Macau x Reader ~The Lotus Veil~ 1

~The Lotus Veil~ 1

Blood was running hot and sticky on your hands. Everything had been a blur: the gunfire, the screaming, the horror glazed over your friends’ eyes…

“Check to see if there are any survivors,” a voice said.

You stifled a gasp. They hadn’t left yet.

Your breath was short. Your lungs wanted to explode into a loud scream and release your pain. There was a fire burning in your leg, and no matter how hard you pressed on the wound, the heat wouldn't die down.

You would have to ignore it for now. You needed to hide. You needed to survive.

There was glass clinking as you heard the sound of hard-soled shoes crunching the broken shards beneath the owners' feet. The sound occasionally faded, but you knew the footsteps would eventually made their way towards you.

You held your breath. Your head was hurting. It wanted to pop from lack of oxygen and understanding.

Why had it turned out like this?

You didn’t understand. You didn’t want to understand. Fear was the only thing firing in your brain, but fear would not get you out of this situation. There had to be a better outlet.

Anger. Agony. Hate.

You had just watched your friends get blasted to little more than flesh and bones against an exploding grenade before your very eyes. Such an image was burned in your memory, and you would have to live with that image for the rest of your life—however long that was going to be.

“I’m checking this side,” someone said.

You took a small breath, suppressing a whimper as the pain spread up from your leg to your thigh. Agonized, you wanted to jerk and writhe, but lying in the bed of glass, you knew you would give away your position if you so much as moved a millimeter.

Then you noticed something shimmering in the broken glass: a figure. Someone was coming. Your eyes searched left and right, up and down. You needed something to defend yourself. Anything would do. Something convenient. Something light, blunt, or sharp—preferably light and sharp.

“Anything over there?” someone called from the other end of the room.

“Still checking,” the one closest to you replied.

Unable to find anything convenient, you clutched a piece of glass as a last resort. The sharp edges cut deep into your already bleeding hands, your blood staining the clear surface a rich dark sanguine. Your cuts stung, but if it meant having something to defend yourself, you could hold onto complaints for later.

The footsteps were inching closer. Your brain was screaming for you to take a breath and be done with it, but you refused. This had become personal. You weren’t planning on letting them kill you without a fight.

Steady. Calm. You were calm.

You could see the man’s shoes now. Sleek, fine-trimmed leather wove into tight, perfect stitching composed his shoes like a true gentleman—a gentleman that killed. The line of his pants didn’t even have the slightest hint of blood or dust on them, and the soles of his shoes—

Clink.

Your heart stopped. You swallowed. Someone had fired a silenced shot. Had it been someone who had been alive? Your friend? You couldn’t tell underneath the table.

They were bound to come looking for you. The tablecloth was an obvious place to look.

Another silencer fired off. You had to bite your tongue to prevent yourself from flinching. Another one obviously dead. It had to have been a point-blank shot. You shut your eyes for a second to clear the tears and stinging away. Your hand was completely red and wet now.

“Not this one either,” someone grunted.

The man in front of your stopped. You wanted to run. Maybe he thought the sound of the silencers would drown the rest of the survivors out of hiding. Maybe he thought everyone was dead. Maybe…Maybe he would—

The tablecloth lifted up. The dim fluorescent lights were shining in your alert eyes. You were looking into the eyes of a cold-blooded killer.

Maybe not.

Move.

“There’s one still—Guuggcckk!”

It had all happened so fast. Without thinking, the shard of glass you had been clutching had embedded itself deep into the man’s throat. He lifted his gun. You dug your fingers deep into his wound, tearing it open, letting the blood from his artery pour out in gushing streams.

Deeper. Hotter. Faster.

The man’s eyes were rolling back. He was dying. His eyeballs were like glass as his irises rolled up and into his sockets until he gave out one final breath. By the time his comrades had realized what had happened, you had already taken his gun and bolted for the other side of the room.

“We’ve got a girl over here!” someone roared.

Glass exploded past your ears and bullets whizzed through your hair as you ran with everything you had. You wanted to stop and curl up. If you shut your eyes, you wouldn’t be able to see what was happening in front of you and on your sides. You wouldn’t have seen the dead bodies of the people you had once called your friends.

