How to be a human being? What are the factors that could be enough to qualify someone as 'human'?
It could be as simple as: just born as a human. Or much more complicated as: act like a human… which was a very general term to use, since no one could define what 'acting like a human' or could know what it really mean.
Maybe, these whole terms are nonsense.
And maybe, there was something very fundamental in the middle between being a human or an anomaly, and I didn't figure it out yet.
Yeah, looking at the crowd that was a very crazy mixture between humans and anomalies, who almost look the very same, was a nice time to think about these philosophical issues— the ones I wouldn't ever think about after ten days or so, since I would be in my old job by then.
Or perhaps the best decision I might make was to change my whole job, and of course the city.
"And before that I must survive this thing."
I didn't use my VIP ticket to enter, but one of the golden tickets I bought from the festival… that's maybe why they let me sit between anomalies and far away from the place where anomalies and humans were mixed.
All the people I gave golden tickets to were sitting between anomalies too. Even the agents from the Disaster Management Authority.
Wait…
Why didn't they simply go out when they helped people before? There might be a lot of people here to save but what could they do to save them? They are completely helpless, just as me.
Of course they were extremely talented and effective but this was so reckless that I couldn't figure out the point behind it.
You did the same too, Nathan… don't judge them.
I had to approve at that point that I was a reckless irresponsible human being too.
"I even got too far into all of this."
I started to use those weird items as if it was something casual, dealing with the system was never weird any more, seeing other's crazy superpowers wasn't a very big deal… and I even started to really put some thoughts into things like 'what could be the difference between a human and an anomaly.'
Nice,
Very nice…
I was working very hard into making myself unaffected to the point I was really unaffected… and surely it was a very terrible decision to make and result to reach.
Agh—
Agh!
I never thought that I would miss my tiny little old apartment but I really did…
I just hoped to wake up at any moment to figure out that I was sleeping on the cold floor and all of this wasn't something but a dream. No, a nightmare.
A crazy mid-day sleep nightmare.
"There's something I really had to think about but I just forgot what it was…"
I melted at my seat while waiting for that thing to start. And when was the best time to think about all the things you hate to think about? While waiting for the things you hate, of course.
So it was the time to think about 'what I hate' finally.
Haha…
I took out my notebook and started to see the questions I was putting there randomly… after five minutes or so I found a bunch of interestingly somehow similar questions.
'Why the belt's pocket have this enormous capacity when it was obviously limited in the description?'
'Why Dean's specialization work better than expected.'
'Why the room Vessle didn't affect me?'
'Why the VIP envelope appeared to me and Silas?'
'Why the things I use tend to have better affect than expected?'
And so on—
There was a bunch of questions too emphasize that Silas especially and the three others were weird and unexpectedly helpful but that for another time.
For the questions I have for now… "all the arrays are pointing at me."
I was the only intersect of all these things.
I wouldn't put this answer on the table usually but maybe, just maybe, I have a specialization that have something to do with amplifying things.
It surely amplified my bad luck before anything else.
Was there any choices other than this? Will… There's the one in case I change the word 'specialization' with the word 'talent', I couldn't figure out something else.
Perhaps it's the system's fault too, but I prefer to put this aside because it was too complicated…
"What's the point of thinking about things when I will always put the 'complicated' topics aside?"
I didn't know. And I wasn't very curious, so the one thing I did was to end this hard conversation with myself and to straighten on my seat, looking at the direction the other three were in.
They were just sitting there on the opposite side of the stadium, Drew was eating something, Adeline was doing nothing, and Dean was so focused on his phone—
Wait wait wait…
How could I even see them in such details?
I touched my face and suddenly remembered that I was wearing the happy glasses, so I took it off.
Fortunately, I wasn't able to see any thing at that level of cleanliness after that. Knowing that it wasn't my eyes that got better somehow filled me with relief.
"Nathan."
"Yes?"
This time, I didn't got scared when Dean's voice suddenly hit my inner brain.
"Where are you?"
"In the stadium." I answered, "somewhere between the anomalies."
"Could you give a look at the third row in the south, just if you are far enough."
"Why?"
"I saw one of the containment team go there before but I couldn't look there from my place and be unnoticeable."
"Alright."
I put my glasses again since that place was too far, then looked at that raw.
A hit of unpleasant feelings filled me when I looked. There was four suspicious beings there in total, they weren't wearing a crazy masks or anything but even so, I couldn't know how exactly they were looking like.
One of them was the vampire from the ethics department, for sure. The other three were unfamiliar but a very bad feeling was still hanging on the top of my chest whenever I looked into them…
Why?
I didn't know.
The only thing I was sure about that ignorance here was the right way. Knowing thing I didn't need won't help me at all.
"There are four of them. In the middle of the raw." I answered Dean. "Why do you need this information?"
"Just in case."
"Just in case?"
"You'll know soon enough. Don't look at them anymore. Stay far away."
"Fine fine. Even if I ask about such things, don't ever answer me."
Wait.
How could I talk with him this way without touching the sticker?!
Agh—
No no, don't think.
"Dean. Could you know if my image was still exist or not?"
"Ah, it seemed to be out of reach for a good time know. Did it got killed?"
"No. Why would anyone try to kill me?"
"Who knows? If not then what happened?"
"It is out. In another vessel."
"...? Eh?"
"It is on the company."
"...?"
I inhaled when I know that I would know nothing by asking him about it.
"Just forget it. Whatever happens happens."
"Okay then. If anything happened and we came out with a different plan then we'll tell you. Just stay ready."
Haha…
Stay ready? For what? To escape when it's necessary?
I really hate this job.
"At least five minutes remain for the start. We won't wait forever."
I was looking around randomly when I noticed something off. One of the agents got out of his seat and walked through three rows until he was standing in front of the containment team's seats.
Out of all the places on earth, he decided to go there…
That was way more suspicious than anything I witnessed this week. Because, weren't they enemies or whatever? I was being treated like a traitor just because someone saw me talking with an agent… yet, those people just talking together so casually?
Woh…
What a discrimination.
They continued talking as old friends for about three or four minutes, then the agent returned to his seat.
Two minutes later, at ten sharp, the whole air around me trembled, the seat itself vibrated as the ground and everything, and I just knew that it must be the music of the opening…
How could anyone listen to such loud things? It didn't even stop after that and crazy things started to happen one after another.
Massive floating screens, strange lights drifting as they shimmered in random colors. The floor had turned into something like glass over water, with odd shapes that seemed to swim beneath it… The place was gradually transforming into something unfamiliar—
something closer to a terrifying science-fiction scene.
Then all the lights turned off,
And a small island started rising into the air out of nowhere, flickering in red.
My heart slammed violently against my ribs as I was watching things happen one after the other, and suddenly terror rooted me in my seat when a figure showed on that island, smiling widely…
Familiar. Disgustingly familiar that my hands started to tremble uncontrollably.
It was the child from the festival, the one I bought the music box from—
And the one who told me where to buy the tickets from.
Agh.
What kind of coincidence was this?!