It was still raining at night but Asselyum was flying in that storm, looking at every corner of the city. She didn't find slaine anywhere. Finally, she stopped at the skatepark. The same one where Slaine usually went. She reached there and looked around. It was filled with the rainwater, the pipes seemed to have clogged. 

"What are you doing here?" She turned back. It was Riley. Unlike usual, he was alone that night.
"I'm here to find Slaine." She replied.
"He isn't here, now leave."
"I still haven't searched around this place yet."

"Hey," He said, "Do you know how high the crime rate around these areas is? Just go home. Come tomorrow morning."
"I don't take orders from just anybody." She jumped into the water.
"Hey!" Riley shouted as he ran towards the skater's bowl which was now a water bowl. Asselyum searched through it for about an hour. Finally, she came out.

Riley waited for her outside the water. She crawled out and sat on the floor.
"Oh my God! You're stupid as fuck! I told you he isn't here. You've finally made a fool out of yourself. How do you feel?"
"I don't."

"I can't find him." She looked ahead.
"I'm pretty sure you're searching at the wrong place."
"He left."
"What?"

"He left."
"Why would he do that?"
"That's all he ever does when he fails. The time he lost a skateboarding match--He left. He didn't like you, so he left. And now because I rejected him, he left me too. He always leaves when he doesn't get the things he want. I trusted him with everything I had. Silly me, expecting too much from people again."

"But have you noticed that he always comes back?" Riley said.
She looked up at him and he sat beside her, "He started skateboarding again, he met me again so he will meet you again too. Don't be mad--"

"Feelings, I shouldn't feel them then why? Ben removed my chip, didn't he?" She looked at Riley and then back at the road.

"How can he just disappear?" She asked as she clenched her teeth, "Did any of this mean nothing to him? How could someone be so goddamn cruel?!"

"You think he lost interest in you?" Riley asked.
"I don't know. Who cares anyway?"
"You do, stupid..."
Asselyum looked ahead and so did he. The rain had stopped by then and both of them were drenched. It was a comfortable silence.

"It hurts like hell when someone makes you feel special, then suddenly leaves you hanging and you have to act like you don't care." He said.
Asselyum was simply listening to him.

"Do you ever get in one of those moods where you're like feeling okay but you're really sad at the same time and you just want to talk to someone and make them hug you but you feel like you'd be annoying so you just sit there being sad." His voice seemed gravelly calm and so human-sounding to her. She closed her eyes and listened to him speak.

"You said he left--Maybe he's planning something. That's just your thought that maybe he left. Most of the pain you're dealing with is just thoughts. Stop thinking about everything so much, you're breaking your own heart... Hey, are you listening?" He turned towards her.

For the first time, she slept.

"Jeez, just look at how careless you are." Riley smiled. He rested his face on his knees and looked at her face, "I should probably drop you home."

Meanwhile, Slaine was approaching the end of the third volume. It was beginning to get messed up,

"We needed a human test subject. But for that, we needed the government's permission--That wasn't a difficult hurdle to cross. We were given the authority of those prisoners who were sentenced to death. So that even if they died, the matters won't go out. This research was kept a secret and the those who died were carefully disposed off.

We did blood transfusion and various gene therapies--Nothing worked. Since they weren't mice- Everything we had studied was in vain. Nothing was working. I tried my best--Four years passed and five hundred people had died due to what we called the Antex infection.

A century had passed and I had failed. I grew frustrated as days passed by and finally I got into the lab and threw away all the test tubes on the floor. I was done with it. I locked the lab and went for a drink.

After a few days, I returned back with a cool head. I noticed that the blood hadn't dried. In fact, the two blood samples lay over each other, like oil on water. It didn't mix like it earlier did when we took fresh samples.

I immediately called Nicole. By the time he reached there, I had set up the dialysis apparatus. We brought in an anemia patient. The plan was simple, we would removed the blood from the body and replace it with the blood sample B. Since transfusion was not possible, this was our last hope.

And to our surprise, it worked! She lived through it and she soon became healthy too! Those hundred years paid off-- And finally my invention was ready to save lives.

I couldn't believe it could be something so simple. Sometimes the answer to a complex problem is so simple that we refuse to believe it."

The third volume ended. The next one was titled 'The Liberation' which talked about how the lab was given the permission to manufacture the serum at a commercial scales.

"The manufacturing started. Year 2400 was an era of evolution-- I could treat any illness and prolong the lifespan of a human body. Mr Barnes was injected with the serum-- Just as I promised. And I was blessed with money and fame-- Making me the richest man alive. 

The pain I had in my heart, persisted. There was an emptiness I couldn't fill because the person for whom I had worked this hard, had perished.

I asked Dr Nicole to prepare some fake documents of the surgeries I had so that people won't question the changes that occurred in me due to  the radiations. I wanted to keep the radiations a secret-- Especially my eyes-- They stood out so much that I was recognised worldwide by my eyes.

I soon heard the news of the Queen's death--And I visited her funeral. But as soon as I looked at her dead body-- I realised what the cause was. I had seen five hundred dead bodies with the same swollen, red eyes and black knuckles.

It was the Antex infection, unmistakably. I contacted Nicole and he told me that she forced him to inject her with the serum while we were still working on it. She had somehow found about our research-- Maybe someone from the inside was in contact with her.

I heard she had six kids before birth and so I decided to visit them. All of them looked fairly human, but just to be safe-- I decided to take one of them in, for studying him closely and seeing any eerie changes-- If at all they occurred.

I named him Lucifer-- Just like the fallen angel Lucifer who might turn extremely evil one day. I brought him up as my own child. But something was odd-- He was growing up very fast, at an alarming rate. He was six years old and stood five feet eleven inches, with a developed Adam's apple and facial hair. This intimidated me.

He had a movable jaw, sharp canines and tiny scales behind his neck. He could breathe underwater and had a relatively lighter body-- Hollow bones. I saw some glimpses of the Turner's syndrome too-- Lack of public hair.

I tested his blood-- It was a pure X-DROID. I never expected to see X-DROIDs by birth. I only used the serum on humans.

I should have killed them all right then. But I got intrigued to see where it would go and the cost of my curiosity was paid by the entire world.

In the meantime, the president died due to the infection and his place was taken over by his son, Dexter Benovolis-- Who seemed to have a strange interest in me and even proposed me for marriage.

I rejected him thrice, saying that I was fairly heterosexual and I was confident about my sexuality.

The killings in England started by the late 2410s. Something had to be done and fast. I kept Lucifer hidden from the world because I felt that he would be a light of hope during the darkest hours. I called up Nicole and a few engineer friends of mine. By the year 2421, we had Asselyum, MiK, Norman and Valorie with us.

Unfortunately, England was completely infected by then and I believed that it was time to let go of one nation to protect the others.

So, I asked Lucifer if he was ready to kill his siblings.

He said he was.

The sacrifice of England started the War-- And another ten years went by in only war, death and destruction.

I had started a war.

And I had failed too.

So, I'm starting it again--In the hopes that this time we win-- I will be fighting against my own kind.

Slaine, I hope you've read everything thoroughly. Now please burn these written evidences before you regret it.

R3GARDS
B3N"

-To be continued

Lupin Kuznetsov | Slaine Benjamin
5500 Rebellion