5

We opened a worn out wooden door, which was the last room on the fourth floor we hadn"t entered. Ariya felt for the light switch. Luckily, the bulbs were still working.

This room was strange. It looked roomy and was the only room with furniture… well, not quite "furniture". Multiple clay pots lined the inside.

Inside all of the pots were trees. Those trees were about two meters high and spread their branches all over the place. Among the leaves bloomed pure white flowers. They were cone shaped with elegant petals that hung like white bells.

"What"s this?"

I entered the room and stared at those flowers. I felt a surge of attraction, but when my hands reached out to touch them, Ariya grabbed my wrists and squeezed it so hard I yelped.

"Don"t touch them!"

"What the f.u.c.k, man? They"re just flowers."

He ignored my objection.

"I had seen people die because of this "they"re just flowers"."

Ariya stared at me and that made me feel uneasy. He reached for one of those flowers and plucked it.

"This flower is called "Brugmansia". Some call it the "dog killer" or "Angel"s trumpet", but I think "Devil"s trumpet" is more suitable for it, because it is highly poisonous, unlike its appearance. It is an alkaloid that stimulates the CNS. Those who were poisoned will feel euphoric, followed by hallucinations and delirium. Overdosage can lead to death."

"Oh…thanks a lot…for stopping me."

I swallowed and scooted back from those trees, cursing under my breath. Who in the name of cuc.u.mbers decided to plant these f.u.c.king things in an abandoned factory?

"I swear, I"m never going near these things again."

"Good. If you are not dead, do not mess around with them."

If you are not dead…?

So what if you are dead? A thought sprang up. These Brugmansia or whatever, do they affect dead people?

Say, reviving the dead…

I threw that thought off my head. Reality isn"t science fiction.

If that was possible, it would still be pointless to revive the dead. People do not wish they live once they were dead, but wish to be happy when they are alive.

If somebody tried to revive the dead, that person would be some maniac who would give everything he had to reach his goal.

Like me, a crazy man who struggled to reach for the sun…

"Struggle"…?

I felt something when I thought of that word. My subconscious was trying to say something.

What was I struggling to achieve…?

I built a pair of wings and flew higher and higher…

But in the end…

My eyes exploded!!

"Aghhhhhhhhh!!!!!"

I screamed my lungs out and fell to the ground writhing.

"Eyes…my eyes…my eyes!!!!!"

"What are you talking about, Wakin? There is nothing wrong with your eyes!"

Ariya shook me from my delirium. I slowly opened my eyelids, and the first thing I saw was Ariya observing me.

"Ah…Ariya…did I get poisoned by those flowers?"

I wailed, still feeling the pain in my sockets.

"No, the Angel"s trumpet is only effective once consumed."

Ariya helped me up and carried me to a corner so I could lean on the wall.

"I think you might be recalling something."

"No…it wasn"t a memory, it was… a dream."

I spoke, panting.

"Dream?"

I don"t know if I just wanted to let it out, but I spilled the contents of my dreams to Ariya.

"There is a theory that dreams are a manifestation of a thought embedded deep into one"s heart."

The man spoke after listening to my story.

"Flying and falling might mean the pressure you got from those around you, or you trying to achieve the impossible. The more you try, the more dangerous it got."

His voice was calm, like a doctor announcing to his patient that they have the final stage of cancer. …Well, he was a medical student, alright.

"Going near the sun symbolizes trying to overcome a great obstacle. Wakin…tried to do something that was against the law of nature. The more we spoke about it, the more we disagree with each other, because I like things to go the natural way."

"Natural?"

"Every life on earth will die. That is natural."

So this was what made us different. Even with this amnesia, I did not agree with him one bit.

"Ariya, you keep talking about death. Why so depressing? Don"t you have anything you need to struggle to achieve?"

I asked, forgetting for a moment that this man might be a psychopathic ma.s.s murderer. If his mind was unstable, it wasn"t something to be surprised at.

But Ariya replied with confidence never before seen.

"Of course I do."

"Huh…?"

"Do you remember when I said Lilith was my light?"

"Yeah, I remember."

I raised my head and listened to his answer.

"Something happened that took my light from me."

Ariya looked at me with determination.

"And now, I will get back my light."

Boom!!!

All went black. The room fell into darkness.

"What happened?"

I asked. Ariya went outside as I shone the flashlight onto the ground in front of him.

"It seems the power went out."

Ariya spoke. I went to the railings and stared at the pitch black area below. He was right. The second floor room where I left the lights on went dark.