Finally, you ran into the counter and ducked down as a bottle blasted into smithereens and scattered glimmering green glass all over the floors. You noticed your feet were bleeding all over the floors, making it difficult to move. You were lucky you hadn’t cut any vital tendons or nerves yet, and you would be lucky if you could make it out of here alive.

“You can’t hide from us, little bitch!”

You flinched. It didn’t matter how much sound you made. They knew your location.

Just then, someone rammed into the cabinets across from you and heaved himself over the counter to your position. He was pointing his gun down at you. You were pointing yours up.

And you fired first.

It wasn’t like those action movies where a spray of pressurized red paint would come flying out of a headshot man’s head. Instead, his skull shattered on both ends with a sickening crack as a gooey white and pink material went sailing out of his skull. Those had to be his brains, you realized. In a matter of seconds, he was dead—but not before getting a scraping shot in your side and leaving a burning wound searing into your skin.

“Little shit!”

Glass exploded on all sides. They were trying to draw you out with gunfire. You decided it wasn’t going to work.

Now you had two guns in your possession—two silencers at your disposal. This place was your home. You knew every nook and cranny this place had to offer. You weren’t about to let some hooligans kill your friends and get it away with it just like that.

There was a large reflective ventilation made of steel at the top. You used that to get an estimate of where everyone was: roughly two on the northeast corner and one more on the northwest.

You took a deep breath and counted down. The man you had killed looked sturdy, you realized. He could still be useful.

“We know you’re out there, you little brat— !”

Clink!

From the men’s point of view, they had seen their fallen comrade suddenly stand up and raise his arm just as a gun pointed directly at one of their faces. Then there was red and stars. The stars faded first. Then the red. And finally…everything went black.

“Shit!” one of them cursed.

You could hear pots and pans clanging. He was coming. That was one down, two to go. The downside: they now knew that you were a threat.

Time to move.

You ducked down from the counter and snuck your way towards the other end of counter just as you heard someone come around the corner. A few shots fired off. Then the sound of clinking and clattering. From the movies you had seen, you recognized the sound as someone reloading. His mind had to be frantic. Focusing on two things at once was to much in a game of life and death.

That was when you had spotted a shoe. It looked small and dainty. You bit your lips. It had belonged to your friend who had lent you a spare set of clothes when she barely had any of her own. You swallowed. It would have to do.

The clanking stopped. The man had reloaded. He had to have been jumpy, unfocused, trigger-happy. In fact, he swung around so fast that you could hear his clothes rustling from the friction in the air.

You gripped your guns in your hands and tossed the shoe into the air with your spare fingers. Then, you ran.

As expected, silenced gunfire shot out all around the trajectory of the shoe. One of the men had stopped first, shouting to his partner to stop.

But it was too late.

He had already stopped.

Your gun barrels were steaming hot against the musty air. In the movies, you had never thought about what it must have smelled like or felt like to be in a bloodbath. It was grimy, hot, and humid. The temperatures of the human bodies scattered everywhere were beginning to decay through their open wounds, and the result was a maddening cesspool of carcasses with wide gaping mouths and soulless eyes. One of these men had joined the lot.

Unfortunately, you had noticed something dire when you had finished off the most recent man. You could no longer pull the triggers back.

You cursed and leaned your head against the wall in frustration. There weren’t any bullets left, and you didn’t know how to load a magazine if there were any to be found. The element of surprise was most likely taken away, too. With only one man left, he was going to be on his toes the entire time.

If you were going to think, you would have to do it fast. There was no room for error. You took a deep breath as loudly as you dared. This reconnaissance wasn’t going to last for more than a few seconds at best. Half a minute if you were lucky.

But then—

A hot barrel aimed itself at your skull. Steaming, labored breath ran down your neck, chilling it against your sweat.

“Gotcha, you little bi— ”

Splurt.

The same white and pink matter that had burst out of the previous man’s head suddenly found itself dotting your face. It was surprisingly warm and light like fresh custard that had come out of the pot. You could only stare as the man’s eyes glazed over and fell along with the rest of his body to the floor.

“We were too late,” a new voice sighed. This one sounded younger. Too young.

