067 NIGHTMARES AND BLOOD BONDS
Kurt screamed as agony tore through him.
His flesh twisted, muscles swelling and reshaping as if unseen hands were sculpting him from within. Bones cracked, lengthened, and jutted out where they shouldn't. His veins burned like molten iron.
Then the real pain began — in his mind.
"What the hell is happening to me?" he roared. His voice broke into a guttural cry.
And then… silence.
His mind was yanked backward — to that afternoon with Irine, watching it on an imaginary screen.
"Irine," he had said, sitting beside her on the park bench, "tell me how you improved your meta score so quickly. There must be a secret method. Everyone in school's doing it. You have to tell me."
"Erm… I'm not supposed to," Irine said, glancing around nervously. "They'd kill me if I did."
"Who would?" Kurt pressed. "Come on, it's me. We're together — we're supposed to share everything. Don't be greedy now."
"It's not being greedy," she whispered. "It's because.. those people are vicious."
When she stood to leave, desperation overtook him. He dropped to his knees.
"Irine, please. If I don't graduate, my life's over. Do it for us."
Her eyes softened. "Alright," she said after a moment. "But this must stay between us. The teacher must never know."
"Of course not," Kurt said quickly.
Irine reached into her bag and pulled out a small, ornate ring — dark metal with a faint crimson gleam pulsing inside.
"A ring?" he asked. "That's your secret?"
"Channel your meta energy into it, like they taught us in class," she said. "Then… strike someone. The ring will do the rest."
"Strike someone?" Kurt frowned. "You mean steal their power?"
She nodded. "You'll feel it when it happens. But be careful. If they resist, it might backfire."
Kurt's eyes gleamed. "I've got to try this."
"Who are you going to use it on?" she asked quietly.
"I don't know. Victor Moe, maybe. He's dumb enough not to notice."
"No." Her tone hardened. "Do it to Sazie. That bitch deserves it."
Kurt hesitated. "There's nothing between me and Sazie, I swear…"
"Do it to her," Irine cut him off, "or you don't get the ring."
He paused… then reached for the ring. "Alright."
The memory blurred.
Another screen appeared. Now he was in a motel corridor — the Blue Moon. Sazie followed close behind, blushing.
"Why are we here?" she asked shyly.
Kurt smiled faintly. "Irine's been making me choose between her and you. I've made my decision."
Her eyes widened. "You'll leave her… for me?"
"Yes," he said, his voice low. "If you'll do everything I say."
"Of course I would."
Sazie nodded and clung to his arm as they stepped into the room. And as the door closed, a faint red glow pulsed from Kurt's pocket.
The scene changed again.
Kurt's mind burned with unbearable pressure. His thoughts fractured — scenes of his life flickered before him like thousands of screens flashing at once.
From the day he was born, to his first day at school, to the moment he met Irine and Sazie — every joy, lie, and sin replayed before his eyes.
If this was the end, did he have any regret?
Did he regret using Sazie — then killing her in cold blood?
Did he regret murdering Irine, the only one who loved him, just to grow stronger?
No. Kurt was not born a killer.
He was simply greedy — greedy for power, greedy to rise above the rest, greedy to survive in a world that rewarded the ruthless.
But there is always a price to greed. And this time, the price was his sanity.
His flesh twisted once more.
Claws erupted from his knuckles. Veins glowed beneath torn skin. Though his mind was awake, he could no longer command his body — only watch through the eyes of the monster he had become.
He lunged at a jogger in the park. The blades struck deep, silencing the man instantly, his life essence was drained from him in an instance. Then another victim — a woman who barely had time to scream.
"Hahaha…", the monster laughed as if it had a separate mind.
The monster moved from prey to prey, driven by a savage hunger that wasn't his own.
And then — he stopped.
A woman appeared before him, clad in a sleek combat suit and a mask that hid her face. But Kurt recognized her kind instantly — a Hero, one of the city's meta-human enforcers.
Light flared in her hands, bright enough to blind. Then a beam of searing energy shot toward him.
"Rays of Brilliance!" she shouted.
Kurt froze for a heartbeat. "Is this my end?"
But it wasn't.
The monster inside him surged awake. His body moved before his mind could resist — leaping high, twisting midair to evade the beam.
He landed in front of her in a blur of motion.
The Hero gasped. Kurt's grin stretched unnaturally wide.
"No—" she screamed as his claws tore into her chest. Energy spilled from her like vapor, her glowing aura siphoned into him.
He shuddered, drunk on the rush, his voice now a guttural growl.
"Heroes…" he rasped, licking the blood from his claws. "I like the taste of them."
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Damen jolted awake, gasping for air. Cold sweat clung to his skin, his pulse hammering in his ears.
The images still burned behind his eyelids — not like a dream, but a plunge into someone else's mind.
In that nightmare, he had lived Kurt's life: the greed, the hunger for strength, the murders, the slow, inevitable descent into madness… until nothing remained but the monster.
"What the hell…" he muttered, clutching his head. "That felt real. Why did I dream about that bastard?"
Each scene was replayed with merciless clarity — Kurt begging Irine, killing Sazie, and finally being obliterated.
It wasn't a nightmare. It was a warning.
"Could this be more than a coincidence?" he whispered, but his mind raced. Dreams — even nightmares — didn't behave like this.
There had to be a connection between him and Kurt.
"Was it something to do with his mining app?" he wondered. He'd never dreamed of anyone he'd mined before — not even the gangsters he'd killed.
Then the thought struck him cold. The Blue Blood. Kurt stealing his curse might have forged a psychic bond between them.
If there was a link, the only way to sever it cleanly was for one of them to be gone.
"I must kill Kurt." The sentence felt inevitable, like the final syllable of a prayer.
He snatched his phone and reopened Kurt's Live View.
A familiar crest blinked into frame: Melrose Meta High School No. 1.
"That's Eryn's school."
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