Chapter 11 - Friends For Now : Part 1

Axel stared at the paper in front of him.

He was sitting in front of his study desk with a mirror on the wall in front of it. The paper hauntingly stood on the table as if taunting him. The word classified was so big that his blue eyes could not move away from it.

Apparently, there was this project called DM-2 that was being made for years now. Approximately eighteen years. The project had killed many people. Too many people.

No, Axel was not trying to be a saint, he was aware that he was a murderer. He had killed hundreds, but this project was something more. It had killed thousands of people.

Maybe by the time he was old enough, he would kill that many, but he pushed that thought away.

This project was about making a human to be a 'demon'. It did not make any sense at all. Axel never believed some kind of supernatural thing, let alone a demon. But this paper proved him otherwise.

The picture provided on the paper was a black and white picture of a kid with a little horn on his head. He was held captive while a bunch of scientists surrounded him. The kid had a really long nail and it did not look human at all.

The kid was a demon. He read it. His name was being censored on the paper with black lines but that was not important for now.

What important was that the scientists took the kid's blood to make humans not human anymore. As far as he read, no one had survived. As far as he knew, they would not stop until they succeeded.

Axel tapped his foot nervously. He took a long sigh and brushed his face with both of his hands. This paper was a lot to take in, not only that, but that room in the building was something too.

He remembered how the black roots started spreading to his knife. The roots were surrounding the mirror, was something in it?

Something was wrong. There was something more, what was it?

He hadn't told Kiaran about this and he did not know why. He just felt like he should keep this to himself for now.

Did all of this have a relation to the weird black arrows that they kept stealing from the government? It did kind of make sense since the arrow came from the room full of mirrors with black roots.

He sighed once more and looked up to the mirror in front of him. He was watching his own face but he felt like he was being watched. He had been feeling like that lately.

"Hey Kiaran's voice, you there?" Axel spoke up while staring at the reflection of his empty room from the mirror. This was dumb. Axel did not even know why he was calling the voice.

"Yeah, what's up?" Kiaran's voice answered back.

"Holy shi-" Axel jumped from his seat and bumped his knee to the table, making him yelped before he fell backward to the floor.

The boy quickly got up and moved his eyes around his room. Axel missed the giggle that came from the mirror. He ran to the door and opened it, looking to the right and then left.

"Kiaran?" He shouted and waited for an answer. He shouted again and still received no answer.

Axel slammed his door and looked around his bedroom again warily. "Um, Kiaran's voice?" He hesitated.

"Uh-huh? You need something, Axel?" The voice retorted back and Axel was trying so hard not to flinch.

"Where- where are you?" The boy ventured while slowly walking towards his desk again.

"Near yet far, close but unreachable." 'Kiaran' said.

Axel held the urge to roll his eyes for Kiaran's poetic self. He still did not answer his question. "Are you real?" The boy asked again.

"Pulvis et umbra sumus." His invincible brother spoke. It had been a long time since Kiaran was in his Latin era, Axel kind of missed the cringe of it.

"Meaning?" Axel questioned as he straightened the chair that fell on the floor and moved it to the study desk again.

"We are but dust and shadow, little brother." Kiaran's voice replied. Axel was still trying to find where it came from.

"So are you real or not? If you are my brother you know I'm not good with poetry." The boy blurted out while sitting on his chair again.

Suddenly silence surrounded them. He could feel the cold feeling shot down his spine. Axel bit his lips, did he say something wrong? Oh no, did he anger the ghost of his brother? Wait, was he a ghost?

"Of course you are my brother. You are real and so am I." He stated back.

There was some eerie cold undertone behind Kiaran's words and Axel could not help but shiver at them.

"Okay." He squealed and shot up from his chair. He stepped away from the desk and turned his back on the mirror.

"Okay uh, I gotta catch some air, night time is pretty chill." He darted while looking around his room as if talking to a ghost. "And uh, see you, I think, bye." He finished his sentence and jogged his way to the door.

The human boy tripped a little while opening the door. He spat a few soft curses while slipping away hurriedly.

The demon stared from the other side of the human's mirror. His red eyes were following Axel's movement. Possessive blood-red eyes were watching as Axel vanished away from his sight.

His eyes then caught the paper on the desk. The demon tilted his head slightly and scanned it.

Kiaran raised an eyebrow.

✵✵✵✵✵✵

A dirty blond hair boy made his way through the dark street of the city. His feet were kicking some rocks along the way angrily. He grunted as he failed to kick one of the rocks. The moon was watching while the boy let out a few curses to the innocent rocks.

Aster was having a very worse-terrible-bad day. Rune was being a bitch as always with her saintliness saving her prince in distress this morning. She humiliated him in front of everyone when he was asking for some money from Axel.

He was asking with some force of course, but Rune had no audacity to throw her food at him. She was lucky she was the president's daughter, if not, he would already kick her ass.

Aster was born with a golden spoon. His parents were the chief of police and his brother was the lieutenant. He had the money, the fame, and the title. Everyone in the school bowed to him.

He never liked Axel. He was nothing and a nobody. But he had such good grades and a damn white knight to save his ass every time. Axel was the perfect kid his parents wanted. Axel was too much like his older brother that he hated.

He was not jealous of course. He just resented the existence of Axel Vergessene. He was totally not jealous at all.

Aster was the spoiled kid in the family, unlike Valerian. His older brother was perfect just like Axel. His family always talked about his brother this, his brother that, never acknowledged Aster.

Because he was the trash of the family. The unwanted one. The loud and ungrateful one. The one that his parents wished he was not there at all.

He was not lonely at all, he was just angry.