“Check for any other survivors.”

Any "other" survivors?

Suddenly, a dark figure loomed over your crouching position and stared at you. Unlike the men you had fought, this person was clean-cut and oddly young to be in a place like this. He couldn’t have been more than a few years older than you.

“You’re lucky to be alive,” he said, his golden eyes glowing behind his glasses. “We got wind that their order was to kill everyone on sight.” He looked around. “I guess this means the mission failed.”

It was then that you noticed he was holding a steaming gun. So he had been the one who had fired the last shot.

“Cheng, no survivors here.”

The young man who must have been Cheng let out a heavy sigh.

“So it’s just you, then.” He looked at you with a saddened gaze. “Tell me, Miss…”

“___-_____________,” you stuttered. The shock of seeing your friends being murdered and the realization that you had murdered others was beginning to settle in.

“Miss __________________, then. Did you know of a boy in this orphanage that might have had some sort of…odd marking on his body?”

You frowned. Your lips trembled. “Not that I know of.”

“I see…” The young man chewed his lower lip. “As for you…You have some amazing skills for someone who doesn’t have any previous experience in firearms. I’m assuming you’ve never shot a gun before?”

You shook your head. “No.”

“Fascinating…” Then, he craned his head behind him. “Yao, can I speak with you for a second?”

“What is it, Cheng?” someone called from what sounded like the other room.

“Just a moment, Miss _____________,” Cheng quickly said and disappeared from over the counter. In the meantime, you clutched your knees close to your body and curled up into a ball. Your body hurt everywhere from where the grenade had exploded and where the glass and bullets had wounded you.

“…Yes, I believe so. Yes, thank you. I’ll do that, then.”

Cheng’s face reappeared but this time right beside you. Up close you could smell something refreshingly sweet coming off of his body. It was almost familiar, but the source was fleeting from your scrambled memory.

“Miss ______________, we are part of a highly trained organization that serves under the Lotus branch of royalty,” he said. “I, myself, am not a superior, but after witnessing what you could do without any formal training, I believe you have the potential to become something great in our faction. What would you say if I was to offer you a position in our organization under my guidance?”

You made a face. Although this Cheng person had saved your life, these people could not be entirely trusted.

The young man chuckled. “I can see you are hesitant, but look around you. There is nothing left for you in this place. Even if we were to disappear, and you had recovered, where would you go from here? It's going to be hard to forget what has happened here, and even if you manage to suppress this memory, it will not be entirely forgotten. The hatred will surface again. Let us turn that hatred into something more disposable…something more useful. You can help us prevent this type of thing from happening again. I suggest you take this opportunity.”

“Would I be able to back out after I accepted?” you warily asked.

Cheng removed his glasses and polished the lenses with a small, white handkerchief.

“I can tell you that you won’t be seeing us again—but that means you won’t be seeing anyone again for that matter.”

You swallowed a sticky lump. The taste was laced with metal. Blood.

But Cheng was right. You had nothing left here, and what could you hope to do for the rest of your life so as long as this memory haunted you? You couldn’t find the answer, yet one was waiting for you right here.

“Then I accept,” you said.

Cheng smiled. “I hope that you won’t disappoint us.”

“I’ll try not to,” you responded.

“May I have your full name?” the young man asked.

You shamefully lowered your eyes to the floor, the once polished tiles now scattered with splattered blood, bits of guts and organs, and broken glass as shattered as your innocent childhood.

“I don’t have a last name,” you reluctantly admitted. “I’ve always been just ______________.”

“That’ll do,” Cheng said. “I trust you enough.” He paused. “Perhaps I should give you some sort of leverage of trust, too.” He stuck out his hand for you to shake—and then stopped as he noticed your hands were completely torn and tattered from the glass you had been holding earlier. Without a word, he sheepishly pulled out his handkerchief and carefully dabbed your bloodied hand until every trace of white on the cloth was now stained red.

“My apologies. I should have been more observant.”

“No need,” you murmured and shook his hand despite the stinging sensation you felt as your skin contacted his.

“I’m relieved,” the young man smiled. “In that case, my name is Cheng Wang. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, ______________. Welcome to the Lotus Veil.”