PROJECT REverse

Elsewhere, a man turned on the lights in his bedroom.

The wallpapers were peeling off, revealing walls the color of used oil. A half-made queen bed stood at one corner with sheets sliding off the edge, flanked by a sturdy nightstand and a medium-sized wardrobe. A dresser topped with a mirror faced the door, a set of cosmetics belonging to his wife seated on the scratched surface.

Yesterday’s newspaper lay open on the floor by the foot of the bed. The headline read, “Sixteen Missing People in a Month – Council Found Remains, Strongly Hinted at the Involvement of the Otherworldly.”

He caught sight of himself in the mirror and frowned at his reflection. His shirt was rumpled, as though he had just taken it out from the wash and forgot to iron it before putting it on. He hardly drank, but he looked like a depressed second-rate who spent all his time chugging shots at the pub down the street.

With a weary sigh, he started to unbutton his shirt. Halfway through, his fingers stopped. He stared hard at the button. White with a golden tinge in the middle tainted with a streak of blood.

For a moment, he was puzzled. Why did he feel like he had done this many times before?

His phone rang. Out of instinct, he reached for it.

The screen was lit but blank.

A frown creased his forehead. Doesn’t this happen every night…?

Something was stirring inside him, trying to get out.

Remember.

Or not.

His eyes darted around -

And froze.

His reflection stared back at him from the mirror.

But it was not him – his skin was pallid and wrinkled, his eyes sunken.

He watched with growing horror as the reflection shifted. His face elongated, every bone prominent, and his eyes retracted into his skull, leaving behind empty hollows.

With a yell, he fell backward, clutching his face, nearly tripping over the stool behind him in the process.

The face in the mirror smiled a crooked smile. It opened its mouth and said, “Thank you, Master.”

He let out a scream, pointing at the mirror. “W-Who are you?”

“That’s the thing you’ve been raising inside you.”

He flipped around, eyes round with terror.

Leaning against the wall next to the door, her arms crossed, was a girl he had not noticed earlier.

In a hoarse voice, he directed the same question at her: “Who are you?”

She did not answer. Instead, her lips parted in a half-sigh.

He scrutinized her with suspicion, wondering if she was a hallucination or someone who had brazenly broken into his house.

A teenage girl – no older than his wife when he first met her. She wore a black coat over her school uniform, complete with a loose tie around her neck and a pair of boots. The ends of her red hair barely touched her shoulders. Beneath the hood was a pair of unfaltering hazel eyes.

He tried his best to hold his voice steady. “My wife will be home soon. Get out before I call the cops.”

“You can’t. There’s no police here. Even if there is, don’t you think you should be more worried about yourself?”

The world flickered.

He drew himself into a defensive stance. “S-Stop spouting nonsense.” He picked up his phone and shook it in front of her in an attempt to intimidate her. “Look, I’m really going to call-”

He caught sight of the blank screen and faltered.

“Mr. Panell, in this Territory, the only things that exist are you, me, and the thing you raised.”

“I...you...what are you talking about? I’m telling you to get out of my house! I need to prepare dinner. My wife is coming home soon.

Another flicker – this time stronger

“No one is coming home.”

“Stop spewing nonsense! I’m not having an intruder come into my house and -”

“Then, what is that?” The girl gestured at the cabinet.

On the topmost rack sat a memorial plate with a picture of a smiling lady. Below it was written, In loving memory of Marylin.

There was a clatter as Panell dropped his phone.

*

He ran down the streets towards the hospital, the rain blinding his eyes, but he did not care.

The figure beneath the covers were familiar.

“Mr. Panell, I’m sorry to break this news to you. We suspect it was a hit-and-run. We’re tracking down the culprit, but your wife…I’m sorry.”

Her face was as white as sheet, eyes closed in peaceful slumber, unable to hear his sobs.

How he cried and begged the gods, but none responded to him. What was the use of an apology? He would never see her again. The fact stabbed his heart like icicles.

*

A Pulse. A glimpse of his memories.

A Seed, sprouting from the Master’s wishes, nourished by anguish and regret, dug deep into its Master’s memories and created a space of illusions to fulfil their desires. This space was the Seed’s home, its playground. It was the commander of an army, the leader of a pack of wolves, the host of a banquet.

It made the rules. Everything worked according to its whims.

It could gift the Master the most beautiful dream he ever had. It could also beget the worst nightmare that would leave the boldest of man in crippling despair.

In a Territory, logic and common sense played no role.

Everything was interconnected, down to the last strand of the Master’s emotions. His memories and emotions became part of hers. She felt his helpless, suffocating sorrow.

The only difference was that he was the Master, and she was the Hunter, and a Hunter knew how to differentiate emotions that did not belong to them.

It did not, however, eliminate the fact that she could still feel what he felt.

“No! Lies! All lies! She is not dead!” Panell swept the contents off the dresser. The jars of cosmetics smashed onto the floor, spilling their contents everywhere.

“I’ll give you a chance to see your wife again. Would you take it?”

A figure in a black robe held out a hairpin decorated with an inky gem. The hairpin reminded him of the gift he gave her during their first date.

A chance to see her again. Hadn’t he asked himself the same question over and over?

If only he was on time that day…

If only she didn’t wait for him…

If only he could turn back time…

If only...

Even if he had to pay with his life, he would accept it without hesitation.

Rin opened her eyes.

Panell was hunched over, sobbing. “Lies... All of these…lies...”

Black aura was leaking out of him like spires, twirling around him.

Seeds, by nature – sly, cunning, and calculative – thrived on strong emotions, diving deep into their Master’s hearts, preying on their desires and feeding on them, twisting their minds and leading them to do its bidding.

