CONNECT: Rise Of The Undead King

Uche suddenly felt a slight pain on his missing eye, it was as if a faint naked flame was burning in the depth of his empty eye socket, it wasn't that painful nor was it any pleasant, and just as he place his palm on the black eye patch, something strange started happening.

The slight pain he could feel had disappeared, and the faint burning flame also disappeared, now replaced by something else, it was replaced by a blurred image, he was seeing the blurred image from the empty socket of his missing eye, making it look like a vision.

He rubbed his hand on the eye patch a few times, and the image became clearer, turning into a distant vision.

In the vision, he could see a huge spacious and cozy bedroom with all kinds of luxurious furniture, the bedroom is completely white, toned with several artwork, mostly pencil illustration, hung all over the wall.

He could see a small table a few meters away from the large bed, a glass cup stood on the table with a powder coffee inside it, a silver kettle stood close to the cup.

A blink of an eye later, a shaky hand grabbed the kettle and started pouring its content inside the glass cup, while it spilled on the table as the hand is shaking.

Uche watch as the hand grabbed the glass of coffee and started moving towards the bed. He couldn't see it but he guess that the owner of the hand sat on the bed as it moves the glass of coffee upward, then a few seconds later, empty.

The hand's grip on the glass tightened after its content had been emptied, several cracks appear on the glass before breaking into countless shards of glass, with a few of them piercing the hand, blood seeping out of it.

Then the vision faded away, Uche couldn't see it again.

"What... what was that?"

Uche rubbed his palm on his empty eye a few times, with sweat rolling down his forehead and his heart beating faster.

"Was my second eye transplanted to that person? How come am able to see what the person is seeing."

"This doesn't make any sense, I need to go back to that lab."

He quickly got off his bed and rushed to the bathroom.

----

Several people had gathered at the front of a popular theater in Lagos City, and many people are still finding their way to the theater as they move forward in anticipation, trying to confirm what they have just heard. Among this set of people is a young lady probably in her eighteens, she had a brown scarf on her neck as she finds her way through the crowd and eventually find herself in front of the popular theater.

People always gathered in this certain theater every day to watch different series of movies, but today is different, their gathering this morning is not for the same purpose it has always been, in fact, the population of the people here right now is twice the population of those who gathered in the theater everyday.

A statue of a middle-aged woman stood motionless right in front of the theater, the statue was well carved, made out of pure gray bricks and several sleek metal, the woman had a short braided hair with tiny eyes and her mouth, left wide opened, in awe. A bunch of roses could be seen between the woman's statue arm.

The view of the statue gave the people a feeling of awe, a pure work of art. The person who carved it must have been a great and special art master.

They all look at the statue with admiration and surprise, it's not everyday they see something as beautiful as this, so they had no choice but to admire and gave kudos to the great mind who took their time to sculpture it. They were surprise because the statue had not been there before, it was never in front of the theater so they all wondered how the statue had gotten there.

The statue was not there last night when the theater closed, it was as if someone had brought it somewhere else and dropped it here in the middle of the night, because they all knew it's impossible for it to be built through the night. It would take at least two days to build something as perfect as this.

And the reason people had gathered here this morning is for the sudden appearance of the statue.

After finally confirming it with her eyes, the young woman brought out her portable camera and started taking pics of the statue, she move closer to it and capture it from all sides, making sure to capture every detail of the statue.

And that's how she was able to see something that nobody have noticed since gathering around the statue. She zoomed her camera well so she could see it clearly, under the right arm of the woman statue where a bunch of flowers was kept, a strange symbol could be seen right there. The symbol was carved neatly right under the woman's arm.

It was that of letter P and L crossing over each other, making it look like a one sided hammer crossing over a spanner. Having no ideas what this means, she zoomed her camera more and capture the symbol.

Just as she took the picture of the symbol, something wet dropped on her face.

She took the camera away and slowly place her hand on her forehead, touching the substance that had dropped, then when she brought her hand down to look at the substance, she took a few steps back, away from the statue.

"Blood?"

Mira thought, surprise, she looked up, tracing the origin of the blood and that's when she could see that it had dropped from the shoulder of the statue, and looking at it now, blood was slowly dropping from the arm of the statue.

"This is not an ordinary statue, everyone step back."

She said aloud, her voice booming with confident.

Everyone turn to look at her side, and that's when they could see it clearly.

"What's that?"

"Blood?"

"Where did it come from."

"How did blood get on the statue."

Everyone was surprised, fear gripping some of them, and a few had started moving away from the statue.

A few minutes later, several cops got into the crowd and draw a caution tape around the statue, making everyone move away from it, but as at that time, blood was already seeping out of the statue's mouth, eyes, nose and ears, giving it a sight of horror.

Many people immediately left the scene because of this.

