Chapter 60: 3.9

“I want to show this to the world,” a woman spoke in the video, her voice a bit choppy. Might be a cheap phone. She breathed heavily as she ran after the two monsters ransacking Serenade Bazaar to record them.

I could tell she was on the second floor from the view of her camera looking down on me and the snake mutant fighting from store to store. This was the reason I didn’t see her; that and I was too focused on killing the mutant. Good thing she had the presence of mind to go up and have some semblance of safety while she did the insensible thing of chasing after murderous monsters.

She turned her phone’s camera and showed her face. “That Adumbrae you see there. The woman in red. She was inside my shop. I thought she was going to kill me.”

Hey, I know you! It was the woman managing that bizarre occult store selling Anti-Adumbrae products that were probably a scam. I was happy I recognized a person I met only once that I absolutely didn’t care about. Usually, I couldn’t recognize even people I met every day, like those in this building. To be fair, this woman had a really…peculiar…appearance, an almost ghost-like complexion, while sporting those mystical earrings on her ears and lips.

She continued explaining, “But she didn’t kill me. I even tried to hit her with this.” She showed that stupid iron brand she wielded when we met. “There was no reaction from her. The symbol of Dolor should have caused intense pain to the impure of heart, however, it didn’t affect her! What could it mean?” she said dramatically. “Now look!”

The view was once again on me and the snake mutant. Memories of the fight came back as I watched the video.

Both of us came out of Hardy’s Hardware Store. I was just done “shopping”, carrying rakes and pitchforks from the gardening section. My problem with the mutant was that it wouldn’t die because of the tons of heads it had inside its body. And I needed to stop it while I ate it.

After I caught up with it, I proceeded to pin it to the ground with various gardening implements, taking a page out of the book of the mysterious spear user.

“Look at that!” the occult lady said, as I did to the mutant what I did to the poor frog in biology class back in high school, but with rakes instead of pins. “She’s fighting this other Adumbrae. She saved me from it!”

Saved you? What was she talking about? The snake mutant didn’t go to her store. She was the one who chased me. But I wasn’t one to turn down getting credit for something I didn’t do.

She gasped as I ripped open the mutant’s body and the heads spilled out. The mutant was still fighting back. I started gorging on it so that my “eating” would be considered part of fighting and wouldn’t come under Rule #2. I heard the woman mumbling a prayer. The camera was shaking. Maybe she knew something about the heads? Or she thought she knew something bad about them.

Then the police drones arrived.

I was able to bring down one of the flying drones with a well-aimed throw using one of the creepy heads. I clapped and cheered myself on in the video. I nearly forgot about that part. I realized just how great I was at throwing stuff. I also hit Mr. Snake with a huge globe, and I hit Mr. Ogre in the arena with an axe. That was three for three. When the shooting began, the occult lady ran away, and that was the end of it.

I checked the other posts on the page to learn more about this woman and this SVS group.

It was absolute garbage.

This woman went by the alias of “Initiate Reginus”, maybe a nod to Corebring Initiates. I couldn’t find what her real name was. She was one of the founders of SVS, a group of random delusional people who presented themselves as prospective Corebrings Initiates yet to be given a chance by the Mother Core, trying to find ways to combat the Adumbrae menace on their own.

These 'ways' were a combination of pseudoscience and the occult. They obviously weren't related to any official groups fighting Adumbrae and didn’t seem to be affiliated with any of the major Corebring worshipping religions.

I didn’t know what to make of them. It was good no one really cared about their articles like “Top Ten House Plants to Ward Off Adumbrae”, “Is Your Neighbor an Adumbrae?”, and “Find Out Which Overseer You Should Worship.” The posts on their page barely had any comments or reactions, and they seemed to be a small group no one paid any attention to.

Until now.

The video of Reginus—I was just going to call her that for now—drew thousands to their Snippet page. This was going to be fun! Maybe social media wasn’t too bad.

Once again, my phone buzzed.

I scowled as I picked it up.

Phew, it was just the pizza guy. “Yey, unhealthy food!” I said, excitedly skipping to the door. Deen must’ve thought I was already asleep.

I had to go down to get my food because the management didn’t allow delivery people to go up. The resident key card was required to be able to use the elevator. This condominium was a bit on the expensive and exclusive side, which was a wonder why that stupid ATM wasn’t fixed yet.

“Ugh,” I said as I jogged through the corridor. There was a foul smell. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was.

I rushed to the elevator to escape it. I hoped this wouldn’t ruin my appetite. It would be entertaining to read the comments of the people on the video while eating pizza—that was if the video wasn’t taken down yet.

“Shit,” I muttered, “I should’ve downloaded it.” But the elevator door already closed and the floor numbers started ticking down. I guess I could still find another copy of the video later.

Alone in the elevator, I considered the implications of getting caught on video. When I was in the mall, I avoided the crew from TV5 because it was way better for survival to keep a low profile. The BID would have less information on me. Perhaps more importantly, the 2Ms wouldn’t know I was still hanging around the city. Was someone able to inform them I was in the club before the BID raid commenced? I imagine they’d be furious if they knew their wolf nemesis that destroyed their base at the docks was also present at the club.

But here we are now.

I didn’t have the power to turn back time.

Still, I was very happy with the video. I looked like an absolute badass!

I wasn’t the type to seek attention from the public at large because that'd mean I wanted validation from people...people I didn’t care about. Attention-seeking equated to giving value to the thoughts of others, and that was dumb. The only time I cared about the impressions of people was when it was connected to the persona I was cultivating. Normally, when I built a face, it was only for a person or a small group. I'd take into account the personalities of those people to tailor the perfect face to present to them to further my goals.

