The morning comes, and Pyro wakes us up. It’s time to start for the City Hall. Silver managed to calculate the position of the energy signal, so it’s easier to plan our route there. I feel better than last night, but still, my feet are a bit wobbly, and my neck is stiff. My eyes are also sensitive to the light, but in every other way, I’m perfectly fine.

You aren’t fine, Jasih. You’re falling apart. You have to change back. You have to let me out.

His voice comes to me clear as day, way louder than the dream I had last night or any other occasion until now. How does he get to have such a strong connection to this body while I have not?

You’re a parasite. You never belonged to this body, to begin with. You’re just a live armor, and I’m the owner of this body. You have to understand that!

Okay, now he can invade into my thoughts, too. I kinda preferred it when he didn’t talk at all. Now I just want to hit him in the face, but I know that it will hurt me more. We share a fucking body.

I feel some kind of discomfort deep into my stomach. He’s forcing me out of this body, but I’m not that weak yet. I can still endure his shit. I don’t give a damn, you hear me? You gave me control of this body. She loves me more, and you know it. Don’t resist.

“Jay, are you okay?” Dale suddenly appears out of nowhere. “We have to start towards the City Hall as soon as we can. Get ready as fast as you can.” He’s the only one that bothered to check up on me since we woke up this morning. Eladia, on the other hand, is nowhere to be found.

“Yeah, I’m fine!”

He arches his brows in surprise. I was more aggressive with him than I wanted. Does he hate me now, too? Does he also think that I’m only a parasite born to obey his orders? Shit, don’t they get it? I’m fucking alive.

He turns his back on me and walks ahead. He finds Pyro and whispers something to the other man. He shakes his head. What the hell did he say to him?

“Good morning, Jay.” Eladia’s voice calms me down a bit. She does a good job distracting me for a moment.

“Where have you been?”

Again, I talk louder than I want. What’s wrong with me? It’s like I can control my body anymore.

“Hey, tone it down a bit. We’re in the middle of the danger zone. If they hear you, we’re gonna have to fight them,” she says.

“Fight who? I thought we were alone on this planet. Isn’t this planet Purged or something?”

“Come on, Jay. We talked about this in the briefing two days ago. No, the planet is still populated by undead monsters that destroy everything in their path. They are highly sensitive to sounds and will attack us if they spot us. But, it’s not only that. Dale thinks that there are also black-maskers here. We have to be careful if we want to get to the City Hall without any more troubles,” she explains to me in a calm, condescending tone.

Still, Dale this, Dale that. Isn’t she the one that was calling him with his last name until yesterday?

“You and the doctor—are you back to being friends?” I say.

She shakes her head and looks at me with disappointment in her eyes. “Didn’t you hear me? We have more important problems now than my relationship with Dale.”

“Maybe this is the only things that really matters to me right now. After all, you didn’t come to our tent last night. Was there a reason to that?”

“Fuck off, Jay,” she suddenly says. “First, you threaten me and then you act like nothing has changed between us? Go to hell,” she bursts out.

Why is she angry at me? Why do I roar at her? I only understand what I’ve done after my cry echoes through the empty streets of Mosa.

“Are you out of your mind?” Pyro quickly bellows to me.

But it’s too late already.

The first attack comes from behind me. I hear the haunting sound of a body crawling behind me. A man, missing a hand and a leg, is trying to get me, but it’s moving way too slow to be any danger to anyone. I kick him in the head and then I return to the rest of the crew. Only then I see the horde of monsters amassing around us, pushing us to the corner of our camp.

They all have that metal thing on their heads, a flashing red button that keeps on shimmering. The crew, everyone except Silver and Zan, quickly get in formation. That means that Pyro, Dale, and Eladia are standing back-to-back and examine the horde getting closer to them, ready to devour them.

The undead hesitate to come closer to us at first, but like wild animals being hungry as hell, they soon decide that dying is worth it if they just manage to get a bite on us.

My bloodlust gives me the strength I need to fight them. I smack their craniums on the ground and kick them back as fast as I can, but where I manage to kill one, two more appear. It’s fucking impossible to kill them all. At that moment, Zan and Silver decide to join the battle. Morphing into her thruster form, Silver burns the bodies to ash. Zan, on the other hand, uses a metal staff, one similar to Eladia’s staff, to pierce their heads and kill them on the spot.

They don’t need me to help them; they don’t need anyone to help them anymore. They move fast and efficiently, taking out three to four of them with one sweep. Eladia and Dale move in unison, clearing wave after wave of the undead until a small pile of bodies gathers around them. Pyro, on the other hand, is a lone wolf using an old fashioned sword to sever their heads, but never even breaking a sweat.

I...well, I’m struggling with three of them, but soon, I keep up with the rest of the team. It’s almost funny how we get to kill people without having to regret it afterward. I would be genuinely happy if I wasn’t too tired of this shit. I really need to sleep.

After I kick the heads of three undead humans off their bodies, I stop and see that there’s no one left to fight. We managed to kill them all in a matter of minutes, a feat that we wouldn’t have been able to manage a year ago. Eladia, especially, was in the heat of the battle and after the end of it, she looks like this has been just a warm up exercise to her.

I walk closer to her to congratulate her only for Dale to stop me with a punch in the face.

“What the fuck?” I shout at him.

“You could have killed us all. You endangered this whole mission, and almost killed Eladia and even yourself with this nonsense. Keep your shit together, Jasih, or else wait here until we clear the City Hall and then come in. Millions of lives depend on us! Don’t fuck this up!”

I stare at him and then at Eladia; they all look at me like I’m a piece of shit.

Before I can say anything, they all move ahead, leaving me behind. At that moment, I understand. My anger is deep-rooted, and my mission is now clear in my head. Humans are the most selfish and unstable creatures of the Galaxy. It’s them that I have to destroy, not the Phadh.

I sink my hand deep into my pocket and fumble the cube. It’s warm, bursting with power. I feel the same too.