David stood frozen to the spot, his heart pounding, while their wide-eyed stares was fixed on him, sending a shiver down his spine...
"At ease, soldier!" Steinz replied simply. The lieutenant immediately nodded, straightening his posture, but some of the men behind him forgot to nod, their eyes fixed solely on Blake...
"Let's go. Follow me, Private Blake!" ordered simply the admiral, like nothing strange happening here. But the soldier didn't move. David could barely hear him, he was deeply immersed in the fear he felt from the soldiers.
This terror was so raw, so authentic, it was fear in its purest, most primitive state, and it was directed at him...
'(Scared of... me?)' He was drowning... in this viscous, black ocean of emotion, unable to breathe.
And the only thing he could think is...
'(Me...???)'
"SOLDIER DAVID!!!" came the loud voice of the admiral, who was a few meters ahead.
He came back to his senses slightly and followed the general...
But as they walked away from the group, he looked back one last time.
The soldiers hadn't moved. They stood still, straight as sticks, their fingers nervously clenching their rifles. And all of them, without exception, were still staring at him.
And this was neither the end nor an isolated case. The two continued to sink deeper into the base, and EVERY soldier looked at him intently, with different emotions: fascination, disgust, excitement...
But all of them had a hint of fear.
David moved closer to the admiral to walk beside him, his voice low.
"Admiral, what's going on?" His voice was trembling, confused, frightened, begging for an answer.
But there was none...
"Admiral, what..." He asked again.
Only silence greeted him. The admiral continued walking straight ahead, his face impassive, not even deigning to look at him...
"Admiral, I beg you..."
But nothing came back to him but the heaviest silence of his entire life...
He was left to his own devices...
The shivers, the panic, the feeling of going mad crept up on him even more, he slowed down, wanting to stop, but discipline, his very essence, prevented him from doing so. He did what he had been taught to do all his life and continued to obey the order to follow his superior, but he... lowered his head.
It was a pathetic attempt to ignore the stares he felt constantly on him.
The two finally passed through the camp in suffocating mutism, and they eventually reached a building more imposing than the others, located in the heart of the complex. It was undoubtedly some kind of command center. The walls were even more reinforced, and the security system was visible to the naked eye.
The admiral took a magnetic card out of his jacket and slid it into a reader.
A beep sounded. Then a click. The secure door opened by itself.
Without another word, they entered the building.
The interior of the building was silent and spacious.
The floor echoed with every step, the metallic echo of their boots as they walked through the narrow corridors with pure white walls. White lights on the ceiling diffused a soft, artificial light, almost golden.
David looked up and surveyed his surroundings.
And quickly.... whispers came from adjacent rooms. Calm, focused voices.
Quickly, the few soldiers on the base gave way to other figures. Men and women in white coats. Scientists.
Some were tapping away on tablets, others were talking to each other, their arms laden with files or strange instruments of unusual shapes.
What was strange was the way they had all positioned themselves, where they are...
The corridor he was walking along had been cleared, carefully cleared, as if they wanted to leave him a clear, almost ceremonial passage. But everywhere else, in the adjacent aisles, in the other corridors leading to his, they were there.
Motionless, lined up in a row of white coats and glasses, facing him.
Even those confined to the rooms had frozen in front of the windows, their eyes fixed on the corridor. And where there were no windows, they had gathered in crowds behind the wide-open doors.
They were all facing him as he passed, as if they knew he was coming and were waiting for him...
And they all had the same reaction: conversations slowed down... gestures stopped... and all eyes turned to David.
But there was not the same intention, the same mistrust as for the soldiers. Rather, there was a quiver curiosity instead of fear. A contained fascination.
One by one, the scientists turned around and their gazes, although less charged with raw emotion than those of the soldiers, were nonetheless...
Heavy...
It was a different kind of look, one that made him even more uncomfortable. They were watching him like a rare specimen, a living anomaly, an enigma. The scientists and doctors quickly took notes as they looked at him, whispering to each other, their fingers pointing at him.
David was their specimen...
'(Something's wrong... with me)' It was now a certainty.
The sound of boots hitting the marble floor echoed through the corridors, each step the boy took was heavy, his youthful but handsome face was closed, his head bowed once again, staring at the floor.
The only indication of what was going on in his mind was his furrowed brow.
