Moon Theory (ABO)Ch70 - origin, noah’s arc

[february 2054, one month more]

His father had mentioned something about securing them a route. gKN4au

“By the border of the city,” Xie Liwei said with pursed lips, “the sensors will blare if you advance too close. I will disable them temporarily.”

It was never about him, not in the slightest, though Xie Xing had long gotten used to such indifference. The brigadier general looked at his wife with the most tender gaze – yet, when it came to his son, those eyes were clouded in undecipherable gray.

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Xie Xing, age eight, is intelligent enough understand the implications.

The time is half past five and the city will succumb to nightfall once again. The child has lost track of how long he’s been standing here – miles away from his home at a convoluted intersection, hidden in an alleyway between bustling locomotion. H4afbX

The city border is a strange sight. He had never ventured beyond the confines of the inner city, but here, by the edge of city and slum, class differences run rampant. He sees fewer of those white-collar men in suits and more of these folks donned in simple tees and too-thin jackets. From afar, he can catch the sight of a patrol officer – black uniform, prim and proper stature, haughty in his steps.

“Xiao-Xing,” his mother calls out to him from his side. She, too, is standing in wait. “What are you staring at to be so scared?”

“…” Xie Xing, age eight, is astute enough to form opinions – one look at his mother’s beautiful face and it brings absolute revulsion. She has the exterior of an innocent, but the markings of something else more vile. The child is all too aware. From the books he had read, he’d garner her to suffer from a plethora of mental illnesses and so many more problems not counting her hybrid mix. Xie Xing should despise her. And he does (maybe), though he has nowhere else to go if not with her.

Shi Luo, perhaps, but the friend is stuck in training at a laboratory. Xie Xing has no place there.

He answers, “There are a lot of people.”

“The sight is very different from what you are used to,” the woman says with a smile. A part of Xie Xing can’t shake off how dazzling her smile is. Big grin and white teeth, a stark contrast to her when in a demented state. It is also very off-putting, especially when the child still bears unfortunate love for her. His mother continues, “It is not often that we leave the home. Xie Xing, we should etch this scenery in our memories, for it will be the last time we are here.”

Overhead, the skies have started to dim. The citizens are heading back into their dome-shaped shelters. The shelters span countless miles down the city border, each of them large enough to host hundreds of people. Xie Xing himself had never lived in one, but he’s heard they are no different than jam-packed pods.

Ironically, the slums have more freedom than here, where they are trapped in a gargantuan ward, living a never-ending loop of day and night. Never have these folks ventured elsewhere. Ryq7WM

“Why are we leaving?” Xie Xing asks.

His mother looks at him and says with a soft smile (he’d gotten so acclimated to the fakeness of it), “Perhaps when you grow older, you will understand how impossible it is to live among humans.”

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

She speaks as though they aren’t human themselves – and perhaps that is true, for their appearances are so odd they have to hide with a hood.

“There will a crackdown,” his mother continues to say. “Tomorrow morning. A crackdown is… well, what it means is that the city police will patrol the entire area and disinfect every home as precaution – even your father’s home will not go below radar. We will not be safe, and this is why we have to leave today, Xiao-Xing.” Buczyo

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“Reports have disclosed that a combat unit is returning,” says a black-haired boy. “At the moment, they are being screened for radioactivity.”

About thirteen and if not for his voice, then his way of speech would make him out to be no younger than eighteen. He reminds of Shi Luo as well – Xie Xing, a keen observer, has an inkling that everyone speaks with such erudition. He filters it as a mental note and continues to listen to the boy who has now switched to a different language. Korean. Xie Xing recognizes it too, for Shi Luo had often studied… old languages with him as a pastime. k2d83

The topic of conversation remains the same, but it now has an added flair. The boy suddenly switches from professional to downright foul, spitting profanities at unrivaled speed.

“—I bet the piece of shit brought back young women again,” the boy snarls with a flip of his middle finger. “The fuck was his name? The new rich fuck soldier that took over the unit? Adams or James, it hardly matters because all I know is he’s a—”

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“Shh!” goes his companion, a young female teen with equally as dark hair and eyes. She slaps a hand over the boy’s mouth and leans in to whisper (Xie Xing wouldn’t have been able to heard if not for his abnormally fine-tuned ears), “Hyun, there are policemen here! Don’t let them hear you! The Second Lieutenant has connections to everyone! What would you do if you get arrested or worse, thrown out?!”

He lets out a noise of disgruntlement. “I doubt they’d understand Korean.” Ksvdw5

Hyun looks around the vicinity, peers over the small newspaper booths and eyes the few patrol police with vehemence. He clicks his tongue again and lightly slaps another young boy who stands innocently by his side. At a second glance, Xie Xing realizes that the boy is not much older than he.

“When you grow up, you better not be like those guys who are only a waste of tax money,” Hyun says with his eyes narrowed and all. “A meek kid like you should just live quietly and resourcefully.”

“…Okay, hyung,” says the young boy with, indeed, a very meek voice. He has quite the attractive features, the kinds that spur sympathy – big doe eyes, fuller lips, downturn eyebrows. “But I—”

He is interrupted when a loud scream cuts through the air, almost echoing through the city with how shrill it is. Instantaneously, more screams and loud yells follow, all the city folk thrown into incoherent chaos. The group of young teens (and Xie Xing included) turns to see the streets in chaos. qPGZJv

The first signs of plague are the newspaper stands toppled over and the next, citizens running for their lives. They are some distance away from the city border, but it seems whatever chaos has spread so rapidly that no one had time to prepare. Nor was such a thing anticipated, to be quite clear, for the city had been under strict protection for nearly a decade.

