How long has it been since that day?

I look back, and yet, the memory’s a fresh wound.

Amadeus, Loki… Lillie… I’ve been having the same dream for a while now. Maybe a nightmare.

They never choose me. And our lives never come together. Is it selfish of me? That I wouldn’t give up all of what happened, just for that?

.

.

.

A young man stood at the head of a small crowd of pedestrians. A red traffic light shined above, signalling that they were still not yet allowed to pass.

The man was dark skinned and broad shouldered. He’d long rolled up his sleeves and discarded his coat for the sheer heat in the area. A sideways turn of his head peered at a billboard advertisement, only to have the view blocked by the tall buses that crossed by him.

The young man’s name was Victor. He was finally off from work just as the sun was turning red over the horizon. The heat was boring into his skin and every little noise heightened his annoyance. The sounds of the car horns, of people on their phones or bickering with each other. And worst of all was how tightly crowded together they were. It was unbearable.

Quick beeping came from Victor’s side and he moved forward. But that hadn’t been the traffic light.

Victor looked up to the blaring horns of a vehicle speeding towards him. He paused like a deer in headlights. The car tried to run him down but a yank pulled him backwards. Victor’s breath caught in his throat and he fell on the sidewalk.

A bland faced man, balding and stern, looked down at him.

“Crazy kid! Look where you’re going!” He growled, yet still offered the young Victor a hand.

The car had sped by without stopping for a second. A bit tasteless, but better tasteless than unaware like himself.

“Sorry, sir,” Victor replied, force of habit making him sound professional. The old man rubbed at the side of his head.

“You look tired, son. All alright?” he asked him. Victor shook his head.

“Like you said, just tired.”

“Don’t get yourself in more trouble,” the old man criticized. He’d heard the same thing a million times from his father.

“I’ll try my best.”

He spared a glance for the distraction that had almost gotten him killed. Some kid playing a game on his smartphone. Victor couldn’t even decipher the thousand colours exploding on the screen of the device. He shook his head aside and ignored it, walking home like any other day.

He opened the door to his silent apartment. Not a noise to be heard, which is the way he liked it. Spending enough time with some overactive kids was bound to make you want some peace and quiet.

He hung up his coat and threw his keys into a basket. Victor popped open his fridge and took out a coke.

He kicked off his dress shoes, jumped onto the couch and hiked his feet up onto a coffee table. That would’ve gotten him a stern talking-to from his mom had it not been his own apartment. Luckily, he’d sweet talked the owner into giving it to him on the cheap.

What a day…. He creaked his neck and popped open the coke. The soda hissed and he took a swig as he turned on the news. He flipped through tens of channels in a second, but they all showed the same thing.

“What’s with the constant depressing stuff?” Victor muttered to himself.

Everywhere he looked online, there was some news about a country falling or military coups. The man hadn’t the energy to listen to any more awful events.

“Reporting live from Boston, Shelly, I can’t believe what I’m seeing her- click”

“It’s a pillar of light, seemingly appearing out of n- click”

“We’ve got our experts getting close to the scene, but it’s far away in the Atlantic- click”

Victor paused. What?

He went back to one of the channels. A brown-haired announcer with a cleft chin reported in from what looked like a helicopter. The footage was unclean and wind blocked out almost all of the sound.

“A yellow beam of light has been spotted appearing over the Atlantic Ocean. Now, so far we don’t know what it means, but we’ll be reporting in every second so stay tuned! Charlie, take us closer!” the newscaster reported.

Victor flipped to another channel.

“We’re bringing some people here to give us a better insight, but so far they tell us it’s not just a simple optical illusion!” another reporter chimed in.

Victor flipped through a hundred more reports like that. All of them gave conflicting information. In his focused state, Victor didn’t feel the tiredness creeping into his mind. Not until it all hit at once.

The remote fell out of his hands and he clutched his head. It ached like nothing else. A throbbing in his skull that hit rhythmically. Victor stood up and turned the TV off for himself.

Too much… I’ll check it out later, he reassured himself, before strutting off towards his bed with his head in his hand.

****

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An explosion. That was what jolted awake Victor. He snapped his eyes open and took heavy breaths. Sweat beaded on his forehead and he looked outside of his darkened bedroom window.

He swallowed a gulp. More sounds came from outside. The beating of wings and a thousand car horns that drowned out worse noises. Victor jumped out of his bed and pulled aside his curtain to hell on earth.

There were things in the sky that flapped their insectile wings a million beats per second. People were on the ground running from them. Adrenaline pumped through Victor’s body as he saw one of the winged things stop in the middle of the air. And then slowly turn to face him.

A second later, he was bursting out of his front door to the sight of a devoured corpse. He was buttoning up his shirt when he saw it. Victor backed up, but he heard the sound of shattering glass behind him. Shit!

The elevator had been out of commission since morning. He headed towards the stairwell instead. A monster burst out of his apartment room and ran for him. Spotty and green-shelled, it was a giant grasshopper with human limbs and a dangerous look about it. Victor slammed the stairwell door and jumped down.

He landed hard on his legs, lunging forward to continue in a sprint. He pushed aside the double doors of his apartment building in his run. Victor spared no thought for the carnage around him. Cars were rushing forward, men and women were screaming left and right and he could hear the cries of children.

He rushed for his Mustang, only for an explosion to rock him backwards.

Everything after for a few moments was a shock of white. Victor hit his back against a wall and felt the breath leave his lungs. He looked up in time to see the burning remains of the muscle car. He wanted to curse and scream but the defiance died in his lungs. Eyes quivering, he peeled himself off of the floor and ran once more, this time aimless.

