Mr Love: Dream Date Chap 17 Beyond Oblivion

True enough I managed to unlock Chapter 17 within 5 days when I hit level 64. Hard to believe that my journey with this game has gone on for more than two months. This chapter continues the morning after you received the call from Dr Song which got disrupted unexpectedly. Though the previous chapter ended with someone entering your room there was no mention of it in this chapter. Spoilers ahead!

You dreamt of a person who looked exactly like you but dressed differently smiling and beckoning you. Given the circumstances of how the call ended last night, you decided to visit Dr Song in person. On the empty bus to the hospital, you were surprised to see another passenger boarding the bus in the midst of the pandemic that was going on. The young man who was holding on to a skateboard and listening music on his well used music player decided to sit next to you of all the empty seats on the bus. You felt awkward and scooted further in. However his appearance and demeanour caused you to keep looking at him. In a teasing voice he asked if you wanted to share earphones. You hurriedly rejected the offer and turned your eyes outside in embarrassment.

Suddenly you felt another sharp pain in your head. You saw a vision of a woman crossing the road at a familiar intersection and a bus rammed straight into her, crushing the life out of her. You recognised the bus as the one you are currently on. As you snapped to, you shouted at the bus driver to stop and let you off. However the bus driver refused and continued driving hazardously towards that intersection in your premonition. As you looked on defeatedly, the young man next to you turned on the volume of his music player so loudly until you could hear music booming from his earphones.

At the same time, a loud thunder cracked and lightning flashed across the suddenly dark skies as sheets of torrential rain poured down. The bus slowed to a halt with the bus driver cursing the change in weather and asking you to get off. You quickly got off the bus and ran towards the intersection in the rain. True enough you saw the woman in your vision. She was carrying a pile of documents and she had safely crossed the road. Witnessing this, you felt relieved that you had somehow prevented her death.

Suddenly the raindrops stopped falling on you. The same young man from the bus held out an umbrella to you pressing you to take it from him. You were befuddled by his actions and before you could say anything else, he mouthed, ‘You are welcome’ and strode off in the rain. Not too soon after the rain stopped and the sun was out again.

The mysterious young man who appeared in this chapter is Shaw, an Evolver and would go on to become another potential love interest. I wonder why the developers felt necessary to introduce a 5th character… was there something about his profile that would be distinguishable or appealing? Thus far he appears to be your typical punk guy who smokes, skates, listens to music and speaks with an aloofness.

At Central Hospital, you quickly made your way through the busy corridors to Dr Song office. You saw a half drunk cup of coffee and the receiver of the phone hanging out of its place. It seemed that she had left hurriedly or forcefully. You asked her colleague if they had seen her and they said that Dr Song had not returned to the hospital for quite some time and had been transferred to the No. 5 Hospital in the east side of town which had been designated for treating critically ill patients. You also realised that the patient you had asked her to keep watch over had also disappeared.

You decided to further investigate the matter and thus put on a disguise as a doctor to enter the said hospital. No. 5 Hospital was located in a remote part of town nestled against a mountainside. It had only 5 floors and a basement. The only thing unusual about it was that its entire 5th storey served as an archive chamber. Despite being a hospital designated to treat the critically ill patients, you noticed that the hospital was surprisingly empty and quiet. As you peeked into rooms, you noticed that most of them were empty as well. Where were these patients to speak of?

As you were pondering the mystery, a group of doctors walked down the corridor towards you. You spotted Dr Song amongst them. When she saw you, her eyes widened in worry and she motioned you to quickly leave. Without further action, she passed you by and disappeared around a bend. Having been warned by Dr Song, you felt too afraid to continue your investigation and ducked into an utility room to wait for an opportune time to leave the hospital. Alas, it appeared that after you entered, the hospital went into a lockdown thus you found no means of leaving. However while looking through the view hole of the room, you noticed strange men lurking in inconspicuous corners of the hospital. You decided your only course of action was to wait till dark to check out the archives then leave.

Meanwhile we see a man in glasses monitoring the happenings in the hospital via multiple screens on the wall, a maniacal smile on his face.

Finally it was dark and time to take action. You saw many ambulances had arrived while in hiding but as you scanned the hospital, you didn’t see the patients that were brought in. Whatever unease you had felt previously have now turned into full blown fear and paranoia as you quickly made your way to the 5th storey. As you approached the archives, you noticed that the ground was covered with a layer of dust as if no one had been here for a long time.

