"This is what's been taking time?!" The old man shouts.
San releases Chun, dropping him with a dull thud.
The old man's eyes scan the room—Jano's unconscious body on the floor, the overturned table, the broken chair… and Matthew, bleeding and barely conscious.
"Hmm…." The old man sighs.
San met his gaze but quickly looked away as the old man locked eyes with him.
"What the hell happened here?" one of the men behind the old man asked.
"Can't you tell, Boté?" the other asked.
"S-Shit…" Boté whispered.
"L-Leader…." Chun coughs, struggling to rise.
The old man moves towards Chun.
"Oh, Chun, my boy." The old man approaches, his voice softer than before.
He knelt and helped Chun up, steadying him with both hands.
"Are you alright?" He asks.
"I've….been through worse" Chun says as he coughs and blood drips from his mouth.
"San!" The emperor's gaze snaps to him– cold unforgiving.
"....."
"I gave you an order! —and this is how you respond?!" The old man barked.
San swallowed hard under the emperor's crushing presence.
He forced himself to speak, swallowing hard.
"Emperor, sir, I—" San tries to speak.
"It really does seem I've been too lenient on all of you." The emperor voice drops, calm and cold.
"You two! —pick them up. Now!" He points at the two bodies on the ground.
"Yes sir!" They replied in sync.
One of the men grabbed Jano.
Boté moved to lift Matthew, glancing at the overturned table behind him.
"Dammit!" He mutters in disgust.
"Just shut up and move." The other man snapped as he moves with Jano out the door.
Boté scoffed and followed, carrying Matthew.
Matthew's half-lidded eyes blinked slowly.
He saw Chun held in the Emperor's arms.
Strangers–no figures covered in blood.
The world blurred—walls flickering in and out, drenched in blood.
The air shimmered in a red-green hue, like a system glitching out.
He tries to move.
Only his finger twitched.
His breath—barely there
Then the door closes behind them.
"Hehe, bastard" Chun muttered with a bloody grin, watching Matthew disappear from sight.
The emperor turns back to San, shaking his head. "I'm disappointed."
Chun smirks, wiping the blood from his lips.
"And you, Chun." The emperor continues.
"For a foot-soldier and his superior to fight like this…."
His tone grew colder, unshakable.
Chun's eyes widen.
"That's going against the hierarchy!" His voice thundered.
"So that means you think you can go against me!!"
He drops Chun, like trash.
"S-Sir?!" Chun gasped, coughing.
The emperor looking at Chun on the ground from above.
His head blocking the dim light, revealing a look of disgust.
Chun, lying there, helpless.
He grits his teeth.
He points at San. "It was him that started this!!" Chun says like a rabid dog.
"We were supposed to punish that bastard, but he was trying to stop us!!!" As saliva mixed with blood flies out his mouth.
"Yes!" The emperor cuts off Chun.
"It was me that ordered him to do so"
Chun hearing this, his face takes on a look of fear.
"He was carrying out an order given out by me"
"You then hindered him, am I correct?" He asks.
Chun speechless, only faint murmurs are heard.
"This means that you actively defied me, Chun" The emperor says while griping his cane firmly.
Chun, afraid, sweating like a turkey on Thanksgiving.
"Disobedience… in my house?" He grips his cane firmly.
"How unfortunate." He raises his cane.
"What the—" San says in his head.
The emperor then beats Chun on the ground with his cane.
Crack! The cane lands on Chun's back, his scream rips through the air.
Crack! Blood sprays as the cane smashes his shoulder.
Crack! His bones shift under pressure.
"This is what you get–"
Crack! "For defying the hierarchy!!"
Chun shouting in pain, clenches the ground with teeth.
His eyes—bloodshot, veined, and filled with hate.
"I swear!" He growls in his mind, glaring at San.
Flashes of his fight with San and his expression as the emperor was beating him race around in Chun's head.
"One day!! —"
" —You're gonna scream louder than I did here!!"
He declared it—not out loud.
He spat out blood, raising his bruised face.
