Oxy-Gen | ONC 2024

Threat | 1326

Jessica felt a chill creep over her skin, unsure if it was the sight of him approaching or the biting cold of the snowfall around her. In his hand, he carried a mink wrap, the soft fur complementing the wintry landscape. As he drew nearer with a smile, his expression shifted, faltering as he caught sight of Vihaan standing beside her.

"Why are you here?" asked Ishaan at his brother.

The man didn't answer him instead burped. It let out a putrid smell of alcohol in the air which Ishaan hated, but indifferently, stated, "Mother is looking for you."

At the mention of Mrs. Pavan, anger boiled from Vihaan's eyes. "How dare you called my mother, your 'Mother'. She's mine. She loved me first before you came. And your science, your projects. Your mother is here. You changed her into this abomination. You murderer," stated Vihaan as he kicked the jasmine scrub next to him.

The leaves and flowers cascaded from the branch, drifting onto the thin layer of snow covering the ground like a delicate carpet. In an instant, Ishaan's demeanour shifted from calm to rage. He unleashed a barrage of punches on his brother, each blow landing with merciless force.

It was a one-sided altercation, with his brother huddling defensively, shielding himself with his arms as his younger sibling unleashed blow after blow upon him. As the fight intensified, Ishaan's knuckles collided with his brother's face repeatedly, leaving behind bruised, bloodied skin that seeped crimson into the pristine snow.

Jessica went to stop it, "Ishaan!" she cried out.

But the voices intensified with their fight, although they were all repeating the same words, but the scratchy voices were bombarding her with intensely which caused her to almost faint from the pressure.

"Stop," she tried to pull him away, only to be pushed to the ground. "Ouch!" her arms were scratched by a nearby plant, leaving a small wound. At first, she didn't pay much heed to it but then by the slight of light, her eyes noticed something green moving beneath her skin. Instinctively, she concealed it. When Ishaan heard her cry of pain, he halted and realized what he had done before rushing to Jessica's side.

"Are you okay?" he asked concernedly. She nodded, accepting the mink wrap he offered and draping it around herself. Anxious, her hands were trembling. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," apologized Ishaan.

She shook her head. Shaken but... she stared at him.

Not him but the voices.

"It's not that. Eden-" She was cut off before she could finish her sentence.

Perhaps his brother's relentless punches had shaken him back to reality. Enraged, Vihaan seized his chance and swiftly slipped away, his voice dripping with venom as he vowed, "I'll make you pay for this three times over," before limping through the door.

However, Ishaan ignored him and focused on Jessica.

"I am sorry. There's a lot of things happening in my family."

"Who doesn't?" she consoled him.

He continued, "I should have told you the truth. I am not a nobody."

"I can see that," she managed a smile weakly. "It's kind of too late for you to apologize for that part. Second son of Fern Co."

"I think it's better than you hear this from me instead of another. It was always me and my mom. We would often spend our time in the garden at our home. Not here. It's in Malacca, my mother's hometown. Small city but big heart. Everyone was friendly, I remembered how I would walk down with my mom, along Jonker streets to take in the sight and eat laksa at Jonker 88. And then we would take a stroll at Klebang beach. The cold coconut shakes, the creamy taste of it."

"And then we would go back to our little home with our garden. My mother loves jasmines and we had a whole garden of it. That was where my love of nature grew. During college, I studied biology and biotechnology and then one day when I was twenty, my father came for us, missing from our lives. He just appeared one day and took us away, and we lived here Putrajaya. Only then I knew that my father was a small businessman, and my mother was a mistress."

"And I was a son of a mistress."

He held her hand, "I really don't mind it, since I wasn't a kid anymore. But my mother was very sorry about it. She kept apologizing about it."

"What happened later?"

"Later we just lived together until the Disappearance. My research on Plants and Deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, aimed to harness the healing potential of plants in combating cancer. The goal was to develop a treatment that minimized harm to the body by integrating plant chromosomes into the human genome, thereby leveraging the unique properties of plant DNA to target and eradicate cancerous cells while preserving healthy tissue. It wasn't a popular research topic until the Disappearance. It received massive recognition thereafter."

"And it was used as the basis for the Oxy Program. Everyone was working on it day and night until we finally had a breakthrough, but my mother...."

There were tears in his eyes as he continued, "She... It wasn't a car accident. It was a lab accident. She tried to protect me and was burned. I tried to use my research. I plant an Oxy into her body, hoping that it would heal the burn wounds on her body, but it was no use. The plant was growing too quickly. I watched, every day as she was eaten alive. After she fully turned into a plant, I planted her here. In this garden," as his focus landed upon the jasmine scrub.

Jessica couldn't help but to hug him in her arms.

Tears were dripping from his cheeks, staining Jessica's dress, "It wasn't supposed to be like that. I was supposed to save her."

"But you prevented the whole world from collapsing," stated Jessica.

She wiped the tears away, the cold snowflakes melting against her warm skin as they fell around her. He reached out gently and held her hand in his. Planted a sweet kiss on it, he asked her softly, "Will you stay with me, like Eve? In Eden?"

Between us, Jessica whispered, "But I am no Eve nor Lilith. I am just Jessica. I would only lead you elsewhere. There's no paradise in this world. Once humans had left it, Eden doesn't exist. We cannot return. Like the Sun will not appear even if we will it."

Jessica gave his hand a little squeeze, "Do you know that this forest is eerie? There are voices, about experiments of sorts. Silly me. I must be hearing things now-" However, she stopped, "Ishaan?" as she noticed his discomfort, he was quite restless.

Ishaan was not acting like himself; there was a tint of anxiousness in his eyes, "I am sorry Jessica. I-"

Without waiting for him to finish, a group of men in black entered the forest through the door. Immediately, Jessica recognized them as Chairman's bodyguards, the same ones that took her here, their presence was a symbol of inauspicious omen. Jessica's eyes widened as she noticed a brooch on the mink, he had given her pulsing with a faint red light. It was either tracking us or... it was recording our conversation.

As the men approached, he reached out, trying to stand in their way, grabbing her hand in a futile attempt to defend her, but the men were trained efficiently for this kind of situations. Within minutes, Jessica was mercilessly pulled away from Ishaan's grasp as the bodyguards pinned down Ishaan.

Amidst the chaotic scene, their eyes locked in a moment of chance, their hands outstretched towards each other, pleading silently through their gaze. Pinned down by the overpowering force of the guards, Ishaan still managed to shout out, "Jessica! I will come get you!" His voice echoing with a mix of anguish and determination, as a cloth laced with was placed upon her face and Jessica slowly drifted into slumber.

It's happening all over again but worse.

.

(1326 words)

Whenever something relates to his mother, Ishaan's can't keep calm. Just like how Jessica love her brother. He loves his mother, do you agree? 

More chapters will be released this week, so I can make it for the 3rd round. I don't have many expectations for ONC this time around, just hoping to complete it from start to finish. Good luck to everyone!