The weather in September was scorching. Although the heat had subsided a little, it had not completely receded. Though the weather was still a bit sultry, the coolness of the morning and evening was also refreshing.

A young man spent quite a bit of time on the road, seemingly with no destination, going where the wind blew. As the afternoon approached, he seemed to remember something and headed east of the city. The residential area he was headed to had a particular house that held get-togethers, usually on the fly with no set times.

If he remembered correctly, one should be ongoing this afternoon.

The sun’s rays passed through the beautiful blue sky, partly obscured by clouds, causing shadows to be cast on the earth.

The city area was busy, but further east you would find residential areas with tall official apartment complexes and casual homes, some for rent and lease.

It was in an ‘official’ apartment complex that the dazed young man had now entered. The so-called official apartment complexes were just one of many casual terms for the residences that big companies or wealthy people had bought, tearing down past structures and erecting new ones. Some used empty plots of land for the sole purpose of renting.

All official apartment complexes typically had many rooms on each floor, rented out to young couples, singles, and struggling workers on their last breaths. It was no wonder how small each ‘apartment’ was.

"Chadicus, dawg, what you been —"

"Alright, where in god’s name did you get that nickname from?" Cherry, Chazz’s girlfriend, asked her boyfriend after hearing his friend’s absurd name again and again. But, boy, did she regret hearing the backstory.

"Chadicus?" One of the boys echoed, his eyes fixed on the video game Chazz was playing. "Ah, shi… Back in high school, when he was thirteen, he got it on with two teachers. Some fine-ass MILFs; I’m talking eights at least. It was all over the news, too."

Seeing the shocked look on Cherry’s face, he took a sip from his cup before continuing. "Was the talk of our little town back then. Everyone was up in the drama, and the older guys were especially jealous. Although good for us, they didn’t bully him out of jealousy but praised him everywhere, calling him King Chad. Then we named him King Chadicus Biggus Dickus The Almighty The First."

A smirk crept on his face as he concluded with a, "Or Chadicus, for short." Taking another sip, his smile widened, enjoying Cherry’s reaction.

"Teachers?!" Cherry gasped, absolutely flabbergasted. "When he was thirteen?!"

"Bro started out with a big win," said a shorter guy in a proud tone.

"Yeah," agreed another, "Closest he ever got to that was that Roxanne chick and her friend." He nudged Chazz who was busy with his video game, saying, "Lucky bastard."

The other guys chipped in, except one who was silent and observing the scene like an old man among children. He seemed to be in his early twenties, the same age group as the rest of the gathering. With only his eyes as the clue to unmasking him, he was in expert disguise.

Cherry was dumbfounded for a few seconds before blurting out, "I can’t believe you guys! That’s sexual assault; he was abused!" She looked around like she was trapped in a psycho ward. "Why are you making it seem like he won a prize or something? Think of —"

Before she could continue, Cherry was cut off by her one and only big-eyed boyfriend.

"Typical female reaction," he simply stated.

Not to be outdone, she immediately retorted, "Typical male reaction."

"I swear, girls always fall for the SA bit," said Chazz. "Chad never even thought about it till they brought it up and now it’s like the gift that keeps on giving when he tricks them all into pity sex."

Muttering the next line under his breath, Chazz said, "Looking at yo' dumbass, you would’ve probably been one of them." He was moving his fingers at high speed on his game controller when he felt a menacing glare pierce through him.

‘She heard that? Fuck!’

"Well, I’mma take my dumbass out the door for good and you’re free to get with whoever is dumb enough to deal with your bullshit!"

Slam!

The only other girl who was present opened her mouth to say something after Cherry slammed the door, but she simply closed her mouth in exasperation and chased after her friend.

"What’s her problem— Ah, Jeston, you cunt, don’t shoot while I’m distracted!" Chazz immediately got back to playing his game.

The only two females had left and all the males were enjoying themselves.

