HALF: Dead nor Alive

Archie sat down and leaned on the tree as he watched the parasite flew away and based on the direction it went to, the parasite went to the south which were the other King-type parasite was. He looked at Eve and she grabbed something from her back, it was a big chunk of meat.

“What’s that?” Archie asked as he looked at the meat in Eve’s hand.

“This is the meat of that bug, you should drink the blood,” Eve answered as she walked toward Archie and put her hand above his head. “Look up and open your mouth,” she said as she stared down at Archie.

Archie hesitated to open his mouth as he looked up at Eve. “Trust me,” Eve said with a gentle smile on her shiny face from sweat.

Archie opened his mouth and Eve immediately squeezed the meat and the blood came out and dripped onto her hand and fell down into Archie’s mouth. She stared at the blood and she seemed to want have some but she held back and gave everything to Archie.

“How is it?” Eve asked with her eyebrows raised.

“It’s sweeter than I thought, but it’s so gooey and hard to swallow,” Archie answered with his throat tried to swallow the sticky and gooey blood.

Eve bit the meat and ate it whole as she sucked the leftover blood inside the meat.

“You will feel the changes in a moment,” Eve said as she licked her fingers and didn’t waste a single drop of it._.

“Why the blood? Why it’s-” Archie paused and suddenly his heart pounded really fast that his vision went blurry for a second. “Wha…” Archie stared at Eve as he breath heavily.

“Some of the King-type parasite contained a special gene in them, it helped other parasites to evolve in an instant. I found out about it when I saw a King-type parasite killed another King a hundred years ago. It gave them power as they grew bigger because of it,” Eve explained and looked at Archie who started to feel dizzy.

“So, the reason behind those King-type parasite could grow bigger was because they’re the survivors or should I call it the champion amongst the parasites?” Archie asked as he pressed his chest because his chest started to sting as if needles were poking at his heart.

“Yes, but not all of them have a special gene, or should I say, not pure breed,” Eve answered and licked her cheeks with her long tongue. “There are only a few that have pure breed, and that dragon one is a pure breed because the gene inside it hasn’t tainted by multiple genes,”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Are you talking about the gene of the parasite?” Archie raised his eyebrows.

“Yes, there are so many types of parasites and we are hosted by one of them when we were chosen,” Eve nodded her head. “There’s one specific type of parasite that doesn’t want to taint its original gene by only take a specific gene of an animal or fossil. That dragon one, it isn’t a combination multiple animals like the other King-type parasite,”

“You’re saying that parasite took a gene of a real dragon? I didn’t know that a dragon existed in our world,” Archie looked at Eve with confusion.

“They’re real, and other terrifying things that buried deep inside Earth that we don’t know they existed,” Eve looked at Archie with a serious expression. “I have seen one a long time ago, and that one is something else,” Eve’s eyes were filled with a bit of fear.

Before Archie could ask a question, they heard a rustling sound from their right and saw Faye with the others walking toward them.

“Archie! Eve!” Faye looked at them with her eyes wide open and a smile of relief on her face. “Thank goodness you guys are okay,”

All of them stood next to Eve and they looked at Archie who looked pale because he was undergoing another evolution.

“Are you alright?” Faye asked as she looked at Archie who closed his eyes to relieve the headache.

“Not really, I need to rest,” Archie answered with a bit of a smile on his face.

“I see, since they have confirmed that the King-type parasite flew toward Indonesia, our job here is done and you guys really did an amazing job. We are going home now, and you both deserve a long rest after what you both have gone through,” Faye said as she looked at both of them.

“Sounds good to me,” Archie replied and looked at Eve. “Let’s go home then,”

Eve grabbed Archie’s hand and lifted him up then carried him over her shoulder.

“So, is it really over? Are we not going to talk about the King-type parasite that just flew freely?” Nova asked and looked at Faye.

“Ruby said the truth about the behavior of the King-type parasite, and there’s nothing we should be worried about because it went straight to the island as she said,” Faye answered. “But we should discuss the future plan on how to deal with that parasite if one of them ended up winning the battle,”

“It’s just like back then, huh?” Tommy said to Ruby and Vincent who walked next to each other.

“Yeah, we don’t know which one is the winner though, because that parasite that we fought, it was far worse than these two parasites that we encountered,” Ruby nodded her head as she stared blankly at the grass.

“You mentioned that the King-type parasite that you guys encountered could fly as well, right? You haven’t told us how big that parasite was,” Faye looked at Ruby with curiosity.

“It was a nightmare that keeps haunting us until now,” Ruby answered. “It’s bigger than these two obviously because we are as tall as that parasite’s toe, and that alone is enough to tell how big that parasite is,”

“It flew up in the dark sky without making a noise, it was raining back then, heavily. We still had no idea how could we go against it and survived,” Vincent said as he chuckled with disbelief. “A desperate time needs a desperate measure I guess,”

“That must be terrifying,” Aster said as he looked at Vincent.

“It was, but at the same time, we were responsible for thousands of lives behind our shoulders. It gave us the courage to fight that thing even though we barely did anything to stop it, but at least it was enough until the other King-type parasite came and fought that thing,” Vincent answered and nodded his head in agreement.

It was silent because they all couldn’t believe Ruby and the others fought a King-type parasite. Knowing and experiencing it themselves how terrifying it was for them to just watched the parasite in the distance, they started to respect them more.

Archie started to lose his balance and slowly lost consciousness so Eve immediately carried him on her back. Faye and the others were worried about whatever happened to Archi and decided to leave the forest hurriedly.

After an hour of walking, they finally left the forest and got picked up by the other team.

Archie opened his eyes and noticed that he was already back in the barrack, he was on his own with Eve.

“How long did I fall asleep?” Archie sat up as he groaned because he still had a headache.

“A whole day, you slept through the entire day,” Eve answered and looked at Archie. “Do you feel any changes in your body?”

“No, I’m not sure,” Archie looked at his hands and shook his head.

“Do you want to test it out?” Eve asked with her eyebrow raised.

“Test it? I don’t think we have the time for that yet because I believe we are in the middle of something important, right?” Archie replied and looked at Eve. “How’s the current situation?”

“We still haven’t gotten any report but there are reports related to the massive earthquake that happened in the south. The Kings are currently fighting each other and all we can do is just wait,” Eve answered.

“I see,” Archie nodded his head with understanding. “Who do you think will win the battle? The pure breed or the other one?”

Eve smiled and looked at the window. “An adult pure breed like that one, it’s hard to be killed by the others even if it’s heavily injured. But, if the pure breed dies, there’s no other way but to kill it myself before it becomes a tyrannical king,”

“I thought you don’t care about this? Why are you suddenly have to put yourself in if that happened?” Archie asked as he walked toward Eve.

“It’s not about me caring, it’s about preventing the apocalypse from happening,” Eve answered as she sighed.

“I’m not talking about how dangerous the parasite will become, I’m talking about something that has been sleeping deep inside and waiting for a challenge to appear and here I am, preventing that thing from waking,” Eve explained and stared at Archie with a serious expression.