Kael's body lay sprawled across the cold lab floor, muscles twitching as if he had been rewired mid-seizure. His breath came in short, rasping bursts, his shirt soaked with sweat and something thicker—something red and pulsing that didn't feel quite human.
Minutes passed.
Then, his fingers moved.
Not flailing. Not panicked. Slow. Controlled.
He pushed himself up onto one elbow, his face slack but shifting. His vision flickered—shadows too sharp, light too loud. Everything was amplified and warped. The air tasted metallic. He could hear wires buzzing inside the walls and feel the pulse of machines buried deep within the compound.
Kael blinked.
As the black faded, the red remained.
"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! FUCK!" he spat out, sliding backward in fear and slamming into the desk. He gripped his hair with shaking hands. "What the hell just happened?"
He shuddered in horror. The parasite was gone, but it felt like it had been breaking him from the inside. He got up groggily, then moved to a nearby mirror and looked into it.
"Oh shit!" he exclaimed. "My eyes! They're fucking red!"
His eyes were red.
The irises burned a deep crimson, surrounded by pitch-black sclera, veined with a faint pulsating red glow. The veins twisted like cracks on volcanic stone.
"I look like fucking Kaneki from that 21st-century anime I watched," he said in shock.
Suddenly, he heard a dull sound in his chest. He tensed and gradually unbuttoned his shirt to reveal a huge scar in the center of his chest. It was grayish with a tint of red. He gazed at it in horror.
"What the fuck just happened to me?" he thought. "It looks like I was stabbed cleanly through the chest and out the back."
The scar twitched suddenly, shattering Kael's mind in an instant. "This shit just moved! I need to get the fuck out of here." He hastily buttoned his shirt, grabbed some boxes, and exited. He took out a pair of glasses designed to change the color of eyes to blend into crowds, but he used them to hide his red eyes. Just as he expected, they turned blue. He sighed with relief, locked the door, and headed downstairs to find the clerk waiting for him.
"Sorry, I'm late," he said. "Here's the key."
"You took your freaking time," the clerk said. "Thought you were sleeping on the floor."
He took the key and walked away, leaving Kael alone. Kael pushed the glasses up and returned to the boys' dorm.
●●●
"You look like shit, man," Damian pointed out as Kael walked into their shared dorm room, dropped the box on the desk, and sighed.
"Yeah, I know." Kael sighed flopping on his bed. "Went to get my old man's stuff."
"Real sorry about that, man," Damian said. "Believe me."
Kael gave a tired smile. "Thanks, man."
Damian had been good friends with Kael ever since they entered the force. It's only Kael who never saw him as a failure at all. Although they were not in the same class, Damian always did his best to train Kael in anything he knew. They had become good friends since then.
Damian narrowed his eyes suspiciously making Kael tense up. "Wait," Damian asked. "Why the hell are you wearing glasses? You've never worn them before."
Kael coughed nervously. "Yeah, I started wearing them recently. Thought it looked cool on me." He answered, quickly acting as if he were looking through the contents of the box.
"But," Damian pointed out. "It's cracked, it's cracked like crazy."
Kael told him that he had fallen on them. Although Damian didn't believe him, he let it slide going back to the system game he was playing.
Kael put the box under the bed then he removed his clothes and slid into the bed.
"Are you going to sleep now?" Damian asked. "Thought you would go out to train again, since everyone is kicking your ass. "
"Just needed some shut-eye," Kael replied. "I'll train tomorrow. "
Kael wished he could tell Damian of what happened earlier but he didn't want to risk them being overhead and the news reaching Commander Nyre. The government hadn't searched the lab yet but he knew they would. Just imagine if they discovered the Xenophyte his father had worked on. They could have done some experiments with and even created more of the Xenophyte.
He stretched then snuggled deep in the bed. It was time to sleep. He would train tomorrow. He listened for a minute, hearing Damian's voice whom the latter was cursing, probably losing a game right now, then his eyes closed embracing the darkness.