You pushed into the chamber. It was much bigger than you had expected. Shelves of books, files and documents lined all the walls reaching up to the ceiling in this two storey room. You quickly scanned through the materials and found to your dismay that any information related to last two years was glaringly missing. Two years ago was also when your father passed away and Black Swan became active again. Was it too much of a coincidence.

You spotted an old leather notebook that looked out of place amongst the documents. As you gently flipped through the yellowed pages afraid of destroying the book, your eyes fell on a sentence that looked ridiculously out of place. It mentioned something about seeing a strange light in the night would be a hint he left behind. As you took out your phone to take a photo of it, you heard a voice above you.

The voice belonged to a man with silver hair. He was looking down at you from the second storey. He asked you to hand him the book you were holding. Fearing that you had been discovered, you quickly took a photo. At the same time, the lights in the archives flickered on and you heard noises coming down the corridor. You felt like a deer caught in a headlight as your mind blanked out. The young man leapt over the railing and landed smoothly in front of you. You realised there was something vaguely familiar about him but you couldn’t quite place it (duh!!). He deftly took the book from your hands and flipped through it. Then he asked you to follow him. You were hesitant but didn’t think he posed any threat either. He told you curtly to leave via a small passageway in exchange for the book. When you asked him why he wasn’t following after you, he simply told you not to get in his way and left you there.

With your phone as your only source of light, you navigated through the dimly lit stairwell until you hit the first floor. As you approached the exit, you saw that the entrance was blocked by the silhouette of a man. You retreated backwards and as you did so, felt the cold metal of a gun at the back of your head. Cold sweat poured out of you. Before you know it you were gagged and a black cloth covered your head. You were silently led to down a passageway that seemed to go on forever though you felt the distinct feeling of descending. After a long while, you finally entered a hall which felt a lot colder. Your nose was immediately hit by the combination of blood, disinfectant and rotting flesh. You dreaded to know where you had been brought.

The gag was forcefully ripped from you and a man interrogated you about the notebook. When you refused to reply, you were lifted and laid down onto a cold metal frame. Fear overcame you and you struggled violently against your captors, questioning them on what they were going to do to you. However, your cries went unnoticed as you were cuffed to the metal frame, preventing you from struggling further. You felt a sudden coldness on your arm followed by the sharp prick of needle as blood started flowing out of your body.

As the warm liquid left your body, it seemed like layers of shroud was peeled back from your memory. You recalled being held in a cold room with operating lights and smell of chemicals as a young girl. As you laid there, you saw that you had tubes linking you and another young boy with blonde hair lying next to you. The same warm smile that sought to console and comfort you was that of Kiro’s. It was then that you realised that your fates had intertwined with his since so long ago.

Your memories flashed back to the last time you saw Kiro on the roof of the TV station. Those painful last moments of self sacrifice as he told you to wait for him. You whispered in your mind that you wouldn’t be able to wait for him any longer as consciousness slipped from you. In that moment, you felt a warm hand against your face. You opened your eyes and realised the black cloth had been removed. You saw Kiro’s sunshine smile, your personal superhero who would chase away the dark clouds. As you called out Kiro’s name, the same cold voice replied asking who is Kiro. Your illusion was dispelled and you realised you were staring into the cold emotionless eyes of the man you met in the archives. He freed you from the restraints with a single motion of his arms and put a capsule in your mouth which soon restored you to some soberness.

As you came to, you finally had a good look at him. He was wearing a black tank top, cargo pants and black boots, spotting a large tattoo on his right arm. You asked him what was happening but he told you to keep quiet as you had company. A tall man in black had appeared and starting firing at your direction. The lights went completely out. The man hauled you from the metal bed and clutched you firmly to his chest he tried to dodge the incoming bullets while gunning down the single assailant in the darkness.

You heard the man in black addressing the man who was holding you as Helios to stay out of their business. Helios replied coolly that this was now his business. The man in black retorted that dead men should stay dead. Helios taunted in return that those who know too much should also stay dead. With that, the gun battle ensued. Not long after there was silence as you heard the a body slump to the ground. Helio’s hold on you loosened and as your legs were all jelly now, you also crumbled to the ground.

