CHAPTER 52: THE BLACK FEATHER

Crystal-shaped snow fell, floating and turning, and then landing on the roofs of the ancient Chinese buildings and shattering when they crashed onto the ground, shimmering like diamonds placed under sunlight.

White oval leaves spun in the air, moving like birds before landing on the ground and jolting up again as heavy winds flashed through the ground, emptying the snowflakes that had already scattered there.

On the road stretching long, shadows stretched long like branches of giant trees as countless humanoid beings without faces walked on it, wrapped in black cloth covering them from their heads to their toes.

Streams of water gushed on the narrow path carved at the sides of the road, moving as clear as glass and reflecting other versions of the humanoid beings like demons cast out of hell until they entered one of the tall buildings with its door opened wide.

Amidst its sides were two beings wrapped in chains burning and scorching like the sun in its prime but weren’t ripping the obsidian cloths covering them apart. Instead, it burned the walls and the ground behind and beneath their feet, if it was to be called that.

In the far distance where the beings walked from, a five-foot-one boy with a mixture of black and blue hair walked, dangling his hands around his sides like a boy without life or without any purpose in life.

Upon every being he moved past, he stopped, looked at them, noticing them also stopping and throwing a heavy sense of force at him, but brushed it off and continued walking to the unknown destination he had no idea about.

Moving a step past the stream of the river from the road and separating it in two, three birds of different colors flew above his head and stopped at the edge of the only building that was short and could be compared to the awful tower of Paris cut in two.

All three birds hummed, drawing the attention of all the beings walking on the shimmering road, but neither of them stopped and watched, but the boy did, as he stopped, placed both hands in his pockets, and squeezed his eyes, scanning all three birds at once.

Though he had no idea where he was, where he was going, or what was occurring at that instant, a great sense of relief struck him as he strangely remembered seeing the birds somewhere but had no idea where he had seen them.

At that instant, the black bird among the three different-colored birds opened its beak, sent out a loud cry, opened its feathers wide, placed its beak at the left feather, and plucked out two of its feathers, then jolted high above, bouncing heavy winds under its wings.

The other two birds tore their gaze at the black one now flapping its wings high in the bright sky, blinked thrice, then turned their gaze to the boy still standing there in shock. The black bird, which was moving high and high, turned and dived down toward the boy at great speed, the air rounding around its feathers.

The moment it reached the boy, it drew its claws but strangely stopped in the air above the boy, who had closed his eyes and crossed his arms in an X, hoping to save himself from the strange bird’s attack. And when he cracked his eyes open, his fast-beating heart began to calm, slowing down and making a chill fill his spine so hard his body became cold as ice but wasn’t sweating either.

’Why didn’t the bird attack?’ he thought, removing his left arm and stretching it toward the bird still frozen in the sky, but when the tip of his fingers touched one of the torn feathers, the bird began flapping its feathers, then loosened its beak, letting the two feathers torn from its own feathers and placed tightly under its beak float before landing on the boy’s head.

At the touch of the first feather, the black bird vanished. Nothing—it just vanished and turned to red smoke, and when the boy tilted his gaze to the other two, which were standing at the edge of the roof of the building watching him, he realized they weren’t there either. For them, he had no idea whether they had vanished like the black one that just seconds ago flapped its wings just an inch above his head.

Slowly, he moved his left hand back, brushed his right hand over his head, and found both black feathers resting calmly on his head, grabbed them, and brought them to his eye level for inspection. But strangely, when he moved it past his right blue eye, he saw a world collapsing in the first feather, and when the second followed, he saw a man with the same hair as his standing and commanding countless beings like the ones he had just moved past a few minutes ago.

And when he brought the first feather to his left red eye, he saw and heard countless screams—from adults, children, birds, dogs, cats, and any other living being screaming loudly, kneeling, begging, and at the same time worshiping a man with blue and red eyes like his but with sharp and long claws that were as long as the blade of a katana sword, stretched toward the people screaming and cutting them in two.

Among the screams, he heard one voice that shocked him the most, as it sounded like someone he’d long known, been with, loved, cherished, and also would burn the world to meet her again—his very mother’s scream.

...

Inside the hospital, the walls trembled, crashing down frames of pictures arranged beautifully on all the hallways and making them slam onto the ground, their glass shattering completely. Though the walls shook, the lights in the hospital and the entire city were the ones that struck the most, as they remained in the continuous loop of blinking and blasting wildly.

And in the rooms of the hospital, patients moved hastily, slamming the locked doors open and running out of the main entrance of the hospital, but one door remained closed. Not that nothing was ever happening in the room, not that the lights fixed inside weren’t blinking, the actual reason for it not opening was the manner in which black smoke filled the room so deep it made it unsafe for anyone to barge into the room or even crack the door open.

Gray, Wang, and all other soldiers ran toward the door, trying their best, but no matter how much they tried, no matter what they used, the door wasn’t opening, not even when they broke all the metal hinges serving as the locks keeping the door shut.

All their effort remained worthless and left them with still and uneasy expressions as they exchanged glances and looked back at the door. Even as they helped all other patients walk out of the hospital door and remained the only people near the building, they never let their gaze fall off the door the poor boy was placed inside.

While they stood there, their hands placed on their heads and their waists, sweat beaded Kai’s body so hard it flooded the tubes injected into his veins and changed the flow of blood into just dirty water gushing out of him.

Although other beds had been broken, the one Kai lay on was the most horrific one to be real, as it bent inside out, its mattress turning into hard stone just by touching the heat coming from Kai’s body. And above all, its metal stand and wheels remained scattered on the ground, while the now-stoned bed remained floating in the air, unhinged or having any stand as its pillar.

Kai’s body twitched countless times, making him hit his head so hard that blood began seeping out of his forehead, shoulders, neck, eyes, mouth, chest, and legs like water from a waterfall. But at the last drop of blood seeping out of his forehead, the stoned bed he was lying on fell, crashed onto the ground with a loud shattering sound, leaving Kai’s body floating like a possessed person.

At that instant, Lilian, the nurse in charge of Kai’s care, dashed inside, running toward the room, not obeying every other shout from the soldiers. She didn’t stop until she reached the door, picked up one of the metallic chairs shattered in two, and slammed it on Kai’s door.

Surprisingly, the door gave in, letting her see the boy floating freely in the air, but when she took two steps inside, the light inside, around, and in the city all went black. And when the lights came back unblinking, the nurse whose skin was as smooth and soft as the texture of water and as shimmering as the morning sun now remained like hard-polished stone, crafted by one of the heavenly beings.

...

"Seems his condition is stable now. Let’s hurry and go check on him," Gray said, taking a few steps to the main door and pushing it open. After he entered, Wang, Oin, and Max followed, leaving the rest under the care of Jinx and Kinji, but when they reached a few meters away from the door they struggled to open, their eyes opened wide, noticing it to be slightly opened.

They all gave a relaxing breath as they moved toward the door, but the instant they neared it and pushed the door open, all four of them shouted while placing their hands on their mouths. Max and Oin began crying in an instant, while Gray and Wang remained with an expression that couldn’t be described.