Chương 210: B4. 11.1 - Rolling Credits

My clothes and skin were crusty with dried blood—some were mine because the frat boys did manage to hit me. Made me bleed. Felt like I had a mud mask wrapping my body. Man, I really wanted to take a warm bath so bad, but we were still miles and miles away from Vegas. Warm bath? A hot bath. Make it scalding. The cool wind that was soothing earlier now made the ickiness of the blood coating me more pronounced. The small hills around seemed to concentrate the wind flow, blasting it straight at me.

I paced around Action Hero, who was sitting on the ground, groaning as he leaned against a large boulder. He did behave like an Action Hero until the end, shooting me, trying to stop me so that his friend could escape. Well, it wasn't his actual end yet. Raising my right hand, I called forth golden liquid from the crystals on my palm. Called forth —sounded like I was casting a spell. I needed some light because I had crushed Action Hero's phone, along with his hand, when I charged him.

Good thing that I remembered to remove my glove before exiting the car. Deen's gift was saved from this bloody mess. I went down on one knee, holding my makeshift lantern next to Action Hero's face. He shrank back from the golden blob, expectedly afraid of it. And he should be. Didn't that betraying bastard Gabe warn Deen not to touch this?

"Repeat what you just said…" I whispered with a deathly tone.

"Do-don't kill me," Action said between gasps for air. He held up pretty well, given multiple fractures. I sort of wanted to give him a quick death for being a nice guy at the diner. But he shot me. And this was his reward. I shook my head.

"Not that. You said something else after that."

"I-I know Adumbrae. Adumbrae in La Esperanza. I swear I'm telling… the truth."

"Really? Why do I care about La Esperanza?"

"You're from there… You must know Red Hood."

"Do you know Red Hood?" I asked, holding back giggles. This would be the luckiest guess ever if he'd say that I was Red Hood. No one had come close to the truth. I might even consider sparing him.

"N-No, I don't," Action Hero replied, sealing his bad ending.

"Other Adumbrae… Different group. The mayor…"

"What about him? Speak quickly. Your time is running out."

"The mayor… He's not an Adumbrae. Some family members… He's protecting them. There's…" Action Hero rattled off names. None sounded familiar to me except one—Vanessa Minnows. Deen and I had talked about her, theorizing that she might be an Adumbrae. It turned out that her recovery from a super serious illness wasn't a miracle. I snorted with disdain.

"I know all about them. The fake ones."

"I-I didn't know…. I thought… I thought that you were also…" Action Hero slumped lower and lower, as if he were melting. He realized that he messed up mentioning the 2Ms' clientele, which also meant that he had some clue about how the 2Ms operated. A real Adumbrae would be pissed at them.

"That I was like them? A fake? A pretender?" I held the golden blob closer to Action Hero. He grimaced, turning away.

"They have kept their human minds," I continued.

"I'm no longer one."

"Just kill me already," Action Hero spat. He must've accepted his end and wanted to go out looking cool. I didn't want that. It was like getting told to wash the dishes when I was already going to do it. Sucked out all the motivation from being a dutiful daughter doing chores. What about a slow death for Action Hero? However, I had already experimented with the other frat boys, plucking their limbs like I used to do with insects in my childhood.

It would bore me and the audience if I did the same thing with my last toy. Perhaps… some other experiment? I glanced at the golden blob, focusing my thoughts on it. Form a cube. The blob wiggled and jiggled. It didn't quite turn into a cube, but it managed to make four bumpy, uneven sides. I had no idea I could form shapes with this! Could I try a knife? Maybe a spike? That should be easier. I hadn't finished my thought when the misshapen gold cube started to stretch and roll itself.

It really was turning into a long spike.

"Wha-what are you doing?" Action Hero asked with a wavering voice.

"Give me… my gun. I'll shoot myself! Let me— Huh?" I grabbed his hand and raised it. Then I moved the golden spike toward his clenched fingers. He feebly tried to yank his arm back. If he couldn't overcome my strength when he was fully healthy, he couldn't do it now with a beaten-up body. He closed his eyes and turned away. The spike's tip touched Action Hero's hand. His skin rippled at the point of contact. Rippled. As if it were water. That, or my eyes were going funky as hell.

