minho
JINWOO COMES out of his room. His hair is disheveled, his eyes are a bit puffy, and he looks exhausted.
"Hey," I say softly, turning down the volume of the news on the TV. "How are you doing?"
He sniffs. "I think you should read some of this. Yoon, too."
"What's it say?" I ask.
He walks over to me and sits down next to me, handing me the file. "It talks about what they did to everyone they experimented on. There's two other people who got away, just like me."
"Well, what happened to you? What does it say?"
"It... it said they gave me an injection and I passed out," Jinwoo answers with a shaky voice. "They knew I was a Noctura but I didn't wake up until five days later and I guess I destroyed the lab and escaped. The writing says they thought I had been woken up by instinct. I guess that's why I don't remember it happening."
"It says you escaped that way?" I take a deep breath, thinking. "Jinwoo... if you were able to escape the lab, you must be a lot stronger than I thought. I knew you were strong, since you won that fight in the warehouse, but escaping a lab designed to keep experimental Nocturas inside?"
He looks down at his hands. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. "There's two other people, Minho. Two other people who are just like me: Noctura but once human. They could be out there somewhere."
"You're right," I respond quietly. "But there really isn't any way we could find them, right?"
Jinwoo doesn't respond.
He looks up at the television, reading the headlines.
I clear my throat. "What else does it say? Does it talk about how they do it?"
Jinwoo doesn't respond. He just keeps looking at the television.
"Jinwoo?"
He looks over at me. "Who are the Malums?"
I look over at the television then, reading the headlines and looking at the footage on the screen.
Malums attack fourth sector shopping center
The footage shows people running around the shopping center in a blind panic. And Nocturas are attacking people everywhere.
The video cuts when I see AAN officers enter the center.
"Who are they?" Jinwoo asks in a whisper.
"The Malums," I answer. "They're a gang of Nocturas. They roam around a lot and are known to never stay in one place for too long."
"Is this like the attack in the clock tower square?"
I nod. "It looks like it. But the Malums are way more aggressive than the Cobras. And they're all across Kraephis. It's hard to know exactly where they'll end up."
Jinwoo swallows and looks down at his hands.
Suddenly, I stand up.
Jinwoo looks up at me, concern in his eyes.
I stare into those eyes. "Seunghoon."
He gives me a confused look as I move over toward the kitchen, grabbing my phone from the kitchen table.
I immediately dial Seunghoon's number.
It rings.
And rings.
And rings.
Until finally, I hear his voice.
I let out a deep sigh. "Seunghoon, good, you answered."
He lets out a small laugh. "Yeah, sorry, I was a bit late. Are you okay?"
"Me? I'm fine. Are you okay? I just saw the news."
"Ah." Seunghoon sighs. "Yeah, I'm fine. Don't worry."
"Did you go there?" I ask.
"Yeah," he answers. "But it was fine. I didn't get hurt at all. We were able to save some people, but the attack happened pretty fast. We didn't even see it coming."
"That's crazy," I state. "But I'm glad you're okay."
"All good here," he tells me. "But what about you, Minho? How have you been doing?"
I glance over at Jinwoo. "I'm doing okay right now, Seunghoon. It's been a little busy for me lately but... I think things have finally started to settle down."
"Minho, that's really great. I'm sorry, but I have to run. I'm still at work."
"Oh, you are?"
"Yeah, Director Hamada wanted to speak with me about something so I've been waiting to talk to him," Seunghoon explains. "But we should try to get together sometime. This time I promise I won't get attacked."
I let out a small laugh. "Okay, Seunghoon. Good luck with the director."
"Talk soon. See you, Minho."
After that, he hangs up.
"He's okay?" Jinwoo asks.
I look over at him. "Yeah, he's fine. He was there, but he didn't get hurt or anything. He had to go speak with his director, I guess. Anyway, what else did the file say?"
"Oh." Jinwoo glances over at the file sitting next to him.
