Degenerate

A/N: Warning. This chapter contains quite the gruesome mental image. Reader's discretion is advised.

…

The teenager with grey hair and rare pale pupils looked around in a daze. His eyes lingered on the furnishings that instilled a sense of familiarity in him.

"A dream?" He muttered and rose, feeling his head ache slightly. He looked around the living room, before walking up to the glass wall. It was nighttime, and bright blue lights could be seen whooshing about in the sky.

"Alias, what time is it?" He asked.

A feminine, automated voice responded, " The time is 7:36pm, Adam."

7:36pm… He muttered and furrowed his brows. How had he gotten home? What happened to waking up in the laboratory? Along with Nana and Nina; the twin girls? He clearly remembered that the strange wormhole had returned them to their time, and he was about climbing the steel ladders to get out of the lab.

Had all that been nothing but a mere dream? Adam was strongly beginning to suspect that something was wrong with him. It felt like there were gaps in his memory that were purposely erased by something… by someone.

He suddenly spun around and asked, "Alias, what time does Lyra return?"

The calm and clear voice responded, "If she takes the usual route, she's certain to arrive a few minutes from now. Between 7:48-8:00pm."

Adam's eyes narrowed as a wave of terror washed over him.

Oh shit. Oh no, no no no! NO!

Adam's heart began to thump rapidly as he further realised that something was gravely wrong. There was a certain chance that he had travelled to the past, again!

His eyes, expectant and fearful, fell on the door. He counted the seconds in his heart–from what he could remember–and patiently waited.

He had expected to hear the buzz of the door in a few minutes, but there was a chilling silence instead.

"She's not here…" He muttered, puzzled. He looked at his wristband and checked the time himself.

It read 8:02pm.

"Alias, isn't Lyra supposed to be back by now?" He asked, eyes still focused on the door.

However, the awaited response from the Artificial house assistant never came. Adam's lips went dry and his heart thumped so fast in his chest, he could almost hear it boring out of his skin.

Fear gripped him, and he slowly took a step backwards. At that moment, he felt eyes staring at him from the darkness of the night.

The lights flickered, before going dark completely.

"Who's there?" Adam asked and fumbled to grab something he could use as protection, anything!

Then, suddenly, his eyes caught sight of something in a far, distant area. Outside, beyond the confines of his hilltop house, a blinding light streaked across the sky and rapidly descended into the heart of the city.

Boom!

The deafening shockwave travelled far and wide, causing the entire middle ring to quake. Adam staggered and grabbed on to a cabinet for support. The lights that had turned off flickered, before reverting to normal.

"What's happening?… Please, whoever is doing this, please stop." Adam's lungs were choked with forthcoming tears.

"Lyra, is this a prank? Please… I don't like this… I don't like this at all." He pleaded from the bottom of his heart. As the strange events unfolded, Adam was reminded of a fear that had been buried deep in his heart.

A fear that didn't belong to him.. A fear he didn't understand.

Then, just when tears began to stream from his face, he heard a loud, shrill shriek. The shriek was painfully devastating, reminiscent of what he had heard when the vortex formed, however amplified by tenfold.

Adam grabbed his head in agony, screamed at the top of his lungs, but he couldn't even hear his own voice. A thick, red liquid ran down his ear hole instead.

Why? Why was he going through so much suffering? What had he done? Who across the vast universe had he offended?

Then, suddenly, he remembered the words of a mysterious elder;

"Your path is riddled with trials and adversities, young servant of God. It pains me to tell you, but you will encounter great suffering."

"Why?" The boy muttered as he huddled on the floor and clutched his knees. The shriek had subsided, but a loud ringing played on in his ears.

"Why me?"

..

Repeat.

After an unknown amount of time, Adam's eyes snapped open. He looked around groggily and realised it was daybreak. Had he been dreaming?

"This migraine is killing me…" He clicked his tongue and rubbed his eyes.

With his head still banging, he rose to his feet and exhaled slowly.

From this position, he was directly in front of the glass wall, and what he saw made his entire being freeze with terror.

Oblivion. Destruction. Annihilation.

The city was on fire, or better put– what remained of the city was engulfed in bright, scorching flames.

There were no blue lights that whoosed about, no network of tubes that formed a network throughout the city. The entire view beyond his house had been reduced to rust and mechanical scraps.

Adam, in a terrified daze, slowly walked towards the door of his house. He descended the slope and arrived at the edge of the city. He was barefooted, but he didn't even realise. His brain had partly shut down, a defence mechanism to prevent him from going mad.

But, maybe he had already devolved into insanity a long time ago.

Adam just kept walking till he reached the city streets. The billowing smoke rained ash, and some stuck to his face. But he kept walking.

By his left, to his right, he could see bodies. Bodies that were severed in half, bodies that had been decapitated, or lumps of flesh and steel that stuck splat to the wall. There was no trace of a single breathing human in sight.

A massacre.

Adam turned his gaze from a certain corpse hanging from a large electrical cord and looked ahead. Suddenly, he froze. A muffled cry escaped his lips and his knees buckled.

"Please, no…" Adam shook his head slowly. "Please, this isn't real. This isn't real…" He repeated with quivering lips and reddened eyes.

Ahead, a few feet from where he knelt, there was a metal rod sticking from the ground. On the tip of the rod was a severed head that bore the face of someone Adam considered his friend. His only family. His sister.

Lyra. She was dead.