And it was right in front of me.

Enormous, jagged red poles extended from my hands like roots. It grew and grew as it reached the far end of the s.p.a.cious area we were at.

Spikes appeared from the pole and forced itself to grow as well, as if it had a will of its own. In a sense, those red things wanted to fill the area.

"Hey! Cut it out! You're destroying the place!" shouted Beatrice.

She picked up her broken knife and lunged at me.

"I can't! Please, help me!" I cried to her.

She aimed her knife at my head in a swift motion. "Oh, I will help you alright."

A red spike from my shoulder darted at her knife and it shattered into pieces. Shocked, Beatrice then pulled a second knife under her jacket and managed to make a gash on my forehead.

"IT HURTS!"

As if responding to my pain, a number of red spikes sprouted from my arms.

Beatrice avoided it and took a few steps away from me. Trickles of blood formed uneven streaks on her left arm as she gritted her teeth.

"I-I'm sorry." I did not mean to hurt her.

Beatrice made a face like she wanted to hurt me so much.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's my fault," I muttered to myself. Memories of the soldiers that I'd killed gave me a headache. "Stop. . . It was me. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." My tears fell as I kept muttering to myself. However, it did not bother me as I kept apologizing under my breath. "I'm sorry."

"Mommy. . . Daddy," I called my parents.

All I wanted was to be with them again, to see their faces, and lived our lives as we had always been every day. I had no ill intention whatsoever to even hurt anyone. Those things that came out of me, I never wished for it. It hurt people and killed them in cold blood.

Painful memories of the time when I was at that base overwhelmed me, along with an intense pain deep in my chest.

"That's too bad then. Your existence put us all in danger," said Beatrice.

Beatrice appeared from behind me, but a large spike sprouted from my back in order to protect me.

She easily dodged it and her knife hit one of my spikes. Despite that, she relentlessly tried to get at me as her knife was slowly chipping at the spikes that were desperately protecting my back.

She slashed at one of it in one long arc and her knife broke.

"This thing's tough as h.e.l.l," she said. Her good arm pulled her body to safety in one quick spin, away from one of my spikes.

"Stop. I don't want to hurt you," I begged. She would have hurt herself if she continued.

She ducked when a spike that darted at her split into two, twisting in a circular motion. It did not hit her but it was apparent she was having a hard time.

I turned around to face her directly, and she used that to her advantage as she threw a nearby empty cardboard box at me.

I squinted at the box as it was shredded into pieces by my spikes Swiftly, Beatrice's figure filled my vision, with her broken knife aiming for my neck.

Fortunately, a narrow spike that manifested from my shoulder blocked her attack at blinding speed, as it darted towards Beatrice next.

"No, stop it, I did not want to hurt anyone!" I shouted.

The spike strangely froze in mid-air just a few inches away from Beatrice.

She grinned at the opportunity. Instead of using the broken end of her knife, she flipped it around and spared no time to hit me with the hilt.

However, the spikes that had formed before coiled around my body to protect me for a moment.

As they coiled, I heard the sound of the knife's hilt bounced off once.

No matter many times she tried to attack, the spikes protected me from her a.s.saults like they were nothing. It was hard to see my surrounding when there were gleaming spikes all over my body.

Beatrice nearly had her face skewered when the spikes darted at her head, but she managed it to dodge it. Her blue cap fell to the floor because of that.

"d.a.m.n this girl," she muttered, sort of impatient.

Each time new spikes were formed from my back, I felt sharp pain all over. The pain of something piercing me from the inside.

I hated it.

It hurt.

Beatrice's broken knife bounced off easily when she tried to strike at my left cheek. It clanged and was sent flying to the far side, sliding across the s.h.i.+ning floor. She distanced herself away from me after that, caressing her bleeding left arm.

"Your arm." I wheezed at the memories invading my vision. "Ugh."

I wallowed in my emotions, allowing my cry spread across the factory. I did not want that.

Unfortunately, the remaining spikes from that enormous pole from before turned into crimson color somehow as it attempted to destroy the place. It pierced through any objects that was in its path their way like paper. In a way, I resembled a tree and those spikes were my roots. It tried to grow itself as if it was finding a source of water. It appeared like that to me.

My bed was crushed under the tremendous number of those 'roots'.

"Your eyes, they're bleeding," pointed Beatrice, shocked.

I did not care. It hurt so much.

I never wanted that thing coming from my insides, ripping me apart. The gash on my forehead felt like it was st.i.tching itself back together and only blood was left there.

"You're a monster. I knew the boss shouldn't have brought you here. You'll kill everyone as you did to George and Nick." Beatrice walked to me while holding her injured arm.

"I don't kill them!" I shouted. "Please, don't come near me . . . I don't kill them . . . I never did."

"I don't mind if you die here. But this place will be gone by the time your body decided to give up." Beatrice stopped when my spikes threatened her to not move any further. She looked around, probably judging the amount of damage that had been done. Various supplies and equipment were buried underneath the branching 'roots'.

I noticed uneven footsteps coming closer to us.

"Boss, you're back," said Beatrice as she looked behind her shoulder.

Grandfather and that same bunch of people from earlier popped out from a small corridor at the side of the factory.

He narrowed his eyebrows at me. "Beatrice. Have your arm treated by Jessica. I'll handle this." His words had an angry tone to it, the angriest that I had ever heard of from him.

I cried and hated myself for crying in front of him. The person that I saw there was not Grandpa. His voice was foreign as he gave a vexing look of utter disgust.

It was as if he wanted to harm me, in the worst ways imaginable.