[Log Upgrade: Complete]

[Initiating Normal Sequence]

[Load Complete]

[Entering Standby]

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[Log 5: Recording Started]

[Time to homeworld: 03:00:00]

"Cl..."

"..ear"

"Clear!"

"..lear"

I hear voices. Voices from several different people. There was a tone that hinted at the urgency of what they were doing.

"His heart.. It's beating!"

"Finally..."

"Shit. I thought he was going to vanish."

"Shut it, don't say anything bad,"

White light shone on my eyes. Slowly, I opened them and it revealed the scene before me: three male along with a woman wearing medical gowns, standing beside me while one of the males held a pair of defribilliators. There was a cardiac monitor just beside, showing my rapid heartbeat.

'Wha... happened?" I was a little confused on what was happening.

"Did he fracture?" The male on my left said.

"No, the headmaster assured us he wouldn't break from such simple torment. Must be something else.." The one on the right trailed off.

"He should be alright, everything about him is normal." The one who was holding onto a defribillator unit put down what he had on hand as he checked for my log statuses.

There was a message informing me of someone accessing my current log. I denied the permission immediately, even before the guy was able to react.

Shocked, the man gathered his surrounding partners while discussing with them on how to handle me. After several confusing minutes, they left me in the white room while leaving the door ajar.

Not knowing what else to do, I stood up and tried heading towards the door, but it seemed that the effort was too much for my body to handle right now, so I instantly fell down.

"Ouch.." I groaned as I started reminiscing what happened to my lower back, as it ached a lot more than usual.

Some memories reminded me of carrying someone before, while some other reminded me of when I was still trapped between the crushing walls. It was a horrible experience that I wished to delete, but could never actually do anything about it.

"Maria huh.. I wonder how she is.." I looked at the marble white ceiling as I asked myself.

Deciding half a minute was enough rest, I stood up again, this time making sure I was steady before trying to walk. There was a slight moment of fear as I tried walking and my leg shook violently, but it dissipated when my leg gradually steadied itself.

Looks like there's maybe a little brain damage from the crushing walls..

The fact of having brain damage was worse than normal bad news. It would cause a lot of diseases and disorders to develop, such as Alzheimier's, Parkinson and seizures.

Wait.. Alzheimier? Parkinson? Who are they?

Weird phrases I probably learned a long time ago, I decided. Reaching the doorway, I pushed the ajar door open. It lead into another hallway with white walls. There was a strange nostalgic feeling I got off of it as I walked through the space.

The weird part was how the hallway seemed so old and worn out, but none of that hindered any of its installations. Even though some part of the walls were clean and shiny white, there were other parts where abandonment were present. Everywhere I looked had no one present, though the muddy foot prints leading straight forward told me they left not long ago.

Walking along the path, I began examining the hallways. There were occasional slight fractures around the bottom of some walls, but other than that and the dirt plus mold stains on the walls, there was nothing else that showed reason as to why a place like this would be abandoned and not operational.

"Well, more like 'fully' operational," I muttered.

The hallway went on and on, even after I thought of how long I progressed through it. The strange part was how the same fracture on the walls kept on appearing, even though I was sure I went pass it several times before, though the mold and dirt stain patterns that kept on changing told me otherwise.

Nontheless, I kept walking on. Although a feeling of lost bred itself within me, I kept it in check by thinking everything is fine, and that I'm not lost, just walking on a long hallway.

A very, very long hallway..

The hallway stretched on and on, even after I make sure to keep going forward and not turn into any paths that diverge from the one I'm still walking on. The endless walking started tiring me out at some point, but I was too distracted by the door at the end of the hallway that I ignored all the signs of physical fatigue.

Eventually, my legs couldn't take it anymore and buckled under my body weight. There was a dramatic collapsing sound as my body hit the floor, and the pain that came with it was immense.

"Gah!" I stretched out my hands to start crawling on the floor towards the door that I think is the exit. Now that my hands were in contact with the floor, I felt both of its smoothness and slipperiness.

Instinctively, I knew it was useless to keep trying to get a grip on the floor, since my hands kept sprawling open the moment I put even the most infinitesimal amount of weight onto it. Still, I was hellbent on trying.

They do say its better to at least try but die than to do nothing and wait helplessly...

