Icarth stared at Sefir. His first thought was that this was some joke being played on him. He couldn't be gone for that long.
'But Sefir wouldn't joke about something like this,' Icarth concluded numbly. He indeed was unconscious for a week and a half.
The gravity of his injuries weighed down on him for the first time.
'I nearly died....' Icarth thought with a cold sweat. The length of his recovery only made sense if he was on the verge of death. The threat of the cloaked man amplified itself in Icarth's mind unconsciously. A small twinge of fear sprouted inside Icarth, seeding itself into Icarth, waiting and dreading the day it would have to face the cloaked man.
"ICARTH!" Sefir shouted interrupting Icarths thoughts.
Icarth stopped his thoughts and stared at Sefir with a twinge of annoyance.
"What?" Icarth snapped.
While he may have been gone for that long, Icarth didn't see what the problem was. He had come back just fine. The real reason that Icarth was annoyed was at himself for being afraid to fight that cloaked man once again.
"Were you not listening to what I was saying??" Sefir questioned with wide eyes. Icarth was usually an ass but this time it was really getting to Sefir.
"What do I need to listen to anyway? I'm fine. It's not like anything happened while I was gone," Icarth waved his hand dismissively.
"Icarth, something did happen while you were gone...." Sefir suddenly turned hesitant.
"What? Mr. Gavin declared me dead and gave me an F in all my classes?" Icarth shot at Sefir, his annoyance directed all at Sefir.
Taking a deep breath to calm himself, Sefir looked Icarth right in the eye and broke the news, "Emmia is in the hospital, I don't know how severe the condition is, but she hasn't come to a single class for a week and a half. I also heard that she nearly died-"
Sefir paused a cold sweat forming on his neck.
He felt the ambient universal energy around him quiver and shake.
Sefir felt his body tremble as he saw how the universal around them quake and drain into Icarth in mere seconds.
"Which hospital?" Icarth asked quietly, his voice, trembling, wasn't particularly loud but it shook the previously silent room.
Staring into Icarth's cold red eyes, Sefir swallowed heavily.
"Spectrum Hospital," Sefir replied, mustering all his strength so that his voice wouldn't shake.
Blinking for a second, Icarth was already gone, window bust open, the last rays of the sun filtering into the messy room. Paper, clothes, and various other objects had been scattered violently at Icarth's departure. The window was hanging precariously on its hinge, almost torn out by Icarth in his haste to leave.
Shocked, Sefir sat down on the messed-up bed and exhaled.
"He's stronger...." Sefir muttered. After witnessing Icarth's outburst of power, Sefir knew that Icarth had become stronger in the week that he had not seen him. Although the same could be said of him. He had made a breakthrough in his understanding of Universal Energy. Looking around, Sefir saw the universal energy flow inside from outside to replace the energy that Icarth had sucked in.
While looking around, Sefir felt a sharp pain in his heart. All that mess.....
It was going to take forever to clean and fix the room.
Just then, Uto bust into the room with another person, the warden of the hostel.
"What the..." The warden uttered in shock after seeing the state of the room. Uto was in a similar state at the horrid sight.
"Sefir what have you done?" The warden thundered.
Closing his eyes at the injustice, Sefir thought with resignation, 'Dear God.....why me?'
--------
In a white room, Seril sat silently. She was still holding a vigil at the bedside of her little sister. All this time, she hadn't eaten a single thing or drank anything, just watching over Emmia in silence. The only time that she was apart from Emmia was when the doctor asked her to leave when Emmia had gone critical.
The sight of Emmia shaking and twitching violently was still deeply etched inside Seril's mind.
Closing her eyes, Seril ignored the gnawing hunger and thirst and thought back for the nth time to how things ended up like this.
--------
It was a normal night, and she was working late as always.
Reaching for a glass of water, Seril knocked against it accidentally, spilling water all over her table.
"Shit," Grabbing the laptop, Seril hoped that it wasn't damaged by the water. Sighing in relief, Seril suddenly felt an ominous feeling run through her.
Her senses started screaming of some danger, activating her gift, Seril's sight was overwhelmed by a large fog of red air.
'Fear? Whose is -,'
"MIA," Seril shouted out the last of her thoughts and rushed upstairs. The source of all that fear was coming straight from her sister's room.
Slamming the door open, Seril caught sight of Emmia laying on the floor shivering.
"Mia!" Seril shouted as concern washed over her. Rushing to Emmia's side, Seril cradled Emmia's head and tried to find what was wrong.
'What's going on?'
'Why is she shivering?'
'Nightmare?'
'No this is clearly something else,' Seril concluded due to the massive amount of fear that was being emitted from Emmia.
Gritting her teeth, Seril knew that she had to wake Emmia up now, or else something truly bad might happen.
Gathering universal energy, Seril activated her gift and tried to shock Emmia awake, but to Seril's dismay and horror, all her energy just drained into Emmia's head and made her condition worse.
Emmia started to convulse, her mouth opening and closing as if trying to say something.
Seril felt her blood run cold.
'Hospital. Now.' Seril thought frantically and picked up Emmia and headed outside.
Heading for the car, Seril suddenly stopped when she felt something wet against her chest.
Freezing, Seril mechanically shifted her down to see Emmia bleeding from her nose and mouth.
'Fuck the consequences.' Seril grit her teeth and transformed in the middle of the street.
Only partially transforming, Seril hugged Emmia and shot forwards, leaving dents in the road as she rushed to find the one person that could help her sister.
Ms. Sophia, the head doctor of Nova Academy.
------
Seril was still going through her memories when she heard the nurses and doctors outside panicking. Soon after low booms could be heard from the lower floors as the cries of the nurses and doctors grew louder.
"What's going on?" Seril asked the nearest nurse leaving the room.
"There's an intruder! He seems to have a t-transformation type gift! He's o-overpowering all the guards and heading to the upper floors!" The nurse explained in fright, rushing her words from what she had heard over the security channels.
A premonition struck Seril. 'It may be him."
"I'll take care of it. You look after my sister." Seril ordered the nurse next to her.
"W-what?" The nurse questioned very confused. All she wanted to do was leave as fast as possible, not look after a patient in this mess.
"Take. Care. Of. My. Sister." Seril emphasized once more as if sensing the nurse's intention. Adding her gift's effect into her voice, the nurse started to fear Seril more than anything at this point. In her eyes, Seril was the embodiment of her worst nightmare.
Nodding frantically, the nurse couldn't even squeak out a word in response.
Satisfied, Seril shot forwards. Reaching the stairwell, she jumped down the gap where the stairs spiraled around while holding onto her beanie that covered her ears simultaneously.
While falling, Seril gathered Universal Energy in her body. She would need it in the following confrontation.
Grabbing the handle of the stairwell, Seril broke her fall and hauled herself up to the last floor where she had heard the last boom.
Rushing into the main hall, Seril saw a couple of guards struggling against a man-beast humanoid.
The young beast-like man was growling loudly and swinging his long claws a the guards who were trying their best to dodge.
Swinging his claws once more, one of the guards saw his impending doom right then. Shutting his eyes, he waited for the pain. When he didn't feel any pain, he opened his eyes to see a young woman holding his arm in one hand with the claws just a centimeter away from her face and staring down the beast-man in his eyes.
"Icarth, calm down," Seril commanded in a low voice.