Have you ever wondered, if the world has feelings? Not the animals, not the trees, not the monsters disguised as people, but the world itself.
I frequent this thought many times…
It rarely rains over here, but when it does, it is as though the clouds had witnessed a tragic scene and expressed their feeling through rainfall.
Well, crying…
When they witness something vexing or blasphemous, they express their rage with thunderstorms, hurricanes, and whatnot.
When they're happy, well, they let you experience the beautiful side of the scorching sun.
A touch of warmth in this freezing ruins.
And when they become nonchalant, the clouds open the way for the sun's violent rays to do their numbers on you.
If it does have feelings, then why didn't it do all it could to get rid of humankind?
Bang! Bang!
A lanky teenager, standing at 5'11, age 17, leaned onto the broken walls of a semi-dark room, illuminated by a few glowing sticks by the corner. The bullets shot at him, interrupted his thoughts, puncturing the walls opposite him. His breathing a bit uneven as he had been running around.
His skin was brown, and yet at the same time, pale, giving him an almost ghostly look against his dark, wild hair that fell past his ears and often gets in the way whenever he was working.
The boy's eyes were an unusual amber, intense and unfocused at times, but sharp with an otherworldly curiosity when something captured his attention.
"The rat's in the other room!"
"Take the other side and block his escape and take him out!"
Angry voices of men echoed down the corridor that was just a few feet away from where the boy was hiding.
Well, at least, my predecessors should have been taken out along with the rest if they couldn't do a bloody good job at striving in this reality filled with perforated ideologies and morality…
Perforated?
He looked at the bullet holes on the wall and compared them to the thoughts he had in his head.
No, a gigantic gaping hole that'll swallow stars and fill the sky with jealousy.
A deranged world, sick, a rotten wound, where almost every living being here is a cancer.
Dressed in a long brown coat that had hidden compartments sewn in, filled with strange, scavenged items and tech scraps he couldn't seem to let go of. Though his coat had stains from grease and a few scorch marks on it.
Around his neck, he wore a rusted metal pendant he found as a child—a mystery he's yet to solve. Hidden underneath his clothes, was a Bionic Skeletal Suit.
The bionic skeletal suit he was wearing was a relic, sleek yet outdated, with a gunmetal-gray finish and faded circuitry lines flickering sporadically.
It had a minimal armor that covered only key areas—the chest, shoulders, and legs—exposing worn tubings and cables. Its bulky gauntlets were scratched and dented from years of hard use, and a compact, struggling battery pack on the back emitted a faint hum.
Worn in his left hand, was a gauntlet.
From the corner of the wall that he was leaning on, he saw two men with semiautomatic rifles charge into the room.
Right before either of them could take aim, he moved.
With an almost superhuman reaction, thanks to the assistance from his bionic skeletal suit, the boy moved like a snake, weaving past the first armed man and appearing right in front of the second, before sending a powerful punch to the man's stomach, immediately incapacitating him and knocking him out.
Following that, right when the second man reacted by turning around, the boy turned and quickly held the other armed man in a guillotine choke.
Struggling to breathe, the armed man tried fighting back, before he slowly began losing consciousness, feeling as though his neck was about to snap in two.
A tumor that either kills or needs to be killed.
The boy thought, muttering to himself; "But I can't kill any of them here, at least not now. I can't be too greedy yet."
He let go of the unconscious man, letting gravity do its job.
Greed isn't even enough to describe these cancers.
The world could have just buried the tree that carried the seed that would then give birth to the seed that would lead to my existence.
It couldn't have been that hard.
Sigh.
And yet, my parents were born, and then they met, lo and behold, a cancer—a hell of a stubborn goat was birthed. So cancerous that he was the cause of his mother's death.
The beginning of his father's downfall, the arrival of a tricky neighborhood thief… well, neighborhoods.
He chuckled while raising his brows twice in a roll as if to say he was smug about it. "Over there!" Angry voices cut through the distance, reaching his ears.
With a quick turn, he left the room and stepped into a corridor lined with glow sticks for visibility. Within the corridor, there were a few armed men, paying attention to another door, as if they were expecting someone to burst out of it.
The boy took this chance to attack these armed men, quickly disabling them before they could shoot, and knocking them out.
The coming of a genius whose light can blind the world.
He can touch stone and make it gold.
Turn trash into luxury.
Heck, he can drink water and turn it into yellow wine!
"Basic human abilities, Messimah." The boy said to himself in response to his last thought, calling out his name as though he was speaking to another person.
Anyways, people should be scurrying to earn his favor and be in his good graces, but alas, the genius is more of a reclusive sage.
Not willing to show the world his talent, lest he break the spirits of others and plunge this world into another dark era.
"You filthy bastard, I'll kill you!" Another armed man snarled as he stepped into the dimly lit corridor. His eyes darted to the unconscious bodies strewn across the floor, and a wave of fury surged through him. Convinced that Messimah had slaughtered his comrades, his grip tightened on his weapon.
Right before the armed man pulled the trigger, Messimah had already barged through another door, entering the familiar stairway of the dilapidated skyscraper.
"Trumm should have already left, right?" Whispering to himself, he suddenly wondered if he should have listened to his friend's advice some minutes ago…
…
Some minutes ago, on the 78th floor of the dilapidated skyscraper.
Most geniuses would be able to do this… I am a talented genius. Not self-proclaimed…
"Why then, am I finding it so hard to modify this freaking Pulse Cylinder?" Messimah grumbled as he continued to tinker with the cylindrical device in his hands.
