With a nod, Enrique moved to get up. If he was going to travel to Florida, he’d have to pack a few things and prepare. Flights weren’t cheap these days, but this was what he had been preparing for, anyway. It would just be happening earlier than expected.

“If you’re not going to shoot yourself, can I have that gun, please?”

On instinct, Enrique lifted the revolver and pointed it at the voice next to him. Looking over, he saw a woman on the other end. She was a gloomy sort, wearing a dark, baggy t-shirt and equally baggy pants, with her skin contrasting against the darker colors. It almost seemed as if she were someone born with tan skin who had spent too long inside. Her chestnut locks sat in tattered strands, and what he could see of her face behind her hair made him think she was about to break out into tears at any moment. To complete the gloomy look, he could just barely see massive bags under her eyes, enough to seem as if she had painted dark circles on her face with makeup.

“No point in pointing that at me. I won’t die,” she said. Her voice was scratchy and sad, yet Enrique could sense a hint of another emotion within. Anger, perhaps.

Despite himself, Enrique remained calm on the outside. In truth, he was nervous. He’d never killed anybody before, after all. Out of 525 years, such an act would only have been possible during a fraction of his life. But he had lived too long for his limited experience to stop him from doing drastic things. His thought processes shouldn’t be the same as a mortal man.

“You sure about that? From what I can see, dying is pretty easy to do nowadays,” he responded.

The woman tilted her head and pointed at her face. “My eyes are normal.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

As if it would answer anything, the woman just pointed at Enrique’s own face. Out of sheer frustration, he kept the gun trained on her while he tried to figure out what she meant. His reflection in the refrigerator across from him caught his eye, and he nearly jumped out of his skin. Looking back at him was his own face, nothing out of the ordinary. His black curls were a bit disheveled and he had a spot of stubble coming in, but he was otherwise the same. Except one thing. Rather than his usual hazelnut irises, his eyes were black voids, devoid of color and light, even down to the whites. As he watched, the black began to fade, and after a few moments, his eyes were completely normal.

“What? So if your eyes are normal, you’re still immortal? So is everyone overreacting?” Enrique was only becoming more confused.

“I don’t think so. My eyes have shifted twice already in the past few hours. I saw someone get stabbed while their eyes were black, but then their eyes shifted while they were dying, so they ended up fine. I’ve only seen people with black eyes die.” The woman coughed, as if speaking so much was painful for her, and reached over to open the fridge. Enrique watched as she pulled out a water and drank the whole thing in moments, and it suddenly clicked.

“You’re the woman who got shot in the parking lot yesterday. Right outside the store,” he said with narrowed eyes. She seemed harmless enough, and if she was speaking the truth about the eye color, he was safe for now. Not that he would lower his weapon.

“Yup. That’s why I’m wondering what that same gun is doing in your hands. Pointed at me again, too. Does it have a homing function or something?”

Enrique shifted, slowly rising to his feet. The woman did the same, her head pointed straight at him, but her eyes constantly shifting around. He realized she hadn’t looked him in the eyes a single time during this little exchange, and the discomfort he didn’t realize he was feeling rose.

“I took it from him. Good thing. Someone that desperate and stupid might have killed someone with it at this point. Is there a reason you need to feel the same sting in the face as yesterday, or are we done here?”

Before the woman could answer, another voice rang out. “Excuse me, will you be paying for that water?”

Behind the woman, who squeaked and spun around, was a robo-cashier. The strange robot Enrique had noticed the day before. With the same bland, polite expression as any other robot, it stared into the woman’s eyes, which caused her to turn her head down and mumble. To Enrique’s surprise, she actually held out her finger, which the robot scanned with a nod.

Robbery was quite common. If you are confident you won’t be caught, there was no reason to fear the consequences of stealing something as minor as a bottle of water. And with this whole mess going on, where any sort of law enforcement was surely far too busy to reply to a random convenience store’s security alert, Enrique couldn’t believe that the woman went out of her way to pay the stupid robot. Said robot looked over, and Enrique thought he saw a flash of fear play across its rigid features when it saw the gun, but it was gone as quickly as he noticed it.

“Sir, please discard your weapon. I may be forced to call law enforcement for your threatening behavior to a customer,” the robot said. Enrique, in response, simply turned around, opened the fridge, tore open a chocolate milk, and chugged the entire carton in one go.

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“Sir! That was amaz- terrible! Please pay for the chocolate milk immediately, or I will call law enforcement.”

“Can’t you see what’s happening, you robo-dick?” Enrique asked with a manic stare and chocolaty lips. “I need to leave ASAP. I nearly just shot and killed myself. And now this lady and your ass are here, preventing me from eating my cookies. So if you please, I’ll be going now.”

He moved to leave, but the gloomy woman blocked his path. “Pay for the milk. I don’t know what all this stuff about cookies is, but pay for the milk and leave the gun. Then I’ll move.”

Enrique huffed, shoved his finger at the robot, who scanned it quickly, and elbowed past the woman. He did not leave his gun behind; something as valuable as a weapon couldn’t be squandered in uncertain times like these. He thought of the outside world. He had already seen on the news that chaos reigned. With uncertainty came rash behavior. People were killing, looting, and generally being unpleasant for hours now, and that was unlikely to change anytime soon, in Enrique’s estimation. Now that dying was a possibility, people weren’t so relaxed - or bored.

