𝑸𝑶𝑻𝑪:

𝑰𝒇 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒅 𝒉𝒊𝒎 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒘𝒉𝒐 𝒉𝒆 𝒊𝒔, 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒉𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒉𝒊𝒎 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒉𝒆 𝒊𝒔.

***

"𝘞𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘗. 𝘌. 𝘋., 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺, 𝘧𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘗𝘖𝘞𝘈𝘕𝘴."

Her eyes shot red as her paralysed body felt nothing but her heart beating against her chest forcefully enough to cause a throbbing pain. Those words rung in her mind like refrains in poetry, causing her to descend deeper and deeper into devastation.

"Oh! Right. You didn't know about it, did you? You won't, not until you bear a child. Or maybe never- seeing that they have closed it now and disposed us off."

She gritted her teeth and forced her mind to not believe a single word they said. She might have hated her father since her mother's death, but his impotence to save her mother, lack of desire for revenge and unusually calm demeanor accounted for those feelings of hers. How the POWANs were abstained from being killed despite what they did to society and how her father never showed a drop of remorse on his face were signs of no empathy for her mother. And so, she had to hate him. But even so, she knew that her father was not someone so cruel to go as far as experimenting on humans, no matter what the catch.

"Why?" Forced voice pronounced her thoughts and worries. A look of desperation, like a torn apart land, painted her face.

"I told you I will tell you everything since the start. But before that, let me take you somewhere." The man pushed himself up before motioning to another, as a window to her cell opened and the man brought a wheelchair in. Pulling her loose body up, he took her outside. The air out of the cell was the same as inside. The foul odor of filthy air-conditioners, mixed with a sharp stench of medicines and disinfectants, choked the atmosphere.

They fled from room to room, each with experimented humans inside cells, with several medicinal IVs and tubes attached to their frail bodies, some with large glass containers filled with body fluids like urine, blood, etc. It was ironic, how the girl who bathed in blood felt sick at the sight of it. It made her want to throw up from the nausea. But she controlled the urge, expecting the next thing to be even worse.

Their brief journey took a halt in front of massive, black metal doors, where the man, like usual, gestured another of his subordinate and she suspected him to open the doors, which happened.

The room inside was enormous, even though a little of it was discernible for the poor illumination. The man switched on the lights, revealing another spacious experimentation area.

Asami's eyes widened, and she shifted them to the man standing beside her for an explanation. Another old man, resting on a mobile chair, with several tubes that did more than providing nutrition or medicines, tore through his skin. The number of such wires were extensive. Not just one or two, but about a hundred wires wrapped around him. But the surprising part was his face. He resembled her father.

The lines running on his face showed his age to be not less than 60, 40 if he was the least bit similar to her father in behaviour. His eyes were shut, either from sleep or unconsciousness.

"Asami, say hi to your great grandfather, Atsusuke Sato." His eyes crinkled above his obvious fake smile.

A wave of chill ran through Asami, as her body went numb, thousand needles pricking her insides and sweat oozing out of everywhere in her body.

"G. g... what do you mean?" The desperation in her voice faded away, only a cowering plea remained, that came out more like a cry of the dead.

"Yes, he is your great grandfather, Haruhiko Sato's rightful brother."

Asami turned her gaze to the lifeless body resting peacefully inside a web of wires and cannulas. Looking carefully, she noticed several bruises decorating his hairy skin. The fingers on his legs were missing, the fingernails of his hands plucked out, several areas on his head were hairless.

Knowing that he was family was more than needed to make her feel devastating pain on seeing his condition. She was the type to love things that belonged to her to no ends and seeing the one she indirectly belonged to in a state of helplessness caused a surge of anguish and hatred inside her.

Her bloodshot eyes turned to the man beside him, as her silver-hair draped everything except them.

"Oh my, how scary," he chuckled.

"You piece of shit. How dare you? Son of a bitch. You bastard, you will die." Her voice was breathier and unnatural, but this Asami was definitely the gentler one, the one who loved humanity to no extent.

"Yeah. Just knowing that he is related to you causes you to become so hateful. Like you really love him. What a joke." He scoffed.

"As if you understand a damn thing about love...," her breathing grew more and more unsteady as her patience evaporated into thin air.

"I don't. But I do understand what hate is. And even if you loved him knowing who he is, you will hate him knowing what he is." The tone of his face suddenly turned serious and challenging.

"And what exactly do you mean by that?" She screamed.

"That person, you call your great grandfather, was the first POWAN in history ever created," he smirked, "or we can say, he is the man who created POWANs, indirectly, your mother's murderer."