Quadra Kill

~PRESENT

My villa smelled like my uncle's hospital. I had called Uncle Tyson to come over and help the mysterious man I saw in that alley. I watched him assess the man's head injuries. 

"Get me a pair of scissors. I need to remove his shirt," my uncle said to Lilith, my housekeeper. I watched her scurry to the kitchen to get what my uncle had asked for. In less than a minute, she returned with the scissors.

Uncle Tyson collected them from her and handed them to me. "Cut his shirt open and be careful, he might have deep cuts on his abdomen." At first, I was hesitant, but seeing his bloodied body made me do it. I took the scissors and carefully started cutting his shirt open. Finally, after a few careful cuts, his chest and abdomen were exposed. And holy fuck, there were so many cuts and bruises.

Luckily, he hadn't been stabbed, but there was a curved cut that ran along his left lower torso towards the middle of his torso. It was oozing with so much blood. Unexplainable anger filled me, along with sadness and hurt.

Without waiting for my uncle's instructions, I ordered Lilith to get me a clean cloth and a bowl of water. In no time, she provided what I had asked for. Without wasting time, I moved to start cleaning the bleeding injuries while my uncle made sure his neck and spine were stable, just in case his head injury affected his spine.

After cleaning the blood, I proceeded to use a sterile gauze and applied antiseptic on it to prevent any infection.

I was so focused on dressing his wounds that I didn't notice I had already started crying, not until Lilith started rubbing my back gently.

Why was I crying again? It was so absurd.

I looked at my uncle, and I knew he wanted to ask if I knew the man personally, and I simply shook my head before he could say anything.

He replied, "After we're done taking care of his wounds, tell me what happened. Continue dressing those cuts for now." I nodded and continued dressing his wounds. He moved a bit when the gauze touched the center of his abdomen, the cut seemed deeper there.

I looked at the face of the mysterious man, and another tear dropped. I was so glad it was just my two personal bodyguards, my housekeeper, butler, and my uncle that were with me.

I continued to apply the antiseptic on his cuts and blew air on it whenever he flinched. After disinfecting it, I placed a gauze on each of his wounds and wrapped bandages around them.

He only had the bruises on his left arm. We hadn't checked his legs for any fractures or bruises. As soon as I remembered, I moved to take his pants off without thinking.

I was about to open the button to his pants when I realized what I was doing. My guards, butler, and Lilith all had their eyes wide open. I could see, "What is she doing?" written on their foreheads. My uncle was focused on wrapping the bandage around the mysterious guy's head, so he didn't see what I was about to do.

I cleared my throat and ordered Mike, one of my personal bodyguards, to get me a towel from the guest room. When he came back with the towel, I was already done tending to the bruises on his arm and gave my uncle the towel, meaning he should tend to the bruises on his legs if he had any. "Lilith and I will go prepare his room," I said before dragging Lilith with me to the biggest bedroom on the last floor.

I was standing by the door of the room when I told Lilith, "You can prepare the room while I go shower. I look like a bloody mess," again, but I didn't say the last part out loud. Without waiting for a response from her, I walked towards the elevator, I was too tired to take the stairs.

I stepped into the glass elevator and hit the top floor button. There were three rooms on that floor: my bedroom, my gaming room, and my case solving room.

Once the elevator reached the first floor, I headed to my room. Immediately upon entering, I went straight to my bathroom. I took off my clothes in the bathroom and went directly to the shower. I needed a cold shower, not a hot bath.

I loosened my ponytail and let my hair down. I turned on the big ceiling-mounted rainfall showerhead, making it feel like it was raining.

I watched the drainage as the water washed away all the blood I had gotten on my body and all the unexplainable tears I had shed today. Today, I should've been happy, but unexpectedly, seeing that man made me more than sad.

Who was that man?

Why were those men thrashing him like that?

I lowered my head and kept thinking these thoughts with the water running over my head.

After staying under the shower for a whole thirty minutes, I scrubbed my body again. I washed the soap away and proceeded to dry myself off. I blow dried my hair and went into my walk-in closet to put on some comfy clothes.

I tied my hair in a messy bun and put on my glasses. They were anti blue light glasses that I used whenever I was ready to face the screen and play a few matches. I got out of my room and headed towards the gaming room.

I called Lilith and told her to bring some snacks I could chew on while playing. She knew the only snacks I wanted were gummy bears, Maltesers, and apple juice.

