"Hah... Help me... I don't want this."
Enormous, jagged red poles extended from my hands like roots. It grew and grew until it reached the far end of the spacious area in the factory. Spikes jutted out from the pole and forced itself to extend as if it was alive— as if it had a will of its own.
The evil red crystals wanted to hurt Beatrice. But, at that time, I couldn't do anything. Even though the crystal-like spikes came from inside me, I had no control over it.
"Aaaaaaaah!"
Beatrice clasped her ears. "Don't start screaming all of a sudden!"
In just a few dozen seconds, the whole place was almost filled with gleaming red, with misshapen "roots" clawing at the walls everywhere. Beatrice took a few steps back, her eyes were wide open. After a moment, she gritted her teeth and glared at me.
"Hey! Cut it out! You're destroying the place!"
She picked up her broken knife and lunged at me without warning. Eyes filled with anger, hatred, rage, and loathing, she thrust her knife forward.
"I can't! Please, help me!"
She aimed her knife at my head in a swift motion. "Oh, I will help you alright!"
A red spike from my shoulder coiled in the knife's direction and once it made contact, the knife shattered into pieces. Beatrice's hand twitched from it, perhaps due to the resulting force. Beatrice then pulled a second knife from under her jacket and managed to make a gash on my forehead.
"Aaaaaaaah!"
As if responding to my pain, a number of red spikes sprouted from my arms and launched itself towards Beatrice without delay. She avoided it and took a few steps away from me. Trickles of blood formed uneven streaks on her left arm as she gritted her teeth.
"I-I'm sorry..."
I did not mean to hurt her. It was not my fault. The evil thing inside of me did it by itself and I had no control over it whatsoever. This whole situation was not in any way my fault. Not my fault... Not me...
My two hands rested on my head as tears filled my eyes.
"I–It's not my fault... Please, save me from this nightmare!"
Beatrice made a face like she wanted to hurt me so much. I floundered on the spot, whatever goal or aim I had before was buried at the back of my mind. In a sense, I couldn't think of anything.
"I'm sorry... I'm sorry... I'm sorry..."
Memories of the soldiers that I'd killed gave me a headache. It was as if a wreath of fire wrapped and tightened itself around my forehead. My eyes almost bulged from the pain.
"Stop. . . It was me... I'm sorry... I'm sorry."
My tears fell as I kept muttering to myself. However, it did not bother me as I kept apologizing under my breath. "I'm sorry... Mommy... Daddy..."
All I wanted was to be with them again, to see their faces, and live our lives as we had always been every day. I didn't hate anyone ever in my life, never to a point where I wanted to hurt them. Those things that came out of me, I never wished for it. It hurt people and killed them in cold blood.
"Your existence put us all in danger... To me, the moment Boss brought you in here, you are dead in my eyes," said Beatrice.
She was right behind me, but a large spike sprouted from my back in time to block her attack.
After which, the spike went after her but she easily dodged it. Seeing that she had a chance, Beatrice relentlessly tried to get at me as her knife slowly chipped at the spikes that were desperately protecting my back.
After a few unsuccessful attempts, she slashed at one of the evil spikes in one long arc and her knife broke. She didn't let such a thing get to her and avoided the other spikes without a problem.
"This thing's tough as hell," she said. Her good arm pulled her body to safety in one quick spin, away from one of my spikes.
"Stop. I don't want to hurt you!"
She would have hurt herself if she continued. Even so, she didn't waver. The girl ducked when a spike darted at her split into two, twisting in a circular motion. It did not hit her but it was apparent she was having a hard time.
I turned around to face her directly, and she used that slight opening to her advantage as she threw a nearby empty cardboard box at me. Instinctively, I held my hands up to protect my face, but the box was shredded into pieces by my spikes. Swiftly, Beatrice's figure filled my vision, with her broken knife aiming for my neck.
"Eeeeek!"
A long spike swung towards the knife and it was flung out of her grasp. A moment afterward, Beatrice's countenance twisted into horror and trepidation when spikes from every direction cornered her. In a split second, those evil things gleamed before it darted towards Beatrice.
"No, stop it, I do not want to hurt anyone!"
The spikes strangely froze in mid-air just a few inches away from Beatrice.
She grinned at the opportunity. Instead of using the broken end of her knife, she flipped it around and spared no time to hit me with the hilt. However, the spikes that had formed before coiled around my body to form a swirling barrier. As they coiled, I heard the sound of the knife's hilt bounced off once.
No matter many times she tried to attack, the spikes protected me from her assaults with unerring precision. It was hard to see my surrounding when there were ominous spikes all over the place. After some time, Beatrice nearly had her face skewered when the spikes darted at her head, but she managed it to dodge it. Her blue cap fell to the floor and she winced.
"Damn this girl!" she muttered, sort of impatient.
Each time new spikes were formed from my back, I felt sharp pain all over. The pain of something piercing me from the inside. And I hated it so much. Whenever the pain shot throughout my body, it felt like I was being burned alive.
Beatrice's broken knife bounced off easily when she tried to strike at my left cheek. It clanged and was sent flying to the far side, sliding across the cemented floor. She distanced herself away from me after that, caressing her bleeding left arm.
"Your arm..." I wheezed at the memories invading my vision. "Ugh."
I wallowed in my emotions, and suddenly I cried out loud. My cry spread across the factory and echoed, letting everyone see that rebarbative side of me and my unsightly appearance.
Unfortunately, the remaining spikes from that enormous pole from before turned into crimson color somehow as it attempted to destroy the place. It pierced through any objects within its path like paper. In a way, I resembled a tree and those spikes were my roots.
"Your eyes, they're bleeding..." pointed Beatrice, shocked.
I did not care if my eyes were bleeding. I never wanted all of this to happen— with that thing coming from my insides, ripping me apart. The gash on my forehead felt like it was stitching itself back together and by the time I put my hand on it, only blood was left there.
"You're a monster... I knew the boss shouldn't have brought you here. You'll kill everyone, just like what you did to George and Nick." Beatrice walked to me while holding her injured arm.
"I don't kill them!" I shouted. "Please, don't come near me... I don't kill them... I never did."
"I don't mind if you die here. But this place will be gone by the time your body decides to give up." Beatrice stopped when my spikes threatened her, as a herald of what would happen if she moved any further. She looked around, probably judging the amount of damage that had been done. Various supplies and equipment were buried underneath the branching 'roots'.
That was when I noticed some uneven footsteps echoed from afar. My cry subsided into a mere sob as I looked at where the sound came from.
"Boss, you're back," said Beatrice as she looked behind her shoulder.
Grandfather and the same bunch of people from earlier popped out from a small corridor at the side of the factory. He narrowed his eyebrows at me.
"Beatrice. Get Jessica to heal your wound. If she complains, tell her I ordered you... And as for this little brat, let me handle it."
His words had an angry tone to it, the angriest that I had ever heard of from him. And then, I cried again and I hated myself for crying in front of him. The person glaring at me with those unfamiliar eyes was not Grandpa.
His voice sounded foreign when he spoke, and right then and there, he gave me a vexing look of utter disgust. It was as if he wanted to harm me, in the worst ways imaginable.