Extra's Descent-Chapter 384: Evelyn Cessna [1]

"Haaa…. H-haaa…."

His breathing grew frantic, and his heartbeat quickened.

He was having a panic attack.

"Huuu…."

He felt his sanity slowly slipping away in each passing second.

"Haaa…."

Brandon took deep and heavy breaths, the moment he turned to look at Evelyn's lifeless figure, he felt his stomach twist.

"Hueek…!"

He rushed towards the bathroom and puked on the toilet.

Anxiety slowly crept in, and he looked at the mirror after washing his face.

—You're weak, Brandon.

The world stopped.

His reflection spoke to him. A man with ink–black hair and black eyes, that seemed to stare right through the depths of his soul.

—It was your incompetence that killed her.

His reflection sneered back at him.

The dark bags under his eyes, the hollow look.

He couldn't even recognize himself anymore.

"...."

—You can't keep anything safe.

"Shut up…."

Clenching his fists, he punched the mirror, and it shattered, the shards cascading all over the ground.

It wasn't real.

It was just his anxiety, the voices in his head speaking to him. His inner self.

Right, the pills.

Take the pills, and the voices would stop.

Like it always had.

The pills.

—Look at you, falling apart over and over. You're pathetic.

The pills….

The….

—She's dead because of you.

It all fell out of his trembling hands.

"Ah…."

The pills scattered all over the ground. Brandon crawled trying to pick each of them up, only for it to fall again out of his shaky hands.

It all fell down.

"Akh…!"

Glass shards grazed his fingers the moment he tried picking up another pill.

Brandon stared at the pills scattered across the floor, his hands trembling as blood dripped from his fingers.

The glass shards had dug into his skin, but the pain barely registered.

It was drowned by something far worse.

His chest felt tight, like a vice squeezing the breath out of him.

Every beat of his heart lingered with guilt, every breath laced with regret.

Despite the circumstances telling him otherwise, he knew.

He killed her.

And in one of the shards, he saw it.

—You're useless. Worthless. Weak.

No, he had finally realized it.

This form he took.

The black hair, the black eyes.

He had been denying it this whole time.

He….

….Was turning into Jin.

He bore a striking resemblance to Jin. Much to the point where he couldn't even differentiate it anymore.

But Jin was Raven. He was supposed to be an uncanny, twisted form of Raven.

'But I'm also Raven….'

Yet at the same time, he wasn't.

Could it actually be….?

The Raven Jin was supposed to be…. Could it actually be him?

—Let me in. I can take it all away.

And he finally felt it.

A hand seemed to touch his face, slightly embracing him from the back.

—You know you need me.

A whisper in his ear.

A voice that sounded the exact same as his.

It was his voice.

Yet at the same time, it wasn't.

As his bangs fell on his face, obscuring his vision, he had come to realize that his hair was still pale–white.

Yet the reflection told him otherwise.

—Do it, accept me. All the pain. The guilt. It'll be gone. Just accept me.

He pressed his palms against his temples, trying to shut it out. But the voice only grew louder.

—Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on.

More distorted.

The room seemed to shrink around him, suffocating.

"Huekk…."

He couldn't breathe.

His heart was pounding in his ears, drowning out everything else. He could barely think, barely see within the tunneling of his vision.

The bathroom felt too small.

Too cold.

Too loud.

He wanted to scream, to tear everything apart, but he couldn't move.

'I killed her. I killed her. I killed her. I killed her. I killed her.'

Brandon's throat tightened, choking on a sob.

It was like sinking into quicksand. The more he struggled, the faster he was dragged down.

—Just let go.

His reflection smiled back at him.

"...."

And a figure that looked eerily similar to Jin stood right in front of him.

Brandon considered the offer.

He was tired.

Exhausted.

Just when everything started going right, one thing kept happening, and it all came crashing down like a domino.

He was the domino.

His chest tightened, every breath a struggle.

But in the quiet corner of his mind, all that remained was a dull ache.

His reflection leaned in, face inches away from the cracked glass, the final whisper slithering in his ears.

"Ah…. Is that so?"

The voices finally resonated with his own.

