Author’s Note: What you are about to read is, in a way, a prequel to the story. This chapter tells the life of Doctor Cross BEFORE his faithful encounter with the university student Eve Farrell and walked the path of death with the Godseed.

BTW, if the time and date says the phrase 'The Day,' it is referring to the very day that began the story - the day in Chapter 1 where Doctor Cross and Eve meet for the first time. Just not to confuse anyone who might think 'WTH does that mean?'

Aagh! I should stop blabbering! Enjoy the latest chapter!

I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I

A WORLD WITHOUT CURE

The World Before Everything Began

Chapter Zero: Monotony--

By Bleu Ciel

I—+—I

“Tired… so tired…”

“I… I just want to rest…”

“Please… just for a couple of minutes…”

TWO YEARS AGO

6:00AM, Doctor Cross' Bedroom

Doctor Cross got up, his eyes weary, his clothes wrinkled. From last night’s outbreak fiasco, he was tired and his muscles and bones ached all over. Sometimes, to him, being amazing isn’t as all cracked up as it should be.

But that was just a passing thought, felt Doctor Cross as he went to his bathroom, scratching his hair white as snow out of his eyes, looking at himself in the wide wall mirror. He was used to his routine, and he couldn’t live his life any other way.

Getting up, Six-o-clock in the morning, his workday schedule. He eats a small breakfast, he takes a bath, the hygiene works, and then goes off out the door by the start of the next hour.

Every day before his bath, he looks at his mirror, wondering what age the Godseed had given him for the day. Just last week, he looked over Forty, and his co-workers begin to wonder about his real age. Today, however, it seemed he has been given youth, looking about five years younger. He rather enjoyed it.

By the end of Six, he had dressed up, all pure white as he fashionably liked, curly uncombed hair spread apart and white as fresh-fallen snow, its length covering half his eyesight, and leaves the vicinity of his three-floor townhouse, wearing a special white glove on his left hand, covering up the white blank mark on his hand - another part of his everyday routine.

Seven-o-clock, he sits down by the seats of his favourite tea and coffee shop, Tennesen’s, conveniently located along 7th Avenue ‘Wall Street,’ as it was called, where right up the hill was his worldly workplace.

Fifteen past Seven on the dot, his favourite shop opens, bringing him his usual mix of tea during his workday. The owner never misses him there, sitting quietly as his shop opens. Every workday, he orders the same thing, drinks it at the same time, and leaves his chair on the dot at the same precise moment for as long as the owner had noticed. The owner wonders if his life was written in stone.

Eight-o-clock comes, he enters the workplace. The famed White Cross Institute, castle to the world’s best and most experienced medical workers, of which he is no exception to. Signing in as the Cardiac Surgeon Walter Cross, Doctor Cross walks his usual, upward to his office on the second floor offices.

Cross finished his pre-op early, just as expected. It was almost Nine, the start of his actual working hours, and Cross would expect his assistant through those doors any minute to start the day of his 10-hour shifts.

Cross sat patiently at his desk, waiting for the moment to come. If anyone was in the room, the moment his eyes would spark white was the key moment she would enter, or so his co-workers had noticed. Predictably, there was knocking by the door, and Ms. Abril entered with her usual greeting.

Cross goes through training on alternate days, on succession if the need arises for new techniques or updates on the latest medical technology or medicine. He performs several operations, and the occasional heart surgery he was known for. He does this strenuous task over and over again, for ten hours every work day, until Eight-o-clock when it’s time to sign off and his assistant, tired and weary, greets him goodnight and rests for the day.

He, of course, wouldn’t leave until Ten on the spot as the nightshifts have noticed, and continue his work to the night where he would do paperwork, research, and the sudden emergency patients that suddenly happen without notice.

If not for the Godseed, that is.

Doctor Cross smiled. His life was comfortable, predictable to his liking. There would be no accident he could not handle, no sudden emergency he could not predict. And yet, it was not enough.

He wonders how much more his completely symmetrical Godseed could give him.

He knew it's power - that the more symmetrical the Godseed was, the more power it gives to its owner... and you can't get more symmetrical than a perfect symmetry, can you?

Cross wanted more. Everything that his perfect Godseed could give him.

But there will always be certain days where he would regret thinking of such positive things. On his days off, for example.

