[LIII] — Metastasis

He lowered down, kneeling on one leg, in the middle of the hall, dazing into me, being dragged out. It was the leg... He limp ed with ever since...

His black hair hanging low down, being glued by blood and the dust from the old columns. The dark clothes he always wore growing red, the person of someone close to me growing distant.

"NO... PAUL!" — My screams couldn't get to him. Why isn't he running? Is it so bad that he can't...

I could see his eyes being filled by crystal tears, falling down to the concrete floor, being mixed with the blood droplets from new appearing wounds. He was being pierced like a sieve.

"Let... me... GO!" — Using all of the strength I had, I tried to get rid of the yet another grip that didn't want to let me go.

I can't leave him here. After all...

I just can't!

He may have killed many... But he is my friend!

"ICTO, DON'T LEAVE HIM!" — I turned my head towards the one that was pulling me.

He appeared out of nowhere, just when I thought we would escape.

But I guess that, from the beginning, only the t w o of us were destined to get out.

Screaming with every single breath I took, my hands and legs were trying to go back, to help the one who was left. However I wasn't strong enough.

As I turned my head to fill my heart with hopes, of this Paul to stand up and run behind us...

I just saw him stay at his place, and glare into the distance. His eyes beamed with coolness as always, two blue gems of nightly stars.

And then he disappeared behind the wall of the passage that Icto took me inside.

My legs were shaking, my steps were unbalanced, Icto was basically pulling my body like a lifeless sack, with great efforts. My wails were echoing through the narrow space.

"Don't cry like that, or they'll hear in what direction we went!" — The violet-haired man tried to calm me down.

"Why... Why did you leave him there!? Do you hate him... So much?" — My stuttering voice was inaudible.

"Asha..."

"No. Please let me return for him!" — I begged Icto, almost kneeling down before him.

"I... Don't understand you a bit. Didn't you tell me before that... You were scared of him? That his actions were making you... Nauseous?" — He dropped his voice down, like is a sudden surge of disgust filled his body.

"I... He is in pain. I hate it... When somebody is hurt... I don't want him to... die. I don't want anyone to die while I can prevent... it."

He stopped going forwards.

I was lying down, covering my face with hands swollen from being dragged by force. It felt as if there were no more tears to be shed. Icto pulled me so far, that the noises of the bullets silenced.

The purple-haired man put a step forward, and proceeded to do something that will stay in my memory forever, despite me wanting to eagerly forget it.

He leaned towards me, and grabbed my face softly with his hands from both sides. The hair strands of his were stinging my forehead. Rising my head up, I saw his two, lavender eyes glare into me with a sense of rancour.

"He is a spy...

He is a murderer.

He killed his own family.

He slaughtered the innocent for fun.

He followed you until now because..."

His words were tearing me of my humanity.

"W-w... What?"

I couldn't let a single word out from my throbbing mouth.

His throat moved, gulping a heavy stone. A pair of two beautiful eyes sent me a hesitating stare full of anxiety.

"He met his end. He was going to kill you too." — Icto closed his eyes in a painful grimace. "You... Still have pity for the ones like him?"

A... Spy?

He murdered his own... family?

Wha...

I was staring at Icto's face with my eyes being wide open, the tears stinging my eyeballs with a pleasuring pain. A loud ringing noise was surrounding me, putting me to a nightmare sleep in a chilly air. The harsh ground beneath me was spiking my perturbed legs. But the thing that was broken the most, was my heart.

Why do I feel like that?

Why do I feel like the whole world is falling apart?

"Kill... her? Oh...

She is not dying before you."

Arms painted whole in crimson paint dragged Icto by his hair in a blink of an eye, taking him away from me. A trail of blood dripped from his forehead, as his hair was pulled back like an ordinary doorknob. Icto's nails harshly smeared my cheeks as he was dragged.

His eyes went blank, as a black monster appeared from behind his back, with his eyes glowing blue like two chilly lasers.

The man was soaked entirely in dark blood, looking like a walking dead. He had holes all over his body, his clothes being ripped off in many places, showing black flesh.

The once pale face of his, as white as snow, was now contrasting with the void surroundings, the red paint being the only element of color.

He lifted the other man's head to his level, and stared into his terrified eyes with a look that was the one of the devil's.

"Y-y... ou..." — Icto's voice hesitated from behind his gritted teeth.

He couldn't say anything more, as the black-haired man sent the last, empty stare into his terrified eyes.

Paul pushed him into the wall with such a force that Icto's body collapsed to the ground immediately. He didn't get up after, but it seemed he wasn't dead, just knocked out unconscious. His body was still moving up in shallow breaths.

"NO! ICTO!" — I shouted, as he dropped before me.

Staring at this whole situation from low above the ground, I didn't even want to blink. As if afraid that if I close my eyes for a moment, this rampaging monster will jump at me and devour me full.

He has always hurt people so easily. But why? Why is it that bringing pain to others comes so easy, when giving them happiness is so hard?

His melting gaze, observing each of my movements, reacting to every breath. I glared at him with my eyes widely opened, searching through his hole-pierced body.

I tried to understand. I tried to realize...

He...

At that moment of my life, I felt as if the world wasn't human.

More like an artificial exposure to something created in our minds.

I begged Icto to go back and save Paul.

He came to me on his own, looking like resurrected from his grave.

As if at the moment my hand was caught and pulled forward, Paul's fate has entered a state with no resolve. My entire hope to go and save his life was... a childlike dream.

How can you rescue someone who is circled by hundreds of armed men, his body being pierced mercilessly?

Since he decided not to take any steps forward, his fate was destined. My cries, any seconds forwards from the moment of leaving him, this wouldn't free him from the agony.

Even if I'd return to him, he would be long gone, pierced by hundreds of bullets.

Even if his leg has hurt like hell, the Paul I thought I knew... Would ignore the pain and run for the freedom...

Yet, the hope makes one go forward, in hope that a miracle would happen.

It did.

The black-haired man stood lifelessly in front of me, with his face in an inhuman form.

How did this miracle... happen?

A miracle...?

"I sometimes wonder if... The world isn't being set up by a higher force... Like a player making decisions in a game..." — He touched the wall with his hand soaking in blood, leaving a trail. — "Maybe it is a game after all. We have to survive, that's it. Does any moral rules count, when it comes to just winning?"

He put a step towards me. I instinctively tried to move back away from him, but his hand was faster.

A bloody hand grabbed my chin, squeezing my cheeks from both sides. The liquid was warm and thick, leaving marks on my skin. His face got dangerously close to mine, to the extent I didn't see anything else, but his pale face surrounded by messy, black hair. A pair of freezing eyes staring right into mine.

"What is it that they see in you? There is nothing so... Out of ordinary. Yet... They all...

...want you."

The words coming out of his mouth...

We're so strange. I couldn't understand any meaning of them.

They all want me...?

"W-What do you mean by that?" — I asked him with my shivering voice.

The wounds in his body...

As he was very close to me, I could see the holes in the clothes clearly. They were side by side, next to each other, entangling his body like a net.

How is he even alive...?

His harsh touch... His frightening presence...

His hostile aura, it makes my whole body shake with fear. Why can't I do anything?

"I'm no different from them." — He whispered closely to my ear.

The black silky hair of his, it tingled my face. The feeling of his heavy breath on my skin, it made me have goosebumps.

As he leaned in, a chilly sensation stroke through my cheek, as a pair of soft lips left a faint smooch. Almost if a current of electricity run through my flesh.

Did... he...

"I won't let them have you." — These would have been the last words he said to me then.

As I turned my head to the left, I could only catch a glimpse of his hand clenched in a fist. Me being the obvious target.