What the fuck was that supposed to be? I controlled my surprise, casually moving the golden spike away. The monster should always act cool. Action Hero opened his eyes and slowly turned to the arm that I held. I released him and stood up. He didn't appear to be in pain.

"What did… you do?" he asked, turning his hand over to examine it.

"What does it feel like?" I asked.

"I don't… know. It doesn't feel like… anything." Action Hero spoke like he was in a trance, his eyes glazed over. Suspense music should be playing now. Something important was going to happen.

"I don't feel any… pain… Nothing." He reached his hand out to me. His fingers trembled. I frowned, staring down at them—they weren't flesh anymore. Action Hero's fingers stopped moving as they turned the color of bone. Or was this whiteness closer to plaster? The texture was like granite, finely rough all over.

"It doesn't hurt," Action Hero said, which was a lie. Or maybe it wasn't. His fingers had probably lost all their nerve connections. The stone transformation spread through his hand like frost spreading over a window pane—that was quite poetic of me to think that. But I couldn't spare the time to be amazed at myself because something more amazing was happening in front of my eyes. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

I touched Action Hero's stone knuckles with utmost caution. If the petrification spread to me, I'd rip my hand and throw it away. Cool. As in, the surface was cold. A bit rough, too, as I expected. Not sure if this was really stone. I tapped Action Hero's hand with my fingernail. Clink. Both Action Hero and I stared as the changes went past his wrist. Everything was weird, but I also thought that the world was so much prettier when it didn't move.

Not sure how far the petrification would go, but I couldn't leave a freaking statue in the desert. When the authorities would eventually find this place—and I hoped that'd take some time—I didn't want to leave evidence of my odd power, or whatever this was supposed to be. I closed my right hand. The golden thingy disappeared. In the dim darkness of the starry sky, I felt for Action Hero's statue hand. I tightly held his hand and also gripped his arm, right below the border of the creeping transformation.

"Okay, that's enough," I said with a pull. Tearing skin like paper. Bones breaking as easily as a pretzel—I hated the savory kind. A spurt of blood. Now, I had a statue hand, and Action Hero lost a hand. He still had his arm raised, looking confused at the stump. No shouts of agony? The statue hand was surprisingly light, as if it were hollow. But very sturdy. I couldn't pocket the entire thing, so I just broke off its pinky finger—I could have Cecilia analyze this when we'd return to her lab.

Then, I threw the hand into the desert with super strength. Good luck finding that one.

"I think I've expended all my annoyance at you guys," I told the shadowy figure that was all I could see of Action Hero. Rule 4: I could bother someone only if they bothered me. Rule 27: Save others so long as it doesn't endanger me. These two weren't incompatible. If I was bothered, I was free to bother others back. But if other people were in danger, that danger not being me, then I had to exert my best efforts to save them. Unfortunately for the frat boys, Rule 4 was applicable this time.

Even though I wanted to save others during my transformed state as Glass Erind—not sure what to call that form yet—I couldn't formulate a Rule that would cancel out a prior Rule. That was an unwritten Rule. Well… I suppose that all my Rules were unwritten. But there were also procedural Rules. For one, none of my Rules could make do something unless there was a specific situation. I shouldn't go out and find every ice cream that I could, melting all of them.

In the same vein, a Rule couldn't make me save everyone and be an outright heroic person. Another of my procedural Rules was that all Rules would be effective forever. Or until I die, technically. This wasn't like how real-life legislation worked, where recent laws repealed previous ones.

"Bad luck for you that you came here," I said to Action Hero. I kept him alive for Cecilia's needs. I wasn't sure if any other frat boy was alive. The rest of them should've been caught by Deen. Unlikely she'd jeopardize our safety because of morality and pity. … I think. I'd be very pissed if Deen got swayed by her conscience and chose to let the scrawny freshie go because he was just following his seniors. Chances were slim that she'd be forgiving of him, but she might deem death too much punishment.