His days off are determined monthly, and are not permanently linked to a specific day of choice. On these certain days when there is no work to be done, he still has his professional routine.

At Seven-o-clock, he gets up, one hour later than he would on a work day. He eats a small breakfast, does his hygiene route, and then it’s out the door with another suit of full white, his hair unkept and free as ever, curly bright white as the fresh-fallen snow with its length covering half his eyesight. He comes to Tennesen’s, Eight-o-clock sharp, and this is when the owner knows Doctor Cross has his day off. He gives him the usual tea blend, and Cross drinks it slowly, looking calmly at the road beside him.

By Nine, the roadside is busy, teeming with life and culture as busy workmen cover the streets, everyone living their lives as they should. Cross would enjoy this scenery for several hours, sitting in different spots of the same 7th Avenue, ordering tea from the same shop.

Before lunchtime, Cross visits the local libraries, researching and reading to his enjoyment. When lunch came, he’d return to Tennesen’s, having his usual lunch order with tea of course, costing the same Seven Fifty-Five every time. When it was time to leave, Cross would pay his bill with cash, exact change as the owner would later know, just like every other day.

The tea shop’s owner would sometimes talk with him during these days off, talking about the weather, work, the country, politics, and the like. Cross and the owner had formed a strange bond between them over the years, but the shop's owner would never see too much about the strange man clad in white. It was obvious to him that the man liked to keep to himself.

He wonders if it was because of that left hand that he so liked to cover with a strange glove of some sort.

Before heading home, there will always be the occasional event of his day, the part that ruins his entire evening... and maybe ruins his entire life. Every so often, something will occur, a big one at that taking the form of an accident, an illness, or a crime. For some reason, it seemed to happen during his days off.

It was here that the man known as Walter Cross wished he wasn’t like that man he was.

Before going home to rest, he would get a foreshadowing, his eyes glowing white, the Godseed in his left hand telling him a future. A possibility of possibilities.

He would try to ignore it, but his fear would not allow it. He was a doctor, and knowing these horrible events would come to pass at the predicted time and allow these people to die with his knowledge was too much to bear for him.

Every week, every occasional day he had no work, every single time he was tired, such events would happen. He would get a foresight of these events, and with his guilt, he would come and save them. He would operate, receive his praise from onlookers, and then quietly fade back into the shadows where he should belong.

They would happen when he was there.

No... They would happen because he was there to save them.

He was... a slave to the Godseed.

It was even worse every time he failed. For every life he could not save, his arm felt weaker and heavier, as if the unsaved souls of the unfortunate were punishing him with pain that wrought all over his body. Throughout the night, he would feel its torture, and over the next day he would feel no rest, no relief of sleep, of rest. During a workday, he would lock himself in his office and scream his torments off, creating fears among his own co-workers - especially Ms. Abril.

He was tired… and he was sick of it.

It had to stop.

But how could he let it? His life was comfortable, knowing almost everything that happened around him. It gave him happiness to know exactly when to work, to intervene, and to respond in whatever situation the real world had given a man like him who grew up too old too fast.

He simply bowed down to its power, accepting any punishment it gave for a simple sip upon the fountain of knowledge we know as the future.

And yet, he knew... that day would eventually come.

A day when he would have to forcefully cast aside this blessing from God.

The day that ended all days - the day his life turns Thirty years.

Thanks to all his research, the experience he has had with the Godseed for Twenty-Three Years, the information he had obtained about his gift grew larger and larger, comparatively anyway to what most people knew. It was here that he learned of his sad and pathetic fate.

'The Godseed will kill its owner at the day of his Thirtieth... without fail.'

This shocking truth drove him to the depths of despair and depression, almost driving the famous White Cross Saint insane. For though his will to live was enormous, his fear of death was ever greater.

I—+—I

6:00AM, Cross' Bedroom, Several Days Prior to The Day

Work Day, Six-o-clock in the morning, Doctor Cross wakes up. He goes to the bathroom, and looks at his mirror. Not much of a difference, maybe 5 years older. With a sigh, he completes his hygiene trip and leaves the door, heading for his usual tea shop with his hair kept uncombed, curly and free, white as the fresh-fallen snow with its length covering half his eyesight. He drinks his morning blend of tea, and is in the Institute by Eight straight.

He delivers a quiet but efficient effort to his daily workload, signing patient's paperwork and an update on some new machinery guidelines. He breathes a sigh of relief once again as Nine arrives, when his assistant knocks on the door and pops her head in by the doorway.