Struggling non stop, I tried wriggling forward. There was little traction between the floor and my clothing, but it was at least able to bring me forward, albeit inefficiently.

"I must look like a worm wriggling through soil right now," I chuckled at my own words.

These words were all too real. I was literally wriggling forward, just like how a worm would. Even though my legs no longer felt like melting and recovered quite some bit, I felt better at using my body to wriggle forward than to walk, and it seemed like I was making progress towards the door as well.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

All of a sudden, I remembered what Professor Parix said. I tried shapeshifting my body to better gain traction on the ground, but I only got one message in return through my logs.

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Permission Denied

Reason: You are not allowed to use your abilities in Organization grounds

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I tried several more times, but the same thing kept popping up. Without anything better to do other than wriggling towards the door, I continued my little journey.

...

[Log Corrupted]

[Log Paused]

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[Log Fixed]

[Log Resumed]

[Time to homeworld: 06:56:00]

"It's almost seven.." I groaned as I kept wriggling towards the door.

I've been keeping track of the time after trying to shapeshift. Through my deduction, I must've been wriggling for almost three hours straight. And yet, I was unable to crawl past the black line that was drawn on the floor just before the door.

The moment I wriggled onto it, I would find myself mysteriously back at where I was a few seconds before, definitely not on the black line. Trying to stand up and walk over it was impossible as well, since there's something like an invisible wall blocking me from standing up. I could only continue crawling non stop onto the black line, only to be teleported back to where I was a few seconds ago.

I was frustrated, frustrated to the point where I tried to stand up forcefully and tried punching the wall blocking me from standing up. Both ended fruitless, unless one would count getting a bloodied knuckle and intense back pain as fruitful.

Just when I sighed, the door opened. White light shone through it, blinding me. A figure walked towards me from that light, before squatting down and looking at me, pitying me.

"W-what are you looking at? Help me! Please!" I jerked my head upwards to try and look the figure in the face.

My face contorted from a begging one to a one filled with frustration and irriattion. I looked at the man in the eye, repeating my request.

"Help me! Please!"

After a little giggling, Victor held out his hand to help me up. As I tried to hold onto his stretched out hand, he suddenly retracted it, resulting in my hand falling back onto the black line, thus teleporting me back to where I was moments ago.

"Damn it!" I sweared at the giggling piece of shit.

Victor, or who I thought was Victor, kept giggling until from behind him, came another Victor. He was wearing an apologetic smile as he tried to shove his dopplegangger aside.

"Sorry about that, Citrix. My brother loves pranks, so please be a little tolerant to his jokes," the one who just came entered the hallway, past the black line as if it was nothing. He must've seen my confused face, so he continued explaining.

"Oh, right. That's my brother, Vulcan. Say hi to Citrix, Vulcan," Victor turned to his brother who was peeking from beside the door.

I looked at Vulcan who was entering as I stood up. He was as tall as Victor, only he looked a little immature compared to how Victor looks. Although they wore the same suit, the professionalism aura given off by Victor could not be replicated by his brother, as it seems like the aura is special only to Victor.

Even though that was the case, the way Vulcan stood and walked gave off another kind of aura, distinct from his brother's one. It resembled wildness, eagerness and aggressiveness, compared to the chill, calm and dangerous kind of aura by Victor.

"Sorry 'bout that, Citrix. As you heard from my bro here, my name's Vulcan, and my bro here," He hooked Victor with his left hand, "has been talking about you with us for quite some time now, hasn't it, Victor?" He ended the sentence with a chuckle.

Victor seemed embarassed by his brother's act, as he quickly corrected his posture and look. The momentarily disappearance of the dangerous aura made me let go of the breath I didn't even know I was holding back, but after that moment, the same strict atmosphere came back, and I was once again feeling the pressure.

"Ahem, Vulcan, can you please?" Victor took Vulcan's arm off of his shoulders as he dusted himself.

"Back to what I was supposed to be saying. Citrix, due to you being a little unique from the other hunters, I'm allowing you to pass and graduate from the training," He announced.

It felt like lightning just passed through my body. The fact that I almost failed class proved that fate had other plans for me.

What could those plans be?

Victor turned around and started walking away, as if it was natural for him to just drop a conversation like that.