"Oh, silly me." Raising his hand to hit his forehead, only to stop midway when he recalled that the tools in his hands could pierce his head.
"I just have to reprogram the Neurosense and turn it into a Neuroshock. Have the Temporal Sync Stabilizer overload. And then a little kinetic force should trigger this bad boy."
A holographic keyboard appeared over the Pulse Cylinder and then he began typing.
Where was I? Ah, yes, a marvelous genius that I am. If only the world wasn't so heartless.
Sigh.
I wonder, is there any-
"Messimah," A loud whisper came from the tiny headphone lodged in the boy's ear.
The whisper interrupted his thoughts, however his hands continued to work, as though there was a separate part of his mind that was working on it.
Ignoring this whisper, he continued in his head.
I wonder if there is any place-
"Messimah,"
Another loud whisper came from the headphones, this time, it was louder and carried a tone of urgency in it.
Messimah's thought was interrupted once again. Nonetheless, his hands continued to work, as though his concentration was unbreakable.
"Now to add a timer, and then," He muttered.
"Messimah!" This time, the call didn't come from the headphones in his ear, it came from right behind him.
"Ah," Messimah cried out softly as he cut his index finger due to the sudden interruption. A part of the cylindrical component in his hand tore through his flesh.
Somewhat annoyed, Messimah turned his head to look at the person who interrupted his activity.
"What is it Trumm, can't you see that I'm busy?" Messimah uttered, expressing his annoyance with his tone.
In Messimah's eyes, Trumm is a lean, wiry teenager with sharp, black, restless eyes that contain a mix of streetwise toughness and youthful intensity.
His face had a gaunt look, with high cheekbones and a thin layer of stubble that made him look older than his years. Even though he was only 17 this year.
Trumm's hair is short and unkempt, brown, matching his worn, patched clothes—tough fabrics pieced together from scraps, showing hints of the aging time has done on the fabrics, but bore no skin.
A bulky, makeshift tech gauntlet wrapped around his wrist, with faint, flickering lights showing it's still functional, while a slim metal headband rested on his forehead, emitting an occasional pulse. Underneath Trumm's clothes was a type of bionic skeletal suit that wasn't different from the one Messimah had on.
Trumm was very much aware of the oddity of his friend. He was aware that Messimah didn't seem to think or act like a normal person, sometimes, when he opened his mouth, all that came out of it was utter nonsense.
However, none of that took away from the genius that he was.
When it comes to anything that had to do with machines, computers and so on, Messimah has always had a thing for them, excelling in things that many considered mind-boggling.
Despite not getting any proper formal education per se.
Messimah's movements were sometimes erratic, his gestures animated when he talked, often leaping from one idea to another mid-sentence, leaving others scrambling to keep up.
He has an almost manic energy, driven by a fierce need to understand the world around him, and a mind that operates at a pace most can't follow.
His genius is undeniable, but his eccentricity and obsession with all things mechanical or technological, often makes him seem as if he's living in a world of his own.
"Gola says that the Cranks are approaching. They'll be here in a few minutes." Trumm answered, unbothered by Messimah's tone. "We need to leave, now."
"So soon? Come on now Trumm, we can't visit and not leave a gift behind."
"What flipping gift Messimah? We infiltrated a base of theirs."
Tapping the side of his lap frequently. He was feeling really nervous and kept on getting the feeling that they would be caught.
"They stole from us," Messimah uttered nonchalantly.
"And then we came here to take our stuff back, that which we have done. We even took more, Messimah, let's go."
"We need to teach them a lesson," Messimah replied, returning his focus to the device in his hand.
Tap.
Tap, tap.
"Just leave without me, I'll be right behind you. I can tell how nervous you are from the way you're tapping your lap." Messimah said with his back facing Trumm.
"Are you sure?"
"Affirmative. Look," Messimah turned to face Trumm and started placing the necessary components back in before closing the Pulse Cylinder.
The Pulse Cylinder is a compact, high-tech detection device with a dark titanium body and a matte charcoal-gray finish. Grooves along its surface ensured a secure grip, while thin, glowing electric-blue lines traced its segments, giving it a charged appearance.
Near the top, vents release a faint blue mist, and a small transparent panel reveals swirling energy inside. The trigger button at the base glowed softly.
"What is it exactly that you've been trying to do to this device?"
"I turned it into a bomb," Messimah said softly.
"What!? Are you out of your mind, Messimah!? If we kill Gaus's men, it will start a war between their crew and ours.
"It's not a bomb that'll kill them, relax… well, probably. There's like a 13% chance that one or two persons might die from it-"
"We will be punished if something like that happens, Jonah already told us to let the goods go and we insisted on coming to take them back. If we kill one of Gaus's men-"
"For fuck's sake I already heard you the first time Trumm. The bomb's just a stun & sting bomb. Might produce electrical discharges that'll make the weak-willed people pass out, nothing else." Messimah mentioned, unable to deal with Trumm at the moment.
"Go, I'll be right behind you," Messimah said as he began walking towards a table in the middle of the room they were in.
"Alright then, I'll wait for you by the bikes and if you don't come after a minute I'll be leaving without you."
Trumm uttered as he made his way out of the room. Before stepping out, he made sure to mask his face with a thin metal mask that seemed to glue onto his face.
Waving his hand in the air, Messimah looked around the room for anything that could pique his interest before leaving.