'Good morning, Doctor Cross,' she would say as always. Seeing his assistant, Cross would smile back, just for good manners. He should be happy, as his life was lined as a single path, no decisions he couldn't make without knowing what it was that he needed. His life was predictable and straight, as he wanted.

But Cross knew he never smiled like that, even when things went as he wanted. His eyes and ears closed to the world that opened itself to him through the Godseed, he just wanted to shut his eyes to the truth of his nature. Why he could never really smile to the sight of his own happiness.

8:00AM, White Cross Institute, Basement Level OR-6

"...Alright, that should be okay," Ms. Abril said, running her forearm against her brow, clearing the sweat off. "Great, that should be enough for today."

"Yeah... The days over," Cross said with a low voice, removing the safety mask over his mouth. "Once you've cleaned the utensils, you're free to go, Alex."

"Thank you, Sir Cross," Alex bowed, gathering the utensils for his mock operation. "Wow, I can't believe all that work... the time just flew by."

"You'll feel that a lot in this kind of work, Alex," Ms. Abril smiled as she removed her gloves and took the dirty utensils along with them to a tray. "Time is always of the essence during an operation, but accuracy is just as important, just like you did today... except maybe for that third one."

"Hey, cut me some slack," Alex wheezed, scratching the back of his head. "That wasn't easy at all... and it's easy to get caught up in this once you realize the calibrations been set for the first time."

"You're not a rookie anymore, Alex," Cross said out of nowhere, removing his own gloves, cleaning his hands before he placed his special glove on his left hand. "We still shouldn't be monitoring you during physical suturing. I know you have The Needle to use and the technology's there to help, but the skill of the machine will always rely on the doctor's own!"

"Y-Yes, sir," Alex said regretably.

"Oh, don't be so hard on him, Doctor," Ms. Abril commented. "It was more than enough for someone so new to the Institute - and without prior university-level training, no less!"

"If you remember, Ms. Abril," Cross added as he opened the door outside of the operatingr room, scratching his cheek with his hand, "I was like that too once." With those words, he closed the door shut, the two nurses only being able to hear his faint footsteps vibrating from the outside.

"Oh, ignore him," Ms. Abril sighed, fixing her coat while she waited for Alex to leave with her. "He knows you've been amazing too, but he's just hard on everyone. Otherwise, he wouldn't have recommended you, would he?"

"R-Right," Alex said with a weak voice, almost regretting the fact that he replied. "Still... Sir Cross is amazing. I can't believe how well he does his operations during exemplaries."

"Well, that's the problem with Doctor Cross," Ms. Abril sighed as she opened the door to the outside. "He knows too well his differences with everyone else."

"Huh?" Alex questioned, puzzled at the nurse's odd remark.

He could swear that by the time they seperated ways outside the Institute that the Saint's assistant was mumbling alltogether to herself.

8:16PM, Doctor Cross' Office

After Eight had come, most of the usual employees of the Institute leave for the day once again, save the nightshift and afternight-shift workers (being a hospital, the word 'graveyard' for a shift would not sit so well with patients). It was at this moment that Doctor Cross, sitting alone in his barely lit office, began to do the rest of his paperwork and his research papers.

His desk was barely lit by the lone lamp sitting precariously by the upper-right edge of his desk, glowing yellow everything its light had touched in the room full of shadows. It was in this darkness that Doctor Cross did his work, though he thought many times to prevent such strange actions at the expense of the strange thoughts of his own co-workers.

Not that he had ever cared anyway, but it was just a thought. The Saint preferred early morning light over the light of a lamp, though preferring the lamp over the shine of the moon, whose face was masked hidden behind the closed window drapes of his office. Only the light of the lamp and the light from his open doorway gave his nightly work luminance.

With his office door wide open, the other doctors would sometimes peek in, looking at the strange surgeon with a worried look.

"Hey, Doctor Cross, it's time to leave," one of the doctors by the door said. "You staying there for the nightshift again?"

Cross simple nodded, not even looking up to the two doctors that were dumbfounded by his remark.

"Ah, c'mon, Doctor," another said, waving towards their position. "You really should watch your work. I know you're dedicated, but your health is important too - and that's one bloody doctor talking to another here."

