Brian felt he had experienced a dream.
Scene by scene, memories he wanted to forget replayed in his mind like a movie: flames at Children's House, the wide, unblinking eyes of several foster parents in various accidents, and those fractured, torn bodies on the dissection tables...
These deliberately forgotten images once again emerged in his heart, assaulting Brian's psyche just like the hallucinations that had frequented him in the past.
He had no idea how much time had passed.
Brian opened his eyes in bewilderment.
A Blood Moon slowly dissipated from the depths of his pupils.
Brian touched his stiff, craned neck with some discomfort, and wondered, "I just had a dream, the same hallucinations that often plague me... and my neck is so sore..."
After he moved his neck around for a while, he took out his phone to check the time and was shocked to discover that it was already past midnight.
But Brian distinctly remembered it was only a little after eleven when he last checked!
No wonder his neck felt so terribly sore.
But how could an hour have slipped by so suddenly?
Could his consciousness have just lapsed?
He went to his room and picked up the camcorder he had prepared in advance and started watching.
There was nothing remarkable in it.
The sky was very red, and he, like a wooden dummy, remained motionless, head raised...
Thinking of those frequent hallucinations, Brian furrowed his brow.
There was definitely something wrong with this Blood Moon his uncle had been so concerned about.
...
Brian immediately began examining his body with professional precision.
Sore waist and legs, feeble kidneys, muscle weakness...
Nothing had changed.
He then began to take in his surroundings.
The silvery moon hung high overhead, and silence pervaded all around.
From distant streets, the faint sound of police sirens in pursuit pierced the air, intermittently coupled with women's screams and beast-like howls from men.
"Body, surroundings, no change... and no theatrics of a Werewolf transformation."
Brian shook his head and returned to his room.
A few streets away from his apartment were several vagrant camps.
The unearthly noises outside.
He was accustomed to them.
...
"I must have had another episode..."
Brian's heart was always somewhat uneasy, but unable to fathom the reason, he forcibly comforted himself with a reason to avoid self-consumption.
He prepared to take a shower, to relax.
To stabilize his mental state.
Things he could not comprehend, he never dwelt on.
Half an hour later.
After physically disposing of the video stored on the camcorder, Brian, dressed in pyjamas, sipped his hot milk, stretching contentedly, ready to go to bed early.
Ding-ding!
Just then.
The urgent ringing of his phone broke his motion.
Frowning, he put down his cup, took out his phone, and somewhat reluctantly answered after seeing the caller ID, "Tom, I..."
"Thank God someone finally picked up!"
A wilted, nasal voice interrupted Brian, "Brian, buddy, listen, I need your help right now. Get to the Forensic Bureau as fast as you can—I'm not joking, the fastest speed!"
Beep beep beep~
Looking at the disconnected call, Brian rolled his eyes.
Tom was his colleague.
However, the other party was a forensic scene investigator, the kind that followed the hearse to collect bodies, sometimes helping with photos at crime scenes, gathering evidence and dealing with the Detective Bureau's major crimes division.
Today must have been his shift.
Probably another sudden discovery of multiple bodies and a shortage of hands was why he had made the call for help.
The public safety in Los Angeles wasn't great at the moment.
Such emergencies were common.
...
Brian changed his clothes and after some thought, he pulled out a palm-sized special handgun from a hidden compartment under his bed, loaded it, concealed it on himself, and then grabbed two self-made pull-string detonators and slipped them into a custom slot in the lining of his blazer before leaving his apartment.
The community he was now renting in had a somewhat dated, mid-to-upscale feel to it.
It was close to the center of Los Angeles.
The community environment seemed average, and the public facilities were a bit old, but overall it was still clean and orderly.
There was a police station nearby.
The patrolling officers were diligent, ensuring good security for the surrounding streets.
Compared to the vagrant camps a few streets away, it was entirely a different world.
The residents here, just like Brian, were mostly ordinary in origin but lived comfortably due to their own efforts.
The actual homeowners were very few and far between.
The reason was simple.
As more and more undocumented immigrants and homeless people converged on this metropolis, the Z administration set up several homeless gathering spots a few streets away from Brian's community to control these unstable factors.
Tents, trash, and sometimes zombie-like addicts standing in corners could be seen everywhere along the neighboring streets...
This seriously dampened the mood of the wealthy.
So they began moving to the suburbs and nearby towns.
Over time.
A peculiar city center scene emerged, with high-end companies, community areas, and commercial streets on one side, and ragged homeless people occupying street corners with their tents on the other.
During the day, it was manageable.
But at night, it was chaos.
Thus, the real rich either fled further afield or lived in detached villas, estates, or even more upscale communities with dedicated security patrolling day and night.