Two days ago

“Meow! Meeeeeow! Meow!!!”

It is with those calls from his cat that Clayton Alverez abruptly woke up. Groggy and irritated, his first instinct is to look to his right to see if she needed water. He had owned her since he was around 12 years old, so this wasn’t the first time Clay had woken up due to forgetting to refill her water bowl the previous night. Surprisingly, she still had plenty left in her bowl.

Did Bab and Tini Kitty make some sort of agreement? Clayton considers as he reaches for his cell phone while his cat sits on his stomach, purring. As he turns on his phone, he finds that the time is 12:41 pm.

Clearly, Bab isn’t paying her enough. Clay thinks as he continues to pet his longtime cat. Before he can begin entering his security code to open his phone, he sees a text below a series of three QR codes, saying “Dough. I got a few Amazon returns downstairs whenever you’re available. No rush.”

“Not like I got anything better to do…” Clay thought to himself as he yawned and stretched himself awake. “He did say no rush though….”

The first order of business was to check Discord and see if Shaw Kugan answered any of his direct messages. Shaw was a guy Clay met on an anime discussion server a couple years back. Though he considered Shaw his closest friend currently, Clay doesn't know what he looks like and has not entered a voice chat with him.

Despite that, he understood why he kept his real-life details to himself (Clay was just some random dude on the internet from Shaw’s perspective) and he enjoyed the anime and philosophy talks. Though Shaw seemed to not be showing up on Discord recently so Clay had to value what little conversation he could get, though that never stopped him from sending over his random thoughts (or ‘observations’, as Shaw called them) from time to time.

After seeing that Shaw had not replied to his…. Numerous observations (roughly 20 messages in total) and just before Clay could start reading Manga on his phone, he heard an all too familiar song echo throughout the hallway outside his bedroom door;

“DEATH OF THE BAAAACH-ULER!”

Upon hearing the, admittedly pretty good, singing voice of his older brother Alejandro, Clay’s hope of starting off his morning catching up on last week’s chapter releases would have to wait, again.

After taking a shower and putting on his standard outfit of jeans, a graphic t-shirt, and a bandana to keep his long hair out of his eyes, Clay walks downstairs to see the standard scene of his dad on the couch, taking a work call in Spanish with one of the family dogs, a black lab, laid down on the section to the right, taking up the whole space. Not that Clay needed to ask him anything, the small packages were sitting there on the table, and he had already given him the QR codes.

As he made his way past the kitchen, with one small box and two white package slips in hand, his mom greeted him while she worked at her computer stationed next to the sliding door that leads to the backyard. Before Clay can open the door leading to the garage, his mom asks, “You get my text?”

“Uh… No.” Clay answered, both groggy and unclear about what she was talking about.

“I saw they were hiring for editors at the local newspaper. Couldn’t hurt to give it a look.”

“…. Thanks,” Clay responded after letting out a small sigh, trying his best to hide his irritation from getting yet another unsolicited job posting from one of his parents.

When Clay reaches the wall hanger on the left side of the room where the car keys would normally be, he finds them nowhere to be found. Realizing the situation but wanting to make sure he was right; Clay opens the garage door to find the family car is gone.

“Druid had to go to a job interview today. I don’t know when he’ll be back. You might want to wait.” His mom abruptly explained.

Though this added yet another degree of unforeseen complication and frustration to Clay’s loose plans for the day (how could he have known that his younger brother had an interview today?), he noticed in his brief trip outside that the weather was rather nice today.

The sun was blazing, which was normal in Las Vegas, but the wind added a nice chill without becoming overwhelming like it is most of the time. Add in the light amount of returns he currently had in his hands and the closest post office being a 5-to-10-minute drive anyway and his course of action was set.

“Actually, I might as well just walk,” Clay concluded.

“Good idea. Let's you move your body around.” His mom agreed.

Clay sighed and commented back “…. Yeah.” Finding a job was not the only thing his parents insisted on him to do.

I’m a 28-year-old man now. Let me handle my own business, ok? I’ll ask if I need help anyway. Clay often thought to himself.

Though, much like his thoughts on his brother’s singing, he rarely, if ever, voiced his irritations. It didn’t bother Clay enough to bother saying anything and in his parent’s case, he realized that their concern, while unwanted, came from a good place.

“Be careful Dough.” His mother advised as Clay, now wearing a red hoodie, turned the doorknob on the door leading to the garage.

“You too Bab,” Clay replied flatly as his mother continued to type on her work computer keyboard.

As Clay made his way to the post office, clear blue sky in the background, the only thing on his mind was Shit! How the hell am I going to pay my credit card bill this month? My Christmas money is drying up faster than I thought. Damn it, I shouldn’t have gotten that Gundam 00 box set. But goddamn, I couldn’t resist that deal. 110 bucks over the usual $180. If only I knew how to find a job. I mean, sure, I could probably find one as a dishwasher but all that work just for a payday? What good will that do me in the long run? If only I could get my lazy ass back into writing, But I’ve got so many ideas, how do I narrow it down?

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

As he reaches the crosswalk leading to the area where the post office is, Clay lets out a sigh and thinks to himself I’m pathetic. Even credit card debt and student loans can’t even get me to make the next step. I really am a loser.

***

After dropping off the Amazon returns at the post office, informing his dad, and buying a bottle of Coke from the Asian supermarket next door (they were only a dollar, one Clay thought he could spare), Clay was at a loss about what to do with the rest of his day.

Sure, he could try to watch more episodes of Hunter x Hunter, but a day as nice as this was worth more than any Shonen battle anime, or at least just as much anyway. He figured since it was only 1:40 PM, he should enjoy the remaining sunlight however he could.