Time continued to pass, the two men continued to walk, and the people they encountered in tactical vests or white coats continued to stop, focusing on him without taking their eyes off him until Blake left their field of vision and others replaced them.
"We're almost there!" said the admiral, speaking for the first time since they had entered the base. The boy nodded mechanically, his words barely registering, going no further than his ears.
And after 30 seconds, the endless corridor dotted with rooms on the left and right underwent a change. The narrow passage began to widen, and the two men passed through the last room before their destination.
It was a completely glass-walled room, a main laboratory judging by its size. The room was filled with screens displaying data, projections of DNA and complex organic structures, and even several screens showing a 3D model of a titan, one of the strangest he had ever seen... it looked like a human being...
There were scalpels and other tools, tubes filled with samples, and state-of-the-art machines that David had no idea what they did.
Scientists, the best in the base, who were themselves the best in the country and certainly the best in foreign lands, were poring over samples, all of which appeared to be the same: a strange bone about a meter high.
There were remnants of flesh, composed of muscle and nerve, but smoke seemed to escape from it, and strangely, the piece of flesh gradually shrank, as if everything that was not bone was slowly dissipating into vapor...
And as soon as the two men passed by... The scientists, who had been busy with their research, stopped everything. But this time, there was no whispering or sudden note-taking.
There was no commotion, just a sudden silence as all the brilliant minds in the room simply stared at him.
But one man, a middle-aged Asian with graying hair and a stoic face, rose from his seat and quickly made his way toward the door, his eyes fixed on David. Nothing new happened, but he stand in the way of the two men.
"Dr. Serizawa..." began the admiral in a soft voice, but he was interrupted by the man's palm raised in the air.
"I just want..." said the man with a strong Japanese accent, glancing briefly at the admiral, who after a few seconds of hesitation decided to remain silent, saying nothing.
With the man's silent approval, Serizawa stepped forward and focused his gaze on the person in front of him, the young man who was unaware that he was an anomaly, a mystery, a miracle...
The boy's blue eyes looked back at the person in front of him. He recognized him as the world's greatest Kaiju expert, the current director of Monarch, Ishirō Serizawa, whose team had discovered and recorded a dozen Kaiju since his debut at Monarch...
Blake forced himself out of his thoughts, raised his arm, and saluted the man in front of him with all due respect.
"Dr. Serizawa, it's a privilege to meet you!" His strong, firm voice echoed through the silent room as he saluted.
Ishirō nodded gently, his mind preoccupied with observing this marvelous living contradiction.
Seconds passed in silence, Blake still standing at attention, avoiding Dr. Serizawa's intense gaze and seeking instead that of the commander.
The admiral heard the call and cleared his throat.
"Doc..." But he was unable to continue, interrupted for the second time...
"This power..."
A low, deep voice echoed throughout the room,
"There are forces that we do not choose... you do not understand what you carry... and that is natural..."
David looked into the eyes of the man in front of him...
"But understand that you are one of those whom the world has shaped without asking for their consent."
The two seemed to be immersed in their own world, ignoring everything else, only the two of them existing in that moment.
The gray-haired Japanese man continued in his calm and serious tone
"This gift is not a privilege. It is an echo. A manifestation born of an ancient imbalance. But now you vibrate with nature itself, you no longer have to search for your place...
It is up to you to decide whether you will be the cry of hope in the tears or the silence in the pain."
The doctor's words were the only sound that echoed in the hallway, and they brought with them a stirring in the boy's heart.
But tireless, the doctor continued, finishing with these words:
"But don't forget, power comes with its poison, its curse... never forget, because when nature lends you its strength, it is never without a price... nor without a reason..."
Ishirō looked at him deeply, his face stoic.
The doctor's solemn words reached the boy, leaving him in a whirlwind of confused emotions, his thoughts stirring once again behind his crystal-clear blue-green eyes.
Ishiro let a few seconds pass, and... stepped aside.
"Let's continue, Private Blake," a voice said simply, the sound of boots echoing once more on the marble floor.
David took a weak step, then another, following the admiral, his legs moving unconsciously, and as he walked away from the...
He looking a last time at the men in smocks who were against the glass, some standing near the door, but his gaze quickly riveted on the center where the Japanese man who looked at him deeply, never taking his eyes off him, his black eyes seeming to peer into his soul.
