CHAPTER 1:
‘Clack’ the front door to my apartment closed and I slipped off my white and cream Jordan 4’s. Turning left I pushed open the door to my room, which had been left slightly ajar, and flicked on the light. With a sigh of relief, I took off my pants, hoodie, and puffer jacket. Classes were so boring, but luckily I only had one semester left. Even then, I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to do after college. Getting a job and working as a company’s slave for the rest of my life sounded abhorrent. Folding the pants and hoodie neatly, I placed them in their proper places in my closet and threw my parka over my desk chair. Taking a step back I admired my closet. Though a bit messy, it was filled with designer clothing, a collection I had built up over the past five years. My pants were Kapital, Japanese denim, my hoodie was from Fear of God, and my puffer jacket was Northface. Fashion was always a way for me to elevate myself above others without having to say a word, and I liked knowing my clothes were unaffordable to the common American. I smirked to myself and sat on my bed. Even though the apartment I lived in was one of the most expensive in my college town of Ann Arbor, Michigan, it was a pretty dull room. White walls with a concrete ceiling and a fake wooden floor. I had a few posters along the walls of Muhammad Ali, which were accompanied by a few posters from anime like One Piece and Princess Mononoke. Ali wasn’t my favorite fighter and Mononoke wasn’t one of my favorite movies, but at the poster fair my sophomore year they were the only posters that I somewhat liked. I slipped into a pair of sweatpants and headed into the bathroom which was down the hall.
My feet slid silently and gracefully across the floor. I never made much noise as I walked. Opening the door I walked up to the sink to wash my hands. The faucet turned on with a light squeak and water started to flow smoothly from the spout, creating a steady, rhythmic sound as it hit the basin of the sink. The water was cold to the touch, and I liked it that way. I peered at myself in the mirror, observing my straight black hair which was cropped messily along my eyebrows. My angular, dark brown eyes peered back at me through my thick long eyelashes, bored. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a mound of worn clothes that had been building up over the week. Sighing, I turned off the sink and turned right, walking into the living room. I hardly ever had people over, and only had a few people I could call a friend out here, though every time they came they seemed to think my place was ‘luxurious’. I guess it was, based on Ann Arbor standards, but I was from Los Angeles, and things were much more opulent back home. I had some very close friends in LA, but in Michigan, I only had people who were slightly more than acquaintances. The living room was simple, about 20 to 25 feet long and 10 feet wide. It seemed like my roommate was in his room, the sound of his TV emanating from his door. He was a good roommate, much more likable than the one I had the year prior. He showed me respect and was friendly, though we weren’t close. My roommate last year was detestable. The boy was an international student who holed up in his room all the time. A reclusive boy who looked like a square-headed goblin. He showed no respect, which escalated into me nearly breaking his glasses off his face after one incident. Even though I was extensively trained in kickboxing and karate, as well as having some training in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, I was too calculated to resort to violence. I would if I could, but there were too many drawbacks. Instead, after that point, I merely played mental warfare on him, using tricks such as blasting the TV late at night since he had early morning classes and I didn’t. Eventually, the boy caved, as he was weak, and left me with the apartment to myself for half the year. I guess you could say I was of the vengeful sort which pointed to why I acted the way I did. I had been that way since I was very young, never letting people take advantage of my goodwill. My phone buzzed and I took it out of my pocket, flipping it so it was right side up. My little brother, Skyler, had sent me a message.
Skyler was a mostly benevolent and very popular boy. When I needed to, I played the part of an amicable, compassionate person– though he was like that naturally. While I was always getting into fights early in life, he was always more of a pacifist. While I had trained in martial arts, which gave little to no promise of a future in collegiate or professional athletics, Skyler had devoted himself to baseball. This led Skyler, who was two years younger than me, to play Division 1 baseball. While martial arts were seen to be good at teaching discipline and self-control, I learned how to fight purely to be dominant. Although we were different in nature, we were close and shared interests in simple things such as video games and weightlifting. Even though I wasn’t a Division 1 athlete, like my brother, I had built my body up over the years to be athletic and powerful to know I could handle myself if the situation arose.
