HALF: Dead nor Alive

Archie stared at the night sky until it turned blue, he jumped off of the railing and went down the long stairs. The cold breeze followed him wherever he goes, they whistled to each other while Archie listened to them.

“Why do you want me to follow you at dawn? Is there a reason?” Archie asked as he hurriedly walked down the stairs.

“It fears… the dawn…” The soothing voice woman replied.

“What about him?” Archie asked.

“He’s resting after he had a feast last night…” A woman replied.

“So he has accepted himself as Drautnir and eats parasites like it was nothing,” Archie said as he scoffed.

The wind went silent and Archie was confused why they suddenly went quiet.

Archie went to the south wall but after that incident, they closed the south wall for good and it was heavily guarded by Axis Humans. Fortunately, the wind witches knew another way for Archie to go outside the south wall.

Archie found a small hole in the wall, he could fit his hand inside and he started to break it so he could fit through the hole. He broke the wall silently and carefully and luckily the area around the wall was nothing but a scrapyard so nobody was around.

Archie managed to fit through the wall he made and the wind witches immediately brought him to the place they want him to be. Archie walked through the empty abandoned city and there were no parasites around even though he was prepared to fight. He then reached into a big dome that he had never seen before, the witches wanted him to go inside the building and without asking any questions, he entered the building.

“What’s this place?” Archie asked as he looked around and how spacious the inside of the dome was.

“This place used to be the laboratory and the place where they did the experiment on your blood…” The soothing woman’s voice replied.

Archie looked at the voice came from. “Wait, you still remember about it? I thought they erased everyone’s memory about my existence?” Archie asked with a bit of confusion.

“I believe it erased the humans’ memories, not ours…” The soothing woman’s voice replied.

Archie felt a bit relieved that he was still recognized by someone.

“Hurry…” The other woman said.

Archie nodded and followed the winds around him.

Archie ended up in front of the doors that were chained and blocked by tables and chairs. He could feel danger coming from behind that doors, he clenched his fists and gulped as he moved the tables and chairs away.

“What’s behind this door?” Archie asked.

“The humans that failed in the experiment… they were abandoned and forgotten…” The woman whispered into his ear was enough to send him a chill down his spine.

Archie held the doors’ handles as he heard the growls and screeches that came from behind the door. He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath then he pulled the doors. The creaking sound of the doors was enough to attract their attention, he could hear dozens of footsteps coming toward him.

As he stared into the dark hallway in front of him, he could feel the presence of those parasites.

“It’s better for you to not fight them inside their nest…” The soothing woman’s voice warned Archie.

Archie nodded with understanding and slowly backed away so he could fight in a bigger space.

One by one, the failed experiment subjects appeared from the darkness. Their appearance couldn’t be called a human anymore because some of them already merged together. Their limbs multiplied and their size was ginormous that it would be dangerous for them to roam freely. If he knew what he was against, he would be surprised that every single one of them was equal to a Gen 7 ExTP.

The sun was at its peak and the pungent smell of dried blood covered the whole building. Archie sat down and leaned on the wall as he stared at hundreds of corpses of those parasites. He lost a chunk of his right hand and lost his entire left arm after the fight, he never thought there were so many of them and he couldn’t imagine how it felt to be the last person who endured the parasitification and was still conscious but had to be in the same place with those monsters.

“You’re different from the others…” The unfamiliar woman’s voice said.

“Yes, he is strong…” Another unfamiliar woman’s voice said.

Archie ignored them and stared at his arm and his fingers grew back rapidly.

“You need to hurry…” The woman said.

“I know…” Archie replied as he groaned and tried to stand up. “What do you want me to find?” Archie asked as he walked into the dark hallway.

“Something that you can use to kill him…” The woman said.

Archie furrowed his forehead as he glanced at the voice.

They guided him deep into the building and they could see the remains of the flesh of those parasites laying on the ground. All the rooms were opened and there was nothing else but blood, skin, and flesh on the floor and on the walls. He saw a few dead parasites that seemed to be the weakest compared to the rest and they seemed to be the food for the other parasites but they didn’t like it and let those rot on the floor.

“This way…” The winds blew strongly.

Archie looked at another door that was made from steel with a security code on the wall. He was confused because the technology of that door was the same technology that the Sky Station had. He knew how to operate them and knew how to force them open without having to know the code.

Archie punched the keypad and pulled it out, and he could see the sparks from the cables which meant that the building still had electricity. He tried to reach the deepest part of the inside of the wall and he could feel a button and he immediately pressed it.

“This should do it…” Archie said as he pulled his arm.

The door opened and he was shocked that he saw a big spacious room inside with so many collections of parasites. One thing that he was so shocked about was that there was a huge boulder of pitch-black stone that looked like coal from the distance but it wasn’t.

“What is this?” Archie asked as he approached the stone and touched it.

“Do you remember the sword that you used back then?” The soothing woman’s voice asked.

“You mean Iohann’s sword?” Archie replied.

“Yes, that sword was made from this, and this stone was one of the fragments from the meteor that struck the earth centuries ago.” The soothing woman’s voice answered.

“You want me to use this and make a weapon from it?” Archie asked.

“Yes. This mineral is the strongest on earth and you can kill him with this…” The soothing woman’s voice replied.

“It’s too huge for me to bring it back to the city, how am I supposed to do with this then?” Archie asked as he tried to crush the stone with his grip but his hand couldn’t even do that. 𝒇𝑟𝐞𝐞w𝐞𝑏𝙣𝑜vℯl.co𝑚

“Ask those humans to come to this place and ask them to make weapons for you from this…” The soothing woman’s voice said.

Archie looked at it and nodded with understanding.

“There’s something else that we want you to see…” The soothing woman’s voice said.

“Just lead the way,” Archie replied as he walked out of the room.

Archie left the room and closed the door behind him so nobody could get inside.

The witches guided him through another steel door but this time the door was slightly opened. He couldn’t see the inside because it was too dark and suddenly something flew toward the gap from the inside and tried to reach Archie’s face. Archie leaned his head back a bit as he looked at a very thin thing like a hair was trying to reach him.

Archie touched it and turned out it was a Gen 0 parasite, the one that looked like a web. The parasite seemed to be friendly toward him and crawled around his neck and then up to his face. Suddenly the parasite entered his ear and Archie immediately fell down while he tried to remove the parasite from his ear.

The unbearable pain inside his head and the sound of the parasite crawling and slipping through his skull were unpleasant. It reminded him of the past when he was invested by a parasite for the first time. Archie screamed and groaned in pain as he rolled over and over on the floor because he couldn’t do anything.

“Are you sure he’s going to be alright, sister?” The woman asked.

“I was ordered to bring him here and this was what it wants…” The soothing woman’s voice replied. “Our job here is done, there’s nothing we can do about it.” The soothing woman’s voice continued.

The wind dispersed and left Archie on his own, in pain, in the dark.