so graphic, and I loved it. I adored every single second of it. Their screams felt like music to my ears, and, against my own will, I felt my mouth stretch into a wide, maniacal grin. My vision turned red as I skimmed through their bodies in a blinding killing spree.
Their blood somehow seems so dark to me, almost completely black; and their eyes were so wide against their faces, like it just conceded in on their skulls.
I certainly was no god, nor was I graceful, but I ended their life with the swipe of my knife, killed them all one by one with my bare hands.
It was morbid work, but I managed to kill them all. I stood in the middle of the bloodshed, not knowing what to do next.
"You—you fucking monster!" one of them yelled from my behind. I twisted my head. I moved my foot, and the floor beneath me made a loud splashing sound. I gave a small tilt to my head, genuinely confused. So what if I was a monster? I questioned in my head, gears whirring to life. Haven't the corpses around me, this man included, committed more foul transgressions than I? All I did was justify the means, end a century worth of suffering.
To my absolute astonishment, I recognized this man. I wouldn't at first, had I not squint my eyes harder, but I recognized him. A beam of moonlight splashed over his ugly face, every structure visible, and fear so profound I could practically smell it.
"Adam," I said. But it came out small, soft, and it even sounded wrong against my own ears, like my voice was not mine at all, but of a completely different stranger's. In the darkness of the foyer, he stumbled back, fumbling for his weapons.
I took a step forward, and the floor gave out a loud splash. Adam fell down.
"S—stay the hell away from me y—you monster!" he squeaked. He continues to fumble with the weapon, hands shaking so wildly that the pistol flew out of his grip and landed on the ground with a resounding clatter.
He blindly tried searching for the gun, knocking over countless of other corpses in sheer desperation, eyes wide and hair entangled with sweat, unevenly cut bangs sticking to his skull like a gum.
I took another step forward.
Splash. Adam froze. He was covered in blood, dark suit soaked through and through with it. He was red.
But not red enough.
Splash. Splash. Splash. Splash. My footsteps were deliberately slow, and I was simply enjoying the frightened screams that elicited from my actions. The knife in my hand made a dripping sound, like tap water.
Splash. Drip-drip. Splash. Drip-drip. Adam suddenly regained his composure, finding comfort in the weapon he had successfully found after countless of fruitless attempts, and aimed it at my shoulder.
He fired. The shot reached its target.
I stumbled and fell back; the blood around me heaved loud squelch. My eyes trailed over towards the ceiling as the liquids around me began to drench my clothes, making me one with the bloodbath that I had created. The ceiling was white, shining with moonbeam, but suddenly, the beautiful sight was covered by a towering figure of an obese man sneering at me.
He grabbed me by my hair and pulled me up with as much care as child would to a doll, glaring into my eyes with such seething hatred, any lesser person would be cowering by now, shrinking under such a loath full gaze. "How does it feel, huh?" he snarled, and to prove his point, he squeezed my bleeding shoulder. "How does it feel, knowing you're going to die soon?" I didn't answer.
He took my sudden silence as victory. He grinned. "Does it hurt?" he whispered. He continued to squeeze my shoulders, giving it a tight squeeze. I kept what I hoped was a haughty tilt to my chin.
He sneered. "Arrogant brat." It happened so quickly, I didn't even have time to blink. He threw me hard against the opposite wall and beneath all of that violence, I heard something inside me give a sickening crack. I fell down the ground in a lifeless and bloody heap, coughing out blood.
Adam turned around, smug about this small victory, and most likely thinking that I was dead. I rolled over and looked at the ceiling again. When I moved my arms, I felt the reassuring weight of my knife, anchoring me. It had fallen off from my grip from the sudden throw, but it was there, solid and real.
Kill him. "I'm sorry Adam," I whispered. I stood up, and wiped my mouth clean of the remaining blood. The liquid left a bad taste in my mouth, a metallic sensitivity of sort. Adam froze and turned around, shocked to see me still alive.
Kill him. Assembling all the strength that I could possibly summon, I curled my fingers firmly around where the shot lay, shoved a finger where the hole was, and pulled the bullet out, watching as blood gushed out non-stop, trickling down my shoulder.
"What the fuck?" I heard Adam stammer, and he, in an effort to escape me, turned around, footsteps shuffling, but just as soon as he did, he tripped over a corpse, a loud splashing sound erupting from his sudden fall.
Splash. Splash. In two long strides, I towered over him, eyes dull, mocking him in the way he did to me.
I knelt down to his level, and he yelped and scampered back, but a wall was in the way, so he had no other choice but to face me, to meet my eye amid the bloodshed I had twisted into life. Beneath my dissecting gaze, he quivered, knees buckling underneath his own heavy weight. His hand shook with genuine fear.
I dropped the bullet, and the two of us watched in union as it descended down the ground, splashing in the pool of human blood.
Kill him.
"But this kind of stuff—" I said, smiling. I upturned the knife over my head. "—doesn't work on me."
The sound he made when I pierced his heart was so loud, I was half expecting someone to emerge from the hallways and investigate if a deer or some kind of animal had entered the building. As luck would have it, no one did.
I gave Adam a small smile. His heartbeat reverberated against my knife. I could feel each pump of blood against the hilt of my blade, and I was mesmerized.
Adam died without much of a struggle. When I tried pulling the knife out, I pulled his heart along with it, veins and tendons getting dragged out of his torso. I stumbled back, not expecting the extra weight, and fell down with a splash. The heart landed on the ground, still beating, although weakly; and blood oozed out of the extra hole that I had added to it.
Carefully, I stood up, took the still-beating heart, and watch, transfixed, as it kept pumping itself despite how much blood it lost.
This was something far too vital to a human being. An essential organ so important, that man literally couldn't possibly live without it. And here I was, blank-faced, watching, waiting for the heart to still.
