Damon and Phoebe were both unsure of what to do with Claire. Although the young girl seed trustworthy, they still couldn't be certain. Deep down, Damon also didn't want soone as young as Claire—who still had so many other things to focus on in life—to suddenly get involved in the chaos he had started.Perhaps in Claire's eyes, Damon appeared to be a hero for eliminating the wicked people in the world.
"So... can I see the tarot card you ntioned in your diary? Please?" Claire suddenly asked out of nowhere, catching Damon off guard.
Phoebe was also surprised and imdiately shot Damon an annoyed glance.
Almost every piece of information about them was written in that diary—there seed to be nothing left for them to hide.
And since Damon had nothing more to say—and didn't want all of them staying outside where soone might overhear their conversation—he decided to bring Claire and Phoebe to his small apartnt instead.
Phoebe's face lit up with excitent—it was her first ti visiting Damon's apartnt. However, she couldn't help but feel a bit annoyed as she glanced at Claire, thinking she should've been the only one invited. Still, she brushed the thought aside, happy with Damon's gesture.
Damon added that they might be hungry, and since he still had so supplies at ho, he offered to cook for them. After all, this would be the first ti he'd ever have guests over at his apartnt.
"Yey!" Claire shouted excitedly, clearly overjoyed by what she heard from Damon.
Damon, on the other hand, didn't seem annoyed by Claire at all. In fact, he felt quite at ease with the young girl—it was as if her presence didn't weigh on him the way he thought it might.
As they were walking ho together, Claire suddenly stopped in her tracks. Her expression shifted to a serious one.
"This is it... This is the place where it all began, right, Damon?" she said solemnly, her eyes fixed on the ground they were passing.
Damon's expression turned solemn as well, a mixture of pain, sorrow, and fear surfacing on his face.
Because this... this was the exact place where he first experienced death.
Claire knew this, because for days she had been rereading the diary Damon left behind. And according to her, this was the part that almost brought her to tears — she could feel the fear and sorrow Damon had written into every word.
No one ca to help him.
He had no abilities to defend himself.
All he wanted that night... was to go ho.
But what happened was sothing he never expected.
Even Phoebe fell silent, unable to say anything. The mood grew heavier when Claire suddenly asked a follow-up question.
"What does it feel like... to have already died once?"
Claire's voice was calm but serious as she looked straight at Damon.
Damon was caught off guard by the question, and when he glanced at Phoebe, he saw it too—
Her eyes were filled with fear and sorrow.
It was clear she was also having flashbacks of her own death.
Before the mood could grow any heavier in that place, Damon decided to cut Claire's line of questioning with a lighthearted joke.
"Well... to be honest, I was kind of relieved," he said with a half-smile.
"At that mont, I realized I wouldn't have to worry about paying bills, buying food, or—best of all—going to work every single day just to live a plain, ordinary life. Sounds fair, right?" he added with a soft chuckle.
His timing worked. Phoebe smiled faintly, and even Claire let out a small laugh at his dry humor.
Damon then followed up,
"But honestly... if those things hadn't happened, I'd probably still be stuck living a painfully boring life—while monsters like rapists and corrupt scum would still be roaming free. I don't regret putting an end to people like that."
"Don't worry, Damon. You can count on —whatever plan you two co up with."
Claire's voice was calm, but her smile was confident and sincere.
Damon, however, couldn't help but wonder what kind of help soone as young as Claire could possibly offer in sothing as serious—and as criminal—as what they were involved in. After all, they were taking lives.
But Claire gave him a mysterious grin and said,
"Relax. I'll help in my own way. I'll tell you later—once I get a taste of whatever you're cooking in your little kingdom."
She laughed playfully, and the three of them continued walking together toward Damon's apartnt.
A few more minutes of walking passed, and the three of them finally arrived at Damon's modest apartnt.
"Alright, you two take it easy first. I'll go prepare sothing for us to eat," Damon said as he unlocked the door and led them inside.
He motioned for his two guests to rest on the small sofa while he turned on the TV, which automatically started playing the news.
Claire and Phoebe agreed and made themselves comfortable—well, at least Phoebe did. Claire, on the other hand, couldn't sit still. Instead of resting on the sofa, she wandered straight to Damon's bed and plopped herself down without hesitation.
Lying on her back, she began scanning every corner of the room with curious eyes, ntally comparing what she saw to the vivid descriptions she had morized from Damon's diary.
—anwhile, in an abandoned dical facility in the outskirts of Pasay—
The flickering overhead lights gave off a faint buzzing sound as a tall man in a black lab coat walked slowly through the dim corridor. His shoes echoed across the tiled floor, splashed with faded blood stains. He wore latex gloves, but the red seeping through the fabric betrayed the nature of his work.
On a tal gurney lay a patient—barely alive. The body twitched occasionally, restrained by thick leather straps. Its eyes were rolled back, veins bulging along the neck and face, and blood dripped slowly from its ears.
A nurse, or sothing pretending to be one, stood silently in the corner, watching.
The man in the coat adjusted his glasses and turned to face a large glass chamber adjacent to the operating room. Inside was another body, fully preserved—almost perfectly. Floating in red fluid, unmoving. But it wasn't dead. Monitors blinked quietly, tracing brain activity that was anything but normal.
"Subject 04," the man muttered. "Progressing beyond expectations... and all because of one drop of contaminated blood."
He turned and jotted sothing into a worn notebook labeled:
PROJECT ARCANA
Sub-Subject Branch: Echo SyndroNotes: Blood triggers advanced neural corruption. Mutation onset varies by host.Source Code: "D.A."
The letters D.A. were underlined several tis.
Suddenly, a phone rang. The man picked it up.
"Yes?" he said coldly.
"...We're tracking residual traces near Makati," replied a deep voice on the line.
"He doesn't know yet. But one of the failed subjects is beginning to regain mories. We need it contained—before Damon finds out."
The man smirked.
"Then I'll make sure he doesn't. Until it's too late."
He ended the call and turned back toward the body in the chamber.
"Soon," he whispered. "You'll rember everything, Damon."
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