"How is he? Why does he seem so out of it?" Anna's worried voice sounds distant to Gabriel. His eyes droop after they treat his gunshot wound. The bright white lights and the cacophony of the hospital's emergency department blur together.

  "It's the aftereffect of the anesthetic. He needs to rest..." Jason's voice fades away as Gabriel falls asleep.

  Gabriel lies on a small bed in the bustling emergency room, surrounded by patients and medical staff. In his daze, he feels someone approach his bed. The figure appears to be a woman with long, straight hair. She gently touches Gabriel's forehead. Although he can't see her face clearly, he senses her concern and care. She leaves before Jason and Anna return.

  "Who was that?" Gabriel wonders drowsily. "Am I dreaming?"

  ___

  In the old, dimly lit alleyway, where shadows stretched long and menacing, two kids—a sixteen-year-old boy and a nine-year-old girl—were running breathlessly from strange men chasing after them. Overwhelmed by fear and exhaustion, the children were on the verge of being caught.

  "Ouch!" The little girl tripped and fell to the ground.

  "An! Come on!" The boy, her brother, hurriedly helped her up.

  "I can't, Gab," Anna whimpered, her legs trembling. "My feet hurt!"

  Gabriel tried to carry her and run, but they couldn't get far before the two big men closed in on them.

  Knowing that running was no longer an option, Gabriel stopped and gently settled Anna down. He then turned to face the men, drawing a sashimi knife from his belt bag and pointing it firmly at them.

  "Pfft! What's that?" one of the men mocked, laughing. "Is it from your mommy's kitchen?"

  Gabriel remained unfazed by their ridicule. His grey eyes reflected the cold luminance of the sharp metal blade in his hands.

  "Let me deal with him," one of the men said, stretching his neck. "I've grown bored of killing all those harmless mutants anyway."

  "Be careful," the other man called after his partner. "This boy's an original, not like the ones we crashed earlier."

  "Too bad, he's Daniel Lanes' family, our target," the man approaching Gabriel smirked. "Let's finish this quickly and get back to the Bennetts. The order to go after these pipsqueaks came so suddenly that we didn't check properly after our truck hit them..."

  In the middle of his sentence, the man was suddenly caught off guard as a flash came right at his throat. If not for his skill and experience as a professional hitman, he would have been done for.

  "Ack!" the man grunted.

  "Liam, you okay?" the other man called out.

  Liam looked at his arm. He had managed to dodge the attack to his neck, but it left a bloody cut on his left arm.

  "Oh my..." Liam looked at Gabriel with more caution. "Aren't you a cute little fighter?"

  Gabriel gripped the knife tighter, but a chill ran down his spine. He knew instinctively that this would be nothing like his defense practice.

  With a crazed smirk, Liam dashed at Gabriel with his combat knife. The fight became fierce in the blink of an eye, and Gabriel was immediately overpowered.

  "Ugh!" Gabriel lost count of the cuts he sustained from Liam's relentless blows. Though the cuts were not fatal, their cumulative effect started to make Gabriel dizzy from pain and blood loss.

  "Come on, boy!" Liam laughed sickeningly. "Is that all you've got?"

  Standing at the side of the one-sided fight, Dean, Liam's partner, began to feel bored. He let out a deep yawn and looked around. Spotting Anna cowering behind an electric pole and crying, a sinister grin spread across Dean's face. He headed straight toward her.

  "S... stay away!" Anna screamed weakly.

  "An! Run!" Gabriel shouted desperately.

  "Look here, boy." Liam slashed Gabriel's back while he was turning away.

  The deep slash made Gabriel's mind turn hazy. But amid the chaos, a strange calmness suddenly took over him, crystallizing his thoughts.

  "I have to kill them!"

  As if responding to that call, a final surge of energy coursed through his body. Gabriel's eyes turned ice-cold as he counterattacked Liam with unnatural speed. Liam, who had been half-playing with what he thought was an easy target, didn't see it coming. He paused in place with a look of surprise and terror in his eyes, a clean cut on his neck.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  Nearby, Anna trembled uncontrollably as Dean's steel-like arm gripped her neck. She tried to scream for help, but her choked, suffocated throat couldn't produce a sound.

  "S... stay back! I said stay back!"

  Unexpectedly, the large man holding Anna was just as terrified as she was. He pointed the gun in his hand at the dark, looming figure before them, screaming. The figure stood still for a moment, then slowly collapsed, becoming a motionless body. Liam's soulless eyes were wide open, blood flowing from his carotid artery and pooling on the ground. The sight and stench made Anna nauseous and dizzy. In her blurry vision, a sixteen-year-old Gabriel stood over the fallen man, looking down at him. His chest heaved, his hands stained with red. He looked up at the man behind Anna, his eyes wild and haunted, with no trace of the kind, gentle brother he once was.

  "Don't come any closer!" Dean grabbed Anna so tightly it hurt her, pointing the gun at her head and wheezing menacingly. "Or I'll kill her!"

  Gabriel didn't flinch. He tilted his head as if calculating something, then charged forward like a flash. The kitchen knife in his hand glistened in the dim streetlight.

  "Bang!"