My best friend had a strong sense of justice. An annoying trait at times. Occasionally useful, since she defined her own justice and didn't simply follow what was socially acceptable. Like she decided it was the right thing to help me, an Adumbrae, due to our friendship. Easy to manipulate.

"Let's get going," I said, bending down to grab Action Hero. He screamed in pain. I reactively slapped his head. He went quiet and slumped over. I didn't kill him, did I? Light shone on me.

"Are you done?" Deen climbed over the dune.

"I didn't come too early, did I?"

"Erm, no… I mean, yes. I'm done. You came just in time." I wondered if Deen saw my little experiment with the golden blob. Likely not. She seemed to have been preoccupied with something else.

"Who's that with you?" Deen illuminated the person behind her. I thought that Deen had freed Cecilia from the trunk. It turned out that she brought the last surviving freshie. In frigging chains. My weirdo best friend dragged the freshie like a pet. Not exactly—pets didn't have their hands bound. The freshie's face was in a frozen state of shock. His brain had probably stopped working, accepting that he was going to die tonight. Or was it tomorrow already? It must be past midnight.

"Are you… yourself?" Deen asked.

"You should know," I replied.

"Do you think you're in danger?" Deen's composed demeanor crumpled.

"Oh, Erind!" she exclaimed, running towards me.

"I'm so glad that you're in control. I was so worried!" I wanted to avoid the impending hug. However, I decided to give Deen this moment to bolster her loyalty. She wrapped her arms around me, not minding the blood, and held me close like we hadn't seen each other in years. I wasn't sure if she was aware of exerting superstrength.

"Agh, Deen," I grumbled, taking care not to breathe her scent. I'd probably just smell blood anyway.

"You're hugging me too tight."

"Sorry!" Deen loosened her arms.

"Did I hurt you?"

"Not really…" I hugged her back. Not as intensely as she did, but a hug nonetheless—she should know this was a big deal coming from me. I wanted to convey that I valued her. That she was the only one I could rely on. She was the type of person who wouldn't let anyone down, more so if they were desperately dependent on her. I should reinforce this personality of hers. We hugged for several seconds. Oddly enough, the freshie just stood a few feet away, looking at the ground. Didn't he want to run?

What the hell did Deen do to him? The seconds dragged on. To me, who disliked physical contact, it seemed like millennia. The warmth of another human body made me want to puke. Fucking break that hug, Deen! Come on! I raged in my head. My arms desperately ached to let go, my feet raring to retreat. But I shouldn't be the one to interrupt a moment like this. A vulnerable and distraught Erind, that was me. An Adumbrae threatened to take over my mind. I had just killed and eaten several people.

I was battling to keep my sanity, and I had no one else to turn to.

"Erind…" Deen softly said, pulling back. She stroked my hair to comfort me.

"Are you sure that you're fine?" At fucking last. I feebly nodded as if I were still recovering from the whole ordeal. I tilted my head to the left to observe the Last Freshie. He stood in place, trying his best to be a statue. Had he lost his will to live?

"Is he the one for Cecilia?" I asked, nudging my head at the Last Freshie.

"Yes. I thought you killed everybody else." Deen illuminated Action Hero. She nudged his prone body.

"Is he still alive?"

"We should make sure," I said, wanting to mess with Deen. It was easy for me to do it—just a quick stomp on his head. But I was interested in what Deen— Holy fucking hell! Deen stomped Action Hero's chest with such force that it caved in. Ribs cracked like we were in a TV ad for the crunchiest chips. She removed her foot from the mini crater of flesh as streams of blood crept over the sand. Some of Action Hero's fractured ribs had pierced through his skin when his chest was compressed.

"There," Deen said, giving me a reassuring smile.

"He's dead." This bitch is a psychopath! Why the hell did she do that? Did she assume it'd make us closer by showing that she had no issues with killing people? And to think I was supposed to be the not-so-normal one between us.

"We should release Cecilia," Deen said, "so she can get to work. We also have to think what to do with all of these bodies."