After drinking the last drop of Coke, Clay decided to head to the one place he always made a point of walking to whenever he found the time and energy, the manga store.

***

After walking the usual 1.3 miles (a walk his parents thought was ‘far’, but he was used to it by now), Clay was close to his destination. He just needed to make sure he didn’t get run over by cars as he entered the plaza.

He often wondered if he would be reincarnated into another world if he got hit but Clay believed he had too much to experience and see in the life he already had, so the thought was only fleeting and treated as dark humor.

When he finally made it past the cars and the crowds of people in the plaza, Clay decided to sit down on the stone bench near the stairs leading to the manga store, to give his body a rest before climbing the steep stairs. As well as time to calm his mind. He had applied to work there a few months back, but he didn’t make the final cut. Though he ultimately didn’t hold hard feelings, there was still a small part of him that just couldn’t help it. A small part that Clay needed to quiet before he felt like he could come inside the store.

Once Clay had his few minutes of rest, he walked up the steep stone steps and entered the manga store, greeted by the two shop owners. Though Clay felt a tinge of guilt for window shopping, he felt he’d given them plenty of business in the past and besides, it didn’t hurt to make a wish list in the future when the money started coming in, whenever that was.

As Clay starts to skim through a light novel (one of the most recent of his long list of hobbies), he notices a group of four girls enter the store. One of them catches his eye, a petite girl with long, flowing caramel-colored hair wearing blue striped short-shorts and a white top.

Though Clay had seen many beautiful women in his time (most of which he had met and struck out with during his four college years in Ohio.), there was something particularly radiant about this one.

"Come on man, just talk to her, damn it!” Clay desperately commanded in his head as his palm began to sweat.

At this point, Clay was reduced to a sweating, trembling mess as he kept staring at the Carmel-haired girl. When she looked over in his direction, Clay just forcefully turned his head and buried his face in the light novel as subtly as he could.

"Why?! Son of a bitch! Why am I so damn awkward?! Just say hi!” Clay complained to himself.

“Excuse me.” the girl suddenly asked.

This was the chance Clay was looking for. And yet, he took one step forward and allowed her to pass behind him as she walked to the next shelf.

“Nice shirt.” One of the other girls complimented Clay.

"T-thanks.” Clay sheepishly replies, without looking the other girl in the eye as she walks past him to meet up with her caramel-haired friend.

“Not again! Shit! What the hell is wrong with me?!” Clay questioned himself as he forcibly put the light novel he had been holding back onto the shelf. “It’s been at least a few years, right? I really haven’t changed….”

As Clay kept staring at the caramel-haired girl, at war within himself about approaching her, she and her group left the store with a bag full of Chainsaw Man volumes.

“And she even had good taste in manga…… goddamn it!” Clay lamented with sweaty fists clenched in frustration.

As Clay spends hours skimming the latest releases (his favorite among them was Undead Unluck), he notices the light of the setting sun coming into the store.

“Shit, what's the time?” Clay wondered to himself while letting out a chuckle that was both amused and exasperated.

He took out his phone from his pocket and saw the time was 5:45 PM.

“Holy shit! I’ve been here that long?” Clay liked to take his time shopping but even he found this ridiculously amusing. He wasn’t even buying anything, yet he spent more than two hours at just one store.

Deciding that now was the time to head home, Clay made his way to the front entrance of the store, gave a nonchalant wave to the tall man working the cash register (Clay had been at the store long enough to see the tall man change shifts with the owners, who presumably went home to take care of their kids) and reminding him as he was exiting the door “I’ll be back for the next Fist of the North Star volume.”

As the door to the manga store closed behind him, a flash of purple-outlined black light completely encompassed his vision. Before he can panic about going blind, the light goes away as quickly as it appears.

Despite the image of the Las Vegas sunset returning to his eyes, the sounds of cars, rustling wind, and airplanes overhead were replaced with a low, hollow, buzzing, synthesized echo, that flooded his brain and rattled his chest, disorienting him and forced him to one knee.

He reached frantically for something to stabilize himself with, just missing the thick stone railing just outside the shop. The commotion was enough to stir the cashier who ran out to help him. Clay could see the man’s lips move but it was as if there was no sound that could overtake the constant buzz. Clay managed to mutter an affirmation to the man. Something like “I’m fine” though he was unsure as the buzzing continued to dominate his senses

Clay pulls himself back to his feet and quickly mashes his hand over his ears, but the constant, nauseating vibration of the echo makes standing a herculean feat.

Since the elevator leading to the ground floor of the plaza was out of order, Clay had to cling to the railing, dragging himself along until he finally made it to the stairs on the right side of the second floor.

Clay starts reaching for the hand railing of the stairs and in the split second between reaching his hand out and said hand reaching the railing, the echo finally stops. The sudden cutting off of the sound that oppressed his ears shocks Clay, causing his hand to miss the railing putting him off balance and sending him tumbling down the unforgiving stone steps.

What happened next shocked Clay, he was fine.

He had fallen down a long flight of steep, stone steps, and yet his neck, back, arms, or legs were not broken.

Outside of a few light cuts on his face, mild but bearable soreness in his arms and legs, and some dust and dirt on his clothes, Clayton Alvarez was still very much alive and kicking.

As a small crowd of people began forming around him, Clay, unsure of what the hell was going on, just ran from the scene he did not mean to make.

“What the hell just happened!? What the fuck going on?!” Clay’s panicked mind kept repeating as his run turned into a panicked fast walk after he left the plaza. All the while a crowd of flies began to hover around Clay, replacing the crowd of people from the plaza.