Purple Scent

Ch. 13: Mixed With Violet Harpy

Dad looked so thin compared to the last time I saw him. The look in his face was full of emotion, his eyes watering. I ran to him and engulfed him with a longing hug. He tightly returned the favor, as the silence filled the whole gymnasium. The others closed the entrance door behind us, and watched our dramatic reunion.

My dad was silent until I heard him started sobbing. I rubbed his back and patted his back to stop him cry. Where's mom, anyways? No one had come here besides himself.

I froze when I realized something. A possibility I might've thought before, but now that Dad was here, I didn't want to even think of that possibility. But the way Dad cried, the fear I had before, it came back.

"Your mom,", he started, but before he could finish his sentence, I cut him off.

"Dad, please don't say the word. I know now. Just don't say it.", I pleaded him and I just cried there in silent. Embarrassed that it wasn't the reunion I was expecting—them hugging me together in their warm hugs—I just fell on dead silence, my tears streaming down my cheeks. Mom wasn't there. She's gone. She probably was.

I heaved a heavy sigh and broke the hug with Dad and wiped my tears. I was  sure my mom won't like it seeing me cry. I cleared my throat and carelessly wiped my tears with the sleeves of my shirt.

"Have you eaten?", I asked him and he nodded. I saw some scars on his arms and legs, his plain white shirt and pale brown hiking short was stained with dirt. I wonder how much Mom and Dad went through on their own. I won't ask that for now.

He was about to speak when there was another loud continuous bang, and it wasn’t from the door, it was from the roof of the gymnasium. It set us on alarm that made us quickly ran to our own weapons, anything we could use for defense.

The banging sound stopped for a while, but we never let our guards down, and were alert for whatever was going to happen. I quickly settled an arrow on my crossbow and gripped my hands on it as tight as I could. Ah, there it goes. The purple scent again. The violet harpies must really be here.

"Dad, how did you get here?", I asked him to entertain my busy mind

He glanced at me once before looking up above with a silent pistol in his hand. It was kind of handy; I hope we got some of that, too.

"Oddly, there was an army plane somewhere. I don't know if it was used by the government, but I hopefully got it without any problem and flew all the way here at Seoul.", he explained as we all fell in silence; we stood there in the most nerve wracking moment.

I glanced over to Soobok who's protecting the box, probably that box full of important things for the experiment. We are all startled when the metal roof of the stadium had been ripped like some monster had skinned it—well, Violet Harpies are human that turned into monsters—and before some of them even try to get inside, Dad started firing his silent pistol, as I shot them with my arrows.

Since dad and I had the only weapons that could use afar, the other guys were on standby for face to face fight. They liked it, right? They should've liked it, they were even sulking when some of them couldn’t come with us.

"Geuhan, do you have plans for this?", Kahee asked as she stood there behind the other guys holding with a metal bar in between her shaky hands.

"Of course, I have. I always have a plan.", I proudly said but then added, "But this is so soon, I've not prepared the plan well. They should've attacked like, tomorrow.", I tried to sound as if I was joking, but some of them just laughed through their nose.

"Dad, do you know any safe lab we could stay at? Soobok and Heeshik have something to experiment out.", I looked over to Dad as he tried to think while firing and reloading his silent pistol, as I was busy reloading arrows on my crossbow, too.

“Was it an important experiment?”, he asked and added, “It should be.”

"I know a place.", I shot a look at Yul. He should be sure about this. He added shortly, "But I am not sure if we'll be able to go there right away."

Heeshik interrupted, "Where was it, Yul?"

"Don't tell me, it's that place you were talking about since earlier, hyung?", his brother Jaewook asked, as he was busily huddling Coco in his hands. 

"I think it is possible.", Soljun spoke up with a smile on his face. What are they talking about, though? I have no idea.

"You mean the Black Swan Lab?", Younghoon asked.

Hyunki nodded as if he finally understood what they were talking about. Black Swan Lab? You mean, the science lab that was sued a lot of times for illegal experiments?

"What did you guys plan while we're gone?", I asked them and I screamed when the Harpies had finally got inside the stadium. That time, we were scattered because they attacked us from above. Run is the first move when fighting at times like this.

"Oh freak, aiya!", Dokhun swung his baseball bat and hit one Violet Harpy before it can even hurt him. His scream was funny, though.

There was various sounds around the stadium, as I found it hard to reload my crossbow. I groaned and instead took the sword the other guys had gave up on using. I don't know anymore. All I wanted is to survive I didn't care if I would kill some.

But, the sword was too hard to use unlike how I expected it could be. I whimpered when a Violet Harpy got into me and attacked me by its claws while fluttering its wings to keep him at air.

Oh, I hated the way it smelled. I looked around me, as each of them were busy to protect their own selves. I tried to protect myself by using the sword as the shield. I was screwed. I tried to roll away, which I was glad I did. I stood up and right away chopped its other wing.

It only had one wing, but before he could fall, he hit me with his other wing, which threw me farther away from the guys.

"Geuhan!", Dad yelled and tried to rescue me, but how could he when he couldn't escape the other Harpies that tried to attack him.

I stood up immediately and I felt my left arm sting in pain. Ah, I must've injured my arm again. Before I could even defend myself, the Violet Harpy attacked me and the next thing I knew, my side were bleeding. Ah, I shouldn't bleed like this.

It was so hard to even stand up, the blood just kept gushing. I pressed my hand with much pressure to prevent the blood from coming out. I silently grunted there, the piercing and stretching pain swirled around my side.

I continued to whimper and sat there—because that was the only thing I could—ready to face the end of my life. But before that could happen, someone had hit the Violet Harpy very hard on the head that it fell right above me, unconscious, the blood from its head flowed down to my clothes. I tried to move away, but my side hurt a lot and the Harpy was too heavy.

Soobok helped me remove the Harpy off of me and let me sit up and carried me. But it was too late. The Blood of the Harpy had mixed with mine.