“…ly a temporary measure to stop the problem from worsening”

“I see…”

…

Huh?

I was roused awake by someone’s unfamiliar voice near me. It felt like they were talking about something serious, so I just opened my eyes slowly and peered at them from the side.

“YOU’RE AWAKE!”

I was surprised at Al’s sudden shout, that it made me release a little shriek, which garnered the attention of the two people right beside me.

I look at the both of them to see that it was Gerrard and an unfamiliar tall, brown-skinned woman wearing a white coat.

She had a black eyepatch, which hid her left eye. In addition, her eye catching silver hair was somehow swaying from side to side even though there wasn’t any wind or breeze that would make it move that way.

Both of them wore worried expressions as they looked at me.

Was there something wrong?

“Hello there. How are you feeling right now?” The woman who was pulling out a pen from her pocket asked. She was observing my face as she writes something down on the note that she was holding in her other hand.

“?”

I don’t know why she was asking me that, but I felt perfectly fine. Well, a little bit tired maybe, but still, fine.

I turned my face away from the woman in front of me and looked around.

I was inside a white room with a single bed that I was lying on and a dextrose that was connected to my left arm right next to me. There were also some furniture and decorations like a sofa and a wall clock to the side and front, but other than that, there was nothing else.

Is this a hospital? How did I get here? The last thing that I remembered was…

Everything suddenly came back to me. That whole nightmare fiesta where I was a part. The bloody man who was walking down the street. The giant heart on top of the tower. Jumping down from the building. The city full of suicidal doppelgangers that were hunting me down.

Now that I remembered everything that happened to me, my heart started to palpitate. It was also getting harder to breathe, and I needed to use my mouth to inhale and exhale. My hands too were shaking very hard when I recall the horde of mad men surrounding me.

“Doctor Vivien!” Gerrard shouted from the side.

The woman named Vivien immediately pockets her note and pen, and grabs a syringe from one of her other pockets and injects something into my arm.

Moments later, my breathing stabilized, my heartbeat returned to normal, and I stopped shaking. I was kind of getting sleepy, though.

“I gave him a little sedative, so give him some time before you explain to him what’s going on” She said.

“Thank you” Gerrard thanked her.

She pats his shoulder and smiles.

“There’s no need for you to thank me. It IS my job to save lives or at the very least try to save it, but if you can do me one little favor” She whispers something into his ear.

“…I will have to consult with my father first, Doctor Vivien” Gerrard said after she was done whispering.

“Of course, you should. I’ll be waiting for some good news soon” She said that with a smile before she left.

The room was shrouded in silence thereafter. Only the sounds of my breathing could be heard throughout the whole room. Moreover, Gerrard was just sitting there to the side like a statue, waiting and watching.

“You feeling better now, Rei?” Al asked me.

I wanted to reply with a ‘yes’, but I would be lying if I did. Everything wasn’t okay, or even remotely close to it. I was dropped into some place that looked like the city with a horde of murdering mad men going after me. Where I narrowly escaped from.

I shake my head.

“Oh… tell me what happened later, and we’ll sort things out. But first, go ask him what’s going on” Al suggested.

I don’t even know if I want to talk about what happened later on, but asking Gerrard what happened should be a good way to spend my time while I was lying here in the bed.

I look at the man sitting next to me. He had a solemn expression on his face, and when he noticed that I was looking right at him, he started to speak.

“How are you feeling?” He asked.

Everyone seems to be asking me that since I woke up. But was there something that happened while I was unconscious? I mean, besides the whole thing involving that man.

“Not good…” I replied.

“I see…” He said while looking down.

Silence once again took over.

The atmosphere felt heavy, as if someone just died and the witnesses were having a tough time trying to inform that person’s relatives of his or her death.

“…Then, I suppose you have a lot of questions that you want me to answer” He spoke after a while.

There were, but I don’t know where to start. From the man who attacked me, to that city without any inhabitants, the giant heart, and most importantly, why did it happen to me.

