And there I was in the center, facing down the eye of catastrophe once again.
I could never forget the day when the afternoon sky was red and fractured like stained glass of a faithless church. We looked toward the mesmerizing vista in awe and wonder, believing this had to be a stunt concocted by an ambitious movie studio, but our fascination fell into screams instead. Breaches formed. Tears in the multiversal fabric. They scattered across the rooftops and formed in the middle of intersections and parks, within the walls of buildings, high in the air and floated there, intermingling with crowds. Breachers—monsters—stumbled through. They came in ragtag hordes, malformed creatures and predators, from the lowest intelligence to middling, flesh monstrosities and metal freaks, everything. They immediately fought each other, ran through innocent people and crushed them into paste, chanted and sang—murder a celebration—and all hell broke loose. Blood, screams, sirens, death. Blood and death, real people with their lives taken.
These images were burned into my eyes. My first taste of the real world.
In a random store, I found myself in the private bathroom. The sink was running. If I had to survive Hangzhou all over again, I’d grab as many containers as possible and fill them with water.
Instead, I ran my arms through the warm water. Blood, not mine, rolled down my skin. In the mirror, someone else’s blood was splattered over my cheek. With my wet hand, I wiped it off as many times as it took, but I swore I could still see that awful red on my skin. No matter how much soap and water I splashed on myself, I could never feel clean.
Someone knocked on the door and screamed at me to get out. I left to let the next blood-soaked person in, and out of all the frazzled survivors, I first found my sister sitting against the wall. She had a jacket draped around her shoulders, head down, staring at her bloody sneakers. Mom and Dad were with the other adults, everyone screaming their heads off about what’s next.
I looked out the windows and saw the distant red sky, and further beyond was a transparent gray dome. The Outbreak Barrier. Within six hours of the first outbreak incident, the military and government had erected the Barrier. Nobody could get in, nobody could get out. We were all trapped inside, human and monster.
I sat next to my sister, pushing the voices out. While she leaned against my shoulder, I checked my phone. There was a permanent national alert screaming in my notifications, leading to a government website. I didn’t know what was on it; it’d crashed and stayed like that since the alert came out.
I didn’t know how long the adults argued, but soon, I saw familiar legs stand over us.
Dad helped the two of us stand while Mom seemed disgusted at the crowd.
“We’re leaving,” Mom said.
Althea’s eyes widened. “Wh-What? Isn’t it safer here? We gotta wait for the police or the military—!”
“We aren’t their priority right now,” Mom told her. “We’ve already contacted your uncle to put us on the VIP list, but it’ll take days before the military conducts rescue operations. We need to find shelter until then, and this is one of the worst places we could be.”
I glanced at Dad, who was looking off at the rest of the innocent people here. “Dad…?”
Dad was pained. “We… We shouldn’t leave these people here. What if the breachers find them—?”
“That’s not our problem anymore—” (“Xingyu—!”) “—Bastien, my love, I will not jeopardize our family! Our children’s lives matter first—!”
Dad shook his head, gesturing to the other shell-shocked kids like us sitting against the wall. “What about them, these kids—?!”
“Do you suggest we take all of them? Rip them from their family—if they’re still alive—rescue them, put them on the list too? No, that’s absurd!” My mother, who had to look straight up to meet her husband’s eyes, faced him with the fearlessness she was known for. “We have to protect our kids first, everything else be damned. I won’t accept any other answer from you, Bastien.”
Our father, on the other hand, was known for his gentleness. To me, there was no better, kinder man than him. It worried me, back then, seeing that expression on his face. I didn’t know how to completely describe it. At the ruthless face of survival, he reflected despair in return. That cold, matter-of-factness could be seen as cruelty—a cruelty that he’d seen and turned back from. Yet he couldn’t refute Mom, but he wasn’t willing to say the words—the words that could potentially doom innocents to the whims of the world.
To him, it would be bringing down the ax himself.
***
Somehow, after safely navigating through a previously-rampaged area, we found ourselves in a small abandoned apartment above a store. We only knew it was “abandoned” because Mom had found the keys from the owners—she didn’t say anything beyond that, as me and Thea didn’t walk into the store itself.
We settled in, and although it felt wrong to steal from the dead, we helped ourselves to their cabinets. We ate despite our appetites refusing the food; for future ventures, the calories were necessary to keep going. Fluids too. I’d never thought about consumption like that, where my first thought was survival and not enjoyment.
