Chapter 11: 09 | escape; to break everything

Whatever creature the mother appeared as was something straight out of a person's nightmares.

The dim lights from within the glass chambers flickered violently, casting an eerie glow that highlighted the creature's sharp edges.

Protruding white bones that stuck out in various places, and impossibly long limbs that tangled with each other as she stumbled forward. The blue casting in the darkness made her seem to glow, while a beautiful woman face attached to a long, slender neck.

"Danny." 

It sung in a sweet, syrupy voice.

"Danny, come here."

"Danny. Danny. Danny. Danny. Danny. Danny.""

Her beautiful, wide eyes peeked out around the corner, close to the towering ceiling. Like her creepy son, she didn't blink and continued to watch them as the dangling limbs swung around, scraping against the ground.

Lucas glanced over, repulsed. However, his target wasn't the bony woman, or the child that had scampered to a corner with a terrible expression—

—it was the man before him.

A kick, a swing. Left, right. Dodge. Attack.

He gasped, the glide of dark metal narrowly scraping past his eyes.

The slender sword cut a sharp arc through the air, thrusting forward. Lucas had noticed it earlier, not questioning the weirdness of it considering the situation they were in. It almost didn't seem solid, with whispering shadows floating at the edges as if a mirage.

He ducked, a few strands of hair pitifully cut off. Kicking his leg from under him as he grabbed for the sword, using the other's wrist to swing at the woman, who had approached.

They fought around the woman that was sliding closer, helping and attacking each other simultaneously.

When the creature's long nail stabbed at him, the other used his sword to block it. When the creature lunged at the other, Lucas slid past and knocked it to the ground.

The man laughed loudly, amusement clouding his deep blue eyes. "What's your plan, darling?"

Lucas scowled, continuing his rain of attacks. One after the other. A fist against a sword. It was clear who the loser would be, but the man seemed to be taunting him with the blade rather than striking to kill.

Well, Lucas' aim wasn't to win.

Though the resilience of this man was irritating, persistent and unavoidable. Like a damn weed, decided Lucas, as he twisted away once more.

A sharpness scrapped into his flesh, digging at the meat inside before he winced, leaping away from the woman's hold. A wound gaped open on his arm, leaving a disgusting and bloody pool of red.

He wouldn't die from it, and he had a feeling that his physical ability increased slightly since the Cinderella Story.

But it significantly impacted his ability, his mind blurring from the pain. Of course, his plan was never to escape on his own—his current strength wouldn't allow for it. 

Thankfully, a perfect sacrifice was there to help him out.

A rain of cuts decorated Lucas' pale skin as he huffed, looking at the other whose clothing was also ripped and bleeding from various edges.

The woman cackled, her neck twisting upside down until her head grossly flipped, dangling in the air. It was straight out of a horror movie, that even Lucas' expression distorted at the sight. 

Wrinkled, broken flaps of skin, and the sickening crunch of bones as she twisted and jerked. He even made out the mess of open chunks from the gaping wound.

"Danny, don't be disobedient. Don't you want to be a good boy?" She was like a spider, crawling forward. "Danny, do what I say. Come here, and be a good boy."

The little boy shook his head quickly, gulping. "I don't wanna wake up."

"Danny!" Her bony fingers stretched closer.

The child scampered away. "I wanna play."

"Danny, listen to me!"

She leaped into the air, mangled body jerking forward as the boy covered his small head, shaking it violently. Before she could reach, a blurry shadow appeared in an instant.

The man swung his sword, slicing off two chunks of her curved limbs. "I think we both know he doesn't want to."

Her scream filled the air, but the man was relentless, slicing and cutting into her as if she were a mound of ground meat. The black sword split in half as it thrusted out, connected by wispy swings that controlled it's movement. 

Lucas narrowed his eyes, watching the floating strands that wrapped along the handle of the sword, down and weaving between the man's fingers.

The strange, smiling boy rushed forward, panicked. However, Lucas tilted his head back with a glare that made the child run to the corner, unable to do anything but giggle and cry.

Eventually, all that was left was her quivering corpse, and the protruding white bones that stuck in the air from the cut up flesh.

He straightened his back, and tipped his chin to lazily glance back at Lucas. His fingers wiped a smudge of blood off now crimson lips.

It was like a death sentence.

First, he approached the curled up boy who was rocking back and forth on his feet. The man crouched down, blood still splattered over his body. He scrutinized the child for a moment, unbothered by the warped expression that teetered between helpless snickers and choked sobs.