“What happened?” I asked.

I really didn’t know, so I just asked the most general question that I could think of to start the conversation going. I held no reservations this time, as the situation dictates that I shouldn’t falter.

“You were assailed by someone who we call a ‘Wanderer’” He said.

“Wanderer?” Al asked.

I didn’t understand what that meant either, as I tilt my head to the side and looked confused as to what he meant by that.

“It is a person who is not affiliated with any group or organization consisting of ‘Enforcers’” He explained, but now I wanted to ask what that was.

He catches onto my confusion, and explains what he just said.

“An Enforcer is someone or something that can manipulate the untapped energies that the human body stores or that are lingering in the environment. People termed those energies, as the ‘Soul’ of living beings or anything that grew any sort of consciousness” He said.

“But… what does that have to do with me?” I asked.

I have no idea what he was going on about, but it sounded like something out of the ordinary. Which was the opposite of me, an ordinary person.

“It is because of your body” He said. “I noticed it once you introduced yourself to the whole class, and verified it when we were together with the others in the cafeteria that you have a unique type of ‘Container’”

…

What?

“Your body has no Soul, so it takes in the excess ones in the surroundings unlike a normal body that produces and leaks it out to the environment on its own. Yours is akin to a sponge that is trying to absorb any sort of liquid that it met. And that reason may be why that man took an interest in you” He explained.

I’m a sponge that absorbs water… what?

I thought of a yellow, squared sponge character from a cartoon show who was very annoying. Well, I thought he was, since every time I heard him laugh, I wince due to the irritation.

“That man infiltrated the place inside the city where the excess Souls that are wandering in the atmosphere accumulate at. We termed that place as a ‘Soul Well’. He was also caught syphoning the Souls into an enchanted urn to keep it for whatever purpose that he has”

A… soul well? Something like a well, but instead of water, there are… souls.

…

That sounds very iffy to me.

Gerrard then continues his explanation.

“Therefore, we had to give him a stern warning on his first attempt and that if he did it again, then we would be forced to use violent means to make him cease. The man kept on what he was trying to do, however. Moreover, on his second attempt, he killed three people and injured seven others who were preventing him entry. And when we were supposed to give judgement upon him, you interrupted us”

So… it’s my fault why this happened to me. Ugh…

If I knew that what I did was something wrong, and I helped a man who killed three people escape, then that would make me as much of a terrible person as he is… or that’s what I think, anyway.

“Once we found out your constitution, we realized that there would be a high chance that he would try to make contact with you. Therefore, we used you to lure him in”

Wait a minute…

“However, he mislead us into thinking that he was going to return to the Soul Well when he found us tailing you last night, and it was too late when we realized that what we were following all along was just a Blood clone of himself”

Lure… as in bait.

“By that time, we rushed to where you were, but when we arrived, you were already sprawled unconscious on the ground” He said.

They used me as bait.

I didn’t listen to the other things that he was saying after that because I was taken aback by the things that he said.

“…you used me as bait?” I asked after a while when he stopped talking.

He looks at me straight in the eyes and nodded.

Once more, there was no one speaking. The situation became very awkward that neither him nor I were saying anything and were just looking down.

This one took a long while before two people broke the silence by entering the room.

“Hey, Rei. It’s good to see that you’re awake no-… whoa, why the gloomy faces?” Howard said.

“”...””

Neither Gerrard nor I answered his question. We just kept on staring at him and passed the time like that.

Howard must have gotten quite uncomfortable with the whole silence, as he nudges Ailon who was assessing the situation to say something.

“Did Gerrard already explain to you what happened, Rei?” Ailon asked.

I nodded my head and looked down.

“Rest assured, Rei. We’ll find him and bring back what he stole from you in one piece” He pats my shoulder and smiles.

“Bring back what?” I asked.

Confused, Ailon looks at Gerrard who shakes his head.

“Why didn’t you tell him everything?” He sighed as he asked the blonde haired man in question.

Gerrard didn’t answer him and just bit his lip, looking anguished.

