Nurse Ann froze when Ace said that. She understood what he was saying, and that raised more questions for her.
Who could Alex be, that he was more important than even a hybrid? She felt the urge to find out, but she couldn't risk her life for something like this.
"Then I'll leave him in your care. Darkness is your specialty, after all," she said.
Ace picked Alex up from the bed carefully and then nodded at Ann before walking out of the room.
She watched him go, and immediately after he closed the door, she rushed to it and locked it. She moved to her desk and picked up a pair of tweezers and a magnifying glass.
She came to the bed where Alex had been and used the magnifying glass to find a strand of his hair. When she found one, she immediately picked it up with the tweezers.
She rushed to her desk lab and began using certain machines to analyze the hair. After minutes of testing, her eyes opened wide.
She pushed back from the table and distanced herself, fear written all over her face, as if she had just seen a monster.
She immediately took the piece of hair, grabbed a lighter, and burned it. Then she pulled the sheets from the bed, making sure there was no hair left on it.
She moved quickly to the bathroom and washed the sheets as fast as she could. Afterward, she left the bathroom and slumped back into her chair, the fear on her face still evident.
She stayed that way for a while until suddenly a knock came at the door, startling her. She fell from the chair before getting up and rushing to the door.
She opened it, and another teacher was standing outside.
"Uh, Miss Ann, sorry, I just came for those vitamins, but it seems like you're stressed. I'll come another time," the teacher said after noticing her distressed expression.
"No, it's fine. Come in," she said, walking back into the room.
---
Alex woke up. The first thing he saw was the white ceiling of the room he was in. He tried to sit up, but he was hit with a splitting headache.
"Arghh, what the hell happened?" he groaned, forcing himself up to sit at the edge of the bed.
"Seems you've woken up," Ace said as he walked into the room.
"What happened?" Alex asked.
"Well, kiddo, you had a spar with your teacher from what I heard, and it seems you let your darkness out. Your teacher had to knock you out," Ace said.
"I see. All I was thinking about was defeating him back then. That must have triggered my darkness," Alex said.
"You should be careful, kid. You might get into trouble that I might not be able to get you out of," Ace said.
Alex didn't want to bother talking to Ace anymore. He got down from the bed and started heading toward the door.
"Hey, you need to rest up, Alex," Ace said.
"I'm missing valuable classes. I need to learn how to kill crawlers. Sitting here does nothing to help that," Alex said and left the room.
"Is this kid really a kid?" Ace asked himself as Alex left the room.
Ace pulled out a journal from his pocket, wrote a name inside—Anna—and then closed it, placing it back into his pocket.
---
The next day, the instructor got up early and started getting ready for classes, but then the cut on his arm began stinging badly.
He fell to the ground, holding his arm and trying to suppress his screams. The pain grew worse every second until he was rolling and grinding his teeth.
He looked at the cut on his arm and noticed that the black coloration had started spreading even faster. His arm was pulsing.
"Arghh, what is wrong with me? I should have gotten this checked," he said to himself and forced himself to get up.
He wore a coat to cover the cut and staggered his way out of the room. He headed for the nurse's office immediately. He managed to get there, but when he was close to entering, a voice began speaking inside his head.
[There is nothing wrong with you. You are a soldier, a veteran.]
[You are not sick. You are not wounded. What's a small wound that you can't take it?]
[Going in there means that you are weak.]
The voices continued, growing louder and louder, until he could not summon the strength to move forward. He turned around and left, deciding he didn't need treatment. He was a soldier.
As he staggered away, barely able to walk, the door of the nurse's room opened, and Ann looked outside, watching him walk away.
She observed him until he took a turn and vanished.
The instructor walked off, deciding he wouldn't go to class. He headed back to his room, opened the door, and walked in.
He closed the door and sat on the bed. He looked at his arm; it was pulsing even more, and the black coloration was spreading faster.
[You are better than a small cut. If you let anyone know, you will become the object of ridicule. No one will ever take you seriously again.]
[A fighter, a marine, pulled down because of some pain in his arm. What are you?]
"A marine."
[What are you?]
"A marine."
[What are you?]
"A fucking marine! I am a fighter, a warrior who has killed even crawlers. This is a simple cut from a ten-year-old boy!"
[That is an insult. You are a marine. You should show that you are unshakable.]
[You should also get rid of the thing that made you want to forget who you are—that boy, that kid. He nearly made you a wimp.]
[Do you want to allow him to get away with that, knowing that he put you in this state?] The voice continued to push the instructor to do something.