Well, I have other thoughts-

"You can leave now. I've disabled the security system keeping you in and told the manager of your room to give you back your equipment," He said as Vulcan followed behind him, clearly looking impatient to leave this place.

"As for the reason you're here.." He stopped in his tracks and contemplated for a second, before continuing, "That uniqueness of yours is the reason. I can't tell you why and how, so figured it out yourself, Citrix," He then continued walking.

Looking at the line which was just a few centimeters away from me, hesitation showed on my face as my foot went over it. I stepped across the line and finally, the line did not teleport me back, just like what Victor said.

"I'm.. free!" I cheered while running out of the room. The bright white light wrapped surrounding me slowly got duller, to the point where my eyes could adjust and see what's before me.

"What the actual..?" I muttered under my breath.

The sight before me was not what I had expected.

A white, clean building, with marble floors and doctors walking around with purpose..

There was a bright spotlight shining directly into the doorway. It was huge, where I estimate it to be able to fit ten to fifteen table lamps into its frame. Other than that and the muddy, dirty granite floor, there was nothing else in this place.

The dark and merciless space seemed to swallow me whole as I spent more time looking into it. There was a crashing noise to my right by the time I noticed the entire space was literally wrapping around me.

"No! Stop this instance, Drak!" A familiar voice resounded through the entire room.

Curious as to who it belonged to, I turned my head, just to see an autumn-red haired girl shouting at the space. The dark space seemed to respond to her, since it stopped wrapping around me and retreated, shrinking.

"Are you okay, Citrix?" The girl asked with clear concern.

Thinking back hard, I thought I saw this girl before.

But where?

"We met on your second day, remember?" she asked as her hands tied her hair up into a bun.

"Now that you mention it, I do remember. And what was that thing?" I pointed while looking a little curious and fearful of the dark, merciless space. 

"Oh, him. He's Drak. He's part of the security here," The girl casually pointed at Drak.

"Uh, what kind of species is he?" I asked a little reluctantly.

"Hmm, to say that would be an overstatement. He's more like a sentient space which can follow orders and do stuff like," She called out to Drak, " Drak, do the thing you always do!", then she continued with me, "this."

Drak grew a little in size, before pulling anything that's not strap onto the floor or walls towards it. The space in his centre was darker than normal darkness, it felt like something else.

"That's his void core. It's where his sentience resides in," the girl explained.

I was lifted off the ground when the girl laughed. She then gave and order, "That's enough, Drak. Stop doing it."

Drak stopped and I fell to the ground, even though my legs were still straight, the sudden levitation had caught me offguard, and worse of all, I couldn't rotate or move myself during the experience. My butt felt soar and my back started aching again, it was as if hell repeated itself now that I wasn't able to stand up without support.

"Here, let me help," The girl reached out her hand.

I took it and she pulled me up. Surprisingly, she had a lot more strength than her body size would suggest.

Maybe I could increase my strenght through shapeshifting?

"Anyways, I just remembered I haven't told you 'bout my name. It's Lisandra, and nice to meet you, Citrix," She held out her other hand for a handshake after letting go of my hand.

"Nice to meet you too, Lisandra." I shoke her hand.

"Come on, follow me. I'll bring you back to Organization grounds," She said as she walked through the doorway that led to several cylindrical pods.

The room that I was led into had a few debris here and there, but overall, there was no signs of abandonment, nor signs of care, other than for the pods of course.

Lisandra got into one of the pods and gestured for me to follow her suit. I got into the other pod and a message popped out of the log system.

----------------------------------------

Teleport to: Organization Grounds

Accept? Y/N

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"Just choose yes and don't move. You'll be transported in no time," Lisandra seemed to already have accepted the request, so I just accepted as well.

There was a slight tingling sensation. It was as if static electricity was coursing through my body, and my hair stood up a little. I looked at Lisandra who closed her eyes and was calmly waiting. Then, as if she wasn't even there to begin with, she disappeared.

"So that's what's gonna happen, huh?" I told myself as I steadied myself.

Suddenly, as if high currents of electricity went through my body, the numb sensation wrapped around me. My vision took on a distorted view, nauseating me in the process. One minute the veiw was the unkept ceiling, the next was the clean and sanitized one of the one I'm familiar with.

[Log 5: End]