He stammered foolishly over his words. What am I supposed to do? He had no clue what the password could possibly be. He didn’t even know where it was from, or what it was. How was he to know what the password was?

There was only a small group of people who would’ve known the password, and he certainly wasn’t one of them. He looked regretfully at the metal box. Did he go through all of that just to be halted by a password?

“Che-ecking pass-pass-password.” The face jittered on the screen, its voice filled with static.

He really felt like smashing the box to pieces to get at what was inside, but he knew he didn’t have the capability to do that.

Was it all for nothing? He sulked in frustration as he stared at the screen. He was waiting for the thing to deny him, to tell him that his password was wrong. Would it give him another chance? Or would it end just like that?

He regretted not taking some time to think. It might not have been able to help, but whatever he came up with would’ve been better than him stumbling over his words and ending up with nothing.

The animated face stayed perfectly still. The only movement coming from the static and jitters caused by the damage. Minutes passed as it stayed there, not saying anything. It was taking forever to check the password Ed gave.

As Ed was sitting there sulking and cursing at himself in frustration, the screen lit up, and the box began to shift in his hands.

“Password ‘Ugh, umm’ accepted.” The face then dissolved into nothingness as the screen flashed so brightly that it blinded Ed. And would’ve blinded anyone else down on the pathways too.

Covering his eyes, the box rumbled in his lap as a small part of it on one side pushed out from its centre. The light decreased, finally allowing Ed to open his eyes again and see what happened.

A small vial of strange purple liquid was pushed out of the box, hanging in a test tube holder designed to protect the vial from any shaking or movement when it was in the box.

What is this? He took the vial out of its holder and stared at it. The liquid was viscous, like honey, moving slowly as he tilted it from side to side.

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He had never seen something like this before. It was clearly valuable, but he had no idea what it was. What did it do? Was he supposed to drink it? Was it just a valuable material to be used in something else?

He had no clue what it could be. Lacking in education, he couldn’t figure out what it was for. The only idea he had was also the dumbest, which was to drink it.

It was such a dumb idea. Who knew what would happen if he drank it? He could die on the spot. It could be so acidic that it would burn through his entire body. It was quite possibly the dumbest thing he could do. He had to bring it to someone who would be able to figure out what it was.

But at the same time, there wasn’t really anyone he could trust with this. Everyone he knew was either too uneducated to be able to help, or was so powerful that they would just take it from him and he would be left with nothing. They might even kill him just to keep it a secret.

What was he supposed to do? He couldn’t just give it back to the people he stole it from. They would most certainly kill him.

Shifting it around, he stared at the liquid in a daze. Then again, it does look... appealing. The way the liquid moved was almost tempting him to drink it. There was something about it that was just mesmerising to him.

Still in a daze, he popped out the vial’s cork and moved it to his lips. Something was telling him to drink it. To take the risk. This could be the big break he was looking for, so why was he hesitating? So what if it could kill him? His life wasn’t exactly that great anyway. I’ll probably be hunted down by that gang when I head back up, so I might as well try it.

No longer hesitating, he tilted it up and tried to swallow it all down. The liquid slowly shifted, taking a while to leave the vial. When it made contact with his body, it suddenly came to life, moving with great intensity. It covered the inside of his mouth as it pushed itself down his throat. And it burned.

It burned so much. His lips, his teeth, his tongue. Everything that made contact with the liquid felt like it was submerged in the strongest acid known to man. It felt like a billion tiny insects eating away at his body. It felt like a thunderstorm had formed in his mouth.

It was the most unimaginable pain. He couldn’t bear it at all. He wanted nothing more than to scream out, but he couldn’t make any noise. He tried to vomit it back up, but it blocked his stomach acid and continued to slither its way through his body, consuming everything it touched and inflicting it all with the same unbearable pain.

He clawed at his face, desperately trying to get rid of the liquid. His fingers dug into his cheeks as he ripped away skin, flesh, and blood. He ripped through it all, destroying his own face as he tried to scoop the liquid through the pits that he had made. But the liquid kept moving through.

His fingers had split open from the desperate clawing, now spurting out blood. He tried to dig into the liquid and scoop it out, but it burned through his fingers, destroying it down to the bone, before continuing to burn through his body.

And then there was no more.