Prologue: Monster Unleashed
Max was alone. He was usually alone, generally by choice, and tonight was no different. It was New Year’s Eve and he was waiting patiently for it to arrive in his single apartment in LA. There were still quite a few hours until it was the New Year in his time zone but there was only a few minutes left until the year for the GMT changed. He wasn’t going anything at the moment, Max was a fairly empty person, emotionally, and not much held his interest. The only thing he consistently liked was reading as it enabled him to forget about the world and live in another for a short period of time. He wasn’t doing that now as he had just finished his last book and had no new book to replace it and he was still thinking about what book to reread next.
Max had just turned twenty one last summer and was in his final year of college. He didn’t particularly like college nor did he particularly dislike it, it was merely a means to an end to him. Lofty goals and ambitions were foreign concepts to him but he was able to come up with plans and his long term plan was to work for the CIA. He didn’t think he’d feel any different after working there but he figured the job would at least be consistently interesting and there were only two things that Max wanted to avoid at all cost.
The first was boredom as being bored or inactive left his mind free to wander and that more often than not led him into thinking about his situation, it was always an unpleasant experience for him and every time it happened he felt himself slowly fade away. Max had felt for a decade now that he lacked a true purpose in life and that was the reason for his nearly constant empty state so he naturally sought a purpose for himself.
The other thing he wanted to avoid at all costs was losing control of his self. He didn’t know if the sensation was a fabrication of his mind or an actual separate piece of himself. What he did know was that if he ever lost control he’d become a monster, he’d lose his humanity and the last smoldering embers of his once positive and innocent personality. He may be mostly empty but he did still feel emotions and he did have people he cared about, although that number is fairly low. He cared about his parents, in spite of their strained relationship, he cared about his sister and he cared about his ex-girlfriends.
His first girlfriend had broken up with him at the end of his senior year in high school. It wasn’t a bad break up, meaning from a fight or other such things, but due to the nature of their relationship being too painful for his former girlfriend. They had been long distance dating, something that’s extremely hard to due for adults let alone high school students, and the stress of maintaining a healthy relationship from opposite sides of the US combined with the inability to regularly see each other was too much for her to take. Her parent’s had been very unaccommodating when it came to allowing her to visit me and their refusal to let her fly down, or me fly up, for Senior prom was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Unfortunately for Max this came at a period of loss for him, with the death of his uncle and lifelong pets, and he was already in a deep state of depression. When she told him that they were no longer dating he was broken. She was the first person he was actually certain he loved and her loss destroyed the gradual progress his mental state had made during the relationship. His body shut down and he was bed ridden for two weeks only taking barely nutrients for his body to survive during this time.
He had tried to kill himself to save himself from experiencing the empty void state he had been living through before that point. There were only two things that saved him from his attempt, the hesitation caused when he briefly thought what the news would do to the girl he still loved and the brief loss of control over his body when his other side took over. So he lived in and eventually become functional once more although he felt emptier than ever from that point on.
Eventually he graduated high school and left for college where he met his next girlfriend. She was able to face the truth of how he really was and felt without batting an eye and still loved him despite it. Thus he started dating the second person he truly came to love; he was still uncertain whether he truly loved his family or if it was a conditioned state of thought. Unfortunately this wasn’t meant to be either as just last year she was in a bad accident that left her in a coma, which she was still in. He never looked for a new partner as he still had the hope she would wake up, but there had still yet to be any sign of that happening.
So he continued the year alone at school living alone, just trying to pass the time as fast as possible in the hopes of her waking up the next day. Now it was Winter Break and he was currently staying in his apartment for the break, deciding against going back to stay with his family for the month long vacation. He just passed his days reading or on the internet waiting for whatever news the next day would bring.
As time had passed and the hits took their toll his mind had slowly degraded. He wasn’t going insane, instead he was just kept losing pieces of what truly made people human, emotions. Each piece that fell away, each crack that appeared in his mind let his darkness slowly gain more purchase in his mind. He didn’t want to lose himself to his dark side as he still held hope that one day he could regain what he lost and if he gave in and become the sadistic monster he knew he could become he wouldn’t be able to live with that. Unfortunately it was a battle he knew he was losing so he came up with the best solution he could think of.
If left unanswered his darker impulses would eventually lead him to become one of history’s worst murders and monsters so he decided to take a path that would let him help him sate those urges without becoming a criminal. The answer was to find work were he would be allowed to kill legally. At first he was going to join the military but soon realized he couldn’t tolerate listening to orders from someone he didn’t care about. Then it was going to join the FBI or become a cop but he hated the current justice system and knew he would eventually break the law after seeing some scum he had caught walk free. Finally he came to an answer, join the CIA.
If he joined the CIA he would likely have minimal orders, telling what to do but not how to do it, would not be sent against targets that would not just walk free and more importantly he would be sanctioned to kill thus satiating his darker urges. Of course he based this plan on the fact he would be a field agent or spy but hey it was the best he could come up with. So now he was preparing to enter his last semester of college before he had to join the “real” world. He wasn’t looking forward to it.