"Did the circuit explode or something?"

Ariya thought about my question for a while before raising his head up to speak.

"The electric supply room must be below. Should we check it?"

"Do we have a choice?"

Honestly, this sudden power cut gave me the chills. My guts told me that something was luring us into its trap, but once I thought about Lilith"s survival and my own, I had the energy to go forward.

What happened to the breaker? It was working a while ago.

Did someone break it?

But Ariya"s with me all the time, then who…?

We made it to the front door. Ariya said it was locked and I shone the flashlight to see if that was true. There was a huge silver lock on it.

But something must have happened here. I saw splotches of blood and three empty cartridges.

"The breaker is right here."

Ariya led me to the right of the door. There was a large metal box with all the switches and circuits inside. My companion opened the lid and checked all the fuse for any damage.

I saw the main wire covered in orange. It was strange. The factory must have been abandoned for a long time, but the breaker and the main wire looked brand new as if they were changed recently.

Someone needed electricity to do something here?

"Strange… everything is intact…"

Ariya mumbled and shone his lights across the circuits again.

"The breaker was just switched off."

Switched… off… That means…

"Somebody was… Look out!"

The second I heard Ariya"s voice, I turned around. An axe"s blade entered my field of vision.

Luckily Ariya pushed me out of the way, so the axe slid past me by a strand of hair. It penetrated the cement floor, making spider web cracks.

The attacker was a large man I did not recognize. His eyes glimmered like a mad dog.

"You f.u.c.ktard! Die! You think you can kill me, h.e.l.l no you f.u.c.king can"t!!!"

He lifted the axe off the ground and aimed for another blow.

"He survived with that kind of injury?"

Ariya"s voice floated in the darkness. I pointed the flashlight at the gargantuan man. Like Ariya said, his body was full of severe injuries. The body that did not seem to be able to move was up and about by the force of vengeance.

I wanted to ask Ariya if he knew this man, but I needed to get away first because that guy was charging straight at me.

A gust of wind hit my body as his axe flew past me. I dodged easily but the flashlight fell from my hands and rolled across the ground, splashing light all over the place.

"Ariya!"

When he saved me, he took a blow to the side. His suit had a long gash, but because it was black I could not see the droplets of blood on him. Not too far away, the phone he used as a source of light fell.

I didn"t know what made me rush to grab it. That instant, the large man changed his target back to me. He didn"t know who was who, but he attacked whoever had the lights.

"You…die!!!"

The crisis of near-death made me see everything in slow-motion. The face of the madman drew near and I could see every detail.

The axe was raised…

And then I realized…

The circuit box was behind me!!!! Behind!!!

I turned around and seized the wires. The axe cut them through until copper strands stuck out, then I stabbed him with those copper wires. The large man shook violently, and if he reached his hands out, I would have been electrocuted alongside him.

But then the power was cut again.

The mad man fell and jerked on the floor like a fish on land. His eyes bulged, and his body gave off the smell of burnt flesh. He wasn"t dead, but he sure was close.

I looked at him and was frightened.

When I saw the madness of the axe man, I recalled some of my memories… the memories about the faces of those who entered this abandoned factory.

There were seven people.

The three on fourth floor, the man cut in two, the axe guy, me, and the last was the only woman in the group.

In my memories, all of us were screaming with fright.

Only Ariya…I do not recall knowing him at all.

He wasn"t taken here like the rest of us.

The reason he was here was clear as day.

"Murderer!!"

I hollered, but Ariya was not a tiny bit surprised with my accusation.

"Do you remember everything?"

Actually, I only remembered parts of it, but I stayed calm and nodded.

"Well then, there is no need for stage play anymore…"

At that moment, Ariya"s gentle smile changed. It changed so fast I thought he just took a mask off. A friendly smile turned into a cold grin that made my bones shiver.

The heavy atmosphere made me turn around and run for my life. I might find a way to deal with the axe dude who was berserk, but to someone with a twisted mind like Ariya, I could not find a way to deal with him.

I ran to the second floor, using the darkness as my cover. I chose a door at random and went in.

After I got in, I panted for a while. I didn"t want to turn on the lights since that would give me away, and I remembered that I now have a phone.

I looked at the phone that was no more useful than an ordinary flashlight.

But it was way more useful now, since…

There was…a signal.

Ariya lied about not being able to use the phone. That alone told me he did not want me to leave.

