CHAPTER 53: BLOOD FOR BLOOD

Tiny flicker of lights crawled into Kai’s vision as his eyes slowly opens, and as they finally opened, he froze, not by the look on their faces or the rate at which their bodies trembled, but by the different vibrations echoing in his ear and skin, as if the room itself had learned how to suffer.

He felt every intake of breath, every movement of saliva snaking through their throats, and the rate at which their hearts heaved as if he was now with all four people standing in the room, shocked. At first, Kai thought he had counted five people, but as he blinked twice, he realized the fifth wasn’t breathing nor was she closing her opened mouth like the others were.

No one talked; no one blinked when Kai’s eyes opened and scanned the still lady. They all followed his eyes’ direction as if they were at the forecourt of an angel of death, and if they detached their eyes from him, their days would be cut short.

"Where am I?" Kai thought, tilting his eyes sideways, checking everything to see if he could remember something of that sort but saw nothing he had ever remembered. Then, slowly, he placed his hands on the floor and helped himself upright, not thinking of the pool of blood that had coated the floor.

"Where am I?" he said, his head tilting sideways while his vision started to blur the moment he took two steps forward.

Gray, who stood there stunned by Kai’s reaction, quickly rushed to him and grabbed him, aiding him to stand still; then gestured toward Mike and Oin to move out of the way as he slowly guided the now-collapsing Kai out of the room and out of the hospital entrance itself.

When everyone standing outside the hospital saw him, a great sense of joy entered their hearts, followed by hasty movements as they surged toward him with smiles. But upon reaching him, Kai began screaming heavily and mentioning a name no one had ever heard from him since he entered the city or even joined the military.

"Ayra... Ayra... Ayra... Mom..."

He moved his hand in the air like a madman and shouted heavily, and each and every one wanting to come near him began moving back, except Gray, who had held on to him tightly and did not want to let go of him no matter how many slaps he received from Kai.

Inside the room Kai had left, Wang moved around scanning the black smoke seeping out of the walls, his hands tightly pressed on his waist, while Max and Oin also moved, shoveling the foamy bed, now stone and shattered on the ground, and picking them up one after another.

After scanning and brushing his fingers across the claws from which the smoke was seeping, Wang walked toward the stone figure, walked around it, checking to see if there was any place not turned to stone, but was shocked to see that even the throat had turned to stone when he placed one eye around the opened mouth.

When Max and Oin finished packing the debris and sending them out, they left, leaving Wang alone in the room; he still looked as if he had visited a tomb of a dead god now resurrected.

"Did he really do all these?" he thought, inhaling calmly and brushing his hands on the stone figure and back on the walls again. After thirty minutes of doing his personal investigation, Wang walked out of the room, closed the door, pulled out emergency tape and wrapped it around both angles of the door, crossing them until they formed an X before heading toward the main hospital entrance.

Streams of joy and chittering welcomed Wang as he walked out of the room, and when he moved out, locked the door behind him, and placed some of the tape on the door, the chittering sound stopped.

They turned to each other with confused faces, one statement coming out of their mouths.

"Where is Lilian?"

Though their voices weren’t that loud, Wang could feel a great sense of urgency in them, especially the nurse who was now standing beside the truck Kai was seated in and was making sure he didn’t collapse or fall into a coma again.

...

Two colorful birds chased each other and soared higher above the clouds fighting, and for two minutes, black and white feathers fell from the clouds, floating and drifting in the air as they slowly dived down.

Hums of tiny birds grouped in circles filled the air as they dashed past the feather, letting it move a bit higher and then downward again toward a great wall with sharp metal raised at its top and edges.

Slowly, the feather drifted, moving along branches of brown-leaf trees and finally onto the dust road filled with broken pieces of bones of wild animals that looked almost as if they had been mechanically perched on the road.

A few moments after the feather landed, dust swelled up as the tires of a speeding black jeep rumbled over the bones and over the feather, letting it float in the air again.

Inside the black jeep, four men sat inside; two at the back and two at the front. Of the ones at the front, one constantly tapped on the steering wheel as he turned it, letting the jeep turn as well, while the other remained there with a grin even the heavenly beings would run away from.

Around his fist were fifteen round black beads, each having a carving of its own, while the thread tying the beads together kept on shimmering with a red glow, like fire. In his arms were torn pieces of black and blue-colored air that seemed to be trimmed from someone’s long hair.

"Don’t worry about your brother, I personally will make sure each and every last person in that city rot in hell," Kang, who happened to be the one sitting behind the man with the beads on his fist, said, placing a cold hand on the man’s shoulder and squeezing him slightly.

At the mention of "Hell," the man slammed his left arm on the dashboard of the jeep, causing it to halt instantly, and when he lifted his arm, the area where he slammed his hand, smoke began seeping out, followed by flames that later spread to the entire dashboard of the jeep.

But as one of the men seated beside Kang at the back widened his eyes, the man placed his left hand back on the dashboard. At that moment, all the flames seeping out of the dashboard directed toward his arm, and within seconds, the flames vanished, leaving the dashboard unharmed. Not only did the dashboard stop burning, the area where he had slammed and ignited the fire also transformed to a perfect state as if nothing had touched it. Not even a scratch remained on that area.

"Blood for blood," the man said, squeezing his eyes and tilting his head toward Kang, who pushed himself back after seeing the man’s furious red eyes glowing like an unquenchable fire.

...

"Leave me alone!" Kai said, pushing each and every one that tried to have a word with him away and pointing and staring at the birds in the sky as if they were the only thing he knew in the city of Bion.