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Spireal gritted his teeth, slamming his back against the door as alarms blared outside, mixing with the incoherent screaming of both various nameless Clerks and, of course, Yoon-Hoo. He would have loved, oh, maybe two seconds to get himself together, but he was already receiving a message from the Manager. He swore under his breath as he instinctively hit the Accept Call button.
“Agent Spireal.” The Manager’s near-lifeless voice came through the radio, and Spireal resented them for getting to sit mindlessly in their office, watching this, unaffected by all of their suffering--
“Yes, Manager,” Spireal muttered, pulling himself up to stand despite the way his limbs were heavy with fear and exhaustion. “Agent Spireal coming through.”
“I need Agent Yoon-Hoo neutralized. That is an order.”
Spireal closed his eyes, opening his mouth, about to respond without even thinking (as he’d been trained)--
Wait.
“Neutralized?” he asked incredulously, eyes flying open. He heard banging and a scream outside, and winced as he could already envision the Fragments of the Universe ripping apart another Clerk. He tried not to think of what they’d become, a bloody blur of sparkling gore, focusing on the sound of the Manager, now obnoxiously tapping their fingers on their desk.
“Yes. Neutralized.” The Manager spoke slowly, coldly, like Spireal was a child and not a full-grown adult. “Euthanized. Put down like a sick dog.”
Spireal opened his mouth to argue, but the Manager cut him off. As always.
“Do not talk back to me, Agent Spireal. She is not only a danger to herself but to others and this entire facility. There is a dangerous Abnormality on the loose, and we do not have time to deal with the life of a single person. Agent Yoon-Hoo was not special. She brought nothing unique to the table, and her talents can be easily replicated.
“Now, Agent Dakota and Agent Joy are currently preoccupied holding off the Fragments of the Universe with the assistance of the remaining Clerks. They were both incompetent in saving Agent Yoon-Hoo for me, so, I turn to you as my strongest fighter. This is a privilege . Take it as one.”
Spireal gripped his baton tighter, closing his eyes. He needed a moment, needed everyone to shut up, needed everyone to fucking stop, but the Manager was still talking.
“Time is running out, Agent Spireal. This is a much easier task than the one Agent Dakota and Agent Joy are currently handling. I’m sure you can take down a single rogue Agent.”
And then the Manager leaned close to the microphone, very close. So close that Spireal could hear their soft, cold intake of breath, hear every syllable of their words and the restrained anger behind them.
“Do I have to find someone else to take your position, Agent Spireal?”
Spireal closed his eyes, biting down on his tongue to keep from swearing or yelling or crying or doing something that would further this poor situation. All he could hear was the screaming outside, Dakota yelling into her comm for backup, Yoon-Hoo crying aimlessly. The sound rang in his head as he heard his friend’s distorted voice through her tears and pained screaming, “I want to go home! Manager, please! Open the emergency door, I want to go home!”
..perhaps this would be better than whatever the Manager would have in store for Yoon-Hoo’s elimination.
“..No, Manager,” he said finally, not opening his eyes. His own voice sounded foreign to him as he spoke, unable to feel his hands on his baton. “No, you do not. I will do as you ask.”
He forced himself to open his eyes and shoved his way into the elevator, slamming the buttons to go down. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say the Manager was enjoying this, he thought, lightly tapping his baton against his thigh in anger and dissatisfaction.
“En route to Agent Yoon-Hoo’s location. Suppression in progress. I’ll update you afterwards, Manager.”
There was a pause where Spireal felt he could almost sense the sick, satisfied smile on the Manager’s face before they spoke again. When they did, their voice was lighter, as if they hadn’t just ordered Spireal to ‘neutralize’ someone.
No. Not neutralize, Spireal thought. This is killing. This is.. fucking murder.
“Very good, Agent Spireal. I’ll contact Malkuth about your promotion. Oh, and one last thing.” The Manager chuckled. “Try to keep Agent Yoon-Hoo presentable for her funeral.”
With that sick comment, Spireal listened to the sound of the comm line switching off, leaving him alone in the elevator with his thoughts and the sounds of the carnage beyond the thick metal doors.
The day was starting to catch up to him, and now he leaned back against the elevator wall, sighing and staring at the ceiling. He probably would have collapsed from exhaustion by now if not for the adrenaline in his veins, he thought, trying to focus on the vibrations of the elevator.
Maybe I can talk sense into her, Spireal thought, feeling the elevator start to slow down. Maybe she’ll be okay.
He kept lying to himself as he stepped out into the hallway, smeared with blood and.. something else, probably from the Fragments of the Universe. He tried not to look at the bodies of Clerks, tried to ignore their faces, forever frozen in various states of panic and upset. He trudged onwards, tracking Yoon-Hoo by her suit — and by the screaming. It was getting closer, which meant she was getting closer. In the next room, he thought. He felt sick.
The alarms were giving him a headache as he kicked at the sliding door, stopping it from closing. The screaming finally, finally stopped as Spireal stepped into the room Yoon-Hoo showed in on his tracker.