I pressed 191 to call the police, but as I raised the phone up, the signal went off again, and as I glanced at the screen I saw that the signal was not stable enough to make a call.

"s.h.i.t!" I cussed and waved the phone around to catch some signal.

Then my eyes met a pair of golden eyes.

"f.u.c.k!!"

Sharp, golden eyes right in front of my face made me shriek. The thing staring at me was a large snake"s carca.s.s, curled up in a jar. But its eyes stared at me as if they were still alive.

I shone the lights around. In this room were multiple long table with lab equipments and bottles of chemicals. Other than that there were multiple jars of preserved animals, such as guinea pigs, lizards, centipedes, and toads. They were preserved in blue liquid that had countless white petals floating inside. I remembered those petals.

"Brugmansia…"

So when Ariya said if you are not dead, do not mess around with them, he meant preservative?

I searched the large table with rows of test tubes and liquids. Most of them were already half evaporated, but I could tell that no matter what this lab was for, the experiment was abandoned halfway through. The owner of this room would not come back again. Beside the test tubes were a pair of gloves, a surgical knife set, and a pile of papers. Photographs of animals were clipped to each of the sheets. Alongside the photos were some strange calculations done with weird formulas. The handwriting was so bad I could not make out a thing.

Then my phone-light caught something.

That"s… a gun!

I s.n.a.t.c.hed it. The shiny object fitted perfectly in my hands, but it was quite heavy. I did not take tong to get used to the gun, as if I had practiced using it multiple times before.

The gun was in good shape. Three bullets were used and there were ample left.

If I had this, then I fear nothing.

No matter who killed all those people.

With weapon in hand, I set to go out, but my eyes stopped on a volume of newspaper buried beneath the mountain of papers. Well, if that newspaper only contained useless news like wife killing husband or the tree that gives you lottery numbers, it would not make me bat an eye. However, the large heading on that stale yellowish print was quite relevant.

[University ma.s.sacre, culprit is brutal medical student.]

I read the content, ignoring the photograph blurred by the censor team. Why would the censor even be necessary when the words itself describes even more than a photograph?

Nevertheless I was shocked when I saw the name of that "brutal medical student".

[Vakin Rattananurakwong]

"I…I"m a killer?"

That means… the psychopath in this factory was not Ariya, but me?

I thought about it and accepted it easily. If you thought about it that way, everything would be in place. My b.l.o.o.d.y clothes, my relationship problems, me being ostracized by society… I would not be surprised if the previous me became a psychopath.

Turns out Ariya was my prey.

But why did he not run? He knew I was the culprit. Why did he stay with me?

Wait, Ariya must have thought the same thing. As he said, we"re like black and white, but only one thing brought us together.

Lilith.

Protecting Lilith by keeping an eye on me was the safest way to go, and lucky him that I had amnesia, so he pretended to be my friend.

"And now, I will get back my light."

Ariya"s words returned to me.

Did he mean to take Lilith away from me?

No, that won"t happen!!!

"You…have finally found this room."

I didn"t need to tell you who showed up. I pointed the gun at him.

"Sorry, Ariya… I won"t give Lilith to you!!!"

Bang!

The gunshot echoed. The bullet grazed his left shoulder, but it was close enough to take away some flesh with it. Ariya stumbled backwards and held his bleeding shoulder.

He walked as if he could fall any moment. The axe wound was bad, and the bullet made it worse. His face went paler by the second.

I followed him out of the room and stared at the man who stopped near the room I woke up in.

"Sorry I have to break our promise, but from now on it"s just me and Lilith that will be together forever."

"What are you even talking about?"

Bang!!!

I shot Ariya"s left leg. He twitched his face, but other than that he was fearless. The only emotion in his eyes was curiosity.

"I think you misunderstood something."

"Don"t play dumb. You can"t fool me anymore!"

"It is true I lied to you, because I knew that Lilith would follow you anyway. You have something she wants, so I used you as a bait."

"You…don"t talk like she"s an animal!"

I pressed the muzzle to Ariya"s forehead. He was deep in his thoughts even when in a situation of life or death.

"You are saying this because your memories have not returned."

"Shut the f.u.c.k up!"

"If you did remember, you would never say that you want to be with her forever."

Ariya did not move away from point blank range.

"Even I will not say it. We…none of us can be with her…"

A gust of wind blew, and I saw a silhouette behind Ariya.

"Lilith…"

I pushed Ariya out of the way and ran to her without second thoughts.

"It"s alright Lilith, I won"t let anyone hurt you."

