An Ordinary Nostramo Rainy Night (Part 2)

The sky was pitch black, as it always was. The rain was the same, falling in an endless, relentless downpour. Nostramo rained often, yet there was never any thunder or lightning—only the manic, torrential curtain of water.

In Nostramo, that is simply how the rain works. It is not a product of nature. It is the wastewater dumped from the upper spires by the nobility.

Between the layered spires, countless heaters wait with infinite patience.

They have no consciousness, yet they are programmed. Throughout their existence, they wait for this rain, waiting for it to turn into condensed mist. In the final moments of their lives, this rain will rise once more, transformed into another form.

It passes through ancient machinery, transported silently through rumbling pipes, eventually becoming the warmth provided to the nobles, allowing them to dance in their magnificent palaces draped in nothing but human skin, without ever losing their composure.

This is the perfect description of the Nostramo ecosystem: the benefits belong to the nobles, while the people of the lower hive are fit only to have their skin scorched by acid rain, to be surrounded by stench, and to eventually rot as corpses in the gutters.

Karyl remained crouched upon that massive gargoyle, his cloak shielding him from the acid rain. Though the stench remained foul, it was bearable.

He stared down below, the chaos unfolding before his eyes bringing a cold, sharp smile to his pale face.

Just as he had expected, Wraith had made the mistake every fledgling hunter makes—he focused only on the enemies before him, forgetting to watch those still lurking in the shadows.

Carelessness is always the primary enemy.

Hunters may come and go in the darkness, but that does not mean the darkness embraces them. In truth, the darkness can turn into a monster at any moment, devouring their flesh and blood.

Karyl stood up, his cloak fluttering slightly in the wind. He had no intention of intervening, merely watching with cold, detached eyes.

As he had said, this was a hunt that belonged to Wraith alone.

However...

He shook his head with a cold sneer, a flash of deep, frigid blue light flickering in his eyes.

Run.

Wraith vaulted back and forth between the dark, damp walls. He scrambled with hands and feet, climbing one rooftop after another, leaping incessantly between tiles slick with rainwater.

Sometimes, uneasy, fearful whimpers would drift up from the tiles beneath his feet. But most of the time, it was bullets that greeted him.

Occasionally, he would fall, plunging into a pool of refuse or filthy sludge, only to scramble out in a disheveled mess and keep running.

He did not stop for a single moment.

Yet it was to no avail; the pursuers behind him had been chasing him for the better part of the night. As it stood, they showed no signs of stopping.

They pursued him relentlessly, relying on two-wheeled, high-speed vehicles to chase him through the streets. Wraith did not know the name of the machines, nor did he care to. He had more pressing matters to attend to.

Gunfire erupted in the rain, never ceasing.

Those bullets whistled past, several times grazing his scalp.

Brutal shouts drifted up from the streets below, mingling with the roar of engines. By the time they pierced the curtain of rain and reached Wraith's eardrums, they no longer sounded like human voices.

Wraith did not understand.

He did not understand why they were so persistent, nor why they were so crazed, and he certainly did not understand how they could possess such keen eyesight while being perpetually drugged out of their minds.

But...

Wraith thought, Karyl was not wrong.

He really should have kept quiet.

He had killed that woman, but there were more to kill. Karyl had said to clear out the entire gang. So, he had stepped out of that room and begun his slaughter within the gloomy three-story building.

Things had gone smoothly; no one had discovered him. He had taken the warmth of life away like a breeze drifting through a corridor. But he had forgotten one thing.

He had forgotten to close the window.

The storm howled inside, the gale catching the window and slamming it against the wall with a rhythmic thud. The floor had gradually soaked through with the foul, acidic rain, mixing with blood to seep into the carpet, eventually penetrating the floorboards and dripping onto someone's head below.

That was where things began to go wrong.

The moment the alarms and shouts pierced the night, Wraith realized something was happening. His instincts had always been sharp; he had immediately chosen to leave, but it was already too late.

He had been discovered.

At first, it was only a few scattered pursuers. Within minutes, they had grown to over thirty.

A mere half-hour later, that number had reached three digits. As for now, Wraith reckoned at least four different gangs were hunting him.

They didn't even know what had happened, but they loved to exercise violence.

It was a right bestowed upon them, the flip side of oppression, the conclusion of their misery.