"Look at him, he's still strong and going," the other replied, a bit envious. "That's pretty amazin'... Where the bloody hell do you get all that energy? Do you actually get to sleep at night?"

Doctor Cross looked up, fixing his glasses and giving the two on his door a kind look. "I'm sorry to be worrying both of you, but I'm fine. My vacation starts tomorrow, so I'll have plenty of rest then."

"Ah," one of them said with a thump. "I remember now. You'll be off for a week, I believe. Still, you should go out there enjoying your vacation instead of spending it here. Get some rest, chap."

Cross smiled once again. "I will. Thank you."

The two doctors waved goodbye, and continued their walk down the hall and be off for the rest of the day. Back in his office, Doctor Cross sighed, looking at his small handheld mirror sitting at the farther edge opposite of his lamp,

'Did I really smike like that?' he asked, checking if his cheek muscles were okay. 'If I ever smile like that again, I'll be ready for the freak show... Sleep... Yeah, sleep... On a day off? Probably not.'

Sighing again, he looks back at his desk and signs his paperwork.

I—+—I

Next Day - 7:00AM, Doctor Cross' Office

Cross' alarm rang up, and with a simple thud, he shuts it down and confirms the time with his weary eyesight. As of today, until his vacation was over, he was simply a man named Walter Cross.

If only the Godseed would ever let him.

Cross hated days like this. It was his day off - the days where accidents, crimes, outbreaks, illnesses happen where he 'conveniently' appeared. When the Godseed would force him people to save he would rather ignore.

It was a whole world out there. Both evil and eviler - he would rather save the lesser of the two evils than be forced to save everyone just because he was entitled a doctor. 'What right did he have to judge them death?,' he would think the others would say if they ever knew of his thoughts. But he would always smile, thinking back, 'What right did they they have to judge them alive?'

For the next three days, Cross' dark prediction came true. Day by day, it came like a fog in a storm, blinding those don't have their blindfolds peeled off by the Godseed.

There was a car accident to start his morning, and by the end of his first day another came due to drunk driving. The second day, a man suddenly collapsed in the middle of the street, his heart in pain, spasms restraining his violently vibrating body. With his luck, speeding cars avoided his twitching body though to their own dismay, crashing collectively on a nearby street filled with pedestrians and a store. On that day, Cross operated on five people, having to use the power of the Godseed and further strained himself.

On the third day of his vacation, the event happened during the midday. In an attempt to run away from chasing store owners, a man who stole a pack of brand cigarettes dove into the busy market street and was a mutilated mess by the time Cross arrived.

The man was in immediate danger, losing his grasp to the thread of life little by little.

But the man named Walter Cross just smiled. He was just an ordinary person out on a vacation, after all. It was here that he realized why he could never truly smile in the hospital - because he enjoyed the chaos of people's death.

For one to work in the hospital of Hope that the Institute promoted and believe the very opposite could never bring a smile to the face of a man like him.

Tried as the Godseed might, forcing pain into his body, Cross only swallowed what was wrought upon him. In his opinion, the man brought it upon himself, and so he should be allowed to pay the price.

No one else would help him, that bloodied mutilated thing cringing on the ground. They were in shock and awe, surprised at what they had seen. Too surprised and excited, apparently, to even call for help - a delay that later caused the thief to lose what was precious to him minutes later.

Only so many cared. Definitely not him, of course, and several other people who witnessed too, who after hearing the real story, also believe the man received what came around. To his surprise however, the store owners themselves mourned bitterly at his passing, even going so far as to wishing they had not chased him in the first place.

'...maybe then, he wouldn't have died,' he thought to himself, finishing their sentences in his head. 'How can these people even this of such a thing!?' But before the thought even finished, he stopped short, knowing the answer full well.

Though he lived in a world that teaches the prevention of unbiased views, the protection of oneself and others, to obey the rules and the law, to have morals...

'There will always be one accepted truth in the world,' he sighs, 'and that everyone's life is precious.'

'Every human's life anyway.' Doctor Cross looked to the sky, his shoulders tired and weary. 'Other species have never mattered when compared to human lives...'

Though he was tired, though he was weakening every minute of his life, though he will die on Thirtieth year, though he almost died from the pain that the Godseed forced upon him... he smiled, sitting on a corner by his room, looking at the Godseed with intense pleasure.

