Autophagy

Aston poured the chemical onto the meat. As soon as the meat came in contact with the chemical, it started decomposing. While doing so, it was making sizzling noises and letting out some smoke alongside a pinkish liquid composed of broken-down proteins. Song Lei got up from his chair and went to Aston's side to see what was going on.

Shortly after, the meat melted into mush, leaving behind something that left Song Lei's mouth agape.

There was a bright purple worm that was squirming frantically. It seemed hideous with all the meat mush that was left around.

In no time, the worm's movements became less and less, eventually stopping completely. Its dead body lay amongst the pinkish liquid and small meat particles.

"What was that?" Song Lei asked with a frown on his face. Aston picked the worm up with a crucible thong and threw it into another chemical. The worm, just like the meat, melted in no time, leaving a purplish liquid behind. Aston poured the liquid down the drain to destroy the evidence.

"That was probably the root of our problems," Aston said. "That's the thing that causes them to go crazy at night."

"What? How? How did you figure that out?" Song Lei asked question after question. He took a few steps back and sat back down on the chair to wait for an explanation.

"It was pretty easy. I just used a newbie that came here two days ago," Aston said. "He wasn't participating in those night festivals like the others. He must've been waiting in his room just like what I did."

"Don't tell me you..." Song Lei muttered.

"Yes. I made him eat one of these. I've discovered a lot of these worms in our meals. When the newbie ate it, his eyes went blank. Then for just a second, a crazed expression appeared on his face, turning back to normal quickly. By the time he was back to normal, he had already forgotten what I did to him," Aston explained in one breath.

Song Lei sighed at Aston's ruthlessness, however, he knew that they didn't have a choice in this. If they wanted to learn about this place more and keep themselves safe, they would have to make sacrifices.

"Hmm..." Song Lei thought while holding his chin. "We should wait till tonight and see just to be sure. However, what you said seems plausible."

"Mm," Aston nodded. After cleaning up the place together, making it look like no one had been here, they left the chemistry lab. Their free time was about to be over so they had to go to the next class.

"By the way, why do those worms not affect us?" Song Lei asked curiously. Aston looked around to make sure that no one was there.

"I'm not sure. It may have something to do about our brains," Aston said. "Or it might be about our souls."

"Souls?" Song Lei asked. He didn't expect Aston to be a religious person.

"Yes. Souls. During my experiments here, I've discovered the existence of souls," Aston said. "Well... It might be a bit different than the soul you probably think of."

"Wait now... Did you just say you discovered the existence of souls? Isn't that, like, pretty big? And how did you even do that?" Song Lei asked. Of course, he already knew that souls were real, however, he didn't expect Aston, who was just an average teenager genius, to discover it scientifically.

"Yes. It is," Aston said without any pride in his voice. "Even if I explained it, you probably wouldn't understand the physics behind it."

"Then why does no one know it?" Song Lei asked. "Shouldn't you be getting medals or something for that?"

"I haven't said it to anyone yet," Aston said. Seeing that he wasn't explaining further, Song Lei tried to think of the reason on his own.

"Is it because you're scared?" Song Lei asked.

"Mm," Aston nodded at Song Lei's question. It didn't matter if he was a genius or not. He was, after all, a young teenager. "I was worried that some people could come after me for this discovery. I didn't know how people would react. I don't want to be the reason for the whole world going into turmoil."

"I understand," Song Lei said. "You did the right thing."

"I know," said Aston. "And if this worm here, indeed, affects the soul, I will have confirmed that I've done the right thing by not making my research go public."

"What do you mean?" asked Song Lei.

"Think about it. How do you think these things keep going into the meals of people?" Aston asked. As soon as Song Lei heard his question, the answer flashed inside his head.

"Someone put it there..." He muttered.

"Yes. Unfortunately, we shouldn't talk about this anymore. Make sure to keep silent and don't forget to wake me up at 1 a.m," Aston said. They were about to reach the premises of their CQC training grounds. If they kept talking about it, they would probably be overheard.

Song Lei nodded. Shortly after, their instructor came and started the class...

...

