Black Equation - The Gifted Ones

Number Six

For the first time in his twenty three years of existence, Krad feared death.

“Krad, can you hear me?” a voice murmured from a distant tunnel. “Krad…”

There something warm and wet pressing against his mouth. He had cuts and bruises there; it hurt like hell. He was still drowning, and even worse, hurting, like a thousand needles were attacking every single part of his body. He wanted to scream, but he was too weak to even open his eyes, let alone his mouth. He writhed in darkness, willing and failing to make the pain go away.

Torture.

Fire.

He was burning.

Memories from his past resurfaced. He had always hated fire. It was fire that took the lives of his mother and sisters. It was fire that killed Mistress Ophelia, the person who had been his mother-figure in his early life. And it was fire that took away the love of his existence. By now he knew. Arashi had succeeded on snatching Faye away from him. She no longer loved him. She was no longer his.

He was still burning, and the pain was intolerable.

The enemies must have caught him, held him captive in their prisons. They must be tormenting him to break him. They would torture him until he was broken enough to tell them what they need. Information from him. They wanted to know Creed’s location. They wanted to know the Master’s location. But he was 01. 01 couldn’t do that. He was loyal to the Master. He would rather die than forsake the trust Kreuz Creed had given him.

He must persist.

This wasn’t the first time he had been tortured. He had been burned on several occasions, electrocuted with deadly voltages more times than he could count. How many times? He couldn’t remember. He would endure them for the Master. The Master. His family. His mentor. His teacher. His friend. His god. He had been kind to him as a boy, the only person who treated him like a human. And for the Master, he would gladly die. For he was 01. He was his. Now and forever.

There was a small white hand hovering over his face.

“Jared. Jared? Are you all right?”

Jared? Who’s Jared?

01 opened his eyes, and saw an angel. She was immaculate. Her smile was as brilliant and as demure as the moon and the stars twinkling at night, her soft light embracing him with tender warmth. It was wrong. The Heavens must have made a mistake. He was a devil. Evil men like him do not deserve to rest in peace. They were meant to rot in hell.

“Let’s go to karaoke! Please, please, pretty please?”

It was the angel again, and she was holding his hand, dragging him. Her smile was familiar. Lovely. Enchanting.

“Teach me! You know I suck at everything Math-related! I’ll cook dinner for you for a week if I pass the test. Come on, Mr. Hudson. You know you're the sexiest, smartest, hottest tutor in the whole wide world!”

Her voice was so alluring, her green eyes sparkling with life. The angel looked so young, so innocent… so pure.

“Do you want ice cream? Go buy yourself one. This is my favorite you know? I’m not sharing it.”

Pistachio, he remembered. She loved pistachio-flavored ice cream, to the point that she would drive miles just to buy a tub of it.

“Gah! Look at you! I can’t concentrate on my rehearsals because of your fever! I’m gonna nurse you tonight, but you have to promise me that you’ll take me to the carnival next week as payment. Promise me, Jared!”

01 blinked, and the angel transformed to a younger version, much younger, and she gracefully twirled in front of him. She wore a pretty yellow summer dress, fitting for her five-year old self.

“Where 'r we? Where 'r you taking me? Aren’t we going to return to momma? Poppa?”

Suddenly, her green eyes welled up with tears as she put her stubby fingers in her mouth to stifle her cries. “I want my momma! Momma!”

Someone appeared in the background. A woman with long chestnut-colored hair styled like a drill. The Mistress. She gave him a small smile as he uselessly suppressed the fatal shot she received on her chest. “Leave. Take her away. Far, far away. They must not find her. Gneiss. Please.”

Then, she burst to flames.

Her husband, the Master, reached out to her with a painful cry. He then turned to Krad, his shadow looming over him, his eyes dark, and his face grim.

“Protect her, 01. Protect my daughter. Go.”

Wake up.

It was the blinding white light that jolted him awake, rather than the fact that someone was inserting a syringe on his upper left arm. For a while, he blinked, unable to synchronize the place with the person and the smell. With the dull pounding inside his head, it was proving to become more and more difficult with every breath he took.

"Oh, thank God, you're awake!" a strange-sounding voice came out from the faceless stranger beside him. "How are you feeling?"

Krad squinted. That alone was draining his energy.

"Ah, sorry. Forget what I said. Shouldn't have asked. You're too drugged to be coherent."

Finally, a couple of details found their way into Krad's foggy mind. A young man. A young man with rich copper skin. It took him more than a minute to place a name on the familiar face.

He closed his eyes and sucked a deep breath. "Ra...el…"

"Shh." The Filipino smiled as he dabbed a ball of cotton under Krad's nostrils. "Don't talk. Save your strength. I am still operating, removing the shreds embedded inside you. It will be easier for both of us if you’re asleep."

Krad tried to look down, but couldn't. Just the thought of craning his neck was making him nauseous.

"Geez, Krad. Just sleep. Trust me. even though I haven’t graduated, I know what I'm doing. You should rest so that you can recover faster."

He closed his eyes for a moment. But only for a moment.

"I will have to put you on a drug-induced coma for several days."

Krad grimaced. Rael sighed, understanding the gesture. He kept a calm face as he worked with the scalpel. "Anyway, you should be thankful I was already in the area. I was preparing the wires that you were supposed to latch on. But seeing how that car exploded, I had to rush over to your location. If I came a second late, you could have died. You broke your spinal cord. Did you know that? Not that it wasn't unexpected after the stunt you pulled."

However, Krad was listening with only half an ear. He yearned for sleep, but there was still one question he wanted to ask. It came out garbled. "Faye?"

Rael replaced the bloody instrument with a smaller one and was making a thin incision just above Krad's knee. Beads of sweat were forming in between his brows. "She hadn't stirred since I brought you two here about five hours ago."

An invisible hand seemed to squeeze Krad's throat, and he gasped for precious air. The heart monitor beeped erratically beside him.

"Oh, no, no!" Hurriedly, Rael brought another wad of cotton under his nose. "That came out wrong. She's not hurt. She's asleep. It must have been quite a shock to her, you know? Having to see the Light after all these years. I assure you, there's nothing wrong with her! Only bruises, scratches and a first-level burn."

"Ss-she," he breathed carefully. "Fine?"

"Yes. Faye is only resting. Let me treat you now. I've ridden most of the debris embedded inside you, so I can patch you up. You're no longer on the brink of death. Congrats, Krad."

He smiled. Not because he was alive, but because Faye survived. That’s all that mattered.