In the hospital ward, Michael and Zion lay side by side, awake and staring at the blinking lights on the ceiling, each contemplating their actions and the sheer malice that had nearly driven them to mutual slaughter.
The silence was finally broken by Zion's raspy voice. "Michael, why do you have so much hatred in your soul?"
Michael was surprised. For someone he had nearly killed, it was an unexpectedly profound question.
"The hatred you bear isn't just directed at me," Zion continued, turning his head. "You fight like you despise me, like you despise my flesh, like you're trying to devour me. It makes me feel like you're human and alien at the same time—alien to your own humanity. You hate not just me, but all of us. It makes me wonder why Elizabeth even stays with you when you don't even treat her nicely."
"And what if I hate all of you?" Michael replied in a distant, hollow voice. He sat up, turning to face Zion. "Look at the beauty we had in the past, and see what you people did to it in mere secon—"
"MICHAEL, SHUT UP FOR FUCK'S SAKE!" Zion shouted, jolting upright as he stared furiously into Michael's eyes. "WE DID WHAT?! You were born when we were born! What have you gone through that I haven't? Your mum is dead—so what? Your dad is nowhere to be found—so what?! Have you ever actually asked what made us like this? If we weren't always like this, doesn't that mean we were warped into monsters by the very world you adore and protect so much? You think I wanted to be born the way I am? You hate humanity? I hate Earth!"
Michael flinched, a dangerous spike of rage flaring up at the mention of his mother.
"Oh, so that's your only sense of reason?" Zion pressed on, tears spilling over. "The smartest student, and you just result to killing anything that challenges you? What do you think you are—God? Ha, you wish! Then how do you think I feel, Michael? Born into a world where my pain is used as a fucking weapon? Emo, they say, is a special power from the unknown, but to me, it's just pure suffering. We replay our pain, our lost loved ones, just to channel power we have to use daily to stay alive and defend the demon in our lives called Earth! And you fucking think humanity is the enemy? You're wrong, Michael. Fucking wrong!
"Ever since I was born, I was hated for how I looked because I wasn't born big and strong. I was born weak. And because of my weakness, I watched the only person who loved me for my scrawny self—my sister—I lost her to humans and animals. I watched her get raped, then dumped out for dogs. I watched her deteriorate, and even in that fucking state, she fed me in the sewers until her last breath. I vowed from that day I would be whatever was strong enough, I would be wherever I needed to be—and that's how I was cursed with the ability to become everything except my sister's hero.
"And then the very family that hated me... they began to smile, to love me. They went from strangers to family. And you think you have a reason to hate? You're not me, you're not anyone! You don't even know what Elizabeth has gone through, you self-centered bastard!"
As tears flooded Zion's face, Michael stared at him with depthless eyes. Slowly, Michael took a step forward, but with each step, an eerie, chilling smile crept across his face. He raised his hands and wrapped them around Zion in an unexpected hug.
"Zion, that's what you don't understand," Michael whispered. "I don't hate humanity for their sins solely. I hate humanity because we chose to live. The only true freedom from the unknown is not being able to know the unknown. That's why I want to eradicate humanity as a whole. True love is genocide, Zion."
Michael released Zion, turned, and walked out the door.
Zion sat alone in the quiet room, blinking in sudden confusion. "Why... why did I just tell him everything?"
From the shadows of the curtains, a silhouette stepped forward, glowing with the warm complexion of the golden hour. It was a girl who was once the most precious thing in Michael's life—Precious.
"Because I wanted you to," Precious murmured softly. "Because Michael can't go down that route alone. I may have broken him, and it's my job to fix him. Ability: Prophecy Release."
Zion suddenly gasped as the mental constraints lifting from his mind allowed him to realize what had just happened, but before he could turn to see her, Precious vanished into thin air.
In a room shared by four girls, Elizabeth sat on her bed, deep in thought. She weighed the heavy questions resting on her chest: Was Michael really a good choice for me, or did I just take on an emotional burden while lost in the dark?
Before she could spiral further into her thoughts, a sharp knock echoed at the door.
Her roommate, Nadirah, groaned from across the room, "Who could that be? It's 11 PM."
Nadirah pulled the door open, froze, and stuttered in sheer disbelief, "M—Michael?!"