Hello Readers!
[ A.N.:- Just today I felt the peace contrasting to daily hectic life. Do any of you too fell the horror that everyday passes so fast nowadays. ]
Here's the next dose!
Enjoy~
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MBH #22 - MINDY ?!
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"Mindy?"
The name scraped out of my throat, harsh and completely stripped of my usual cold, calm mindset.
My internal furnace, which had been roaring with predatory hunger just a minute ago, completely stalled. The heavy metal bat in my hand slowly lowered, the tip resting against the cracked concrete floor.
It was her. The exact same little girl from the shopping mall.
But she wasn't normal anymore. She was suspended two feet off the ground, her small body humming with a wild, terrifying energy. The freezing chill in the room wasn't just a natural draft; it was her raw power bleeding out into the empty space, dropping the temperature of everything around her.
"Bruce...?" she whimpered.
Her voice didn't just travel through the air; it echoed directly inside my head, vibrating against my skull.
Hearing that fake name hit me like a physical punch. Back then, I had used an alias to protect myself. She still remembered it. She still remembered the boy who gave her a box of sweets.
"Boss, your heart rate is redlining," Silky warned in my ear, her synthetic voice tight with genuine panic. "Whatever is standing in front of you is radiating enough raw, unrefined power to level this entire block! If it steps within my one-foot radius, my scanners can break it down, but right now you are standing next to a live bomb!"
I ignored the warning. I carefully slid the glass bottle of poison back into my jacket pocket and let go of the baseball bat. It hit the floor with a loud metallic clang.
I didn't care about the noise. I didn't care about the strike teams fighting across the city.
"It's me," I breathed, taking a slow, careful step forward into the freezing cold. "Mindy... what happened to you?"
That question was a mistake.
The faint, unstable light in her eyes suddenly flared into a blinding, violent glow. Her pale face twisted into a mask of pure, absolute agony. She remembered. The trauma, the pain, whatever horrific thing had turned her into this—it all flooded back into her mind at once.
She didn't answer with words. Instead, she threw her head back and let out a deafening, heartbroken shriek.
It wasn't just a sound. It was a physical shockwave of raw, weeping energy.
The concrete floor beneath her cracked instantly. The air pressure in the room violently snapped. A freezing, hurricane-force wind exploded outward from her small body, slamming into my chest like a moving truck and forcing me a step backward.
"Boss! Shield yourself!" Silky screamed over the deafening noise. "She's breaking down! Her energy output is completely spiraling out of control!"
Mindy floated higher, her small hands grabbing at her own head as she cried and screamed, a localized storm of pure, devastating power ripping the abandoned room apart around us.
I pushed against the freezing wind, trying to hold my ground. "Mindy, stop! Please!" I shouted over the roaring storm.
She didn't stop. Instead, she let out another cry. This one was even worse—a terrifying, ear-piercing shriek that felt like it was going to tear my brain in half.
But right before the invisible shockwave could crush me, something deep inside my chest snapped.
Suddenly, a blinding, warm white light erupted from my body. It exploded outward, instantly swallowing the dark room in absolute brightness. The freezing wind vanished, replaced by a deep, comforting warmth that wrapped around my skin like a blanket.
Through the blinding glow, another cry echoed out. But this time, it wasn't an attack. It was pure horror.
I forced my eyes open. Mindy was staring at the white light coming from me. Her small, pale face was twisted in absolute terror. The light washed over her floating body, and right in front of my eyes, her terrified face began to dissolve. She turned to dust, melting away into the blinding white glow until there was nothing left of her.
In just a few seconds, the intense light faded. The room returned to the cold, growing evening darkness.
The violent storm was gone. Mindy was gone.
The only thing left was a small, glowing ball of light floating exactly where she had been. It was a tiny speck, gently pulsing in the dark air.
Slowly, it drifted toward me. I didn't move to run or fight. I just watched as the tiny ball of light reached my chest and sank right into my skin.
The feeling was instant. A massive rush of pure, hyper-condensed energy detonated in my veins. It was like drinking liquid fire, but it didn't burn—it fueled. Every cell in my body vibrated with wild, explosive vigor. The agonizing, starving hunger that had been torturing my foundation all day was instantly vaporized.
The furnace inside me was finally full.
"Boss..." Silky's voice buzzed in my ear, her mechanical tone laced with shock. "Your cell density is skyrocketing. The scans are clear now. Your body is absorbing what seems to be pure psionic energy of the soul. It's an incredibly rare, hyper-condensed fuel."