Skyler’s message read:
[Hey bro check this out]
Below the message was an article with an image depicting what looked like an unknown planet. I clicked on the article with my thumb and it popped open. The article was from NASA. The headliner read:
Unknown Planet Discovered Passing Earth Quickly Just Past The Moon!
I skimmed through the article and learned that this planet had seemingly come out of nowhere, confusing scientists from around the world. It was discovered just today and is said to luckily be closely missing Earth. It will be visible tomorrow at 11:00 AM for only a few minutes and it will be a spectacle the likes of which had never been witnessed in human history. I liked the message and a little red heart appeared over the text bubble. I always enjoyed seeing the beauty in things so I guess now I had something to look forward to tomorrow. The rest of the night went by quickly and I went to bed, setting my alarm for 10:30 the next morning.
It was a restless sleep that night and I woke up four times throughout the night. When my alarm rang out I sluggishly opened my phone to stop it. I continued laying in bed for a while, mindlessly scrolling through Instagram, dreading my class that started at 11:30 AM. Eventually, I got out of bed to get ready for the morning. I slowly stumbled into the bathroom and relieved myself, feeling at least a little bit of stress leaving my body through my piss. After flushing I turned on the sink. The cool water flowed over my hands and I splashed it onto my face. Though I was still groggy, the water helped me wake up just a little faster. I washed my face and went into my room to change. Checking my phone, I realized it was already 10:55 AM, only five minutes until the planet would be visible. It was the middle of winter in January, near freezing outside. I threw on my parka and a pair of Air Forces and went to go out to the balcony. As I turned the corner to the living room, I noticed my roommate was already outside, the door closed behind him. I had lucked out to have the nicest balcony in the building as our apartment was on top of a roof on the fourth floor. Most units with balconies only had a tiny strip to move on, but we had a fenced-in 12-foot by 12-foot square since we were on this roof. I wasn’t sure why there was a roof on the fourth floor, even though our building was 12 stories tall, but I wasn’t complaining. Just past our fence was a garden on the small roof, filled with fake plants since the gardeners never came up to my floor and the only access to the garden was a locked door on the balcony. The door opened silently and some snow from the night before pushed naturally to the side.
“Hey, Cullen,” I said, a very faint fake smile on my lips as the words left my mouth. “Ready to see this planet fly by?”
He turned and looked at me, “Hey, Atticus. Yea didn’t wanna miss this.”
We stood in silence as I walked out to stand next to him. We weren’t really friends, so there wasn’t much to talk about. The fence on our balcony stood a little over 6 feet tall, only a few inches taller than me, and was hardly see-through, metal, and littered with small holes which gave an obscured view of the houses and trees nearby. I had normally climbed over the fence to chill on the rooftop garden when I smoked weed in past years. It was always nice to have my own rooftop garden to smoke on while listening to music. Made me feel like I owned the entire block. I was done smoking weed though and hadn’t touched any in the past year. So, other than one time, with one of my buddies out here, I hadn’t gone to the roof garden.
“I’m gonna hop the fence, you wanna come with me?” I asked, walking up to the edge of the fence.
“Oh, are we allowed to do that?” Cullen responded.
“I mean, no, but no one’s ever stopped me,” I chuckled as I grabbed the top of the fence. “I used to do this all the time last year.”
With a heave I pushed my upper body over the fence before throwing one of my legs over it, straddling the fence as it shifted under my weight.
“C’mon man,” I said with a slight upward nod.
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Throwing my other leg over the fence I dropped down, the snow beneath me crunching softly under the soles of my shoes. I watched as Cullen followed suit. He was well-built and played for the hockey club at our school, the University of Michigan, so he cleared the fence with ease.