Dad turned on the TV and every channel was featuring the emergency broadcasts. The volume was set at one, basically leaving us with only the translated English closed captioning. Right now, we were told to wait for further information: the status of Hangzhou and the outbreak, the locations of military camps, the timeline of our rescue.
Silently, we sat in someone else's chairs and ate someone else’s food in someone else’s apartment, trying to ignore the distant sounds of gunfire and tremors and the occasional screaming. At some point, Mom had stopped eating and simply looked out the window through the crack between the blinds.
“...Have the System offered you to [Temporary Register] yet?” Mom suddenly asked us kids.
We looked at each other, and I shrugged. “I-I haven’t checked.”
Mom nodded. “The conditions should be fulfilled. We should all [Register]—” (“Xingyu…”) “—we can’t take half-measures for our safety. The first few days will likely be the worst, so we must be prepared to defend our lives.”
Dad grimaced, looking down at his messy plate. “It means slaying monsters. D’you think the kids are ready for that?”
My hands uncontrollably trembled; I couldn’t keep my chopsticks steady, and they clattered messily onto my plate. The thought of killing—even if they were breachers—turned my stomach in a way no other feeling of disgust could match. Hearing those words, “kill” and “slay,” crawled over my fingers and the horrible feeling of blood returned to me.
Even after seeing her kids’ reactions, Mom refused to relent: “It doesn’t matter. We’ve trained them for this moment: to fight for themselves—”
“They weren’t taught to kill,” Dad fought, his large palms slapping the table. “You can’t put all of this on their shoulders! We’ve just barely escaped from a bloodbath—!”
“When is the right time, then? We haven’t seen an outbreak like this ever! Everything has to be anticipated. Everything! That includes cutting down any monsters standing in our way, and especially anyone willing to harm us—!”
“You’re telling them to kill people?!” Dad stood from his seat, startling his shrunken kids at the table. His roar rumbled the ceiling above our heads; he’d never raised his voice like that. Not in front of us, not in front of Mom. “They’re kids—!”
Mom spat, “Do you think a goblin will care if they’re kids? Or a bandit or a psychopath, or worse—?”
“Wha—?! Christ, listen to yourself! You’re telling your own children to murder, to kill—!” (“For their own survival—!”) “—this isn’t a movie, this is someone’s life we’re talking about! A real human being, a person, and you’re begging them to snuff it out—!”
“If it means theirs can continue for another day, I’ll gladly make that exchange—”
“Even if it means our kids’ innocence—?” (“Don’t be ridiculous—!”) “—surviving isn’t worth that cost. It isn’t worth the pain, the guilt, the remorse, the years of hurt—!”
Mom took one of the chopsticks and waved it around like a knife. “Picking between my babies and a rapist on the street, that’s no choice at all! I’ll sleep happily knowing I’d gotten rid of scum—!”
“You can’t say that, you don’t even know what you’re talking about—!” (“I know plenty, Bastien—!”) “You don’t understand what it means to take a life—”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“We’re talking about inhumans, not that boy you killed—!” Mom choked on her own words and dropped the chopstick.
Dad’s drained and harrowing eyes went wide, and his thin and cracked lips quivered. His large fists were shaking. His shoulders were too. Anger and frustration, the volatile emotions that’d dominated the table, melted from his skin and turned it pale—and he looked defeated, as if he’d gone through a decade in a few seconds.
“What…” And my sister probably said the worst thing she could’ve said: “What is Mom talking about?”
Mom clamped a hand over her mouth, tears already beginning to fall from her eyes. “B-Bastien…” She reached over but her husband pulled away.
“I’m…” Dad looked down at the worn floor. “I’m going into the other room.”
He left us there; Mom slumped back into a chair. Alongside the distant warfare, it was joined by her quiet sobs and mutterings.
We never knew the story behind our father’s sin; it was a family taboo you never asked or brought up in conversation. Only now, in an environment sure to bring out the worst in us and in our fragile society, did we finally find out why he wore chains.
He’d taken the life of an innocent boy over one-hundred-twenty-one dollars.
***
Is that where you split off, Dad? Am I fighting the version of “you” who’d never found redemption from your older brother, who never found love in a woman named Shen Xingyu?
Am I fighting a man whose crimes turned his heart irreparably black?
[?▊█▋▋ ?▂▔█??▔█▎ ▍: ▌?▍? ▃▄?▔?▕▂▔█▎ ▍]
“ALEX!”