The silent young man watching the youthful banter of his fellow peers was O’Brien Hall, a regressor from the future. Yes, he was the man who quibbled with the Blue Phoenix, Celes Greymore, for ownership of the crystal. Yet he, who was such a marginal side character in the war and last days—no, a mere mob character—was lucky enough to go back in time. It had been three days and the truth had now fully undressed itself before his very eyes.

He had traveled back in time.

Looking around at the faces of his good friends, he reminisced the memories of the laughter and joy they shared, the girl he once loved deeply and the girl who he later came to love, along with his best friend who went through thick and thin with him. Their social group had banded tightly in the end, although the binds came loose due to him…

A rush of emotions flooded his heart and soul; nostalgia, melancholy, love, camaraderie, hope. He remembered the changes they all went through over the years, as clear as day, almost unrecognizable from the past. Some died, some lived, some lived in brokenness, some died at peace, while others remained suffering.

Looking back, this was the dream-like ‘normal’ life they had lived before it all went to Hell.

‘Such pure youthful banter… And my position in this group is nostalgic…’ O’Brien mused to himself. ‘So very nostalgic…’

He looked through the window at the girl that stormed out.

‘Truly, it is the past… Her eyes, her face, her laugh, her purity. They had disappeared long before we became a thing…’

Cherry would eventually become his girlfriend, the first woman he loved and intended to marry, even in the darkest times of the abyss. She was his light, and their love bore fruit after dancing out of death’s embrace together, one too many times.

The team, formed by the people in this room, was outstanding, to say the least. Even in the early days of hell, they were decent. But as fate would have it, the two of them were split off from the rest for a whole month.

It was then the seeds were planted, and as the cliché went, they cemented their relationship and didn’t have the face to remain in the team with Chazz, her then ex and team leader.

O’Brien looked at the pouting beautiful figure outside the window, and after a moment of thought, he walked out of the room, ignoring the calls of his friends. He felt his heart stir a bit.

"Oh, O’Brien, what’s up?" Cherry asked as she saw him approaching. She had been feeling that his gaze was strange since he stepped through the door of the apartment earlier.

O’Brien paused in front of her. The memories buried deep within his psyche resurfaced at this very moment, some long forgotten.

After a few moments of silence and staring, Cherry was starting to get annoyed.

"Well?" she spat with a curious frown.

"Take care of yourself…" was all he said. He looked her up and down, then deep into her eyes before walking off and not looking back, but a few steps later he stopped.

The memories of the passion, the woe, and the heartache they shared were now like grasping the wind. Time had taken away their substance and sway, and now they were faded like pictures from several decades ago.

His heart once stirred for her, but now, as he stared her down with a few feet between them, feeling the heat from her body, the light in her eyes, the vibrancy of her gait…this living person felt dead to him.

He no longer loved her.

Perhaps he never truly did.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Perhaps love was out of the comprehension of most people in his generation. Maybe it was just a substitute word used because of the oddities of saying something else.

Perhaps the love he knew was nothing more than reliance. In those dark times, with the ugliness of humanity laid bare and their helplessness brought to light, he needed an anchor to keep his humanity, someone to give him stability and reason. Otherwise, he would have taken the easy way out like the ‘sheep’, in the face of the hell that was the New World.

Who knows what his feelings for her were back then?

What he did know now, was that his feelings for her were gone.

"Timothy Royner, the ‘Blazing Sword’ of the third pioneer squad of the Lighthouse… You should avoid him," O’Brien instructed Cherry. After taking a deep breath, he continued his retreat but stopped once again, three steps later. After all, they were once intertwined, so he couldn’t just coldly forget about her and leave her to her fate. He was the cause of her tragic fate after all, even if indirectly.

His voice trembled, not out of emotion but because he was still unused to his younger vocal cords, before all those days and nights when he screamed in pain, despair, and anger until he went hoarse and his voice became reminiscent of a chain smoker.