“Yeah, view's much better over here,” he grinned.
Going to the edge of this little roof you could see much more than from just our balcony. People were lining the street beneath us and I could see people looking out their windows in the houses across the street. Within a few minutes, I noticed a large round shape approaching from the right.
“I think that’s it!” I said loudly, pointing in the direction of the planet.
“Oh, yeah, look at that,” Cullen responded, gazing upward.
Within seconds the planet was upon us, filling the sky. It was magnificent, unlike anything I’d ever seen. A large brown orb barely cut off by the horizon. Its surface was a tapestry of swirling clouds and darker patches, looking like an ancient, mystic map. The colors shifted subtly, from deep umbers to lighter sandy hues, each contour seemingly telling its own age-old story. The planet hung there, so close it felt as if I could reach out and touch it, yet it remained a majestic enigma, a cosmic spectacle that dwarfed all our human concerns and filled us with a sense of awe and insignificance in the vast universe. And then it suddenly disappeared. Not as if it had flown past us, but as if it had never existed in the first place.
There was a sharp pain in my temples and I stumbled backward, my vision starting to flicker in and out. I fell to my butt as my vision darkened, holding my head as pain violently pulsed through my skull. And then, I passed out. I awoke to a vision, though I could tell I was still passed out on my balcony. I was seeing myself in third person, looking down upon myself. Slowly I started getting closer to my body, though I wasn’t in control. A long, bony, gray arm reached out in front of me as if I was in the body of someone, or something, else. The skin and bone, extremely long fingers of the arm rested upon my head and a bright light shone from the palm. The light slowly got brighter and brighter until it filled my vision like a flashbang. A high-pitched voice giggled, echoing throughout my skull.
I jolted forward, waking up. In front of my eyes was a rectangular, gray, transparent panel, much like the ones seen in video game heads-up displays. It read:
Congratulations! You have been selected as a [Chosen One] with the ability [Devil’s Hand]
The words [Chosen One] and [Devil’s Hand] were highlighted in glowing yellow text. From every video game and MMORPG I’d played it meant they were clickable. I hovered my finger over the text and clicked on [Chosen One]. Another window popped up directly above the original one:
.01% of the human population have been selected as Chosen Ones in order to defend Earth from the apocalypse. Over the next 30 days, more humans will become Chosen Ones each day until 50% of the total population on Earth has been chosen. Chosen Ones have access to the [System]. Those who have become Chosen Ones gain the ability to level up by entering dimensional rifts which will begin opening on Earth after all Chosen Ones have been selected.
“Dimensional rifts opening on Earth? The apocalypse?” I muttered to myself, a wave of fear rushed through me. “I’ve been chosen to defend Earth?”
But then excitement hit. I had been chosen and seemingly given an ability. Maybe it would be like having a superpower. A very slight grin peeled back my lips before I noticed [System] was also glowing in yellow, so I clicked on it. A new window popped up:
Having access to the [System] grants Chosen Ones the ability to open a status window displaying your stats and level-up progress bar. This window can be opened through thought alone. [System] also grants the ability to appraise items found in dimensional rifts, as well as other Chosen Ones.
“Through thought? Okay…” I thought to myself as I tried imagining a status window opening before me.
Immediately a new window popped up, this one was a vertical rectangle displaying a wall of text:
Name: Atticus
Level: 0
Exp: 0 / 10,000
Ability: [Devil’s Hand]
Strength: 10
Agility: 8
Ability: 0
“Devil’s Hand?” I thought to myself, clicking on [Devil’s Hand]. “I wonder what this is?”
A new window appeared:
Ability: Devil’s Hand
Skills: [Demonic Guide], (Hidden), (Hidden), (Hidden), (Hidden), (Hidden)
“Hey, Atticus, you alright?”
I turned to see Cullen standing over me. He had a worried and confused look on his face.
