5 years ago.

Inside Liam's room.

"Whew. Happy birthday to me."

Liam unknowingly greeted himself as soon as he woke up and got up from his bed. He stretched before he put out his pajamas and changed them into casual clothes.

Liam soon went and opened the door out of his room. What Liam saw a middle-aged woman was standing gently in the living room while wearing a pink dress that suits her very well.

"Happy birthday to my adorable son." Liam's mother greeted him with a big smile.

"Uh. Thank you, Mom, but what's with the 'adorable' on your greetings?"

Liam complained and out on an unsatisfied face with a slight intention to taunt his mom.

"What? Don't you like it?" Liam's Mother asked with a puzzled look.

"Mom, I'm too old for that, you know. Does it suit for a fifteen-year-old man like me?"

"I see, you're a man now. Fine, 'sweetie'."

"Ugh... Whose mother is she?"

Liam grumbled and suddenly felt a chill before taking a look at his Mother.

Her expression was grim was too scary for him.

"Ah, haha... It was just a joke, mom. I was only teasing you." Liam said reflexively.

'Mothers do have a dark side of themselves.'

Just then a footsteps can be heard coming from the staircase.

Liam turned his gaze towards the direction of the footstep and saw a decent-looking middle-aged man.

"Happy fifteenth-birthday, Liam, my son." Liam's father greeted him happily.

"Thanks, dad."

Liam smiled back and shortly after thanking his Father, his head started moving around left and right to find something in their house.

"Oh, uhm. So where are the gifts for me, Dad?" Liam asked his father who sat on the chair.

"Eh? Didn't your mom tell you about it?"

"About what exactly?"

"We are planning to go out later, Liam. You can buy anything you want outside."

"Eh...? Ah! I can buy a new PC then!"

"Except for that, of course."

"Lame~"

Later in the afternoon.

"Dad! Where did you leave your car keys?"

Liam stopped at the doorway and asked his Father outside the house.

"It's upstairs in our room, Liam. Your mother and I are going to the next street now. We will wait for you there, okay?" His father replied.

"Yes, sure!"

A while later, Liam found the car keys and immediately rushed outside their house. He looked for his mom and dad but they were nowhere to be seen outside.

"Ah, wait! They didn't even tell me which street they went to..."

Liam constantly thought about whether to go left or right but decided to just message his mother on his phone to ask where they were.

After taking out his phone from his pocket a beautiful crimson-red butterfly suddenly appeared and flew towards him.

He turned his gaze to the butterfly as he slowly stood up to see it more clearly.

But then...

BANG!

A loud sound of a gunshot could be heard coming from the street next to theirs.

Liam looked in the direction of the gunshot and felt a chill ran down his spine.

'Why...? Why do I sense something bad there?'

Liam hesitated at first before quickly running towards the street where the sound of a gunshot came from earlier.

"Hiyaaah!!!"

A few moments after wandering around the area, Liam halted as soon as he heard a familiar voice of a woman, he then walked in the direction of the cry to see what was happening there.

-----

At a narrow alleyway.

"You bastards! Wh-What did you just do to my husband!"

A woman shouted desperately behind the three men wearing black coats and black hats.

"Hey, pretty woman. Can't you see? Your husband is already dead. Now do me a favor and please shut the fuck up and wait for your turn!"

The first man said with a loud voice as he glanced at the woman.

"N-No! It can't be... Why! WHY!"

"Tsk. So noisy. Hey, lead! Can I play her before we do the killing?" The man asked as he stared at the other man standing.

"Ah, you brain-dead idiot... You do know that 'Five' will certainly kill us if we waste even more time here, right?"

The said leader of the group asserted, a bit annoyed.

"Now, get it over it! Your gun was loud as shit. Take out your knife and use it to kill her instantly. The authority will be coming here soon."

"Alright. We will do this the quiet way now, Lady. Kindly, over your mouth, please~" The first man said to the woman.

