[Otto's POV]
Otto, Mar and Thomas waited with held breaths. And after a full twenty minutes of absolute silence, Aurora said: "I'm sorry to disappoint you, but because time is of the essence, I will be the one explaining the plan to you instead of Alex."
"Why? Has something happened to Alex?" Otto asked. She sounded worried, even to her own ears.
"It's not so much that something happened to him. It's more that he's about to re-enter his body," Aurora said.
"Excuse me?" Mar asked incredulously. "But we've just separated his soul from his body! Don't we need a new plan first?"
"He has a plan, which has already gone in execution because of the urgency," Aurora said and Otto noticed Alex's body start to twitch and spasm in the room next to theirs. The next thing she knew, an alarm started sounding. "You need to clear a path for him. I'll evacuate the building."
Her voice started blaring from the speakers: "Evacuate the building. This is NOT a drill. I repeat: Evacuate the building!"
The system had barely started blaring, when the temperature inside the quarantine-room shot up another 300 degrees and the whole quarantine room caught fire. Next to her, she heard Thomas and Mar curse. When she looked up Mar hurried to a computer and started tapping keys.
"Security?!" Mar yelled on the intercom. "The quarantine has been compromised. Carry out procedure 016."
In the quarantine room, Alex's body was still flinching and twitching, but he still hadn't opened his eyes.
"Something is wrong!" Otto said urgently. "Why hasn't he woken up yet?"
She'd hardly said it, or the three of them were startled by an earsplitting crack. When Otto turned around, she noticed the ceiling above Alex was starting to crack.
"No! Alex! We have to get him out of there! He'll be crushed if it collapses!" Otto shouted in a panic.
"Otto, no, we can't go in there! You'll be burned to a crisp if you try!" Mar countered, but she wasn't listening. Before Thomas or Mar could react, she ran to the quarantine door, and pulled the first emergency lever she could find. The big valve door actually opened and she ran inside.
"ALEX!" she screamed as the sealing started to collapse. Otto didn't exactly get time to process what happened next. The very moment she touched Alex's body, a blinding light flashed to live and enveloped the whole room.
When she looked up, everything seemed to be frozen in place. The flames had vanished and the pieces of collapsing ceiling weren't falling anymore, they were floating leisurely above them, as if there was no such thing as gravity.
But honestly, she could barely see them. The light was shining so brightly that all the colours looked pale and eliminated the shadows. She glanced through the thick quarantine window and spotted Mar looking at her completely flabbergasted.
No, this didn't seem to be his doing…
That only left Alex.
When she turned to look at him, he both looked like a complete stranger and 100% himself at the same time. His pupils had vanished, enormous wings had sprouted from his back, he was wearing what looked like a Greek tunic, and everything about him was shining a bright white light. Even his hair had turned white! But it was him. This was Alex. He'd done it! He'd woken up! He was back!
Otto's frantic thoughts were interrupted when Alex softly placed a hand on her cheek. She looked up at him and noticed his pupils had become visible again. They glimmered blue, just as brightly as the rest of him shined white. Her heart skipped a beat when he smiled a sad smile and placed a feather-light kiss on her lips.
"Don't worry," he said in a reassuring tone of voice. "I know how to set things right."
Then the blue disappeared from his eyes again, he stared off in the distance, stood up and started walking. Otto watched him as he walked through one of the quarantine walls as if it wasn't there. When the light dimmed, the debris from the ceiling fell a meter away from her to the ground, and all that was left from Alex, was a big winged outline, burned out of the wall, the edges still glowing red-hot.
"Otto?!" Thomas, still wearing the astronaut suite, yelled as he came racing towards her.
"Are you alright?" he asked, as he flipped up the screen of the astronaut helmet, his eyes searching her hurriedly.
"I'm fine," Otto said dazedly.
"HAVE YOU GONE COMPLETELY BONKERS?!" he yelled in reply. Otto blinked in surprise. It looked like Thomas was severely upset for some reason. She couldn't imagine why.
"How could you run into a burning and crumbling room?!" Thomas scolded her.
"Ah, yes. There was that," Otto thought. She slapped herself on the cheeks to free herself from her daze and grabbed Thomas by the shoulder urgently.
"Thomas! That's not important right now!" she said, interrupting Thomas in the middle of his scolding. "Alex walked out of here! We have to make sure that nobody touches him!"
Thomas looked severely confused, than looked up to the man-shaped hole in the wall and then back at her.
"I think you're right."
Otto's mind was racing. Chances were high, that if Alex touched anyone apart from her, that they'd end up just like the wall. And that would be problematic. A few disaster scenarios flashed through her mind: Alex being locked away in a high security cell, angry crowds demonstrating in the streets, demanding for Alex to be neutralised because he was a threat to all.
Oh, no! Those scenarios should be avoided at all cost.
"Mar?!" she yelled. She could see him nod through the quarantine glass. He looked just as confused as Thomas.
"Do you still have Alex's phone?"
He fished the device from his pocket and held it in the air for her to see.
"Tell Aurora to call as many people that we know! We need to make sure he doesn't harm anyone!"
In reply, Alex's phone lit up with a big thumbs up emoji.
"Ok," Otto thought. "Time to go save my boyfriend."