96 Escaped
Flush!
Hiro washed his face with cold water after throwing up everything in his stomach. He had cleared out his digestive tract, leaving only transparent liquid behind.
He stared at the reflection of his face in the mirror. He looked sickly pale, as if his blood was drained at once.
Hiro glanced at the man in suit who watched him at the exit door silently, treating him like the most dangerous criminal.
“He died. But, can ghosts play games?”
Hiro slapped his cheeks so hard that his skin turned red. He was still in shock at the sight he had just seen. It was so shocking that he couldn’t even feel the slightest sadness in his heart.
Seeing his brother’s body, with various stitches left from the autopsy, he almost couldn’t believe it was his brother. It was hard to recognize him as Yuujin even though what was written on the door was indeed his name.
Hiro didn’t feel sad, either because his feelings of sadness had been buried deep in his heart since the day of Yuujin’s death or because he was still in denial, feeling that Yuujin was still alive and only faked his death.
Just as he was going through such a crisis, the android bracelet that was wrapped around his wrist suddenly vibrated. And the screen moved on its own even though he didn’t do anything.
Hiro knew this. He tilted the screen of his android bracelet so that the man who was waiting for him could not see it until he finished calming himself down.
[Opening a notepad…]
[Hiro… this is me. I’ll help you escape. Just do what I say.]
Hiro gulped. He was getting tense to see that the android bracelet could open the machine’s built-in notepad application and wrote something in it.
There was only one person Hiro knew who could do something like this.
Anonymous.
“Are you done?! Hurry up, don’t waste the time!”
The man in the suit was getting annoyed with his duty of babysitting Hiro. However, Hiro ignored him and deliberately bought time by acting like he was still shaken by the sight of his brother’s body.
“Yuujin… I never thought that you would leave so fast.”
Sob… sob…
“If I had known that you were going to die, I definitely…”
The man in the suit frowned at the words that came out of Hiro’s lips. He seemed disgusted by it.
In fact, not only him who felt that, even Hiro, the one who said that word, wanted to burrow himself out of embarrassment. He hoped no one saw him except that man.
[Done… go now!]
[You only have 1 minutes to escape]
Hiro washed his face one last time and then walked back to the man in the suit. A subtle smile that spread from the corners of his cheeks made the man in the suit feel suspicious.
Bang!
Hiro suddenly slammed his knee against the man in the suit, right at his balls so hard that the man collapsed on the floor without making any voice.
“That’s for this bruise.” Hiro pointed to the bruise on the corner of his lips from a forceful blow the man gave before.
He then rushed out of the toilet.
And fortunately, it looked like Cath went into the women’s toilet because no one was guarding in the front.
Hiro dashed towards the elevator under the guidance of what Anonymous had written for him.
Right now the android bracelet only displayed a 1 minute countdown, and the time was running while Hiro bolted towards the elevator.
“Hey, you!” Hiro could hear Cath’s shrill voice from behind his back. It made him run even faster.
Ding!
The elevator opened by itself as Hiro got very close to it.
There was no one in front of the elevator, and Hiro entered the cylindrical object right away.
Cath appeared as the elevator doors began to close automatically without Hiro pressing any buttons.
“Sorry, Bye!”
Cath was not fast enough to catch up with the speed of the machine that was already under Anonymous’s control.
“No, wait!”
The elevator moved down without even stopping at any floor, as if no one was using it except him.
Hiro held on to the elevator wall. He could feel a slight shock from the elevator’s movement because the speed wasn’t normal.
Ding!
The elevator doors burst open on the ground floor.
Hiro immediately ran from the spacious hospital lobby to a place where the car could pick him up when he left the building. Many eyes were staring at him but he didn’t care.
[30 seconds remaining]
His eyes wandered, trying to find a driverless automatic taxi car with the license plate and the features that Anonymous had previously given him.
And he found it. The car was behind a new release white Mercedes. It looked so luxurious that even at once glance, Hiro got his focus distracted..
The Mercedes stopped in front of Hiro, and a driver walked out to open the passenger door.
“Hey, you!”
It seemed that another man in a suit standing on guard in the parking lot was told that Hiro had run away, and finally he managed to find him.
The man’s shouted made other people in that place take a glance towards him. Including a young man who just got out of the Mercedes car in front of Hiro.
“That damn kidnapper!” Hiro cursed, while rushing to get into the taxi. Passing a man who was stunned to see Hiro’s presence.
As Hiro passed by, he could hear a very faint voice.
“Nightfall…?”
Slam!
“Let’s get out of here!” Hiro slammed the taxi door hard. The car moved automatically to the location that had been marked in the GPS machine right away.
Hiro managed to get away from the man who was chasing him, and he looked back at the man he had passed. He was sure the man had called him NightFall.
Hiro’s eyes widened when he saw who he was. It was so easy to recognize him, even though the man didn’t have a pair of animal ears that stood upright on the top of his head.
“Libe’s brother?!”
The person who looked like Ace had the same confused expression as Hiro had. He tried to see through the dark windshield of the taxi just to make sure what he saw was indeed NightFall.
“What is he doing in this hospital?”
“Wait— Johnson Hope Hospital… I remember it now.”
“[1000] file. Liberty’s data information, the source is Johnson Hope Hospital.”
“Wait a second.”
Hiro couldn’t pay attention to the road at all because his brain was deep in thought.
He was trying to draw up every piece of information he had.
“Johnson’s Private Hospital.”
“Liberty Johnson.”
“Jeff Johnson…”
“No way—it couldn’t be, right?!”
“This must be just a coincidence.”
If only Hiro still had his old android bracelet, he would open the file again to confirm his suspicions because he wasn’t one hundred percent sure of it.
Especially about Ace…Ace…
He was trying to remember Ace’s surname in the file.
But he failed. He never thought that two of the names in those files were from the same family. And Ace never appeared on the broadcast system as if he didn’t join the CBT.
Ding!
[You have received a new message from Anonymous]
[Anonymous: I’ll see you soon.]