I hadn't yet made a face to present to literally everyone—I think that would be like the politicians or something, the ones who needed a face to take advantage of a large number of people.

Me? I was satisfied with my small social circle. How would you control the reaction of people you hadn’t even met? I used to shudder at the thought of that lack of control over my face. Maybe I'd be able to learn that skill someday.

In this instance, however, my Blanchette face was shown to the world. Come to think of it, this was my first face shown to the ‘public’, in some sense.

Did I do a good job on it?

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Since this was the first face I showed to the general public, albeit an actual supernatural transformation instead of a persona, I was concerned with how it would be built. My transformation was meant to be a badass fighter, monstrous even, dangerous and feral. Beautiful and deadly at the same time. And the video uploaded by Reginus showed exactly that. I was satisfied with her work. Maybe, when Serenade Bazaar opened again, I could buy something from her store as thanks.

When I exited the elevator on the ground floor, I spotted that woman who seemingly hated Deen. She didn’t so much as glance my way when I passed by her. She was too busy complaining about something to the janitor.

“—I just moved in and the hallway on my floor stinks! I’ve already called the attention—”

I shrugged my shoulders. If Deen was here, would she go to the aid of the poor, bullied janitor? Or was she the type to join in complaining? Not my problem. Well, it kinda was, but the smell didn’t enter my room. I could enjoy my pizza in peace.

Speaking of pizza, here was another random person I could recognize by face—the pizza delivery guy.

In the entire condominium lobby, there was only one sofa that had a view of the hallway leading to the elevators, and he always sat on that spot. If it was occupied, he would stand somewhere where he could immediately see me. When he spotted me exiting the elevator, he stood up straight like he was a soldier and a general passed by.

“Hi there, uh, Ramon,” I said, reading his nameplate. He always wore his nameplate from the time he noticed I would mention his name only when he had it on.

He smiled at me. “Good evening, Miss Erind.” I never gave him my name, but it was on the credit card I used to order, so it wasn’t like it was a secret. Other girls might find this creepy. I just let him be. If he was around, my pizza always got delivered quickly. “Here’s your order.”

“Thanks,” I said, taking it from him.

“I’m always amazed you could eat this all by yourself,” he hastily said before I could turn away.

“Hey, you shouldn’t say that to girls.”

“Err, sorry. I was just thinking if what you said was true. That you could eat it all—”

“I could!” I protested playfully. I may be wrong here, but I assumed he had a crush on me. I noticed he started acting extra nice to me when I told him the pizza I ordered was all for myself. “Why would I lie about that? I'd say if I had friends over, or even a boyfriend to help me eat, which I don’t.”

“You don’t have a boyfriend?” His face beamed upon hearing that. Then he quickly pulled back. “Um, sorry. That was too personal.”

He wasn’t bad-looking, but he was way younger than me. I think he had mentioned he was just starting college and took up part-time jobs to pay for it. Admirable and all, but too young for me. I did flirt with him once in a while to make him happy…and to make sure he keeps being nice to me and promptly delivered my food. “Yes, you shouldn’t ask that of your customers,” I told him sternly.

“Sorry,” he said. “I should get goi—” He sniffed the air. “What’s that smell?”

“Huh?” I smelled myself.

“Not you!” he hastily corrected the misunderstanding. “I was saying there’s an odd smell. And it just got stronger.”

“You’re saying it’s me.” I pouted in a cutesy way, but I also sniffed the air, concerned I gave off a weird smell. Not body odor…but something related to being an Adumbrae.

“No, no, no!” He inhaled again, then gagged. “Like there’s something that died. Like dried blood of a dead animal…I’m not sure.”

“I don’t know. Maybe a dead rat. They’ll clean that up soon. I’ll go up now.”

“Uh, yeah.” He looked dismayed. “Maybe next I can help you eat—”

“Huh?” I said, raising my brow. You’re going to ask me out? Was he out of his fucking mind?

“Nothing,” he said. He pulled his cap low to hide his face reddening with embarrassment. He rushed to the doors, slipped, and fell on the floor.

Fine. I was feeling magnanimous. I set my pizza down on the sofa and hurried over. “Are you okay?” I said, extending my hand to him.

He didn’t accept it but picked himself up as quickly as he could. “I’m fine,” he mumbled and rushed out of the building.

“Heh,” I said. I bet he'd regret not accepting my hand when he had time to think about it. I already offered him a bone, yet he refused it. “Oh well, time to go back up.”

The foul smell was no longer there when I got to my floor. I was concerned it was something connected to me when the pizza guy mentioned it. Like what if some substance from the snake mutant stuck to me after I transformed back to my cute self? But Deen didn’t mention anything, so it must be something with the place, not me.

I checked the Snippet page again of Reginus and her SVS group and found that it was blocked. “Wow, they act fast,” I said. I wasn’t sure what the BID was trying to hide, but they had their work cut out for them. People were going to spread that video.

What to do now? Seven p.m., still early. I had plenty of time to relax. Let’s say about three and a half hours. I could waste time binging a new series while pigging on pizza, maybe squeeze in an hour or so of nap in there, then I’d go out.

Where?

To the place where Vanessa died.

I swear I was just going to pay respects to my deceased friend. Or…maybe poke around and see if I could enter the tunnels below.

We’ll see.

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