"You killed my mommy?" shivered Danny.

The man nodded. "Deader than dead."

Lucas fell silent listening to the conversation. "....."

The man pointed to the corpse, poking it with his blade. "Is that really your mommy? She looks awfully scary."

"...my mommy is very beautiful."

"Your perception of beauty is very screwed." said the man honestly. "Tell me, are you awake right now, boy? The fishes look almost drawn, as if purely from your imagination. And your mother is definitely unique, don't you think?"

Panic flickered in the beady eyes as his tiny hands grasped the man's arm desperately. "I'm not dreaming! No, no, no!"

"Should I wake you up?"

He slowly lifted the sword with a careless move of his arm; the boy scurrying back, terrified. The deep voice mimicking childish speech bounced off the walls.

"Don't wanna, don't wanna, don't wanna!"

Lucas had a warning throb in his chest, but before he could move, the sword slammed past him, ramming into the glass. Cornered and pressed to the railing, with a gaping wound that grotesquely continued to bleed.

The man had moved at a speed he wasn't prepared for, especially with his wounds.

"Are you willing to answer me now?"

The man's arm pressed against his throat dangerously. There was a careless teasing in his voice, but Lucas had a feeling that these lighthearted words were something to take completely seriously. "Who are you?"

The reflection of the water calmly rippled off their skin in the narrow passage, and he felt the cold bars digging against his back. It made his breath restless and strained, the mutilated corpse behind proof of the creeping danger that approached.

Lucas' expression didn't change. "I'll be the final survivour of this damn apocalypse. Nice to meet you."

The greeting was in a way, laced with challenge and provocation.

One dedicated to the person before him.

The man laughed, his grip pushing the sword deeper as cracks spread along the glass, spreading across until Lucas could see them reaching above his head. "I don't know if I'd quite call this a nice  meeting."

"You're right. I didn't want to meet you."

Another flirtatious laugh. "I was going to say it was a wonderful meeting, actually."

"It wasn't." Lucas looked disgusted at the idea, and the other felt as if he should be somewhat offended.

"I thought we were going to help each other escape?"

"We were."

The man stared at him calmly, then back at the child. "I have a hypothesis. If I tell you the objective, will you tell me how you planned to help?"

Lucas raised his eyebrow before spinning out of the other's grasp, snatching the guns at his belt and jerking them up to the fine cracks along the glass.

One eye closed, the other aimed with precision for a center where they all gathered, successfully striking it as the bullet pierced into the fragile material.

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Water begun to spill, and he turned to fire a few more rounds at the most concentrated areas of breakage. 

"The easiest way to leave a place with no exit?" said Lucas calmly, a fire blazing in those cloudy eyes, as if painted with life within the chaos. 

"You make your own."

A man who could be bound by no rules.

The glass shattered, and water rushed in violently, starting from small spills to loud, rushing streams.

It turned out that the glow, the dim light, came not from within the aquarium walls but instead from the water itself, the faint hue of mystical blue pooling at their feet.

Lucas walked over to lift the boy up, gazing at the other from down the hall, liquid lapping against their ankles. They were a reasonable distance apart, and the other's shoulders shook from light laughter from where he stood in overwhelming stride, yanking the sword back out.

It collapsed into a pile of thread that looped around his wrist, mimicking a simple bracelet. Lucas frowned. For a weapon like that to be found this early in the apocalypse... it was near impossible.

There was an odd tranquility laid upon them, trickles of red drowned away by the deep blue.

The man looked around at the mess created, and the fish that spilled onto the floor, looking as if they were made from thick paper. "This was your plan?"

"It worked."

It was actually quite risky, considering they didn't know the true objective. But unlike Cinderella's Story which had a set objective and rules to follow, Lucas decided to do as he pleased here.

Why follow common sense? When life was all about doing the unpredictable.

"The objective was easy to determine, a common tale of a boy who never got his childhood, and a controlling mother." mused the man. "If this world is created by that child's desire, then you were right. There wouldn't be an exit—he doesn't want to return to the real world."

"There's an adult in this body." said Lucas, looking over at the unblinking boy that sat in his arms.

"Wouldn't it count as a loss if we end up drowning here, though?"

"The objective isn't to help him reach his missing childhood, or to escape from his mother." Lucas tapped on the child's head lightly with a sigh. "It's probably to wake him up from this delusion. He kept repeating that he doesn't want to wake up—meaning he's dreaming. It wasn't escape the maze, it was escape the dream."

