Grayton jumped headfirst into the portal with an expectant smile on his face. Despite just going through a seemingly near-death experience in that cosmic sea, the mere prospect of having a special ability excited him enough to eagerly return to said place.
As soon as he plunged into the strange liquid, he felt a strong current taking him away in a certain direction, knocking him out of his diving position. However, he managed to reorient himself with uncharacteristic ease. It was as if the current was somehow guiding him instead of just thrashing him around without any concern.
"If this keeps up, I'll start thinking this ocean has a mind of its own." Grayton smirked before returning to a more serious expression. "Actually, it might not be that far-fetched, considering everything else in this... Pocket dimension, for lack of a better word."
He adjusted his position to face the direction the current was taking him. In the distance, Grayton spotted another vortex portal.
"I assume that's my destination." Grayton looked down and noticed his hands starting to disintegrate yet again. He quickly looked back and forth between the portal and his hands before sighing. "No matter. At this speed, I'll get there before anything important disintegrates. For now, I'll just enjoy the ride."
For the first time ever, he was able to gaze upon and appreciate the beauty of the scenery. Everywhere around him looked like a star-filled night sky, made all the more grand with the addition of the vortexes that looked like galaxies from afar. It was like he was swimming through a Van Gogh painting!
"Woah..." Grayton stared, entranced by the enchanting view. "This is so cool!" He chuckled.
As Grayton drifted through the ocean, he suddenly felt a pang of foreign emotion, causing him to jerk his head sideways out of reflex. To his left, in the distance, he saw the leviathan. This time, it was simply keeping still from afar, watching, as if trying to gauge his reaction to the new things. Just the mere sight of it was able to send a slight shiver down Grayton's spine.
Like last time, he felt no hostility from the creature. However, it was projecting a different set of emotions this time. Though the morbid curiosity still lingered, Grayton could feel mainly pride, joy, and gratitude (?) permeate the creature's mind. It was as if it was trying to say, "Look at what I made!"
"Thanks... I guess?" Grayton thought, half-hoping the beast could hear his thoughts as well. However, the creature only stood still and continued watching him. If it did hear, it showed no indication.
Despite the creature's cheery attempts to reconcile, he was still quite creeped out by the sight of such an impossible abomination; it did almost kill him just a couple hours ago, after all. All Grayton could do was give it an awkward smile and continue on his journey, zooming through the depths.
"Way to ruin the experience..." Grayton pouted. He periodically looked back and forth between the exit portal and the leviathan. "Is there any way to make this go faster?"
As soon as the thought completely registered in his mind, the current directing him immediately sped up its pace, sending him barreling through the ocean at much greater speeds. In just a blink of an eye, he made it right in front of the portal, about to shoot through it the next moment.
"Of course." Grayton scoffed, letting the current carry him without resistance. "I'm in control here."
Grayton bursts through the portal, landing right on his bed. As soon as he exited the ocean, his long, black hair that was previously held up by the liquid suddenly fell and covered his eyes in long, messy bangs. After brushing his hair away from his face, he closed the portal with a simple flick of his finger while lying on his back.
Strangely enough, his clothes weren't wet at all. Grayton noticed the blue liquid immediately converted into a thin white mist as soon as it entered the real world.
"How convenient..." Grayton took a deep breath while stretching his back. When a sudden wave of lethargy hit him. "Hmm? I'm already this sleepy?"
The whole near-death experience appeared to be much more taxing on his body and mind than Grayton assumed.
"I suppose it's to be expected. I did just swim like my life depended on it earlier." Grayton concluded, grabbing a body pillow and hugging it in a sideways fetal position. "I haven't had dinner, though, or taken a shower either... Eh, can't be bothered." After all that movement, he couldn't seem to work out an appetite.
With that, Grayton smiled as he slowly drifted to sleep, thinking about all the ways he could use his newfound ability.
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The next day, Saturday
Grayton's day started off astonishingly mundane, with him immediately taking a shower, followed by preparing a big breakfast to make up for the missing dinner.
"What shall I do today?" Grayton pondered as he sauteed cut onions, a few pieces of garlic, and cut olives in coconut oil. "I already studied yesterday, so I guess I have the whole day to do whatever I want."
He took out 5 eggs from his fridge, cracked them into a bowl, and mixed them until they were pale yellow.
"I'll use the time to experiment with this power and figure out what I'll do with it." Grayton hummed cheerfully, adding a mix of minced meat, tomatoes, onion leaves, salt, and celery. It was a tune from his long-forgotten past; no matter how much he tried, he just couldn't seem to find its origin.
Once the onions attained a delightful brown tinge, Grayton added the mixture to the hot pan and turned up the heat as he stirred them together. The mixture let out an appetizing aroma as it sizzled on the pan.
"Can't wait to eat this." Grayton thought, smelling the mouthwatering fragrance. Admittedly, this breakfast was much grander than what he would've prepared normally, but after yesterday, he found himself wanting to celebrate his life a lot more.
"Plus, if obtaining a superpower isn't something worth celebrating, I don't know what is." Grayton concurred.
Once he deemed the omelette ready enough to serve, Grayton lifted the pan off his electric stove and tilted the pan, letting the steaming omelette slide onto a plate.
