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Ashen Dawn: Umbilical Cord and Entropic Blade
墨書 Inktalez
The moment blood seeped from my molar, I crushed the Apple Core hidden within my teeth. The decayed Flesh spread a sour taste on my tongue—this was the last gift my mother left me. On my seventh birthday, she had secretly stuffed an apple into my lunchbox, with a Microchip embedded in the Apple Core, now activated by my blood.
Suddenly, the subway advertisement screen flickered with static, and the electronic eye of the Suit Model turned with a click towards the shadow of a pillar. A girl in a gray-pink school uniform curled up there, her skirt smeared with dirt like grave soil, cradling a Teddy Bear whose left eye had exploded. A half-segment of a Metallic Blue Centipede emerged from the Cotton Wool, its segments glinting with the cold light unique to laboratory freezers. The centipede's tail bore dark red stripes that perfectly matched the shape of an old scab on my palm—last week, while saving Jumper, a shard of glass had cut me in the same jagged pattern.
"00:12:47" of Blood hung above her head, the asphalt-like numbers dripping and corroding the air like Strong Acid leaking from my father's lab. The third drop landed at the edge of my sneaker, instantly Carbonizing the canvas to ash and revealing faint golden ring patterns on my toes—marks that had inexplicably appeared after last year's car accident. The Dermatologist said they resembled Mechanical Stamping burns.
"Excuse me!" I shoved past a White Collar holding a skewer of oden, leaving a charred handprint on the metal pillar. The man in the Plaid Shirt suddenly convulsed; the barcode on his neck ignited upon contact with the burn mark, revealing "CX-3" in glowing Encoding amidst the Ashes. The surrounding passengers paid no attention; their pupils were covered by a thin film-like reflection—I should have noticed that everyone in this subway car blinked at exactly the same frequency, synchronizing every 11 seconds.
When the girl looked up, my palm's scab suddenly burst open. Blood Pearls splattered across the Teddy Bear's face, sizzling as they formed the eerie blue number "00:07:41." As two Countdown timers overlapped in my Retina, I caught sight of the CX emblem embroidered on her collar. This dark red embroidery was identical to my father's Access Card; three years ago, after the Laboratory Explosion, I had found half of a charred ID card among the ruins, its edges stained with blood—later confirmed to be my own blood type by forensic experts.
"My mom said... you can't..." Her throat emitted a rusty creaking sound as asphalt-like slime dripped from her lips onto the ground, corroding it into honeycomb-shaped holes. Each hole echoed with sounds of a Crying Baby mixed with alarms from memory's Cultivation Chamber leak. The explosion from that Liquid Nitrogen Chamber on my fifth birthday suddenly became vivid: when my mother pushed me out of the hatch, her left hand's middle finger where she wore her wedding ring began to Crystallize; Jasmine Essence Preservative sprayed from a ruptured tube as frost formed an Ice Flower on my Palm.
I pulled out an Adjustable Wrench from my waist—a 24-inch Stanley that I had just used to unscrew a truck's turbocharger last week. As its cold metal seeped into my Palm, the girl suddenly arched her neck back at 180 degrees; gears beneath her skin clamped onto the wrench stuck in her jaw. The Teddy Bear exploded with a bang, Cotton Wool transforming into data streams that formed a holographic School Emblem for Sunshine Primary School in mid-air. Those flickering lights outlined a familiar playground silhouette, but where there should have been a flagpole stood a Giant Syringe dripping Silver Liquid.
As she bent down to pick up the exploded Teddy Bear, her collar slipped for an instant. I caught sight of a dark red Crack beneath her collarbone, resembling burn marks on a circuit board. That Crack shimmered metallically under neon lights, resonating subtly with the patterns of parasites in my Palm Print. "Don't stare!" She abruptly pulled up her collar; for the first time, there was a tremor of embarrassment in her electronic voice.
The ventilation duct buzzed and expelled blue mist; Cryogen mixed with Jasmine Essence made my Temple throb. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the subway window: somehow, I now bore a CX-743 Tattoo behind my left ear; at its end extended centipede-like patterns identical to those emerging from within the Teddy Bear. Water pooling beneath our seats suddenly boiled over, revealing a three-dimensional map of my father's lab; a red dot representing the Liquid Nitrogen Chamber was flashing frantically at my current position.
"Correction Probability 18%"—a soda can rolling to my feet suddenly spoke as its pull tab shot out a Holographic Projection. I swung the wrench and smashed through the vending machine glass; shards flew into the water reflecting two sets of pulsing Blood:
"Her: 00:05:19"
"Me: 00:06:07"
A shard pierced my Palm, but pain radiated from my right Wrist—there lay an old wound from three years ago now oozing bluish liquid. Beneath her spreading Crack skin, Gear Sets gripped onto the wrench with ear-piercing friction. As "00:00:00" shattered through the fire hydrant glass, I yanked off her backpack strap. Twenty insulin syringes clattered to the ground; Silver Thread Worms swam within their liquid, gnawing at my Palm Print—exactly like samples of Time Parasites from my father's lab.
Before subway lights flickered out frame by frame, I smeared oil over surveillance cameras. In reflections within pools of blood, coordinates for an Experimental Building were being consumed by Black Vines; within blooming buds at their tips flashed glimpses of my mother's Frozen face. The Apple Core Chip under my tongue grew hot as decayed Flesh seeped salty and fishy—this was what she had etched into the Apple Core using her teeth while trapped in that Liquid Nitrogen Chamber years ago: Morse Code for help. When the last glimmer of light vanished, I tasted the truth behind Iron Rust Taste: those codes were not distress signals but activation commands for Countdown.
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