The crowd of angry Romans encircled Kellen but none of them made a move as they glanced towards Seven.
Seven was the eldest out of the new generation of Romans, so they often looked up to him for guidance. Unfortunately for Kellen, this meant he received little to no help from the others when Seven would bully him.
"You open your mouth for the first time in two years but I think it would've been better if it would have just stayed shut." said Seven as he ridiculed Kellen along with the other Romans surrounding him.
"Whatever... At least I don't need to hide behind a crowd to be able to do anything..." muttered Kellen angrily as he glared at Seven.
"It doesn't matter what I do when you decide to run your mouth off on all of us!" replied Seven as he laughed and began approaching Kellen again with a few of the other Romans joining him.
Kellen somewhat felt like he regretted speaking out but he quelled those regrets as he was reminded of his old friends Seven had slandered.
A few of the Romans lunged towards him, but Kellen's body seemed to be slightly faster than them. Some of the bystanders were surprised by his speed but just attributed it to the fact he was a couple years older than his opponents.
Some of the lunging Romans eventually caught him, since they outnumbered him fifteen to one, and forced his body down with his his face pressed hard against the cafeteria's floor.
The fat instigator, known as Seven, slowly walked over to him and pressed his foot down on the back of his head and smirked.
"A couple of you guys run over to his cell to find what "privileges" he's hiding and bring them here!" shouted Seven as he continued to rub his foot on the back of Kellen's head.
Kellen was livid with anger but he knew that he was no match against the ten Romans that remained and could only spit the blood that was gathering on his scrapped lips onto Seven's other foot that was planted on the ground next to his face.
"Oh! The privileged little rat still has some fight in him?" chuckled Seven as he looked down at the blood stain that was spit onto his shoe before kicking Kellen's face and fracturing his nose.
Kellen grimaced before coughing up some blood that was collecting in the back of his throat from his fractured nose and gasped for air.
Soon the couple of Romans that went off to raid his room returned and presented their findings to Seven.
"What? Just a pile of junk? And what's with this shit drawing!" shouted Seven angrily since the loot wasn't very desirable.
Kellen slowly cocked his head up to see what the pillagers had taken and was shocked by a familiar drawing in one of the Romans hands.
"Stop! Give that back!" screamed Kellen as he tried to reach for the drawing but was stopped by a kick from Seven.
"Oh, this seems pretty important... Doesn't it?" grinned Seven as he became ecstatic at finding a new source of leverage.
He grabbed the drawing from the one Roman and looked at it before draping it in front of Kellen bloodied face.
"This can't be everything... Can it? Tell me where your hiding your stash and I'll consider not ripping this to shreds!" beamed Seven as he made a tearing motion with his hands besides the drawing, projecting his intentions.
Kellen began to get a headache as he stared at the red eyes of the kid in the drawing, dangling in front of his face, that felt extremely familiar and important for some reason. Strangely, he became increasingly angry when he pictured Seven ripping the drawing to shreds and his eyes began to glow red.
The eyes of the kid in the drawing seemed to resonate with his own and also began to glow in a malicious light. Suddenly, a strong and heavy voice started to echo from the depths of his mind.
"Kill!"
"They deserve it!"
"Especially that fat pig!"
"Give me his blood!"
The voices continued to get louder and increase the pain he felt in his head, but Kellen felt the voice had an odd familiarity in it like a record played on repeat. With the sounds of the voice continuing to shout in his mind, Kellen felt his blood beginning to boil and an intent to destroy his torturers surrounding him.
His anger that he usually restrained burst forth in physical form and all the negative emotions and regret he held fueled the burning rage coursing through his blood. His heart rate began to quicken and his blood seemed to be pumping through his body at an unimaginable speed.
Not hearing an answer from Zero, Seven decided to continue to instigate with his new leverage.
"I'm not hearing anything? Are you guys? Looks like we were being too nice to this greedy rat..." said Seven in a fake innocent voice as he began to slowly tear the drawing.
However, a hand with dark skin and slightly bulging veins forcefully grabbed his wrist out of nowhere with an ungodly amount of force.
"What the-"
His words were cut off midway with a scream as he dropped the drawing, while bending his knees to the floor, and stared at the cruel menacing red eyes like that of a demon before him.
The sound of bones cracking mixed with Seven's painful screams flooded the cafeteria as a darkly skinned figure in a black jacket rose up in front of the cowering Roman. The Romans near Seven quickly fled to their cells and closed the sealing doors while the others, opposite in the encirclement, only watched in a confused manner at the back of Zero's figure.
The white Zero on Kellen's back, that used to look like a target to them, now seemed like a portal to the underworld that beckoned their souls out of their bodies towards it. They could only stand still in shock at the drastic change the weak freak had taken right before their eyes.
Seven whimpered as he stared into the glowing red abyss that had replace Zero's gloomy eyes and pleaded for his release as he dryly chuckled.
"Ha... Look... We were only messing around Zero... We know you've been here the longest... So we just wanted some friendly advice... That's all..." said Seven as he tried to negotiate with the demon in front of him.
However, Kellen's once solemn and gloomy eyes were now seething with rage, like a fire from the depths of hell, and no residual trace of empathy could be found left in them.
Seven gulped the increasing amount of saliva in his mouth that felt like nails traveling down his throat as he stared into the heartless eyes.
"Listen I'm sor-"
His words were cut off by Kellen slowly blinking his demonic like eyes and whispering a single word.
"Die..."
His other deadly dark skinned hand, with black colored nails, pierced through Seven's chest as his mouth was left wide open, unable to finish his previous sentence.
Kellen released his grip on Seven's wrist and turned his gaze towards the still shocked Romans left standing in his vicinity as he quickly shook his hand in one motion towards the ground. Seven's blood fell off his stained hand and revealed its beautiful darkly tanned surface.
Behind him, Seven's body fell face first to the ground leaving a pool of his blood slowly puddling around his body. The drawing he had held in his hand had fallen from his grasp and fluttered to the ground above his lying head.
"Le... Let's... Get out of here..." mumbled the few Romans remaining that witnessed the demon's actions.
Kellen turned his head back towards Seven's still body and felt his vision beginning to blur.
'Wait! This isn't my memory! This never happened!'
Coming back to his senses, Kellen gripped his head and chest as extreme pain began pounding from both his head and heart.
'The drawing!'
Kellen remembered the strange drawing that had appeared in each of his distorted memories and raced to look for it in his surroundings.
'It must be a clue or hold an answer to all of this!' thought Kellen as he finally found the familiar glowing red eyes that caught the corner of his eye.
He slowly walked over to the drawing while fighting the surging amount of pain that was piercing his heart and mind.
Bending down to inspect the strange reoccurring drawing, Kellen was shocked as the tear made by Seven that went a third of the way through the paper was slowly closing itself.
'What is this thing?'
Upon closer inspection, Kellen noticed the drawing was now slightly submerged in the pool of blood that was pouring out of Seven's body, but what was shocking was the drawing sucking it up like a greedy plant.
'It's like a plant drinking water... Is it... Linked to the voices I keep hearing?' thought Kellen while he remembered the previous times his blood had fallen onto the drawing as his distorted memories began to return.
"What does this all mean!" yelled Kellen hoping the voice in his head would answer him.
———————————————
Extra chapter! I've decided that on different Fridays I will be releasing some bonus chapters for everyone! This one will conclude the short memory arc that hopefully gives a little more insight into the mc's life and *Mysterious Power*. I hope you all enjoy these bonus chapters! Much love guys :) Enjoy!