Nightmare Shuttle

A slender finger traced softly against the skin of his inner thighs, the intertwined red and green bruises blooming on his body like the immature stamen of a blossoming flower. Most of the marks on his limbs had been faintly erased but the skin here had been deliberately left untouched, like a dangerous beast marking its territory.

Red lips parted, strings of saliva obscenely stretching from the base of the swollen and ravaged petals, even the breath he exhaled seemed to still carry the faint taste of musk, he didn't know if it was caused by the residual effects of the pearl, regardless, his skin was still clamoring greedily for touch. 

Chu Yi's head hung low, drooping eyelids covering the brewing danger in those stormy red eyes, sweat trickled down the strained muscles of his neck and the hand that traced his skin only pressed harsher and harsher, a enticing red flush appearing on his cheeks as Chu Yi's body shook in lingering pleasure–

He gasped, strands of sweat-soaked black hair fell into the hollows of his throat, alongside the intertwined marks, new bruises created by his own hands now sullied the snow white skin. His eyes slowly traced upwards from the flushed pink skin to the shyly tensing muscles, his entire being had been corroded by sinful heat.

Then he stopped and abruptly swung his head to the ceiling, the dark shadows no longer hid him, the fluttering eyelashes were like a butterfly on the verge of flying away. The wet, sticky black hair was like soaked dark satin, flowing with metallic light, and stuck to his flaming-hot cheek. His slim eyebrows were like unrefined swords, the breath he exhaled like a woven heated mist, softly encasing a pair of dark eyes that seem to want to set the world ablaze!

The red lines suddenly broke free from the shackles of the skin–

The scarlet patterns originally wrapped around the limbs spread out in the air. The complex and ancient scaled patterns seemed to be moved by invisible hands!

They stretched out under the dim white light with a treacherous and long-lasting sense of shock makes all creatures who look at it instinctively fall into stagnation and fear. The lines erupted with an awe and tremor from the depths of the soul, that no existence can contend with it–

There was no longer any pain from transformation, his eyes were open, and the mirror reflected in the depths of his scarlet red pupils, a sly smile, the corners of his lips were slightly aroused as if he couldn't help but laugh, and there was an indescribable calm expression on his pale face. He tilted his head slightly, his throat moved as if he was saying something but no words appeared from his lips but Chu Yi didn't care,

He knew.

Chu Yi took a breath and closed his eyes, his complexion faded to a faint pink, the clamoring in his body calmed down, his jet-black eyelashes covered the undulating emotions in eyes, dazzling, white chest settling into a steady heartbeat. On the pale skin below his neck, the scarlet bright lines slowly faded and disappeared, as if hiding deeply inside his body again.

But the scales on his skin had doubled in numbers, and the protruding hard bulge on the glistening forehead had grown in size. The strange and inhuman additions, did not make him look unsightly, it only gave a him a weird and soul sucking beauty. 

The time was nearing.

With a final gasp, Chu Yi wiped the sweat from his face and walked steadily out of the bathroom. He had a few more questions that he needed answers to. However before he could fully make for the exit of the shared ward, his hands that went to open the door suddenly paused, head slowly turning to the obtrusive presence in the previously empty room,

Somehow Tang Shun had appeared here unaware, sitting on the rusty, old bed, almost as if he had been waiting for him...

Tang Shun legs overlapped, his left hand propped on the rusty rails of the bed, supporting his head. The dim light and shadows intertwined in a sinister and evil light that made the heart palpitate in fear, the faked gentleness on his body receded like a gushing tide, the cutting oblique and gloomy nature was fully reflected in the dark peach blossom eyes.

The tip of the leather shoe was facing the door, and Tang Shun's jaw was sharply outlined in the flickering darkness, the lines of his body were perfect and deep, and the corners of his raised lips were very meaningful. Only the color of his lips was thin and almost sickly pale in the eve of alienation.

Chu Yi paused, squinting his eyes and looked at him playfully, "It turns out that our gentle snake Tang Shun is also here. Why the sudden appearance..."

"Isn't it that you disappeared– I thought you had died." Tang Shun's voice was casual, as if Chu Yi's death had nothing to do with him, "But such a nameless and lackluster death seemed uncharacteristic of you, so I came back here."

He grinned strangely, "Turns out, my intuition was right."