"N-No! Hiyaaah! No! Help Me! Please... Someone! HELP ME!" The woman screamed for help and, with fear and hatred struck in her eyes, she also started to tear up.

"Ah, I said stop shouting! Know that no one will be able to help you, got it?" The first smickered as he grabbed the woman's wrist and tightly gripped her mouth with his hand to silence the woman.

Meanwhile, the third and last man, who was quiet until now, took out a combat knife from inside his coat and pointed it at the woman's throat. He moved the knife backward and started arranging his position to stab the woman.

Soon, the knife moved forward, aiming for the woman's chest.

But suddenly–

"H-Huh? Dad? Mom?! Y-You, bastards! Ah, ah... What, what did you do to my father!"

Liam just came at the end of the alleyway. He stopped as soon as he saw a group of people here but what shocked him the most was that his intuition was right.

His family was here.

He was trembling from the mixed emotions he was currently feeling. Even though he didn't know what happened before or who the guys here were, he was suddenly filled with fear, anger, sadness, and disbelief.

Liam, who did not know what to do in the situation, end up shouting after seeing his mother's pitiful state and recognized his father's lifeless body lying down on the floor.

The third man's hand came to a halt. He was a bit surprised by the random kid who all of a sudden got in this place and shouted that made him halt from stabbing the woman.

"Huh, who is this brat?" The same went for the first man who let out a question.

"Hey, I don't know who that kid is but we'll deal with him later. So kill her now, you idiots!." The leader said hastily.

He was starting to lose patience and once again ordered the silent guy to kill the woman.

But before the guy could even stab her, Liam's mother barely managed to escape the grasp of the first man.

"L-Liam! Run! Don't come here! I'm fine, so please... RUN!!!" She shouted while looking at Liam while tears poured down from her eyes.

Liam panicked as he heard his mother's cry before eventually following her orders. He hurriedly turned around to run away not worrying about what was about to happen.

BANG!

"You're one hell of a noisy woman." The man grumbled.

Liam, who was preparing to run far away from the men, halted his movements as soon as he heard the sound of another gunshot.

He was scared as he slowly turned around to know what exactly happened behind him. He didn't want to know what happen. He hoped nothing bad had happened.

But what Liam first saw there was his mother. He froze. His mother laid down on the floor with lifeless eyes while blood continuously gushed down from her chest.

He felt his heart almost stopped beating for a second after seeing his mother on the ground. While the blood flowed down from his mother's chest, tears also began to flow down on Liam's eyes.

Liam started trembling non-stop. He didn't know what to do nor what to think anymore.

"Hey, you two! Get rid of that boy. It turns out, he's the child of these two. Leave the bodies. It'll be too late to clean them up now since the authorities will be here a little sooner because of your idiotic head. And don't you dare use the gun again."

The leader said to the other guys as he took a phone from his pocket before slowly walking away from them.

"Ho? Alright! What a reunion! Another piece work to be rid of, huh?" The first man spoke with excitement as if he found entertainment.

Liam came back to his senses as he heard the loud voice of the guy and started to run away in an opposite direction. His mind was currently in chaos and he didn't know what to do rationally.

Mom and Dad were shot.

I need to run.

They're both dead.

Run.

Mom and Dad!

What do I do?

I'm sorry!

They are coming for me.

Dad, Mom... I should've stayed with you!

I'll avenge you!

I'm going to die...

I will kill those bastards!

Just run!

They will kill me!

I need to run!

Argh! Shit!

For a long while, Liam kept running and running. He didn't even know where he was right now but what he knows was that the unknown men with black coats are still following him.

Shortly after, he arrived in the middle of the street before stopping as he turned around to look for the two men following him, but he was glad that he couldn't see them.

As soon as he relaxed himself a bit, he saw a silhouette of two guys with a knife in their hands. He didn't have a choice but to run again.

Liam stared at the dark alleyway in the corner of the street for a moment before immediately running there. He tried to hide there but he couldn't feel a slight ease in that place so he decided to turn around and look for a better place to go.