The emergency lights kicked in and you could now survey your surroundings. The man in black was lying seemingly lifeless on the ground. Helios picked up a briefcase on the floor and threw it towards you. You caught it wondering what it was. He told you to hold it carefully as it was a virus and dropping it could kill all of you. You nodded frightfully and gripped it tighter. Helios then told you it was a joke and you were too easy to bluff. Not knowing how to react you stared blankly at him while he bound the man in black with some wires. Later he took the briefcase from you and keyed in some numbers in a screen causing a door to slide open revealing an elevator. He walked into the cabin and motioned for you to get in quickly. You got up to your feet and hurried in. The elevator screen showed that you were more than 100m underground.

As the elevator made its way up, you can’t help but observe this man in silver hair who resembled Kiro in so many ways and yet seemed so different as well. Could there really be two people who looked so similar in this world? You tried addressing him by Kiro again and he told you irritably that he wasn’t the person you thought he was and to stop getting it wrong. You kept quiet the rest of the way. As you reached the surface, you distinctly heard the sound of something ticking and beeping. You asked Helios if he heard it but he ignored you and just stepped out to the first floor. You followed pensively after him.

You realised that the hospital was now deserted so you asked Helios what had happened. He didn’t reply you directly and just told you that you would find out soon enough. He kicked open the entrance to the hospital which opened out to the empty courtyard. Not a car in sight. He told you to leave and not return. He still had matters to settle. When you asked him to leave with you as it was dangerous he told you coldly it was none of your concern. As he turned to leave, you grabbed him desperately and asked him again if he was Kiro and why he was pretending not to recognise you. In that instant, all the tears that you had been holding back flowed down your face. Helios removed your hands from his wrist and repeated that he wasn’t Kiro. With that he disappeared into the shadows of the building.

Meanwhile in the same room with the monitors, we see the man looking at the screens showing everything going up in flames as a gleeful expression showed on his face.

As you made your way out of the compound, the name Helios struck a chord in you. It was the name of a Greek god, just like Ares. Does this mean he was also involved with the BSC, if so, then why did he bother to save you? The more you thought about it, the more convinced you were that he was Kiro and you couldn’t turn your back on him. With that final resolution, you turned around and ran back to the hospital. When the hospital was within sight, there was a sudden boom and the entire hospital exploded into flames! The hospital started to collapse on itself and your heart sank. Did Kiro managed to get out in time?

As you continued to watch on helplessly, a figure sprung out of the front door and made a dash for safety through multiple leaps and bounds as flaming debris fell all over. The hospital compound was quickly sinking beneath you as its foundations had been destroyed. Helios made a final leap and landed before you. He barked at you angrily. Before you could say anything else, he grabbed your hand and pulled you towards a black SUV parked in the vicinity. He shoved you inside and sped away from the scene as police cars and fire engines came in the opposite direction.

When you finally cleared the zone, Helios slowed the car to a stop. Turning towards you he asked you why you had returned. You told him you were worried for him and asked what happened. He briefly responded that he was set up and refused to speak further. He then offered to give you a lift home as well as a dagger for self defence. On the silent drive to your destination, you couldn’t help but stare at Helios and compare the similarities and differences between him and Kiro, the dressing, the mannerism and even the scent (?). Apparently Kiro had a sweet scent but Helios was all blood, sweat and gunpowder. Haha.

Helios finally felt unnerved by your constant staring and asked you to stop it. You fired Helios a series of questions that only Kiro would know the answers to and after much frustration, he told you to stop insinuating anything or get off the car. The rest of the journey continued in silence with only the gape in your heart as company.

A phone call from Uncle John broke the silence. He was your father’s good friend and had been out of town for the last few years. He told you he was back in town and wanted to meet you to hand you some vital information linked to your father’s death. Since you were near to the meeting point, you told Helios to drop you off after thanking him. He waved away the gratitude telling you he was just passing by. With that he sped off into the darkness.

Helios found his way to a dark alley where another accomplice was waiting for him in a different SUV. The other man, probably another BSC agent, handed Helios a vial of blood. He also informed Helios that Hades’ Reset Plan was progressing well. Helios told the agent to keep tabs on Hades and keep him updated. Then he drove off.

