Chapter 1: Aiden

Aiden's slow steps echoed across Crystal City's underground mall. This was his first time in the United States, and everything felt strange, and scary. He'd come to Crystal City out of a viscous mix of curiosity and desperation. He felt he couldn't afford to let any opportunity to know more slip away, no matter how absurd the circumstances. Most shops were closed, but it was hard to tell which ones had shut down operations for the day and which ones were abandoned. He followed the creepy signage toward the office space near the south side of the labyrinthine tunnels, as the paper he received directed. The underground was dark, with only a few sparse lights in the ceiling to illuminate each store front. It was empty, cold, and quiet. A tart smell lingered in the air. There were no people around, even in the stores with the lights still on. His steps began to feel too sharp to his ears, like they were echoing too many times, bouncing off walls that weren't there. It felt like each step brought him closer to turning back, his legs begging him to stop moving, to come to his senses. It was hard for him to focus on any one thing, his hands were clammy, and his breath was fogging up his glasses. Another turn into another corridor, flanked by more empty stores and cobwebs, and his eyes were starting to notice the thin red thread sprouting from his right hand, leading his way.

He'd received the paper just a week prior. Snail mail, addressed to himself, no return address. Inside the white envelope was a pearl white piece of paper, a bit larger than a business card, with a simple message:

Crystal City Underground, Arlington, Virginia, USA

Office Space Number 56

12th of October 2023

5 PM

Aiden was taken aback, but not too much, the world had been going crazy the past few months. Aiden had been going crazy too. When things changed, he almost had a nervous breakdown, though he did end up giving himself a buzz-cut, leaving a sea of orange in his dorm room. Every day he felt like he was about to puke out his heart, and the thumping in his head was almost blinding. There was also a passport for him in the envelope, it looked just like the one he already had, and an American Express credit card.

After he got the paper, Aiden couldn't sleep for the next 3 days, and he locked himself in his dorm room. He would wake up in the middle of the night dazed and confused, grabbing at his chest, with images of his family turning to dust raging in his mind. He felt like his body was burning up. He'd turn the lights on and look at himself in the mirror he'd stuck to the wall 4 years ago, when he moved into the dorms. He always loved his orange hair and the way his freckles contrast with his pale skin, but all he could do was focus on the contorted look of horror on his own face. His eyes were wide, and he could swear there were trickles of blood coming from his gums. 3 months prior, his irises became a different tone than before. They were redder, a red that scared him and tortured his every thought. His deranged form was framed by the dark wood of the dorm room and the beams hanging above. It was an old building, and the scene made him think to old horror movies and abandoned cabins with crazy, murderous men. When he first noticed himself changing, he sent a picture of his eyes to his mom, but she didn't see anything different.

That night, the news was showing images of the world's newest heroes and villains. Apparently, Ireland had her first murder spree in over a hundred years, and it had happened just next to campus, in the middle of the road. The houses looked so picturesque along the asphalt road, with little trees and well-kept bushes. The perpetrator was a young man like Aiden, early 20s, carrying just a butcher's knife that cut through people like they weren't even there. He was running around, painting the road red. The amateur videos captured by witnesses at the scene showed him with a crooked smile of yellow and jagged teeth, butt naked. After 6 people had their heads chopped clean off, a young lady appeared, wearing a bright purple hoodie and a surgical mask with sunglasses. She held a wide stance, and her fists were balled up and close to her jaw. She looked like a boxer, equally ready to dodge a punch and to throw her own. Looking at the scene on TV, Aiden felt a sharp pain in his eyes and the heat became nigh unbearable. She screamed at the man to stop, but he ignored her orders and ran at her, his arms flailing about. Drool was cartoonishly sloshing out of his agape mouth and his butcher's knife was scraping the floor, leaving a thin line in the asphalt behind. But as he stepped closer to the woman, she made a motion as if she was pushing a wall toward the man. He was immediately sent flying back, losing his footing as he landed and hitting his head hard on the ground. He tried to get up, wobbly, with that disgusting smile wiped from his face. He tried to say something but must've been too dizzy to put together anything coherent or comprehensible. The woman made a different movement this time, raising her hands above her head and grabbing at the sky. She pulled down tightly, like she was trying to bring the heavens down to earth. She grunted, and sweat was drenching her clothes. When she stopped, with her hands down to the ground, the man's whole body was suddenly pressed against the asphalt. A sickening cracking sound came through the recording, and Aiden turned it off. That night, Aiden's mom called to know if the maniac had taken her baby boy. Aiden didn't pick up the phone, and lay sitting in his bad, with the stench of sweat overwhelming his senses.

The paper lay on his bed when Aiden made his decision. He couldn't bear his life any more; he couldn't bear how much he didn't understand. 4 days later he got on a flight to Washington Dulles International Airport. He needed to know what this was about, he needed to know what had been going on for the past 3 months.