Fortunately, he found an unlocked gate and immediately went inside it. Inside there was an abandoned factory that seemingly was prohibited for ordinary people to come in.

He ran to the nearest and seemed to be the biggest warehouse he saw in there.

Liam quickly opened the door at the corner of the building. He came inside it, but it was only pitch black inside the place so he hurriedly looked for a light switch.

Flick.

As he eventually found and flipped the lever, one by one, lights opened scattering throughout the warehouse.

Liam was stunned the moment all the lights reflected throughout the entire building making him see everything inside the factory. It was entirely different compared to its appearance outside.

Inside there was a huge monitor akin to a cinema screen, a 10 meters long white table, electrical equipments, all the science laboratory equipment seemed to be there too and in the middle of it all was a gigantic glass box, surrounded by cylindrical tubes.

The enormous glass box in the middle was almost as big as a three-story house with a blue-green-like liquid inside it. It was surrounded by ten cylindrical test tubes, which were slightly bigger than a normal person's height and width.

All the test tubes were covered by some black thin metal so the inside cannot be seen. It was connected to the gigantic box glass with wires and plastic tubes that were as big as one person's wrist.

There was also another glass box behind the gigantic one which has a third of the size of the original one, and a large rubber tubing was connecting the smaller glass box to the gigantic one.

The smaller glass box contains a fluid with unsatisfying colors filling the whole box.

"T-This..." Liam was still speechless.

He was still in awe every time he thought about recalling the exterior of the factory which was not as good as the interior. The difference between the exterior and the interior of this warehouse was extremely vast.

You couldn't even tell that it was a factory if you have not seen it from the outside The exterior could be seen as a real abandoned warehouse while the inside... Perhaps it was a secret laboratory.

Unaware, while he was still astonished by this so-called abandoned factory's warehouse, the two men were already walking towards the warehouse's door.

Tap, tap, tap.

Creak...!

"Hoho? There you are, boy! You found a very interesting place, but you know what? We're tired of playing hide and seek with you and I know you're already tired too so do me a favor and just go rest in peace will ya'!?"

The first man came in while flickering the knife in his hands to taunt Liam.

'A-Ah... No! Fuck! This is an open space!'

While Liam was finding a place to hide, the second man, who barely talk since earlier, pulled out his gun and spoke.

"A warehouse with thick walls and enormous open-spaced interior. A gunshot won't be heard outside if fired from here." With a calm but serious expression on his face, the second man spoke for the first time while aiming down the gun he was holding at Liam's feet.

Bang!

Liam instinctively jumped and dodged the bullet by a hair's breadth. He was scared shitless but quickly regained his senses and ran straight to the staircase to his left.

But he still didn't know that the staircase would only lead him to a one-way metal flooring which could only get him cornered.

Soon, Liam ran through the end of the metal floor and looked for another way to turn to, but he couldn't find one. He turned around again to leave, but the first man following him was already in the middle of the floor blocking his only way out.

"Oh, no! You have nowhere to go. I guess this is the end for you, eh? You know what. I'll let you kneel in front of me and say your last prayer... Before I slit your throat." The man said as he stopped a few meters away from Liam.

As he heard that, Liam trembled in fear. He didn't try to show it but he was extremely terrified. He had nowhere to go and the man was slowly moving towards him.

Unconsciously, he took a step back to get away from the man, and that caused him to trip and fell to the metal guard rail.

The guard rail was thin and cannot withstand such an impact from his body so it soon collapsed before Liam could even stand up. As soon as the guard rail broke and almost falling, Liam turned his body and reflexively prepared for the fall.

He looked down and saw the top of the glass box wide open. Afterward, the guard rail as well as Liam was now in the middle of the air, falling in the gigantic glass box with nothing to land but an unidentifiable liquid.

"Oh, shit! Oh, fuck! Oh, god!"

Liam's thought was currently full of cursing while his body was having a free-fall through the air.

SPLASH!