When Joshua saw the figure emerging from the woman's back, his whole body froze on spot.
No, it wasn't the disgusting scene caused by the blood, bones and flesh bursting everywhere in this old, broken-down room. Rather, he watched as the said 'grandmother's body bubbled like boiled water.
The woman facing him had a really creepy smile with her reddened cheeks -literally. Her mouth ripped open with blood flowing from the sides- and her big eyes. She seemed to think she had an innocent look, though it was the exact opposite.
"You aren't crying. As expected."
Joshua looked back at the old lady who was busy wiping the sticky blood off of herself with the black cloak she was given. She smiled when their eyes met. Seeing her yellow teeth covered in red with the wrinkles on her face, Joshua turned his face away. The blood part was okay but this was his first time seeing such scene on a old woman who had the looks of a kindhearted neighbour.
'Wait... did she just say 'as expected?'
Confusedly, Joshua looked back at the old woman who still had red-ish substance all over her. She seemed to have given up on the cleaning part.
Letting the cloak cover her body, the old lady turned to him. With her movements, the woman was now facing the cradle again as she held onto the cardioid. Joshua couldn't see her face so he had no idea how she reacted to the sudden movement.
"Indeed. You are right, Katy. It seems like he is also one of us."
''One of us?''
Joshua murmured quietly and lifted a brow as he eyed the two warily. Not only did he have insufficient information about the two before him, he wasn't a bystander in this case either. Any action could lead him to his death which he wanted to avoid at all costs.
-But, since the old woman used the word 'us', he now knew that they were probably a part of some organization or at the very least, a group.
The old woman answered Joshua's question as she knew he would ask that.
"Yes, little one. It's so unfortunate that we don't have the [Plectrum] with us but fear not! This old lady can smell our pheromone on you."
"Who exactly are you guys?"
Joshua asked annoyedly. He was already confused by all of the things that happened in a single day but as if his mental exhaustion wasn't enough, now he had to go through all of this creepy nonsense. What was it next? Was the original Joshua a part of a devoted cult before he transmigrated? No, if that were the case, he would know since he had his memories... that is, if his memories weren't filtered. And what was it about the pheromones?
'Thank you for the offer but I will have to reject joining a cult... other than my stomach and sleep schedule, I'm devoted to no one.'
Says the one who nearly spent a decade on creating backstories for characters in a game.
While Joshua was thinking about whatever he could before his instability got the best of him, the grandmother was eyeing his facial expressions. Once he looked back at the grandmother, he noticed a tattoo on her neck which was quite unfitting of her image. There wasn't any particular reason for his actions but he focused on the tattoo for a second. The tattoo was consisting of several numbers with weird symbols on its sides.
He felt like he saw the same tattoo somewhere else but when was it? Was it one of the images he saw the illustration department presented at the meetings in the company? Or was it after his transmigration?
As he saw the old woman open her bloody mouth again, Joshua thought back to his memories. From what he observed so far, he didn't have any issues remembering things from his memories other than a selected few. Thankfully, this tattoo didn't seem to be anything as such as the memory replayed in front of his eyes.
Literally.
Just like a video uploaded on net, his vision turned into something similar to a computer screen. Other than some white icons which were the call-to-action buttons like the "start/stop" button, it was all pitch black before images started to appear when the triangle shaped icon turned into two parallel lines.
<[A/N: I don't know if that confusing but I'm talking about the "start/stop" and "pause" buttons.]>
[*]
Joshua, or more truthfully, whoever's POV he was looking through, was sitting on a office chair with a white shirt and. a pen inbetween his two fingers. In front of him stood a stack of papers that were placed on top of each other disorganizedly.
Before he could process what was written on the papers, Joshua's POV was lifted as the person looked back at a projection on the white board.
Joshua knew where he was immediately. He was in the meeting room that was used to view how each and every department was doing in his past life. Right now, it looked like it was illustration section's turn with the cool designs of characters were reflected with a person in front of it presenting it. Even though Joshua was also a part of the Development Department, the meetings were the only times he saw what he and other authors of this project wrote come to life.
"...Alliance ... 19- ... so we decided-..."
For some reason, Joshua found it hard to listen to as only a few words passed by his ears. Why was that?
Frustrated, Joshua was forced to wait a couple of minutes before he could hear properly again.
When the man in fron of the board bowed and went back to his seat, he heard the POV he was watching through went blurry for a second as the person let out a yawn. Thankfully, the sound of it was drowned in-between the claps. It was at that moment Joshua realized what was going on.
He was distracted by the screen at first but for sure, the person with a few strands of his dark auburn bangs that was covering his sight of vision was no other than he, himself!
Judging by how he looked at the projection disinterestedly and tiredly, he didn't listen to it at all!
Yes, his [Prodigy] trait has made it easier for him to think and take action but how was it supposed to help when he didn't even have proper memories of it? It's not like he was going back in time, he was just rewatching his own memories!
'No, I still have a chance. As long as he- no, I look back at those papers...'
Thinking so, Joshua waited for his past self to take the papers to his sight of vision patiently.
<[A/N: After a week break, I'm not dead.
To be truthful, I had written about %60 of this chapter just a day after the last episode but I kept delaying it because of my laziness.
Sorry for the inconvience.^^.]>
<[A/N: Ah and yes, it's unedited.]>