Chapter 6: Stain of the Past

Ela started to see series of events through Black's eyes. Others might see it white, but in her eyes, it was like a mirror of memories. He also heard Black's voice telling her to stay calm and just watch.

"Is she the only one among us who didn't experience weird changes?" Flute asked, referring to Ela.

It was the day when everything started to change.

"Camouflage. I think that's my ability." Yuri shared and didn't dare to say more. Instead, she asked Flute. "What about you?"

"I can hear heartbeats."

The memory suddenly became a smoke as a new one was shown. They are still seated on the sofa, but it wasn't the same day as a while ago because of their clothes, she supposed.

"We failed to find informations about that mysterious guy on Mijo's birthday," Era disappointedly informed them as she threw herself on the sofa.

Mysterious guy? That might be the one who doesn't have a fashion sense. But that's on the day they first met. It might be someone they met after Ela cut her connections with them. Or maybe... the day they first met is also Mijo's birthday. Thoughts started to flood Ela, but she chose to shove them away and focused.

"We already expected that. We don't even know his name. Black's memory is the only thing we could rely on." Stress was shown over Flute's face as he massaged his forehead.

"Wait... do you think that man would show up again if Ela comes back?" Black suddenly asked, making them turn their heads to him.

"What made you think so?" Flute asked.

"Mijo said Ela stinks when she said she doesn't believe us."

Ela's left brow raised hearing that she stinks, but she knew it was because of her lie, so she just shrugged it off.

"You mean she also have an ability because she believes we have?"

"Yes."

"And how is that even connected?" Flute asked, his brows met because of confusion.

Black shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know either. I just felt that it has something to do with it. Maybe he will show himself again when she fully accepted what we are capable of."

Silence covered them. They somehow saw his point.

"Why don't we just improve our abilities until Ela is ready?" Black suggested.

Just like the first memory, it vaporized and a new one formed. Same place as the first two. All of them are wearing uniforms, except that Mijo and Yuri wears a different one.

"It's been two weeks. Have you made any progress?" Flute asked. "As of me, I can sort the heartbeats I am hearing. I mean, I don't know, but I know how many heartbeats I am hearing. It seemed to malfunction a while ago, though," he added.

Black's eyes narrowed. "Is it the reason why you stared at Ela's boyfriend?" 

Flute was about to say something, but he chose not to say it. Instead, he changed the topic. "Nevermind that. It might be just because I'm still not used to it. What about you, guys?"

"Mine's still like the usual. But... I learned that the power doesn't come from my eyes. I think it's my voice. I can't command, but my voice is like a drug. I can make you believe on what I am saying. I realized I did it wrong on Ela. I should've said to her that she believes me. Ay! I still need to use my eyes for concentration. Anyway, no worries, I know when to use my ability and when not to," Era said without taking her eyes off her phone as she continued watching a Thai series. Flute just nodded and turned to Mijo.

Mijo laughed. "Same, bro, same. But I can smell foods again! Like Era, I think I know when to use it already."

Flute tapped his back. "Your ability is more than useful." He cleared his throat. "Yuri, you should start taking this serious. I know you haven't even tried to develop your ability," he said which just made Yuri shrug her shoulders. Flute shook his head lightly.

"Flute, look into my eyes." Black suddenly said which brought a questioning look on Flute's face. "Just do it," he said and so the latter did.

"Say my name."

"Black," Flute muttered without breaking the stare. Both of their eyes started to turn white. Minutes have passed when pain crossed Flute's face. He tried to hold back, but he just can't, so he closed his eyes. And that was the most stupid thing you could ever do while a memory is being showed to you!

The pain inside his head grew bigger. Black's eyes turned normal and his eyes widened seeing Flute.

"Ahhh!" Flute screamed. He closed his fist tightly, his knuckles turning white. Everyone in the room started to panic when he touched his head and punched it continuously. He continued screaming, hurting himself because of the pain he is feeling.