I told her gently, but Lilith was not listening. She was absent-minded, her eyes floated around without focusing on anything. That must be because she saw many people killed here, and that was too harsh for her to bear.

"Step away from her."

Ariya"s voice was more tense than ever, but now it could not stop me. I pointed the gun at him, and protected Lilith with my other hand.

"If you move, I"ll shoot. I killed all those people anyway, what difference does one more corpse in the pile make?"

I smirked.

But it did not shake the man in front of me, because…

"Why would you say that? You killed no one."

"Huh?"

"You are not Vakin."

I…am not…Vakin??

"D-Don"t lie. If I"m not Vakin, then…then who am I?"

It strained me to speak. I could hide my panic no longer. All these times I thought of myself as Vakin, but someone told me I"m not. Who would believe that?

"You are just a prey lost in a lion"s territory."

"What prey? And who the heck is the real Vakin? Then who killed these people… who gutted them? You?"

Ariya put his hands up, trying to calm me down.

"Too many questions, I cannot answer all of them at once. What did you say? Those bodies were not my doing. I have no taste for killing, but looking at dead people is another thing."

That"s disgusting, but Ariya smiled.

"Vakin was the owner of this lab. He must be somewhere in here, watching us struggle to survive with pleasure. But of course he"s not the culprit either since he only likes human when they are alive. He likes to see them struggle and is obsessed with the value of life, like you…"

The man smiled as if it"d be rude not to.

"At first you really resemble Vakin, even now you two are like twins…"

"How?"

"The way both of you protect Lilith even though she became something like "that"."

"That"? That what?

Suddenly the scattered thoughts in my brain arranged themselves, like a jigsaw closer to completion.

Lab…Brugmansia…

Only works on the dead…breaking the law of nature…

She"ll follow me since I"m a bait…

Lion"s territory… n.o.body can be with her forever…

That moment, all my questions were answered.

The one who killed everyone here was…

"You"re…lying…."

My breathing stopped. I felt the stare from behind…from someone I thought I should protect. I spun around and met a pair of eyes that was uncanningly similar to those of that snake in a jar.

A predator"s eyes…

Lilith"s eyes…

"Arghhhhh!!!!!!!!"

I screamed my lungs out when she bit my arm and tore the flesh until it came off in a long strip, then chew it noisily like it was a grade A steak.

I looked at her and could not believe my eyes. Her face changed from absent-minded to fierce and hungry and mad like someone possessed by a demon. Her sharp fangs bared. I saw bits of meat between her teeth and blood all over her mouth.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

I shot at the monster in a woman"s skin, but it was useless. Not because I missed. All shots were on target.

But "it" was unaffected.

"This f.u.c.king b.i.t.c.h! Just what the f.u.c.k is she?!?!"

"What the f.u.c.k is this monster? Why can"t the bullet kill it!?"

My yell in the present overlapped with my memory. That moment I remembered… I had a face-off with this monster before. The second before I was killed by her, my memories shattered like a dropped gla.s.s.

And now I hear a click when all pieces of memories fall back together. Thoughts flooded my mind, causing the worst headache ever. I sank to the ground when this was not the time to be weak, but I had no strength.

I could only watch Lilith as she approached.

I was going to get killed…

Stab!!

A knife penetrated her from behind, making her turn around from me to Ariya.

She dashed at Ariya faster than human speed, mouth wide open, showing all her sharp teeth, and bit juicily into his shoulder.

Because of his prior injuries, when attacked by Lilith, Ariya lost his balance and fell backwards along with Lilith who still munches his flesh.

Ariya did not resist.

He had no strength left and would be more than glad to be killed by her hands.

The only thing he did… was to raise a hand slowly and stroked her head with so much warmth…

"The reason you became this way… was because of me and Vakin…because of that experiment to overcome death using that stupid flower…"

Ariya spoke, voice soft as mist.

"But no matter how much I tried to let you free, I felt like trying to reach the sun…"

Ariya"s warmth was a spell that broke the woman"s madness. Lilith"s eyes changed. I saw tears ran down her cheeks.

A split second later, I heard a whisper filled with sadness from the bottom of her soul.

"Ariya…I…"

That was the last thing I saw before the switch in my brain turned itself off.

[Comment:

I don"t want to spoil the moment with my stupid comment but…

Whew that was a long one. And really sad. And bittersweet.

The trademark of punica is sad love stories, so if you would stick around till the end for these two, Ariya and Lilith…

I would gladly appreciate it.]