They threw themselves into it with satisfaction, sprinting through the night for the flesh and blood of a stranger they had never met, roaring with excitement while slaughtering every innocent soul they encountered along the way.

There was no reason to be found.

It was like a carnival, and he was not a participant; he was the prize of the carnival, so he began to run.

Every human must learn to walk, and then to run; he was no exception. He had learned to run long ago, self-taught.

It was just that, in the past, his superhuman stamina had meant he had never felt the fatigue of running.

Now, Wraith felt it.

Breathing became difficult, and his heart hammered so fast that he could barely maintain his balance between strides.

His hearing began to fade, leaving behind only a monotonous drone. Rain poured from the sky, soaking his clothes and tracing winding lines across his pale skin.

Many of these lines crossed the corners of his eyes and dripped from his chin. To an ordinary person, they would have felt like burning acid, but to Wraith, they only felt warm.

Yet he did not want this. He did not want to be warmed by them.

As he ran, Wraith let out an involuntary, low growl.

It was born from his throat, yet it was unfamiliar to him. In the first second the sound emerged, he even mistakenly thought some monster was roaring at him from the darkness.

The next second, he realized it was his own voice.

--And then came the pain.

It swept across his back, agonizing and lethal, leaving him almost unable to resist, to breathe, or to keep his thoughts clear.

He no longer had the strength to maintain his balance; his hands flailed in the curtain of rain, and then he collapsed heavily onto a roof paved with asphalt.

I am bleeding, Wraith thought in agony.

He could not mistake this cruel fact; blood was, in a sense, no different from life itself. He cherished it, yet he was powerless to stop it from slipping away.

In a daze, Wraith actually heard their voices.

"Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. You foolish child, we are leaving you now. The darkness will embrace you. Welcome it."

No. Don't go. Please.

Wraith let out another muffled roar from his throat.

This was not the first time he had been struck by a bullet.

Long ago, when Wraith was still surviving on rats in a mine, he had been shot by the mine owner with a cheap firearm.

In the seconds after the projectile touched his flesh and brought him pain, Wraith—who couldn't even speak back then—had realized he was being shot.

He didn't even need to think; the fact simply popped into his mind. Then came more cold words—the type of gun that hit him, the caliber of the bullet, and what he should do after being wounded.

This time was no exception.

He lay on the cold roof, several obscure terms surging in his heart. One of them was exactly what he needed right now, but Wraith ignored them; he only wanted to crawl up and keep running.

This was the greatest mistake he had made tonight.

I must leave.

I must. Get away from the darkness.

His thoughts were chaotic, so it was only after he felt a tugging sensation on his back—so strong it felt as if his flesh were being torn alive—that Wraith snapped to his senses.

And realized one thing.

The object buried deep in the flesh of his back was not a bullet.

"Got him!"

No. No. I can't—

Wraith widened his eyes and let out a shrill roar. The pain veiled his vision in a crimson mist, and worse yet, something was dragging him down.

What was below?

He didn't know.

Was it the ground? Or trash cans in a filthy alley? Or perhaps hundreds of gang members holding guns, waiting for him with predatory intent?

He had no time to think; he began to fall. Wraith landed heavily on the ground, scrambled up quickly, and used his hands and feet to climb the wall again, frantically trying to escape.

"You can't run!" someone sneered. "Taste this, you bastard!"

A harsh engine roar erupted the next moment, and the tugging sensation struck again.

Wraith roared as he was pulled off the wall once more. His peripheral vision caught three of those bipedal vehicles used to hunt him. A pitch-black cable extended from his back to the front of those three vehicles.

The pulling force he felt came from them.

"Kill it!"

In the dark alley, someone shouted violently: "Skin it, hang it up, and let it bleed to death!"

"I want its head, I want its head!"

"Shoot it! Shred its legs! See if it can still run!"

"Better yet, roast it! I want to eat its meat!"

Must leave.

I must. Leave here, leave the darkness.

In his chaotic mind, only these two thoughts drifted. Wraith roared and swung his arms, trying to keep these monsters away from him. But it was in vain; his hands slid through the air, his sharp nails piercing the wall, failing to touch any flesh.

"It's still moving!" someone yelled.

"Then give it a taste of this!"

A sharp, agonizing pain struck, and then, his consciousness plunged into darkness.

Wraith watched it arrive, filled with despair.