Hearing what Sarah said before, there was no doubt that she had managed to get files about him on everything. The schools already knew before, the university knew, so judging by her access or way of gathering information she must have known as well.
The problem with reports was the fact that they didn't tell the whole story. They would have the main points, but not the full report.
"Are you worried, Zain?" Sarah suddenly asked as without realising it, he hadn't said anything for a while. "If you worried about what I saw…"
After hearing those words, there was almost a ring in Zain's head, it was so loud that the rest of Sarah's words were drowned out. Flickering memories had appeared in his head at that moment.
In the past, whenever someone had learned the truth about Zain, about what he had done, they started to treat him differently. There were some that attempted to hide it, but it was impossible for them to.
It was the same even in school. HIs past, which was meant to be kept hidden, had somehow gotten out among the other students. An interesting past like his would always come out and spread like so. It was expected among young kids, but the worst offenders were actually the adults and the parents.
Zain could hear them all talking about it, and the parents demanded to be protected from a child like him. They had even formed a protest group. They held banners outside of the school, while forcing their children to not attend.
In the end, the school could do nothing but kick Zain out, transferring him to another place, in the hope that his secret wouldn't come out.
It was because of this difference in treatment, that Zain had only managed to make two very close friends, in Buke and Skittle. Both of them knew about Zain's past, and regardless of that, they were the only ones that didn't treat him any differently.
They were better than his family, better than the adults around, they meant everything to him and it was why he felt somewhat guilty for hesitating even a second before using the Diamond reward on Skittle.
"Zain!…Zain!" Sarah shouted and reached out grabbing his hand. The second she did, he seemed to snap out of his flashes of memories of the past. He looked down and noticed that she was holding onto him with no fear.
Even though she knew he was a zombie, she was a human and even though she knew about his past as well.
"Did you just have one of those visions right now, is that what happened?" Sarah asked.
"It's not that, I was just thinking of the past." Zain replied, as he pulled his hand away, uncomfortable with the touch. Although his sense of feeling was extremely dulled, he still didn't like it.
"Zain you don't have to worry, the report doesn't tell the entire story of what happened, and believe me I know things can be complicated when we don't get the full story." Sarah explained. "Besides, even if you did do something bad in the past, people can change, and sometimes it can be for the worse rather than for the better."
From the tone of her voice, it sounded like she was speaking from experience, and Zain could only imagine it had something to do with the strange man, the other one that was said to be responsible for the virus.
"What happened to you, happened at a very young age, and although it might have felt like it didn't affect you, there is no doubt in my mind that there is trauma there even if it's been hidden deep within your mind." Sarah explained.
"You see, the system was designed to set up a number of tutorials for the user. How to use certain weapons, how to fire a gun. It was a simulation that was run through the mind, run through dreams of the person. To do this the system had to go into the users subconsciousness.
"In your case, I believe during those tutorials that had been set up, they were being interfered with by your real mind. Mixing in your past with what was happening. Without realising it, your memories of what happened in the past are strong, so strong that it even caused the tutorial to act a certain way."
When thinking about it, he had come back with knowledge, how to use weapons, how to use a gun and so on. The faceless man wasn't someone he recognised and at times the voice sounded similar, yet different.
Then there was one thing that made Sarah say was very likely, the fact that when he assessed the tutorials at times he was in the body of a child. He was around the same age as when that event happened.
'My hands, they would sometimes be covered in blood as well… this woman, she really has managed to figure it all out.'
"Is there a way to stop them? And before you said the faceless man I saw was based on someone." Zain asked.
"Stopping them honestly will be difficult. The only thing that I could do is wait for you to have one of these visions and observe from there. Then perhaps we could stop it, but there is next to no pattern of when these occur.
"As for the faceless man, he was a part of the Reborn group, before all of this happened. He was one of the best agents we had, the most skilled, the best fighter and more . Unfortunately he had turned into a Reborn, and in an accident, had lost his face.
"Still, his skills had improved compared to before, once he had turned into a Reborn, and while me and my partner were still working together, he was the basis for the tutorials. In the original Reborn group, not what it is today, there was a split in our forces, a split between me and my partner and the faceless man decided to go with him."
"And this partner?" Zain asked, thinking back to one of the visions he had, the vision of when he saw Sarah and the man in the lab, and the name on his lab coat. "Was it the man that tried to kill me, the man named Hanfree?"
Sarah looked surprised but less so than before, somehow Zain kept bringing up things that she didn't expect, one after the other. It just made her think that he truly was a special person.
"Yes, you are right, that man is Hanfree Bain, and he is my husband who helped me work on the system and the Reborn group, but he has a very different goal from me, and we now no longer work together."
*****
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