Can I say that I like this alternate Kiro or Helios the most? I mean Kiro was already second in my ranking but his cutesy-ness was a little off putting. Helios, on the other hand, has the same cool factor exuded by Kiro the legendary hacker, but also now possesses a certain dangerous edge, coldness and recklessness with his gun slinging abilities. I also like it that he’s not too prone to throw himself at you. I admit I am drawn to bad boys after all. Now I wonder who is the real person here – Kiro or Helios? Does Kiro suffer from schizophrenia? That would be a tad disturbing. The whole incident at the hospital is a little creepy as well, it gives me the Resident Evil vibes. So these critically ill patients obviously were not sent to the hospital to be treated but probably to be disposed off as failed experiments by the BSC. What a total disregard for life.

Meanwhile you met up with Uncle John in a deserted cafe, the only patrons at this time of the night. After some pleasantries, Uncle John revealed the information about your dad’s death. Though the police had written it off as a traffic accident due to driver fatigue, the death certificate showed that the driver actually died 40 minutes before the accident. This new information caused you to freeze up as it finally confirmed what you have suspected all along – your father’s death was no accident.

As Uncle John reached out to take back the death certificate, your hands touched momentarily and you saw a vision of Uncle John looking at you with an eerie grin. When he noticed the change in your expression, he took off his glasses and asked if you were feeling alright and whether you already knew something. There was something oddly familiar about Uncle John without his glasses as you stared into his eyes. The next moment a black shadow flitted past both of you and your were teleported away.

When you next opened your eyes, you were no longer in the cafe but a dimly lit room that had a glass wall on one side and shelves of books on the other. Your attention was quickly captured by the scene before you. Helios was holding Uncle John up by his neck, slowly crushing the life out of him. You screamed in horror and asked Helios to stop it at once. Helios looked at you indifferently and told you to get out of here or he would kill you himself. With this he dragged Uncle John towards the door. You hurried after them and implored Helios to stop, that this wouldn’t be something that Kiro wanted to do. The momentary distraction was enough for Uncle John to get away from the grip of death.

You rushed over to Uncle John to check if he was alright. Uncle John flashed you a look of hate which took you by surprise. As you tried to step back, he grabbed hold of you as hostage with a knife to your throat. Helios wasn’t able to stop him in time and you saw a look of panic flash on his face for a second, enough to convince you of his real feelings.

You asked Uncle John what he was doing. You recalled that it was Uncle John who referred you to Lucien, whom he now addressed as Ares. Your heart sank as it dawned on you that Uncle John was part of the BSC right from the beginning. Even though he didn’t outrightly admitted to orchestrating your father’s death, he remarked that both you and your dad were very foolish both in the past and now. You noticed that Helios was giving you a hidden signal and recalled the dagger he had given you. You slowly pulled it out and waited for the right moment to strike.

Helios asked what Uncle John was plotting. He replied with a smirk that with the virus and the Queen’s gene in their hands, they were one step away from achieving their goal of evolving humankind, better and faster than anything that Ares or Hades could accomplish. Helios spat coldly that Uncle John was foolish to believe that. Uncle John told Helios to hand him the passage key which took Helios by surprise. As Uncle John laughed at his own ingenuity, you took the opportunity to plunge the dagger into his chest and escaped his grasp.

Helios caught you and told you to close your eyes. You heard the familiar mechanical voice, ‘I command you…’ After some time you opened your eyes to see the strange yet beautiful amber golden eyes staring tenderly at you. Through tears in your eyes, you embraced the man before you calling his name repeatedly. You were finally reconciled with your hero and knowing that he was safe all this time. Kiro spoke gently, hugged you tightly and patted your back to comfort you. Then with a very apologetic look, Kiro apologised and once again his eyes turned amber golden again. This time he commanded you to forget everything that just happened and to remember Helios as just Helios.

You scrambled to stop him but it was too late. You could feel fragments of your memory fading and all you could see was Kiro walking further and further away into the light as his image blurred. After you fell asleep, Kiro placed you gently on the floor. He told you that he would continue on the search for the truth on his own and would return when he has resolved the situation. This way you would not be in danger or have to feel the hurt and pain of this world. He didn’t want you to remember Kiro as the bad guy hence he had wiped your memory of his identity. With these last words, he left you and walked towards a door with sounds coming from behind. As he opened the door, the people on the other side welcomed him back as Helios.

