It's a dark cloudy Sunday afternoon when a small group of six people gather at a newly installed gravestone to pay their respects. The persons in question are just a few of the characters we've been able to meet in the course of this tale-Lyam, as well as both his parents (Aldéric and Joséphine Badi), Kate, Sara Bloomaert and Laura-and they're all dressed in black. In case you haven't already pieced together who the deceased is, it's our dear Hispanic normal, Mathéo.

Tears and silence fill the cemetery's ambiance as they all take turns dropping flowers at the grave and reading the heartfelt tributes they've prepared for the dead teen. This extreme melancholy is however interrupted by the arrival of a 'not exactly wanted' guest, Aaron. Like the others, he came dressed in all black with flowers and a sad look on his face, but that's not enough to make his presence here welcomed.

"What exactly do you think you're doing here?! Who the fuck even told you that you could come?!" Lyam asks the boy furiously the second he spots him. "I thought I already told you I never want to see you even remotely close to my brother's grave, or was that just too difficult for your psycho brain to comprehend?"

"I just wanted t-" Aaron doesn't get the opportunity to finish his statement before he's brusquely cut off by the departed's grieving sibling.

"You wanted to what?! Tell me, huh! To kill him a second time 'cause the first just wasn't satisfying enough for you?!" Lyam's voice gets even louder and angrier as his aversion towards the boy grows more and more by the second. His eyes glow golden as he feels tempted to release the electric current pulsing through his veins and electrocuting Aaron. He wants him to feel the pain his brother felt. The pain of being brutally murdered, but Kate steps in before he can make any rash decision he'll come to regret.

"Babe, calm down. You know your brother wouldn't want to see you like this because of him," she tells her blonde boyfriend and he grudgingly listens as he knows she's right. Mathéo never liked seeing any of his loved ones genuinely angry over anything. "Don't you think it's best if you just leave here on your own? You've already done enough and the family clearly doesn't want you here, so just go," Kate directs her last statement to Aaron with an almost irritated expression on her face.

Aaron considers trying to explain his honest intentions again, but once he takes a look at everyone else here he decides to not to do so. Joséphine and Laura are sobbing as they kneel in front of the grave of his dead friend (not paying an ounce of attention to his presence here); like his biological son, Aldéric is giving him a really dirty gaze; Sara seems too ashamed to even look him in the eyes right now. Kate is correct. None of them wants him here.

"I'm sorry for everything," Aaron apologizes solemnly for the last time before turning around to leave. He should have never come here in the first place. After all, it's his fault they're having a funeral. He killed his closest friend and now, he has to live with that guilt for the remainder of his life. He truly wishes he was the one in the coffin, not Mathéo.

* * * *

Aaron's eyes slowly open up as he gradually regains consciousness and realizes everything he just saw was nothing more than a bad dream. He scratches the back of his head as he sits up from the bed he's lying on to examine his current surroundings. He's in an unfamiliar all white room with no windows, yet it's still well ventilated. There's also a single door in the room and it seems to only be openable from the other side 'cause there's no handle on this one. The teen reflects deeply but he can't remember anything about how he got to this place, but all he does recall is flashing images of blood and violence.

All of a sudden, it all comes back to him. The memories of everything that went down after he granted Feto control over his body hit him like a bullet and his heart instantly sinks. What he did is nothing short of atrocious. He murdered all those Zomer cultists, and even worse, he hurt his friends.

'Mathéo?' Aaron wonders as he also remembers leaving his best friend with an untreatable wound at the end of their battle. He's starting to think maybe his nightmare was just a premonition of what is to come as a result of his odious past actions.

To the boy's surprise, the room's only door suddenly opens and a stunning nurse wearing dark blue scrubs who looks like she might be in her early thirties walks in. She's Caucasian (like him), a bit on the short side and is carrying a metal tray with a bowl of food on top. The woman puts on a warm smile as she slowly approaches him.

"It's good to see that you've finally woken up. We could tell your body was dealing with some pretty intense fatigue," the health worker says to Aaron compassionately as she gently places the tray beside him on the bed. "So tell me, how are you feeling? Are you experiencing any soreness or pain in any part of your body?"

