Hugh stood awestruck still, his hand hovering by his mouth as he kept staring at the peculiar dog-like animal that posed before him. Likewise, Paston, the creature, was staring back and measuring the interior of the apartment cautiously. “Man is only one around; so man must be target”.

For someone important enough to have Paston ordered secure, he didn’t amount to much. Dressed in light blue pajamas, scruffy black hair further unwinded in curls and now backed against the wall, honey complexion and a pair of big, hazel eyes. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Yet, a single whiff revealed more to Paston. The faint scent of Quintessans. Stem odor from the young man’s head. “Not human, but more.”

The animal retracted its long jaw and tilted its head decisively, nodding towards the kitchen that connected to the wall Hugh’s back was against. Its rat-like tail started to dissipate into a cloud of smoke again, which snapped Hugh out of his distraught state. Letting out a gasp and trying to get back on his feet, he could once again hear a voice inside his head.

Move now. Hide. No open door. Secure. That is order. Go inside.

More thumping and pounding could be heard from the corridor right outside. Someone-or something-now banged at the door very loudly, as if their whole body was slamming against it. Paston’s head, now the only remaining part of his body not in a cloudy state, nodded towards the kitchen once more.

Adrenaline stormed aplenty inside Hugh, who could not muster his thoughts in a straight line. ‘Shit’ was the word coming up almost every time he tried to think of what’s going on. It seemed like the animal was the one talking to him, but he was not entirely sure. This could very well be a surreal lucid dream, and he would soon wake up on his warm bed. “But it feels very real. I should hide”.

The young man finally stood up and side-stepped by the wall, lunging past the kitchen and into the bathroom across the hall. He remembered that it’s the only room with a key to lock its door. Swiftly, he slammed the door behind him, locking it, then removed the key and looked through the keyhole, all the while panting heavily. The front door was not entirely visible like this, but Hugh could clearly see the smoky cloud twirl around the hall and then reach out towards the front door.

He heard a familiar clicking sound-the apartment main door, unlocking and opening from the inside. “Shit, someone else is coming.” Hugh’s panting was hugely overshadowed by a loud growl and the sound of the grey linoleum floor being trampled. Someone smashed on one of the corridor walls and fell to the floor, then more clapping sounds echoed, pointing to struggle.

Suddenly, a body flew inside the apartment, leaping to the ground towards the hall, clearly visible to Hugh. It was a masked figure, human in size but evidently not in nature. Its serpentine hands clawed and marred the floor as it tried to regain its composure. Just as quickly, a tall man with a big red scarf jumped from behind and dove above the masked creature, violently grabbing its head with both hands while starting to wrestle.

Stifled growls emitted from the masked creature, as the man above dodged its right hook and retaliated with a headlock, turning it face down. Grabbing the dark blue mask and revealing a hideous, scaly face underneath, the man shouted: “Paston, now!”

Dark smoke emerged from behind the two strugglers and collapsed on the creature’s head, then a sharp fizzing sound echoed as the foggy substance started seeping inside it from nostrils and ears alike. Coughing and hissing, the scaled beast flailed around, but the tall man firmly kept its head locked in place whilst using his body weight to hold it grounded.

With a whooping splash, the creature’s head exploded as Paston’s fox-like head emerged from within its neck. The animal started to take canid form again, licking the splotchy goo from the facial area. Hugh pushed himself away from the bathroom door in abhorrence upon seeing this brutal act. In the spur of the moment, he ignored the fact that the scaled creature left no ray of light upon losing its head.

“Dammit Paston, you’re supposed to choke, not materialize inside it and make a bloody mess!” the tall man clamored while getting up and away from the now headless body. There was a lot of red blots around, but the they seemed to have missed the man entirely. Clean as new, he gave his scarf a pat and calmly said “be right back”, then went out to the corridor.