"If the day ever comes, don’t go to Blue Jessel Ruins," he finished. With that he finally walked away, leaving Cherry in visible confusion.

Timothy? Blazing Sword? Lighthouse? Jessel?

What was he on about?

Did he smoke some of that Purple Corn Weed Chazz was meat riding?

O’Brien never looked back once. he resisted the temptation, sighing again and again after he had left them all behind.

This was both a literal and physical severance of ties.

Finding himself in a random internet cafe with slow traffic due to the time of day, he got their rarely used cafe service and had some coffee and snacks.

His thoughts swam around in circles and irregular patterns haphazardly.

***

O’Brien Hall realized he had regressed two days ago, but he was digesting it up until today. At first, he was like a mental patient, laughing like a madman, then so excited he shivered for half an hour, and finally angry, screaming like a wild beast; he wanted to rip all of his enemies to shreds and feed them their viscera!

The strong men who trampled him and his dignity! He wanted to purge them from the cradle.

He wanted to save his friends and his lover. He wanted to stop all the injustices of mankind and slaughter the alien races. A second chance… What was it for? This was it! Right all the wrongs that were done to him and others! He would do it all over! Everything would be fixed!

But as quickly as those passions flared up, they were doused with similar intensity.

Then he was overwhelmed and confused by the truth of it all.

Everything happened so fast back then. Although the days leading up to the end had clear signs, no one could have ever expected what was to come. The natural and unnatural disasters, followed by the supernatural wave of energy that swept throughout the earth… The earth grew more land like some weird cartoon, and the stars shone as bright as the moon in their sights all at once, weird visions showed up, and by the time it was all over, weird cards began to show up one after the other.

Just the precursor natural disasters alone caused a great loss of life. Moreover, they were the cause of low food reserves for the average bachelor living at home, also forcing most to stay home and not go back to their families.

It was like the outbreak of the 2020 pandemic all over again, but death was raw and laid bare. The governments worldwide struggled to contain the victims of the disasters and, when the apocalypse came, their strengths were dispersed so they couldn't mount a full offensive.

The Genesis Card Fall came so suddenly that no one knew what to do. How could they know how truly valuable these cards were? How could they know that some cards were so much more valuable than others? How could they know these cards controlled their fates?

Soon after the event, posthumously dubbed Genesis Card Fall, or Gold Card Rush, God's Mercy, Card Bestowal, depending on who you asked, monsters and alien races began to appear. These creatures slaughtered in all directions, turning civilization back into the jungle where the weak preyed on each other and the strong preyed on all.

Humans were truly done dirty in the New World. They were suddenly thrust to the bottom of the food chain with guns and other weapons having little to no effect on monsters and alien races. Furthermore, the precursor disasters ruined defense and attack infrastructure, and nuclear capabilities were crippled in most of the world.

Monsters killed and ate humans; mutant trees and bacteria turned them into fertilizer; alien races enslaved, killed, pillaged, and tortured humans en masse; and the living environment became unfriendly with the existence of ludicrous phenomena like floating lava and poisonous miasma that wandered across the land, among other terrors of the enraged mother nature.

But by far the most cruelty humanity would suffer was by its own hands, what man did to their brethren.

O'Brien suffered from this many times. He had many people who had done him wrong, literally and figuratively spitting in his face.

One hundred and fourteen scars were once on his body, and half of those were from ex-lovers and brothers-in-arms turned foes in the face of wealth and profit.

For vengeance for himself and justice for humanity, now with knowledge of the future, it was possible to obtain all he had ever wanted from the New World.

Tapping his plastic coffee mug, he looked deep inside himself. He clutched the hot coffee until his long light brown fingers burned from the heat.

"No… That's not what I want," he remembered.

That was all wishful thinking for one man; even with powerful knowledge of the future, there was only so much you could do, but what really mattered to him was not all these illusions of grandeur and saintliness.