"And when that day comes…"
The emperor swings down.
Crack!!!
Chun's arm slams into the ground, twisted.
Chun, continuing to shout in pain.
His screams echoes out from the room, raw and primal.
Outside, Boté and the man reach a limousine, with the other man putting Jano in the back seat.
"UHAHHHH!!!" Chun's scream echoes all over the place.
The two men freeze mid-step.
"I-Isn't that Chun…" Boté asks, shaken as he's carrying Matthew.
"Best we keep out of it." The other man mutters while he moves towards the driver's seat.
"Wouldn't want to be in his position right now."
Boté, looking depressed.
He didn't look back.
He didn't need to.
"I've already seen enough" he says in his head.
"Enough to know when to stay quiet"
He sighs as he puts Matthew in the back seat with Jano.
Meanwhile back at the interrogation room.
"This is the Lian Wu!" The emperor still continuing to beat Chun.
"Where honour and respect is valued!"
"If you don't want that, then you can go join the Huo Long Guo!!" He then hits Chun in the head.
This knocks Chun out, his whole body bruised and bleeding.
"...." San's lips parted, but nothing came. His gaze shifted the blood on the floor.
As Chun's blood pooled beneath him, the emperor wiped his cane clean.
Not on a cloth, but on Chun's torn clothes—like discarding trash.
"Now let's get going shall we?" As he checks his clothes for stains.
"What about Chun, sir?" San asks.
The emperor ignoring San's question, still moving forward.
"I said, let's be going shall we?" His eyes glare at San.
"Y-Yes sir" San follows him behind.
San looking at Chun's body lying where Matthew's body once was.
He looks at the body with hate, so thick it could cut through metal.
San then spits in him.
"ông-peh-nn̄g." he whispers under his breath.
Boté seeing the emperor and San coming out of the police station.
The police officers around just can't help but watch, some even bow down to the emperor.
The emperor seeing this, he ignores it.
"Heyy, they're coming" as he hits the man in the driver seat.
"Damn." The man then turns the key and starts the engine.
San walks ahead the emperor and opens the door for him.
"Good boy, good manners." As he pats San on the head.
They then both head into the car.
"Drive—Drive!" Boté pressures the other man.
The other man steps on the pedal and they move.
As the car sped away, silence settled over the station—no the entire street.
Thick suffocating, like the weight of blood still drying on the floor.
Boté arranges the mirror on the roof of the driver's section.
The reflected image is of that of the emperor and San talking.
"So–how did it lead, to all this?" San asks.
"San, my boy, I know you're mad he isn't
dead right now." The emperor says while he crossing his legs.
San hearing this, his hands on his legs, gripping them tightly.
"But as I said before, he is crucial to us." As the emperor looks at Matthew's unconscious body.
"He killed over 20 Huo Long Guo men." He leans in.
"Sir, that should be false information" San objects.
"Yes there is evidence that over 20 Huo Long Guo were dead—" He gulps.
"But that isn't possible, I mean just look at him"
"Missing a finger."
"Had bandages covered all over him."
"Not too mention he looks like a ghost!" San says as he gestures around.
"He's even probably de-"
The emperor then raises one finger and looks at San.
"Shhhhhhh"
San immediately keeps quiet.
"Listen." The old man beacons.
A sharp silence fills the limo.
Then seemingly out of no where, a faint wheezing sound can be heard.
San, surprised at what he hears.
It's Matthew. He's still breathing even though faintly.
But he's alive.
San speechless, intensifies the grip on his legs, his fingers deeping in past the cloth.
"Now would someone that weak as you make him out to be." The emperor points his cane towards Matthew.
"Would someone like him still be alive? –after everything?!" He chuckles.
San's mind races in confusion.
San thinking to himself. "Who really is this guy?!"
All focus on Matthew as he lays unconscious.
His breathing, broken, wheezing.
But the things going on in his head, confusion, hatred, and tiredness.
In Matthew's head—.
—There he is, sitting on a table with his family.
