"WHATTT!!!"
"Yes, sir... Contrary to what the doctors tell you, you are not alone. In fact, on the contrary, you are only one of many people in the world who experience this victimization..."
Luca, who had been partially listening to the story told by the stranger because of the sadness he felt for his wife, was in shock now as if struck by lightning at the last sentence he heard, and quickly took action to turn around.
"Please, Sir… We made a deal in the beginning…"
Luca stopped again but was freaking out to see this man sitting behind him. Someone who had a relative with this disease, which the doctors had never known existed before, was with him right now. A sudden glimmer of hope appeared in his darkened world…
"I can not tell that you are lucky or not, Sir… I can understand your feelings because I lived the same… But I was unluckier than you because my sister died a few seconds after this incident started happening. It has been more than a year since this incident happened. Since then, I have been studying like crazy about what this illness is. And as the doctors have told you, unfortunately, there is no information about this illness in any medical source. But while doing my research, I came across a strange situation. There were 3 other people in Spain who died on the same date as my sister, almost at the same time. But all three had some severe hereditary diseases. Since the doctors could not find any information, they closed their files by making notes about their hereditary diseases in their records. When I reached out to their families and talked to them, I learned that all three of them died in the same way as my sister, bleeding from their heads. In fact, I expanded my research a little more and saw that there were many cases of heavy bleeding at the same time around the world, and almost all of them resulted in death…"
An involuntary tremor suddenly appeared in Luca's body.
"Yes, Sir. I said
"REALLY!!!?" The glimmer of hope that had appeared within Luca was starting to shine even more.
"Yes, Sir. As far as I understand, if this disease is going to kill, it kills as soon as the bleeding starts. Those who do not die at that moment do not face the possibility of dying because of this disease."
Tears of happiness began to flow from Luca's eyes…
Noticing this, the stranger quickly continued his speech. "I am so sorry, Sir. I think I unintentionally gave you hope. Because I'm sorry to say this but… All of the survivors still lie unconscious like your wife… Even those who fell into this situation five years ago, when this phenomenon was first experienced…"
"YOU B.STRD, DON'T LIE TO ME!!!!" Luca's emotions were completely out of control.
"I am sorry, Sir. But this is the truth. So far, I have shared with you my data that is compatible with human logic, that is, compatible with science. But from now on, what I'm about to tell you will be utter nonsense that doesn't make sense. Will you still listen to me, sir? Because I don't want to steal any more of that precious time of a husband who is hurting with pain, who needs to be alone with himself..."
"... of course..." The trees of hope that had sprouted inside Vato's soul were no longer blooming, as the stranger's last words had now turned the story into mere knowledge sharing rather than salvation.
"Ah, really. I am happy about your choice, Sir. Because most of the relatives of the victims of this disease I had this speech with ended the conversation at this point… This information I obtained forced me to take my questioning to the end. Because all these data emphasized a single fact to me. It was neither a phenomenon nor a newly emerged natural disease. On the contrary, there was some kind of man-made biological attack or something similar. I was sure of that. And I was determined… Whoever did this, I was going to find and kill him! or her… Don't think of me as a savage, Sir. It's just that my conscience did not accept that a poor girl who had been destined to suffer from the very day she was born was willingly killed before she had yet experienced any real happiness in her life. The person or people who did such a terrible thing deserved to die in my conscience…"
"So?"
"I have traveled to many countries in the last year. I spoke to all the relatives of the victims I could find who had experienced this horrific event. I jotted down all the sentences they made and tried to find the common things of all the victims. And as a result, I was able to capture the one thing that is clearly common to all of them. The victims were all playing a phone game called Erghon…"
Vato's body reacted involuntarily because his beloved wife Yolimar was also playing this game…
"Yes, Sir… As your wife…" The stranger took a deep breath and continued. "I was even more pissed off because someone had created a game like the Blue Whale game that caused harm to the players. Moreover, this game, unlike other killer games, did not leave the fate of the players to their own will, it took their lives by force against their will. I immediately went after this game company. And I met an even more gruesome outcome, Sir. The producer company of the game was closed by declaring bankruptcy in the first year of the deaths, that is, 5 years ago. But the deaths had continued ever since. In short, they had programmed an endless loop game that kept updating itself and would never stop killing people…
"..." Although Vato continued to listen quietly and as if he had lost interest, he was beginning to take it more seriously. Because if the subject was as the stranger told, he could have had the opportunity to put an end to this mass murder, he felt that he had this power. In short, he believed the foreigner.
"I realized that I had to end this job immediately. The issue was no longer my personal vengeance, it had become a humanitarian duty to prevent the destruction of the families of other innocent people like you. I immediately went after this company but ran into a snag. According to the records, all the employees of this software company, which had a total of 8 employees, including its boss, disappeared after the bankruptcy. Relatives had given missing notices, but even their bodies could not be found. Whether they were dead or alive remained a mystery. Except for one… Chief software developer of the company… He was put in a lunatic asylum because he lost his mental health… I immediately bought a gun and went there. Because that bastard was actually hiding from the relatives of the victims. In order not to pay for his sins, he had lied and placed himself there, I was sure of that. I went there, went into his room, and was left alone with him. But I couldn't kill him. Because that man did not have the ability to speak. Hospital officials said that before he even got there, he cut his own tongue and muted himself. And when I was alone in the room, he didn't even get scared when I pointed the gun at him, telling him I'd get my revenge for killing my sister. Rather, he was smiling. At that moment, I realized that that man was hiding from the perpetrators, not the victims. I sat next to him and talked for hours. I told him that if he helped me, I would find the perpetrators and destroy them, but he did not show any mimic or body response. When I gave up and stood up to leave, he grabbed my arm hard. I saw the pain in his eyes as he took a small notebook from under his bed and handed it to me. I sat next to him again and began to study the notebook. It was filled with hand-drawn charcoal drawings and short notes. Dragons, swords, knights… It was clear that they were illustrations for the game he generated… But the first page of the notebook was the most interesting. I made a mistake and read this page out loudly. The article started exactly like this… "
Hesitating again, the stranger stared into space for a few seconds and continued. "As soon as I told these, sir… Blood started coming out of the man's mouth, nose, and eyes… This was my fault. By silencing himself, this man had escaped the mastermind of all these. And I had him caught by this non-human being after him by reading the text aloud…"