His friend stood stark still, her body trembling as she bent over the corpse of a Clerk. She wasn’t screaming anymore, but now she gave uneven breaths and unsteady whimpers, taking in the sight of the body below her. Taking a deep breath and setting his jaw, Spireal reached into his pocket.
“Yoon-Hoo.”
She gave the harshest gasp Spireal had ever heard from a human being in his life, whirling around to face him. Her eyes were wide and terrified, blood staining her clothes and matting her gray hair. Her expression was full of a fear so pure that Spireal didn’t think was possible.
Everything froze for a moment. Spireal could feel his mind slipping as he looked into Yoon-Hoo’s eyes, seeing the horrors that the Fragments of the Universe had shown her reflected there..
The man suddenly shook himself, feeling his consciousness come back to him with a soft gasp as he tore his stare from his friend’s, closing his eyes.
Yoon-Hoo’s voice ripped raw from her throat, sudden and startled. “Spireal,” she whispered, her voice cracking, “Spireal, tell the Manager. Tell the Manager.. tell— tell the Manager I need to go— go home.. go.. home.”
She stepped towards Spireal, and he stepped back, tightening his hold on the small dagger in his pocket. He couldn’t bring himself to look her in the eyes.
“You can contact.. contact them. The Manager,” Yoon-Hoo continued, stepping closer to Spireal again; he stepped back once more. “You can contact the Manager.”
Her eyes were wild and unfocused, frantically searching Spireal’s body, finally settling on his face again. She reached for him with a desperate, quivering hand.
“You can— you— you can tell.. tell them— tell them.. to get me out— out.. get me out of here,” she pleaded, voice desperate and broken. “I don’t want to die here, Spi— I don’t— Spireal, I don’t want to die down here. I don’t want to, I.. I—I saw what those Ab— Abnor— Abnormalities did to everyone— everyone else! I don’t want to die here..!” Yoon-Hoo managed, practically begging now as her hand found Spireal’s shoulder and she dug her nails in hopelessly. Her grip was strong and fearful as Spireal took a deep breath, a strong feeling of sickness and agony rising in his chest.
“You won’t,” he said coldly. “I want you to let go of me and turn around, Yoon-Hoo.” He looked at her with dark, tired eyes, tuning out everything but the sound of her voice as he tried to plan a way to make this quick and painless for her. He wouldn’t be able to look the others in the eye after this.
“Spire— Spireal, I know,” she whimpered, “I know.. I know, I know— I know what the Manager..! They wanted.. they want— want you to— you to kill me, they think you should.. you— kill.. kill me, Spireal.”
Fuck. Spireal took a shaky breath.
“I’m not gonna hurt you,” he managed, forcing his voice even. Surely, surely Yoon-Hoo was far, far too out of it to see the way his hands trembled. “I just want you to take a breath.”
“No, no--” Yoon-Hoo clearly wasn’t convinced, suddenly jerking away from Spireal and curling into herself, staring at him as if he’d struck her. “No, you’re going to-- to hurt-- you’re going to hurt me, you-- I need.. go home, I need to go home..! I don’t ever want.. want to be here again.. you don’t understand..”
Spireal shook his head, desperately trying to keep it together, but Yoon-Hoo’s state was eating at his own sanity. He wished his armband came with a built-in Mental Corruption Level checker, he thought, taking a deep breath.
“You don’t understand,” Yoon-Hoo rambled on, “You don’t get.. get it, you don’t.. you don’t get it, you.. the things.. the things that monster showed me.. th-the.. the-- the uni-- universe, it.. it showed me, it.. it showed me so many.. many things, you don’t--”
“Stop it!” Spireal snapped suddenly, his ears ringing out of nowhere. He glared at Yoon-Hoo, who had flinched and started edging away from him, whimpering. He drew in an uneven breath, closing his eyes.
“Stop it, Yoon-Hoo,” he said, voice softening. “You’re.. you’re going to be okay. I need you.. to close your eyes, and breathe. I got something to help you, alright..?” He took a careful step towards her, and she inched further away. Spireal held out his hand, talking like he did when Dakota forced him to work with unfamiliar Abnormalities.
“The Manager sent it down when they saw your Corruption Level. It’s gonna knock you out, but I promise, when you wake up, you.. you won’t remember a thing.”
Yoon-Hoo stared doubtfully at Spireal a moment before finally opening her mouth again. Her voice was softer, though still filled with fear.
“Really..?” she whispered, eyes widening with a sense of broken, insane hope. “Will it really..? I won’t.. ever have to think about this ever again..? I don’t.. I don’t want to see the things.. the things it showed me again..”
“You won’t,” Spireal promised, pulling the dagger from his pocket, concealing it in his sleeve. “Just turn around for me.”
Slowly, nervously, Yoon-Hoo listened, turning away from Spireal. She made herself smaller, it seemed, trying to conceal her fear beneath the fabric of her suit.
Spireal slowly drew the dagger from his sleeve, dropping his assigned EGO weapon to hold it in his left hand. Yoon-Hoo flinched at the clatter of the baton to the floor, but didn’t turn around.
