21 The Master

Cassidy murmured in her subconsciousness.

" Hmmmm."

The splitting headache seemed to make her sight blurry.

" Well, well, well... look who's awake already," the young man jeered.

His voice seemed to depict contempt.

Cassidy rubbed her eyes again and glanced around the room.

This room had some funny looking instruments.

It looked like a laboratory because it contained conical flasks, some chemicals that she could hear its gurgling and violent bubbling.

The microscope stood elaborately at a corner.

She shivered when she felt cold sip into her body, and she realized she was on a cold floor.

She wasn't able to recall how she got there because the more she tried, the more her head throbbed painfully.

The young man's slight cough jolted her from her subconsciousness.

He fixated his eyes upon her conspicuously, and that was when she noticed another presence in the room.

The young man looked unreal.

She glanced at his broad muscles and swallowed saliva in a gulp when those metallic gray eyes shot her an intense stare.

His glowing beige skin shimmered through the brown coloured suit he wore.

His hair was styled in a breathtaking manner.

He was too perfect to be real.

While Cassidy was lost in her calculative thoughts, she stared around nonchalantly and something on a table caught her attention.

She gaped.

She didn't need anyone to tell her whatever it was that sat letting out vapour on that table.

That substance only spelt doom.. not just for her but for the entire world.

She knew what it was.

Infact, the image from the movies would never be erased from her mind.

That thing there was trioxin!

That yellow vapour which was caused by sulfurism usually makes the skin feel burning sensations, due to the toxicity of the chemical causing nerve endings to fire randomly. According to the movies she had watched, the chemical had been known to be typically stored under extreme pressure in large steel drums, secured by code protected locking mechanisms.

It was originally developed by the Darron chemical company for the US military as a herbicide to be used for destroying illegal marijuana plants; however, it was discovered to possess rejuvenating properties after a large quantity of the chemical was accidentally released into a nearby morgue, causing the cadavers to reanimate.

This toxin facilitated reanimation down to the cellular level, which meant that dismembered body parts and even skeletons which possessed connective tissue reanimated.

And they stayed reanimated regardless of their condition.

It appeared to be extremely toxic, and a single exposure of a concentrated amount killed and revived.

The most dreadful thing was that zombies created by exposure to trioxin retained all their former intelligence and athletic capabilities.

They could run, speak, and climb.

Human behaviors and emotions begin to fade as the brain shuts down, however, it leaves only the base instincts to feed.

Like normal cadavers, they suffer the effects of rigor mortis, and they crave human brains because the bioelectricity in the brains stave off the pain of decomposition.

Unlike other zombies, the only known ways to destroy zombies created by trioxin were by incineration or electrocution.

Every attempt that was made to destroy the brain or even completely dismember a trioxin zombie failed invariably.

The release of this substance could cause more than harm to the world.

Cassidy glanced coldly at the man when he snapped his fingers from the corner of the room which was loud enough to pull her out of her thoughts.

" Welcome," his hoarse voice thundered.

" Who are you?" Cassidy asked without visible falter.

A smirk tore across his face.

Cassidy saw this and wondered if he was insane.

She hurriedly stood up from the floor and faced the harmless looking man.

From her perspective, the man seemed not to be too older than she was.

He looked young and could possibly be in his late twenties.

" I never thought the Draco's son would be so lucky to get a beautiful woman as a wife," his words came out soft, the exact opposite of the hostility and intensity in his steady gaze.

" I never knew he liked fragile women."

" What do you mean?" she asked firmly.

He murmured indistinctly, but Cassidy was quick enough to capture some words he spoke.

She had clearly heard revenge.

His quiet, disbelieving laugh jolted her from her drowning stare.

Curiosity shook her to the core.

Her intense sea blue eyes brimmed at the lunatic talking nonsense with nothing but confusion as she tilted her head to the left side.

The young man glanced at his wrist watch.

Cassidy could even hear it ticking as a heavy silence reigned.

He suddenly stroke his feet on the ground in a heavy clamp and began to pace around the room.

Cassidy felt the hard thud of his feet on her heart.

The knob of the door turned abruptly and the man looked towards the door.

Two men walked in.

They had a striking resemblance with each other and they weren't looking bad though.

One of the men was dressed in a black suit that suited his well toned ivory skin. The other had a masculine fitting in his grey coloured suit which matched his gray eyes.

Cassidy shunned herself for admiring other men when she now belonged to Khalid...or was supposed to?

" I almost didn't recognize you, Lucas Diego," the first man announced as he trudged towards the named man and spread his arms wide for an embrace.

" It's been a long time man," the second man affirmed.

The three men ran in for their usual embrace as they gushed about their lives since they parted ways.

They had been friends from college ( friends who understood one another.)

They were known as the inseparable trio back then and they made sure it remained the same.

Cassidy noticed that the only one who wasn't laughing too much was the named Lucas Diego. He seemed to have mixed emotions.

" It's nice to have you two back, Brandon and Sebastien," Lucas said with almost no emotion in his voice.

" You've done so much to this place," Sebastien acknowledged after they disentangled from the embrace.

" Sebby, I always knew Lucas had a better idea of running our crew. I've known this since college. What do you think he would do with his career?" Brandon pointed out.

Sebastien chuckled.

" A crazed scientist who wants to control the masses."