Chu Yi retracted his hand and walked towards Tang Shun step by step, a cold oppresive pressure instsntly flooded the room, nevetheless Tang Shun sat still, unfazed, but the thin lips couldn't hold back a smirk, "Ah, it seems you really went through a lot during this time, why do I smell a vaguely familiar taste on you, one that uncannily reminds me of a certain creature. Care to give an explanation?"

"No explanation needed. We fucked." Chu Yi walked to Tang Shun In front of him, bent down and propped both hands on the railings of the bed. Mockingly standing over him, his black hair fell on Tang Shun's suit in hanging silk tresses, with a smile akin to an evil spirit, the maliciousness in his heart only grew deeper and darker. He stared directly into Tang Shun's eyes and seemed to notice something, the sneer at the corner of lips his lips turned exaggerated as he exclaimed, "Tang Shun, how do you look a little bit different? Isn't it right? Why do you seem..weak."

He tentatively approached the man sitting on the bed, face shrouded in ambiguous darkness, his slightly hot breath blew across the Tang Shun's face like a sharp wind, red eyes growing darker in faint excitement, as if the maliciousness in his soul was about to tear through the darkness and rush out of his beautiful demonic face to sear into his skin.

Until he saw the dark peach blossom eyes turn up in a grin,

"Ah, it seems something is really very wrong. My alienation seems to cause bouts of uncontrollable weakness after certain shedding."

He shrugged, "It's uncontrollable and perhaps I might die in a moment of inattentive."

Tang Shun was open and straightforward about his situation and didn't seem to care about Chu Yi finding out.

Boring.

Chu Yi straightened up, faintly disappointed at the lack of struggle and tension, the excitement from the potential clash was immediately snuffed out like water dousing flames. Ridicule faintly appeared at the end of his eyes and his lips downturned into a sneer, "Very honest."

Tang Shun smiled with a gentlemanly tip, "My pleasure."

Defusing this beautiful bomb took no more than a few words.

The both of them fell into meaningful silence but neither of them left and not long after, as predicted Chao Bin appeared at the door with a worried face, his hands were clenched at his side and hisbl pursed lips seemed to be holding back tears. However before he could start talking, as soon as he lifted his head, he immediately spotted the unharmed and intact Chu Yi standing by the wall with faint aloofness and after a moment of shock, 

He instantly cried out and rushed towards Chu Yi, hands grabbing onto his arms and eyes quickly scanning his entire body for injuries, 

"How did you get out?!"

"After you got locked in, we tried to open the door and let you out but the system wouldn't accept the password anymore and we could only split up in hopes we could find a hidden passage that would lead back to the room."

"Aee you alright?! Why are your lips so red, are you hot."

Chu Yi uncannily felt a pang of shame appear in his heart for some reason and after shrugging and shifting away, he gave a vague almost perfunctory explanation, then somewhat embarrassedly brought the attention to another important topic.

"Let's summarize everything we know so far."

Chu Yi analyzed all the clues they had in front of them now, "We can rightly conclude that the Black Cat Project is a matter that bounds the Federation to the Institute in a process to create something that combines the strength of scientifically modified animals and the untapped intelligence of humans. It's a matter of balancing animalistic instinct and human control to create a new type of evolution that will propel the Federation and its civilization into the direction of world class leaders."

"The first step was eliminating the biological children and replacing them with artificial genetic products that are classified as 'superior' to regular humans and creating a frenzy with propaganda in order subset the nature of the population. But the timeline here is confused, were these artificial children created after the Institute had started conducting it's experiments or before but then in the video we watched, it seemed that Phase #0001 only started after the biological children had already been deemed obsolete."

Chao Bin pondered hard, "Then do you mean that before the Institute was even created, there was already someone experimenting with gene codes, combining and editing them to try and create a superhuman in a sense." There was a flash of inspiration, "The only place that I can think of is the lab in the confinement room, it must have been the original source of the code experiments. It's the only place that seems out of touch with the rest of the Institute and the building even seems to be built around it rather than it being built with it."

"Tentatively assume as such. So if we correct the timeline here, there was someone, presumably the mysterious mastermind that operated on humans in this lab . But the timeline is confused once again, because in the experiment logs we see nurses appearing in the videos and being torn apart by these monsters. So during the time that these experiment logs were created, the person who started the experiment was already involved with the Federation."

Chao Bin was even more confused, "Then when exactly did these experiments first start. If it was before the biological children were abandoned, before original source was discovered and before the experiment logs were created, then where exactly are we to look at."

