As Clay entered the passcode to open the garage door, the flies refused to leave him alone. No matter how much he swatted at them or told them to go away, the flies followed, even all the way home. It made Clay wonder if he had died falling off those stairs and he was just a walking corpse.

When Clay reached the door leading into the house, he knew he had to time the entry just right to keep the flies out of the house. He cracked the door as little as he could while still being able to fit through and wormed his way into the house, closing the door as fast as he could. Though he was able to get rid of most of the crowd, a few stragglers still hovered around his head.

“You’re back Dough!” His mom announced while getting up from the seat near her work desk.

“Hey, Dough!” His younger brother Daniel also greeted as he sat on the rocking bench below the kitchen, wearing brown dress pants and no shirt.

Just as Clay walks up the short stairs into the kitchen, Daniel suddenly asks “You ok Dough?” having either noticed his older brothers’ dusty clothes, the small scrapes and cuts on Clay’s checks and arms, or his cold attitude since entering the house.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Clay responds with an irritated mumble.

“Dough, I’m thinking about Tak Smell, you interested?” Alejandro asks Clay as he passes by while he and their dad are watching a hockey game on the flat-screen TV.

“Sure. I’ll take- “

“Hold the phone, Dough! Are you ok?” Their dad abruptly and forcefully asks, noticing the dirt and scratches that Daniel probably noticed a minute ago.

Clay gave the same irritated response to his dad that he did to his younger brother.

“You sure? I mean, I can just drive to Taco Bell if you aren’t feeling up to it.” Alejandro offers.

“I’m fine Han!” Clay finally snaps. As the room goes silent from his intense rebuttal, Clay takes a deep breath and breaks the silence by admitting “Look, I’m sorry. Just, text me when the order is in.”

Clay quickly walked as fast as he could up the stairs and into his room. As per usual, his cat started to meow when her long-time owner returned from his longer walk.

“Not now, Tini Kitty.” Clay dismissed as the cat began to rub her head on his stomach and purred as he sat down on his bed with the dark night being the only backdrop.

Clay had no idea what to think right now. He should have died back on those stairs but here he was, alive with no major injuries. And despite thinking he shooed them away, a crowd of flies hovered over his window. The buzzing became so oppressive that Clay closed his window, which only muffled the sound while his cat began chasing after the ones that remained.

The only thing he could think about doing was updating Shaw about what had happened to him that day. He would have liked to have talked to him about it but since he hasn’t been on Discord for more than a few weeks, Clay would settle for a one-sided joke about his fall to get his mind off it. He sure as hell wasn’t in the mood to read the several novels, comic book omnibuses, or manga that lined both the large black shell near the edge of his bed and the tall TV stand right across.

“Well, I had a hell of a day. I fell down some stairs and somehow, hot dudes didn’t catch me. Turns out life isn’t a shitty shojo rom-com after all lmao.” Clay typed and sent. Just as he was about to exit Discord, he almost instantly got a response.

“Wait tell me more about that first part.” Shaw asked, early in the night.

While Clay didn’t know much about Shaw Ku Gan, he did know that he lives in England. So, Shaw DMing at around this time was odd to Clay but right now, he couldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

“Yeah…. It’s weird man. I just some light as I left the manga store and kept hearing some…. Weird ringing in my head while I was try to walk down the stairs.” Clay recapped as Shaw replied to the 20 other DM’s that were sent his way. Clay was so excited that, as per usual, his spelling was spotty at best.

“DAMN, you ok?” Shaw asked while in the middle of recommending his favorite anime of the season and commenting on Clay’s long, impromptu review of a visual novel.

“I mean…. Honestly, idk.” Clay admits. Something he would not say easily to another person.

Clay met Shaw on an anime server he used to be a member of. Before he met Shaw, Clay had a falling out with another member that he had gotten close to. The fallout was so rough that Clay contemplated turning to the bottle to escape from the self-loathing and hurt. However, Clay decided against it, not wanting to give up on himself and the hope that his future would be better. He met Shaw Ku Gan after a long period of inactivity on the server. Even though he left that Discord server a few months back, he still talked with Shaw whenever he would pop in.