"Ha... Hahah... Hahahahahahahj... I am with them, yet above them," he smiled, clinging tightly to the mark on his hand. "Please, God... I want more... Something beyond, something above the power of the Godseed..."

"I... want it all."

I—+—I

The Day - 7:00AM, Walter Cross' Bedroom

Doctor Cross woke up, Seven on the dot once again, not at all excited about the rest of the day. Once again, he goes to his bathroom and looks at the mirror to see what age the Godseed had given him for the day.

Doctor Cross dropped his shave, looking at the fogging bathroom mirror with surprise. He looked perfectly fine, and this surprised him more than anything. Although he often appears as his own age implied, there was something different about his face.

It was... as if he was never tired.

Cross looked to his left hand, to try and see what kind of trick the Godseed wanted to pull on him.

To his horror, the Godseed faded faintly, nearly invisible through his pale skin.

"What... the bloody hell is going on?" he exclaimed, and at that moment, he suddenly received a sharp pain at the back of his head. It stung through his spine, sending him keeling back for a second, closing his eyes in the pain.

As he opened them, he felt nothing more. Nothing strange, nothing was different. He looked at his hand and the Godseed was there, looking back at him as if nothing had happened.

As he continued on with the rest of his day like normal, going back to his hygiene route as he always did, Cross thought maybe his greatest fears might be coming sooner than he had expected.

Coming out of the bath, Cross dressed in full white that was nice and pressed, neatly ironed, though he never bothers fixing his hair white as the fresh-fallen snow. It always kind of scattered across his face, covering the right side that hid the scar of a past he'd rather not show to the world.

Cross drank his usual tea at about that time, wanting to enjoy the rest of his day as if nothing had happened the day before. He felt so relaxed, in fact, that he'd brought one of his favourite books, hard cover heavy-text reading, to read right there at the street bench near his usual tea shop.

8:00 AM, A market street in London

Cross sat down, left arm stretched across the wooden bench, the other caressing the book open to where a small bookmark held his current page. He relaxed, lying back into the bench's hard frame and read his book in relative peace of the day.

He sighed, his eyes glowing white. He looked forward, muttering the last few words he could.

"...Because Man knew faith will never be enough."

'At the Fourteenth of Eight, Eleven Minutes from now, a black cab carrying two passengers will rampage carelessly through the market street, hitting the lamppost closest to my right, missing the bench by inches. Fire and smoke will run amok, covering this street with a sea of darkness. The passengers, the male driver and a woman in the back, has fallen unconsious. Crowds will gather to see the sight, but no one will go near. Ten minutes later, a firetruck will appear, saving both passengers from the flame. The woman will live, suffering from concussion and minor bodily bruises from shard by the broken cab glass. The man suffered from Ranton's, an airborne CA-inducing pathogen, inhaled Seventeen minutes prior to the crash. The man's body is weak, and at his age his heart even weaker. The ambulance will come Thirty-Four minutes past, and will try to save this man.'

'He will not make it back.'

The smoke covered his view of the scene, though his Godseed eyes did not work through mere sight. He realizes his mission, and knows that it was the man he was supposed to save.

But he sighs, sitting back, caring not for what else might happen, however the Godseed might force him. He had seen the man's past, and to the Saint he had done something enough to make him uncaring of his future.

'Besides, look at them,' he thought as he looked onto the crowd of bystanders, watching feverishly with awe, excitement and despair, 'Just because they think they can do nothing doesn't mean they don't share the blame.'

"Not even going to help?" he sighs, closing his book before the fire ruined its expensive pages. "Well, that's quite sad... And I was hoping to get home early today..."

Walter Cross smiled. It was in this smoke, the errie darkness that clouded his naked sight, that he could see just what it was that made him so happy... and yet unhappy about his life.

Cross enjoyed his everyday routine marked to stone, because its predictability gives him comfort. But if there's anything else he liked was the unpredictability of life... the chaos.

He enjoyed seeing people's reactions when afraid, or angry, or scared, or desperate. This paradox he set unto himself - onto stone - was the pure realization that he could never be truly happy or sad.

Because nothing could take away both the monotony and chaos of life.

Except maybe... people themselves.

"Hey, you can't enter here!"

At that moment, Cross could hear his own heartbeat, thumping like a drum against his skin and vibrating against his bones. It echoed in his body like an orchestra, his heart like a pipe organ sending a loud yet rhythmic symphony across his being.

