"It seems two were able to survive."
"More like the boy survived while the girl had her brain burnt. She is nothing more than a failure."
*Bang!*
"Hey, what are you doing!?"
"We have to go. The government has found this place!"
"Shit! What about the subjects!?"
"Just leave them! We can always try again!"
This is what Yi Tan heard in his half awake state. He felt a stabbing pain in his stomach, but the rest of his body was completely numb. "Hey, brat, they finally left."
"Huh?" Yi Tan was confused. He heard a voice, but he did not hear it through his ears but in his mind.
"Brat, if you do not want to be caught and used as a lab rat, I would escape from this place!" The voice yelled inside his head.
"I..." Yi Tan struggled to move, but he could not gather any energy in his body to move.
"Stop being a weakling and move!" This time the voice was so loud that the fogginess in his mind cleared up, causing him to fully open his eyes.
It was only then that Yi Tan found himself in a dark, dingy room with very little lighting. He struggled to move his numbed body. When he sat up, he felt a sharp pain in his stomach once more. He looked down to see that although he was still wearing his clothes, there was a long slice in his stomach that was stapled back together where his shirt was lifted. "What the hell did they do to me?"
"Forget that and get going! I heard those guys say that the government showed up. If you do not want to be used as a lab rat, you better get out of here now." The voice in his head yelled once more.
"Who keeps speaking to me!?" Yi Tan became startled. He looked around the room, which was not very big but didn't see anyone.
"Brat, you won't see me by looking around. I will explain later. Just hurry up and get out of here." The voice yelled once more. Yi Tan knew the voice belonged to a female, but when he looked around, he couldn't see any girl. With no other choice and no idea where he was, he could only listen to the voice and try to leave this place.
The only thing that he felt was lucky was the fact that the people who took him did not strip him of his clothes. The first thing he checked was his chest pocket. Only when he saw the badge, card, and picture did he let out a sigh of relief. He couldn't care less about the other two, but the picture was something he could never replace if lost. As for his duffle bag, it was nowhere to be found. He held his stomach and stumbled off the table, and made his way to the only exit. The door was open, and he could hear sounds of yelling coming from the right, a distance away, so he went left.
He had no idea what was going on. But with a voice in his head that was speaking to him as clear as day, he could only come to one conclusion. Whatever those people did to him had caused him to go insane. Even still, he decided to listen to the voice in his head even if he was mentally going nuts.
The hall walls were made of metal, and the ceiling was lined with old leaking pipes. Using the side walls as support, Yi Tan made his way down the hall. When he reached the end, he could only go left or right. "Which way..." Both directions looked exactly the same, so it was pointless to decide based on what he saw alone. It was only when he felt a gentle breeze forming from the left that he turned the corner and walked in that direction.
He could hear the sounds behind him as he continued down the dark hall. But when he reached the end of that hall, Yi Tan came to a slightly ajar door. He could feel air passing through the door, the same air he had felt before. Only this time much stronger. He pushed the door open to find the room inside was very small, and only a ladder leading up could be seen. He looked up to see a hatch at the top of the ladder wide open, letting the air inside. "Let's hope this leads somewhere safe..."
As Yi Tan gritted his teeth to climb the ladder, a young woman in her twenties walked down the hall by the room he woke up in. She walked right over to a male officer standing outside of one of the rooms and asked: "Find anything?"
"Ma'am, we found eight dead and a single girl alive, each one has had their stomach cut open. We are not sure what was done to them. But from the looks of it, with how they are all still fully clothed, it might be a quick organ harvest. But until we can get them back to the facility to get a full scan done, we won't know for sure." The officer answered.
"Were you able to get an identity on the girl?" The woman asked. Her sharp questioning gaze was causing the officer to tremble slightly. The woman in front of him, although young, was someone from the mages bureau and the second strongest in Valant City. Her name was Becky Winecraft.
"We only know that her name is Ellie..." The officer replied.
Becky pushed past the officer and walked into the room. When she saw the young girl sitting there clutching the black shirt, she was wearing, staring blankly at the wall, Becky's ice cold heart melted.
Standing in an alleyway, Yi Tan clutched his stomach and rested his back against a brick wall. He could hear sirens not far off, but he has come to understand a few things. The place he just left was underground. And the exit he just left through was well hidden. If one did not look close enough, they would not even see anything out of sorts unless the hatch leading down was open.
"I need to move. They are sure to make their way here soon." Yi Tan was not a fan of the police or the government. In the slums, the police abused their position to take whatever they want without paying and would beat people just because. If you slipped them money, they would arrest an old lady who had clearly done nothing wrong. This was all because corruption ran deep. As for the government… Nobles were just as corrupt, and the one who stood on the throne, the Wind Emperor, was no different. He had heard many things, so he could only base his opinion on what information he had. But this was the main reason why he did not wait for the police. He didn't want to end up being shot or imprisoned when he had not done anything wrong. So when the voice in his head told him to run, he didn't need to think much about it.
"I need something to tend to this wound..." Yi Tan clenched his teeth. Because of all his moving around, his wound had begun to bleed. He would need to get something to keep it from being infected and also wrap it up tight. He felt a little lucky to know that he still had the card his father left him. Otherwise, he would not be able to buy anything to tend to his wound. With his priorities set, Yi Tan made his way down the alley away from the sirens that could be heard in the distance. It seemed that the ones who raided this place did not know it extended so far out. Or the drones would have already been swarming this place.
It took him five minutes to exit the alleyway after making many twists and turns so he could come out far from the incident. Only when he saw a crowd of people did he let out a sigh of relief and make his way to the nearest store. After getting some disinfectant, ointment, and some bandages, he walked towards the nearest hotel and rented a room. The card his father gave him had more money on it than he had ever expected. It seemed his father had been saving up for a while. In total, he had just over twenty thousand credits. It was enough to get him by for a good two or three years, as long as he was careful with his spending. But this was just going by the prices here in the slums. This was probably not much when it came to the higher levels of the city.