The day went on as normal without anything out of the ordinary happening. Song Lei and Aston acted like the things between them never happened at all. They didn't know how Clark and Rufus would react if they told them they were infected by horrifying soul-devouring worms.

Without the ability to do anything during the day, Song Lei met with Aston during their 20:30 free time. In that time span, they discussed what they would do in the night and decided on some drastic measures in the event of an emergency.

They wouldn't have the chance to do so in their dorm room, so they had to do it somewhere else.  After talking till 9 p.m, Song Lei decided to take a short nap for 45 minutes. He wouldn't sleep tonight, so he had to preserve some energy. Fortunately, both this body and Song Lei's mind were used to sleeping short amounts of time. He would be able to keep going the whole night with just half an hour of sleep.

They went back to their dorm room after Song Lei finished sleeping. Clark and Rufus were already in their bed, ready to sleep for the night. Aston, too, went to his bed to sleep. He trusted Song Lei, so he had no doubt that he would be woken up in time.

Song Lei laid down on his bed and kept simulating certain scenarios that could happen in the night...

...

As Song Lei was laying down on his bed, the clock hit 00:00. As soon as it did so, the whole orphanage shook weakly. Clark and Rufus got up from their bed at the exact same time and stood side to side. There was a creepy smile on Clark's face. Rufus, on the other hand, looked like he was on drugs with his bloodshot eyes. A small trail of saliva was dripping from his mouth. He seemed ready to devour flesh.

After looking at each other briefly, they stepped forward and stood next to Song Lei's bunk. Seeing them coming closer, Song Lei instantly closed his eyes. Yesterday, their teacher had taught them how to act like they were sleeping. Fortunately, this came in clutch for Song Lei. Remembering the lesson, Song Lei adjusted his breath, relaxed his muscles, and started rapidly moving his eyes under their lids.

After looking at Song Lei for some time, Rufus and Clark went on to look at Aston. Unlike Song Lei, he didn't need to put on an act, as he was really sleeping. After watching for the same amount of time, Song Lei heard Clark and Rufus leave the room.

He hadn't realized it because of the tension, however, he heard lots of footsteps from the corridor. The whole orphanage was covered in noises of shoes hitting the ground. As those footsteps calmed down, Song Lei assumed that everyone was out of the orphanage and opened his eyes to get out of the bed.

As soon as his vision adjusted to the dark, he jumped in his place. Right in front of his face, less than a meter away, was Rufus, looking at Song Lei hungrily with his bloodshot eyes. When he saw Song Lei open his eyes, a wicked smile appeared on his face.

'Fuck! How was I so careless!?' Song Lei shouted in his mind. Normally, he would've made sure to listen to the footsteps properly, so that he wouldn't get tricked. However now, he had assumed that both of them left the room just because he had heard some footsteps. 'It must be because of my low mind stat...'

Seeing Rufus, Song Lei heavily shook the bunk. Less than a second after the bunk was shaken, a foot kicked out of the lower bed, hitting Rufus square on his crotch. As Rufus backed out while holding his crotch in pain, Song Lei jumped off of the bunk and held onto Rufus' head. After Song Lei took Rufus into a reverse lock, Aston got out of the bed and started throwing punch after punch on Rufus' face.

However, lust-crazed Rufus seemed to be not affected by it. He simply held one of Song Lei's arms and broke his lock, throwing him to the wall at the same time. Seeing Song Lei being thrown away, a frown appeared on Aston's face. He took a few quick steps backward and put some distance between Rufus and himself. He had seen Song Lei's wrist being dislocated, he thought that it would take a long time for Song Lei to recover.

"Put it back into its place," Song Lei muttered. Aston's eyes widened as he saw Song Lei standing next to him. Unlike his expectations, he had already recovered. Granting his wish, Aston put Song Lei's dislocated wrist back into its place. Although it was swollen and seemed pretty unusable, it was still better than having a dangling and unfunctional limb.

With a cracking noise, Song Lei's wrist was put back into its place. A slight frown appeared on his face. Even though he was used to pain, that didn't mean that he was immune to it.

Rufus seemed pretty amused by their actions as he watched them silently. The wicked grin on his face was getting bigger and bigger every second.

"I knew that you guys were scheming something...."