At that moment, the Godseed ceased to exist for a minute... and Cross immediately noticed.

'Wghh.. W-Wha--I.. I'mgghh.. I'm...'

He scratched his eyes fiercely, the smoke filtering through them like a screen. 'I.. I'm blind! I... I can't see! Wh... What the hell-- What the hellL!?'

He tried, hard as he could, to look at his left hand where the Godseed stood. But once where it stood proudly was now a cowering mark of the white cross embedded in his hand.

'It's... It's not working? Something's... Something... B-But... Why!?'

Cross stopped struggling, his eyesight returning as the smoke cleared by a bit and the Godseed returned his eyes.

'It... It's back... I can... see again. But... I don't understand!'

'What is it that the power of God cannot see!?'

When Cross looked to the distance, a woman, with long hair dark as a deep-green sea, tall and young with a pale skin, a long flowing skirt, and a strange aura of maturity crossed the police safety line, talking intensively with the firemen that cleared the scene.

Cross smiled, and yet was filled with sorrow. The chaos, the unpredictability set his sights smiling... but the feeling of uncertainty scared him shakingly. He didn't know why, he didn't know what for, he didn't know what it was that caused it so... but somehow he knew that it was that woman in front of him that was the center of it all.

It can't be... She's just a regular... girl...

Cross looked to her university ID with surprise. "Stavros University... That's the top of the medical circle, rich valley... Eve, huh..."

'Farrell?' he suddenly thought for a minute. 'Hmmm... It can't be the same Farrell of the Irish galleries, can it? Strange... she doesn't look Irish to me...'

"An experienced student practicing to be a nurse... Eve, right?" Cross blurted out.

The young woman looked to him in surprise, a young man fully white and pale sitting in a bench so close to the accident, unharmed and unscathed. Unknown to her, he had the same surprise, looking to her face that wasn't a day over Twenty.

She can't be the one... She's so... young...

"Who the heck are you!? How long have you been there!? Can't you see there's been an emergency!?" the woman exclaimed, gesturing him to leave.

Cross only smiled, enjoying the face she made in her own uncertainty and anger. "I'm just a man on a sightseeing tour, reading a good book on his day off. I've been here since the incident began."

"Then what the heck are you still sitting there for!? Get yourself out of here, or at least help me with these two!"

'Wow, she's more frantic than I gave her credit for... So much for maturity,' he sighed, leaning back, whistling to the sky with a grin. "No. I think I'll stay here. As for the help, it's not really my problem."

"You--Don't you care if these people DIE!?"

'No, I don't,' he said silently to himself, looking at the young woman in front of her with a seething disliking to her attitude. 'All patients are innocent on the outside... In the inside, many of them are monsters, people that don't care. But I guess you are one of them... people who care for other people just because they are other people.'

"People die," he mouthed off. "And they shall continue to. Everyday, patients die a horrible painful death after a long and painful struggle to live. Even doctors or nurses like you can't prevent death. It's a natural phenomenon."

Even I can't prevent my own death...

"Accidents like this aren't 'natural'," the girl replied, looking at him back with the same disgust.

He laughed. He laughed so hard his sides began to hurt. The face on the nurse was priceless, the way her face contorted and sneered at him. He couldn't help himself for some reason, unable to hide his true character from her. Finally as his laughter turned down, he moved his white hair out of his eyes and looked at the girl who saw nothing but evil in him.

"That was amusing," he chuckled a last chuckle. "If you're so bent on saving their lives, then by all means - save them. I'll be here, leaning back... watching you fail."

To his surprise, the girl had actually been working while they talked. He never even noticed, considering his sight was limited because of the weakened Godseed, letting quite a bit of the thick smoke through him.

He was surprised, though he knew they all started that way. Young men and women with big dreams, saving the world and its people and all that, creating a better tomorrow. Until they realize that not everything they believed in can come true, that there was reality, that naivete or good kind spirits aren't always rewarded, and that an inevitable death is truly one of the world's only truths.

It was here then that he pointed to the other patient - the cab driver - and professed to her his literally heart-ailing problems. The young woman was as naive as he thought she was, predictable even with the limited Godseed at his side. Her type was always like that, straight ahead crashing through, living life through moral and never logic.

