"So this is how you got hurt," Anton said with a sympathetic sigh. "A posthuman who would take a hit for us... You're probably the only one in all of Chiric City."
Ye De cleared his throat, a bit embarrassed.
Most of the ti, unless it was absolutely necessary, he didn't even think of himself as a posthuman. If he could take more damage than the person in front of him, he'd stop walking and let himself bear the brunt of the harm. It wasn't self-sacrificing heroism, just a matter of efficient resource allocation.
"That's not important. How's your eye?" he asked, changing the subject as he glanced at the bandage on Anton's face. "Did you get the splinter out?"
Ye De deliberately avoided ntioning the mutation, sothing he assud was a sore topic for Anton. The young man looked calm enough, likely having managed to suppress the mutation. Perhaps he could live like a normal person in the future.
The man with half his face wrapped in cloth nodded.
"Thanks to Anna," he said, looking at his sister with a smile. "Most people would've been terrified seeing a wound like this. But she cleaned it and bandaged it for ... Without her, I don't know how I'd have managed."
Anna stood silently by Ye De, her hands hanging by her sides, saying nothing.
"It's lucky you two can lean on each other," Ye De said, shaking his head. He patted the armrest of the chair he was resting on. "I've rested enough. Let's go. I want to figure out what's really happening in the city."
"Are you sure? Let take a look," Anton said with concern.
He stepped closer to Ye De, montarily blocking Anna from view. As he leaned over to inspect his back, a warm, slightly tallic odor filled Ye De's nose. Maybe Anton hadn't had a chance to bathe, and there was so lingering sll. But it wasn't quite sweat; it had a strange, uncomfortable quality. Ye De instinctively exhaled sharply through his nose to clear it, holding his breath.
1
Feeling awkward, he lowered his gaze and happened to notice Anna's hands clasped tightly in front of her.
Her fingers were locked together, bloodlessly pale, as if she were trying to fuse them into one or snap them apart. When Anton straightened up again, Ye De glanced at Anna's face and found her large, round, black eyes staring straight at him.
A faint, uneasy sense of disturbance prickled at him.
"You're pretty badly hurt," Anton's voice ca from above him, sounding half-amazed, half-curious. "And yet you can still walk into the city? I didn't realize posthuman bodies were this resilient."
Ye De was about to explain the coffee but caught sight of Anna's dark, hollow gaze from the corner of his eye and decided against it.
"Walking and talking are already hard enough for ," he said, forcing down a heavy breath.
Anton nodded, sliding an arm under his to help him. "I'll support you," he said. For the first ti since his evolution, Ye De keenly felt the strength of an ordinary person. Despite his size and bulk, Anton lifted him as easily as if he were a rag doll.
That sll grew even stronger. It wasn't exactly foul, but it made him feel uncomfortable, like sothing slimy and intrusive was sliding down his throat with every breath.
"Your condition... is it stable?" Ye De blurted out.
"Very stable," Anton replied without turning his head. "I have incredible self-control."
Was he saying he hadn't transford again? It seed like only the first mutation was uncontrollable... As they gradually learned to manage their bodies, perhaps they could avoid transforming altogether.
Ye De knew he should feel reassured, yet a vague sense of discomfort crept up instead, an unease he couldn't quite pin down. Was there sothing wrong with what Anton had said?
1
"Brother," Anna said softly from behind them, "you're hurt too. Let help you support him."
Before either of them could respond, she slid under Ye De's other arm, grabbed his hand, and looped his arm over her shoulder. She was small and couldn't provide much actual support. The thought that even such a little girl felt compelled to help him made Ye De even more self-conscious. He quickly said, "Oh, I don't need you to..."
He stopped mid-sentence.
Anton turned his head and looked at him. "Isn't Anna just the kindest, most helpful sister? There's no one better than her."
"Yes, she's a wonderful kid," Ye De replied slowly, all the while feeling Anna's fingers trace SOS repeatedly across his palm.
2
Not much from pre-doomsday humanity had survived, but the simple, universally recognized distress signal SOS had not only endured but thrived. It had spread to countless worlds and was known even to ordinary people. After Anna traced the signal twice, she stopped.
Ye De used his thumb to carefully draw a question mark in her palm.
Anna didn't respond with more writing. Instead, she suddenly called out, "Brother."
The sudden sound made Ye De jolt, but realization quickly followed, and his heart sank heavily.
This was her answer.
"Hm?" Anton, sounding indulgent, asked, "What's wrong?"
"Nothing, nothing. I thought I saw a shadow, but it was just my imagination," Anna whispered.
In the dim, silent corridor, Ye De heard Anton laugh softly. Though the laugh made no sound, Ye De could tell it was there—the faint, wet noise of muscles pulling skin over teeth, the subtle sound of flesh parting slightly from gums as lips stretched into a smile.
The three of them continued walking in silence. Sweat poured from Ye De's skin, soaking him and making his injuries sting sharply. He was acutely aware of his arm draped over Anton's neck, the sleeve pressing against the back of his neck. His right wrist, hanging down, was firmly held in Anton's grip, making it impossible to break away.
