Shank—!
The knife I threw landed right in the middle of Darius' face, puncturing all the way through. His head cocked back loosely, and his eyes rolled up as his body fell down.
Thud!
It was the first time I'd ever killed someone with a Fractal.
I, a Fractless, killed someone with a Fractal?
I couldn't believe it, yet there Darius was, below my feet. I was looking down at the prey to my knife, his face stretched apart by the blade wedged between his eyes. When I looked over at Kyra's body, that had not stood up since the moment she fell down, my mind had gone blank. My mind was in recession. It rejected what it saw.
Kyra is dead? No. No she is not dead.
I turned away immediately and faced the wall instead, staring blankly into the wallpaper on which her blood had splattered.
The reality was inescapable.
The adrenaline from killing Darius had brought forth a prolonged sensation of relaxation. But it would soon cease, and I would no longer be numb to the emotion that compiled in my heart. I needed to immediately think of something else to forget about the elephant in the room. So my mind chose the next concern on its list.
Celeste and Sav, the real ones, where are they?
I darted my eyes around in search of them, but I could only reminisce on their previously present apparitions, including the one responsible for Kyra's death.
Kyra's dead.
Reality was beginning to break back into my mind. I fortified my mental infrastructure to keep it out as long as possible. To avoid confrontation of the harsh truth below my feet, my mind was redirected to the next concern on its list.
Where is J?
He was last seen fighting all the tenants on the fifth floor. Even Darius had mentioned him. As I was about to set off towards the staircase to search for him, I was stopped in my tracks by a cold voice that suddenly spoke to me.
"Heading back to that cursed staircase, Klyson?"
The voice was condescending, just like Darius'. My blood immediately ran cold and my mind went blank. A single, independent path had been set in my mind, and I followed it blindly. In a swift flow of motion, I'd suddenly had a knife grasped in my hand, pulled out of the blood-spewing head of Darius, and before I knew it, I'd already had it aimed at the person standing at the end of the hall. But just as I was about to throw it—
"Stop."
—My body froze immediately. By the single word spoken alone, I'd lost all control of my body, and every single nerve had ceased to communicate. I was stuck in place, unable to move.
"Drop."
My hand trembled before dropping the knife to the floor. I quickly realized what was happening.
It's him. The one with the controlling Fractal.
I was now unarmed, exposed, and frozen.
"I did not expect this from you, Klyson."
My eyes laid upon the one who spoke. I recognized him as one of the tenants I'd seen earlier in the day.
Aren't all of the tenants being controlled right now? Why is this one unaffected?
"Who are you?" I quickly asked. The tenant shot me back a sinister smile.
"Heathen. Order in Chaos."
The unfathomable words sent shivers throughout my body. I realized I was connected to this man through his Fractal, which had me bound by what felt like millions of puppet strings attached to every cell and atom of my body.
"Heathen…"
"Yes, the one you've been searching so desperately for. Isn't that right, Klyson?"
He spoke my name with too much familiarity, it scared me. Again, I asked the crucial question. "Who are you!?"
The man went silent for a moment, but then finally decided to speak.
"Ian Sedia." He now raised his arms, as if displaying the scene that surrounded us. "I am the founder of Heathen."
My eyes widened. My heart suddenly sank into oblivion. The mystery behind all the anomalous events surrounding Heathen was curated by none other than the person who stood in front of me. I was stupefied.
"Founder…?" But I recognized that the man was young. This contradicted my assumptions about the origin of Heathen. "Wasn't Heathen founded during the Filtering? You look like you were born past that."
"If you saw the real me, with wrinkled skin and graying hair, you'd think otherwise."
'Real me'?
As if reading into my mind to answer the question I asked, he spoke up. "This body isn't mine."
"What?"
The man I looked at began to laugh, but as he did, I realized that he had no expression. It was like watching a paralyzed face attempt to convey emotion. I understood there and then that the tenant was nothing more than a shell containing something else.
"That building you are in—I am not there with you right now."
"Then how are you speaking to me through this tenant…?"
"Through a combinational use of both my Fractal and another's. My Fractal allows me to take control of individuals either physically or mentally of those only within my vicinity. But since I am not in that building, I need my partner's Fractal, which can establish people or objects as mediums to emit other inserted Fractals. In this case, the medium is this tenant who emits my control Fractal, allowing you to be within my vicinity even though I am not there."
I was reminded of the way Celeste fought against us while in the presence of the active cameras. He had lost full control of both his body and mind at the time.
"Were you the one watching us through the cameras…?"
The tenant nodded. "Those cameras were also mediums that withheld my Fractal."
So that's why he could control us through the cameras even though we weren't in his vicinity? And that's why he's controlling my body right now?
"You are in what I refer to as a Fractal Box, a zone in which events are dealt purely through the influence of a primary imposing Fractal." The tenant's face widened as he smiled at me. "This entire building is my Fractal Box."
My eyes widened as I realized what I was dealing with. This wasn't just a matter of troublesome Fractals and mind-controlled tenants anymore. There was something bigger going on. I'd immediately established in my mind that this man was a large threat considering his Fractal.
"You get it now, don't you, Klyson?"
I tried to shake my head, but the control Fractal kept my neck stiff. "Get what…?"
"From the moment you and your comrades stepped foot into this building, you were never ever in control of how things were going to go."
Although I didn't speak directly with the person who bore this voice, I could feel the outright horrifying aura of the person behind the mask of the tenant. I knew I wasn't dealing with a fraud. This truly was the mastermind behind Heathen.
Ian Sedia.
The name struck fear into my heart. I was speechless from the words he spoke. I didn't know what to say in return.
"Your boldness of searching for my organization has lead you here to my building, where everything has the potential to be curated by me alone. You and your comrades never had a chance to begin with. Was the curiosity worth it?"
The realization began to seep in. The tenants and their unnatural behavior: stuck paralyzed in every room, and suddenly bursting with lethal aggression towards us—that was all curated by this man. Cynthia's sudden Fractal usage rendering her frozen in place, inhibiting our usage of her defensive capabilities for our benefit—that was curated by this man. Celeste's loss in control, causing him to injure Sav and disable Gateway, and even causing him to nearly kill us in a standoff—that was all curated by this man. The waves of tenants attacking us out of nowhere, separating me and Kyra from Celeste and Sav, and Darius' sudden appearance—
"That was all curated by you…?" I asked.
"Entering my Fractal Box, you all became immediate victims to my Fractal." The tenant suddenly burst out into hysterical laughter. I could only watch with fear while stuck in my frozen state.
"Why? Why?! Why do all of this!?"
"Because you all wandered into this apartment I own, breaching past the boundaries I'd set. Heathen is not meant to be discovered by the people of this generation, which makes me question, why are you and your comrades so set on finding us?"
I struggled to respond. I couldn't find the right words to use in a moment like this, not when I'd suddenly encountered the man behind Heathen itself.
"No worries. That intention doesn't matter to me anymore. What matters most to me right now is what you've displayed to me today. You see, there's a reason I've revealed all this confidential matter to you in introduction. I normally would never reveal myself to anyone, let alone my name or Fractal."
"Then why to me…?"
"Because you've heavily piqued my interest, Klyson. If you're filled to the brim with questions about my organization, you can have it all answered, once you've joined us."
"Huh…?"
"Join us, Klyson." The tenant put on an eerie smile.
"Join Heathen."