In fact, he was glad to have the knowledge that robots ran the airplanes. Something told him that people weren’t so keen to work at the moment, so if it were still like the olden days when humans flew planes, it would take ages to get home.

At that same moment, a hooded man crashed through the window, causing Enrique to dive behind one of the shelves. Was that the same man from yesterday? Peeking around the corner, Enrique received a swift kick in the forehead, disorienting him for a mere moment. Scrambling to his feet, he saw that it was not the same man as yesterday at all. This man was clean cut and wearing a shredded formal suit covered in a hoodie; certainly a mismatch. In one hand, he held an expensive belt. Expensive, Enrique knew, because the buckle was large and shiny, in the shape of a popular name brand. And hanging dangerously low, as if it were a weapon. His eyes were normal. And to top it all off, blood coated every inch of him and his belongings.

“Sorry, sorry, but please fucking move. I need something,” the belt man said, noticing Enrique’s gun for the first time. That made him more careful, and his eyes narrowed with newfound hunger.

“Look buddy,” the man said, this time with more trepidation. “I’ll just grab what I need and get out. Sound good? No need for violence.”

Enrique wasn’t having it. He could see the guy’s eyes shifting, constantly looking between Enrique’s gun and his feet. This man wanted nothing more than violence, and the blood staining the belt buckle was proof enough of that. Without hesitation, Enrique lifted the revolver and shot the man in the face.

“You goddamn maniac!” the woman cried, peeking from behind the last row. The robot was there too, peeking around the corner above the woman like a cartoon.

“Call it an experiment. You said that black eyes mean a person is mortal, right? Well, that guy’s eyes were ordinary.” As Enrique spoke, the man groaned and sat up, sporting a twisting hole in his face that was rapidly returning to normal.

“Guess that means your theory was right.” Enrique didn’t waste any time. He stepped over the man and moved to leave, sparing a glance for the woman. When the man recovered, he would likely focus on the first target he saw, which would leave Enrique to go home scot-free. He did feel bad, but he didn’t let that stop him. The woman was a stranger, and Enrique had met many strangers. Many of which he never saw again.

The man began to stand up, but before he managed to even say a word, the woman ran up and smashed the top of his head with a brick. Enrique stared at the woman as she poked him with her shoe, eliciting a weak groan. A blow that bad would kill him if it didn’t heal fast. Or if he wasn’t immortal. But of course, as he had seen many times before, the man’s caved-in skull immediately inflated like a balloon back to its previous size, and the blood stopped flowing. He would be fine for sure.

As the woman jogged up to him, Enrique couldn’t help but snort. “That could’ve killed him practically as bad as my gunshot. What were you thinking? Actually, where did you get that brick from? You weren’t holding it before.”

“I was thinking that he deserved it. And I’m still not done with you,” she said, tucking the brick under her shirt, in the front. It was certainly baggy enough to hide something as egregious as a brick, but how did it stay in place? Did she have some sort of pouch there as well?

“Return that gun to the owner. You shouldn’t steal.”

“Are you fucking serious right now, lady? This gun could save my life. No way I’m gonna take the time to track down the nut job - who tried to rob you, by the way - who owns something as bizarre as this in the first place. Like I said, I need to leave.”

“If I may,” a new voice joined. This time, the robot, who was still looking at the rapidly recovering man with worry, joined the frantic discussion. “Stealing is wrong. But so is shooting people. I think you should keep the gun, to make sure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands, and ensure that nobody gets shot by it. But first, you should both shake and make up. Enrique, shake and make up with Reina.”

Was a robot really saying this? And, Enrique noticed, that same robot’s expression was becoming far more expressive, almost as if it had been holding back its emotion. What sort of new model were the convenience stores testing? Worst of all, he certainly didn’t feel comfortable with the fact that this thing revealed his name.

“Whoa, isn’t it against company policy or something to compromise the identity of your customers? Why’d you tell her my name, you trash can? You know what? Forget this. I’m gone,” Enrique said, turning to exit the doors. Behind him, Reina shouted his name, as did the robot. But he barely heard them.

Once the automatic doors opened, Enrique found himself in hell. Or as close to it as he could get while still alive and kicking. Fires roared across the San Francisco rooftops, car alarms blared, people screamed, sirens wailed. And right outside the convenience store, a war zone stretched in front of Enrique’s eyes. Gunshots rang in the streets, vibrating blades whirred, and a sleek car-tank hybrid even rolled forward and blasted a building, crushing withered bodies as it rolled along. The parking lot was a bloodbath. Dark blood stained the pavement, and dissolving corpses filled the open space, most likely the work of the belt man.

And to make matters worse, the blood and withered bodies were lined up, as if to present something. Like a design. They faced one side of the parking lot, where dumpsters and cars were lined up as a protective barrier. A bus sat on the other side, creating a face-off.

A tiny war had sprouted right outside the convenience store, and Enrique hadn’t even realized it.