My spine cried before I did. Then my body burst into small explosions of pain and aches from my thighs to my shoulders. Little reminders that my injuries were stacking up. No matter how great the healing was, the risk of re-injury was greater now than ever. Who knows, maybe my body will spontaneously fall apart like my heart had several times over.
I peeled off the wall, fell on all-fours, staring face-down at the cold concrete flooring. Quick steps raced to my side, and a curtain of familiar black hair draped down next to me and a stupid, bloody face covered in awful cuts. “Alex, hey, Alex—!”
“It’s Dad…” I muttered. “That bitch is using Dad against us.”
“It doesn’t matter! He’s a breacher—shit!” Althea pushed me over and I rolled, barely able to see a gray blur zip by my vision.
The Alternate, our father, crashed down where we were just at, concrete smacking at my shoulders. He clicked his tongue, fucking disappointed he didn’t turn his own kids into vague red mash, and lazily lifted his right leg from the broken flooring.
“Leave us alone!” Thea slid over, slamming her shin onto the back of Dad’s standing leg. Twelve or eighteen, it didn’t matter; she was tiny compared to him. Her kicks, as powerful as they were, didn’t do anything to what was effectively a thick tree.
He seemingly scowled and as he turned—
[Skill Activation: Mana Impact]
My fist rocketed into his cheek. The [Impact] shot his head sideways enough that it’d paralyze any normal man, but Dad had “too thick of a neck” as Mom used to say. He took it like a bee-sting.
"▔▇?▔'? ▍▎ ▔ ▇▎ ? ?▎ ▕ ▏▕▍▂▇!" And he pivoted, whole body wenching around where I heard muscles straining, to punch my stomach and carry on through.
[Chain Gauntlets] formed, and barely my hands caught it. His hardened knuckles stripped chain-links from my palms, absorbing the force in the best-and-worst way possible. It painfully vibrated up my arms like someone had whacked the bones themselves with a metal rod. I cried, losing feeling instantly, and saw the promise of a follow-up strike.
[Memento Echo - Chain Gauntlets]
Pesky chains wrapped themselves around Dad’s arm, and on the other end, Thea was pulling like she was playing tug-of-war. A [Dagger] popped into my hand. While my arms were pins-and-needles, I gathered enough strength and sensation to drive the sharp blade into the Alternate’s neck.
My dad’s neck.
I wasn’t thinking about it. I just did it, and the blade bounced off his thick-as-fuck skin and my weak fingers couldn’t handle the blowback and the little butter-knife slipped away. A part of me was glad that the [Dagger] didn’t sink into his neck. Years ago, I’d vomit even thinking about doing this; now, my primal instinct told me to go for it—to kill my “father.” Guess me and Jin Tianyou have something in common.
Our hands were dirty.
I couldn’t hear what my father said, but I couldn’t stop what was coming next. He grabbed me by the throat, his fingers nearly crushing my windpipe, and hurled me. The warehouse revolved around for a good second before I landed chest-first into a plastic barrier, crunched it in the middle, and I flopped off heaving.
Terribly, I hacked my lungs out, this horrible noise squeezing through my throat. Then a shriek went through my ears like electricity. I looked up and saw [Chains] whip above my head and a girl attached to them. Mid-swing, Althea dispelled the [Echo] and let momentum decide her fate. She ended up flying straight through one of the spotlights, snapped and killed the light, and landed in a pile of crumpled, dirty wires and other trash. She stayed there, barely moving.
“T-Thea—!” I shouted before my chest flared in pain, and I coughed and doubled the pain. Foolishly, I stumbled toward her but she was miles away from me. “Thea—!”
A big hand snatched me off my feet, and the back of my head smacked against something hard. A pillar. I gasped, light blazing through my pupils, and gray tar stared back into me. An obscured discolored mask that had my father’s face underneath. I clawed his arm holding me up, my nails feebly scratching his iron-like skin, groaning and gritting through my teeth.
“D-Dad…!” I said, somehow.
He slammed me against the pillar again and raised me higher. His hand was crushing my throat into fine dust. Breathing was agony. Everything was agony at this point, no use in counting my wounds anymore.
And Dad didn’t care. He slowly clenched, and I wheezed, my voice rattling.
Dying by my own father’s hands… What should I call this? Karma, consequences, comeuppance? It had to be “punishment.” What else do you call a father disciplining his son? “Be a better man than he was.” “Always do right by others.” “Be better than you were yesterday.” All these promises were wasted on me. Just…lofty dreams too sweet for my palate.
