Kahli did a double take as she recognized that this strange man hunched behind the bush was familiar to her, but she couldn't exactly pinpoint from where.
"Well, fancy seeing you here," he said. He was holding a small, purple clam.
And then it hit her. He was the person she'd seen in one of her scenarios back before she'd temporarily disabled her [skill] in order to not have to keep going into a void with that obnoxious mind-speaking jellyfish. It was an understandable decision from Kahli's perspective, although this realization was leading her to wonder whether she truly made the best decision or if she ought to reconsider. Regardless, the man was talking to her, so Kahli did her best to pay attention instead of getting lost inside the swimming sea of her own inner monologue.
"So, um, do you hide behind this bush a lot?" he asked with a toothy grin through his wooden face. His teeth glinted in a small dash of strange, distorted light passing from the bloodied sky. Those were some seriously pearly whites he had, that much was for certain.
"Not normally, though maybe I'll consider it now," said Kahli with a smirk that slightly cracked the plaster on her face. It seemed to be getting more brittle recently, she observed. Did this mean that Kahli was going to at some point soon start developing living wood on her face? She'd been wondering how long it would take for a while now with anxious anticipation. This did seem like an affirmative sign. She'd celebrate this quiet victory later, thought, because once again he'd started talking to her and she was really having a tough time remaining focused on what he was saying.
"Yes, so, I do end up doing this a lot," he said.
Kahli could tell this was the end of a long sentence with lots of nuance and information that she had completely missed, but she didn't feel a need to divulge that to him. After all, hadn't he been taking pictures of them? That's what she remembered from her scenario. In a bid to divert attention away from the fact that Kahli had not at all listened to this man or what he was saying, she decided to jump to accusal right away.
"Why have you been taking pictures of me?!" she spat. She summoned a boulder by her big left foot and looked at him threateningly as if to say, Yes, I have a system, and if you cross me I will use it to fuck you up.
The man's wooden face was painted with shock and embarrassment. "Look, um, it wasn't really that I was taking pictures of you, it was more that I was taking pictures of your friend, at least at first. Though I'll admit that currently I was also taking pictures of you and following you, originally I was only supposed to do that with your friend. You know, the lady with the butterfly tattoo on her shoulder that you had that weird little spat with in the nail salon?"
"Taubitha is not my friend, we recently had a friendship breakup and were trying to with that have a clean break. It's just that we ended up running into one another at the nail salon because that nail salon is the best one in town and I will be damned if I let Taubitha take it away from me with her awful presence!"
"...Okay," the man said slowly. "Look, uh, I don't know how to say this, but, uh, I'm getting out of here."
Kahli's jaw hung wide open as the man stood up and dashed away quickly.
"Hey! Come back here you creep!"
Kahli sprung up and ran after him, only to notice with frustration that he was quickly outpacing her. How was he moving so fast?
She was rapidly approaching an alleyway that he'd dashed into. As Kahli looked down the alley, she saw the man scale up the side of a building like a spider, hop over to the other through the use of several backflips, leap off another building and swing on a fire escape to a higher up roof of building that he then ran down. In a matter of mere moments he disappeared completely overhead. So much for catching him, Kahli thought for a second, and then she was caught by a tinge of determination.
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
No, she would not give up, Kahli was not a quitter. She was going to deal with this and she was going to catch this guy!
How could she use her system to her advantage? Would her rock summon skill help her? Kalhi used the rock she'd summoned earlier to knock on the fire escape ladder that the man had used to climb up from the second floor of one of the buildings and watched it tumble down to her. She then hoisted in up and stood it against the building. Time to catch him!
As soon as Kahli climbed to the top, she took a deep breath and looked around. She was struck by how beautiful Gifflenberg looked from up above the roof. The blood sky was bewitching and disturbing, but it also had a a strange aura of magic that dazzled and gripped Kahli to the core in ways she couldn't fully put into words. Also, it looked kind of gross.
Then, she saw it.
There was a meteor.
A big, gray boulder as big as a building hurling through space and engulfed in a threatening blue flame. It searing through the sky like it was giving it a paper cut. Kahli thought of the bloody appearance of the sky and for a second she wondered if indeed the amazing meteor was actually giving the sky a paper cut. Then, she thought better of her own thought. She thought she ought to keep it to herself, as it was a little embarrassing.
Wait! Kahli was surely entranced by the meteor, and that was just as well, but she had to look for the guy with the clam camera, didn't she? She glanced around the roof, spotting him in a far corner surrounded by a strange, yellow aura.
"Hey! You!" shouted Kahli. She was being buffeted by a huge gust of wind, no doubt an ill affect from the great power of the meteor. "Hey, seriously, who are you?"
"Sorry, kid, but you're a little too late to get me to divulge such pertinent information," said the guy with a chuckle as the aura surrounding him got bigger and bigger. "I'm about to get the hell out of dodge, and I'd advise you to do the same, if you're even capable of it. That meteor isn't getting any further away from us, and in fact I think it's going to slam into us any second. Hope you have a [Teleport] [skill] like, I do, heh!"
"Don't call me kid!" said Kahli as the guy dissolved into yellow light through the power of his [skill].
And now all there was for Kahli to look at was the meteor. It seemed big as a building! She had to find cover, there was no teleporting out of this for her.
----------------------------------------
"Looks pretty grim out there," said Brahdley as he washed the restaurant window with a dirty rag.
"Yea, but what the hell? I've got a nice Adaulaffian beer and some spicy guppy rolls, and I'm happy with that," said Omar with a small. "My, oh my, those rolls are so fucking tasty. Can't wait til my fried eel finished cooking, though I will say I wish you would cook me that octopus."
"I can't agree with you more," said a man from another table. "I asked them for that octopus, you know, I said I wanted it to be my octopus. But what does this guy tell me? He tells me that the octopus isn't for sale, and that if it was, then the octopus would be on the menu. He tells me to order from the menu. But octopus might as well be on the menu at seafood place, right? And if it isn't, then why have it here? As a pet? A pet octopus? And what's more, a pet octopus at a seafood restaurant? It's just absurd! Are there not health codes to consider with having an octopus in a restaurant as a pet and not as an entree?"
"Gods, does that guy ever shut the fuck up?" Omar quietly whispered.
"No," said Brahd as he walked Omar's fried eel platter over and placed it at his table.
"Ugh, what a nuisance," said Omar as he shoved a fried eel slice into his mouth. "Shit, that is delicious," he muttered through a mouthful of food. "I love this shit. Keeps me coming back here, it does."
"Glad to hear it," said Brahd with a sigh as he walked back to the storefront windows to stare out the at the sky. "Oh, holy shit."
"What?" asked Omar.
"How rude," said the man in the corner table. "Swearing at one's own dining establishment. How debased."
Omar rolled his eyes.
"The meteor looks like it's going to hit somewhere nearby. It looks like it's headed towards downtown Gifflenberg," said Brahd with a wide jaw. "This is some seriously apocalyptic shit going down right here."
"DOOOOM!" said the strange person, they might've been a blank, sitting at the bar pounding Adaulaffian beer on tap.
"Doom is a wash," said Omar, recognizing the person from his walk to the restaurant. "Doom is bullshit, just all you wait. You're all going to be fine, I'm going to be fine, and my fried eel is to die for. Life is good! We should be dancing!"
And then, the ground shook, and all the glass in the restaurant including the windows shattered, and the world seemed to be submerged in a blanket of shadow.