As his thoughts finished Max sighed and looked at his clock. His mind generally liked to give him an overview of his life every time he stopped keeping it active before switching to more unpleasant thought cycles. His alarm clock showed him the local time and GMT time both, he liked preferred it that way for some reason, and saw there was only a minute left until it was New Year’s (by GMT). Max slowly got up from his bed, he rarely got up from it unless he was at school, working out or taking care of necessities, and walked over towards the single window in the room.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
He noticed his appearance reflected back at him in the window pane. Dull, lifeless hazel eyes with dark rings under them, long wavy raven black hair spilling down his back, and a plain set of black pajama pants and t-shirt covering his six foot two frame. He dully noted that he had lost a slight bit of muscle tone over the past month and a half as he had been too apathetic to work out as vigorously as he used to lately. It wasn’t a big difference; he still had a muscular streamlined look but it was just slightly worse than his peak (easily maintainable) appearance.
Sighing out loud to himself Max whispered into the empty room.
“I wish the world was different, that I didn’t have to live like this. Another year but still I remain the same; I want life to be exciting, to be challenging, interesting and never boring, and to just simply not be this dull world I was born in.”
Reflected in the background he saw the time on his clock strike twelve signaling the start of the New Year. Max wasn’t sure if he was imagining it or not but he thought he heard the smallest of whispers tell him “wish granted, careful what you wish for”. Just as he was about to brush the whisper off as his imagination something happened, the world just stopped. He could still think and move his eyes but nothing else, and everything and everyone outside was the same. Then a strange blue window popped up in front of him.
-Max POV-
The world has now changed and you must now change with it. First update will commence once all participants are functional. Standby as participants are healed and woken up
What the hell? I don’t know what’s happening but I feel like this will not end well, for anyone.
I had barely enough time for those thoughts before the standby message was replaced.
All participants are now functional. Loading update…….Update complete, next update will be in two weeks.
After a few moments the screen disappeared leaving me very confused until all hell broke loose. Whatever was keeping the world frozen suddenly stopped and before I could process this I suddenly had an inexplicable extreme feeling of danger coming directly towards my back. I didn’t have time to react so my other side did it for me. My other side flooded my mind and my body instantly moved.
My body launched to the side, propelled by gravity and the force my arms generated from pushing off the window, which left a sizable crack by the way. I didn’t even have time to take in the form of whatever was behind me before I heard a crash and saw the blurry outline of something jumping through my window to the outside. Whatever instinct of feeling I had was hadn’t let up even as the first danger went through my window so I once more reacted on instinct and rolled to the side, slamming myself into my bed in the process. When I looked back at the spot I had been previously occupied I finally was able to see what my senses were screaming at me about.
Hunched over with a knife implanted firmly in the wood floor of the spot my head had been occupying was a short (about two and a half feet) green thing, which reminded me of a goblin or some variant of it. It looked vaguely confused by the lack of a body attached to its knife and sense I was no longer fully in control of myself and I still had an extreme feeling of danger I didn’t miss the importunity. Not bothering to try and be graceful or cool about it I simply lunged at the creature smothering it with my body. It tried to struggle but I weighed just under 200 pounds so it was in vain, it didn’t help that the position of the arm it had on the knife caused it to break when I feel on it.
I just continued to lie on top of it as its struggles slowly subsided, it got a few hits on my but nothing but light scratches and bruises were the result as it was lying face down underneath me. When it finally stopped struggling I give it a few moments before getting up and without even hesitating stomped my foot down on the back of its neck, insuring that it was indeed dead.
My mind worked in overdrive as my darker half receded back into the depths of my mind. I didn’t feel like I had much time so I spent little time pondering over the why or how and instead focused entirely on what to do. I figured the current situation had to do with the “update” and briefly recalling the half heard whisper I just started moving. I quickly changed clothes, switching into “combat gear”, which consisted of military cargo pants, steel toed boots and a thrown on leather jacket.
I kept my senses open incase another incident happens as I quickly packed a hiking backpack full of anything I deemed useful. I was still flying mostly on vague speculation and instinct at this point so I was packing in accordance to the thought that I wasn’t dreaming and things were likely to get worse. I put in all the long term food and bottles of water I had into my pack, along with a sleeping bag, all medical supplies I owned and other random useful items like duct tape. I didn’t bother putting in more than one change of clothes as I didn’t view it as a priority and didn’t want to way myself down with non-essentials, no sentimental items either.
I didn’t own any guns and the knives in my kitchen were dull so after I finished packing I grabbed the knife of the dead goblin creature, strapped on my pack and exited my apartment. Fortunately for me there were no more goblins in the hallway, unfortunately for others (judging by the screams anyways) the same couldn’t be said about the other rooms. I didn’t even consider stopping to help, thanks to a combination of survival instinct and apathy, and simply rushed as fast as I could to the parking lot hoping that my car was still in one piece.
Good news, it was. Bad news it wouldn’t start and from the lack of other moving vehicles and the abundance of stopped cars in the street I figured that to be the case for all vehicles.
Looks like I’m going on foot, thank god I live in the suburbs and not downtown.
That was my last thought before turning away from the bonfire that the heart of LA was quickly becoming and making my way to the local mall. It was risky but there was a shop in there that sold functional knives and hunting equipment and I need something besides the shitty knife I took off the goblin I had killed. Gritting my teeth I started lighting jogging through the backstreets towards the mall, which was only a mile away. I prayed I made it there in one piece.