The thoughts of the sweet baker who lived down the street, the laundromat where they let him wash his clothes for free, the poor old retired couple that lived down the hall from him and a million other people filled the man with tears. He wiped them away on his jacket and focused his mind on something concrete. Where was he going? What did he need?

Beating wings stopped the thought in its tracks. He looked behind himself to see another one of those disgusting bug creatures in the air. It spat out bile from its mouth as it chased him down.

Victor let his legs carry him through. He turned to streets with more carnage and screams in the dim hope of losing the monster. But it kept pace with him the entire time through.

He realized he couldn’t outrun it, so Victor instead stopped in front of a fire hydrant. He pulled off his jacket and held it like a bullfighter.

“Over here! Didn’t you want a piece of me!?” he said with a manic tinge to his voice. The bug seemed to buy the bait, swooping down towards him.

Victor threw the jacket onto its face and stepped aside. The bug went crashing into the fire hydrant and knocked it out of its hold, spraying water high into the air. Victor took a deep breath and fished his green stained jacket out from under the bug, before running forwards once more.

He ran and ran, but no direction took him. What am I doing? He cursed himself. Was he just going to trick himself out of every fight he encountered in the future? And how would that work out for him?

He needed weapons. And the only place to get them…

Victor looked around for a gun store. He found one at the edge of the street, calling to him like a siren. And it wasn’t the only thing he heard. There were more beating wings behind him and so, he ran for the store with what little strength remained.

Victor cracked the doors open and jumped over the counter. With no other noises, his breathing felt like he was screaming out his location. he placed a hand over his mouth. A second later he heard a swarm of bugs pass him by. In their wake they left the sound of more car horns, but nothing more.

Victor stayed in there, silent as a doll, for as long as he could. He dared a look over the counter, hoping against hope he was alone. But there was something still remaining outside. Another of the bugs, so horrid against the backdrop of flaming buildings. Its beady black eyes swerved to meet Victor’s, antennae twitching.

Victor ducked under the counter once more. Please, please… you’ve already given me one miracle. Please don’t let him inside… he said with clasped hands. The prayers fell on deaf ears, and the bell above the door rang as the monster entered the shop.

Victor bit his lips and got on his knees. No. Not like this. Not in a gun shop in godforsaken Oakland. He grabbed a knife off one of the lower hanging shelves. He didn’t know rifles or shotguns, so instead he took some pistols off instead.

Victor crawled as far away from the skittering bug as he could. He shoved himself to the side when the monster jumped the counter over to the shelves. Victor dared another look as he loaded his pistols. The monster was hunched over a piles of the rifles, chomping down on AR-15s like they were fries.

Victor didn’t understand the disgusting creature. Was this what they all ate? Instead, he brandished the pistols akimbo and rose off the ground.

The bug twisted its head to meet him. Victor filled him with as much lead as was in his pistols. Half the shots missed and they hurt like hell against his arms, but some hit their mark true.

The bug screamed in defiance and pain, green blood oozing from its surfaces. It ripped through the counter like it wasn’t there, tackling Victor into the air. The bug started to chomp through his clothing and Victor slammed the butt of the guns down onto him.

That only managed to mildly annoy it. Victor then kicked it, forcing the monster to let go. It stumbled on its grotesque legs and put its hands up to a bleeding wound. Like a human through a twisted lens, it touched its wounds and beheld the green ooze that wept from it.

“You…. hit… meeeeee…” the bug screeched out in an alien voice.

“You can talk?” Victor asked, baffled. He almost loosened his grip on his pistol.

“I ammmm…. The heirrrrrr…. Of Ssssstolk-“ But he didn’t get to finish the sentence.

Victor unloaded the full magazine into the monster’s face. It screeched and blocked with its hands. and to Victor’s shock, that shell of his absorbed most of the hits. His pistols ran out and Victor tossed them aside and pulled out new ones from behind himself.

The bug slashed at him some more, but it only cut him down the arm shallowly. Victor grunted as he shot more holes into the bug. It, or rather, he, was bleeding from its one eye as it extended its pincers at Victor.

The pincers poked a hole between Victor’s neck and shoulder, and he fired another round into bug. But the round bounced off. The pincer pinned Victor to the back wall of the shop. Victor grunted, feeling his grip on his pistol lighten.

The pincer twisted further and Victor let out a scream; dropping one of the guns. Instead, he grasped the remaining and steadied himself. Victor shakily raised it and aimed it straight at the bug’s bleeding eye. If he had eyes, he should have brains. Victor let through one last round.

It hit the bug in the eye, carving its way through its sclera and hitting the grey matter. Instantly, Victor felt its pincer go slack. No scream came from the beast.

Victor dropped to the floor and ripped out the remaining bits, all the while the monster in front of him twitched and writhed. he heaved a breath and placed an arm against his wound.

His other arm held the pistol. It stayed that way until the body fell limp enough for Victor to be sure. His arm strained to hold the gun only for Victor to drop it in a moment. Something was materializing from the body of the monster.

It popped out in a flash of light that blinded Victor for a moment. The light coalesced into the form of a silver beating heart.

What…. He wondered, but something about the thing called to him. It kept beating at a steady rhythm, urging him forward to grab it. And so he did.

Victor plucked it off of the body of the monster and held it up to the sky. This close he could hear something that sounded like an engine or a gun firing from the inside. It stuck to his skin and seemed to want to go deeper, only stopped by something immaterial in between the both of them.

The world bled away around Victor as he examined that small beating heart. The only thing stopping him from taking it was his own will. A locked door against whatever power was inside the arcane creation.

Victor unlocked that door, and Awakened.

[Seed Integrated: Weaponsmith Heart]

[Ability Unlocked: Unlock Structural Sense]

[Ability Unlocked: Basic Strengthening]

[Ability Unlocked: Ammo Counter]