It is nighttime. Xie Xing can see very distinctly the sight of bloodshed.

There is some grotesque thing running amok in the center of the streets, some mix of mammal and arthropod that has a stinger in lieu of nose. It latches onto an unsuspecting officer on patrol – he was dozing on duty – and pierces him on the chest. Its stinger is a suction that drains the man of blood. The other details are a blur to eight-year-old Xie Xing.

Ironic that the familiar copper scent still haunts him to the core despite himself being so acclimated to it. e17zKT

“The sensors!” The young teenager, Hyun, can be heard shouting as he runs. “What happened to the radiation sensors?! Is there such a coincidental malfunction? Fuck! How could these things get in here?!”

“Hyun!” comes a wail from his companion, the long-haired female. “Help me, Hyun—!”

The other noises are tuned out when Xie Xing’s mother takes him by the forearm – he admits the action makes him quiver – and starts to run. As the city folk are frantic to seek shelter, the two of them bolt the opposite direction. Toward the border, far away from the rest.

Xie Xing doesn’t dare take a glance behind him. There are sounds of gunfire among blaring sirens and he knows a purge is happening – he can smell more and more gallons of blood per each step he runs. His inner hybrid, too, is preening to be satiated and suddenly, he feels terribly scared. XU6Abw

“…Mother,” he calls out (the term is not one he often says). “Your grip is too—”

“Do not lag behind, my Xiao-Xing,” his mother says (it is not his imagination that there is a coarseness to her syllables, the same kind that he dreads). With eyes that gleam a manic red, his mother continues, “It may be unplanned, but your father has given an opportunity for us to run. Now come with me, dear, for we are finally leaving this forsaken place.”

There is a familiar slur to her words and that is the only sign Xie Xing needs to know she is changing again. It is disturbing to see such a morph right in front of his eyes – and yes, the child has seen it many times. All of the times are equally as terrifying. Her fingers have turned into sharp claws, digging deeply into his forearm, and instead of escorting his run, his mother is now hauling him with reckless abandon.

Perhaps it is true there is no way for them to live in the city – not when his mother is at this state and when he, too, is on the verge of turning. ox5uBY

She doesn’t listen no matter how many times he calls out, her senses too distorted to register that she is no longer gripping his forearm but his neck instead.

It is the first time Xie Xing loses consciousness not from pain, but from the sudden feral urge that crashes into him. He is fueled by the scent of drilling copper, fueled by mania, and…

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It is the first time Xie Xing recovers to see himself kneeled on a pool of blood, and before him, the corpse of his own mother.

A minute passes. 7Nz102

Brigadier General Xie finds him right at the junction of the slums, some measly few steps away from the border entranceway. Xie Liwei really does have on the most pain-stricken expression ever seen – that man, so stoic and so utterly unapproachable, may have even cried. Perhaps it was to the sight of him – deranged and gone, his pupils shrunk to a terrifying degree.

Xie Xing thinks his father had never once looked at him with so much disdain either. Those dark eyes are clouded into a pure obsidian. On his combat uniform are splotches of blood – countless splotches of blood, residues of an entire massacre. Xie Xing is not surprised, either, when a black polished pistol is raised at his head.

“Leave,” the brigadier general says with full spite. “Do not let me find you.”

If he had listened closely, he would have heard a tinge of sorrow, the last of those syllables so quivered they may not have come from a man like Xie Liwei. U6bGs1

—

It is still nightfall when he stumbles down a cracked road. Destination nowhere with only some specks of stars to guide, Xie Xing wonders if it’s strange he feels absolutely nothing. He has grown so detached to the pain – or perhaps it is that the evening is prone to cold temperatures and frigid winds, numbing him so he can’t feel.

A lone child leaves crimson footprints where he walks, heading forward but moving nowhere in particular. The howling gale does not snap him out of reverie and neither do the snapping branches, the soft sobs of a person ahead.

There is a young teenager – the same one he’d seen in the purged city – and he’s crouched low on the asphalt floor, his head covered by his arms. In comparison to the raven-haired stranger, Xie Xing himself is listless. He only keeps walking aimlessly. EcIZQt

It is when his shoes skid a pebble on the road that the teenager looks up. A patch of brown fur by his left eye. One iris light amber and the other naturally brown.

They make eye contact for a while – Xie Xing is unaware when he’d started staring – and the one who breaks the silence first is the young teenager.

“Oh,” he only says simply. His eyes trail from up to down. “You are similar to me?”

Xie Xing intuitively touches his head. His bloodied ears haven’t retracted back. oxGSsq

“My friends have died,” the stranger says. His voice is choked. “One was infected and the other… I lost. It is likely he has been shot and killed as well.”

No response.

“Then I guess I am alone here, and so are you.” The young teenager stands up and resolutely wipes away his streaming tears. “I do not know how long I have left before I die too, but perhaps we can form a kind of friendship.”

“…A friendship?” he finally replies back in a whisper. “I am not very familiar.” HRo0jS

“I can start,” the stranger says with a subtle tremor of his lips. It bears resignation. “My name is Hyun.”

“My name…” The eight-year-old child, left abandoned, has no attachment to his name. He decides simply to forsake it altogether. And so, when he looks into the distance, the dark unfamiliar void compels him to say one at random. “My name is Noah.”

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Author’s note: And this is the ending of volume 2!! when i named this chapter ‘noah’s arc’ i thought i had the biggest meme braincell, and my egg friend val proceeded to call me a clown …. a-anyway, see you in the third and final volume~! with a lot of twists, turns, convenient plot devices and 100% unfiltered explicit nsfw—–