CH 17: BLACK OUT

A few moments later, after Smith lost the tail of Adam and co, as Mammoth slowly began entering the neighborhood the bar was located in…

"Did you lose whoever was following us?"

"Of course, Boss. You know me. I also got some pictures. I will have the boys run a background check on the car later."

Adam stayed silent when he heard those shocking words.

He had also felt that Mammoth was taking way too many useless turns. But he did not interject. Silence was golden sometimes.

He hadn't noticed that they had been followed and wondered just who they might be.

Since Yui was working in the underworld, it wasn't weird that people were following her and trying to track her whereabouts.

Adam, having worked with her for some time, was already in the know-how of the usual happenings around the members of the underworld.

"Oh, Adam. You don't need to worry. This car is heavily reinforced and is totally bulletproof. At the very least we won't be gunned down while having a casual car ride."

She nonchalantly spoke about quite the dreadful matter, like it was an ordinary thing to say, but all he could do was shrug.

As stated before, he was already used to the dangers of the underworld. He knew what he had signed up for when he asked for her help and returned to this dangerous part of the world.

It would be hypocritical of him to think he could partake in only the good side of things without being affected by the bad side of them too.

Yui roughly ruffled Adam's hair, seeing the nonchalant way he took her warnings, "Don't worry about anything, okay? As long as you are near your big sis, nothing will happen to you."

"Haha. I guess so."

"Look at this punk. Mammoth, just tell this little bro of mine about how I beat up those bastards who were eyeing me in a dirty way while conducting a deal."

All Mammoth could do was laugh awkwardly at his boss' brazen remark.

———

After reaching the bar, Yui sent Adam downstairs so he could take a bath and rest, and prepare for the upcoming big event.

Now, sitting alone with Mammoth, Yui crossed her legs and put on a serious expression on her face. The Yui Adam knew so dearly was gone once again. A dangerous glint flashed in her eyes as she spoke in a cold tone.

"You examined his body?"

"Yeah, boss. Yesterday, I called the nurses and the doc. No wounds. No biting of any shape. We also intentionally didn't give him express permission to enter the room but he was still able to do so. The only thing we can do now is perhaps wait for the full moon to see if there's any change or a possible transformation."

"Did you try overloading his senses? Flash of light? Low sounds? Powerful odor. What about making him touch silverware?"

"Did the whole test and he hadn't been reacting any differently than a normal human would."

"Hmmmm…"

"Boss… What will you do if… You know?"

"The answer to that question is already pretty evident, right?"

Mammoth nodded. The smile on her face was worth a thousand words.

———

Adam, meanwhile, was lowering his head as he let the water of the shower flow on his body. The cool water was perfect for calming down his throbbing nerves, and the silence of the bathroom was the perfect atmosphere for him to think some things through.

Thinking — He had been thinking for so long in the last 24 hours. He felt like he didn't even have to think so much for solving some complex problems he encountered during his studies.

"Book…"

The book immediately appeared once more, floating in the air and then vanishing the next moment.

'Book.'

He did it again, but this time, with his thoughts alone and the book once again appeared in front of him in that same floating position. He willed the pages to turn in a certain direction.

This allowed him to realize that he did not need physical contact to turn or operate the book as he could clearly see the book's pages turning by themselves.

'It doesn't get wet.'

In the first place, the water was completely phasing through the book as though the book was fully intangible. This also made him wonder if other people were able to see it or not. Maybe, just like how no one other than him could touch it, it also had the function of being able to be perceived by him and him alone.

'Perhaps I should try taking a picture with it.'

"Genesis…"

He called for the spirit of the book but received no answer; not even a bleep to notify of its existence. He wondered if the book was really on standby mode because of a lack of energy or if the spirit was just flat-out ignoring him after doing its part and introducing him to the basics.

'How much power does that Book have over my body?'

Adam closed the book, looked up, and kept wondering more about the functions of this book.

Whatever that book was, it was able to make permanent changes to his body without his permission.

What will happen in the future? Adam firmly believed in the principle that nothing was truly free in this world. Everything had a hidden side to it.

Even the free sun everyone enjoyed was in reality a murderous star that would wipe out all life on earth if not for the presence of the ozone layer and the magnetic field of the Earth.

Of course, there were always exceptions. There existed a few genuine people who would only act because they actually wanted to help people with nothing but the explicit feeling of gratitude they would receive from helping others. It was a reward in itself for them.

But in a twisted way of looking at this situation, couldn't it be said that this feeling of happiness, stemming from the gratitude they received, was the reason they helped people in the first place? If that were to be the case then didn't it make their selfless act not be so selfless, after all?

Adam continued with his random train of thoughts for a while and slowly drifted into a state where he was just staring blankly at the ground as the water of the shower was slowly being flushed out through the sink.

'It oddly…looks like blood?'

His mind slowly drifted to that ominous moment, something that happened only a few hours ago when all things were considered. But for him, that moment felt like it was an eternity away.

The sight of blood, the odor of metal, the primordial fear that seized his heart and mind when he was hiding and praying to not be found, and eventually…

The sensation of…

Death!!!

*Thump* *Thump*

Adam felt nauseous.

'Calm down. I need to calm down.'

He kept repeating the same thought over and over again in his mind. But no matter what he did, the images and feelings of dread would not leave his mind. He lowered his head and breathed harshly, almost hyperventilating from the flashbacks of his trauma.

The bathroom suddenly felt infinitely small. As if the walls were slowly closing in on him, trying to crush him to a meat slab.

*Thump* *Thump*

It was all coming back to him. He had tried to not think too deeply about what had happened to him. But that was simply too difficult to do. Now, after a long try at repressing his feelings, he was facing the full brunt of his bottled fears.

Up until this day, Adam had always been your average man. A young adult, so to speak. He might have fought in the underworld as a teen, but the fights had never been fought to the death as some movies depicted them as.

The most blood he had ever seen, until that dreadful night, was the bleeding of a lip or leaking blood from a broken nose.

The only death he ever witnessed was through a small screen. Be it a documentary or simply a movie.

His first meeting with death ended up with him having a big hole in his chest and 'dying' for real. There was no way that could have been an experience that could be forgotten.

As he bled out in pain, alone on the street, he realized how lonely and helpless humans truly were at the very last moments that defined the ending of their lives.

"Kuh~!"

Adam groaned as he grabbed his chest. Phantom pain shot all over his mind as he distinctly remembered the searing sensation of his chest being split open and his heart destroyed by an eldritch hand.

He tried to take deep breaths to calm himself down, but the more he tried to breathe, the harder it became for him to do just that simple action.

"Ah…"

In the end, he completely blacked out and fainted on the spot.

The drizzle of the shower was the only sound left in the lonesome bathroom…

———

(AN: You can't exactly face death like that and not come out of it without some form of PTSD. As you can see, Adam's thoughts were very jumbled and jumpy in this chapter. I hope I was able to portray how he was just trying to put a front to show that everything was alright. But now alone in the bath, he simply broke down as everything he tried to suppress finally came back to him with a vengeance.)

(AN: So, because I can't exactly use italics I want to make clear when Genesis speaks to Adam and when he is actually just giving information or when Adam is reading information on different media.)

"Speaking"

'Thoughts'

[Reading in the media or The book.]

{Genesis speaking or Telepathy.}