….Because this whole time, he was the one whispering the words.

Every whisper the reflections spoke came from his own mouth.

That much became obvious to him.

"I've had enough of dreams."

The world went black.

Brandon's pale hair bled to black, his eyes turning an inky void as amethyst flames erupted out of his body, seamlessly crawling all over his figure.

His reflection disappeared as he became the very thing he despised the most.

***

Brandon stepped out of the bathroom, his eyes dull, his face drenched with sweat and water.

Being in the room was still painful.

He turned and glanced at Evelyn's lifeless figure, a stabbing pain piercing his heart.

But pain didn't hurt the same anymore.

The anxiety crept in, but the voices had stopped.

There was no point in ingesting the pills anymore.

Because there was a much better solution.

*Puff*

"....Bitter."

He cursed.

But it was soothing, alleviating the sorrow he felt.

No wonder Evelyn was addicted to it.

To think the very item he had confiscated, after telling her it wasn't a good look for her, was his solution.

The very item he had forgotten to remove from his blazer's pocket.

In any case, there was still some stuff left to do.

To figure out the mystery regarding his arrival.

Because as he looked around, Evelyn's phone was nowhere to be found.

"It wasn't her."

She wasn't the one who sent him the message.

There was someone else pulling the strings, someone else that lured him here.

This was going to take a while, and so, Brandon pulled up his phone to send a quick message to Amelia.

—Let's call it off. I don't feel so good today.

He wasn't in the mood to go out on a date in the first place.

In a matter of seconds, notifications flooded his phone.

—Huh?

—What happened?

—I understand, but are you okay?

—Where are you? I'll come over right away.

Brandon immediately put his phone to sleep before he'd accidentally accepted a call from her.

Amelia already had a lot on her hands.

He couldn't drag her into this.

Otherwise, he would lose her too.

He couldn't allow that to happen.

And so, Brandon started snooping around, to find any leads. If Evelyn was suffering from the Wraith seed for the past few months, then surely, she had undergone some kind of treatment.

Especially since she was able to hide it for so long.

There had to be something.

Documents.

Anything. Stay connected through novelbuddy.com

In under an hour, he had managed to find several documents relating to Evelyn's activities within the frame of September to December.

"The first hospitalization…."

It was shortly after the auction raid.

"So she had done frequent check–ups…."

But had kept everything to herself.

Finally, something interesting came up.

[Patient Name: Evelyn Cessna

Date of Surgery: December 2, 2149.

Surgeon: Dr. Ben Dover

Procedure Performed: Mana Core Concealment Surgery]

The patient presented with a damaged mana core, suffering from severe mana instability due to cracks in the core structure. Over the past few weeks, symptoms have worsened, manifesting in uncontrollable mana surges….]

All of the check–ups had been done by the same surgeon.

*Puff*

"Ben Dover, huh?"

While Wraith seeds weren't common knowledge, even a surgeon should be able to tell there was something wrong.

But from the check–ups conclusions, it had always stated that nothing was wrong.

"She frequented check–ups even after the surgery…."

It almost seemed deliberate.

As if the surgeon wanted to cast her aside. Most probably, had noticed something was wrong, but didn't have the sufficient technology to deal with the process.

"If that were the case, the surgeon kept taking her money without even properly conducting her check–ups."

He had to pay a little visit.

Then, he glanced once more at Evelyn. Her hair was fully white, and her skin was hauntingly pale.

His stomach twisted, his expressions hardening, but he gritted his teeth.

"Ah…."

Without realizing it, he was clutching the document too tightly, crumpling the paper.

There was one more thing he needed to check to be certain.

He approached her.

Step—

Every step he took ached his heart, but he had to get closer to her.

"Huuu…."

He took a deep breath and crouched down. Narrowing his eyes, he scrutinized the hole on Evelyn's chest.

"Hueek…!"

He gagged once more, but persisted. It was sickening.

So much so, that the world seemed to spin, and the air suddenly grew cold.

Trying his best to focus, he saw it.

It was the same as what happened to Alan Ross and the Iron Fist guild.

He could see it, sprouting not so deep from her inner core.

….A single cherry blossom petal.