Didn’t tell me what? Was there something else besides what he just told me?

Ailon sighs again and looks at me.

“Rei, I want you to stay calm okay?” Ailon said.

“W-why?”

When someone says to stay calm, it would then be followed up by something so surprising that you couldn’t just stay quiet. It definitely sounded very serious though, so maybe I should just try to.

“You… well, you just have to. Okay?” He said in a rather serious tone.

I nod, albeit reluctantly.

“Last night, when he got to you. He pierced your body with two blood markers that each had a different function. The first one was to put your consciousness into a dream like world where he could affect what happens inside of it to some degree, and the second function was a mystery. That is, only after you got yourself out of it that we found out what it was” He said.

“Wh-“ I tried to say something, but Ailon shushed me and told me to keep on listening.

“It was a marker that only activates when a specific command or situation that the maker inputs happens or has been satisfied. And that command was set to activate when you got yourself out of that world”

My tension rises and I think I know where this one was leading up to. I may be wrong, and I hope that I really was, because there was something like a hunch, a feeling, that something had gone terribly wrong.

“He must have needed a larger container since that urn of his couldn’t hold a lot in the first place. Therefore, it’s setup that when you escaped, it distorted and tore a hole in the space that was surrounding that thing. And bringing it to where he was”

“What… did he… take?”

He points at my chest.

“Your heart” He said with a straight face.

…

…

…

No. He’s just joking… right?

One of the most vital organs of a human body to function, the heart. The organ that pumps blood into your veins couldn’t be taken out willy-nilly like that. I mean, if my heart wasn’t were it’s supposed to be, then I’d be dead right now.

“I know that this may seem bad, but we’ll get it back without a hitch. This I swear!” Howard said from the side.

…

This might be just a joke. Well, good job guys, you got me good.

I laughed, even though I didn’t find their jest to be any sort of amusing. They just looked at me with a worried expression, however.

“Rei?” Al asked with a concerned tone.

But… just to make sure.

I pulled up the dark-blue shirt that I was wearing and looked at my chest. A few inches above my belly button, there was an incision that had stitch marks.

“Ah…” A weak sound came out of my mouth.

…

I really didn’t know how to react right now, but to just stare at the stitch marks for some time. It must have worried the others in the room because of my sudden silence, but I didn’t pay attention anymore. I was lost in my own world of uncertainty.

After a while of being like that, I snapped back to reality and asked something that’s been bothering me for a while now since they informed me of what happened.

“I don’t have a heart?” I asked them.

Ailon shakes his head and answers my question.

“They used an artificial heart that’s been specially grown inside one of the laboratories here to replace it in the meanwhile” He said.

“Huh…”

An artificial heart is inside of me. It somehow feels… normal and different at the same time. My body feels normal, but my head just can’t wrap itself around the idea that my hearts been replaced. It’s like it’s telling me that there’s this foreign thing that’s invading my body, but in reality, it’s what’s keeping me alive.

“Then…” I said. “What’s going to happen to me now?”

“Well, you just rest there and we’ll take care of everything” Ailon said.

“Yeah, so just sit tight and wait for us” Howard chipped in.

…

“Okay…”

What else can I say, really? There’s nothing for me to do, but to just stay where I was and wait. I really wanted to come along, even if I had to face that man again because I wanted to see how everything goes, and to make sure that my vital organ was unharmed.

“Then, we’ll be going now”

“See you soon, Rei”

Ailon went out of the room with Howard who waved at me to say goodbye.

Gerrard stood from his seat and looked at me for a whole minute before he said something.

“I deeply apologize for everything that has happened to you” Gerrard bows his head and says that.

“… It’s not your fault” I said.

“No, it is because of my negligence that the situation escalated to this point. If only I had asked for assistance…” He mutters that last sentence in a quiet voice.

I can’t fault the man in front of me for my situation. It’s really not his or anyone else’s fault that there was a lunatic that’s going after me, and it was my meddling that led to it in the first place.