"Do you think he loved his mother?"

The question was unexpected, but oddly enough, Lucas sensed no hostility at the lazy man. "...he probably feared her, but he must've also loved her. Regardless, her actions made her existence an unrivaled nightmare to the boy."

The other contemplated the answer in a comfortable silence.

"I thought the same, but what if you were wrong?"

The water reached their waist now, and the glass had completed fallen apart. The distance between them is far, but Lucas almost felt as if the conversation was happening only a breath away, with the fixated gaze certain and curious.

Lucas shrugged indifferently. "Then we'd die together."

"I'm flattered that you wanted to die with me."

"You're not significant enough for me to care either way."

Although their conversation was casual, both observed the other party with caution. Lucas lived life the way he wanted, only remaining a part of the gang because his existence was irreplaceable, and that he had freedom to do most things he wanted.

The leader never reprimanded him or forced him to cross a line that he was unwilling.

He'd been curious, actually, how he could do as he pleased and never get in trouble. Well, it wasn't as if some of the other members didn't try to reason with him and enforce the gang's structure and rules.

The only thing was, they couldn't get him to agree unless they beat it into him.

And they definitely tried.

The point was, Lucas never forgot about the tattoo during the entire time. An ace and a crown. The facts were neatly presented before him, and he couldn't pretend to not notice, even if he wanted to.

His hand habitually went around his neck, only to find empty space where the ring should've been.

"You..." His head snapped up, eyes sharpening threateningly. Across from him, slender fingered twirled a piece of metal in their leisure grasp.

Ocean eyes flickered, and a ghost of a smile stretched on those beautiful features. There was no way to run or grab it with their distance and the water that almost submerged them completely. A dark and somber atmosphere in this space of three.

Of course Lucas couldn't mess with a person like this and not face the consequences.

[A conclusion has met the requirements!]

He read the words from the man's lips. 

A name—Elias. And irritating words that followed.

"Did you want this, darling?"

The Story was crumbling apart, and their separation was inevitable.

[The Soul Story of 'Lost Childhood' is closing...]

There was another villain that would terrorize society, in ways worst than Nora could ever. Because if she was inherently good, the man was cruelty in the flesh.

When Lucas wrote him, the person had been a mystery even Lucas didn't know how to describe. 

Somebody that seemed to be created from his nightmares, a careless, heartless villain spilling onto the paper displaying a personality even an author couldn't control.

Elias would fall from his role of the Ace King after losing to Kane, and find unimaginable power elsewhere. From murdering humans, to murdering creatures, he would excel at both.

As if the world's destruction was a game to him.

And perhaps it was, when the man's sole desire seemed to be luring people to death, like a grim reaper leading foolish souls to their demise.

At some point, he even disappeared in Lucas' novel, and the latter didn't know where he'd gone. The name never crossed Lucas' mind again, and the character became forgotten.

He'd drawn Elias, once.

Splotches of black ink, and a face that couldn't be made out. A hazy image that depicted condensed arrogance and power, giving the viewer an unpleasant chill along their skin.

But Lucas knew things about this man, even outside of the novel. In fact, it was because of their faint connection through the gang that he even considered forming a deal.

Without a doubt, Elias could be the most powerful ally, or the most terrible enemy.

[The soul story 'Lost Childhood' has closed!]

Night-black hair that elegantly fell upon his defined face carved from the finest jewel, with eyes that peeked through the delicate strands in their piercing stare of promising threats. Eyes of the deepest ocean, sharp and unrelenting while hiding a myriad of secrets in their bottomless depths.

A person who could ruin another with laughter spread across his lips.

Lucas had heard of this man. This person who was above him, and all others, ruthlessly watching from the top as he controlled people like puppets.

He who held the title of the Ace King, the Puppeteer of Life.

On the other side, Elias stared back in the same calm and the sparkling waters reflected off his eyes in their subtle glow.

An expression that was calm yet sought mischief, seeming to be uncontrollable and undeniable, with wings stretched out across their cloudless snow eyes that allowed them to fly wherever, whenever. Decorated in careful yet reckless piercings and ink that added to a wild air.

Charming and deadly with a leisurely strut, and a rare smile that only promised violence.

Elias had heard of this man. This person who was under his command, yet unable to be commanded.

The Mad Dog of the Aces.

Lucas cursed in his mind. 'A damn annoyance.'

Elias raised a brow in amusement. 'This fool can only cause trouble.'

Their first impression—

—absolutely terrible.

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