"Your condition really is terrible," Anton said, his tone a mix of concern and appraisal. "Walking on this uneven ground must be a huge strain for you."
Ye De was about to deny it when a thought struck him. "Yes," he answered.
Under his left arm, Anna trembled slightly; her footsteps lagged behind, as if she couldn't quite keep pace.
"To be honest, walking even a little faster feels like I'm teetering on the edge of losing consciousness," Ye De murmured. It wasn't far from the truth; when he wasn't drinking coffee, he was in a constant battle against fainting. "So, uh... if you don't mind, could you go ahead and scout the road? I could use a mont to rest."
Anton hesitated for a mont. "What about your ability?" he finally asked. "Can't you just use it to listen ahead? That way, I don't have to leave."
1
He didn't want to leave Ye De and Anna.
Why?
Ye De thought back to when he first encountered Anna. She'd been hiding under a pile of blankets, completely still and silent. She hadn't seed eager to reunite with her brother. On the contrary, it was as though she were desperately hoping not to be found by him.
"Sigh, what ability do I even have anymore," Ye De said hoarsely. "When I was attacked, I used my own head to block most of the damage. Otherwise, I wouldn't even be alive right now... But, as a result, I can't use my ability anymore."
"Oh?" Anton's voice carried a faint hint of excitent; at least, that's what Ye De thought he heard. "You can't hear ssages or send them anymore?"
"That's right," Ye De replied. "I'm completely cut off from others, which is why I don't know anything now."
"You've made such a great sacrifice for us. Chiric City will never forget it." Anton's tone grew heavy again. After Ye De repeated his earlier request, he thought for a mont before finally agreeing. "Alright, you two stay here for a bit. I won't go far; I'll be back soon."
Neither Ye De nor Anna looked at the other as they both replied with quiet acknowledgnts. They sat in silence, not saying a word, until Anton's figure disappeared into the dim, winding pathways ahead. Even then, neither dared to speak. After waiting a few more seconds, the young girl suddenly stood up, leaned close to Ye De, and cupped her hand around her mouth as she whispered, "I don't think he's my brother."
Ye De was taken aback. "What do you an?"
"I... I don't know," she said. "When my brother was first injured... at that ti, he really was my brother. At least, that's how I felt. I cleaned his wounds, bandaged him, and pulled out the wooden splinters, but after that..."
Her earlier quick thinking seed to desert her as she recalled that mont. The young girl shivered uncontrollably, as though speaking too fast might cause her to bite her tongue. "After pulling out the splinters, there was a little blood hole in his eye... about half the size of my pinky nail."
Was she traumatized? Seeing such a wound up close would push anyone to their limits.
But what Anna said next was far beyond anything Ye De could have imagined.
"At first, I was just scared. I didn't dare look at the wound for long. But when I bent down to grab a cloth strip..." Her whisper grew even fainter. "Out of the corner of my eye, I felt sothing move."
She made a retching noise in her throat, unable to stop herself. "I thought it was just my hair at first, so I kept bandaging my brother's eye... but then I realized there was sothing inside."
"Inside? Inside what?"
Anna's face was pale as a sheet. "Inside the blood hole in his eyeball... deep inside, there was another eye. A tiny one."
Ye De was at a complete loss for words.
"I think... it wasn't just one. His eye must be packed full of eyes. That's why one happened to show through the hole, and I saw it..." Tears began streaming down Anna's face as she stared at the ground, mumbling, "No, that can't be right. I must have been scared and saw wrong, right? I told myself I must have been mistaken back then, but I'd already pressed the cloth over the wound. I didn't dare lift it to take another look... And besides, my brother was staring at the whole ti."
She swallowed hard. "At that mont, my brother hadn't mutated."
Once she started talking, Anna couldn't stop. It seed as though she had been bottling up her fear for far too long. Clearly, she was still wavering between hoping it was all in her head and being terrified it wasn't. "You know so much. Do you think I saw wrong? Mutants look horrifying, after all, and I know my brother has mutated, so maybe that's why I imagined it... But if I only saw sothing strange, I wouldn't be like this... It's because my brother isn't the sa as before."
"How is he different?" Ye De asked, his throat dry.
Anna tried to stifle her sobs, wiping her nose as quietly as possible. "It's like he knows I'm afraid of him."
"He knows?"
"I feel like he does. But he doesn't say anything, doesn't explain, doesn't comfort . He just keeps staring at ." Anna's voice dropped even lower. "I must be going crazy. But when he sees I'm afraid, it's like he's... happy. My brother would never treat like that—"
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Ye De suddenly grabbed her hand, cutting her off mid-sentence.
When Anna noticed his gaze, she slowly lifted her head as well. Her teeth began to chatter uncontrollably.
From the dim corner of the ceiling, a fleshy, snake-like strip clung to the crevice between the bricks, slithering toward where they sat. Its elongated form stretched outward like an expanding serpent. At the tip, a misshapen lump protruded, a dark hole surrounded by twisted folds of flesh.
It took Ye De a few seconds to realize what he was looking at: an ear, grotesquely stretched to impossible lengths.
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