Noctura

forty one

minho

JINWOO COMES out of his room. His hair is disheveled, his eyes are a bit puffy, and he looks exhausted.

"Hey," I say softly, turning down the volume of the news on the TV. "How are you doing?"

He sniffs. "I think you should read some of this. Yoon, too."

"What's it say?" I ask.

He walks over to me and sits down next to me, handing me the file. "It talks about what they did to everyone they experimented on. There's two other people who got away, just like me."

"Well, what happened to you? What does it say?"

"It... it said they gave me an injection and I passed out," Jinwoo answers with a shaky voice. "They knew I was a Noctura but I didn't wake up until five days later and I guess I destroyed the lab and escaped. The writing says they thought I had been woken up by instinct. I guess that's why I don't remember it happening."

"It says you escaped that way?" I take a deep breath, thinking. "Jinwoo... if you were able to escape the lab, you must be a lot stronger than I thought. I knew you were strong, since you won that fight in the warehouse, but escaping a lab designed to keep experimental Nocturas inside?"

He looks down at his hands. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. "There's two other people, Minho. Two other people who are just like me: Noctura but once human. They could be out there somewhere."

"You're right," I respond quietly. "But there really isn't any way we could find them, right?"

Jinwoo doesn't respond.

He looks up at the television, reading the headlines.

I clear my throat. "What else does it say? Does it talk about how they do it?"

Jinwoo doesn't respond. He just keeps looking at the television.

"Jinwoo?"

He looks over at me. "Who are the Malums?"

I look over at the television then, reading the headlines and looking at the footage on the screen.

Malums attack fourth sector shopping center

The footage shows people running around the shopping center in a blind panic. And Nocturas are attacking people everywhere.

The video cuts when I see AAN officers enter the center.

"Who are they?" Jinwoo asks in a whisper.

"The Malums," I answer. "They're a gang of Nocturas. They roam around a lot and are known to never stay in one place for too long."

"Is this like the attack in the clock tower square?"

I nod. "It looks like it. But the Malums are way more aggressive than the Cobras. And they're all across Kraephis. It's hard to know exactly where they'll end up."

Jinwoo swallows and looks down at his hands.

Suddenly, I stand up.

Jinwoo looks up at me, concern in his eyes.

I stare into those eyes. "Seunghoon."

He gives me a confused look as I move over toward the kitchen, grabbing my phone from the kitchen table.

I immediately dial Seunghoon's number.

It rings.

And rings.

And rings.

Until finally, I hear his voice.

I let out a deep sigh. "Seunghoon, good, you answered."