"Ha…" Artemis let out a breath. After the amount of vampires that she was forced to kill, she was exhausted. Her bright body had already dimmed down, which means that the serum had done its job already, and that it was time for her to face the side effects. Luckily, she had managed to clear out all of the threats…
Artemis did not wait for the effect to occur, however. She didn't even rest properly, and left towards the location where she had told Mark to go to, not even a second after letting out a breath. Her idea was to rest and calm down her breaths while walking, which she did, and which was a success.
Surprisingly, there were no signs of side effects, or at least, that's what Artemis thought. There were no changes to her body, and she felt pretty fine.
'Maybe the effects appear after a few days.' She figured, since she didn't want to be too optimistic with her thoughts.
With such a negative yet reassuring thought, she continued her relaxing walk towards the closest airport. Never did she drop her guard down, of course. In fact, she had been carrying her backpack that has a few secondary guns in them, this entire time. As for her rifle, she had left that behind in the woods when running back towards the town.
"I should buy some cases for my guns before I get to the airport. The urban areas shouldn't be too far now. I'll fetch a taxi, I guess…" Artemis muttered to herself while walking.
Around thirty to forty minutes later, that's when Artemis finally came across a more busy road where taxis drive…
…
Meanwhile, at the airport. Mark was sitting on the concrete floor, outside of the airport. He had no money with him, because he hadn't been able to pack up his stuff. With no money, he didn't dare to step into the airport. Instead, he decided to wait for Artemis to arrive.
Waiting for Artemis was quite the most boring decision ever made by him. He didn't have the time with him, but could guess that it must have been more than two hours since he had taken a seat on the cold and hard concrete floor. The full moon was one of such an indicator that was able to help him with guessing the passing time. Obviously, he was bored, which is why he did something as unusual as staring into the night sky.
"Hey. You didn't forget about me, right? Hihi." Alissa acted all innocent when she was approaching Mark.
"Oh… You're here. I thought you had abandoned me or something." Mark said, looking slightly angry and tired.
"No No No. Why would I?! I lov- … I was just checking out the battle between your friend and the vampires. She won by the way. It was a great show!" Again, Alissa tried to act all innocent. Her half lie was great this time, but sadly, she had to ruin the start of her sentence by revealing something that she wasn't really supposed to reveal, again.
"Love… Wait… I remember something now… You're that childhood friend of mine who's a…dude, who…drowned." Mark sounded excited at first, but lowered his tone very quickly after realizing that the genders don't add up, and after remembering something quite tragic.
"Hmph! Teasing me… He probably reincarnated or something. Don't worry." Alissa showed a sour mouth after getting unnecessarily excited because of Mark's teasing.
"Ah!"
All of a sudden, Mark groaned in pain as he clutched his head. Luckily, there weren't any people around him, because if there were, they might have thought that his head has a screw loose.
"Evan, are you okay?! I… I mean, Mark." Alissa panicked upon seeing the sorry state that Mark was in so suddenly.
"I… uh…" The pain was still there, however, it wasn't as harsh. Mark was able to talk and explain what he is going through…
"This doesn't make sense… I don't have any childhood friends, because my parents had never let me out to play. It was always study and online networking… It just doesn't make sense. I remember it vividly, and have two different memories that go against each other like fire and water. I was eight… Me and my friend went swimming, and at that time, I wanted to challenge the pressure of a powerful stream of water. I succeeded, but my friend failed. It was my fault. A fault that is engraved inside my heart, but at the same time, not, because I remember very well that at that time, I had a spelling competition where I lost horribly even after studying a lot."
*Gasp! "I can't believe it. Oh my god! You're regaining your memories! The lady was right!"
While it was supposed to be quite a sad and sympathetic moment, Alissa thought otherwise. Instead of showing condoles because of Mark's little sad story, she showed joy and excitement. She had her reasoning, of course. That reasoning being a more tragic one, since it isn't a common occurrence, but actually a type of occurrence that surpasses death.
"Regaining memories? These are not my memories, don't you understand?" Mark showed a confused and saddened reaction that someone would show when not being understood.
"I know! That's what I've been trying to tell you! I'm not trying to reach you, but my ghostly friend that is stuck inside your body!" Alissa was brimming with excitement as she explained. She was like the friend that saw her research being proven correct, while Mark was like her lab partner that couldn't understand what's so great about her research being correct.
"Ahh… So that's what's going on. Wow… You could have just told me that before, you know. I would have understood that much better." Mark finally understood what is going on with Alissa, and finally understood why she was acting the way she does.
"Haha… You didn't ask, really, nor did we have the time to talk about it…" Was Alissa's answer upon hearing Mark's great suggestion.