Hugh was sitting on the toilet bowl, panting and doing his best thinking on what to do next. Out on the hall, he heard a fizzing sound again, which prompted him to gasp loudly. Panicking, he grabbed the nearest towel and slid to the bathroom door, shoving the towel across the footing and covering the keyhole with his hand, pressing with all his strength.

“Shit shit shit shit, I don’t get what's going on! Please don’t come here!” He cried, leaning his head against the wooden door.

Alas, a simple wooden bathroom door is not as airtight as a secure front door, and Paston was soon entering through other gaps in chunks of thick smoke. His voice echoed in Hugh’s head once more:

Target secure. No fear. Paston is friend. Come in peace.

“Get out of my head! Get out of my house!” Hugh slapped the air around him with one hand and covered his nose and mouth with the other. Heart beating like a war drum, mind going numb, his panting became very short and loud at this point. The young man felt a very primordial type of stress, like his entire being was challenged. However, paston swiftly retreated from the bathroom with a sharp effervescence, and Hugh sighed in relief. Then he heard someone calling out from the hall.

“Where is the target?” the tall man's leathery voice thundered as he stepped back into the apartment. He was now holding a bizarre lantern, and rose it in front of his face. The eyeball inside the casing bounced and hit the glass walls of the lantern towards the direction of the bathroom. “Alright. Paston, clean up and check if the dead bastard has anything else for us.”

As the creature nodded and started sniffing around, the tall man came over by the bathroom and gently knocked on the door. “Hey, you in there. I mean no harm, so please don’t scream. I need to know if you’re okay. Please open the door.”

“What the fuck do you mean by ‘no harm’?” Hugh spat from the other side of the door. “You just broke into my house and killed som--something! W-what do you want from me? I don’t have enough money for all this trouble--”

“Okay, calm down.” The man with the scarf scratched his head and fixed his brown wisp. “Let’s take a step back, okay? My name is Gy. My non-tobacco, non-dog companion who probably sounds like a voice in your head is Paston. We killed that thing over there to prevent it from killing you. What’s your name?”

Hugh’s panting slowed down, his thoughts started becoming organized. “If they wanted to kill me, they had more than one chance to blow my head up like that, too. But they didn’t."

Pant. "Shit.

Shit!

Whatever. Might as well.”

“I’m Hugh,” he responded while holding the door with his arms. “Why was that… thing after me? Is that the Monsoon killer?”

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“No idea what a Monsoon killer is,” Gy said in a calm tone, “but that monster was given orders to hunt down anyone like you. Its kind also got to my friend…”

Gy paused for a moment. “...and stole something from us. So I was going after the bastard. Pardon the language.”

“...anyone like me?”

“Yeah, you… you must have a quality. You can sense something others cannot, correct? Listen. You are not crazy, whatever it is, know that it is very real. And it must have definitely affected your life so far. We were like that, too. I know what it’s like. Come with us. We can help you.”

Hugh collapsed on the bathroom floor. Everything was now starting to hit him at once. This aptness of being able to tell whenever someone died was always something he burdened alone. The few times he tried to explain it, he was met with concerned looks at best. For some time now, he didn’t want to be a part of society with the constant reminder of death looming in the horizon.

Richard’s voice echoed through Hugh’s memories. “It’s okay. You see what you see. But don’t let it get to you, bro. We have to keep on living.”

Hugh was met with another realization, as he recalled his previous chants. “I wanted to disappear. See this beam burst up from within me, and be done with it. But just now… I feared for my life?

Maybe Rich was right. Maybe what this Gy is telling me is right. Only one way to find out.

And if I die, I die. Win-win.”

After sloppily getting up, he put the key in the bathroom lock. “Okay. Then help me”, his voice cracked as he opened the wooden door, the taller man’s gaze now meeting his.

Gy broke into a courteous, golden smile and extended his hand. “Then I will. Nice to meet you, Hugh.”

As they were about to shake hands, Hugh noticed the headless body on the floor again, his eyes widened as he was hit with yet another realization. Pointing at the corpse, he shouted.

