Accidents Made Right 1: Pistanthrophobia

Chapter 43: Unexplained Tragedies

"Where is Rowan?!"

"Oh, he's not far away. In fact, he actually wants to see you, in person."

I thought for a moment, wondering if I should trust him. I knew I couldn't, but maybe I needed to do what he says in order to get closer to Rowan without any trouble.

"Oh, and, he doesn't want to see anybody except for Steve," Alexander continued.

"What," Rob what-ed.

"You heard me. The only one Rowan wants to see is Steve. So... that means if you want to see him, you three should stay behind," he emphasized.

You do realize this is a trap, right, Hope asked.

Well, obviously. It's just that I'm trying to figure out who planned it, Alexander, Rowan, or Robert.

I thought for another few seconds, and then ordered to my team "Do what he says," as I walked over to Alexander.

...

"So, where is he," I asked him.

"Up above," he answered as he pressed a button on his gauntlet that was obviously a rip-off of mine, and then I teleported inside a grey, metal room with advanced teleportation technology making up most of the room.

In front of me was a metal door, and after a second it slowly opened to reveal a white woman with white-ish brown hair and green eyes. She was probably as old as Issac and Dylan, about 40 years old, and looked exactly like Rowan if he was female, and older.

She quietly said to me "This way," before she walked away from the door.

My helmet collapsed back into my suit, and I walked through the door, seeing a long, narrow walkway inside a glass observatory. I could see outside in every direction, even below me. The coliseum was directly below the observatory, and I realized the structure I was in was currently invisible to any outside eyes.

I looked in front of me, and saw the woman was now talking with somebody slightly taller than her, and I heard her say something along the lines of "Please, don't do this."

Nothing happened for a moment, until I saw a sword plunge through the woman's heart, killing her instantly and causing her to collapse to the walkway's floor, revealing a man in a suit exactly like Alexander's.

The man was white, had completely black eyes, brown hair, and a distinct snake burn mark on his left cheek and a yellow rose birthmark on the left side of his neck.

Holy shit... Rowan?

Rowan stood there for a moment, the blood dripping from his nanotechnology sword, and he looked at the woman with no emotion whatsoever.

"What did he do to you," I asked in slight disbelief.

"I became better, stronger... smarter," he responded with no stutter. His black eyes started to show a few very small remains of his sclera.

"I... what? He... he tortured you. He... he took you away from me," I yelled at him.

"Here we go again, always being so possessive of me," Rowan responded with annoyance.

"But... I... look, I understand if you're mad. I should've seen them coming for you, but I... I got distracted."

Rowan sighed, then said "It's too late for excuses. After all, tonight... it's all about new beginnings. About... restarting it all. Wiping the slate clean."

"What?"

Rowan pulled out a small detonator out of his belt, and before I even had time to figure out what it could be for, he pressed the button, causing a massive explosion inside the coliseum, destroying it and everything inside.

I quickly unsheathed my left sword with my right hand and yelled "What did you just do?!"

"Isn't it obvious? I'm restarting it all. I'm..." Rowan started explaining, before he started going into a huge fit of coughs. The coughs ended up being so bad that he had to drop to the floor towards me, and when he did the coughing turned into gagging.

After about a dozen seconds of gagging, Rowan's eyes started flashing between his normal eyes, and completely black, and then a small, completely black slug-like thing slowly started coming out of his mouth, and I heard Rowan barely say through the slug "P-please... h-help... m-me," before the slug came back through into mouth, and his eyes returned to complete darkness as he got up and looked at me.

"Sorry about that. Welp, guess now you probably figured out what's going on here," 'Rowan' commented.

"Get out of his body, you... you... parasite!"

"Wow, if I didn't actually fit the definition of a parasite, I'd be offended," the parasite quipped with Rowan's voice.

"C'mon Rowan, fight it!"

"Silly, that's not how it works. You can't just-" the parasite started to say, before Rowan started regaining control again, almost contradicting what the parasite said.

"C'mon, you can do it!"

"I-I... c-can't. I-it's too d-difficult," Rowan said in pain.

I was pretty sure I couldn't do anything to help him other than supporting him, until I had an idea. My helmet reformed around my head, and I activated the parasite and disease scanner.

After a couple seconds, the AI said "No parasites detected."

What?

"T-that... w-won't... w-work. This... i-isn't a n-normal p-parasite," Rowan explained before the parasite took back control again.

"Rowan's right. There's nothing you can do, except killing me. But in order to do that, you'd have to kill him first."

"No, no! I can't!"

Rowan started taking control again, and sputtered out "I-I... t-think it m-might be r-right. I-it's the only w-way."

"No! I can... I can find another way!"

"P-please... do it. I-it's... i-it's so p-painful."

The parasite took control again, and then ran up to me, grabbed me, and yelled in my face "Do it! Kill me! You know it's the only way," before Rowan started taking control again and said "P-please, d-do it... f-for me. I-I... d-don't w-want to s-suffer like t-this f-forever."

I kept on thinking on some possible other way that wouldn't have a chance of me accidentally killing Rowan. And yet, every single thing I thought of I instantly thought of a reason why he could possibly die if I went through with each idea.

Rowan must've activated the sword when he regained control again, because red electricity was now sparkling around the sword.

"Do it!"

"D-do it... p-please."

"Do it! Now!"

"P-please."

"Fucking do it!"

They kept on switching control so much, and each time either of them spoke the pressure increased on me even more, until eventually, I caved in, and I plunged the sword into Rowan's stomach, causing the parasite to lunge out of Rowan's mouth, and right towards me, so I tilted my head so it would hit the wall behind me.

Before the parasite even hit the floor after hitting the wall, I unholstered one of my Glock-19s and unloaded every single titanium bullet into it. Once I was done firing, there wasn't even anything else except for a barely noticeable black liquid.

Once I knew it was dead, my hand started shaking, out of both anger and stress, and then I heard Rowan cough, so I quickly turned to him and held him in my left arm as he fell. I tried so, so hard to hold back my tears, to show Rowan I was still strong. Unfortunately, he sputtered one thing before he died which completely destroyed me.

"I... have... always... loved... you."

Hearing him say this, I couldn't hold it back anymore, and dropped the sword in my right hand, grabbed Rowan into a hug of despair with both hands, and finally, I cried. I cried my heart out, with a horrifyingly loud wail of despair.

I cried... for the last time in 7 years.

Wait! I think a flashback's coming! Maybe I can use it to escape!