Episode 1

Enear Flos

Year 2150: Present

Engulfed by buildings made of metal scraps in a small city, with little to no fresh air to breathe as the warm, polluted breeze carried the sharp scent of rust and cement mixed in it—all of these were suffocating. But what feels more intolerable for Enear is seeing repugnant statues towering the plaza from the rooftop view of his school. 

Those stone sculptures represent individuals who were once christened as the three Messiahs—the saviors—the scientists who were believed as the reason humanity continued to survive even after the nuclear warfare centuries ago. While they failed to preserve plants and animals, their technology compensated by integrating artificial nutrients and machines into the food chain.

Enear's green eyes burned in hatred as he fixed his gaze on each of their dull faces. He wanted to destroy them—or at least smash what was left of them in pieces. A satisfying idea lingered in his heart with just a mere thought of it.

For him, they will never be heroes. They didn't understand the principle of death. Those nuclear missiles were undoubtedly gifts from heaven: man-made forms of celestial grace to put an end to the sufferings of this world. It was the rapture—the mass salvation—the one-way ticket to a quick, painless death. But those devil spawns manipulated the will of fate which prolonged the agony of living. For him, they invented this new hell.

They were so stupid.

The bell rang, cueing the break was over. But Enear stilled in his position, motionless, unable to find any reason to get up and return to his classroom.

"Want some?" A blonde lad with bright yellow eyes suddenly came and sat beside him. Dycron lent his pack of chips to Enear without taking his eyes off the statues, mesmerizing every carve of the stone: the detailed crumples of the lab gowns, the smooth cemented faces, and the curved pride seen in their smiles.

"Someday, I'm going to replace those statues," he asserted as he stuffed chips in his mouth after emptying it with a big statement. "Just imagine it: Dycron, the greatest electrical scientist that will change the world, broadcasted on every media platform!"

Enear's deadpan gaze lingered on Dycron. This moment felt awfully familiar, tugging at a memory he'd painstakingly tried to bury. A clear memory of him standing at the front of a classroom, surrounded by strangers whose barely stifled whispers pricked at his nerves. They had silenced themselves just long enough to hear him speak—only to erupt into cruel laughter the moment he dared to share his dreams.

"How about you, Enear? What do you want to be?"

He looked away from Dycron, his eyes finding the skies now greyed by thick dark clouds churning endlessly overhead—the suffocating mass that refused to let the blue through. It was just like that day.

This world, as he thought, is abominable in all of its corners.

"I wanna be a corpse," he answered, barely an utterance. "A corpse to feed the plants."

Dycron choked mid-chew, spraying half-dissolved chips and crumbs everywhere. "I'm sorry, what?" he exclaimed, eye wide as he threw him a surprising look as if Enear's had just sprouted another head. "Your dream... is to die?"

"I guess."

"I guess?" Dycron repeated his answer in exasperation. "You really need to start finding a reason to live, Enear. Take me, for example. When I become the greatest scientist, all my inventions will be passed on to our generations and will be taught in school. Those thoughts excite me to study well every day. Once I get my college diploma, I'll apply to an electric company and steal their technology!"

"The break was already over 20 minutes ago, Dycron. What kind of studying well do you plan?" Enear mocked monotonously, still watching at the clouds that were supposed to shape like pieces of cotton, forming different optical illusions–not a plain thick foam.

"Come on, really?" Dycron groaned in frustration after checking the time in his smartwatch. "How could the school forget to ring the bell?"

They didn't. You're just too busy magnifying your ideals of becoming one of those sculpted mad scientists. Enear thought but didn't utter. He couldn't even bother showing an irked reaction of just simply rolling his eyes to his theatrics.

Without waiting for an answer, Dycron sprang to his feet and surprisingly yanked Enear by the arms.

"Don't just gawk there, dude! We're already late!" he yelled as the young man pulled him up. Despite hesitating, Enear stood up reluctantly, still unenthused about the boring subjects he'll have to endure for the following class periods to come that afternoon. It's not like they'll be of any use to his daily life anyway. In fact, nothing matters anymore.

A corpse to feed plants. Enear is definitely rooting for it.

The sun dipped lower on the horizon, painting Enear's brown hair and pale skin in soft orange hues. Buildings and streets mirrored the warm tint, casting long shadows across the quiet road. Half an hour later, the class ended, but trouble found him anyway. An eerily familiar group of students circled him in the silent, empty street—a perfect spot for what they had planned. No witnesses. How convenient.

"I told you to buy me bread at break time, but where the hell did you go?" Jonathan, who's in the center, asked.

He tried to ignore them and continued walking, staring blankly at the wind brushing his eyelashes. Those boys in front of him felt more insulted by what he did, so they blocked his way.

"You really have a terrible personality, farmer boy."

Enear stopped, still looking directly his way as if they didn't exist. "Ganging up on a helpless man. Is that the definition of having a good personality?"

Jonathan smirked as his gang giggled. "I knew it. Three people to punish you yesterday isn't enough. What can you say about ten, huh?"

Enear finally raised his emerald eyes at him and firmly answered with his monotonous voice. "A ten times coward."

