HALF: DEAD NOR ALIVE

Archie charged forward with his sword ready to cut the Adam’s body, but he didn’t know which one was the real one. The moment he got close to the Adam, he slashed the right one into half, and when he looked at the body, it only made things worse because now there were three of them.

“What?!” Archie asked and stared the Adam with a perplexed look.

“Why are you so surprised? You should have known already that I can multiply myself,” The Adam said and then chuckled as he stared at Archie. “You have no chance to win against me, so why don’t you stop trying and let me get what I want?” The Adam asked.

Archie didn’t answer but at the same time, he didn’t make a move or attack the Adam with his sword anymore. He unsheathed his sword because the Adam seemed to want to have a talk first with him.

“What do you want?” Archie asked as he slowly walked back to make some distance between him and the Adam.

“We both know what I want. I want to see Eve, I’m curious about her ever since I have become chosen by them,” The Adam answered with a smile on his face.

“Even if you want to see her, I can’t bring her here because of the same reason why we both are here right now. The worst-case scenario is you’re going to die by her hand,” Archie replied as he stared at the one that was talking.

“You’re saying that I’m not allowed to see her, is that what you’re trying to say?” The Adam asked.

“It wasn’t me who said that, but them,” Archie answered as he shook his head. “As I said, it’s for your own safety as well because she’s not interested in you or the other Adams,” Archie said with confidence.

The Adam raised his eyebrows and stared at Archie for quite a while, but then he bursted into laughter with his voice echoed throughout the cave. Archie didn’t know if the Adam was laughing at his warning or if he was laughing because the Adam thought it was a joke.

“How funny, I have never been interested in that kind of thing, you know?” The Adam said as he looked at Archie. “I’m a scientist, and I never believe in God back then nor have I ever thought about it. But, when they came to me, it wasn’t like a revelation or something to me because until now, I still don’t want to believe,”

Archie furrowed his eyebrows and looked at the Adam with disbelief because nobody could handle their presence no matter how much they saw them.

“You’re saying that you’re doing all this just for fun?” Archie asked as he squinted his eyes at the Adam.

“For fun? Do you think I’m doing all this just for fun?” The Adam scoffed and stared at Archie mockingly. “Do you know what they said about me when I told them I didn’t want to partake in the last survivor of the Adams? They would punish me!”

Archie looked confused because he didn’t know about that since he followed Throne’s orders because it was an order from God that had passed down to Throne. He never thought about it in the first place because he was overwhelmed with the truth and swayed by Throne’s words.

“I can see it in your eyes that you have no idea about it,” The Adam said as he scoffed and smirked.

The Adam walked away with his clones toward the stone table that he created.

“The reason why I did all this is to make sure that I’m going to be invincible to them even if they’re going to punish me. Of course, if I’m invincible to them, that also means you and the other Adams wouldn’t be able to stop me from whatever I’m going to do with all this knowledge,” The Adam said as he turned around and looked at Archie.

“So you’re not with them? The other Adams?” Archie asked out of curiosity.

“The other Adams? Why would I join them? I can’t even make sure of my own safety, and yet you’re asking if I’m joining with the other monsters like me?” The Adam answered.

Archie got more confused because he thought all of the Adams were working together to eliminate him as Throne warned him. He started to have doubts about everything that he heard because it felt like he was being steered by them to achieve whatever they wanted him to be.

“When did they choose you?” Archie asked.

“A hundred years ago more or less,” The Adam answered and stared at Archie. “You’re the last one, right?”

“Yes, I was chosen a few months ago,” Archie answered as he nodded his head.

“It looks like they favored you the most compared to the rest of us,” The Adam chuckled mockingly. “Anyway, enough with the talk, you’re here to kill me right? And I’m here because I have to do my job as the chosen as well,”

Archie took a deep breath and thought about going all out because it was going to be a hard battle. He looked at his surroundings and believed even if he got out of control again, at least Eve would know where he was.

Archie transformed himself into his parasite form, but he realized the parasites inside his body remembered the form when he lost control. He became a dragon-like creature with massive wings on his back that could tear anything with its sharp edges and long arms to tear everything down.

The Adam looked at Archie with a mild shock but he wasn’t scared of him at all and decided to multiply himself and doubled his amount. He started to walk toward Archie and surrounded him with his clones, and when all of them were in the position, they all transformed themselves into a parasite form with six arms and sharp claws on each finger.

Archie used his sharp tail and whipped it at one of them, it was strong enough to send the clone to the wall and splattered it like an egg. For a big body like that, he was able to move quickly as if his size didn’t matter and it caught the Adam off guard.

The Adam charged Archie with all his clones, he wasn’t as fast as Archie so it was easy for Archie to handle all of them at once. The only problem was no matter how hard Archie smashed them or splattered them onto the ground or walls, they kept coming back in a form of a slime that could reform himself back.

Although Archie seemed fine, the longer he battled, the less power, and energy left he had. If it kept going on like that, he believed that he would be the one who lose the battle, and knowing that the Adam was a scientist, it would be a big problem if he knew about his regeneration ability.

Archie’s thick skin and bones made the Adam unable to get through his body even if he tried his best. He never thought the Adam he was going to face would be that weak, but that didn’t mean he could kill the Adam either with the current situation.

The whole cave started to crumble and there was no more space in that dome, and the Adam decided to bring Archie into a narrow space through the tunnel. Archie had no choice but to follow him and made a path for his massive body like a tunnel boring machine.

The moment Archie reached the end of the tunnel, he looked around and was shocked with what he saw. Hundreds of parasites were standing still as if they were a display, and then the Adam started to laugh as all his clone went their separate ways.

“Do you think I would be stupid enough to not prepare for the worst? Let’s see who’s going to win. You, or my finest creations,” The Adam said as he spread his arms to show all the giant parasites.

The Adam’s clones transformed themselves into slime and entered the bodies of the parasites that he created. Not long after all his clones entered the parasites’ bodies, they started to come to life as if the Adam’s clones were the ones controlling them.

“You should know that I have been doing this for decades, let’s play with the warm-up toys first,” The Adam said with a smile on his face.

Archie stared at each one of them and without hesitation flew toward one of the parasites and ate half of its body in a single bite. It was like a feast for him while the Adam stared at him with a smile on his face.

“You just made a huge mistake,” The Adam said. “Do you understand what will happen if my clone is inside your body?”

Archie stopped eating the parasite and looked at the Adam without saying a single word.