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Hunter

The room was filled with heavy atmosphere.

"I... never thought you had such terrible past," Mei looked at us.

"What's done is done," I replied. "At least no one got seriously hurt."

"You died..."

"But I came back, right? That's all that matters."

"Alright..." Mei smiled softly. "Sorry for being too curious about your past."

"It's okay," I smiled back. I was immedieately held tightly by Alex who was sitting next to me.

"Thank you..." he cried softly. I just smiled and rubbed his head.

"If it's alright with you," Louis said, "I'll explain all the details about what you encountered today and 13 years earlier."

"Start," Alex sniffed as he calmed down a bit.

"Do you know about dimensions?"

"Like the ones in math?" Mei asked. Louis just nodded.

"If you study deeply in that specific subject, you'll know that there are a lot of dimensions in this world, four of which we have known: length, area, volume, and time. Those dimensions corelate with each others, creating the universe we live now.

"As you know, every action we do coresponds with other events. Every result will create a universe of its own, resulting a large amount of parralel universes."

"Uh... you lost me there," Alex scratched his head.

"It's like buying ingredients, right?" I asked. "What we buy determines the meal we will have."

"Exactly!" Louis smiled. "Now, let me continue. If even one of the dimension receive some sort of distortion, it will create a major disturbance on the balances of the universe, creating a massive rift hole between them."

"Now, I don't get it," I held my head.

"It's like making a soup using the ingredients for a steak," Nick explained. "It's completly impossible."

"Uh... I still don't get it," Alex looked confused.

"To put it the easy way," Tony pushed Nick aside, "if we destroy the balance, something bad is gonna happen."

"Okay, you translate for me, please," Alex immedietly stood up and sat next to him. "Can you continue, Louis?"

"Uh... Okay..." Louis stared at him. "So anyways, those distortion also take a more physical form. We call those forms fiends. And if left alone, it could tear the entire existance in this dimension.

"That's why some people with special trainings come together and decided to create an undercover job. We call ourselves Hunters. We take care of the physical forms by eliminating them one by one.

"However, being a hunter is very risky. Depending on the Fiend we encounter, we could lose a limb, blood, or organs."

"Wow, sounds like a dangerous job..." I thought out loud.

"You don't know the half of it," Lionel replied. "Most hunters even died in the fight."

"Most?" Mei asked.

"85.7% to be precise." We gulped at the large percentage.

"Don't scare them like that," Louis sighed. "It'll give them nightmares."

"Too late," Mei trembled. Louis and Lionel just chuckled.

"That's not funny!" Mei pouted.

"So anyways," Louis smiled, "hunters are placed all around the world in secrecy. We also have to dispose of them inconspiciously. But most of the times, we have to dig informations from the streets. That's where most of the times our jobs helped. As a police officer, I can get info from the stations for murder cases thats related with Fiends."

"Speaking of police officer and job," Nick interrupted, "aren't you gonna be late for work?"

"Oh yeah!" Louis started to panic. He immedietly stood up and ran out the front door after grabbing his keys. We all chuckled at his reaction.

"Well, I guess I'll be countinuing his explanations," Lionel smiled.

"No need," Mei replied. "I think we get the big picture already."

"Oh..." Lionel stared at the Chinese girl.

"And lemme guess," she continued, "you want us to be hunters right?"

"H-how'd you guessed?" Lionel's eyes were struck opened.

"Simple, you've been staring at us all this time," Mei deduced. "It indicates that the certain details that you're telling us is actually to find out if we have any reactions to it. And seeing that we've already seen Michael's techniques, I'm guessing that you guys sees his potential as a hunter."

We were completely dumbfounded. I can't believe she could come up to something like this in such a short time.

"Am I right?" Mei asked.

"Huh? Oh, yes," Lionel replied. "Your deducing skills are quite, uh... unbelievable."

"Thanks," she smiled. "I get that a lot."

"Well, Michael," Lionel stared at me. "What do you say?"

I wasn't certain on what to answer. If I accept this offer, it means I have to face the dangerous creatures. But if I decline, well, not much will change. I really don't want to fight if I can. But I also want to protect Alex since those things are attracted to us.

"That's okay," Lionel sighed. "Take your time. It's a very hard decision to make. I'll give you guys a week to think about it, okay?"

"Yeah..." I murmered. All of us stood up and head towards the door.

"Sorry for intruding," I apologized.

"It's okay," Lionel smiled back. "I didn't think we have to tell you this quickly."

"Can I have one more question?" Mei asked.

"What is it?"

"Does those fiends send e-mails before they strike?"

Lionel, Nick, and Tony just laughed hysterically.

"What?" Mei glared at them.

"N-no, nothing," Nick tried to hold back his laughter. "It's just that, how could something like that be a tech genious?"

"Well, I was just asking," Mei pouted.

"So what gave you the idea they could use computers?" Lionel caught his breath.

"Four days ago, I received a threatening e-mail from someone," I explained. " Then it started to count down like a ticking time bomb."

"Time bomb?" Tony raised an eybrow.

"Well, I've never heard about any fiends that uses technology before," Lionel rubbed his chin. "Any other infos?"

"If it's like a time bomb, it's supposed to detonate today."

"And that fiend attacked us today," Nick added. "No wonder you asked that."

"But, that's strange," Tony mumbled. "How could the two be connected. Is it just pure coincidence?"

We all thought deeply of the possibilities, and came up with no answers. We all sighed and shook our heads.

"Let's try to think about it later," Lionel said. "Right now, we..."

Just as he were about to finish his sentence, something in my pocket rang and vibrated out loud. We jumped and were completly surprised. I took the object out of my pocket and held it in front of me. The small device looked like a white PDA with three vertical stripes in the middle. The screen was glowing red with the words RED ALERT.

"What's that?" Alex asked me.

"It's dad's security pad," I explained. "It's like the apartment's watch dog."

"How'd you have something like that?" Nick asked.

I patted my other pockets. My cellphone was nowhere to be found. "I must've thought this was my cell."

"Well, what does it say?" Tony asked.

"RED ALERT."

"And what does that mean?"

"It means, someone in our apartment, armed and very dangerous, high chance that someone's already injured," I explained. I immedietly realized, someone broke into our apartment. I dashed quickly towards my home. The others followed a few seconds after.

'Mom, dad, please be okay...' I whispered under my breath.