Because Mom was right. She was right. In anarchy like Hangzhou, desperate people did desperate things. Yet you knew the cost of a life, Dad. It went beyond a flat-line in a monitor. It was the cruel, perverted act of destroying “future” itself. Of… Of stilling one heart and breaking a dozen more. It’s the ultimate production of evil concentrated into a single moment, outweighing the good produced in a generation. And everything would hang heavily on your soul.
Your kids shouldn’t suffer like you had; they should never live through what you have experienced. Even if their own lives come into question, what’s worth the price of a tainted heart?
But our opinions didn’t matter. They never mattered.
The price was paid and my soul was taxed, at multiple—and like those lives, the future of your son shining brighter than you was destroyed. After everything I had done, said, and accomplished—despite the regrets (or lack thereof) and the justifications—I could never make good on the one thing you wanted from me.
I… I can’t be better than you. I can’t give anything to this shithole world, because I was worse.
So surely, this is the Mother delivering my overdue punishment for my sins.
"?▇▄?▄'? ?▎ ▕? ▆▕?▔▎ ▍▎ ?, ▇▄?▎ ?!" Again, my head met the pillar and shocked my vision. A dark frame closed in like an end-roll, and all I could really see was the faceless yet seething expression of my father holding me there, determined to take my life by squeezing it from my lungs.
For some reason, I think I laughed. I couldn’t hear myself, but something bubbled in my throat and it might’ve been that. A pathetic, useless laugh from a freak worse than that.
"▃?█▍▆ ?▋?▄?▃?—?!”
Something loud popped, echoed throughout the warehouse, and I collapsed to the ground. I slumped against the pillar as more pops rang and hurt my ears. I groaned and ended up laying on my side, trying to catch my breath. Everything was happening around me. Pops, crashes, wind, voices.
And someone grabbed my shoulder, and I was too weak and unmotivated to fight against them. Through my dim vision, I saw the glint of a sharp needle in their hands. They stabbed my arm and injected a cold substance into my bloodstream; I wailed and instinctively tried to kick away, but they forced me there.
[Accelerator administered]
The entire world opened around me like a book. My vision instantly cleared, and new colors bloomed within the warehouse. It was all various shades of shitty gray, but I could feel my eyes widen from the new stimuli. I heard my own blood coursing through my veins, ants scratching underneath the concrete foundation, and a distinct, metallic clicking from afar. Every breath felt easier to take, until the pain was gone and my lungs were no longer trapped in a vice.
My heart raced but in a good way, like I could fight a hundred swords and still wouldn’t be tired afterwards.
“Are you done laying around now?!” my sister screamed in my ear, and she had half the number of cuts on her face than before. “C’mon, asshole, get up! Get the fuck up!”
She dragged me onto my feet before my legs could fully wake up. There, on the other side of the warehouse, was a teal stasis bubble. Anything caught within was almost frozen—ninety-nine percent frozen—moving in ultra slow motion. It included falling pebbles, trash, and the angry Alternate reaching toward the man standing outside the bubble.
He donned a full combat exoskeleton, the same you’d find in higher-end military units. Special operation units to be specific. It was a powerful, terrifying yet admittedly breathtaking piece of tech to behold. It allowed any regular person to adopt the strength and maneuverability of a body-enhanced Slayer without the need of [Skills]. The exoskeleton wasn’t the only gift he brought; he had presents dangling from his rig that I couldn’t divine. Lastly, in his comfortable hands was a military-grade energy rifle.
“Uncle Ali!” I yelled as we caught up with him. “Hey—!”
“I expected many, many other people knowing our family history,” he said, grimacing. “But not him.”
Althea wiped her bloody lips and gulped. “I-It’s Dad. It’s—”
“That thing isn’t your father, and it’s not my brother.” Uncle raised his rifle and unloaded into the stasis bubble. Every bolt clawed to a near-halt as soon as they passed the barrier, and soon you couldn’t see Dad’s upper-half anymore. “It’s a breacher; its very existence is a paradox that has to be corrected.”
Uncle Ali glanced at me, keeping one eye on the bubble. “Don’t let yourself be shaken anymore than you need to be. This is just another chore to take care of, so remember everything I’ve taught you. This will take the three of us to clean.”
The bubble wavered, and ugly ridges formed along the surface. Soon, a groaning and retching sound bellowed out, and waves rippled throughout the bubble. Some of the smaller caught objects began speeding up.
Then, the stasis bubble collapsed.