Halia reached for the knife on the table, and this time Duke rushed to stop her since he was closer. In the struggle, he unintentionally pinched Halia's skin. Suddenly, he started coughing aggressively, and soon blood poured out from his mouth, eyes, and ears.
"See?!" Halia cried, staring at Duke's weakened form in horror. "I'm a monster! I killed Duke. I killed someone-"
Halia started panicking, but when she saw Duke get back on his feet and wiped the blood out of his mouth, as though she did not just witness him vomiting thick blood from his body, she stopped mid sentence.
The attention was now on Duke, and upon noticing it he let out a sassy remark. "What? I'm not easy to kill. Don't be surprised." He chastened.
Nadia tore her gaze from Duke to Halia, who was still weeping profusely. "Halia," She called gently, making Halia dart her gaze at her. "You're not a monster."
"I am-" Halia protested, but Nadia cut her off.
"You're not, Hali"
"But you saw—"
"You are not a Monster, Mahalia. You are my sister. Okay?"
Halia simply sobbed.
"I promise I am going to get to the bottom of this, I'm going to make sure you're okay. But please don't call yourself a monster, Okay?"
Halia slowly nodded. Nadia took slow steps towards her sister and Halia shifted back uncomfortably. "You're not going to hurt me, Halia, you don't have to be afraid."
"You don't know that."
"You're.not.going.to.hurt.me. Think positively."Nadia chastened as she drew closer.
"I don't think it's a good idea to be near her right now, Nadia." Ryker enunciated worriedly.
"I hugged her outside. If she was going to hurt me she would have done that then." came Nadia Curt's response.
Nadia took a step closer to Halia, her movements gentle. She wrapped her arms around Halia's neck, pulling her into a warm embrace. Halia released the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding and hugged her sister back tightly, crying in her arms.
"Left to me, I think whatever you have going on with you is pretty cool," Tyler said to Halia as soon as Nadia had calmed her down. "At least, no one can hurt you anymore, Halia."
Halia gave him a small smile in appreciation.
"I'll catch up with you guys later," Nadia said to the rest of the group. "I need to run some tests on Halia to make sure she's not in harm's way." Ryker nodded in understanding.
"Just avoid trying to inject her with something," he added, his tone lighthearted yet cautionary. Nadia nodded before she disappeared into one of the rooms with Halia.
Duke drifted his gaze to his system, not noticing Ryker, sly glancing at him before he exited the room.
Duke tapped on the blue gem-like icon only he could see on the side of his vision, and screens multiplied in his view. His *Congratulations message* on completing the last task was the first thing he came across. He clicked on read, and it disappeared, showing him other content, but he was more focused on one thing: the system stats.
He wondered how he had been able to heal so fast earlier. He had literally felt life slipping away from him, and then suddenly, it seemed like nothing had happened.
Upon checking the stats, Duke noted that while other points had been added, his health points had reduced significantly. "Did I not heal fast last time because I had zero points from my health points?" he wondered. He recalled how he had healed quickly after taking down Murphy.
Duke decided to pay more attention to his HP because if it came down to zero again in a precarious situation, he might just die for real.
Duke exited the screens and shifted his gaze to what was in front of him, noticing Tyler staring at him intently. After an intense locked gazing that left Duke feeling uncomfortable, Tyler raised the game pad and asked Duke, "Still wanna play?"