  In the past, Anna shut her eyes in fear at that moment, and the vivid memory became her lasting trauma. But this time, Anna knew she had to keep her eyes open, to see everything that really happened more clearly.

  The gun in Dean's hand fired, but in his panic, he directed it at Gabriel reflexively to protect himself, instead of pointing it at Anna. Gabriel smiled—the opponent reacted just as he wanted. With lightning speed, Gabriel caught Dean's gun-holding hand, pointing it to the sky before he could shoot, and slashed it to force Dean to drop the gun. Dean yelled in pain, unable to keep hold of his weapon.

  "An! Head down!" Gabriel shouted, pulling Anna away with one hand while slicing the life out of Dean with the other.

  That brief moment wasn't too much for Gabriel. He did what he had to do to protect his little sister. But for Anna, who shared all of Gabriel's senses and emotions while he was killing someone, it felt like torture. The killing barrier usually activates in dominants when they are on the verge of taking others' lives, causing excruciating pain that no one has ever been able to resist. However, in that moment, because of her "absolute empathy", Anna's body and mind went far beyond it, and as a result, she had to pay a huge price.

  "Ahhhhh!"

  Anna's painful scream startled Gabriel, jolting him awake from his haze. Realizing he was still holding Anna's hand, Gabriel released it and dropped beside her in a fluster.

  "An! Are you hurt?" Gabriel wanted to check on her, but seeing her writhing in agony, he didn't dare touch her. He felt even more scared and helpless than when they were threatened by those men.

  Soon after, their parents found them. Gabriel watched as Anna was taken away in an ambulance, so worried that he didn't notice his own wounds bleeding all over his body. That night, the city was engulfed in the sounds of emergency sirens, accidents, and losses.

  ___

  Anna opens her eyes to the white ceiling of the mental clinic. For the first time in years, she feels calm and relieved seeing it. She turns to the side and sees Gabriel, who has also just woken up.

  "How are you feeling?" Helen's gentle voice brings them back to the present.

  They sit up slowly but calmly.

  "From my experience, and your expressions," Helen smiles, "I can tell that the hypnosis session went well... right?"

  "It was the aftereffects," Anna sighs. "The activation of the killing barrier twisted my mind. It was only when a similar incident occurred at the concert that my head began to clear up a bit. I have lived with a false memory all this time."

  "Well, your case was the first, so no one could tell," Helen says softly. "And since our research on dominant minds had just been developed back then, we had to wait until now to treat your case. Facing the trauma head-on is the right solution after all, isn't it?"

  "Thank you, Professor," Gabriel nods to Helen.

  "Take care of your sister, okay?" Helen smiles at him. "We dominants may be more delicate than you think."

  ___

  "Are you alright?" Gabriel asks Anna as they walk out of the clinic. It's bright and sunny outside, but Anna's expression is gloomy.

  "You are seriously asking me?" Anna's annoyed tone softens, and she seems unable to look straight at Gabriel. "You had to... go through all that because of me. Are you... ugh."

  She turns away, choking, unable to finish her sentence. She realizes that asking Gabriel if he's okay now is so meaningless.

  "I'm sorry!" Anna suddenly bursts into tears, startling everyone around. "I misunderstood you! I hated you! I made you suffer! I'm such a fool! Waaaa...!"

  Gabriel becomes extremely flustered under people's curious eyes. He clumsily tries to calm Anna.

  "Um... Let's go home." He hurriedly guides her to their van. "Don't cry. People are watching."

  "I... hic... didn't mean to tell them what I witnessed, you know," Anna sobs uncontrollably inside the van. "Even if it wasn't true, to me back then, it was. Hic. Still, I wanted to hide it. Mom and Dad told me to. Hic... but I couldn't. I should... ugh... have tried harder!"

  Anna bawls her eyes out like a child, releasing all her pent-up sadness and fear from all these years. Driving the car while listening to her tangled but sincere feelings, Gabriel just feels relieved.

  "You have always been a bad liar, An," Gabriel smiles nostalgically. "You could have been questioned and examined a lot more if you had lied. I was afraid that if I kept arguing, you would have to endure more pressure while already having a tough time. Anyway, what happened to me didn't matter anymore. What's important is your well-being. So don't worry about it, okay?"

  Anna wipes her tears, looking at Gabriel with a mix of realization and confusion.

  "Actually, when I saw you in pain and faint that night, and then heard you had PTSD, I felt so bad that I wanted to be away from home for a while. Regardless of the reason, I took others' lives. I needed something to hold me accountable. Serving time made me feel at ease. It wasn't that bad."

  "Are you an idiot?" Anna looks at Gabriel in disbelief. "Why would you feel at ease while being in jail? What if something bad happened to you in there? Wait... what happened? Tell me!"

  "N... nothing!" Gabriel stammers. "It wasn't that bad, really!"

  For such a long time, Gabriel blamed himself for causing Anna trauma and their family troubles. Now, with her healing progress, he can finally forgive that sixteen-year-old boy from seven years ago.

  However, there are more aftereffects that are harder to fix still awaiting them.

  In Coldor General Hospital, an ear-splitting scream rings out from a patient's room.

  "Ahhhh! Get out!"