"Am I supposed to know who you are? Where am I and how did I get here?" Aaron blatantly ignores her show of concern and bombards her with those questions instead.

"Calm down. I'm just a regular nurse. You've never met me before, but my name is Amel," she tries to relax his worries as she stretches out her hand for a friendly handshake, but the teen rudely disregards it.

"I don't need friendship right now; what I do need are answers. Can you give me that?"

"First of all, you have to eat. You've been unconscious for days and your body can't recuperate all that lost energy without consuming some food. Once you're done with that, I'll take you to my employer. He can answer whatever questions you have if that's what you want. Is that alright with you?"

Aaron grudgingly agrees and does as the lady asks by taking the bowl and quickly gulping all of its content. He has no idea what the grey custard-like substance he's consuming is, but the taste is beyond disgusting. When he finishes it, the nurse holds her end of the bargain and leads him out of the room, and once he crosses the door and steps into the hallway, he immediately recognizes his location. From the sophisticated layout resembling such an iconic movie franchise to the passers-by that are all dressed in black suits, it's clear as day to him that he's in the UDAP headquarters where he and the Zomer cultists stole the mystical sphere from.

Amel guides Aaron through the convoluted colossal building and they eventually stop in front of a white metal door labelled 'Le Bureau du Président'. She politely knocks on the door and waits for whoever is inside to give her permission before opening it for the teen. The nurse does not follow him inside and quietly shuts the door after he passes through it.

Like the label on the entrance implies, the inside of the room is an office and it's as white as every other place in this fortress. Also, there are forty one framed portraits of old people, which Aaron assumes must be previous leaders of UDAP, arranged on the walls. At the opposite end of the chamber, there is a marvelously constructed desk made of glass with two chairs (one vacant one in front of it and the other is occupied and behind the table). Aaron is completely taken aback when he sees the face of the man sitting there. He's someone that no Belgian would ever mistake; he's none other than the Prime Minister of Belgium himself-Alexander de Croo.

"Aren't you the Prime Minister?" the teen boy asks the man with a tint of confusion in his tone. "What are you even doing here?"

"Well, like the sign on the door boldly says, I am the president of this noble organization. So, it shouldn't really be surprising to see me in my office," Alexander responds with a charismatic smile. "I specifically instructed Amel to bring you here once you regained consciousness because I imagined you'd have a lot of questions, considering everything you went through. Was I wrong?"

Aaron is visibly enraged after hearing the politician confidently confess to being the leader of the sadistic organization that he has been convinced to believe is to blame for the absence of the affection of his biological parents in his life. How could such a relevant political personality support such a cruel cause? The teen is boiling so much inside that his power might just explode at any slight further provocation.

"I don't have anything to say to you. I can't believe any word that comes out of the mouth of someone that so wholeheartedly encourages ruthlessness against zegens just to feel superior to us," Aaron bitterly responds to the Prime Minister.

"And yet you have so much faith in people who so willingly and zealously kill everyone else, or should I use the past tense since they're no longer with us. Last time I checked, that little cult you were following has been responsible for 25 confirmed murders within two months all of which were against normals, and that's only the figure I know of. Considering their nature and beliefs, the real number is surely more than triple of that. So, are you trying to tell me you condone violence as long as the victims don't fall under your breed of people?"

Aaron is utterly stupefied by Alexander de Croo's logic. He hasn't really stopped to deeply reflect on how deranged his previous alliances make him look. Not knowing how to respond without coming across as an illogical lunatic, the boy deflects with another question.

"How did you know I was with the Zomer?"

"You and your accomplices might have been invisible when you broke into our headquarters to steal the sphere, but you still left fingerprints all over the elevator. Plus, I can't think of any other group of people that would want to steal that thing other than those cultists," the Prime Minister answers. "Let me just clarify something. I'm not trying to get you to admit to the fact that you were in league with wanted international criminals, far from it. I just want you to give me the opportunity to explain the full story of your past, not the obscenely edited version that was fed to you just so you'd despise us. Could you at least grant me that?"