“..Spireal..?”
Yoon-Hoo’s voice was soft, so soft that Spireal almost couldn’t hear it over the sounds outside. He knew a message was coming through on his armband, but he ignored it. He couldn’t focus on that. He couldn’t focus on anything else but Yoon-Hoo. Not right now.
“Yeah,” he replied, briefly scanning over Yoon-Hoo’s back. If he was careful, he could plunge the dagger directly into her heart to shock her still long enough for him to shoot her.. “I’m here.”
“Are Dakota and Joy okay..?”
Spireal paused.
He didn’t know.
“..yeah,” he muttered. “Yeah, they’ll be okay. They’ve got that freak contained.”
Yoon-Hoo didn’t answer, and Spireal took a deep breath, raising the dagger. Going against his own plan, he ghosted his hand over Yoon-Hoo’s back, long enough to find the spot between her shoulder blades. Or.. where it should be. The lighting in this room was so poor and the fabric of her suit so dark he couldn’t know for sure.
..and then everything froze for a moment. Spireal didn’t know why, but it felt like everything just.. stopped around him as he moved to place the dagger above Yoon-Hoo’s skin. Everything went quiet, and all he could hear was the ringing in his ears getting louder, louder, drowning out anything, even the screams of Clerks and the sounds of the Abnormality.
..I can’t hear the Fragments of the Universe up there..
And then something shattered his daydream.
“Agent Spireal!”
He knew that voice anywhere. Agent Dakota.
Yoon-Hoo shrieked at the voice before Spireal could fully react, sluggishly coming out of his stupor as his friend whirled to face him--
--and saw the dagger in his hand--
“You lied!” she screamed suddenly, eyes widening. “You lied to me! You said you wouldn’t hurt me, you-- you said-- you said you’d-- you lied, Spireal, you lied, you lied, you LIED!”
Spireal glanced over his shoulder, feeling a faint pain in his neck with how harshly he turned around. Dakota and Joy both stood in the doorway, Joy shocked and wide-eyed, Dakota glaring darkly, weapon still in her hand. Then he spun back to Yoon-Hoo, who kept screaming over and over again, “You lied to me, Spireal! You lied, you lied to me!”
He locked eyes with Yoon-Hoo, and something in him snapped.
“Shut up!” He shouted, tackling Yoon-Hoo, dagger in his hand. He had plunged the weapon into her chest before he knew it, pressing all of his weight into keeping her held down, surprising himself even more when he tugged the dagger out and stabbed her again . Spireal could hear Dakota yelling something behind him, but he couldn’t process anything she was saying. Now, in his head, there was only a single, unmistakable thought.
Kill Yoon-Hoo.
Kill her.
“Stop fucking screaming,” he growled as his once-friend kept wailing and thrashing underneath him, feeling her blood splatter onto his clothes. “Stop screaming! God, you’re so noisy, out of your goddamn mind.. I hate it, I hate you! This is ALL YOUR FAULT! ”
Yoon-Hoo cried out something that Spireal couldn’t understand, and now nothing else was real to him, nothing but her as he plunged the dagger into her again and again and again, feeling her fighting to get free until her movements slowed enough for him to press his free hand against her neck. He forced her head onto the floor as he dropped the dagger, reaching for the standard-issue gun that all staff were given.
“Oh, so the Manager wants you killed?” he hissed, feeling Yoon-Hoo’s blood dripping off his clothes and his hands and in his hair, not caring. “Oh, alright, I’ll get you fucking killed.”
He pressed the barrel of the gun to her head and pulled the trigger.
Everything after that was a blur of movement, the sound of Yoon-Hoo’s high-pitched screaming and the feeling of someone roughly gripping his arms, pulling him off of his now dead friend. The someone turned out to be Dakota, yelling something at him and then into her armband, but he couldn’t hear the words. All he could hear was the ringing in his ears.
He blinked, and now Joy was next to him, pulling out a special EGO weapon. They were talking, too, but he still couldn’t hear them. They looked at Dakota, who was now bent over Yoon-Hoo’s body, scanning over them. Spireal’s eyes settled on his friend.
Her eyes were wide and bloodshot, her face forever trapped in a look of fear. Her suit was ripped and blood stained her hair and her face and most importantly, her clothes, but it was hard to tell what was her blood and what was Clerks, or, hell , even Spireal’s own. Her hand held a white-knuckle grip on the EGO gift on her chest, hearts given to her by the Fragments of the Universe. The very thing that had gotten her killed.
No, Spireal thought vaguely. I got her killed. Not that monster. I did it.
He glanced back to Joy, who was raising the EGO weapon, and took a deep breath. Spireal still couldn’t hear them, but that didn’t matter. Dead eyes fixated on them, Joy said two words that Spireal could read off their lips:
I’m sorry.
He wasn’t sure if the weapon hit him before or after he closed his eyes, and within moments he felt himself hit the tile floor. The last thing he felt was Yoon-Hoo’s cold blood dripping down the side of his face before everything went dark.