The anger added to his bad day even more when he had to walk home alone. He had just finished his extra classes because apparently, his parents were still hoping that he would turn out to be as amazing as his dear lovely shit-eating ego brother.

Valerian was supposed to pick him up but guess what? He didn't. Some big brother that he was for not even telling Aster where the hell did he go. Probably some police thing that he had to do.

Aster hoped it was the mercenary that held his brother from picking him up, so at least Aster felt somewhat good imagining how the mercenary kicked Valerian's massive ego.

He smirked a little while imagining how Valerian would come home being all whiny and bitch because he lost to the mercenary again. The boy was too caught up with his own thoughts that he did not notice how weirdly empty the street was.

There were a lot of weird things happening around the city at night. Like the drunk people scattered around or the cats that were watching as if judging the humans one by one.

But Aster's current situation was something more. Maybe he was actually the only one who was having this kind of thing. When he thought his bad day could not get any worse, the world was proving him otherwise.

He saw a woman coming out of a building with some torn white hospital gown while screaming. She seemed like running away from something, like some prey hunted down by hunters.

Aster unconsciously caught his own breath when he saw the woman's red eyes. The boy was startled when the woman suddenly fell headfirst to the ground, making a loud crack sound. He was contemplating whether he should check on her or not.

He should- he should call the police. No, he should call Valerian.

The boy was frozen in place. It was as if he was attached to the ground that he could not move an inch. He could feel his fingertips turning cold as he watched the woman did not move at all.

He snapped away and blinked rapidly. He quickly snatched his phone from his pocket, ignoring how his hand was trembling. He searched for his brother's contact and dialed the number.

Then the woman suddenly moved. Her hands were shifting slowly. She was starting to twitch on the ground, withering like crazy. Some black lines that were more like some roots started erupting from her body.

Aster took a step back slowly as he watched the scene happen. He could hear his own heartbeats in his eardrums as he made his steps.

The woman started to grow some horns and scales around her neck. She wiggly tried to stand up from the ground. Aster fastened his backward steps while still holding his phone to his ear.

Then the woman made eye contact with him.

Red eyes full of tears looked up to the wide-eyed green one. It was as if the world stop moving, they both stayed like that. Aster gripped his phone so tight that his knuckles went white.

His phone was already disconnected from the unanswered call he made. The boy moved his feet to run the opposite way, turning his back on her when suddenly he was thrown to the ground.

His lips rub against the asphalt and made some blood oozing from it. He suddenly felt his breath was taken away when a hand wrapped around his neck, choking him tightly and keeping him on the ground.

He looked up to see the woman groaned with some saliva coming down from her mouth and dropped on him. She looked like a mindless monster that was trying to kill him.

Damn it, fucking useless big brother, this would not happen if he had picked him up. He swore he would haunt Valerian if he died.

But he did not want to die, he wanted to live. He desperately wanted to live. He did not want to end this way. Someone, please save him. Anyone. He would take anyone.

He choked and tried to take some air. His hands were trying to push the woman away. Aster wriggled his feet and he could feel tears prickling on the side of his eyes.

Seemed like someone heard his pray when the woman was suddenly being thrown away and he found himself gasping for some air. He tried to calm himself and steadied his breath. The boy wiped the gross saliva that dripped down on his cheek and trembly tried to sit up.

He finally moved his green eyes over to his savior who just saved him. It was someone with a white hoodie and jeans. The person wore a white mask that covered half of his face and a white cap. He was still fighting the crazy woman.

He looked so much like the mute murderer.

Oh, wait.

Aster went bug-eyed at the fight happening in front of him. The mute murderer was his savior? Why would he save him? Would he kidnap him so his parents would give him money?

Was this part of the yin and yang duo's plans? If it was, then that meant his brother was near, right?

He quickly looked over to his phone that got thrown away and picked it up. He gritted his teeth when he saw how the phone already died with some big crack on the screen.

Suddenly a loud bang startled him. Aster watched the mute murderer flipped into the air and shoot a bullet through the woman's brain. He landed flawlessly on the floor while staring down at her.

The woman dropped down on the ground and Aster believed this time she would not raise again for the amount of blood oozing from her head.

The mute murderer moved his head slowly at him and Aster felt some kind of deja vu happening. The world seemed to stop around him as he stared at his supposed to be a savior from the ground.

He held his breath as the masked guy walked slowly to him. Aster stayed frozen as the guy came even closer to him. He closed his eyes, flinching away when the guy suddenly stuck out his hand to him.

He opened his eyes slowly when he did not feel anything and stared at the white-gloved hand in front of him. He ignored some bloodstains on it though.

Aster hesitantly accepted the mute murderer's hand and got pulled away from the ground. "Uh, um, thanks." He managed to speak to the cold blood murderer in front of him.

The guy just nodded, no words were spoken. Well, he was the mute murderer after all. Aster could feel the heavy awkward atmosphere that was surrounding them right now.

"I- uh, I better go. Again, thanks." Aster said as he smiled awkwardly.

He was just about to walk away when the mute murderer suddenly pulled him to his grasp and shielded him.

Everything was going on too fast. He had no time to process what was happening as he widely stared at the mute murderer's face that was an inch away from his.

He just realized that they were at the same height as he proceeded the scene around him. He jolted back and felt the panic shoot up his spine when the mute murderer suddenly went limp on his arms.

He looked over the murderer's shoulder to find some tranquilizer bullet on his back. That's not good. Oh no, oh no. Someone was actually trying to kidnap him?

A bunch of footsteps suddenly visible in his ears. He looked around to see some men in black surrounded both of them with multiple guns aimed at him.

This day went from bad to worse so fast that it became a living nightmare in an instant for Aster.