Coming out from behind the trees, Yakup opened his arms wide and embraced Boris. Boris returned the hug by holstering his pistol. The two hugged for a while, then separated and Boris invited Yakup to sit on a boulder he had cleaned.
The atmosphere was incredibly beautiful, the sun was mesmerizing and the beauty of the sun was such that both Yakup and Boris were mesmerized. Despite everything, Yakup was grateful to be alive to see such a beautiful sight. Paradise was a great treasure to be desired. Every inch of it was gold...
"What brings you here?" Boris asked, looking up at the rising sun.
"I was looking for some edible herbs for breakfast when I heard some gunshots. I approached because I wondered who it was, and when I found out it was you, I wanted to scare you..." said Yakup, pulling out a few pieces of mint-like herbs, popped one in his mouth and started chewing. "How did you manage to eat?"
"I made do with grass and leaves, like you do."
Yakup gave Boris a piece of grass. Boris took it and placed it between his lips, chewed for a while and then took a deep breath. His whole body was relaxed.
Yakup looked at the horizon and sighed in admiration, "Do you remember?"
"Remember what?"
"On the first day of Hell Week, the trainers were on the hunt for us. You taught me how to cover my tracks. That's how I avoided punishment and made it into the top ten."
"I was first," Boris smiled. A shiver ran down his spine as he thought back to those days. Hell Week was not only physically but mentally exhausting for the candidates. It was a brutal and deadly training that would break the weakest link in the chain. Suddenly a memory came back to him, and he looked at Yakup. "The instructors wanted you to stick your head in a pit full of shit and blow bubbles. You were rewarded for obeying the order without hesitation."
"Reward..." Yakup rolled his eyes. "What kind of reward is fighting twenty-three people? Especially when those twenty-three were military-trained maniacs, filled with rage and hatred..."
"You were not bad. You escaped from the twenty-three, ran into the forest and tried to lure us into a trap."
"I did well until I fell into Kaede's trap and got beaten to death. I shake when I remember," Yakup said, shaking.
Boris laughed when he remembered that scene. When Kaede had ambushed and attacked Yakup, even the instructors had difficulty separating them. Being harassed for days on end and having one's mental limits pushed to the limit brought anger to a whole new level.
Kaede could not vent her anger on the trainers, so she sacrificed Yakup.
"Do you have any idea how the second phase will go?" asked Yakup. "The trainers say that's when the real training will begin. There is a significant increase in scientists among the trainers."
"Keep it between us."
"Always."
Boris whispered close to Yakup's ear. "They will inject us with a special liquid called Evolixir to turn us into man-made Hunters." Then he sat up and looked at the reflection of the sun on the puddle. "I'm pretty sure the buffer zones in the Eastern Bloc want to declare war on Paradion."
Yakup was silent for a moment to digest what Boris had said. He squinted his eyes and turned to Boris. "War on Paradion? I don't think the buffer zones would take such a risk."
Boris nodded, looked around for a moment to see if anyone was nearby, then continued, lowering his voice even further. "Why do you think they produce Evolixir? Is it just so we can hunt in Paradise? No, Yakup. We are just an experiment. If this liquid works, I'm sure the Eastern Bloc will form their own Hunter army. It's not just technology they need to overthrow Paradion. They want to make their own Hunters."
Even a small team of Hunters from Paradion was enough to put down the Moscow Raid. But by the time they arrived, Moscow Province and the surrounding regions were on the verge of collapse. Despite all the state-of-the-art weaponry, the monsters were almost impossible to deal with. Missiles could barely scratch the surface of Class B monsters above level five, let alone penetrate their armor. Non-nuclear weapons were useless above Class B.
Hunters, in particular, were very different. Even Yakup did not dare to attack Nighthawk, a Hunter, directly. Instead, he smeared his glass with one of the most powerful Hunter Killer poisons on the market and, after suppressing his Hunter powers, shot him in the head.
Of course, dealing with Hunters was not completely impossible. Shading Bullets, designed to deal with roving Hunters, were enough to seal a Hunter's power. But this bullet, too, had a weakness. The bullet had to penetrate the Hunter's skin. This made it useless against any Hunter except rookie Hunters.
"Yes, but there is no other way. They have to do something to break free of Paradion's domination, don't they? And to be honest, if Evolixir works, maybe people like us can actually become Hunters. We're not like those born on Paradion, you know." said Yakup.
Boris shrugged, as if what he said was a simple truth: "I think we should know our place, Yakup. In the end, we should be content with what is handed to us. Humanity doesn't deserve more anyway. Even if there were no gates, we shouldn't be so greedy."
Yakup's face froze for a moment, then deepening veins appeared on his forehead. He involuntarily struck his hand against the rock he was sitting on, and there was a crunch. His eyes were almost on fire.
"What did you say?" he asked, his voice calm but trembling.
Boris continued, not realizing the weight of his words. "I mean, we are all in this situation, Yakup. We have to accept living in these conditions and stop rebelling. Do you think we can do better on our own?"
Yakup did not let Boris finish his sentence. He stood up with a sharp movement and looked Boris in the face. The anger and madness in his eyes startled Boris.
"Who are you to tell us to know our place?" Yakup shouted, his voice breaking somewhere between a scream and a whisper, his eyes blazing with the fire of madness, his hands shaking. "Have you ever had to bury your mother and father in the shadow of those cold doors that no one dares to look at? Have you watched your father writhe in despair as the cancer slowly eats away at his body? Did you hear him suffer even as he breathed and feel powerless to do anything? How do you remember your mother? Smiling? You know, my mother... my mother forgot how to smile. The last thing I remember about her was how happy she was when she died. And did you see with your own eyes how that damnAether tore her flesh, those horrible screams? Tell me! Did you see it, huh? Did you see it?"
Boris finally realized what the fuck he was doing. He tried to calm Yakup down.
"Calm down, you'll attract the attention of the monsters."
Boris stood up and took a few steps back, but Yakup's anger wouldn't let up. His eyes were bloodshot, his breathing ragged.
"Don't talk to me about gratitude, Boris! Gratitude? What do we have left to be grateful for? Those gates? They're a curse!" Yakup's voice trembled, suddenly louder. "You saw my daughter, didn't you? You held her, you saw how fragile she was. But she doesn't even have a future, do you understand? Every time we meet I tell her a fairy tale, but you know what, those fairy tales are all lies! Because fairy tales always end happily, don't they? But for us, for people like us, there is no happy ending, Boris! There isn't!"
What awaited Leyla in the future was cancer, which came silently, without warning, in her late twenties.
The Aether energy emanating from the Akdoğan Gate and similar gates was transforming the atmosphere and the earth, destroying not only human health but also the balance of the ecosystem. Constant exposure to the Aether caused an incurable cancer in the human body, which brought an inevitable and painful end in just a few years. People were forced to live with the doors through which this energy was emitted, because they had no other choice.
Much of the farmland had been rendered unusable by the spread of the Aether and the wars of eighty years earlier. Contaminated soils made it impossible to grow crops, while the rest of the world's farmland was barely enough to feed a billion people. This led to a severe shortfall in food production and a constant struggle. People had to compete with each other to find food and survive.
Even if you went to a good school and became a high ranking civil servant, you were not considered worthy of anything more than a good house with thicker walls. Everyone was struggling to survive, but no one seemed to be really living life. Even with the development of high-tech protective equipment, chemical precautions and strict protocols, it was impossible to be fully protected from the Aether that emanated from the doors.
Those over the age of thirty were usually the only ones who had some protection from the AEther.