"Omg, stop him! Black! Mijo! You useless shits!" Era shouted and that's when their senses went back to reality. Black and Mijo hold Flute's arms as the latter tried to resist from them.

"Shia, what should I do? Omg, omg, what to do?"  she asked herself, walking back and forth and massaging her forehead.

"Stupid, use your ability," Yuri said calmly.

Era widened her eyes and pointed at her. "You!" She was about to say something when she thought she actually has a point. She screamed out of frustration which mixed Flute's screams. Standing in front of Flute, she hold his cheeks using both of her palms. She calmed herself first. "Hey, open your eyes," she said. Flute just screamed in front of her face causing her face to go blank.

"I SAID OPEN YOUR EYES, YOU DICKHEAD!"  she screamed at the top of her lungs, shocking everyone in the room. Even Flute stopped from resisting Black and Mijo's arms.

Now, that's my twin, Ela thought, grinning.

Flute slowly opened his eyes, and unlike Black whose eyes already became normal, his were still white. Era looked directly into his eyes and said with her authorative voice, "You're fine. Nothing happened. Everything's okay."

Flute's eyes turned to its normal color. He blinked many times and shook his head. Black and Mijo let go of him and Era slapped him lightly before getting her phone and resume watching.

"What happened?" Flute asked.

The memory turned into smoke. Ela waited to see if there's still more, but she seemed to come back to her senses already. Black is the one to break the stare with a smile of victory plastered on his face.

"That's it?" Ela asked, hoping for more, but Black just nodded.

"Woah, you really did it, this time!" Era complimented him which made him grin even more.

Black is nervous before he started it, though. He's afraid he would fail again, but luckily, it was a success!

"So you can't just remember everything, you can also show it. A living drive, eh?" Ela commented. "Your eyes are amazing," she added. She mean it, but she still rolled her eyes. She sat comfortably on the sofa, leaning her back. "You think that gu—"

"Six?" Flute muttered out of nowhere. He closed his eyes, trying to check if he's counting it right. Everyone laid their eyes upon him.

"You heard six heartbeats?" Black asked, confused. Flute nodded and the rest of them seemed to start worrying.

"So what? We're six here inside," Ela plainly said. She doesn't understand why they seem to make a fuss about it.

"In return to hearing other people's heartbeats, he can't hear his own," Black explained. Ela just raised her left brow and remained silent.

"I already know where he is," Flute informed them.

"He? Lalaki? Man? Boy? Guy?" Mijo asked making Ela roll her eyes once again.

"Stupid, that's a default identifier. He can just count the heartbeats," she said, remembering what she heard from Black's memory.

"I was called stupid again," she heard Mijo whispered, but decided to just focus her attention to Flute who now stood in front of the door. He was about to open it when a smoke appeared behind him and a man started to form from it. It was the mysterious guy they're talking about! He seemed not to feel his prescence, so the guy poked him. He turned and looked confused seeing the guy. He glanced at the door, then narrowed his eyes staring at the guy as he took his seat again.

The guy just smiled. "Call me Keeper," he said.

None of them reacted until Mijo asked him. "You're Keeper?" he asked, but Keeper refused to answer. Instead, he gave him a smile.

He walked inside the living room and roamed his eyes, still with a familiar smile like he's been here before. "So you're already complete. Finally," he started as he picked a chair and sat there.

"What are you?" Flute asked, stopping him from speaking.

Keeper chuckled, but Flute kept his face straight. "Oh, boy, you mean, who?"

"What. are. you?" he repeated, emphasizing  each word. Keeper seemed to realize how serious Flute is. He stood up and went to the door. Right after opening the door, he disappeared and another him stood outside, waving at us.

Flute shook his head as Keeper entered the room. "Just as I thought," he murmured.

Keeper slowly clapped his hands. "Very good, Fluan Teodore. Very good," he complimented as he sat on the seat where his clone sat a while ago.