Why does it always seem that anyone introduced into the game without a face is bound to be a bad person? It sucks that as a player I’m constantly put on edge not to trust anyone in the game except the four main guys, and even that you are not spared from the kind of emotional hurt they inflict on you. You had lost your memory of Lucien’s lingering feelings for you when you left the dream world and now Kiro has erased fragments of your memory. I feel it is kind of selfish of him to want you to only remember him as the good guy. To be honest, I don’t mind him as a the bad guy! At least that is being honest. I also wonder how many times your memory can be erased before you go crazy or something.

You awoke the next morning feeling hazy from the events of the day before. You recalled trying to get in touch with Dr Song and following her trail to No. 5 Hospital and finally being rescued by this man called Helios who brought you home. Helios resembled Kiro but turned out to be a different person. You tuned in to the local news and learnt that unlike previous reports of the outbreak, today’s news reported that a vaccine had been discovered for the the virus and things were finally looking up as more people were recovering. As such instead of cancelling an upcoming parade, the authorities decided to go ahead with it. You looked out to the streets and saw that people were decking the main street with colorful decorations and an air of excitement filled the air.

You heard the crackling of static on the sundial watch. You called out to Victor and received a cold reception from him. You asked if he was doing well and then shared with him the news about the virus letting up. You also told him that you were very happy that you were able to change future the day before. Victor was surprised to hear that you were able to do so. Though he sounded skeptical, you could feel a sense of optimism in his tone. You asked to hurry back before you forget how he looked like. He asked you pensively if you were really certain that you wanted him to come back and you said yes. However before he could hear your reply, a crack appeared on the face of the watch and silence ensued. This felt like a foreboding omen.

As you kept the watch aside, you saw a letter on the table which you didn’t noticed earlier. On the letter, it was written that blessings would be showered on humanity where they are all gathered at 14:20. It was eerily signed off as ‘Queen’, the same name that the BSC had given you. Chills went down your spine as you looked outwards towards the parade square.

You headed out to the central venue of the celebrations where a speech was about to commence on the stage which had been set up in the middle of the parade square. Though the mood was festive, your heart was heavy with burden. The host announced the start of the festivities and invited the main organiser to come on stage to give a few words. You were pleasantly surprised to see the lady who had stepped up on stage was the same lady you had saved yesterday. Perhaps it was a good thing that you saved her so today’s event could progress.

As she commenced her speech, the young lady spoke confidently into the mike about the progress Loveland City had made all these years to the smiles and cheers from the crowd around you. Suddenly she stopped talking and cocked her head awkwardly at an angle, a crooked smile contorted on her face. The abrupt pause caused murmurs to rise around you as the audience wondered what had happened. The camera zoomed in her face so that everyone could have a good view on her.

Just as abruptly as she had stopped speaking, she jerked upwards with a strange wide eyed look as she shrilled incoherently into the mike about letting the celebrations start with a bang. You heard a scream amongst the crowd as blood started to ooze from her lifeless sunken eyes and she fell flat onto the stage, an eerie smile still plastered on her face. Someone shouted ‘she’s dead’ and all pandemonium broke out as people scrambled to flee from the area. It was 14:20.

In the midst of the chaos, you heard a voice taunting you about changing the future and that it would never happen. However you could not find the owner of the voice, as if it all part of your imagination. As you surveyed your surroundings you wonder if you had screwed up by saving the lady from yesterday. Feeling shaken by the events, you felt your body being pushed along by the stampeding mass. Then something horrific happened. All around you, people in groups of 2 or 3s dropped to the ground like flies, leaving a lone few people still unaffected by whatever had suddenly overcome the crowds. You heard the constant beeping of a bus ahead of you as it careened towards you, the bus driver slumped on the steering wheel.

Whatever just happened?! It felt like a Magneto plan to change all humans into mutants gone wrong mixed with a Final Destination-esque reminder that people who are fated to die will die no matter what and possibly in an even more gruesome manner.

You closed your eyes in anticipation of death. Perhaps that would finally be sweet relief from this life of suffering, betrayal and never-ending twists. However the impact never came. You opened your eyes and saw that the bodies that had previously collapsed to the ground were pushing themselves upwards, their faces an natural hue of red and eyes closed. They pushed themselves upright and sauntered towards the survivors in totally zombified state. A group of these people started to reach out towards you.