“Watch out! That thing’s not dead yet!”

Gy immediately turned around, shaken. Paston, who was loitering around the Lezard’s body, looking for loot, shook his head in denial.

“Nope, definitely dead”, said Gy, looking back at Hugh. “Why did you say it wasn’t?”

“You said I have a quality,” Hugh explained. “That's the quality. I can tell when someone just died because something like a beam or ray of light is shot out of their body and goes up to the sky. No one else can see that, though. It doesn’t appear on camera or glass reflection, and---”

"Wait." Gy pondered for a few moments, then finally talked. “Have you ever squashed a mosquito?”

“Yes.”

“Did you see a ray of light come out of that, too?”

“No...”

Laughter burst out of Gy’s mouth. “There you go! That piece of hot garbage is like a bug, so of course you didn’t see anything. Though, admittedly, I might have just insulted all bugs out there. Heu heu heu heu!”

He sat down and pulled a pocket-sized wooden stick from underneath his big red scarf. “Well, either way, you have to come with us now, before any concerned neighbors come knocking.”

“Oh, nobody else lives on this floor,” Hugh admitted, “but Mr. Rand, the owner of the complex, lives on the fourth floor. He could have heard the noise if he's here.”

“Right.” Gy took the stick and held it on his eye level. The top end of the stick had a beautiful-albeit tiny-gem that held a wide array of colors inside its prism, and was kept in place by a small wheel underneath.

“So Hugh, are you ready to leave everything behind?”

The young man hesitated, thinking of his older brother. "No, no, Rich is better off without me. This is my chance. I just hope he gets over it quickly." He shook his head. “I am ready. Give me a few minut--”

“Nah,” Gy interrupted, looking at Paston who slowly pushed the corpse towards the two men. “You are going to leave everything behind. Well, not your clothes, but you get the point. No notes to any loved ones, either. To them, you are as good as dead, though we got here in time before that became your reality. We leave now. Paston, grab the oculamp, it’s in the hall."

Looking back to Hugh, he continued. "Come sit beside me.”

Hugh wanted to get out of his pajamas, and was wondering about what an oculamp might be, but prioritized sitting on the linoleum floor next to the man first. Gy was getting busy trying to calibrate the position of the gem on top of the stick.

“So why are we sitting if we leave now?”

Gy answered without looking away from the gem, “that's how we leave. I know you have many questions, and I'll do my best to answer them while we’re in the vergent network.”

“What’s the vergent netw--”

“Did I stutter?” Gy gave Hugh a sarcastic smile, and grabbed the corpse from the shirt’s collar, positioning it in front of his feet. Hugh was thoroughly intimidated but raised his eyebrows, looking away. He decided he was going to do this.

Paston, in full animal form, came carrying the lantern in his mouth. He sat on Gy’s lap and nodded, looking at the gem. Seeing the eyeball inside the lantern rolling around further raised Hugh’s curiosity, but he prodded his lower lip and stayed quiet.

Holding the stick in front of everyone with a tense arm, Gy declared: “Alright Hugh, please hold on to my arm and keep your eyes on this shiny gem. And don’t blink, okay?”

“Okay”, Hugh obliged, visibly unnerved but equally curious. He grabbed Gy’s outstretched arm and stared at the small gemstone. Its surface glistened in a pretty fashion, colors galore shining all around.

Slowly lowering the gem from his eye level, Gy extended his other arm and let out a howl. “Alright, don’t blink now! Eyes steady!” He pushed the wheel under the gem with his index finger, sending the gem in a spinning frenzy. Hugh saw the colors merge into an amalgamation of shining lights which sparkled all around him, growing bigger and bigger, until they engulfed his entire line of sight.

Then, a gust of wind blew on everyone’s face, and with a loud ‘ZING’, the apartment was suddenly quiet.

Everyone inside was gone.