He got up from his bed and sighed gently as he stretched his arms and flexed his muscles. ‘There you go’, he said as he cut the rope of the next captive who was Mark and the next, Barma and the next, some random dude called Raman. The next person after that was laying on the ground after his bed had been toppled over by the fighting alpha-men who had turned The Black Room into a bloody battleground. Brutality was the common ground at the end of the day. Even then, Dale could still see men flying through the roof and crashing against the wall. 000001 was too strong to be a human being. He was making all the alpha-men look like sigma men. It was the reason the question: Who are you? was more important than any other thing.
One way or the other, the last alpha-man standing had got a pistol and shot twice at the good guy. ‘Oh No’, Dale whispered reflexively as he watched 000001 fall to the ground gently. By that time, everyone was free of their bonds and waiting at the side of the room, hoping 000001 would make it alive amidst the relentless combats from the other alpha-men. The last-standing alpha-man matched over to him and threw the empty pistol away. Dale watched as his hand drew closer to his side pocket where there was a dagger dangling from.
‘No’, Dale roared this time. He glided through the room, jumped high in the air only a second before the alpha man pulled out his dagger and landed with his own knife in the alpha-man’s throat, a second before he put his dagger in their saviour’s neck.
Blood flowed out of his neck like a waterfall and he fell to the ground, still with no groans of pain or death. It was at this that Dale involuntarily pulled off the mask from his face. 000001 had gotten on his feet watching Dale stare at the real face of the alpha-man he just killed.
The face of the alpha-man looked normal; like his own, like a regular young Dexterran kicking a pebble down the Crawdown Street. He had his mouth wide open in agony, trying to gain in breath. He raised his hand up to his heavily-bloodied neck, trying to resist the final chokes of death sourced from his neck. It was then that Dale noticed the most disturbing part; the reason he couldn’t speak. It was because he was dumb, he was one of the men whose vocal cords had been cut off. It was why his throaty shrieks looked like a video played on mute. As Dale watched the dying man, he couldn’t help tears rushing to his eyes.
Dale wished he could save him but death already loomed around his eyeballs like murky waters. Even though he could have survived at that, another knife came from nowhere pinning itself into the throat of the alpha-man who now didn’t even have any protective helmet on. Blood splattered up over Dale’s face and into his eyes. By the time he opened it, he saw the dying man with both his eyes now closed and his mouth dripped in red. As things were, those eyes were not going to open again even if he were an extra-resilient ALPHA MAN.
He turned over to the thrower of the knife, the person who was supposed to cut them up, the person who was supposed to be the cruellest beast in Sawer’s crew, the de facto leader of the whole Quppis army. All the forty-one men held as captives in the room turned to face the 000001 as he was pulling off his mask. He carefully raised the galeated faceplate from his face. The first thing the broadened eyeballs of Dale saw beneath the mask was the wiry dark hair of 000001 and when he raised his head, Dale recognised him immediately.
The face of the special alpha-man was exceedingly beautiful, astonishing all the men completely that there was no brutish curve on his face that could give them a guess that he was a master killer. Shockingly again, as he looked at Dale’s crying face, he laughed out in pure joy. He nodded back softly at him like: Yes, Yes, It’s me.
It was Vince, but it wasn’t just not any Vince…
Dale ran from where he was, covering the distance between he and Vince. ‘It’s me’, he said to Dale when he finally reached him and hugged him.
It was Vince Bailey.
Amidst his tears, Dale managed to say: ‘Brother!’