Jarrod has finally reached his home, standing in front of a woman he intimately knows by sight. As Koko drops her bucket, Jarrod smiles and takes a step toward her.
Koko is a woman of average height, around 5’5″.
As the wind blows from the West—the direction Jarrod came from—toward the East where she stands, his scent reaches her nose. Catching that scent breaks her frozen stance, and her body finally moves. Koko slowly walks up to Jarrod and stands paralyzed in front of him for a moment, looking directly into his eyes. Then, slowly, using a trembling right hand, she touches his left arm, staring at it as if to make sure he is really here and not an illusion. She drags her fingers up toward his cheek, and with a smile and glassy eyes, she asks, “You are actually here!”
Jarrod holds both of her cheeks and says with an assuring smile, “Yes. Sorry for the wait, my love.”
Hearing this, Koko‘s eyes turn glassy as a few teardrops begin to fall from the corners of her eyes, but she is smiling. It is as if she has found a treasure. She finally says, “You are lucky you have a wife like me. Others don’t even let their husbands stay past evening outside.”
Seeing this and hearing her complain, Jarrod‘s smile grows a little wider. He leans down and whispers, “I am beyond lucky…” and kisses her. His eyes squint shut; she is equally eager, reaching up to hold both of his cheeks as well.
Back in Titan City‘s 2nd Block hospital—where Jarrod was admitted multiple times before, it is now fully restored—Leon is placed in a private chamber. Friling, Lesca, and he have returned to their own city. After recovering his own traps, Friling went to where the medical professionals had taken Leon and healed him just enough to survive the transfer to Titan City. Friling made sure Leon received the best treatment; doing so in Royal City was simply not possible, as they lack the technology, and it would have taken too much time. Plus, leaving Leon there alone while the group returned to Titan City wasn’t right.
While the spinal fracture has been healed by Friling, he wants to ensure Leon returns to full capacity. Deep down, Friling knows that a storm is coming, and with Jarrod gone, Leon is Titan City‘s only hope—which is the other reason he brought Leon back with him and Lesca. Though his spine is healed, Leon remains unconscious.
After settling Leon onto the bed, the doctor and his assistants step out of the chamber, leaving the nurses inside to attach the IV threads and monitor his vitals. Friling stands at the doorway. As the doctor steps into the hall and the door shuts, he asks, “Mr. Friling, his spine is perfectly fine. But he…” The doctor trails off, then regains his composure. “What do you actually need us to do?”
Friling doesn’t turn to the doctor. He looks at Leon through the glass window on the door and says, “Keep him in check 24/7. Give him the drugs that will keep him in this sleep state until he is fully healed.”
The doctor looks from Friling to Leon inside the room and says, “You want us to drug him? That’s…”
Before he can finish, Friling finally looks at the doctor with an amused face. “Drug him? Doctor, he is already well past his breaking point. That is because, for a continuous period of time, he has fought one battle after another without proper medical care.” Friling looks through the window again and adds, “If you let him wake up now, he will leave immediately without fully healing, and no one will be able to stop him. I want to make sure he is healthy and there are no deficiencies or fatigue left in his body, no matter how small or internal.” He turns back to the doctor. “Once you see that, stop the drugs. Let him wake up.”
The doctor breathes out. He gets it now. Friling is not asking him to pump Leon full of drugs to weaken him or artificially alter his anatomy; rather, Friling wants this facility to ensure Leon operates at 100 percent of his own natural potential. The doctors do not have to use anything heavy-duty that could affect his body in the long term; they simply need to keep him in a resting state. The doctor simply nods.
Friling leaves the hospital. As he enters his own tower in the 2nd Block, riding the elevator to the top floor where the Head family lives, the doors open. He steps into the living room and sees Lesca sitting in his seat, looking out through the floor-to-ceiling window to their right.
Friling slows down upon seeing her and says, “You haven’t sat in that chair since we were kids playing.” Friling smiles, remembering their childhood. He turns from the window to Lesca. “You were the boss; I was the employee.” He pauses, taking a few steps toward her. “So, what, sister? Are you finally ready to run the company with me, or do you want it all for yourself?”
Friling asks the question, but there is no hesitation or threat in his voice.
Lesca turns to him and says, “Even then, you used to go along with my ideas, no matter how crazy they were. Why is that, brother?”
Friling looks at her, taking a step closer to the table, and answers, “Because, sister, what is crazy to one is logical to another. You simply think differently; that doesn’t make you crazy.” He smiles. “If you ask me, it makes us slow, because we cannot keep up with you.”
Lesca stares at her brother’s face and says, “I wanna use the underground facility.”
Friling stops for a moment, looking at her face. He is curious, not scared. “The one we use for our prototypes? Upgrading our Heat, are we, sister?”
Lesca smiles. “Something like that.” She stands up and asks playfully, “So, can I?”
