For the thousandth time Zane’s soul was being drained away by a pack of ghouls. They gnawed at his mind with their shrill screams and twisted babbling. Some people called them goblins. Others called them the dregs of humanity.

He called them customers.

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” Zane’s fake joy was sickeningly sweet. “I’ll escalate your case to my manager. Then he can deal with you.”

There was a high-pitched shriek from the other side of the phone that was cut off as he hung up on them.

Oops. My finger slipped.

“Bad call?” someone asked.

“Do you ever want a customer to explode?” Zane asked. “Or maybe just catch fire long enough to stop bothering me.”

“Every Monday about five minutes into my first call,” the voice replied.

Zane swiveled his chair around to see a short man watching him sink lower into his chair with each word spoken. The man was Tobie, his best friend, and a fellow eternal sufferer. Once someone said that when they stood side by side, they looked like a stick insect and a dung beetle.

The words weren’t inaccurate.

Zane had always been on the skinny side and while tech support hadn’t crushed Tobie’s spirit, it had caused him to put on a few pounds. Zane slammed the phone down into its socket.

“Technology was a mistake,” Zane groaned. “Why does everyone have to take that mistake out on me?”

“Everyone knows the best person to deal with humanity’s burdens is a minimum wage employee.” Tobias tapped his white shirt proudly. There was a small emblem of a smiling telephone on it, the stitching frayed and drained of color after years of wear and tear. The logo of their company. “Besides, it’s not like we’ve got anything else to do except wish for the end of the world.”

“Hey, if you want the sun to explode then that’s fine by him, but if it does then I’m climbing the highest mountain to get there first,” Zane replied. “Video games and junk food are what keep my engine running. If I don’t have those then who cares what happens after.”

“You’re crazy. Everyone wants to live. Some just don’t know it yet,” Tobie said. “Well, not me. I’m prepared. Zombies. Super virus. Alien invasion. I’ve got a plan for each one. Food and supplies ready to go.”

Zane shook his head and laughed. Tobie was an optimist if there ever was one. Except the only thing he was optimistic about was that the world would end.

Still, he was fun to talk to. That was all that mattered.

“I’m going to take a break,” Zane pushed his chair back and stood up.

“Dunham’s not going to like that,” Tobie’s tone held a hint of warning. “He wants us in here until nightfall today. Something about the company opening up to Singapore time zones now.”

“Tell him I’m in the crapper,” Zane waved his hand dismissively. “If he asks for details tell him I was in it the moment I stepped into this building.”

Zane was already halfway through the exit by the time the words left his mouth. It had taken him years of social finagling, but he’d gotten his cubicle placed next to the emergency exit of the stairwell. All he’d needed to do was wait for the right person to type in the code to leave without activating the alarm and he’d gained permanent access to the outside world.

“Yeah, I’m not going to tell him that,” Tobie’s voice trailed after him. “I’ll come join you in a sec.”

His friend’s reasoning was sound. Yarly Dunham was the kind of manager that was perfect for working in tech support. If their boss saw a wounded pilgrim, he would throw them to the hyenas to buy some time.

It was probably because his parents had named him Yarly.

Zane bounded up the stairs two by two. The company he worked for had settled into the middle of a skyscraper like a parasite burrowing into flesh. He thought that the building was too prestigious for a company like theirs, but it turns out it isn’t hard to convince everyone you were a respectable business when your neighbors were loan sharks and investment firms.

Twelve flights of stairs later he swung open the door to the roof, basking in the rays of the dying evening sun. The only credit he gave his company was that they’d picked a building with a good view. It was the tallest skyscraper in the city, looming over its domain like a manmade god.

He gazed upon a sleeping world curling into an evening stupor. Then something shifted below him.

What is that?

A pulse of red light swept across the city, breaking apart the evening fog, and capturing everything in its embrace. A single scream accompanied it, and Zane quickly realized it was his own, but his attention was stolen by the sight of the city below him.

Everything that had been quiet only a moment ago was now alive. And it was shrieking.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

The city was ripping apart.

Thousands of people and buildings twisted unnaturally, elongating into hulking masses of warped metal, brick, and flesh. Mountains appeared where there were none and lava sprung up across the horizon, spewing ash into the air, only for both to be swept away by a storm that was layered with glowing red and black veins. Below him the streets were swept up in a wave of chaos, altered and distorted in ways he couldn’t comprehend.

Pain stabbed Zane’s mind as a thousand impossibilities scoured his eyes.

Armageddon had arrived, and the world didn’t end with a bang or a whisper.

It screamed.

Zane tore his eyes away from the insanity. He didn’t know what he was seeing. He couldn’t know. His mind sought the sweet embrace of madness as reality shattered around him, but Zane refused its call. With a defiant leap he pushed himself onto the ground, forcing his eyes to gaze at the stone below him instead of the world around it.

As suddenly as it began, the screaming stopped, and the world went silent.

