The Spawner

"You've disappointed me, Klyson."

The unknown man stood at the end of the hall, watching us with confidence while wearing an unnerving smile.

"That's your name, right?" He began to step forward.

I staggered from his knowledge of my name. "Who are you?! How do you know my name!?"

"I heard it through the tenants."

"The tenants…?"

His smile grew into a snicker. "You all must be wondering where that other mass of tenants went, right?"

The mysterious man stuck out his arm and pointed his palm at the floor. Out of thin air, a human figure began to blur into existence, soon transforming into a tenant.

"They weren't real. They were just apparitions."

Shocked by the revelation, I was immediately put on guard. Someone who was willing to reveal their Fractal from the start was usually someone confidently strong.

"You're saying that all the tenants here have just been apparitions this whole time…?"

He shook his head. "Not all of them. Those ones on the floor over there that the 'Kyra' chick slashed up—they're real. So were the dozens on the fifth floor destroyed by that man in black with the two swords. What a nuisance."

I realized he was referring to J. Suddenly, I'd made a connection. Kyra had only fought the tenants coming from the stairwell, while the ones coming from the ceiling had ceased from existence. The ones pouring through the ceiling from the fifth floor must have been the apparitions, which fooled us into thinking that there were significantly more tenants than there actually were.

"You still haven't answered my question. Who are you?!" I strained my voice in order to sound stern, when in reality I was fearful on the inside. I didn't have enough knowledge about who I was looking at in order to stand-up against them.

"Don't force me to introduce myself. I've just been called-in due to all the chaos you lot have been causing here."

Called-in?

Something was clearly at play with a variety more of people lurking in the shadows. This mysterious blonde man was just one of them. It made me wonder if he was the one we'd been looking for all this time—the one watching through the cameras. But then I remembered that the main perpetrator had a Fractal capable of taking control of people, such as Celeste and Cynthia. This man's Fractal only seemed to consist of apparitions.

I responded to him. "So you've been called-in to do what?"

He gave me an arrogant look of confusion. "Who are you to know about my orders?" He stuck his palm out and began spawning more apparitions of tenants in front of me. Startled, I reached for my holster to draw my knife, but I grabbed at nothing. I realized I'd dropped my knife further away, back in the spot when Kyra and I had been surrounded by tenants.

He scoffed. "Pft! Look at you trying to act all high and mighty now, reaching for your knife when you lost it in the first place because you were scared!" The tenants suddenly disappeared in place. Nothing was left behind by their existence. Now I understood what Kyra had witnessed.

"Like I said, Klyson, I'm disappointed."

"Disappointed by what!?"

"Disappointed by your inability to do anything other than fend for yourself. You let that girl, Kyra, stay behind while you were about to scurry away to safety."

Because I'm Fractless, is what I wanted to say. But saying it aloud in my head made me realize just how shameful it sounded, even though in our society it would be deemed a justifiable excuse.

"I assume you're Fractless, aren't you?"

Once again this man's assumptions were spot-on. 

"How would you know?"

"You're the only one who hasn't put their Fractal on display yet, even after all the danger you've all encountered. Usually by now anyone would have withdrawn their Fractal, unless you're hiding something not worth using in a place like this."

I chose not to respond.

"I must be right then. You're a Fractless, huh?" He sighed, stepping forward closer to me. I slowly backed away.

"What about it?"

"You must be justifying all of it in your head. Running away, turning away, all just because you're a Fractless. All of you Fractless have always been able to make that excuse, but unlike everyone else, I always found it irritating."

He kept approaching me, and I kept backing away.

"Who is that?!" I heard Kyra call out from the other end of the hall.

"I don't know!" I replied back. 

"You don't need to know," the man said to me. His stride became faster. "Melysia is a super-human society. Fractals are the norm here. You don't belong here, Klyson."

"But…"

"What are you even doing alongside people with strong Fractals like them? A weakling like you? A coward like you? They really let someone join them who's willing to turn foot and run?"

I didn't know what to say. I wanted to shoot back with my own responses but I knew I couldn't defend myself. I was guilty of everything he claimed.

"Why-oh-why do you even exist?"

I don't know.

"What purpose do you serve without a Fractal?"

I don't know.

"What could you possibly do that someone with a Fractal couldn't?"

I don't know!

"You don't deserve to live, Klyson."

I know.

"Shut up—!!!" Kyra shouted from behind me.

Suddenly, soaring past my head in twirling motion, I watched as a knife was thrown directly at the man's face. With barely any time to react, he could only duck an inch lower before the knife punctured his hat. It took it off in the process, just barely missing his actual head, as his hat was stabbed into the wall behind him.

"Wow." He was clearly shocked by the sudden attack by Kyra, who had now rejoined me with Celeste and Sav at our side. "Look who came back to save you in the end, all over again, Klyson."

"Stop it. Don't talk to him like that," Kyra said to the man, her eyes gleaming red with an obsessive rage. She withdrew another knife in hand, presumably the one I'd dropped further back.

"Kyra, it's okay—"

"Didn't I tell you to escape while you could?" She interrupted me. "You know I don't want you getting hurt."

"I know, but…"

"It's okay. Ignore what he's saying, Klyson. Go, I'll stay behind with this guy."

"You can call me Darius. Unlike him, you seem worthy to know my name, pretty girl."

Kyra shot him a face of disgust. "You have got to be kidding me."

"Be careful of him, Kyra. His Fractal allows him to spawn-in physical apparitions."

As I said my warnings, tenants began to appear all around us—dozens of them. They pounced at us from all directions. But as scary as the sight was, I felt reassured knowing a Fractal-Activated Kyra was standing right by me.

"Panorama: Revolution," she said as her eyes laid sight on every single tenant. In front, beside, or behind, she could see them all. She was watching from all angles—a full 360 degree view. 

Slash—Slash—Slash!

Her timing was immaculate. She sliced through one, and then through the next. Kyra's knife followed a path of destruction among these tenants being spawned as they died. Soon, the spawning stopped. Darius, standing further down, sighed with frustration.

"What an inconvenient time for you to have a Fractal Activation."

"Convenient for me," Kyra said, with more blood leaking down her eyes.

"But the continuous use must be straining, isn't it?"

She wiped the blood from her eyes. "Nothing is more straining than watching my friends suffer. I'll use this power as much as I need to before that happens."

"Ugh… So righteous, I can feel your stereotypical justice beaming right through me." Darius stuck his palms out and clenched them, causing a retraction and disappearance of the fallen tenants on the floor. "Clearly against your current state my Fractal would do nothing, would it?"

"It wouldn't." Kyra gripped her knife tightly. She could sense an unforeseen danger. Before anything could happen that she couldn't properly anticipate, she whipped her knife forward with inspiration from Celeste—it was aimed right at Darius' temple.

Shlrk—!

A body dropped to the floor.