Tang Shun lightly squinted his eyes and spoke, " Besides that, the rudimentary form of gene editing was created before any and all financial and human resources were available. This project was an isolated instance that happened outside of human eyes and was then brought to the Federation and implemented. Therefore the Federation is crossed out of the list of potential masterminds."

Chu Yi pondered for a moment and spoke, "The timeline we have now is that someone succeeded in cracking the fundamental elements of the human body and then something happened that prompted them to bring this information to the Federation, who then pushed out the biological children. This information must have been so important that the Empire was willing to sacrifice thousands of humans in order to create this power. They must have chosen to use children at first because they were young and have more vitality, so to speak able to withstand harsher treatment."

"Then what about the abandoned planets, why did the Federation move towards killing off the residents?"

"Because they fell short."

Tang Shun was the one to answer this, "If we assume that the first ever experiment done by the unknown researcher was successful and it even brought about the new type of humans, 'the evolutions', they probably tasted the sweetness of power, then the people at the top must have been tremendously excited and started shoving vital resources and money into the Institute. Propaganda spread, they started more wars over territories with the sudden new confidence and depleted themselves because they believed that the things created in the Institute would propel them to new heights."

"But what if the Institute failed."

Chao Bin pursed his lips, "Then they have to find something to fill the void. Because giving way means, giving up thr battle between galaxies."

"Exactly. In order to keep up the powerful front of the Federation, they had to find a way to survive anyways and what better way than to kill all human life on the planet and then classify them as abandoned and cording them off in order to deter anybody from searching into the real reasons. The war log we found essentially, reports the wrong number of soldiers death because instead of soldiers, the people of the Empire were used as a defense mechanism."

"Gradually this situation became the norm, the Institute could raise their guinea pigs and the Federation would have a suitable meat pit."

The room fell silent for a moment.

"Then this probably explains why there are only nurses in the Institute because it wasn't a concentrated effort of multiple people to create these experiments. It was one!"

Chu Yi nodded," But what we've seen so far, there are no really successful experiments here. There is always a background of either insufficient intelligence or insufficient strength or the opposite too much strenght or too much intelligence. Inherently uncontrollable by regular humans. The Federation and the Institute wanted to create something that would make them all powerful but would not rebel or kill them."

"Essentially, the perfect soldier."

"After so many disappointments, the Federation would have started using this place as a means to create cannon fodder. They would take the relatively controllable ones and used them on the battlefields and them dispose of the strong ones. The previous successful experiment was never replicated."

"What about the last video that wasn't shown when we watched the videos a while ago, do you think that was the first ever successful experiment."

Chu Yi shook his head, "The first successful experiment wouldn't be grouped with the other fish monsters and siren, remember Phase #0005| The abnormal one– More than likely, it refers to that experiment subject."

Suddenly Chu Yi paused and looked at them, " Why when were we referred to as Phase #0001."

"What–"

He pointed to their ID Cards, "We are Phase #0001, but that's impossible because that phase started when the Institute was first created. So why are we called Phase #0001."

They fell quiet, some consternation appearing on their faces, "Is it that we're replicating the scene that happened when the first batch of experiments were brought to the newly built Institute."

Tang Shun's brows furrowed deeper, "If we think about it that way, then it isn't impossible. In R89's first experiment log, it spoke about the death rates and happenings of Phase #0002, by then the Federation had already started filling in the gaps. That means that Phase# 0001 had failed, at least to a certain extent. But if we're 'replicating' the scene of Phase #0001 that means we're receiving the most rudimentary form of antibodies."

"And Phase #0001 had the most likely chance to succeed than any of the phases after that. That means we have the most likely chance to alienate than if we had been subjected to Phase #0004 code of experiments.This is repeating the cycle."

Chao Bin thought of the voice and wanted to ask but in the end, realized that there was still no way to get an answer for now. Unless he figured out the source of the voice.

"There's also another problem that I've noticed, " Chu Yi paused as if to think. "Why do you think the nurses turn into monsters? Is it just a scare tactic by the copy in order to facilitate the killing of players?"

Chu Yi licked his lips and turned faintly to Chao Bin, " If not only the residents and the players but also the nurses have been injected with the source antibody," He grinned, "Then isn't what I said about the owner of the lab true–"

"A true lunatic."

Chao Bin blanched at the words and looked put off by his words mainly because.....it wasn't far-fetched at all.

"There are only a few things left unanswered now, we have to find the original creator of the Institute, the first successful experiment and why the Institute had turned into a mutant nest without anyone knowing it."