“Flies keep swarming me. It’s almust as if I’m supposeed to be a zombie. Not a ghost waifu sadly.” Clay jokes, referencing one of Shaw’s favorite animes.

“LMAO, what a shame. Otome x Amnesia is a masterpiece.”

As Clay laughs at the comment, Shaw quickly asks “Anyway, you having weird dreams?”

“What do you mean? Weird dreams?” Clay replies in confusion and shock.

“I mean…. nvm” Shaw rebuffs.

“Wdym?” Clay forcefully repeats.

“Nothing, forget I said anything.” Shaw reiterates.

It became clear that Shaw was hiding something from Clay, but Clay had gotten used to this somewhere along the way. Unlike Clay, Shaw was a person who kept his cards close to his chest (so much so that he insisted that he wasn’t even human for almost the entire first year of their correspondence).

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As usual, Clay decided not to press any further. Despite both not knowing what he looked or sounded like and against his better judgment, Clay decided to place his trust in Shaw. Shaw told him his name the last time they chatted, so Clay figured he would give him more personal info when he felt the time was right. Though there was one question that has been eating at Clay’s mind since the beginning of the conversation.

“Anyway, what time is it on your end? Must be like around 1 AM in Britain.” Clay jokingly asks.

“Oh, it’s the same time as you. Shigaraki smile. Shaw slyly declares while using his technique of typing out emojis he can’t use outside of anime servers to emphasize the emotion of the statement.

“Wait?! FR?!” Clay responds in shocked excitement.

“No. Maybe. Who knows.”

Before Clay can press further about Shaw’s response, a text message suddenly appears on his phone, informing him “Order’s in whenever you’re ready.”

“Man, that would be awesome, you know, having you around.” Clay commented, briefly ignoring his brother’s text to wrap up his sudden conversation with Shaw.

“LMAO, no homo tho. Shaw jokingly threw back at him.

“Right, no yabo.” Clay responded, referencing an anime title that Shaw told him about which Clay found similar to the term ‘no homo’.

“Anyway, the time has come. I g2g, picking up taco bell for the bro.” Clay explained. Before he put his phone back into his pocket, he saw one last DM from Shaw.

“Look, I understand that you’re scared, who wouldn’t be? Don’t worry, everything will be fine. Trust me, Clayton.”

“Thanks, Shane.” Clay replied, figuring that if Shaw was using his full name, Clay could call Shaw by his real first name. Since he was a person born and raised in Morocco (at least, that’s what Shaw told him anyway), Clay had found the name odd, but Shaw explained that his father is a fan of classic American and spaghetti westerns.

“Anyway, take care. Cya tomorrow, maybe, who knows. Also watch Oshi no Ko episode 1…. You must.” Shaw concludes.

Clay just chuckled as he stood up from his bed. The feeling of dread and uncertainty faded as he walked out of his room.

As he made his way down the stairs, Clay heard a low guttural call of his nickname, “Dough!”

Clay let out a sudden “Huh?” in response.

“I didn’t say anything.” His dad proclaims as he sat on the couch watching a YouTube video (apparently the hockey game was over).

“But I just heard somebody call my name.” Clay confirms.

“Oh, I think I might have just burped.” His dad answers.

Clay could have sworn that it wasn’t just a burp. Despite how low the voice was, he could have sworn he had heard his nickname. Clay just chalked it up to nerves, though he was disappointed that his conversation hadn’t calmed them down like he had originally thought.

***

A few minutes later, Clay returns with a large bag from Taco Bell, two large plastic cups filled with Mountain Dew Baja Blast, and a swarm of flies hovering over his head like a sun orbiting a planet.

“Thanks, Dough- what’s the deal with the fly’s man? They look hungrier than you do!” Alejandro jokes as he swats at the flies while pulling off a purple clip that Clay had put onto the bag as a precaution, and hands him the nachos and cheese sauce he had ordered for Clay.

“No idea.” Clay flatly answers as he grabs his small bag of nachos, the hot cup of cheese sauce, and one of the large cups of Baja Blast.

“Thanks for the stuff, Han,” Clay concludes as he turns to walk up the stairs and back to his room.