“The situation may seem dire, but please, rest assured that I- no, WE will do our utmost to bring back what rightfully belongs to you” He said.

After that conversation was over, he went out of the room.

Now that I’m left alone inside this place, I just leaned back, stared at the ceiling, and tried to just think of anything else besides my heart. It wasn’t that easy, however, since I tried to process all of the information that I just put to the side a while ago, and it all came back to hit me like a truck.

It was getting harder to breathe again, heart palpitating- I mean, my artificial heart was palpitating, and the other panic attack symptoms that you would find.

“Easy now. Just control your breathing, Rei”

I tried to do what Al said, but it didn’t do anything to lessen my problem.

“Now, I want you to listen and pay attention to only my voice. Inhale when I say one and exhale when I say two. Just my voice, Rei, only my voice” Al said. “One… two… one… two…”

I listened to Al’s voice and synchronized my breathing with his counting. After a while of that breathing exercise, I finally managed to calm down.

“There we go. All better now” Al said.

“That… didn’t feel good”

“Of course it won’t. You just had a panic attack. it’s not supposed to make you feel comfortable at all. It’s already written on its name, ‘panic’ and ‘attack’”

Al’s talking was also another factor on calming me down. Not by much, but it still did some soothing to some extent.

“Now that that’s all over. Let’s move on to what’s important” He said. “I know that it may cause you some unease trying to remember what happened while you were sleeping, but please try to endure it and tell me everything that happened. Don’t skip out on the details. I want the full story”

I was reluctant at first, but after a few minutes of prepping myself. I unloaded all of my frustrations and qualms on what had transpired inside that deserted city without reservations. From the suicidal doppelgangers, going over to the giant beating heart. Everything that I experienced, I said it all to Al.

“Well… you don’t need to worry about that anymore. What’s past is past, and you can just focus your attention on what comes next” Al said. “It was a good thing that they came to you after that. Otherwise, you might have been dead already”

“Mmhmm” I nodded.

“I still don’t trust them, though. My number one priority is your safety, and if they plan to do the opposite of that, then we need to come up with ways on how to avoid them from now on”

I don’t think they’d do something to put me in danger… they used me as bait, though. So, I don’t know if they’ll ever do that again in the future, but… I’d like to think otherwise.

“And there’s that whole mystical soul thing that they talked about. We need to address that too, but not right now” He said.

There was that too, but I honestly didn’t understand much of what they said. The whole soul and will thing that’s coming out of the bodies and in the atmosphere wasn’t something believable. That is, if they didn’t experience what I just did.

“How about we ask that Doctor Vivien if we could go home now. Your father might be worried sick about you not coming home last night” Al suggested.

Last night?

…

Oh, yeah.

I look at the wall clock to see that it was already noon. That means I was gone from the apartment for the whole night without telling my dad where I was going.

“Okay” I said. “But…”

I turn towards the dextrose that was connected to my left arm.

“Should I… I don’t know. Take this along with me or just pull the needle or something out of my arm?”

“Of course you take it with you” He said.

“Okay”

I then got up from the bed, and felt my legs to be rather weak. It was rather hard to just stand up, more so, now that I’m walking along the corridor.

The place looked like a hospital and maybe because it was one. There weren’t a lot of patients roaming around, however. Even when I got to the lobby of this floor where a male receptionist was lying in wait while watching the small T.V. for some football.

“E-excuse me” I said.

“Hmm?”

He looks at me and from the way that I’m interpreting it. He’s wondering what a patient like me was doing wondering outside of my room.

“If you need something, you could just press the button that’s right next to your bed” He said with a smile.

Oh… there was something convenient like that?

“N-no, uhmm… I was looking for Doctor V…Vini?”

“Vivien, Rei. Doctor Vivien” Al corrected me.

“Vivien…” I said immediately trying to correct myself.

“Doctor Vivien? Hmm… give me a minute to call her, and in the meanwhile, go sit there and wait for me to come back. Okay?”