Aaron takes a moment to consider Alexander's proposal. Considering everything the Zomer cult put him through these past few months, he realizes now that it wouldn't be the most unbelievable revelation if it turns out they lied about certain parts in their story. Moreover, if UDAP fear the boy's existence so much, they could've just trapped him in a maximum security prison-or just straight up killed him-while he was unconscious, but they didn't.

"Ok. I'll listen to what you have to say," the zegen teen agrees as he sits down on the chair facing the UDAP president.

Alexander goes on to reveal to Aaron that the Zomer cult have abused normals for millenniums by using them as guinea pigs for their vile experiments, but it finally got out of hand when they accidentally created Feto-a monster that almost brought an end to the entire human race. Fortunately, the founder of UDAP-Pavel-succeeded in vanquishing it, with the help of a lot of allies, and stole its heart. Pavel knew that the cultists would try reviving it, so he joined forces with other world leaders and created a union whose primary goal was to prevent that from ever happening. Unbeknownst to them, it turned out Feto left more remnants of his being across the globe than they had known and it didn't take the Zomer followers long to gather all of them.

For centuries, the cultists repeatedly tried to restore their precious creature using its residues, but they didn't make any breakthrough until 2006 when their leader (Tiberiu Albu) came up with a new innovative idea. Tiberiu considered that the failures of his predecessors might have lain in the fact that they were attempting to recreate Feto's body when its soul wasn't in their possession, so he decided to use the remains to make a child. That way, the child would be able to grow and develop Feto's powers even more, and since he would be made of Feto, he'd be drawn to wherever the monster's missing component is and merge with it to make him complete.

In order to put this crazy plan in motion, Tiberiu used the ancient remnants to produce a synthetic sperm cell which he then surgically implanted into the womb of his romantic partner, Loredana, therefore impregnating her. Loredana was kept in the dark about the real fate of the baby until she finally gave birth to him, and by the time she found out, she was already too attached to go along with it. There was no way she was going to sit still and quiet and allow her fellow cultists to sacrifice her precious son as a vessel for a strange being, so she escaped from the Zomer facility where the delivery was effectuated with him in her hands.

Loredana sought out UDAP's help and offered them information on the Zomer and their whereabouts in exchange for her child's permanent safety. When they reached an agreement, she personally took them to their secret hideout and there was an all out bloodbath between the zegen cultists and the normal mercenaries that accompanied the woman. Numerous lives were lost in the process, including Loredana's, but UDAP still managed to come out victorious.

Keeping the promise he made to the deceased zegen mother, the UDAP president at the time-Traian Bāsescu-relocated the 'miracle' baby from Romania to a safe orphanage in Belgium so that he'd have a life free of everything concerning the Zomer cult. Little did Traian know that Tiberiu was still very much alive and he wasn't going to rest until he found the boy. Sixteen years later, he located Aaron at last in a neighborhood in Brussels and resumes his plan to unite the teen and Feto's essence into one.

Fast forward to a few days ago, Tiberiu and his newly formed following achieved their long awaited goal of unifying the two, which inadvertently led to their demise. Feto took over Aaron's body and tried to eat the souls of all his friends that went to rescue him. Luckily for the whole of humanity, the teen was able to push out the creature before it could assume total control over him and regain his full power and become an invincible force of destruction. The orb containing Feto's essence is now back in UDAP's custody and is currently being kept in an even more secure facility than before.

"What about the vision?" Aaron asks the politician, still very taken aback by his massive reveal. "After they forced the orb into my body, I remember seeing a vision of me being poisoned to death by my friends and my dad. Was it some kind of premonition given to me by Feto?"

"Definitely not. Feto has a lot of supernatural abilities, but foresight isn't among them," Alexander de Croo responds honestly. "Your mind was probably resisting the monster's corruption, so it decided to resort to plain old trickery. The so-called 'vision' you're talking about was most likely nothing more than Feto preying on your deepest fears."