But her words faded into background noise.
I didn't answer. I didn't even open my eyes. I just stood there in the dark abandoned room, completely swallowed by the deep, euphoric warmth flooding my entire being. I couldn't hear the world outside anymore.
I finally opened my eyes. The intense, euphoric warmth slowly settled deep into my bones, locking itself into my cells.
The abandoned room was dark and completely quiet again.
"Boss... what was that white light?" Silky asked. Her voice was quiet. For the first time, my advanced AI sounded truly unsure. "My scanners went completely blind. That wasn't just physical energy or a normal mutation. It was something else entirely. Something I can't calculate."
"I don't know," I answered, looking down at my hands in the dark. "I didn't do it on purpose. When she screamed, it felt like my body just reacted. Like it was protecting itself... or maybe trying to protect her."
"She is gone, Alex," Silky said gently. "That light completely erased her physical form and her corrupted power. It only left her pure core energy behind for you to absorb."
I closed my eyes, taking a deep, heavy breath to ground myself.
But when I opened them again, I wasn't in the dark, ruined refinery anymore.
The real world was gone. Everything around me was completely black, empty, and perfectly silent. It felt like I was standing in a massive, endless void. I had somehow entered my own mental space.
Right in front of me, that same tiny ball of light appeared again. It floated in the dark, pulsing gently like a slow heartbeat.
I didn't feel afraid. I just felt a deep, crushing sadness. I slowly raised my hand and reached out toward the floating light.
My fingertip brushed against the warm speck.
Flash.
A massive wave of pictures, sounds, and feelings exploded directly into my brain. I didn't just see them. I felt them. They were memories. Mindy's last memories.
I instantly understood everything.
I saw Mindy, crying and terrified, holding tightly to her mother's hand. They were running desperately through dark, rainy streets. I felt her mother's absolute panic. Her mother was a mutant, too.
They weren't hiding from the police. They weren't running from normal criminals.
They were being hunted.
Flashes of men in dark, heavy armor crossed my vision. Cold, high-tech weapons. Red laser sights cutting through the dark alleys. These men weren't trying to arrest them. They were tracking them down like wild animals.
They were Mutant Hunters.
And they had cornered Mindy and her mother right here in the Western Industrial zone.
The vision pulled me deeper. I wasn't just watching; I was living her final moments.
I saw the inside of the exact same ruined building I was standing in right now. It was raining. The heavy, dark armor of the Mutant Hunters surrounded them, blocking the only exit.
They lunged. A massive, armored hand grabbed Mindy's mother, violently ripping them apart.
"Mom!" Mindy screamed.
In pure desperation, Mindy's dormant mutant powers exploded. Her black hair grew wildly, whipping around like thick ropes. Her small muscles coiled with heavy, unnatural strength. She threw herself forward, trying to tear the men away from her mother.
But she was just a child.
A heavy, steel-toed boot slammed directly into her chest. The brutal kick threw her flying backward across the concrete floor. She hit the concrete hard, all the air violently crushed from her small lungs.
"Mindy! Run!" her mother cried out, her voice filled with absolute terror. She raised her hands, trying to use her own mutant powers to fight back and protect her daughter.
Bang. Bang.
Deafening gunshots echoed through the dark room. Her mother's body jerked, and she fell completely still.
Mindy shrieked, reaching out her small, shaking hand toward her mother.
Bang.
Another gunshot. A sharp, burning pain ripped through Mindy's chest. She collapsed, her vision instantly going blurry and dark.
But she didn't die right away. As she lay bleeding on the freezing concrete, she felt rough hands grab her legs. She was being dragged away like garbage. Through her fading vision, she saw her mother's lifeless body being dragged right beside her.
In those final seconds, the fear and sadness inside the little girl suddenly vanished. It was replaced by a burning, absolute hatred. A fury so intense, so violent, that her soul refused to move on.
The horrific trauma and her raw mutation violently collided. Her absolute hatred twisted her spirit, chaining her to this abandoned graveyard and turning her into the terrifying, weeping anomaly I had just faced.
Flash.
The vision violently snapped.
I was back in the dark, empty void of my mental space. The tiny ball of warm light touching my finger finally stopped pulsing. It faded away completely, sinking into my soul and leaving me alone in the dark.
When I opened my eyes in the real world, the abandoned room was exactly as I had left it. Cold. Empty. Quiet.
The furnace inside me was finally full. But as I stood there in the dark, the euphoric warmth of her energy was completely swallowed by a freezing, murderous rage of my own.