Purple darkness filled up the surroundings as the hours passed. Underneath was Enear lying on the floor, covered with bruises, and waiting for a light to appear in front of him. But nothing came. That means he's still alive. How he wished Jonathan and his gang didn't give him a little mercy.

~

A smell of dust from cement fragments, rotten garbage in the trash, and burning rubbers welcomed Enear at the midnight clock of the dark alley. The air might be a little colder than daylight, but the sun's heat was still stirring from the metals, making the place warm, and his black suit made him sweat more. Only the oxygen production from his smart mask at least cooled his hidden face.

Enear quickly leaned against the edge wall and yanked a knife from his hips when he heard a scratching sound. He carefully listened: crumpling plastics, gentle clanks of metal, and a crunchy chewing sound. It must be coming behind this wall.

He peeked silently and saw a cat digging up the trash under the white blinking lights from the broken lamp post. It shone its peeled skin, revealing blue and red wires connected to the metallic skull. It devoured everything that touched its mouth when it was only supposed to consume gas bites–a biscuit-looking food filled with gasoline designed to fuel robotic pets. But the robot cat had been broken, eating anything it could see just to survive.

He let himself be distracted by the mixed feelings in his chest. He can't understand why he felt bad over a lifeless thing.

Enear sensed a sudden change in the air. He quickly grabbed the wrist of a hand about to pat his shoulder, pulling it to lose the stranger's balance, and dropped her on the floor, together with her briefcase. The spontaneous lamppost light blinked over her petite body in a black suit matching a black gas mask.

"Chill. It's just me," a calm voice of a girl whispered while her body was leaning against the floor. Her hands were cuffed by his tight hand.

"Do you like potatoes?" Enear asked, even though he had never seen one.

"I prefer cassava," she replied, and Enear freed her. They have no idea what they are talking about, but those were the passwords they memorized.

"I'm Jiya. Your boss hired me as your scout for tonight." She handed the briefcase and Enear started to assemble the sniper rifle inside. A mercenary from other groups, or might be working independently.

"Q1," Enear replied.

"Real name? Like, Kyu Wan?"

"Combination of a letter and a number," he replied as he loaded the rifle with cocking sounds of metals. Then he tapped his wireless earphone five times, notifying Jiya's earphones to pair. When they were done, he started to walk.

At day, Enear was just a regular student who slacked off on the rooftop to escape from the boring lessons and was beaten up by the bullies in the afternoon. But tonight, above his favorite spot, on the peakest position of the abandoned building, the warm breeze of night brushed through seventeen-year-old's brown silky hair. Standing his elbows on the railings of the rooftop, gripping the rifle with his green eyes kissing the scope, seeing a green view of a man in a lab coat running in the middle of a devastated alley.

"The subject is now coming to your station, as you predi–," a woman's voice reported in his wireless earphone stopped in the middle when he pulled the trigger and fired a shot. Instead of splattering blood, white dust exploded in the air. The man continued running while holding his blood-dripping decapitated arm that was healthy before.

"What just happened?"

"He turned his whole arms into bone as a shield," he replied, cocking the rifle to reload a bullet while following the man through his sight. Once again, he zoomed it into the head.

"An abnormal defective?"

"A normal defective."

"Other level, then?"

"Just level one."

"So it's a classification, I see. I thought all they could do was melt themselves by secreting too much acid by accident. I never thought some of them were useful for self-defense as well."

"Not this time," he claimed and fired his gun. The head popped, splattering blood through the walls and floors. The body dropped to the ground.

"Leave the mess to me, Q1. Your job ends here now. Two hundred pesos will be paid to both of us in 2 hours upon confirmation. What a lame reward for such a dangerous job."

Enear pulled out his green eyes from the sight. "You talked too much about obvious things." He started to pack his things.

"Don't be cold. We'll work often from now on, so at least let's be buddies."

Once he was done packing, he left and went down the stairs and routed back to the alley. Enear's body could finally rest from today's hard work but his mind would never be at peace with his conscience. Another soul died in his hands; another cast in his nightmare would come.

He might have wanted to find another job, but only prostitution was the only option if he hated killing. It's not that he chose to commit sins over his dignity, but he was raised like this since he was young, programmed to obey all the orders endlessly for two hundred pesos, just enough to afford breakfast and lunch without dinner to save some for school expenses.

If he resisted or quit in the middle, the organization would hunt him just how he did with the subjects.

"Who dared abandon a sweet little fur?" The sweet voice of Jia echoed in the alley while Enear was passing through the blinking lamp post. She was petting the broken cat no matter how it ignored her to chew garbage.

"You worked too hard, biting every opportunity that came in touch with your mouth. In the end, you're just a broken puppet by the error system without any direction in life. Just like me."

Just like us, Enear whispered in his mind.

"They're lucky, though," he said, pertaining to the cat, as he passed through broken bulbs, lightening the old dirty walls and Jia's face masked with black metals. Her eyes glared at Enear's trailing shadow popping and vanishing through the inconsistent lights, waiting for his next words. His footstep stopped, as well as his figure.

"Robots have no emotions to suppress. And they don't need your sympathy."

Quintessence Nightmare | mvcabusas