Aaron's heart immediately sinks when he hears that. He granted Feto authority over his body because he wanted revenge on the people he believed were secretly planning to hurt him, but it was all just an illusion. He did all those horrible things to his friends who had nothing but pure intentions on account of something that was never even going to happen in the first place. He feels appalled just thinking about it.

"And the voices? What is the cause of all these whispers I've been hearing for as long as I can remember?"

"It's Feto, of course. In as much as you're human, you still have its DNA flowing inside of you and all those imaginary voices you've been plagued with are the creature's way of calling to you to complete it. Unfortunately, since Feto's heart is indestructible, they won't ever stop until you die," the man explains. "Do you have any more questions that you'd like me to answer?"

"Mathéo? Is he still alive or did I actually kill him?"

"If you're referring to the normal Hispanic boy, then yes, he's still alive and kicking. He's quite a fighter to have survived such a gruesome injury. Luckily for him, after you expelled Feto and passed out, whatever voodoo you used that was preventing him from being healed faded away and that friend of yours, the brunette I think, fixed him right up. By the time my team arrived at the scene, he was still on his death bed despite the healing due to excessive blood loss. So, we had to admit him into one of our facilities and give him an immediate blood transfusion to save his life. He's still in recovery there, but he's going to be fine, at least physically speaking."

The news fill Aaron's heart with so much relief. He didn't know how he was going to live with himself if it turned out he actually ended the life of his oldest and closest friend, but thankfully that's not the case. He's never going to take Mathéo's friendship for granted ever again, and he has to thank Laura for being there for the closest person he has to a brother.

"What about the other two, Sara and Laura? Are they alright too?"

"Yes, they are. You don't have to worry. In fact, I think those two suffered the least from all of this."

"That's good to hear."

The UDAP agents also succeeded in safely rescuing Mathéo's foster family from the rubbles of the destroyed Zomer hideout and return them home along with the four minors. Unlike the teens, none of the Badi family members has any recollection of who kidnapped them nor how they did so. As such, they have no other choice but to believe the explanation given by the chief of police which says the blood red sky was the result of a ritual performed by a Satanist cult that has now been apprehended and all the persons that were taken captive by them were simply sacrifices they chose completely at random. Mathéo never bothers telling his family the full story and how it all revolved around Aaron. Instead, he just pretends to be as confused as the rest of them.

A few days pass and the break comes to an end, meaning that it's time for our characters to go back to school. For the most part, everything returns to normal for everyone apart from Mathéo whose mental health goes on a steady decline as he's eventually diagnosed for clinical depression and PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). Sometime in the second term of the school year, the Latino teen nearly kills himself by an intentional overdose on his pain medication, and that's when his in-and-out admissions to mental health facilities begin. By the time the final semester comes around, the Badis are forced to hire private tutors to teach Mathéo all his missed school work while he's in the hospital so he doesn't have to repeat his current year. Not wanting to be reminded of the person that's most to blame for all this, the boy refuses all visits by Aaron while he's admitted and only allows Laura to see him. The brunette sticks by him and supports him throughout the recovery process and he finally gets discharged during summer break.

In as much as the family's reality seems so bleak, there's still some good news for them. Lyam and his girlfriend-Kate-graduated at the end of the school year and both got accepted to Leiden University, Netherlands, to study psychology and film/literary studies respectively. With the aim of taking their relationship to the next level, the two plan on renting an apartment together where they'll live while they're in school, but Aldéric and Joséphine only consent under the condition that the blonde moves there with his brother so that he has his senior year in that country. They believe the best thing for Mathéo right now is a fresh start far away from the place that has etched so much life long trauma into his mind (from the inhumane abuse he was forced to endure under the custody of his biological parents to his near death experience almost a year ago), and Lyam is compelled to agree. After all, he's currently eighteen, which means he's old enough to serve as his younger brother's legal guardian in a foreign country, and he's willing to accommodate the inconvenience if it'll succour Mathéo's recovery.

The holiday goes by in a flash and the day of their flight to Holland finally arrives. As the brothers arrange their things for their departure, Aaron arrives at the Badi residence to bid Mathéo farewell as well as apologize. This is going to be the first time the two are speaking to each other since the Feto incident last year, and the Latino isn't going to be pleased when it happens. Laura didn't want her boyfriend to move away without patching things up with his best friend, so she secretly invited the latter to come without informing the former.