I move over toward him, gently picking up the file and then sitting down next to him. I open the file and begin to flip through, seeing tons of names of the dead. Eventually, I get to those whose experiments succeeded and then I continue flipping through to see their stories in more detail.
"After those stories, it talks about the injection. There's multiple versions of it, but it's basically just Noctura DNA. They somehow started to perfect it where it would take over a human's DNA and turn that human into a Noctura."
I look at the words on the page as Jinwoo is explaining it.
"Why would they do this?" I ask.
"To create a weapon," Jinwoo answers. "They wanted a Noctura more powerful than any other Noctura, but one they could also keep contained and controlled."
"Why humans though?" I question. "Why not just make Nocturas more powerful?"
"It says in there that they tried it on Nocturas first, but it wasn't doing what they wanted it to. Someone suggested trying it on humans and they found, for some reason, it made humans more powerful than Nocturas. So, they just kept doing it on humans."
I shake my head.
This is crazy.
Who knew this would be happening?
"Yoon needs to see this," I say, gesturing toward the file. "There's a lot of information in here that he needs to see."
Jinwoo nods. "I agree."
"Should we call him?" I ask. "I mean, I don't want to interrupt him if he's doing something important. I know he usually comes to us first, but—"
Before I can finish my thought, there's a knock on the door.
I give Jinwoo a confused look.
It can't be Seunghoon, because he was heading to a meeting with the AAN director.
Then who is it?
Jinwoo returns the same confused look.
I quickly get up and move toward the door. Jinwoo starts heading toward the bedroom.
But when I glance out the side window and see a young man standing there, wearing a black mask over his mouth and nose, I tell Jinwoo to wait.
I quickly let Yoon inside and he pulls his mask off after I've closed the door. He runs a hand through his white hair and then looks over at Jinwoo. "Did you read it?"
Jinwoo nods.
Yoon looks back at me. "And did you?"
"Some of it," I respond. "Why? Is everything okay?"
"Yeah." Yoon nods. "I'm just leaving tonight, so I wanted to see if I could take the file with me and read it."
Jinwoo grabs the file from the couch and walks over toward Yoon. He hands the file to Yoon. "I read everything I needed to read in it."
"Does anything make more sense?"
"Yeah," Jinwoo answers, giving a small, sad smile. "A lot of things make sense now, actually. And although I would never want me or anyone else to be in this situation, it's the situation I'm in."
Yoon nods. "I'm glad it brings you some comfort, Jinwoo."
He looks over at me. "And you're okay if I take it?"
I nod. "Of course. It's better in your hands than mine."
"Okay," Yoon says. "I'm leaving for the sixth sector tonight. I need to go back to our base and just check in on some things. You guys will be okay for a while, right?"
Jinwoo and I both nod in response.
"Good." Yoon gives us both a small smile. "You know, I wanted to tell you guys about a lab that the Alliance has. It isn't like Stanek Lab, obviously, but we're trying to help Nocturas and we're trying—"
A vibrating sound comes from within Yoon's jacket pocket, interrupting him.
He quickly looks at who is calling and then answers, stepping away from Jinwoo and me.
I look over at Jinwoo as Yoon is answering the phone, not sure what to do or say.
"What?" Yoon's voice is icy. "What do you mean?"
Jinwoo takes a step back, looking at the floor.
"No," Yoon whispers. "It can't... no. This can't be happening." A second later, Yoon's eyes grow wide with concern. "Blanchard? Hello? Blanchard, are you there?"
Yoon doesn't wait too long for an answer. He snaps his phone closed and stuffs it in his pocket. He seems to be trying to gather his thoughts before he looks up at Jinwoo and me.
This is the first time I've seen Yoon's eyes completely filled with fear.
Seeing this, my blood seems to turn cold.
And once Yoon speaks, my heart almost stops.
"The base..." Yoon whispers, trying to form coherent thoughts and words. "The AAN found the sixth sector base."