"WHAT IS IT?" Sophia stood up, her chest heaving. She slipped herself swiftly from the bed as Elia turned sharply from the window, opening the door.
Elia's bare feet slammed the ground hard as he raced through the second floor's hallway. "No! NO! NO!!!"
Seeing the body lying a few meters away from the ground floor's main door, he doubled his steps, his heart pounding against his ribs.
Gagging, wings flapping, and the crackle of lightning greeted Elia as soon as he pushed the door open and stepped outside.
"WHAT IS THAT?" Sophia's hands cupped her mouth, her eyes fixed on the wendigo-faced being approaching the body in the pool of blood.
"ELIA! PLEASE DON'T GO!! PLEASE!!!" Her right arm broke free from her face and stretched toward Elia, but he was already caught in the screams.
'I should have taken the dream seriously,' he blamed himself, throwing himself to his knees in the pool of blood in which Zeno lay in.
Throughout Elia's life, everything his mind imagined came to pass. Whether it was a mere thought or a dream, it always happened.
Everything began when he was five years old. At that age, he dreamt of his parents dying in a car crash on his way to school.
His father, a wealthy ICT expert, had been exiled from his work due to the rise of AI—artificial intelligence—the enemy he wished to destroy. Although it was just code simulated to work, Elia dreamt of rewriting time, just to kill something that couldn't be killed.
His father brushed off the dream, saying, "You just overate and are talking nonsense." Yet, the crash happened in the same sequence—the car rolling for thirty minutes straight without stopping.
Since then, he pledged to work toward every dream he had. But for this particular one, which he had after enjoying himself with the woman he dreamt of, he pushed it away.
"Uncle Elia," Zeno's head tilted upward slightly, blood bubbling from his mouth.
"Don't say anything, all-knowing one." Elia slowly raised the red-skinned, veined boy from the blood pool and stood straight.
Heavy wind blew from his back, breaking a large branch off an ancient mango tree at the front of KSS.
At the front of the Baker building, Sophia rushed forward, her arms waving through the air, her heart sinking into her gut.
"WATCH OUT!" she pushed Elia aside, taking his place.
From the right, the claws of the winged creature cut through the pressured air, slicing Sophia in two, then raking Elia across the back.
Blood sprayed in torrents from both Elia and Sophia as they fell to the ground.
Wet coughs escaped Zeno when the back of his head slammed against the ground. "Uncle, save yourself and the lady. I'm already dead."
"No! Don't say that. Nothing will happen to you while I'm here." Elia's back ached, yet he forced his body to move.
He held Zeno on his right shoulder, then carried the collapsed Sophia on his left.
A thunderous roar tore from the creature's mouth as it dashed forward again, its claws whipping through the air for another set of blood.
With the two bodies on his shoulders, Elia ducked under the claws, crouched down, and used the Tai Chi lessons he hadn't taken seriously, striking the creature's knees.
Although his effort was frail, it forced the creature to move two steps back.
"Hold on!" Elia ran toward the entrance of the Baker building, then leaned the two bodies against the wall.
"What's…" Sophia's eyes flared open, her body twitching as a strange green glow began to emanate from her ripped leg.
"Huh! Huhh!! Huhhh!!!" She pushed herself up, swinging her arms at Elia as he tried to calm her down forcefully.
"Relax… Sophia!" Elia carried her, watching the creature close in. He entered the building, placed Sophia on the left, then went to Zeno and placed him on the right.
He exited, took a broken tree branch, and inserted it in the raised handle of the door, using it as a lock.
"NOW!" He slammed his arms together. Dust spiraled from his skin, wavering in the air before him as the creature gritted its teeth.
"If you want them, you have to go through me!" Elia's fists clenched, calming his frantic heart.
For ten minutes, he dodged death swipes from the creature, its claws flying at head level, ready to split his skull apart.
When he finally managed to land a blow on the creature's chest, a hanging object around its neck caught Elia's attention.
"Is that… Uncle Bryan's dog tag?" The name T.K., written boldly on the metal, made Elia's second blow falter.
The creature's claw scraped across his face, splitting his head perfectly in half. Blood sprayed as he twirled around, his arms paddling through the air like a madman.
His body slammed hard on the ground, the split opening wide, yet he wasn't dead. His right arm stretched toward the door as the creature crashed it with a single swing and entered.
Tears filled his eyes as the creature lifted Zeno's dying body and began sucking the small amount of blood left in him.
"UNCLE ELIA!!!" screams tore through the hazy atmosphere but were forcefully drained when the creature broke the boy's body into tiny pieces, tearing the red skin and veins with its jagged teeth.
Darkness began to take over Elia's vision as the creature loosened its grip on Zeno's frail body and moved toward Sophia.
"NO! NO!! NO!!!" Only Sophia's voice echoed in Elia's ears. Even then, it was as if she were in a distant world.
A game-like notification shimmered to life in Elia's mind. It was so vivid he felt it rip his eyes apart.
A translucent panel resurfaced before him in his head.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
[HOST DETECTED]
[SANNNIGNG…]
More data joined in, line by line, as though it were peeling him, forcing him closer to death.
[HEAD DAMAGE: FATAL]
[BLOOD VOLUME: 1%]
[ORGAN FAILURE: 1%]
[NEURAL ACTIVITY: 0.5%]
[HEARTRATE: 0.05]
[DEATH STATUS: PENDING]
Everything, including the screams and thunderous sounds, was muffled, almost as if he were sinking in endless water.
At the base of the blue text, another set of words appeared.
[SYSTEM BINDING]
[ACCEPT]
[DECLINE]
A countdown surfaced beneath the panel: [00:00:03]
'I've spent my whole life running from myself.'
[00:00:02]
'If I die here… everything ends.'
[00:00:01]
'I'll take it even if it costs everything.'
With the memory of video games looping in his mind, Elia forced his mouth open, then screamed the word loudly.
[SYSTEM BINDING CONFIRMED]
Colorful lights, accompanied by stormy wind, buzzed around his still body. All the muffled sounds seeped into his ears once again, yet his vision remained as dark as the deepest edge of the sea.
The translucent panel shimmered back in his vision.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
Host initiation…
Name: Elia Wilson
Grade: ERROR
Type: Desire
Hasty movement seeped into his senses, followed by a blinding white light that caused his arms to rise, covering his face.
"Where am I?" he swallowed hard, watching women dressed in white dresses, stained with blood, roam about, shouting.
"BRING THE WHEEL!"
"HE'S DYING!"
"WE NEED AN ANTISEPTIC!"
Amid the nurses' screams, other people lying in beds had tears dripping down their faces as they exchanged glances.