With each step down the corridor, Aiden could tell he was getting closer to Room 56, even though the lighting in the tunnels was starting to fade even more. There weren't any stores around any more, it was all just blank, metal wall all around, reflecting the dim light from above. The red thread was so clear now. It was still weird to see it coming out of his body, but he knew it wasn't real, only a direction, a hint at what was to come. He couldn't even feel them, and he'd sometimes notice them long after they've completed their mission. He saw them at the airport too, leading him to his gate, then to his seat. He followed the red threads then, and now they it led him to a tall glass door, with a nearly rotten number 56 decal at eye level. He could see his own reflection on the transparent glass. He looked tired, and his white t-shirt and grey shorts looked awfully out of place now, surrounded by dead metal. The thread didn't show on the glass, and Aiden tried to grab at it. He couldn't feel it, and his reflection looked like an idiot, petting air. Looking inside, Aiden could see a small waiting area with 3 plastic chairs to the right and left of the door. A well varnished wood panel separated this area from what was on the other side, with only a wooden door with an intricate golden handle as a possible entry point. To the right of the wooden door, there was a small booth with a lady inside, typing away on a hidden keyboard. Aiden looked down at the red thread tied along the cold metal handle of the glass door. Aiden pulled and entered.

As soon as he stepped in, the lady in the booth looked up to him. She was a chubby older woman, with smooth brown skin. "Mr. Sullivan?", said the lady in the booth, not giving Aiden time to confirm, "My name is Agnes, sugar, it's o so very nice to meet you! You're a mite early, but feel free to go in. Mr. Nakamura's already arrived, y'all should get acquainted!"

Agnes wore a warm smile that rounded her chubby cheeks, but her dark eyes were locked with Aiden's in an unnatural way, and a red thread shot from under her booth straight at his stomach. Aiden felt acid pool at the back of his throat and his breathing caught. He tried to act like he could keep his cool, but the thread was pulled tight, and its message became clear: Danger. His intestines turned to mush, and he could feel beads of cold sweat flowing down his arms. He forced himself to straighten his back, as subtly as he could manage, and nodded, making his way to the wooden door. The thread slacked, and whisked away like it was only smoke. He heard a small click from Agne's booth, as she flashed a last smile before breaking eye contact and starting to type again. Aiden only hoped the tears in his eyes wouldn't overflow.

He pressed down the golden handle of the wooden door. It was warm, almost hot, and as he opened the door, a suffocating heat came over him, which immediately subsided. He forced himself to walk inside. The room was large, much larger than the width of the waiting area would suggest. The ceiling was very tall, with only one big white light at the centre, bright enough to illuminate the whole room, but still leaving odd shadows around. The floor was covered in a brown carpet, completely unremarkable. The room itself was relatively inconspicuous, a regular meeting room, if a bit bigger than average. It reminded Aiden of his classrooms at university. He couldn't help but smile before he got a hold of himself and forced a neutral expression.

To his left, there were 12 people, standing side by side, with their hands clasped behind their backs. The images of a firing squad Aiden saw in some movie when he was younger came back to him then, and his mouth dried out. The wall behind them was barren and white, like the ceiling, contrasting sharply with their dark clothes, but as Aiden's eyes darted from face to face, he could swear there were splashes of red on that pristine wall. He thought back to the asphalt and the man with the butcher's knife, his body crunching and breaking. Suddenly, another thread appeared, this time from Aiden's heart. Like a viper, the thin red line slithered its way to the chest of one of the people by the wall. They were all very different from one another. Most of them were carrying weapons of some sort, guns mostly, but a few had knives. One had a weird staff strapped to his back. The receptor of Aiden's thread was a man, a lot taller than him, almost 2 meters tall, and very muscular. He had dark skin and black coiled hair cut short. They looked military, all of them. Like the rest, he wore some sort of tactical gear, all black and armoured. Aiden couldn't identify any weapons on the man, he was the only one that seemed to be carrying nothing at all. Somehow, that relaxed him a bit, though the rational part of his brain was still screaming that someone that strong and probably highly trained could obliterate Aiden in hand-to-hand combat. Still, he let out a short sigh of relief, and let his shoulders come down a bit. It wouldn't come to violence; he didn't want that. The man didn't seem to notice the thread bury itself in his chest and pull until it was tight enough for a circus acrobat to walk. Instinctively, Aiden reached for the thread where it phased through his own shirt. His fingers passed through it like it wasn't there. He tried to make eye contact with the man, but he didn't look his way.

All 12 were staring at the right wall of the room, which was heavily decorated, so much so that it was hard to tell what colour it was. Aiden recognized a few of the paintings but couldn't name them. There was what appeared to be a selfie of Cillian Murphy with Liam Neeson, though. Arranged in a semi-circle, facing the military people, were 12 blue plastic chairs, side by side. Sitting on the one farthest from the door, Aiden noticed a young Asian boy, maybe 13 years old. He looked nervous. His arms were crossed so far, he was almost hugging himself, and his legs were shaking nervously, making an incessant scraping sound as his jeans rubbed against the plastic chair.

The boy had thin and short black hair, and his eyes were darting rapidly between Aiden and the 12. He wore simple clothes, blue jeans and a white collared shirt that was clearly too big for him. In his right hand, he held a white paper, much like Aiden's. Aiden tried a coy smile on the boy, but he didn't seem to notice at all.

Aiden took a few cautious steps toward Nakamura. As he got closer, he noticed a thread on him too, very tight as well, that led to another of the 12 standing by the wall. A woman, with a pistol at her hip. Aiden looked away and sat down in the chair furthest from the boy.

If Aiden's guess as to what this was was correct, Nakamura was not just a scared kid, and the woman's gun wasn't just for show either.