“No problem, thanks for picking it up. …Listen, are you ok? You seem, I don’t know…. Off since you came back from your walk.” Alejandro asks despite knowing the answer he’ll get.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I’ll let you know if that changes.” Clay replies with his back turned to his older brother as he continues to walk up the stairs.

As he makes his way to the top, Clay’s vision is overtaken by the same, purple-outlined black light he saw while exiting the manga store, in a literal blink of an eye. All the while, a similar though less severe echo rang through his ears.

The sudden light and sound attack cause Clay to lose his balance for a moment, which gives him enough time to reach his palm out and catch the wall on his left. He still drops the nachos and drink he was carrying.

“Dough. Chosen. We must…. Communicate” the same voice he heard before he left to pick up Taco Bell commands.

“What the actual hell?!” Clay thinks as he looks around the hallway in vain for the voice.

Clay, while struggling to both stand up from a crouching position and keep his startled mind from slowly breaking, sees his cat running out of his room and toward him. When she makes her way to her owner, the cat starts meowing at Clay, as if to ask him if he’s ok.

“Yeah, Tini, I’m fine. Thanks for asking.” Clay sarcastically responds to his cat’s calls as he pats her head with his free hand.

Soon, Clay gathers up all the spilled nachos and the cup of cheese that miraculously didn’t open when it fell onto the floor, his free hand trembling as he grabs his food. Flustered, he ignores the calls from all over the hall asking him what had happened as he walks into his room.

As Clay places the nachos and cheese on the glass table beside his bed, a wave of exhaustion falls over him. When Clay lays down on his bed, he looks at his phone and sees that the time is 10:30 PM. Sure he had walked more than he usually did but considering his horrible sleep schedule, that shouldn’t be enough to stop Clay from staying up till 5 in the morning.

Before Clay could ask himself why he felt so tired, he suddenly falls asleep while his door is open and his cat chases the flies around him like she did a couple of hours prior.

***

When Clay came to, everything was black, and he was floating. The only thing that came to mind was a joke from an 80’s movie; ‘How much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black.’ But right now, Clay wasn’t laughing.

Clay had no idea if he was dreaming or not and that terrified him. The oppressive, unknown around him shook Clay to his very core. And yet, despite evidence from his eyes, Clay had a creeping, chilling feeling that he was not alone in his darkness. Somehow, he could feel the piercing gaze of 1000 eyes that he could not see.

Even though he desperately wanted to call out to whoever was in this blank realm, his nerves were shot, and he could not muster up the energy to do anything other than nervously sweat and tremble.

“Dough! Formless. Shapeless! Nothing without the hand of another. Yessssss! Such a perfect designation! Chance has smiled brightly for me in his dimension.” The disembodied voice Clay had heard during the later part of his day had declared. Of course, Clay had no idea what the hell he was talking about, nor could he see where the voice was coming from.

“What do you even goddamn mean?! SHOW YOURSELF!” Clay shrieked, they were the first words that he could get out of his mouth, he could worry about how cliché and cringy they were later.

“For the first, think for yourself, simpleton! For the second…. Look around! Tell me what you see.

“I…. I see…. Nothing.”

“EXACTLY! And everything. All at once! That is what I am. What WE are!” The voice continues to vaguely explain, though calling it an explanation might be too charitable.

“What are you? …. And what do you want with me?!”. Clay anxiously questions.

Clay wishes he could quip and blow off…. whatever is happening here like he was a superhero or a badass hero from an action series but the pressure from whatever the hell he was talking to was overwhelming.

“You like to ask questions in packs of two aye? As you can see, I am the Void. As for what I want? I just want you to accept my blessing, not that either of us has much of a choice. I then want you to follow the voice of fate.”

Before Clay can ask the voice what the hell its mad ramblings actually mean, he sees a small ray of light poking out the ceiling of the Void.

“It appears our first encounter has come to a sudden close. You simpletons and your strange bodies….” The voice grumbles.

“We shall encounter each other again. Remember, follow the voice of fate.” The voice concluded as Clay’s vision blacked out like a TV shutting off.