They're eating dinner, all covered in white, even the room they're eating in.
"I still can't believe we actually came to Afghanistan" Mary says with food stuffed in her mouth.
"The heat is really unbearable" as food flies out of her mouth.
"Honey" Matthew grabs her hand.
Mary dropping her fork, loos at Matthew, blushing.
"You really need to stop talking with food stuffed in your mouth." He chuckles.
"Why you—-" Mary grunts, looking like she's steaming.
Peter, laughing as he points at the both of them.
In all his movement, Peter mistakenly pours his food on the ground.
The silence fell like ashes.
It's then broken by laughter, real genuine laughter.
"Oh Peter…." Mary says while chuckling.
She then holds Matthew's hand.
"But really, Why'd we come here" she smiles.
"You know, because of work, the higher-ups–" as Matthew stuffs his face.
"But what business does a software engineer have to do here?" Her time shifts to something more serious.
Matthew still continuing to eat, seemingly ignoring Mary.
"C'mon answer me Mat!" She demands while sounding puffy.
"Damn, relax, at least let me swallow my food" he then gulps down the remnants in his mouth.
"You know, they said something about helping one of their start ups here." As Matthew cleans his mouth.
"I rejected their offer at first—but then they mentioned the pay." He looks at Mary.
"So you mean to tell me, that we're risking our lives—no our son's life, because of money?!" She sounds offended.
"It is because of Peter I'm doing this, it's for the two of you" he holds her hand back.
"The pay they're offering can set us up for a lifetime, Mary" he gently kisses her hand.
"We'll be able to take care of our child, effortlessly"
"Awwn, that's so thoughtful of you" she holds his head, rubbing it gently.
"But—"
"Which child?"
Mary asks as she then turns Matthew's head to where Peter was sitting down.
Matthew's eyes widen as he sees nothing, it's as if, he just vanished into thin air.
"Peter!!" He shouts as he stands up and goes to Peter's chair.
He doesn't see him, even the food that had fallen down, isn't simply there.
This upsets Matthew, he swears profusely.
He's panicking.
"Matthew" Mary calls for him.
Matthew, turning his head back, this time he resembles his more–present form.
"No…No!!" He shouts.
Mary, with a bullet wound on her head, carrying a bleeding Peter.
Both of them looking ghoulish.
Tears begin to fill up in Matthew's eyes as he falls to the ground.
"I just can't be happy!"
"Why can't I just be happy" he screams, grabbing and dragging his own hair.
Banging his head into the ground.
He stops.
Then all his emotions come bursting out.
He's crying, scratching the floor with bits of his own skin on the ground.
"Matthew" Mary's voice calls once more.
He shakingly carries his head up.
He looks at her, but the torment doesn't end there.
Dusk, standing where Mary was sitting.
He smirks.
"Now you're feeling the exact pain you caused me years ago" he chuckles.
Matthew too shaken to speak, just looks, finding it hard to even stand up.
Dusk then mockingly laughs at him.
Matthew gritting his teeth, he stops scratching the floor.
"Dusk!!" He rushes off the floor, pushing the table out of the way.
He then holds the neck of Dusk, choking him.
But dusk is still chuckling.
His face then gazes out and switches to Tan.
Tan, now with tears filled in his eyes, a single tear rolls down.
But Matthew still continues to choke him, intensifying the pressure even more.
"How–can–I–help–y—" Tan struggles to speak.
He coughs, his face turning blue.
His muscles relax, a bit too much.
A final breath of air leaves his open mouth.
Tan is dead once more.
Matthew still choking him, blinded by rage.
His vision then clears up revealing it to not be Dusk anymore to Matthew.
"No…" his grips loosens.
"Tan…" He steps back, falling to the ground.
Crawling backwards.
Matthew then puts his hands on his head shouting, screaming.
The surrounding area becomes completely black, only him sitting at it's centre.
He bends his head down in defeat.
A whistling sound is heard off in the distance.
Matthew, breathing shakily.
He raises his head up.
—The end of chapter 6—