“You just passed out and once you woke up you’ve just been clicking in the air as if there was an iPad in front of you,” Cullen said, furrowing his brow. “You good?”
I realized then that Cullen couldn’t see the panels that were hovering only about a foot in front of me.
“You… can’t see this?” I said, waving my hands over the panels.
As my hands swiped over the panels, they immediately got smaller before blinking out of existence. It seemed that I had closed them by waving them away.
He replied in a perplexed tone, “Uh– no, there’s nothing there. Maybe you should go inside and get some rest.”
“Yeah,” I responded. “I don’t think I should go to class today.”
“Probably not,” he held out his hand to help me up.
Grabbing Cullen’s hand, I stood up and brushed myself off, looking down at the streets. People were still standing around talking excitedly about the celestial event. It didn’t seem like anyone else had passed out the way I did and it seemed I hadn’t passed out for long.
“Wasn’t it weird how that planet just disappeared out of nowhere?” Cullen remarked, glancing at me. “I mean, it was literally right in front of us and then, boom, it was gone. Like how is that even physically possible? You saw that right? Before you passed out.”
“Oh, yeah, crazy huh,” I managed to chuckle a bit, though my head was being flooded by thoughts about what had just happened. “I think I’m gonna go inside and lay down for a little.”
“Yeah sounds good,” he replied. “You need help getting over the fence?”
“Nah, I’ll be alright. I actually feel fine, but I wanna lay down just in case,” I said, making my way over to the fence.
Walking up to the fence I grabbed the top and pushed up. I threw my leg over the other side and then brought my other leg over, dropping down. Moving inside I quickly rushed to my room. Before entering I took off my shoes and threw them to the side, I refused to wear shoes in my bedroom. Cleanliness was important. Upon entering my room, I sat down on the side of my bed and imagined the status window appearing. Sure enough, it did. I clicked on [Devil’s Hand] and then [Demonic Guide]. A new window appeared:
Demonic Guide
The ability [Devil’s Hand] has granted you the capability to summon a demonic guide. To summon your demonic guide focus on the words “Lucifer come forth”
“Lucifer? The king of the demons?” I thought to myself as a wave of intrigue spread through me. “Does that mean I’ll have control of the most powerful demon known to man?”
I focused on the words, ‘Lucifer come forth’. In front of me, a plume of twisting black fire rose from the ground. I could feel the heat from the flames and I flinched backwards. After only a second, the flames dissipated. There was no mark left on the floor where the flames had appeared. Instead, floating in front of me was a small red demon, winged, with small horns protruding from its head. The demon was only about the size of a pillow and had skinny limbs with claws, looking much more like an imp than the demon king. I stared in amazement and the demon stared back.
“You’re Lucifer?” I asked.
“Well, yes,” the demon responded. “I am Lucifer, king of the underworld, master of deceit, torturer of souls. But, as you can see, appearances can be deceiving. I don't always take the form you mortals expect. Size and shape are trivial to beings like us. What matters is the power and influence I wield."
I continued to stare, still trying to reconcile this small, impish figure with the grandiose title it claimed. The demon, or Lucifer, seemed amused by my confusion.
"Ah, I see you're having trouble understanding," Lucifer continued with a sly grin. "Let me assure you, my abilities are not hindered by my stature. This is just the form God has chosen for me. I can be as formidable as any towering beast or as subtle as a whisper in the wind. Though it seems I have lost most of my power since coming to this realm.”
“I see,” I looked up at him expectantly. “So, are you my servant now?”
Lucifer laughed wildly, “Servant, no.” He then smiled at me, showing off his razor-sharp, jagged teeth. “Guide, yes.”
“So you’re here to guide me through the apocalypse?” I asked excitedly.
“Well, no, that’s for you to figure out,” He laughed. “I do look forward to terrorizing countless souls in the near future, however, I am only here to teach you how to use your new powers.”
I grinned as excitement burst through me, “So I do have superpowers now.”