David paused for a second before turning back, his mind racing.
They continued forward, turning left, then down a metal staircase. The air grew heavier as they descended. Again, there was silence, heavier than it had been all day.
And yet David was overcome by a rhythmic sound, the sound of his own heart beating. A silent storm was raging in his head.
His mind was in a storm of doubts that screamed without sound...
And finally,
The admiral stopped in front of a thick, heavy metal security door. He took out another card, this time with a black stripe and a gold chip. A red light scanned his eye, then the door opened slowly, letting in a blast of cold air.
David, still an empty shell following the admiral, entered after him.
The room was huge, like a warehouse, or rather a collection. Well lit. And filled with... jars. Dozens of them. Large glass cylinders, some as tall as a man, others even more massive, bathed in a greenish liquid in which floated... things...
They ranged from huge bones to shiny claws and gigantic fangs, too large for any living animal but certainly not belonging to dinosaurs.
Fragments of monsters.
Pieces of flesh, torn limbs, bits of scales, fangs, unknown organs.
Samples labeled with precision:
KJ-12: dorsal muscle tissue
KJ-07: skull fragment
KJ-02: unstable DNA - cryostasis required
A strange atmosphere reigned in the room, solemn, here rested the memory of dangers that until recently were unknown to most of the world.
David moved forward slowly, his eyes resting on a pedestal in front of him.
There, perched on top, was a complete spine, 5 meters long and 3 meters wide. Black. Twisted. Immense.
A small registration number was written underneath
KJ-07: Spinal Column 1 to 78
As he stared at the skeleton, a voice spoke
"A nearly complete spinal column of a 3-year-old Skullcrawler, according to our analysis."
David turned to the admiral.
"And that..." continued the commander, pointing to a strange object that looked like a translucent yellow shell with a small creature inside. His eyes dropped to the inscription below:
KJ-02: Embryonic Shell
"A Muto embryo..."
David approached and leaned over, looking at it.
"Normally, all Titans are called MUTO (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism), but this Titan is the first to have appeared in broad daylight, so they are named after the entire Titan species."
The boy's hand moved toward the protective membrane, touching it with his fingers. It was a soft, slimy tissue, surprisingly warm, so warm that...
"Is it...?" David wondered, until suddenly the embryo moved and turned toward him.
The boy took a step back, pulling his hand away in a split second, watching the embryo closely, only to notice that it was just spinning aimlessly in what was half egg, half ovum.
"HAHAHA," burst out a voice behind him.
"Calm down, this thing is dead," said the general, smiling at the boy's reaction.
The admiral took a few seconds to look at the young soldier who had approached the Muto egg a second time.
"Here," he said, pointing to another part of the room, where there was a jar filled with green substances and what looked like long, blue-black hair.
"These are the fur hairs of a Titan..."
David turned his gaze
KJ-07: Pilosis DNA - Coat
"This Titan is quite unusual..." continued the admiral
"It's a gorilla specimen measuring a hundred meters tall..." David turned to him, looking at him in shock, but he saw neither a smile nor laughter, only a serious expression.
His eyes returned to the midnight blue hairs in front of him.
'(100 meters...)' The boy wondered if they would ever be able to defeat it...
"It's also one of the only peaceful Titans. If you don't look for trouble with it, it won't look for trouble with you..." said the admiral, finishing with a sigh. If all Titans were like that, that day would never have happened...
"Do you think coexistence is possible, Titans and humans...?" David looked at him, his blue eyes asking the question that humanity had no choice but to ask itself for the past four years.
The admiral looked at him and thought to himself that, unbeknownst to the boy, he might be the only proof that it was possible.
Finally, after a few seconds, he didn't answer and pointed to another place in the room.
"And our most precious piece..."
The admiral approached another small tripod holding an object, a heavy thing covered with a smooth cloth that reflected a black-brown metallic light, and underneath it.
KJ-01: Fragment of a scaly shell
"A piece of the shell of..." The admiral lost his voice, as if his breath had disappeared. For the first time, his face was no longer firm, lost in thought.
"Godzilla," he finished, in a whisper.
***********************************************************************
https://www.patreon.com/c/Just_a_guy__
+ 10 Chapter/ Already 20k words