Noctura

thirty eight

jinwoo

I START moving toward Minho's bedroom when we hear a knock on the door.

But I stop when Minho suddenly says, "Wait."

I turn around and see Minho opening the door, revealing Yoon, standing there with a large file folder in his hands.

My heart skips a beat.

Yoon quickly comes inside and Minho shuts and locks the front door just as quickly.

"I need to speak with you," Yoon says, looking into my eyes.

Yoon and Minho sit down at the small kitchen table and I silently sit down across from Yoon.

He takes a deep breath, looking at Minho and then looking at me.

"The AAN person I got to research this stuff found a lab," Yoon informs me. "This is the information from the lab."

He slides the file folder over to me and I gently open it up.

Classified is stamped across the top of the first page. I can tell that there are multiple packets in this file, each packet stapled together. Once I flip the first page over, I see words that make my stomach churn.

Human to Noctura Experiments

"The back page of that packet," Yoon almost whispers.

I flip through the pages, seeing different names, all "failed experiments". They are the names of the dead.

Once I get to the last page, a single name catches my eye.

Jinwoo Kim: Successful

Me.

I was human.

I look up at Minho and I can feel the tears forming in my eyes.

He reaches out to me, gently pressing his hand against my arm.

"The AAN will take care of the lab," Yoon tells us. "They'll make sure it's shut down. It's one thing we can agree on, at least."

Minho looks over at Yoon. "So, it's true, then? Jinwoo was... a human?"

Yoon nods.

Minho looks back at me, a sympathetic look on his face. "Jinwoo, I'm so sorry. It's wrong that they did this to you, I..."

He trails off.

I look back down at the paper.

There are five other names with the word successful written next to it.

Gazali Sekibo.

Maja Nilsson.

Yu-wen Li.

Kaila Hale.

Idal Sousa.

"These other people, are they alive?" I ask.

"I don't know," Yoon answers. "There are files about each successful experiment in there, but I didn't read any of them. I thought you should be the first one to read them."

I stare down at the paper, reading my name over and over again.

I was a human. I was born a human but these people turned me into a Noctura.

"Does the AAN have this information still?" Minho suddenly asks. "Can they find these people? Can they find Jinwoo?"

Realizing what Minho is asking, I quickly look up at Yoon, fear in my eyes.