A foreign identity 2

" How did you find this place? "

A man in beard stared deep into his soul with shady eyes.

--

That morning he woke up in a small apartment, which was empty except for a bed.

Morning sunlight filtered through venetian blinds, casting striped shadows on him.

The light was too bright. He didn't like that.

It was second time he had woken up in a strange place.

His life had changed. Now he was in the city and everyday he was guided to certain people unavoidably.

The end of left street, behind the garbage can in the alley.~

Those omniscient voices guided him again, with a touch of rage.

[ No freedom..maybe there's something else that has some influence over me.. ]

A sharp twinge made him frown.

He had no liberty to have thoughts.

It didn't matter who they were. The voices demanded blood and he couldn't disobey.

Even a slight force made the cans crack. Behind those, was a small square hole in the wall, which was temporarily covered.

Upon noticing, one could even hear noises coming from the other side of the wall. And as the cans were displaced from the front, the light penetrated through the gaps between the manually covered hole that left the place with dead silence.

" Who sent you? How did you know this place? "

A man in beard, after scanning him, removed the cover and asked with a dull voice.

No one had ever come to this window without notice. No one even knew about it unless the ones interested contacted the particular bookshop first, where a man would inform them in advance about a possible visitor and then would give this address to the person.

They hadn't been informed about this visitor earlier. That meant that this young man knew about this from a certain source.

He was a potential danger to them.

" I'm Ron, a gamer in disguise. "

" Do we expect a gamer? A bastard named Ron..? "

The man shouted to the people around him. After a while, as one of the men nodded, he squinted his eyes at the visitor.

" Wait until someone comes and escorts you here " And the window was closed.

The wait was long but the voices kept him company, never silent.

His eyes calm and dry, were staring deep at the wild fern grown inside a crack on the opposite wall. A streak of smoke emerged from the greenest leaf, a black shadow devouring the rest one by one.

When the healthiest leaf of the plant turned to ashes at his mere gaze, what could possibly those pants do by sending their most vicious underling?

They might have assumed the same way. His aura was indeed strong.

He turned to look behind him, at a man ready with his weapon to split open this visitor's head.

An eye- contact burnt down those gnarly eyes before the weapon could land, similar streaks of smoke escaped from his empty sockets.

He shrieked with pain, thrashing about on the ground.

Another man at the corner, terrorized with the unsightly scene he witnessed, lowered his head to avoid the eye contact and spoke in a forceful incoherent voice,

" You may follow me. I can lead you to where that place is. "

Though he was not guiding him but racing.

He was certainly to blame when the visitor was successfully escorted to the place. Upon interrogation, he made up a lie, favouring the beast he had seen devouring his partner. At the end, he was released with a warning.

But the time did not go well for another gamer at a PC in the secret room. The place was a hidden base for various shady businesses, making illegal money.

This visitor had a sole purpose of killing a gamer with green eyes.

But he didn't even need to confirm, as directed by those voices.

He pulled out the long pull-door handle of entrance door while entering.

Here we go again

He thought inattentively, right before interjecting the handle shaft through the gamer's head, just adjacent to his spine.

The gamer coughed up blood, the blood splattered on the screen displaying ' you lost '.

That was when those dying green eyes looked at the reflection on the blackened screen.

[ I- I knew it! ]

Green-eyed lad recalled the game he had played yesterday night.

He had no doubts.

[ That stare...I felt it through the screen. It wasn't a simulation- it was real...I knew he was watching me ]

How could they possibly introduce a character like that?

[ I just did not expect it to be so soon]

The screen of the PC darkened further and finally turned off. The reflection of a young man behind him was smudged, the body was already half dissipated.

He was a young, handsome fellow. With so much potential. Just what made him that way.

The gamer's eyes closed and his body was found later with no trace of the visitor they had let in.

*****