With a yell and cold sweat covering his body, Clay Alverez awakens from his bizarre nightmare. As fragments of sunshine from the morning sun break through the horde of flies outside his bedroom window, Clay wonders if anything he just dreamed was real. The normal answer would be ‘Of course not, what is this, some shitty horror anime?’ but Clay could recall everything that Void creature had said, something that shouldn’t be possible with most dreams.

The other question on his mind (among the hundreds he already had) was how long was their meeting? It felt like it took less than an hour and yet, it was clearly morning. Clay checked the time on his phone, and it was 9:40 AM, yet the fact that he woke up before noon was not what shocked him. His phone must have been acting up because it was said that it was two days later.

“What the hell?! I was asleep for a WHOLE DAY!?” How?! Holy shit?!” Clay panicked, gripping his long hair as if he was going mad or trapped in a knockoff persona game.

While Clay freaked out, his cat started hissing at him and took a defensive stance, her pupils dilated.

“Tini! What’s wrong!?” Clay asks as he reaches out to pet his cat, who only swipes at him for his efforts. Clay just barely manages to pull his hand back before her claws could hit him.

“What are you doing, hairy lady!?” Clay yells at his cat as he gets up from his bed.

Despite not knowing what was going on, Clay began to take off his clothes and look through the drawers next to the head of his bed for a new outfit. Just as he grabs a pair of jeans without any holes or rips, his door forcefully opens.

“What's going on here!?” His two brothers ask in unison.

“Everything is fine guys, chill out. Holy crap.” Clay responds to his brothers barging into his room in a panic.

“Oh…. Clay. Uhh, sorry about that?” Daniel replied in confusion.

“It’s…. fine? I guess?” Clay accepts his younger brother's confused apology with equal confusion. His family mostly calls him by his nickname, so it was weird for them to use his first name outside of any serious argument.

As his brothers walk back into their rooms with expressions on their faces that indicate they had forgotten what they were doing, Clay walks over to the bathroom close to his room. As he enters the bathroom, he feels light yet sharp pressure on his tongue. Clay places his clothes on the countertop and sticks his tongue out in front of the mirror.

Clay finds what looks like a black hole on the center of his tongue outlined in purple that he could swear was pulsing. In response, Clay hastily turned on the faucet, cupped his hands underneath the flowing water, and filled his mouth so fast that there were little drops left on his cheek. After 20 minutes of swishing the moment of truth had come. Clay spit into the sink only to find the mark still there.

Not sure what else to do, Clay opened the bottle of mouthwash on the countertop and hastily poured it directly into his mouth until it nearly spilled out of the corners. After a good 10 minutes of violently swishing mouthwash, Clay spit it out into the sink to find nothing changed, the mark remained.

Clay could not believe it was still there. What the hell was it? And when did he get it? It wasn’t like that thing in his dream shot his tongue with some magic laser or something. The only thing he could think of was that he must have been sleepwalking, but for an entire day? And how the hell could he have gotten a tattoo on his tongue of all places if he was barely conscious? Do they even do tongue tattoos?

Still at a loss for what to do, Clay walks into Alejandro’s room right across from the bathroom.

“Hey Han. Do you know what I was doing yesterday?” Clay asked in a very stilted and awkward fashion. He didn’t quite know how to phrase his question given how dumb it sounded on the surface.

“Han?” his older brother asked in kind, with a confused look on his face.

“Yeah, do you know what I was doing yesterday?” Clay repeated, unaware of what Alejandro was asking him.

“Ok, how do you know my nickname? Do I even know you?” Alejandro continued to ask, ignoring Clay’s line of questioning.

“Hilarious, please tell me what I was doing yesterday.” Clay insisted in an irritated tone underscored by a creeping anxiety.

“I don’t know. I think you were in your room all day yesterday? My memory is out of whack today. Everything’s just mumbo jumbo, you know?” Alejandro replies with a playful yet oddly uneasy and distant tone.

“Ok…” Clay concludes as he walks back to the bathroom, with more questions than he had before.

***

As Clay returns from his shower, he sits on his bed, his hands nervously balled up into a fist. His nerves and growing anxiety make the overwhelming buzzing outside his window sound even louder.

“Goddamn it! Just go away!” Clay shouts at his window, his nerves reaching their breaking point.