It was fascinating, truly fascinating. It was absolutely mesmerizing to watch that heart pump, to watch the basis of the beating go slower and slower, until it was nothing more than a dripping organ held within my bloody hands. All humans cannot live without this specific organ, and here I was, holding that said specific structure, watching as a human's source of life fade right before me. It was something terrifying, something dark and agonizing, but I watched it with rapt attention, ever single fiber within my very being focused solely on this one, single activity.
But someone interrupted me, "Tsu... na?" I whirled, eyes widening as a tall, black-haired man with a long sword came into view, brown, almost golden-like orbs broadening at the massacre that I had created. He had most likely witnessed everything.
Kill. Without hesitation, I dropped the heart, jumped up and dove towards him with the full intention of driving the knife I held into his chest, testing it into his core the way I did to Adam's. But he was obviously smarter than he looked, far too smart, because he blinked and narrowed his eyes, jumping back like an agile cat. He was a trained pro, a fighter. It was noticeable from the way he moved, from the way he held the sword; from the way he dodged the swing of my knife. I slid to a stop, instantly knowing that I was in no way shape or form, a match for this guy, and that the wisest thing to do in this situation was to turn tails and run.
So that's exactly what I did.
I paused, stilled, before turning around and making a run for it. The strange man behind me yelped and screamed for me to come back, but I know, I know what he was going to do once he gets his hand on me: either kill me or hand me over to the police. Either way, both options didn't sound appealing in the slightest.
Unluckily for me, my blood soaked feet and clothes drenched the floor red, marking my footsteps against the white tiles. I tsked and tried to look for any other available options.
The open window to my left gave me hope. When I thrusted my head out, I felt myself jump, startled. I had somehow run up to the third floor of the facility. Before I could think of running away once more, someone behind me halted to a stop, and I cursed under my breath, realizing that I lack the luck and the skills to flee from him again. I had already made it this far, and I certainly won't fall victim in the hands of a stranger as easily as I did with the facility's warped scientists. Hesitating, I wrapped the sharp blade into a strong and firm hold, climbed up and vaulted down the building, crossing my arms as a cluster of trees came into my vision and prepared myself for the sharp sensation that would come from the nearing fall.
But instead, I felt a pair of arms catch me. I struggled, waving the bloody knife, trying to scratch him with it, but, much to my sheer astonishment, he laughed, not bothered at all by my blood-stained clothes. He was the man who was chasing me down the foyer.
"Whoa, you sure did become really fast over the years Tsuna!" he exclaimed, chortling. He addresses me in an unfamiliar name, one that pulls at the back of my head, like a forgotten title, a forgotten memory. I twitched around and managed to push him away from me, successfully surprising him and I tried desperately to make another run for it. But, by the time that I landed on the ground, men clad in black surrounded me, giving me no choice but to cross my arms over my face and threateningly hold the soaked knife in front of them, snarling. Backup, no doubt; ready to drag me back to that sterile conflagration. But no, nothing, not a single force on earth, could reel me back in there.
There was no way in fucking hell I would let that happen.
"Go no further," I sneered, backing up to a tree, in an attempt to climb up and swing myself out of this hellhole.
Again, though, the smiling man from before grabbed my arm and shook his head, still grinning. His grip was strong, like steel; and his broadmindedness gave me an uneasy feeling. But his smiles weren't as cold and hallow as the doctor's; more like a self-assuring grin a soldier wore before leaving for battle.
"They really did a ton of damage to you in that laboratory, huh?" he said, eyes softening in an emotion I identified as sadness. I faltered, hesitating, before remembering myself and pushing him away.
"I said," I growled, "go no further." He looked at me, startled, before sporting a look of hurt. This action greatly confused me. What does he have to be hurt about? I only met him a few seconds ago, and I would most likely die in his hands if he deems me irrational, unstable, and a force that couldn't be reckoned with.
He sighed, gesturing for the men to leave and they did, but not before throwing a hateful glare in my direction, as if they were actually daring me to hurt the smiling man. So he must be the leader. "Tsuna," he said, eyeing me. "I want you to listen to me." He grabbed my hand and I jerked, glaring.
His eyes looked sad. "I—" Before he could finish whatever it was he was going to tell me, someone behind me seized me by the arm and placed a cloth over my nose and my mouth. I widen my eyes and lurched like a fish out of water, swaying the knife, but eventually, the substance within the cloth made my movements sluggish, and I slumped against the figure, suddenly exhausted, and I dimly, albeit weakly, tried to pick up their conversation.
If I must go down, I thought spitefully, then I would need to know who they were, what they're after, and most importantly, what they were planning on doing to me.
I needed information, one that I didn't seem to uphold yet.
"—Hibari!" the smiling man screamed, blanching. Smile instantly smeared off his face. An arm was wrapped around me, not securely but more like firmly, guardedly, as if I might haul off and attack him like a cornered predator. His hands were pale, almost completely white.
"—Unstable," the man holding me responded back monotonously. "—Dangerous—killed—needs to be put down." The cloth around my mouth tightened and I screamed.
"—hurting him!" the man said, edging closer before pausing. The man still holding me placed me over his back, the cloth now gone but the effects still instantaneous. The knife that had brought me so much comfort was taken from me, now being studied by the other raven-haired man. "—death—killed all of them in cold blood—killer." I was almost drifting, but I forced myself to listen.
The smiling man's figure was blurry, but I could clearly register the scowl gracing his face. "—is Tsuna!" he screamed. "—remember—Hibari—experimented—kidnapped—taken from us!" My eyes rolled back to my head, but not before I heard the man holding me say something that made my blood run cold.
"—He's not Tsunayoshi anymore." With that, I let myself float into sub consciousness.