That moment on the battlefield when one of his mechanical arms was ripped off, when he was the closest to death than he had ever been, that moment when the mountain of corpses drowned him, the thoughts that had run through his mind at that very moment wasn’t all this righteous BS, or crap about love and repaying debts!

He was simply tired. He had fought enough, almost ceaselessly for 15 years. And it was all for nothing, he had nothing to show for it. He was less than a cog in a machine; just some bug on the side of the road. In the end, he was simply tired and wanted to rest.

The only regret he had was that he didn’t seize power fast enough and couldn’t compete on the level of the Blue Phoenix and the others. He regretted never even touching the truly magnificent and powerful cards, nor ever living in luxury like those evil scum and hundred times sons of bitches. As his old Colombian comrades would say, despite being such scum they lived better than the 'good' persons.

Accidentally getting a summoning-type Stone Cyclops card, an assassin-type Dark Shroud equipment card, or even any other high-quality cards like the rare talent cards, could have taken him a long way.

Bending the weather to your will, changing the landscape, one sword to split a building! All that escaped his grasp and fell into the hands of others.

Why must evil always prosper over good?

Why did the evil gain these great boons and the good was left with scraps?

If only he had been luckier starting back then.

That regret was what gave him the strength to rob Blue Phoneix, even though he was destined to die. He had nothing to lose, already accepting he had no hopes of surviving. He just wanted to stick it to her and the others just once before he died. For the longest time, they had all he ever wanted.

He wanted to grasp what they didn’t have, what they could only have dreamed for, what they had lusted for.

Yes, he was envious. Who wouldn't be?

They all started at the same line, as ordinary humans, but some pulled away to become Superman and Supergirl while others struggled to get shabby video game powers.

After experiencing the future, the only thing that mattered to O’Brien now were Cards. His youthful heart of justice was weathered and beaten by the winds, and only a few things could bring excitement to his now old heart.

Only Cards could let his old heart grow younger.

Cards! Cards! Cards!

The omnipotent and almighty-given form.

Human relations were just heavy chains to weigh down.

Cards were supreme!

Suddenly, O'Brien remembered something or, to be more accurate, someone.

Just like that, his passion was doused, if just momentarily.

"Damn. There was...such a person," he groaned in annoyance, running his hand through his dark hair. Now he was feeling out of sorts, remembering that smiling figure and warm memory.

He had resolved within himself to sever all ties and start anew with his newfound advantages. He wanted to be one of the tops, and nothing would stop him this time around. He also wanted to rest leisurely and fight optionally. That was all O'Brien wished for with his new beginning.

A truly new beginning.

Sadly, nothing could be perfect. The perfect sequence of events was him being by himself with no dead weights to take care of so he could fully go after all the opportunities that would come with the Apocalypse. Single-minded in the pursuit of power and excellence.

He had no family as they had died when he was just a teenager. He was not on good terms with his extended family, even then they were in his home country. He had also severed ties with both friends and lovers. Logically, he should be free to do as he pleased with no chains binding him right?

"Fuck… What a nuisance. But it is what it is, right?" He sighed deeply after spending several more hours in internal turmoil. To care or not to care?

‘I have been having these long internal debates with myself a lot lately,’ he thought. ‘It's starting to get exhausting.’

O'Brien had one dead weight to carry after all, but hopefully, he could get rid of it in a short time.

"First things first, I need a plan. I should try and remember everything I experienced and what I heard about the start of the apocalypse," his dark eyes flittered across the cafe while he muttered quietly to himself. "God knows there are many stories as it was such a massive upheaval." He pushed the single fly in the ointment to the back of his mind as he got up to leave, leaving his coffee cup empty.

He stared up at the sky with a smile. He was now less confused than he was before and had direction in his life. With this extra edge, he would rise to the top, unless he was cursed with bad luck.

If bad luck prevailed, then... Well, that was what if. Either way, if he won then he won, and if he didn't, well… that's the end of that.

Hell, those mystical cards even had luck-enhancing ones, so maybe he would try his luck with them.