Almost in tandem with his tantrum, a purple light comes out of his mouth like the flash of a camera and the flies do as they are told, they fly away from Clay’s window. Yet this does not bring any relief to Clay, it just raises more questions, again. Clay tries to watch YouTube videos, Hunter X Hunter episodes, and even play some of the Trails from Zero, and yet these previously sweet escapes from the uncertainty of the real world, he could not get his mind off whatever the hell he was going through.

Clay felt tempted to message Shaw but he didn’t feel like flooding his DM’s right now. Noticing the setting sun outside his window, Clay looked at the time on his phone and it was 5:20 PM.

Since focusing on anything other than the weird dream was off the table and ignoring the bizarre phenomena occurring around him was impossible, Clay decided that the only other thing he could do to calm down was to go on a walk. As to where, he couldn't decide right now but Clay always felt that Vegas Chinatown looked particularly beautiful at night, which was approaching in an hour or two.

As he walked down the stairs and into the living room, Clay noticed that his dad didn’t greet or say anything to him. Normally that would not bother Clay but he was so used to his parents commenting about him coming downstairs on days when he practically locked himself in his room. Normally, Clay would think his dad was just busy watching Gold Rush on the TV but with all the near-death experiences, flies, unexplained tongue tattoos, and …. Dark gods? Something about the silence felt unnerving rather than relaxing.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

As Clay walked down the last step of the stairs, the dog laying on his usual section of the couch started growling, which filled the whole living room.

“It’s ok, Chewie,” Clay told the black lab, only for him to start barking furiously at Clay. Though the dog was too lazy to get off the couch, his barking attracted the attention of the other family dog, an English bulldog with completely white fur while Clay’s dad yelled at the black lab to stop.

“Tom! Chill out!” Clay commanded, knowing that he was just copying Chewie. But instead, the bulldog started biting his legs which caused Clay to rush down to where his shoes were.

His mom gave Clay the same silence as he slipped on his boat shoes. Normally, she would ask Clay where he was going when he went out for a walk or drive. Out of nowhere, Clay proclaimed “I’m heading out now!” but nobody responded aside from the bulldog who just defensively growled and glared at him from atop the stairs leading to the family room.

Clay then shut the door leading to the garage so hard that it completely took it off by its hinges. Shaken up once again by yet another strange happening, Clay pressed the garage door button and frantically slid his way out before the door could fully open.

***

20 minutes after his sudden sprint turned into a tired walk, Clay had finally made it to one of his many comfort places in the city, Chinatown Plaza. In the center of the large parking lot and in front of the long row of restaurants and tea shops that lined the plaza was a statue of the characters from the Chinese novel, Journey to the West (or as Clay called it ‘that old Chinese book that inspired Dragon Ball Z’). Whenever Clay had something on his mind that he believed he could not talk about, he would walk over to this statue and sit on the circular bench underneath and think. This time was no different. As Clay looked at the setting sun, he still could not get his mind off what had been happening to him.

What the hell is happening to me? Not only do I have some bizarre tongue tattoo but now I’ve got the proportionate strength of a goddamn Spider-Man?! Because that’s what I needed with all the Lovecraftian horror! And what was the deal with Tini and the dogs? …… That sounds like a band. Clay ponders and laughs at the wondering thought about band names before slapping himself in the face, which hurt far more than he expected.

Oww! Damn it, stay focused dumbass! …. Shit! I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do! And yet I have to do something about whatever the hell is going on.

And yet, within this moment of panic, Clay lets out an exhausted and knowing sigh, as the flies begin to slowly descend on him.

It’s funny, nothing’s really changed, hasn’t it? I’m still just a guy who has no idea how to move forward. Whether it’s Eldritch gods or finding a job, I can’t seem to find a way out of the woods. Or maybe I can’t find the will to make the first step outside. Goddamn it! Clay complained to himself, his hands balled tightly into fists, ready to punch down at the stone he was sitting on.

Before he can take out his frustrations, the usual orbit of flies once again surrounds Clay’s head. As Clay gets ready to swat them, he notices something different about the flies. They appeared to be slightly bigger, like the size of a Hot Wheels car. It was as if they had mutated between the hours since he shewed them away and that caused a drop of panicked sweat to slowly fall from his forehead despite the bandana on Clay’s head.

Just before Clay could say anything to the hoard of flies, he notices a group of five rats walking toward him, which causes him to jump out of his proverbial seat and sprint once again away from the plaza.

“GO AWAY! GO AWAY! GO THE HELL AWAY! FUCK!” Clay yelled as he jaywalked (or ‘jayran’, if that’s even a term) onto the crosswalk leading out of Chinatown Plaza, unaware of the small flashes of violet light coming from his mouth like a camera.

