James was swallowed by it. Swallowed by fear. He’d thought he’d felt what fear was. Giant waves of oncoming dread and anxiety crashing against his mind, trying to wear him down to nothing.

The eye didn’t crash fear against him like a wave.

It pulled him down to the depths and drowned him in it.

[Congratulations, you have been witnessed and your Spark has been deemed worthy of the System’s touch.]

[Your Source will be opened after the first pool has been formed from the Invited]

The golden words ate up the inky void of all-consuming nothingness and finally returned James’ ability to think. With it, the first thing James did was completely ignore them. They were strange and confusing but compared to everything else, he didn’t care.

First, he assessed his situation and realised his friends were just as frozen as him. They weren’t looking at the pupil in the sky, but they were still too scared to move.

“Guys!” he had to shout to hear his voice over the panic mob around them. “We have to go now!”

Jake nodded along with Amy as she stood up as well while shaking. She had started to cry but she was keeping it down.

“Quick Jess-” When James turned, the words died in his mouth. His warm blood froze till it made his bones shiver. Where was she? Why had she gone?

What the hell was happening? People were screaming and running all around him. The entire park had fallen into mass hysteria and occasionally he could flashes of light burning towards them. No doubt the falling stars.

We have to go.

He turned to look at the crying mess that was Amy and the shaking Jake. They needed to leave. None of them were safe here.

But could he just leave Jess?

I met her today. It’s not worth it. I can’t just…

James had never been in a crisis like what was happening around them. No one on earth ever had. The cold analytic part of him that he keep feel in the back of his mind whispered sweet words. It told him that Jess running away wasn’t his concern. That he wouldn’t be able to watch out for Jake and Amy if he went looking for Jess.

That he was in real danger. That there was a chance he could die.

They tempted him sweetly, but something else took hold first.

What would someone who lived a good life do?

One that wasn’t filled with the bitterness and hate he buried inside him. One where he wasn’t limited by all the horrible things that had happened to him?

I’m a moron.

“You two go ahead of me, head to my apartment it’s not far. Jake you know the passcode.” James said, eyeing the crowd before preparing to dive into the mass of bodies around them. “I’ll go find Jess.”

The world ending and you're going after a girl you barely know. James thought to himself as he bucked through the crowd and started pushing past the rush of bodies. Times like this made him thankful for his height and weight which allowed him to see past the waves of scared people. How did one even look for someone in a crowd?

Jessica’s height was short enough that she might be hidden in the waves of people, and her hair was a fairly common flavour of brown. How was he meant to pinpoint someone like that?

James spent only a few seconds randomly searching in different directions before he realised something.

There were people that weren’t running away. He could see them, just barely over everyone else. Some were standing, others were laughing, or crying… a few were drawing weapons. But none of them were running. They were all watching the people around them like James could feel what they were thinking.

A silent ticking.

And a few among them had a look in their eyes he didn’t like one bit.

Like they’d realised they were predators, among prey.

That was when he saw Jess running- no, escaping as if her life depended on it, sprinting across the gravel park path as someone chased after her. James recognised him instantly. The black get-up made it obvious. It was the armoured man with a face mask, and he was shouting at James’ date as he chased her down.

Machete in hand.

The world went blank for a second as all the chaos fell away from James.

Everything went silent besides his own thumping heart, booming out of his chest like a war engine, and went still. He felt hot everywhere. Adrenaline was coursing through him at maximum. He could feel the cold sweat all over his body and smell a strange burning.

Like the sky had caught on fire.

Sights blurred around him and before James even knew it he was barreling through the crowds of people. Taking heavy steps and shrugging of the numbing pain that came every time he knocked someone out of his way. He didn’t care. Pain didn’t matter.

The world was becoming blurry as those feeling buried deep in his chest came to light.

The armoured man took at swing at the much slower Jessica and knocked her to the ground, drawing a line of crimson on her forearm. She rolled away from his next stab and screamed, begging.

James ran harder. His body put power into his legs and he pushed the world away as if it would spring him closer.

Growing annoyed by the miss, the armoured man pushed Jess down and mounted her, steadying his target and saying something James couldn’t hear over the white noise.

His whole appearance started to blur as all James senses could process was Jess’s screaming and the armoured man’s complete apathy to them.

Seconds before he could bury his machete in Jess’s gut, James was upon him.

Tackling him off of her with all the power and rage he could muster out of his muscles, pulling the man off and sending them both rolling into the river bank. James felt the rocky bank dig into his skin and tear his clothes as the water sank into him. Dullling the adrenaline and making the pain in his stomach run hot.

“Arghhhhh.” A shared grunt between himself and then armoured man.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

All that gear made him heavy in the water and he was clearly struggling to get himself up, giving James a moment to catch his breathe.

What are you doing?!

That guy had a fucking machete and James had just charged him down.

In their clash the flailing armoured man seemed to have lost it. Cool, now I’ve just got to get up and-. Pain flared in his stomach like he’d never felt. Burning him like someone was pressing coals on his intestines.

[System Notice: Your Spark’s vessel has been damaged. Until repair, you will be incapable of choosing a Source]

Golden words flashed in front of him in a blicking, violent kind of way. That was when James realised he was in so much pain he must be halucinating again.