"Hey, Mathéo," Aaron says as he walks into the boy's room to see him still packing his bags and he refuses to turn his head from them to face him. "I heard you were relocating today, so I decided to come and say my goodbyes, and also apologize in person while I'm at it."

Aaron's voice alone causes Mathéo's rage to instantly boil. He can tell this is another of Laura's attempts to get the two of them to reconcile, but he's honestly not the slightest bit interested. Not after all the messed up shit he had to go through just because he tried to be a kind friend.

"Lemme guess, you want to say sorry because your guilty conscience has been killing you ever since you found out the dozens of normals you murdered in cold blood in the name of 'avenging your deceased biological mother' weren't actually responsible and the real culprit was the psycho you were so loyally following. So, you're now hoping if you can get the people you hurt that are still alive to forgive you, maybe (just maybe) you'd feel better about yourself, and I'm the last one on your list," Mathéo deduces while still maintaining his focus on his suitcases. "Am I right or am I wrong?"

"Completely wrong! It's not like that at all. I wanted to say I'm sorry for being such a bad friend to you last year. I realize I hurt you and I genuinely regret it."

"I'm pretty sure calling yourself a 'bad friend' would be over simplifying what you did. Last time I checked, you tried to kill me on two separate occasions, one of which was after you slit my girlfriend's throat, or am I just remembering things wrongly? You might as well just give it another shot since you're here. After all, third time's the charm, right?"

"That one's not even fair. You know very well Feto was manipulating my body when it happened and I couldn't do anything about it."

"Cut the bullshit already! I saw your eyes in that moment, you were in full control when you impaled me and you enjoyed doing it even though I apologized and begged despite not knowing what the fuck I did wrong. I even dropped my gun because I couldn't go through with actually killing somebody, especially not one I considered a brother."

"It wasn't my fault. Feto tricked me. He made me believe that you were planning on killing me because you were afraid I was too powerful and dangerous to be left alive."

"Aren't you tired of giving the same old excuse for every horrible thing you did? Feto this, Feto that. It's exhausting. You know me better than even my parents. I can barely even kill a rodent, how the fuck did you expect me to commit murder?"

"I get what you're saying and I admit that I was wrong. I should've never given into Feto's temptations, should've never joined the Zomer and should've never trusted the stalker. I was just in a really bad place and I didn't stop to consider how my actions were hurting the people dear to me."

"Just shut the fuck up! You're not the only fuckin' person in this world that has issues. I can't remember the last time I slept without having nightmares of being tortured to death. I have to struggle every single day to keep myself from ending my own life and you still have the gull to tell me you were in a bad place. At least your biological mother tried to protect you. The only thing mine did was to starve me for days straight and whip me with metal chains till I bled."

"I-" Aaron tries to talk again, but Mathéo doesn't give him the opportunity as he immediately interrupts him.

"I warned you against following the stalker, but you refused to listen 'cause according to you, being a normal made me a jealous maniac that wanted to control you. Or was it the part where you said we were no longer friends because you didn't have a messed up family like I did?"

"I didn't mean any of that. You were always right and I should have never said those stuff to you. I let the idea of me being this strong and special zegen and you not being one to justify my discrimination against you even though you didn't deserve any of it. We've known each other longer than we've known anyone else. I was your brother even before you knew Lyam existed and I should've never taken our bond for granted. I just need you to give me one last chance to prove I mean what I'm saying."

"Get the fuck out for Christ's sake!" Mathéo finally turns around to face his old friend and his eyes are glaringly filled with disdain, but sadness too. Aaron doesn't believe he's ever seen him get like this with anyone, especially not at him. "What else do you want from me when your life is perfectly okay with or without my forgiveness? Sara is still very much in love with you, Rob doesn't have to constantly worry about when his son is going to have his next mental breakdown like some ticking time bomb, and to top it all off, you're never going to suffer a day in your life for killing all those innocent people nor for screwing up my life. You've clearly gotten everything you wished for, so just leave."

