Ray didn't know how long he had slept but when he woke up, he was met with a ceiling decorated with holes.
He shouldn't be in a place like that in the first place. He narrowed his eyes, they were still blur but he could catch a glimpse of one or two things there.
He turned his head to the right. He was met with the silhouette of a person.
Gray hair, possibly taller than him... And a female.
As if noticing him, the figure turned around. She had gray eyes too, a scar on the bridge of her nose which surprisingly added to her rough beauty.
"You're awake," she said, not out of surprise or happiness.
"Wh...where am I?" Ray asked after finding his voice. "What happened to me?"
"Saw you lying unconscious, checked your pulse... You were still breathing, though faintly so I brought you here," the girl replied.
"Thank you," Ray muttered, not out of gratitude. "You should've let me die there," he whispered.
The girl didn't hear what he said but she frowned. "You're lucky I was the one who found you, not the Illumis or the patrols."
"How?" Ray asked. "What patrols are you talking about?"
"You don't know they come out every weekends to check if those thrown away are still alive? If they by any means find any of us, they'll kill us. Make sure we are not even foods to the Illumis."
Ray's face darkened. The government were far worse than the monsters they are scared of.
Ever since the appearance of these highly intelligent monsters, Earth has changed. Humans alike.
More than half of the world's population was destroyed and thus, decided to come together and become one City governed by three leaders known as the 'world leaders'
These three made the rules, they made sure the rules were kept, and they made sure they were executed.
But secretly, they are still the ones bending the rules.
After the first war with the Illumis, the three world leaders after coming together sought ways to eradicate the monsters in order to bring peace to remaining humanity but even after much effort, nothing seemed to be working. They had no superpowers, no ability... Nothing to help them.
And then...
Someone... A scientist.
And then—a joke, maybe. A thought not meant to be spoken aloud.
"What if we don't just fight monsters? What if we become them?"
The first experiment should've failed.
But it hadn't.
Ray frowned, fragments of memory swirling like ash in water.
Monsters DNA, spliced into human strands. Aggression, abilities humans never thought existed.
They used kids from twelve years and above.
The first one had survived.
And that's when everything changed.
But along the line, failure began to set in.
Some lost control of themselves due to the foreign DNA's strong impact on them. Some died during the process while some that survived could not be used any longer. Those that were still alive were tossed and thrown away like trash to rot and die behind the walls.
He closed his eyes, searching for more, but the memories slid away like water through open fingers.
"They tried to make us weapons," Lisa said quietly, almost as if reading his thoughts. "Didn't matter if they broke us first. Didn't care if we remembered who we were before."
"You..." Ray tried to sit up straighter. "You were part of it too?"
She nodded once. "Didn't pass their tests. Thrown out like trash."
Ray breathed slowly, letting the weight of it settle in. The silence that followed wasn't awkward. It was just empty.
The sound of dripping water filled the space between their thoughts.
Finally, Ray spoke again, voice softer now. "I don't even remember who I am."
Lisa leaned her head back against the wall, closing her eyes. "Doesn't matter much out here. What matters is staying alive."
Ray stared at the rust patterns on the ceiling, the distant echoes of monsters somewhere beyond the walls of this broken shelter.
Staying alive.
It sounded simple. It felt impossible.
And yet—
Here they were.
"Can you at least tell me how you did it?" Lisa suddenly asked, after what seemed like eternity.
"Did what?" Ray asked, narrowing his eyes. He didn't remember doing anything that would pique the girl's interest in him so what could she be talking about?
"You fought one of those monsters... It was unreal. Tell me how you did it," Lisa replied.
"I don't remember, I told you," Ray said.
Lisa sighed and then walked to the entrance of the place.
"Well, it doesn't matter," she said. "What matters is finding a way to survive. I seek vengeance."
"Vengeance?" Ray repeated.
"Yes. I want them to pay for what they are doing to us. Treating human lives as that of an animal, we are test objects to them. When we become useless, they throw us away. I can not let it continue."
As Ray stared at Lisa, he saw the look in her eyes. She was determined. Like she had been planning it for a very long time.
"What do want to do? How do you plan to do it?" He asked her.
"Today, the patrols will come out as usual. I will use that opportunity to sneak back inside," Lisa replied.
Ray gazed at her in silence. He could not bring himself to tell her how stupid her plan is, it was full of flaws.
"Why are you are quiet?" She asked him. "By the way, you are coming with me."
"Why should I?" Ray asked her. Unlike her, he remembered nothing after being thrown out of the City, there no reason for vengeance. All he just wanted... Survival.
He died once, he couldn't let that happen again.
"You'll come in handy," she said. "I'll need you to do that thing you did again."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Ray said.
"It doesn't matter whether you remember or not. You will come with me!"
"Fine," Ray breathed. 'I'll come with you.'