Solflare: The Painter's Secret-Chapter 39: A Deadly Dose

A gust of dust burst out the moment Leon halted beside a blue building. In five seconds, he bent down and gasped for air, then straightened himself.

"Wasn’t that a human I saw?" His face crumpled as he tore his eyes around, scanning the corners of the building.

A loud metal-colliding and stone-falling sound erupted the moment Leon placed the palm of his right arm on the edge of the building.

He pulled his arm back as soon as he felt something vibrate through his skin, causing his bones to scream.

Taking two stumbling steps back, debris of wood and rotten metal rained on him.

"Whoa!" His eyes widened the moment he tilted his head upward and saw a metal roofing sheet drifting in the air and falling toward his direction.

He closed his eyes and swallowed hard when a fog of brown wind flared at his left side.

In a blink, the wind slammed the sharp glistering edge of the metal, sending it crushing into the open space at Leon’s right side.

...

Though it wasn’t real, as Hayes stated earlier, sweat beaded on his real body and dripped on the tiled ground.

Around him, Hayes neared the door as countless men dressed in white moved in circles around Leon.

One after another, they pulled out tiny needles and inserted their tips into the boy’s body.

"This one is showing good signals; I think he wouldn’t be stuck like the others." A man wearing big white goggles said as he tilted his gaze to Hayes.

"Will he be out of the illusion before dawn?" Hayes’s voice boomed as he unwrapped his arms from his chest.

Two of the men wearing long white robes and transparent masks stepped aside, the black liquid in the syringe shimmering.

In the space between the two scientists, Hayes smiled the moment he saw how Leon’s body had been pierced with countless glittering needles.

He turned, walked in the long hallway, and then exited through the big white door.

...

"Haa!" 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

A deep rampage of air gushed from his mouth as he stretched his arms and exhaled deeply.

"This boy seems to be controlling the illusion rather than letting it control him." He turned his gaze at the golden clouds and sighed.

Immediately, he tilted his gaze from the setting sun; the singing birds and the chorus of cars hummed in his ear like a hymn.

"What’s the time?" He moved his left arm upward, pushed his sleeve backward, and stared at his obsidian IWC Portugieser watch.

"Oh shit!" He cursed under his breath, then rushed toward the parking lot.

Instead of walking toward the MRAP he brought, Hayes moved past it and stood at the other side.

He pulled out a small remote controller from his pocket, stretched it forward, and pressed the bell button.

BEEP! BEEP!

A loud sound boomed through the basement where the luxury cars were parked. A smile tore on Hayes’s lips as the headlights of a black Rolls-Royce La Rose Noire Droptail blinked.

He slid inside the car, started the engine, and drove off.

At first, the car moved slowly, but as soon as it reached the high arching bridge, he moved like the speed of light.

Motorcycles, saloon cars of different colors, and tricycles parted for him the moment they saw him through their rearview mirrors.

...

Meanwhile, at a far distance from the WinJi Hospital, Lily stood at the back of a wheelchair.

Her small arms rested on the push handle as she stared at the male doctor nearing them from a far distance.

The moment the doctor reached her and the woman sitting in the wheelchair, his face shimmered with hatred. It wasn’t one that promised a fight; it promised death.

"Your medication is here; you can take it and go." The doctor’s voice tensed as he threw the drugs, not placed in a bag, at them like garbage.

"Sir!" Lily’s face saddened the moment one of the bottled drugs hit the forehead of the blind woman.

She bent down, picked up the two boxed bottle drugs and the three yellow tablets. Footsteps echoed from behind her, letting her fingers linger on the last black tablet that had a white death symbol inscribed on it boldly.

"Don’t take that!"

A deafening sound slammed in the room so hard that it caused Lily’s body to tremble.

Her fingers screeched on the tiled floor as she tilted her gaze to the person that had erupted from her back.

Her body calmed as soon as she realized the person to be none other than the man who had been giving her and her mother aid.

"Uncle Feng," a soft voice echoed from her shaky lips as she stood up, leaving the black tablet to lay on the ground.

Feng placed his right arm on the shoulder of the woman, whose body was trembling in the wheelchair.

"I’m here, don’t worry," he said and tapped twice on the woman’s shoulder, then grinned at the doctor.

When he stopped in front of the doctor, Feng gestured to the nurse, who rushed into the hallway after hearing the roaring sound.

"Take them to the reception, and give them a bottle of water. I will be there later."

The nurse nodded, then placed her right arm on the push handle of the wheelchair, and her left on the little girl’s shoulder.

Feng kept a calm smile on his face as he stared at the little girl while she kept turning and looking at him.

Immediately, the door slammed shut. Feng grabbed the doctor by the neck.

"WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU TRYING TO GIVE THEM!" He pushed the doctor back, shoved him upward, and stared at him.

"I was doing what my job tells me to do." The doctor smiled and placed his arm on the hand holding him upward.

Water splashed on Feng’s face as the doctor spat at him.

Feng pulled him forward and slammed the doctor against the wall again. Spiderweb lines skittered across it the moment Feng loosened his grip from the doctor, letting him slide and slam hard on the ground.

...

At a far distance from the chaos happening in the hospital, birds surged high in the dark, deep grey clouds forming in the sky.

In the room Leon was in, the scientists moved back as the belts holding Leon’s arms broke loose automatically.

Inside Leon’s mind, he swallowed hard after spotting a humanoid figure with lizard skin standing behind him.