“James!” A voice shrieked behind him, but he barely noticed it. It sounded like Jess. He wasn’t sure.

The pain made it hard to think it was so unbearable. He grabbed at where it hurt and found the answer to his question of why hurt so much. A shiny black machete was sticking out his gut, spilling blood all over his new raincoat.

He could barely move, barely think as his blood dyed the river water around him red.

“James, get up please. We need to go!” Jess was screaming, begging him to move even as the armoured man righted himself and stalked towards her, kicking James and leaving him for dead.

Jess left claw marks in his shoulder as she tried her best to stay with him. The armoured man ripped her away all the same.

She stayed. James couldn’t help but thinking as the pain dyed his vision an awfully blurry colour. Even staying completely still everything hurt. There were sounds of a pained struggle behind him, but James already felt himself sinking.

I’m going to die.

Blackish blood was seeping from his abdomen now. That meant a crushed liver didnt it? Or a crushed something. He knew it wasn’t good. In the state things were now…

He wasn’t making it.

I’m actually going to die?

James had thought about it so often, but he’d never thought he’d have to confront the reality of it this young. Somehow, he wanted more. He felt like begging for more? Was this it? Really? He was going to bleed out getting stabbed by a deranged pycho as that very pycho murdered his date not even a few feet from him.

He could hear her.

She was gaggling and coughing and clawing into the dirt next to him.

What a shit death.

His body collapsed into the water and his head rolled back losing all strength in his neck. That only made the pain worse.

So much worse. It felt like the water was stabbing him. Eating him alive and pincing him down. Worse then that, he could see her, albeit upside down, reaching for him.

Jess.

The man was mounted on her using his golved hands to rip the life out of her neck, strangling her until her neck burned red. Her eyes, those pretty opal eyes were begging him. James could see it, but he couldn’t do anything.

It made him feel like death, long before he embraced it.

I can’t help you. He wanted to tell her, as gently as he could, but the blood making its way up his throat stopped him from speaking.

J-james.

He heard a stranger call in his head, staring at Jess.

The voice was soft, and filled with a kind of gentle kindness the man sparsely remembered.

It’s going to… It’s g-going to be okay.

James felt his world slowly going dark.

Just-t call for h-help.

He must’ve already been dead.

James… please…

The world went dark. He saw it. His small boyish body standing on the sidewalk as his mother begged him for help. There was so much screaming. So much chaos. Adults were rushing to her. Doing everything they could.

But she was begging him, her son, for help.

And you just stood there.

Hate. The kind that everyone said you weren’t meant to feel buried the pain coursing through his body. It all went numb as James felt himself crushed by that overwhelming and unending hate for what he had done.

For who he was.

And for everything that had taken that kind, gentle voice away from him.

He knew what his mother felt in the last moments of her life. Fear and despair. Because her son couldn’t help her. Because he just stood there.

He knew what Jess must’ve felt while she was dying. The same. Because James couldn’t do anything.

James knew he should feel fear and despair at the thought of his death.

All he felt was hate.

Everything blurred again as James's body lept into action, spurred by his scorn.

At some point, his throat had started roaring between the fits of coughing. He wasn’t sure if it was when he’d tore the armoured man off Jess or when he’d ripped the machete out of his gut and put it through the man’s body armour and deep into his lungs.

Maybe it was when the armoured man had started screaming himself. Maybe it was when James had tore his mask off and started wailing his fists into the man’s skull.

The man was probably scared. James didn’t care. He could barely see past his own hands and the only thing fueling him was hate and denial.

He would not die like his mother.

He would not go out in fear and despair.

He would not let Jess die the same way.

My death will be a good one.

So he slammed his fists into the man’s face and buried him against the gravel. Blow after blow with all the strength his muscles would ever possess, losing strength every second. Each blow more desperate then the last as he caved the man’s head into the a bloody pile of bone a mush.

“J-james.”

His fists kept falling on the broken face of what was once a man.

“J-james.. *cough*... stop.” Jess’s strained frailed voice begged, weakly grabbing at his fist.

James stopped, slowly tilting his head to look up at her.

She’s alive.

She looked like she’d survived a hanging even to his blurry vision.

But she was alive.

He could see her aghast expression. She was alive.

[Congratulations, you’ve defeated an Invited Spark and earned the rights associated]

James thought he might be smiling. He could barely tell. The golden words tried to distract him, but James just didn’t care.

[Congratulations, you’ve completed the first invitation {Defeat a Spark}]

That was a good death. James thought as his world slowly turned black. He collapsed onto his back and let the gentle void seep into his body.

[Quest reward for {Defeat a Spark} have been logged. The System has melded the branches of your potential and founded your Source]

[Source: Loop]

He closed his eyes, then the world went dark.

[System notice: User has died]

[System error: Source has already been founded. Failure to bond will result in CATASTROPHIC FAILURE]

[Calculating response]

[Response unfound]

[No capable hosts exist within dimensional transference]

[Calculating response]

[Source: Loop has been deployed without administrative permission]

[Attemping reacquisition]

[Source: Loop has-]

[System error]

[System restart attempted]

[System error]

[User James Matthew Grove’s Source has been initialised]

[Failure to contain will result in complete timeline collapse of the surrounding quadrant]

[System priorities reassorting to prevent complete collapse]

[System permission granted]

[Source: Loop has begun]