“How many people have you fed to it? You turned yourself into a murderer to raise it, but a Seed would never repay its Master in the way you wanted it to.”

“You’re wrong. She is at work. She will come back soon, like she did every day.” He jabbed a finger at her. “You’re lying!”

He looked towards where the door was, expecting his wife to step through it..

There was no door.

His face crumpled as reality sank in.

As they fed, Seeds gave the Master what they wanted most in return – the Master’s memories serving as fundamentals to build a Territory that provided moments of ephemeral bliss.

He looked up, his eyes wild and dark. “I just need to... One person...then I will see her again.”

Stretching out his hand, he took one step towards her, then another.

“Give... Would you give me your life?” His head and neck shuddered unnaturally.

“Did you ask everyone you killed?”

He looked down at himself and then back at her in a daze. “What do you mean? I just want...” Holding out his hands like a desperate beggar, he implored, “Give...Give it to me.”

The Seed had slowly taken over its Master’s mind without him realizing it, corrupting his heart and using his twisted conscience as a catalyst for the final stages of its growth.

His knees buckled into strange angles. With a burst of energy, he careened towards her like a giant toddler. “Give me your life!”

Rin sidestepped him and lashed out with a kick to his jaw, sending him flying across the room. “Come and get it then.”

“It’s unfair. It’s unfair! I just want to see her again. What’s wrong with that?” Laughter bubbled up from between his sobs. “I just... I just... I just…”

He sounded like malfunctioning clockwork.

She let out a short, incredulous laugh. “How are you planning to face your wife with so much blood on your hands?”

At an earlier stage, this Seed presented its Master with a blissful Territory. When the Seeds had eaten their fill and gained enough to mature, they would withdraw the gift. Unable to withstand the shock, the already-fragile Master’s mind would collapse, and the Seed would consume the Master whole.

At this point, the Master was beyond saving. Rin had known that even before arriving.

For the past month, there had been news of people going missing in the vicinity. By the time the Council found the source – a middle-aged man who lost his wife three years ago and was never able to come to terms with it, the area was dense with Seed miasma.

At the rate it grew, it was clear how well the Master fed it.

There was only one thing left to do.

A blade appeared in her hand.

Panell picked himself up, muttering the same words over and over to himself, shaking.

Pointing the blade at him, she ordered, “Show yourself!”

The Master’s eyes rolled backward. He shuddered violently from head to toe. His back arched, and the muscles at his neck strained. A gurgling sound emerged from his throat.

Blackish, wet, slimy shapes appeared at the edge of his open mouth - fingers.

Then, a rounded shape pushed its way through – the head, followed by the neck and then its shoulders.

Everything about it looked like a freak sculpture gone wrong.

Its three faces were grotesque masks. The exposed skin was wrinkled like a century-old tree, and its arms were inhumanely long. Its fingers dripped ichor.

The creature was forcing its way out of its Master’s mouth like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon for the first time.

Except that this was a hideous transformation.

Sensing its predator, the Seed turned its beady eyes toward her.

Choking sounds came from his throat as he tried to speak. His eyes darted back and forth between her and the Seed.

She knew better than to question if this was the ending the Master deserved. He might have been under the influence of the Seed when he killed dozens in cold blood and fed the victims to it. Some might say it was his karma, but in the end, it all boiled down to one conclusion: he gave himself to the Seed’s temptation and paved the way to becoming an empty husk to accommodate the parasite.

Perhaps if they had detected the source earlier…perhaps he could be saved.

But pondering over perhaps was pointless at this stage. By the law of the world, Seeds were abominations that shouldn’t exist. They were not allowed to live among humans. Hence, it became a Hunter’s responsibility to destroy them.

Ironic, because Seeds grow from the hearts of humans.

“H-Help,” Panell managed to rasp.

When the Seed became one with the Master, killing the Seed also meant killing the Master.

Black tendrils erupted from the Seed and shot towards her. She sidestepped them as several of them plunged into the floorboards, narrowly missing her feet. Conjuring blue flames that engulfed the rest of the tendrils, she closed the distance between her and the Seed in the blink of an eye, blade drawn.

A Seed in the process of assimilating itself with its host was at its weakest, unable to move before its host completely succumbed to its control.

She caught a glimpse of the Master’s face – empty, soulless eyes with dried streaks of tears down his cheeks. Perhaps releasing him from this hell was also an act of mercy.

There was a flash of silver followed by a loud shriek as the Seed was ripped into two Collapsing into itself, it shattered into millions of pieces. Sparkling debris floated down like snow over what remained of the Master.

Panell’s body crumpled to the floor.

The Territory vanished, and she found herself at its entry point: the doorstep of Panell’s house. The lights were off, and any trace of life inside had disappeared along with the Seed’s presence.

She did not bother going in to check. Instead, she turned and left.

It had started to rain, droplet after droplet falling faster and larger, like splatters of paint over the asphalt.

Rin Elziel let out a long sigh and closed her eyes. The late autumn wind whipped past her, playfully snagging her hair and biting her skin through the coat.

She found no sense of accomplishment from this assignment. In the three years she had been a Hunter, how many times had she seen Masters driving themselves to the point of no return? How many hearts and memories of such Masters had she seen? At some point, she stopped asking herself what depth of desperation made them go to such lengths. After all, dying in the hands of a Seed would not accomplish anything.

It was human nature to give in to temptations. Desires were very powerful weaknesses.

She remembered the Master’s empty eyes, staring into infinity, yet unseeing.

For a brief moment, she realized how her back felt. Cold. With a hint of vulnerability.

Then, like water sliding off a gutter, the feeling disappeared. The assignment was over, as it should be.

She drew her hood back over her head and stepped out into the rain.