When Clay finally stopped running, he found that he was right outside the 7-11 at the bottom of the slope leading into his neighborhood, meaning he’d ran through at least two crosswalks and somehow didn’t get run over, which, considering how bad a majority of the drivers in Las Vegas were, was a minor miracle.

The other thing he noticed was that it was now nighttime, and the pests were nowhere to be found. Clay was not sure when and how he lost them but unlike the many other mysteries that have popped up recently, he was fine with not knowing the answer to this one.

As he was panting and slumped over, Clay figured he would get a drink from the nearby 7-11 before heading back home.

Though, will I even have a home? Clay thought to himself, unsure of if he was just overthinking or if there really was something to his family’s memory lapses.

They didn’t even seem to notice that I broke the door, how the hell could you miss that? Clay considered, his hands trembling at something that would normally be a relief but now, he couldn’t help but see as foreboding. Perhaps something supernatural-

Nah. Everything will be fine in a couple days. Something must have been wrong with the hinges; it was bound to break sooner or later. I’ll offer to help fix it when they start to notice and bugs have always had a thing for me, better flies than mosquitos… probably. Maybe a Cherry Coke will at least jog Han’s memories. Clay justifies to himself as he walks toward the 7-11, his hands still trembling as he pushes the door open.

As Clay steps inside, he notices that he seems to be the only customer in the store, there weren’t even people playing the slot machines near the entrance on the right. About the only person he could see was just a male cashier that looked to be in his 30s or 40s. When Clay reached the refrigerator that contained the Cherry Coke he wanted to give to his older brother, a high pitch, droning note echoed throughout the convenience store. This time, Clay was not the only one who heard the strange noise as the cashier frantically ran out of the store, holding his ears and ranting something to the effect of ‘I’m not getting paid enough for this shit!’

Before Clay could join the cashier in running out the door, a giant, mutated fly just pops into existence right in front of him, knocking over most of the shelves in the store. Shocked by this unimaginable sight, Clay’s knees give out. Before he can start to panic, he sees a woman with long golden blonde hair wearing black sweatpants and sweatshirt, on top of the fly and for reasons even Clay could not explain, he just stares at her as she stabs a small blade into the fly’s head three times.

As the flies’ bodily fluids spray onto her outfit, the woman’s eyes meet Clay’s, and all she utters is “C-Clay?”

It was at this moment that Clay realized he was either in his greatest dream or his worst nightmare. On the one hand, a gorgeous woman around his age had just mysteriously popped into his life and she seemed to know him somehow. On the other hand, Clay had seen this anime and read this visual novel before, gorgeous and dangerous women tend to try to kill the main character before they can talk and work things out. Considering that at the moment, this mysterious woman was slowly turning her knife toward his direction, he wasn’t sure if he’d have the opportunity to clear things up, and even if he did have the time, how could he clear something up that is unclear to him?

Right as the woman steps off the giant fly and points her knife at Clay, her hand shaking in hesitation, a group of about six people barged into the store, made up of four men and two women. The men wore t-shirts and cargo shorts, a couple of them even wore bucket hats, while the women wore jean skirts and tank tops. They stood in the doorway in formation with their guns drawn.

Before Clay and the woman could get a grasp on what the hell was going on, the tourist squad, as Clay named them in his head, all stopped and stood at attention. They raise their arms and salute as yet another figure enters the store. The man looked to be about the same age as Clay and the woman, with light brown curly hair wearing sunglasses and a blue striped suit without a tie. Despite his fancy appearance, the one thing that caught Clay’s eye was the large smile plastered on his face, which somehow felt both forced and genuine.

“Is all this necessary? No need for the saluting. I’m just here to pick up a couple of old friends. Or at least, making sure Phil doesn’t accidentally unlock the bad ending to this story. Though that would be funny, not gonna lie.” The mysterious man proclaims as he walks over to Clay and the women.

“Shane? How did-?”

“I have my ways. I’ll tell you about it in a bit. I assume my brother didn’t make it?” The sharply dressed man asks, his smile unwavering despite asking a tough question, one which causes the woman to look away from his gaze.

Shane? That name shook Clay more than hearing his own. No way could it be-

“And yes, I am who you think I am. Though our meeting was delayed by a day, here I am.” Shane clarifies.

“Now, I have an explanation for you Clay. And a proposal for both of you, Ophelia.”