Realizing how serious Mathéo is at the moment and not wanting to infuriate him any further, Aaron does as he says and exits the room without uttering another word. The zegen knows now that it was very selfish of him to expect a simple apology to be enough to mend things between the both of them. When Aaron thinks back, he sees that he was egotistical and insensitive. Regardless of how shitty his attitude was at times, Mathéo always tried to be the selfless and caring best friend he's always been, and instead of returning the sentiment, he just destroyed the boy's life. The brown skinned boy truly doesn't deserve any of the bad things he's experiencing.

"How did it go?" Laura asks Aaron with a concerned tone as she meets him in the hallway on her way to Mathéo's room. "Are you guys friends again?"

"Sorry, but it didn't work out," Aaron breaks the unfortunate news to her. "I don't blame him though for his hatred towards me. What I did to him was horrible and cruel, and I don't deserve his forgiveness. Thank you though for trying to help me and I'm sorry again for what I did to you. I know nothing I say can erase all the pain I caused you, but I still want to try."

"It's alright. You know, I didn't really trust letting you around Mathéo at first after everything you put him through last year, but then I remembered the first day I met him when you brought him to the nurse's office. After you left, he told me how much your friendship meant to him and how he's always thought of you as his twin brother, so I know he still misses you. He just needs more time to forgive you like I did."

"I can see why Mathéo adores you so much, you're a really nice person," Aaron lets out with a slight grin. "I hope you're right, but even if you aren't, make sure to take care of him for me. He really needs you," he adds as he gives her one last hug before leaving.

"Thank you. I will."

A few hours pass and the Uber Lyam ordered for arrives to take them to the airport. As the blonde teen moves his luggage to the car, he calls out to his brother to come downstairs.

"Mathéo! The Uber is here!" Lyam shouts from the foot of the staircase.

"I'll be there in a moment," Mathéo replies as he picks up his bags to go, but as he reaches the door, he turns around to face Laura who's in the room with him to tell her one last thing. "Thank you again, for everything."

"Thanks for what exactly?" Laura asks him a bit perplexed by his sudden expression of gratitude.

"For not leaving me. I don't think I could've survived this past year without your constant love and support. I know I've been a huge burden on you for quite some time now and I'm just extremely grateful to you for sticking with me."

"Don't ever talk like that. I've never once considered you a burden and I never will. You've literally saved my life more times than I can count and you were the first really trustworthy friend I've made in such a long time. There was no way I was just going to abandon you when you needed me in return."

Mathéo lets go of his bags and approaches Laura. When he comes close enough, he gently cups her face with his two hands and fervently kisses her soft beautiful pink lips. Fireworks go off in the girl's mind as he does this. Regardless of how many times these two teenagers do it, her reaction is always the same. After the boy pulls away, he wraps her in a tight warm hug and whispers into her ear, "I'm going to miss you."

"You won't have to."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I wanted it to be a surprise, but I might as well just tell you now. Nathaniel told me a few days ago that he's going to be posted back to the Netherlands next year, so we'll be moving back to Amsterdam some time in early January. We're only going to be apart for a couple of months, but we can visit each other all the time once I get there. Leiden is just half an hour away from Amsterdam by bus, so we could take turns visiting each other if you still want to."

"I'd love that."

The couple's emotional moment is cut short when Lyam abruptly barges into the room to remind his brother that the cab is getting tired of waiting. Deciding not to procrastinate it any longer, Mathéo listens and carries his suitcases to the yellow vehicle parked in their driveway; Laura even helps him to take down the lightest bag.

Before the two boys leave with their driver, they join their parents for one final group family hug. Important family moments like moving out are always very sentimental and are never easy on anyone.

"I love you guys so much," Mathéo tells his foster family while trying so hard to hold back his tears. "I never knew what a family's love truly felt like until you brought me into your lives and I'm forever thankful just to be counted as one of you."

"We love you too, Mathéo," the Badis respond in unison with smiles on all their faces.

"And we always will. No matter what happens," adds Joséphine.

LA FIN!