I nodded my head and took a sit at one of the waiting chairs there.

A few minutes later, the male receptionist came back with the female doctor who was the one with Gerrard back then.

“What’s the matter?” She asked me.

“I-I’d like to ask if I can go home now” I said.

“Hmm… you can, but do you really want to go out of the neutral zone while those boys haven’t caught that man yet?”

“Neutral… zone?” I asked.

“Oh, they didn’t explain to you what this place is?”

I shake my head to answer her.

I was out of it when they were talking so I couldn’t really remember anything besides the things that were weighing on my mind at that time.

“Well, this place is a hospital, obviously. However, there’s an unbroken code of ethics that’s been passed among all of us that all hospitals and some specific areas depending on the place or region, to be considered a neutral or safe zone where everyone, no matter the affiliation or group that they are a part of, is deemed under everyone’s protection while inside of it. In simpler terms, this place is out of bounds for everyone trying to cause trouble”

“Byut-…” I bit my tongue while saying that… that’s very embarrassing.

She didn’t seem to notice it though, as she just smiled and waited for me to ask any questions.

“But, what if someone does come here and cause trouble?” I asked.

“If the people in this place can’t handle that troublemaker. Then, the guardian assigned here will take care of it” She said as a matter-of-fact.

“Take care of it?”

“Yes” She said with confidence.

That sounds… reassuring, I guess.

“… Can I leave now though?”

“Of course you can, since Gerrard made us use everything to make sure you’re up and running without any serious drawbacks” She said.

Drawbacks… that somehow makes me a little bit worried. Correction, I’m very worried.

“But be cautioned. Once you step outside of this building, you’re on your own”

That sounds intimidating. How does she view the world outside of this building to be like? I guess there’s those lunatics like that man somewhere around here too, but what are the chances of meeting someone like him in this city again?

“Uhmm, what do I do about this thing?” I asked while pointing towards the dextrose that was connected to my arm.

“Oh, let me remove that for you. You particularly don’t need it anymore, since you’re already fully healed and moving. Just make sure to eat a lot for the whole week, since the acceleration would have eaten a lot of your body fat” She said while inspecting my flimsy arm.

Acceleration?

…

Doesn’t matter. I won’t understand it anyway even if I asked. In addition, I really should eat some more, with a little exercise to top it off.

I realized from that whole ordeal that I was out of shape. I was already out of breath by only running for a few minutes and that felt horrible. Maybe jogging would solve that… a lot of jogging.

She removed the dextrose and taped a cotton ball on where the needle penetrated my arm.

“Do take care now. Don’t try to get yourself in any danger on your way home, you hear? But if you did, there’s always a bed waiting for you right here” She cautioned, but said the last part with a little giggle.

I thanked her, made my way down to the first floor and went out of the hospital.

It wasn’t raining right now, and it felt great being basked in the sun’s rays for once. It was refreshing.

“Now… time to go home”

I just hope that something doesn’t happen while I’m walking down the street again. The sun is shining brightly and the weather is fine. Therefore, the probability of lunatics walking in the daylight might be lower.

Did I just make out lunatics to be like vampires that don’t like the daylight?

…

Yes, I just did.

On my first step on the sidewalk, I heard a loud booming roar coming from a few blocks to my right. It was followed by a massive explosion that knocked a few cars flying and hitting some of the bystanders that was in its way.

Suddenly, I could hear and feel the loud thumping of my heart, as if it was trying to say to go near it. I didn’t want to, however.

"Rei?" Al asked.

The feeling grew stronger each thump, and my body just moved on its own.

“Where are you going, Rei? If you’re trying to run away, then I’d suggest for you to go in the opposite direction from where the screams are coming from!” He shouted.

But my body just won’t stop, even if I wanted it to. I was commanding my legs to halt and desist what they were doing, but instead of slowing down and stopping, it increased its pace further. Where did my weak and shaking legs from before go?

Without my consent, I ran towards where trouble was brewing.

Here we go again…