Chapter 603
"There was a fire outside, and they locked the door. The fire was spreading quickly, and we... we couldn't escape_" Steven whispered with a trembling voice.
He couldn't help but still tremble upon recalling those past experiences of his.
"Actually, we might've had a chance at escaping if I had worked with Simeon. But we argued in the dorm that day, and it escalated into a fight." Steven looked up at me. "He accidentally struck me too hard, and I blacked out..."
Stunned, I looked at him in disbelief. I didn't know something like this had happened.
"Simeon... knocked you out?" Even my voice was trembling.
Steven continued, "He was too extreme. He wanted to kill everyone in the advanced class, and I was stopping him. I knew that they had locked the door from the outside and were deliberately holding him back.
"I never thought those people would start a fire. I thought it was just a prank to mess with us... They never expected the electrical system of the orphanage to short circuit. That spark of fire ended up resulting in a disaster."
Steven tugged on his hair and leaned against my shoulder, blaming himself. We stood there for a good while, and I felt his pain.
I could somewhat understand the truth and reason behind the fire back then.
Steven and Simeon were both one-of-a-kind geniuses. They would never allow anyone to burn them to death in the room just like that.
Simeon had crawled up from the bottom. There was both an angel and a demon residing within him.
It was just like what Steven had said—a person's nature would either keep them sane or lead them astray. If Simeon were to kill, he would've been more terrifying than the masked woman behind the Rebels.
I could vaguely figure out the reason Simeon had wanted to kill those people from the advanced class. It should have something to do with Eason.
Steven knew that Simeon wanted to kill, so he stopped him that day. Simeon struck Steven out of anger and knocked him out.
And Steven actually knew from the start that those people outside had locked the door. He thought that this would trap Simeon in. He didn't want Simeon to go to extremes and down to the path of no return.
Little did he expect that the people from the orphanage were worse than he thought. They actually lit a fire. Combined with the orphanage's aging electrical system, that spark of fire ended up causing an explosion that engulfed the entire room in flames.
Simeon struggled in the fire. He went mad, blaming himself as guilt washed over him. He shielded Steven, who was knocked out by him, tightly in front of him. He rather let the flames engulf him than abandon Steven to escape.
Simeon must have willingly died in the fire in the end, right?
Perhaps he was also afraid of being consumed by the demon within him, turning him into a devil who disregarded life and would kill without hesitation.
"It wasn't your fault, Steven "I comforted Steven in a whisper as I hugged him.
Both Simeon and him had blamed themselves. That was why they treasured and protected each other. They were each other's most trusted confidants. It was unparalleled whether in love or friendship. "That's why I risked everything to complete that experiment. I wanted to prove that the body would merely be a vessel as long as we unlocked the genetic code. The soul would then be reincarnated and locked down by the gene chains." Steven looked at me with reddening eyes. "Stephie-
"The soul is merely an independent entity trapped within the body, and the genes are its chains. I've unlocked it. I know the answer now" His voice was trembling.
Steven found the answer in the asylum. As such, he conducted an experiment on Simeon after he escaped the asylum.
He knew that Genome Society had once extracted Simeon's genes to create clone subjects. He wanted to bring Simeon back by trying the experiment out.
I asked, "What about the clone subjects' own souls, then?"Property of Nô)(velDr(a)ma.Org.
I was just curious. Wouldn't the clone subjects have their own souls too?