I n f i n i t u m

Chapter One

Bethel City, Sector 1

Year 2024

I was laid out on a bed made of cold metal, my naked body strapped against it tightly. Sounds of beeping noises echoed from all around, but I couldn't find the slightest strength to open my eyes.

Nausea. I swallowed back the bile that burned in my throat. I was drowning. Drowning in fire. It felt like my veins were just about ready to burst from the immense amount of pressure caused by the unknown substance coursing through it.

"Ready syringe 2B," a male voice spoke, disembodied and monotone, "insert it directly above syringe 1A so that the two interlock substances."

I heard the click of prongs.

What was happening?

A shudder went through me as something sharp punctured the skin of my arm. I felt it before my brain could react to the sudden sensation of the liquid rushing in.

I gasped and involuntarily rose up from the metal bed.

Sounds of struggle was heard before a set of strong hands held me down. A machine began to beep right above my head and I imagined an unstable current of lines ransacking my vitals.

Something clattered on a table, and a female voice stressed, "Doctor, he's going into cardiac arrest!"

I clenched my jaw. I hated it. I hated the hands touching my body. I hated the voices flooding my eardrums. I hated the sounds of machines echoing from all around.

"Let him ride it out. The blood is already in his system."

It was painless. My death was painless. I dug my fingers into the table underneath me, feeling the metal bend underneath my touch. My consciousness shut down completely and I was out.

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 A FEW DAYS PRIOR

Getting a tattoo was rather painful.

I was nineteen when I had it done. Two dragons permanently embedded into my skin— a red serpent-like dragon curled up on my left arm and a white one on my chest.

Sure, I did it because my mother despised the idea, but there was another, more important, reason behind the madness. The red dragon on my back represented my dad who I had lost early on and the white one represented myself. It was to remind myself every day for the rest of my life, that he would always have my back...even in death.

Beforehand, I thought it was a good idea. I had a high pain tolerance, so I walked into the store expecting a cake walk. The tattoo artist that one of my friends sent me to was a traditionalist and it took an entire month of weekly visits to get an entire sleeve and my chest done.

It was very painful.

But once it was finally finished, the thought of regret never crossed my mind—

"Yui Hua, what on earth is on your body?!"

—until now.

My mother had unexpectedly walked into my apartment in the ungodly hours of the morning, a time where I usually happily lounged around in my underwear after waking up.

I playfully batted her hand away when she tried to pinch me and she withdrew it to sweep a hand through her dyed hair in distress. I could make out the gleaming white strands of hair within the black and guessed that I would need to re-dye her hair some time today. My mother worked as a hair dresser, the best one in our block, how would it look to see the highly esteemed salon owner's own hairdo revealing white strands of age?