But it surprised him. He'd have never been that angry before, always being able to hold himself back because he had always had control over his more instinctual emotions. Or maybe that was just what he thought, and it was the Godseed that was doing it all for him.

He didn't know what it was that he felt that time, staring with all smiles at the girl that acted more of a doctor than he ever did. Fear? Maybe. Uncertainty? Surely. But maybe it was something else... maybe a hope to remove what definite fear he had of the world at large.

Something changed in the Saint that day.

It was ironic that his fear of losing the Godseed gave birth to his future self, to plan for events when the Godseed was unable to do it for him.

It was also this fear that - quite unfortunately - made him resent those closest to him in an attempt to prevent them from getting dragged in to his testament of death.

His wish came true, with the resign of his closest co-worker, Ms. Delara Abril, two years later. A mother of two, Ms. Abril was the Saint's original assistant, and with her leave soon to come Doctor Cross felt lonely... yet strangely relieved that this wonderful woman would soon be away, unable to witness what horrors he was prepared to unleash to live.

And yet, he could not bear himself to get rid of one other, though the reason was purely repentance. Specifically, a man named Alexander Kalidas, a junior fresh into the Institute only several months prior. The Saint invited him over from a foreign country to keep an eye on him, a payment to something personal that happened several years ago.

it was this event that gave a strange sensation to the doctor, touching his cheek instinctively every time he would see Alex, feeling a nostalgic nightmare he continues to remember with the reminder Alex gave him... with a fist.

Even now, he continued to monitor Alex's condition... to make sure he didn't make the same mistake. So far, however, Alex exhibited no symptoms.

Still, it was a moral victory for the White Cross doctor, keeping at least one person safe from harm. He had hoped to not ever have an assistant again, however impossible that may be, so he can perform his journey of death alone.

Yet, law would not allow him - the very law he clung to in order to survive the real world he grew up in too fast. Doctor Cross would get an assistant after Ms. Abril's leave - and he only wonders now what fate this new partner would bring him.

If only he knew.

I—+—I

One year later after the incident...

"...My replacement had just reported in," Ms. Abril continued, "as well as an intern. They're downstairs in the main hall entrance right now. The Chief Director asked you to show them around."

Doctor Cross sighed, knowing the day was inevitable. Taking his coat, Cross sighed, "I really wish you didn't leave, Ms. Abril. You know I don't like new kids."

"I'm married and I have a family to take care off, Doctor Cross. I'm too old for this kind of action; you know that."

"Ugh," Cross sighed, looking at Ms. Abril with surprise. "What the devil is that man thinking? I'm a doctor for God's sake, not a bloody tour guide."

"C'mon Doctor Cross," Ms. Abril replied, urging the doctor to go. "This is the last time I'll get to see you. You might as well act like you care."

"...What is that supposed to mean, Ms. Abril?"

"...Nothing," the nurse sadly dismissed.

Both were quiet until they neared the last doorway. "Don't be so down, Doctor Cross," Ms. Abril suddenly said to break the silence. "Besides," she added with enthusiasm as he waved the new assistant's file in front of his face, "this new assistant of yours has an impressive record. She finished second highest in all of the scores from the Stavros Medical University, and she has an impressive amount of field experience."

"Just try not to kill this one, Doctor," she added, laughing.

"I'll try," he laughed back. He smiled for real, wondering what he'd held onto for so long. It was his last day with his closest co-worker, and he knew the least he could do was make sure it was something good between them, that she would leave and think nothing of him again. Opening the door that led to the main entrance hallway, Cross sighed a last time.

"I wonder what kind of person this new partner is..."

To be continued...

I—+—I

NEXT CHAPTER: His fate altered, his life continued... Two years since they met and a year since her journey, a new story begins in the life of assistant nurse Eve Farrell and her partner Doctor Walter Cross. The premonission of death by the Godseed, still lingering, leaving one clue to its existence in his mind when he 'died,' Cross continues his forever search for a cure for his curse and the meaning behind the one word left behind by its creation.

I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I

Author's Note: ...And it was here at the end of the chapter that began the second paragraph of A World Without Cure's Chapter Two. I know this chapter feels repetitive and monotonous, but that was kind of the point - how repetitive and boring Cross' life was - at least, to other people. To him, the monotony meant safety and relief, which is Cross' defining character.

The Second Arc starts at the next chapter, and a new Godseed will soon unfold!