A gentle breeze washed over his shirt, and he realized that he was shivering. It wasn’t just because of his fear. The atmosphere had grown cold, to the point of being frigid. Which didn’t make sense because it was the middle of summer, and the heat had been sweltering only moments before.

He raised his head, wondering if he had gone insane.

Is this what a mental breakdown feels like?

Nobody answered.

With a firm push against the stone, Zane rose. His breath caught in his throat as he viewed his surroundings. He was still on the roof of the skyscraper, but that roof was now on the ground floor. Its stone tiling connected directly with the asphalt of the street that it had once looked over.

Cruel mockeries of modern buildings surrounded him on all sides, twisted in hundreds of different directions. The skyscraper he worked in had disappeared, its glass walls and pristine metal frame either stabbing deep into the earth or shattered in oblivion.

The frightening part was that he hadn’t noticed it happening.

One moment he was at the highest point of the city. The next he was beneath everything else. Zane looked up and saw the morning sun shining bright, cracked into three pieces.

Wait, what?

A moan reverberated through the street, but it hadn’t come from him.

There was a crash to his side, and Zane whipped his head around to find the source. He quickly wished he hadn’t. Something was limping across the fractured surroundings. It was a hulking monstrosity of metal that looked like a car had merged with a tollbooth, forcing the excess metal to turn into legs and arms. Its head was the front end of a rusty car, its lights flickering on and off, and stretched out over the hood was the source of the moaning.

It was a human face.

The creature turned toward him as it spotted him and the urge to vomit and run hit him at the same time. He turned without hesitation and bolted across the roof of the skyscraper. The sound of scraping metal and shattered bitumen followed him as the creature gave chase.

Adrenaline pumped through Zane’s veins as he jumped from the roof. His feet landed on the street, and he heard something crash behind him. He didn’t stop to look and see what it was. There was only one thought in his mind right now.

He wanted to live.

He would live.

Zane’s gaze swept across the street, searching for safety. What he found was a once-familiar convenience store. The building he’d visited a thousand times every lunch break had transformed into the architectural equivalent of the porcupine. It’s bright green and white neon sign had warped into spikes that stabbed outward, trying to pierce the air with their deadly tips.

That’s perfect.

His pursuer was gaining ground quickly. Zane could hear its footsteps crashing against the stone roof, breaking it in half. He ducked into the building just as the reverberations grew to their highest point. The monster let out an earthshattering shriek as it smashed into the side of the building. A dozen spikes stabbed through its body, but he wasn’t sure that it could feel any of them.

Silence enveloped the area, and he held his breath in anticipation. The metal body had stopped against the side of the building. A single spike ran through what had once been a human face and with a grating shriek it fell to the ground, lifeless. Despite the giant cut separating it into, he could see the monster’s expression clearly.

It was smiling.

Zane collapsed, and a chuckle escaped his throat. That chuckle became a roaring laugh. If filled the air with a mixture of joy and insanity. His heart was pounding and sweat dripped from every pore of his body. But he had survived.

The moment the laughter stopped he vomited on the spot. Terror swept through him as the reality of the situation started to seep in. It crawled through his body and infected his mind, his limbs flopping to his side as weak as a newborn.

That was when he noticed that a change had come over the surroundings. A hush had fallen over the once roaring city, and as he stared at the corpse, he spotted a gentle glow wrapping around it. His heartbeat quickened as he gazed upon it. It was the color of bronze, and it wriggled temptingly, his instincts pushing him to grab it.

His terror retreated, set aside by curiosity.

The light was drawing him toward the monster.

Zane felt a connection with the bronze glow. One that he’d never felt before. The source of the connection was within him, and it was growing stronger by the second. He drew back from the corpse, focusing on the new feeling growing inside of him.

What are you?

The moment he touched upon that connection a golden light swept across Zane’s vision. It was coming from his chest. With a leap it sprung forth from inside him, and Zane watched it with side eyes. The golden light spun with the grace of a ballerina, dancing through the air. When it finally dissipated a single object floated above him.

It was a card.

On its back was a myriad of white feathers, each one slightly different from the last. In the middle a single golden eye gazed down at Zane, emanating wisdom. As the card turned around, he saw a person etched into the other side.

The man in the card had calm brown eyes, and wavy black hair. His shirt was a simple white dress shirt with navy blue pants below it. On the chest of his shirt there was a small emblem that looked like a smiling telephone. In the background of the card was a chaotic pile of buildings and forests.

It was Zane. Or, at least, it was a finely crafted portrait of him.

Underneath the portrait in a small golden textbox were several paragraphs of ornate text. The moment Zane looked at the card, the words within it sprung to life in his mind.

Vendor of Souls (Legendary): You have gazed into the heart of chaos and lived. Harvester of souls, materialize that which is immaterial and preserve that which cannot be preserved. Bring order to chaos. Effect: You may extract the souls of other beings. The quality of the soul retrieved will depend on the strength of the soul upon extraction and the time taken to extract it after death.

Preservation (Trait): Harvested souls will retain a key ability of their original host.

Dealer (Trait): Souls harvested may be transferred or merged.