In my gaming room, the ceiling was designed to look like clouds with blue, purple, and red LED lighting, adding a surreal touch to the room. There were multiple monitors on a desk, and on the screen were the icons of the games I played the most: League of Legends, Honor of Kings, Mobile Legends, PUBG, Call of Duty, and Onmyoji Arena, each ready for me to play. My black and red gaming chair was positioned in front of these monitors. My gaming mouse, headphones, and keyboard were placed in front of the monitors.

The walls were adorned with hexagonal light panels and neon designs. A large screen displayed a dynamic, abstract green pattern. Shelves and drawers around the room held various gaming-related items and decorations. In the drawers, I kept different gaming mice, new headphones, and my controllers.

On the shelves, I had a few gaming tutorial books, some figurines, and other cool stuff, including a sign that said "GAME ON CUNT." I also had a well designed, reflective floor.

There was a black couch with black pillows and a blanket. My dog was lying on the couch. I had been wondering where he had disappeared to.

My gaming room was basically one every gamer would drool over. I showed my mum after I got it designed, and she said, "waste of money." I replied with a, "not your money, ma," which made her roll her eyes.

I settled down in my gaming chair, ready to play Onmyoji Arena. The last time I played, my rank had dropped. I needed to raise my rank higher. Just as i got the first blood, someone entered. It was Uncle Ty, and he brought my snack.

No doubt he wanted to ask about the mysterious man I brought home. We had never seen him before. "Start talking, Tiger. How, where, why, what's happened? I want to know everything."

He dropped the bowl close to where my hand could reach. I picked three gummy bears and ate them as I watched my uncle get another gaming chair so he could sit beside me.

My expression was blank.

"I can't talk while playing, especially when there's a team battle going on." He took his glasses off and gave me the "really?" look.

Double kill. Triple kill. Quadra kill. I wanted to wipe out the whole team, but then, "You have been slain" was all I got. Sad.

"You have 40 seconds before you resurrect. That's more than enough time for you to tell me what happened," he said while taking off my headphones.

I turned in my chair to face him. I stared. That's it. I just stared at him with a blank expression. "Well, talk."

Nothing.

"Tiger, I won't tell your mum or dad," he said, hoping I would talk, but that wasn't enough.

"I promise I won't tell anyone unless you permit me to." Instead of giving him a response, I turned to face the monitor. I was back in the game. I needed to take Orochi and then kill the members of the other team. Their mage killed me.

I heard my uncle sigh, and finally, I decided to tell him. "I don't know him. I've never seen him until this night. I was coming back from the party in the court. On Georgia Street, there's an alley close to the river. I saw him there. He was surrounded by three guys. They were all armed. They caused the cuts, bruises, everything. It was all them."

As I told Uncle Ty about the assault, the anger in me kept bubbling. I angrily wiped out all the enemies in the game at once. I didn't know why I was angry. Probably because they hurt him and almost killed him. Probably because I didn't go out earlier to help him from them. I knew how to fight thanks to someone. But I couldn't take on those three men alone. I would've died along with the mysterious man. I could've done something. Something to stop them. Maybe he wouldn't have fainted. Maybe he wouldn't have fractured his skull. Maybe he wouldn't have had those bruises.

For some reason, I was blaming myself.

"Do you recognize the men? Anything familiar, and did you hear anything relating to why they thrashed him like that?"

I looked at my uncle with anger burning in my eyes. "No, I don't know them. And they didn't just trash him. They almost killed him, and I couldn't do anything. I couldn't stop them. I sat in the car and cried silently like a dumb baby." After spitting out those words, I faced the monitor and continued the game. I was so close to winning.

"Now, why did my Tiger cry? The only things that make you cry these days are onions." I was so tempted to look at him and flip him off. Instead, I stuffed my mouth with Maltesers.

The game went on for another fifteen minutes, and my teammates and I had already destroyed 8 of the enemy's towers. Instead of going for the last tower, we went for their crystal instead. And we won. I was the MVP, with a total of twenty-three kills, one death, and seven assists.

I left the lobby and turned to face my uncle. "I don't know why I cried so much today because of the man. But all I want to do now is find those men and make them beg for death. And I will find them."

My uncle didn't say anything else. He stayed with me until he saw the time was already 11 PM. He gave me a soft kiss on my forehead and left after saying good night.

My guards would make sure he got home safe, so I wasn't worried about him. I played until 12:30 since I had nowhere to be the next day. Technically, I had nowhere to be for the rest of the week. So, I had more than enough time to sleep and visit my case-solving room again.

While playing my last match for the night, I contemplated whether I should go check up on the man or just go to bed.

After thinking and arguing with myself for five whole minutes, I settled for the latter