"So it's you this time? The real Keeper?" Mijo eagerly asked, but Keeper just laughed loudly and his face went serious afterwards.

"I'll go straight to the point," he started. Curiousity ate all of them seeing Keeper's positive vibes fade. They remained silent and that's exactly what Keeper wants. Weird, but they  found themselves waiting attentively to everything Keeper was about to say.

"Project H or Project Homosalia. It was a project decades ago that two scientists started. A project where they aim to create a breed of a half human, half animal. Humanimal, to be specific. It might sound impossible, but with their great intellect, almost everything is possible. However, they quite had a little problem processing the chemicals they extracted from the animals of their choice. They continued developing it despite of the problems they're facing. Aside from the chemicals extracted from the animal, as far as I know they already had some vials developed long time ago containing chemicals which I don't know because I ain't a scientist and I personally hate Science back when I was still a student." He stopped for a while and chuckled before deciding to continue feeding them informations.

"They combined the old chemical formulation with the chemical extracted from the animal. It was a female horse as far as I can remember. They thought it was going to be alright, so they finally had the courage to find a tester. A lady which I think they mention calling Astonia?" He sounded unsure.

Ela's eyes narrowed. The name sounds familiar to her, but she couldn't remember when did she hear it. She shook her head and continued listening.

"As I said earlier, there were problems  with the chemical formulation. They're so stupid to think it won't affect the experimentation." Dissapointment lingered on his voice.

"The chemical became toxic. And... it slowly ate the lady's body. Well, not literally. It was like the horse became superior. You might be asking how it took over the body. They said it wasn't totally taking over like the lady turned into a horse. She suddenly started to neigh. She doesn't have a tail, a body of a horse... but she acted like one. And that's because they directed the chemical into her brain. It was also the time that we knew Project Homosalia was just a name. I mean, they don't really want to turn humans into half animals. They... want them to have the abilities of an animal."

"They wanted to create a bunch of superhumans. Reason they said? Their dreams, their passion. But I know it isn't the real reason. It think it has something to do with the government. You know our country's army is a bit... weak compared to the others. This is just an assumption, but they might want to create weapons in the form of the superhumans they would be able to create."

"Going back to Astonia, she died. She has gone crazy, because the scientists didn't stop their study on her. Before she died, they realized that messing with the brain isn't a really good idea. So they targeted the eyes, ears, nose, voice, and the hands."

"They continued the study, gathering animals once again. This time, they dropped the homosalia thing although they still needed some. Example is a Smalltooth Sawfish. They had to get its rostrum and examine its properties," he said glancing at Flute.

"It took them years before gaining confidence to find testers again. They needed to find five couples to be human testers. Why couples? Of course, for a larger study. They were expecting their soon-to-be children to inherit whatever they will get."

Black raised his hand. "Are you saying we're connected to those couples?" he asked. Keeper stared on his face for quite a long time and flashed a small smile like he remembered something. He instantly looked away when he realized that he's smiling.

"I'll go to the climax. As the scientists successfully created powerful people who could be used as weapons, there are people who gained interest upon them. How did they learned about it? I don't know. Who are they? I don't know. All I know is that a decade and nine years ago, this place was ambushed. The couples were still trying to work out on their abilities, trying to improve it that time. They're not even still used having it because they were prohibited to use it when the ladies got pregnant as per the scientists' request. Their abilities were stucked for nine months until the children were born. Whenever they try to use it, they were electrocuted. Anyway, that's it. Just two months after the third kid was born which is also a month before the fourth kid is expected to come out, the ambush happened," he said with a hint of bitterness on his voice.

"Wait, so what happened about the fourth kid? And the last  kid? And... did anyone survived?" Ela asked eagerly, being eaten by curiousity completely. She failed to get a response just like Black.

"My point on telling all of these to the six of you is that... you have to find out who is behind that ambush."

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