The air in the room died. Cassian’s chest tightened so hard his ribs ached, trapping the breath in his throat. He pressed his face against the cold, smudged polycarbonate pane. The view outside was distorted by rain and dust, a blurry mess of shadows- but he knew those silhouettes. He knew them anywhere.
His own parents.
The shock was a physical weight, pressing the air from his lungs. His father was crouched on the wet asphalt, moving with a jagged, unnatural rhythm that didn’t belong to the man who had raised him. His mother stood nearby in the downpour, her posture rigid and her eyes vacant, staring through the rain as if the world around her no longer existed. They were unrecognizable, transformed into something cold and distant.
"Mom? Dad?" The names were barely a whisper, lost against the polycarbonate pane.
Behind him, the screech of couch cushions signaled Alissa jumping to her feet. The scent of stale sweat and the sharp tang of medicinal supplies filled the small space as she scrambled over. "Cassian? What is it? What are you seeing?"
The most terrible part was that he saw his own dad attacking a small kidby biting him to drink his blood from his neck, and the kid was shouting in intense pain while begging for mercy!
His mom was casually standing like a robot and never stopped his dad, who was almost killing that small life!
He couldn’t answer. His brain struggled to process the scene- the way his parents ignored the chaos of the street, focused only on a singular, dark purpose. He pressed his palms against the window, the heavy frame rattling under his touch. Hot tears blurred his vision as the reality of their transformation set in.
"THEY’RE RIGHT THERE! NO! STOP!" He shouted at the glass, his voice cracking. "MOM! DAD! I’M HERE! LOOK AT ME!"
Alissa gasped, the raw terror in his voice striking her like an electric shock. She grabbed his shoulders, her fingers digging into his shirt as she tried to pull him away from the sight. "Cass, stop! You shouldn’t be looking at this. It’s the fever, you need to rest!"
But he was frantic, his weight leaning heavily against the pane. "You’re going to dislodge the IV!" Alissa warned, her voice rising in panic. She lunged to steady his arm, where the medical tape was beginning to peel. She managed to guide him back, her eyes filled with a desperate plea from him to stay grounded. "Please, Cass- they aren’t themselves anymore. Whatever happened out there... it changed them."
The kid whom his dad was biting cruelly fell and fainted right in front of his eyes. Cassian started banging that window harder to stop his parents from whatever they were doing. But nothing changed; instead, it became worse. His mother took that small glass-shot-like medicine out of her pocket and filled it into a syringe. After that, she kept that syringe beside the kid who was lying on the ground after those cruel bites.
The figures in the rain moved with a chilling, mathematical precision. His mother reached into her soaked coat and retrieved a small metallic casing, checking its contents before discarding a spent component onto the pavement. There was no emotion in the gesture, only cold, mechanical efficiency.
Alissa stepped into his line of sight, blocking the window. She held his face in her hands, forcing him to look at her. "CASSIAN, LOOK AT ME!" she cried, her voice thick with emotion. "I know it hurts, but we have to focus on staying quiet. We have to survive this."
The grief inside him shifted into a desperate, hollow ache. He stared at her with bloodshot eyes, his breath coming in ragged hitches. "They were everything," he choked out. "If they’re gone, what do we do? Even if I die, that doesn’t matter now!"
"We stay together," Alissa whispered, her own tears falling now. "We don’t give up. You matter to me!"
While saying the previous sentence, Cassain was completely out of his senses; he started pulling the needle from his hand in a rage, bursting into tears nonstop at the end of his sentence. Alissa pushed his other hand. She resisted him from doing that with a loud cry, while begging him to stop. She finally screamed, "THEN KILL ME TOO! IF YOU WANT TO DO THIS, TAKE MY LIFE FIRST"
Cassian’s leg didn’t have much strength left; he suddenly fell and sat on the floor, keeping both of his hands on his face to cover himself, as he got a sudden trauma after the things that happened. He started crying out loudly in that position and then kept both of his hands on his head. Alissa was heartbroken as hell after watching him, so she turned to face the other side from him to take her emotions out with a sudden burst of heavy tears from her eyes.
He watched her turn around, and after that, with a deep, slow pace in his voice, he said, "Shh... I am here; I am here forever. Nothing will happen to you, nor to us. Come here... Alissa, I am sorry, Alissa. I am a bit- just can’t-" he was confused at the end of his sentence about what to speak. After wiping off his tears with the back of his other hand, he started gesturing with a hug to her so that she could be comforted in his arms.
She turned around quickly and sat on the floor, accepting his hug. She let all her emotions out in her cry while being held with comfort in his arms. She was not able to breathe properly due to her crying, but she was still letting her emotions out while speaking like that with a stammer, "I- I- didn’t mean to. I pushed your dad- I pulled you out from his arms-"
She added in the same tone, "I- seized their son forever from them! At what cost... what do I do? I cannot even look at you-"
As they were giving each other a tight hug, Alissa was not able to watch Cassian. Cassian quivered his chin to control himself from crying, with his big eyes, which were full of tears that didn’t fall. He gently pulled Alissa back from her shoulders, looked directly into his eyes, and, caressing her hair, he said, "You saved me! Most importantly, you saved ’us’. You are a very brave girl! You deserve every favour from me, even my life."
Alissa looked directly into his eyes, while her tears were still falling. She nodded with a ’no’, denying whatever Cassian had said. Then Cassian pulled him back onto his shoulders and, while caressing her hair continuously, he said, "You are very brave. We are alive and safe!"
A few minutes passed like this, then Cassian went back towards the window after he got the I.V removed by Alissa, as the saline water was almost finished. With great courage, he slid the curtains to watch the scene outside. He saw his parents were just on the other side of that hard polycarbonate glass window (an unbreakable window for safety purposes). His mom was keeping her hand on the window from outside. Cassian was so traumatized that soft tears fell from his eyes, while he kept his hand on that window from inside. The scene felt like a last goodbye.
As it was now clearly visible in their actions, he was sure that they were not his parents anymore cause they had no mercy and were trying to get both of them out to attack them. He slid that curtain back to close the view and went back towards Alissa, who was sitting on the couch silently with a stressed and heartbroken face.
He placed the backs of his palms on her forehead to check on her fever and said, "You are a little warm, but not like earlier. I am relieved to see that you are fine enough!"
Alissa held his hand and said, "My grandma; she went to our village for a month, as she was talking nonsense that she wanted to live her days alone at her favourite place before she dies... her call wasn’t connecting due to poor network, right?"
Cassian nodded yes, and with a concerned voice, he said, "She is not here; of course nothing will happen. Don’t worry!"
Alissa stood and walked out of the living room. After a while, she brought a telephone from the storeroom with her into the living room. Cassian connected a few wires, and the telephone started to work, as it worked on a wireless network principle. Alissa quickly entered her grandma’s number and tried to make a call from the telephone this time. Still, no one picked up.
Cassian stood, turned the T.V on, and started streaming a live news channel. The news reporter said, "Everything you need, drink this potion, and you get it. For free... no price!"
The reporter was also acting weird, and in the end he injected himself with the same potion, almost at once, into hisneck!