There is a teasing tone in her voice, and Friling knows that once his sister has thought of something, she will do it regardless. It is best to go along with her to reduce the damage and the headache. Friling smiles, turns, and starts walking toward the elevator, with Lesca following a few steps behind. Both enter the elevator, the doors close, and they descend to the underground level.
As the doors open, a vast square room is revealed, lined with white panels from floor to ceiling. Each and every square panel on the walls glows. No one would ever realize they are deep underground, as the light itself is like sunlight to anyone seeing it for the first time.
Lesca steps off the elevator into the room, looks around, and says, “It looks bigger than the last time I came down here.”
Friling steps out behind her, looks around, and says, “Yes, I expanded it to test our newer anti-materiel rifles. This space is now four times bigger than the tower that stands above it.”
Hearing this, Lesca doesn’t reply. A moment passes, and finally, Lesca turns to Friling, her eyes bloody. “I think you should leave, brother.”
Friling doesn’t look scared; he is smiling. He nods, turns, and walks back to the elevator. As he turns back around to press the button, he sees the room has gotten entirely dark at the far ends, the blinding lights slowly being engulfed by a thick, maroon goo. As the elevator doors begin to close, he watches the bright room go completely dark—not because the lights are turned off, but because something thick and dense is occupying the space so heavily that even the bright panels look as though they have dimmed out.
Blood starts pouring out of Lesca‘s body—from beneath her feet, her chest, and the backs of her arms—in a massive quantity as she walks deeper into the room. As soon as the blood spills from her body, it takes on a serpentine format, slithering across the floor to cover the room and creeping into every corner. When the blood encounters a wall, it climbs it, never stopping its relentless spread. The quantity is so massive that it begins pouring into the elevator cabin just before the doors fully seal shut.
In a sunlight-filled wooden room, Maven slowly opens her eyes. She stares at the ceiling until she can look properly without fluttering her eyelids. The room is large and rectangular. There is a window to Maven‘s right, far back at the end of the room, and a door to her left that is closer to her than the window. From the sound of the wind and the distant noises of livestock and humans, she knows she is high above the ground.
A moment passes. She can feel she is lying on a single bed. Slowly, she turns her head to her left. There is another bed there, and an old woman sits at its edge. Maven cannot identify her. The old woman, seeing her wake up, gives her a solemn smile and asks, “Do you feel any pain in your chest now?”
Hearing the word ‘chest,’ Maven‘s eyes widen as the memories of the night come flooding back: Rogue, using her blade to protect Lesca, and being stabbed. As her body jerks from the violent rush of thoughts, her head snaps to her right. There is another bed there, and in it lies Golas.
Seeing her father, Maven calms a little, but she instantly notices he is unusually still. His throat and belly are not moving. Maven‘s eyes snap wide open, this time in panic. She swings her feet down to walk up to his bed, not even realizing that there isn’t a shred of pain left in her body. As she steps forward, she sees multiple tubes hanging from a stand between Golas‘s bed and her own, stained with a slight reddish hue—likely blood.
Maven looks at the tubes, then back to her completely still father, and silently utters, “Father.”
The old lady somberly stands up from the other bed, walks up to Maven‘s left side, stands a respectful distance away, and says, “He is gone.”
Maven slowly sinks to her knees on the floor in front of her father’s bed, bringing her and Golas to an equal height. Without looking at the woman, she asks, “How? Why?”
The lady looks at the top of Maven‘s head, then at Golas‘s still body. “You were in a coma and slowly slipping away… if he hadn’t given all his blood to you, you wouldn’t have been saved…”
Maven cuts her off. She is not crying, but she is breathing heavily through her mouth, silently hyperventilating. “So you just gave up your entire life for me?” Maven asks directly to Golas, who does not open his eyes or his mouth to reply to his daughter.
Maven places her left hand on her father’s chest and uses her right hand to caress his hair. She is still taking deep, ragged breaths through her mouth. Her eyes are red, but there is no water in them.
The old lady says softly, “He didn’t have any regrets, Maven. He said now he lives in you… permanently.”
Hearing that, Maven looks away from her father’s face and down at her own chest. The mark of the stab wound is still there, but it has been filled in, taking the shape of a long, reddish leaf. Maven licks her lips to soothe herself, looking back at her father without saying a word. She doesn’t know how to react, what to say, or what to do now.
Seeing the violent vibration trembling through Maven‘s body, the lady speaks again. “He also said…” She hesitates.
Maven finally looks at her, exhausted, and asks, “What?”
The old lady says, “He said when you wake up, I am to tell you to stop him… or he will burn the Central down.”
Maven‘s eyes widen so much that a single stream of tears drops from both her eyes onto the floor. She snaps her head to the right, staring through the window at the sprawling, sunlit expanse of Royal City.
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