The statue was brought down before the cops run an investigation on it, and found out that it was a corpse, the statue was the corpse of a middle-aged woman who had died not too long. After examining the corpse and failed to find the cause of death, apart from the blood dripping out from her body, an elite squad of forensic was called to run an autopsy.

Within a few minutes, the news of the strange corpse statue had spread all around the world like wildfire, going from one city to another, through gossips, different press media and internet, everyone had heard about it and it had turn the world uproar.

Ruckus was being made on the internet, after people had seen several pictures and videos of the statue, and through this internet ruckus, a name had been unopposedly and publicly given to the statue.

It was now known as Corpse Art, and whoever was behind the strange stuff had been given Corpse Art Killer.

---

Uche had also heard about the corpse art event and wondered who would be crazy, heartless at the same time incredible enough to do something like that. Killing someone, design the corpse like a art statue and display it in front of a public theater.

It's just too crazy.

Not knowing what to think of the situation, Uche decided to wait till night falls before going back to the lab, going back there is risky but he knew he had to be extra careful, so he won't be kidnapped again like he had been yesterday.

And just as the night sky swallowed the lingering fragments of the pale sun, Uche got into a black hood, covered his head, reset his eye patch, and slowly walk out of his house.

He had a whole collection of all kinds of hood in his shelve as that's what he had been using to protect his identity in this past few years.

A couple hours later, Uche stood in front of a tall building that was made with pure glass and pristine metal, the building is twenty one story tall, and looking up at the upper floor from the ground, he could see that one of the rooms at the first floor had its window broken.

It was where he had escaped through last night, when he was being pursued in the lab.

He remained in the same position for a minute, staring at the broken window while thinking of the best manner of approach.

And just as he was about to ask take a step forward, a voice came from beside him.

"Hey, stop there, identity yourself."

"Wait, isn't that the bastard from yesterday, don't tell me he's got the nerves to come back here."

"Get him."

Hearing those words, Uche wasted no time before turning around and picked a race. The men ran after him, there are about 7 of them outside, but a few more are already coming out after hearing those words, not just from the tall building, but from the surrounding buildings.

He made a quick turn and got into a random hallway leading him into an empty and abandoned lobby.

The lobby was dimly lit with a faint orange bulb going on and off as if power was being extinguished from it, running through the opened vast empty space, Uche heard several footsteps got into the lobby, he continue running forward without looking back. Until a passage could be seen, cut to his right, he made a quick turn and entered the passage, then continue running forward.

"Get him, he must not go."

"You guys, go block the other side of the passage, now."

One of the men commanded, and five men separated from the group, running forward instead of entering the passage. While others followed Uche behind.

He continue running forward, made another turn after reaching a dead end on the passage, he turn to his left entering another passage that seemed to be longer than the previous one, he continue running with his heart racing faster.

'Why am I so stupid, why didn't I think about it before.'

'I mean, the old man already know about me, he will surely tell his men to look out for me. Damn it.'

He knew he had made a mistake, these people have already know about his identity, it's not just a person or two, but a whole lot of them, he would have no choice but to leave the city entirely and never return.

He doesn't have much time to think about it right now, because just as he finally get to the end of the long passage after running for a while, someone suddenly lunged at him from the right side, in the hopes of grabbing his head.

But due to the swiftness of his body, he was able to avoid the man by jerking his head back and take a few steps backward.

Four men stepped out of the corner and blocked his way, with the man who had first lunged at him, they slowly moves towards him while he continue taking several steps back.

The men that were chasing him from behind were already closing the distance he had given them, they were about fifteen of them behind him.

'What to do, think, think, think, I can't let them get me, not now, not even forever.'

He was thinking of a way to escape the twenty of them, fighting is not an option as he couldn't think of a way to defeat them, and he's not planning to get hurt and heal back in front of them, he's not ready to reveal his self healing power.

'Well, they already know that I'm a Connect, so there's no harm in showing them what a Connect can do.'

Just as he had those thought, the five men in front of him suddenly falls down, not just a normal fall though, almost as if they were being electrocuted. Surprised, Uche stopped moving back, taking a sudden halt, the men behind him were only a few meters away from him, but they also stopped in their track after seeing their comrade falling down.

"What the hell?"

"What's going on? "

"What did you do to them, bastard."

The men behind him yelled.

And just at that moment, a figure slowly came into view, the figure was clad in a complete black strange material, no, almost like an astronaut, but in black coat instead, with an opaque helmet.

"Who are you?"

"Identify yourself."

One of the men shouted.

But instead of the figure to reply, it simply pointed its finger at Uche, signalling for him to run. The young man hesitated for a second, but after noticing the men moving towards him again, he wasted no time running forward, running past the mysterious figure and made a right turn. The figure followed him behind and so did the relentless men, but just as they made a right turn, several junks fell from above, blocking their way and a cloud of dust also block their view, while Uche and the mysterious figure continue running forward.