Reborn in the Enemy's Embrace

"There was a fire outside, and they locked the door. The fire was spreading quickly, and we... we couldn’t escape_" Dexter 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." Dexter 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.

Dexter 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."

Dexter 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.

Dexter 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 Dexter 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.

Dexter knew that Simeon wanted to kill, so he stopped him that day. Simeon struck Dexter out of anger and knocked him out.

And Dexter 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 Dexter, who was knocked out by him, tightly in front of him. He rather let the flames engulf him than abandon Dexter 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, Dexter "I comforted Dexter 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." Dexter looked at me with reddening eyes. "Sophia-"

"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.

Dexter 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?"

I was just curious. Wouldn’t the clone subjects have their own souls too?

Dexter said, "Cloning is just like replicating a shell. It’s considered defying the natural order. They retain fragments of consciousness, but their souls can be merged."

Dexter’s analysis was that clone subjects did not possess a soul. But some scholars believed that clone subjects possessed independent souls.

I remembered Una. The way she looked at me was of jealousy and envy. There were also some other complicated situations involved.

Perhaps Una wanted to become an independant and unique individual. She wanted to become the most special and complete soul.

"Simeon... succeeded, right?" I looked nervously at Dexter.

Simeon was Joel. Joel was Simeon.

"He’s Simeon." Dexter nodded, firmly believing that Simeon was Joel and vice versa.

"Was that why you strongly believed that I was Sophia Milford?" I looked at him.

"I made a deal with Sofia Miller," Dexter muttered.

Finally, he was willing to open up completely to me now. He was willing to tell me the truth.

"Sofia Miller willingly helped me to get you back. She said she wanted to disappear forever," Dexter whispered.

Sofia Miller was a nihilistic existence.

"I realized a problem after observing all the clone subjects. Natural competition and selection can be a terrifying existence. Any species born unnaturally faces an inevitable path toward self-destruction." Dexter looked at me seriously. "That was why I was afraid..."

I finally understood why Dexter was so afraid of me dying. He wasn’t afraid that I would die from external factors-the greatest enemy of clone subjects like us was ourselves.

We were seemingly born lacking the five senses. It was hard for us to find a reason or excuse to stay alive without having any emotional sustenance. Most of us would eventually commit suicide in the end.

"People with depression feel as if they’re compelled by their bodies to die. Even if they’re suffering, they don’t wish to die. But they feel as if some unseen forces are forcing them to do so," Dexter whispered.

Those were the findings from his experiments. He had drawn up conclusions from his observations." Clone subjects seem to naturally have the tendency toward depression. Similar to a patient with severe depression, some might even experience even more severe mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder."

One would describe it as an incomplete soul with a lack of the five senses in superstitious terms. But in reality, it was the consequences of casually cloning and creating lives.

Such a consequence was something beyond the limits of the current human sciences and medical capabilities. That was also why the limit of science was metaphysics.

Metaphysics wasn’t one of the traditional senses. Instead, it was an intangible bond that was currently inexplicable to humans.

It was just like finding out that the soul was merely an ideology trapped within the body after deciphering the codes in the gene chains. Once the body was destroyed, the soul would then experience a hollow and unconscious liberation.

No one except those who were reincarnated would know what the afterlife was like. But even such reincarnation would require a medium-the genetic codes.

"So that’s why you wanted me to find a reason to stay alive. You wanted me to experience what love, friendship, and despair were..." I looked at Dexter, suddenly doubtful.

Were all those killing games truly a series of unfortunate events, or were the Rebels deliberate in planning them?

Why did it feel like the Rebels were seemingly using a cruel way to teach me about love, kinship, friendship, anger, fear, and despair?