Suddenly a fleet of helicopters in camo design appeared in the sky. Your eyes were instinctively drawn to the figure who stood at the door of the helicopter. It was Gavin! Your eyes met and in that instant he jumped off the carrier and used his power to suppress the people around you. He ordered the soldiers in the other helicopters to follow his lead as rope ladders unfurled as troops of soldiers descended to restore order. Your heart fluttered at the sight of Gavin, glad that he was safe and also for the countless times he had saved you in the nick of time. (I certainly agree with that observation!)

After the danger was subdued, Gavin approached you and lifted you into his arms. He whisked you up into the air with a swirl of wind current and you noticed that his powers seemed so much more powerful than before. Though it was the same pair of amber eyes looking tenderly at you, it also felt strangely alien. There was so much you wanted to ask Gavin or tell him since you parted but the only words that came out was if he had been well. He told you that he had gone for some healing and other stuff which he couldn’t tell you now.

His face betrayed an expression that he had so much to tell you yet was unable to do so. He asked if you had been well too. You replied briefly that you had been fine and was more concerned that Gavin would never return. Gavin promised you that he would never leave without saying goodbye (aww he remembered that you hated people who left without saying goodbye). With that you rested your head on his chest and closed your eyes, finally letting the tension loose from your body.

Sometimes I wonder if you even know what you have been through. Since the start of this game, you had been shot at twice, kidnapped, chased after, threatened with your life, experimented on, hypnotized, shot at from the back by some lightning bolt and a bullet, fallen from a tall tower, trapped in a dream world and had your memories erased again and again. How is this perfectly fine for you?! The authors really seem to take pleasure in tormenting you and assume that you would be some superhuman who can withstand all these onslaught.

Back in your apartment, Gavin updated you that the situation had taken a turn for the worse. The virus had not been suppressed but rather was just a lull before it reared its ugly head. I wondered what happened to that cure that Lucien was researching on? You told Gavin about the letter which had predicted what would happen. Gavin surmised that whoever wrote the letter knew you very well to know how to lure you out and cause you psychological trauma. After he left, you decided to take a rest. As you dozed off, you entered another dream state. You were in a dark room with a sole source of light. As you approached it, you realised it was a mirror.

On the other side of the mirror, you saw your reflection looking at you, same soft feature, brown hair but eyes as deep as the darkest ocean. Your reflection spoke gently as if to console you about the sufferings and weariness of this world. She told you that it was pointless to hope for things to return to normal because humanity must meet its end. She told you that the new world would only be born out of self-sacrifice. It need not mean death but new life.

You tried to block her voice out of your head but your reflection reached out and held onto you. She gave you a piercing look and said that the Queen’s gene is the last piece of the puzzle and your denial of your role and destiny would only cause the destruction of mankind. She finally asked if you would sacrifice yourself or everyone else.

You found yourself in another vision. You were standing alone in what used to be a busy street. When the virus completely broke, half of the city’s population fell into coma while the remainder languished in despair of the death that was to come. You couldn’t believe what you were witnessing. Victor had told you that future was fine, if that were the case, did you really make the necessary sacrifice to arrive at that future? You desperately reached out to anyone you knew who could help you but no one answered any of your calls. It was then you remembered one last person who could help you make up your mind.

Meanwhile the time was 19:17. Victor sighed that the future couldn’t be changed after all. The rift opened where he was and he was pulled into it against his will. At the end of the light tunnel, he sensed a familiar presence. In the moment, the watch face cracked.

This chapter was really slightly confusing as too many things happened at once. It was like the writers were rushing to fill you with details in leading up to the final chapter of this arc. So to recollect, we were introduced to Shaw, a new playable character and another Evolver. We also met with Kiro aka Helios who now have both the virus, the Queen’s gene and the passage key and he intends to somehow change the future. We learnt that your father’s death was no accident. The virus or Hades’ Reset Plan probably didn’t go as planned and have turned non Evolvers into the living dead. Changing the future didn’t stop someone who was supposed to die from dying. Gavin is even more powerful now and is leading some special squad in the military. You finally come face to face with the Queen. Apparently, you aren’t exactly her, rather she exists as a conscious within you. And from what I can gather at the end of the chapter, Victor had gone to the future to stop this from happening but in the end, he wasn’t able to. This is all building up towards a dramatic cliffhanger ending.