Man of The Event

My throat went dry and I stood there speechlessly. Anastasia, too, was horrified. When I turned my head to the side to see how Noel was taking everything in, I could see his face going pale. He was betrayed by his own father. Reality hit him harder than it did for any of us.

We watched Mr.Ryan as he spoke with a confident smirk across his face.

"Ladies and gentlemen, as you already know, we're here for a life-changing occasion." He raised the vial in his hand, "The government shut our lab down saying that it was harmful, but we cannot let all our efforts go to waste, can we?"

The investors cheered and clapped as he spoke. My face twisted in anger listening to his sickening speech. He didn't seem like the Mr.Ryan we knew. Everything about him was different.

"This drug is mainly designed to control the minds of humans after turning them berserk." He said.

"No wonder these people want the drug so bad." Noel said in a low voice. When I turned to look at him, a scowl covered his face. He was glaring at the man on the stage. I didn't know if he had already recovered from the shock or he was trying to act strong.

"Unfortunately, we have yet to witness the full potential of this drug. We've only reached the stage where humans could be turned savage, but we haven't achieved the last step; controlling them like dogs." He continued, "The drug requires human organs. To complete the last step, we need a certain someone's heart. That heart was stronger than any we've experimented on so far and was able to withstand the tremendous pressure of the experiment. But, alas, my team couldn't capture the test subject."

It was all clear now. The reason behind those deaths. The reason behind the missing organs.

"How could someone so shamelessly flaunt about themselves murdering people?" The thought itself disgusted me. The man in front of us wasn't the kind-hearted man we knew. He was a twisted, selfish man who would do anything to reach his goal. Ripping off someone's organs wouldn't mean anything to him.

"Why did he save me and give me a new home if he was a bloody murderer in reality? What was the point in targetting me? What have I ever done to him?!" The more I thought about it, the angrier I became.

But I wouldn't let the anger cloud my judgement and ruin our chances.

Noel slowly pulled out his phone while clutching his hidden revolver with the other hand. He was going to call the backup team to burst into the manor and arrest Mr.Ryan. Just as he was about to call them, Mr. Ryan spoke again.

"Luckily for us, " Our eyes focused back on him as he continued with a big smile on his face, "the lab rat happens to be with us here tonight."

He then slowly turned his gaze to the side of the crowd where we stood, and stared directly at me.

"What..?" I stared back, horrified.

The crowd followed his gaze until they met mine. My body stiffened as they all turned to me. Everyone was as baffled as I was, except for one man, who was smiling knowingly at me.

"I..am the test subject? How?" I thought.

"WE NEED TO RUN! NOW!" Anastasia yelled.

The three of us turned around and began running towards the exit, shoving people out of the way as we went.

"It's useless." Mr. Ryan chuckled softly.

Just then, several guards grabbed us from behind, stopping us from leaving the hall. We struggled and kicked in the air as they began dragging us towards Mr. Ryan.

Bang!

The sound of gunshot resonated in the silence. Noel had pulled out his revolver and shot the guard holding him in the stomach. The guard screamed in pain and let go of him immediately. Noel shot him again without even flinching, this time on his forehead.

"AHH!!" The gunshots horrified the investors. They began screaming and pouring out of the manor in a hurry.

When the guard holding me in place was distracted by the gunshot, I elbowed him in the stomach hard enough to let him go of me. But he recovered quickly and charged at me once again. "You're not going anywhere!!"

He threw a punch at me but I ducked just in time to dodge it. I raised my leg and kicked him in the head with all my force. He stumbled backwards and dropped on the ground unconscious.

I turned to look at Anastasia and found her patting the dust off her gown while an unconscious guard laid next to her feet.

She noticed my surprised expression and smiled, "I can protect myself. Don't worry about me."

I looked back to where Noel fired shots after shots at the guards ganging up on him. Just as I was about to run up to help him, I heard the ticking voice of a gun loading bullets.

I snapped my head to the side and spotted a guard aiming a gun at Noel who was busy dealing with the other guards.

"I won't let it happen again!" I yelled in anger. I ran as fast as I could and kicked the gun out of his hand. He had already pulled the trigger but he missed his aim. He seemed startled by my sudden interference but I didn't spare him the time to do anything else. I grabbed his head and snapped his neck immediately. I watched as the lifeless body of the man dropped to the ground.

"He's dead. I killed him." I gulped as the reality of what I did hit me. But if it was at the cost of the life of someone I care about, I was willing to do even worse.

Just then, I felt another guard lock my head from behind and hold one of my hands in place. I struggled to move and frantically began searching for something to hit him with. My hand hit against a bottle of champagne. I grabbed it and swung it above my head, smashing the bottle on his head. It shattered to pieces and he dropped at my feet.

I looked around me, panting heavily. The number of guards were overwhelming. No matter how much we tried, it wouldn't be enough to defeat all of them. Noel would also soon run out of bullets. We would get killed at this rate. All the while, Mr. Ryan sat on the stage, watching all the chaos with a smile as if everything was just a game to him. "Surrender, Rai. It'll save you some energy." He sneered.

"Never." I glared at him.

I grabbed another bottle and shattered half of it so that I could use the pointed ends of the bottle as a weapon. Just as I was about to fight again, he pointed a gun at the chandelier above Anastasia. "Let's see if you can save your dear friend."

He laughed sinisterly as he fired a bullet straight at the chain holding the chandelier to the ceiling. I yelled in horror while running towards her, "ANASTASIA, MOVE!!"

"Wha-" She looked above her after knocking another guard down. A terrified expression covered her face. I shoved her out of the way just in time as the chandelier broke free. I raised my hand over myself to cover my head as the massive chandelier smashed onto me.

An uncontrollable, stinging pain covered my body as blood soaked my clothes. It felt like my body was on top of a bunch of needles. The shattered glasses pierced into one of my legs, pinning me to the ground. Blood streamed down from my forehead as my consciousness was slowly fading away. The last thing I could hear was the muffled voices of Anastasia and Noel. And then, everything turned dark.