"...Derek?"
Adam lowered his soup and bread, but before he could stand, Derek launched himself forward, wrapping Adam in a bear hug that lifted him clean off the ground.
"Schizo! You psycho bastard, it’s really you!"
Derek spun him around, laughing and shouting.
"I knew it! I fucking knew you were too stubborn to die!"
"R... right."
It took a full minute before Derek finally set him down. They sat together against the wall, eating in comfortable silence broken only by Derek’s occasional chuckle. But surprisingly, Adam was the one to break the silence between them.
"Hannah told me you were alive," Adam said.
"Yeah, man. She called me after the last Game. Said you two teamed up. Crazy odds, almost impossible to happen." Derek tore off a piece of bread. "Makes you think the world is small after all, huh? You’re alive. She’s alive. I’m alive, too."
"Oh, she’s alive..." Adam sighed, relief washing over him. "I was going to reach out, but I didn’t know how to find you."
"You, reach out...?" Derek lightly scoffed, then squinted at his face. "Did you know Hans was Hannah, right? That she was a woman?"
"N—"
"Pft..." Derek laughed quietly before Adam could answer. But his laugh faded as soon as it came, and he stared into his soup. "Everyone else from the team is dead. Jefferson, Doug, Mark, all of them. Just us three left."
His words were quiet as he waved around his bread, as if counting everyone they lost.
"I miss them, man. Fuck, I missed you too. We weren’t that close, but hell, none of us were close to anyone."
Derek looked up, sniffling as he wiped his nose and rubbed his buzzed head.
"Anyway, bruh. So what’s this I hear about Adam the Endless? People are saying you’re some kind of Hero now."
"I... became a Hero after the last Game."
"In two Games? Jesus Christ." Derek shook his head in amazement. "I always knew there was something special about you. We called you a psycho schizo for a reason."
"Right..." Adam sighed at the old nickname. From the outside... he was sort of odd, wasn’t he? "What about you? What are you doing now?"
"Got Jefferson’s job," Derek pointed at the sky. "Only took the old man dying for me to get promoted. Rest in peace, black mamba."
Derek wanted to force out a laugh, but only silence grew. And soon, his smile faltered.
"I’m level five now. Going slow. Might take three, maybe five more Games before I become a Hero." He met Adam’s eyes. "I’m probably going to die in the next Game. I’m lucky to even survive one. Two? Pushing it, man."
"Derek—"
"I lied earlier." Derek’s voice was steady now, serious. "I know what you’ve been through. I saw you on the news when you said something about a Hospital."
"Hm..."
"We all knew, Adam. The whole team knew you had powers before we were fucked up being summoned in the Games."
Adam’s soup bowl almost slipped in his hands. "What?"
"We knew the first week you joined us. When you rescued Doug and fell into that river." Derek’s eyes were kind but knowing.
"It was a short—"
"Yeah, yeah. You said it was a short fall. But man, we all saw you hit your head on those rocks. Saw that branch go clean through your stomach. It was far, but we all saw." Derek leaned forward. "No one said a thing, but we all knew. You should’ve died then. We thought you were already a Hero, just keeping it quiet."
"That’s..."
"Nobody cared, man. You were still Adam. Still our schizo who worked twice as hard as anyone else. Always wanted to be alone. But when you rescued Doug, we knew you were for real, man." Derek’s voice softened.
"That interview you gave, about this Hospital—those the people who were hunting you before the Game? The one’s asking questions?"
Adam nodded.
"That old woman. Who was she? Was she in charge?"
"I—"
"Pft..." Derek laughed suddenly. "If the others were here, they’d say it was my mama coming to drag you home."
"Right..>" Adam didn’t know how to respond to that, which only made Derek laugh harder.
Then Derek’s expression turned serious again. "Doesn’t matter what you are, what you’ve been through. You’re still Adam. You’re still—"
Before Derek could finish his words, Adam’s phone suddenly rang.
"That’s fucking new. You have a phone now?"
"...Always had one."
"The fuck...? You serious?" Derek chuckled before grabbing Adam’s bowl. "Anyway, I’ll get us more soup. You answer that, big shot man."
"...Yeah." Adam watched Derek walk away, still not knowing how to respond to his... humor. All he could really do was answer the phone.
"Hello? Ma’am? Did—"
He did, however, need to pull the phone away from his ear immediately.
<Why haven’t you called?!> Clementine’s voice exploded through the speaker.
"I’m sorry, I’ve been—"
<You think we don’t know what you’ve been doing? You’ve been all over the news!> Clementine seemed to have a lot to scream to Adam, but her tone suddenly shifted into a more serious and urgent breath
<Anyway, I don’t have much time. You need to be careful.>
"I know."
<No. No, you don’t. Cops have been snooping around Ilyana.>
"Who...?"
<Ilyana the Echo Smith, the one who made your weapon.> Clementine’s voice turned haughty. <That’s right, Mister Adam the Endless. We know you lost the weapon I gifted you. I mean, seriously...? That was a gift, Adam.>
"I’m sorry—"
<The weapon’s with the American police, and—>
Before Clementine could finish, Adam heard another voice whisper in his ear, followed by a glowing text suddenly bombarding his eyes.
[The Administrators are bored.]
[The Administrator, Mikhail, says he knows what gift to bestow upon you now.]
Adam blinked several times at these words, and then heard a scream coming from behind him.
<Adam. Hello? What was—you’re breaking... Hel... am?>
Adam stared at his phone and saw the screen glitching. He then turned to look in the direction of the scream, and felt every hair on his body stand up.
No. It wasn’t just his hair; the dust and tiny debris around him began floating upward. He looked around and then saw everyone just suddenly running.
And then, there it was... like a jagged tear in space itself.
A Leak was forming.
These Administrators... they do really think that the lives of people are just to play with, huh?