"Now that's a super omelette."
He made his way to the bathroom to wash his hands while waiting for the dish to cool down enough for him to eat. Scrubbing his hand with soap, Grayton caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror in front of the wash basin. There, he saw dark circles beneath his eyes; his expression immediately darkened as soon as he was reminded of them.
"...They never disappear, do they?" Grayton felt the spot under his eyes. These are one of the many mysteries surrounding Grayton's amnesia. These circles appeared right after he lost his memory, and no amount of sleep or medicine could make them disappear. Hell, not even the doctors knew what was causing them.
"Well, whatever." Grayton walked back to his dining room, returning to his carefree attitude as he spotted his super omelette on the table. "Let's eat."
He took the first bite out of his omelette, carefully making sure that there was a healthy mix of every ingredient in said spoonful. The taste was everything he expected and more. The salt and texture of the omelette were nicely complemented by the tomatoes. And the celery, onion leaves, and olives provided a unique aftertaste.
"Mm," Grayton thought, chewing through another spoonful of the dish, savouring its delectable taste. "I wasn't sure about the olives, but they turned out pretty dang good!"
As he continued to devour the meal, he started thinking about something else.
"That... thing." Grayton remembered the leviathan and its colossal frame moving unnaturally fast under the sea. A question suddenly popped into his head. "What will I do about it?"
"Well, it obviously possesses some form of sapience and intelligence, so communication is theoretically possible." Grayton pondered as he worked through another spoonful. "But I can only spend minutes down there before going back out to recover. It'll take too long to teach it even basic language..."
"Maybe I can reverse the telepathy to project my intentions onto it?"
He quickly found that his meal had concluded faster than his questions.
"I'll think about it later." Grayton thought as he rose from his seat, bringing his plate and utensils to the sink to wash. "I'll focus on experimenting today. I might visit Vincent too if I still have time."
Vincent was another victim of the attack, and was Grayton's so-called best friend. He lost his left eye during the attack, and ever since then, Grayton had styled his hair to cover his left eye as well.
He set the wet dishes down on a drying rack and dried his hands on a napkin. He then made his way to the living room and sat down on a chair, crossing his legs. With a smirk, he summoned a vortex on the wall in front of him.
"Well? Let's get started."
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Grayton ran a few tests on his new ability, and found out a few of its limitations, which he promptly noted down.
The first thing he found out was that he could only form 4 portals at a time: 2 entry portals and 2 exit portals.
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"I can also make all 4 of them entry portals and vice versa, which is useful to know, I suppose." Grayton added. The sound of his pencil lead scratching against paper was the only noise that could be heard in the apartment while he worked. "And then..."
The next thing he found out was that the portals had a 1 minute cooldown after he summoned them. Followed soon by the fact that he could only make the vortexes up to 1 m (3.5 ft) in diameter. Lastly, he discovered that the vortex portals could be forcibly closed if the edges were disrupted when he accidentally dropped his notebook near one of his portals.
"However, if the disruption was small and quick, I can still maintain the portal for a few seconds before it collapses anyway with enough concentration." Grayton noted. "Don't know how useful that's gonna be."
With all his limitations neatly summarized, Grayton moved on to the final question.
"How can I use this ability on the offensive?"
His first thought about trapping the enemy's weapon or limb inside a portal and closing it. But that method relies heavily on the element of surprise and can be easily countered by simply disrupting the portal.
"It's also impractical to use in an actual fight since the portals don't close instantly." Grayton thought, putting his hand on his chin. "Maybe I can shove the attacker into a portal and close it? ...Not that either; the portals are too small to push any full-grown adult through."
Grayton mulled over it for the next few moments. Hitting a dead end, he decided to do his daily stretches in hopes of finding some sort of inspiration.
"Do I even need any sort of special attack?" Grayton thought as he bent into a standing forward bend. "I mean, let's be real. I'll probably only use this ability to travel where I want. It's not like there's gonna be some supervillain that suddenly pops up-"
A rhythmic, loud banging suddenly rang out from the front door, interrupting his train of thought. Sighing, he rose up from his position and hurriedly walked toward the door.
"I got it. I got it." Grayton called out as he unlocked the door.
Pulling open the door, Grayton recognised the man on the other side as his landlord. He was a man in his early 20s, with neatly brushed hazel hair and dark brown eyes. He was wearing a green polo shirt with grey jeans. He really didn't know much about the man except that he had inherited this property from his late father just earlier this year.
"Good morning, Mr. Hugh." Grayton greeted, attempting to be as polite as possible. "What brings you here today?"
"Please, just call me Jason. We're both still young after all." The man awkwardly chuckled. "Well, you see, I have these newspapers from the last few days, and I didn't know what to do with them. But I thought it would be a waste to throw them out, so I'm currently just asking around to see if anyone will take them." Jason scratched the back of his head.
"Is that really the reason? Or are you just trying to look like a good person while you get rid of these newspapers?" Grayton questioned in his head. He had always been skeptical of those who appeared kind, and what little of his past experiences he could remember has done nothing but reinforce said mindset. "But it's not like he's done anything bad yet; I won't just unreasonably antagonize him."
"I already asked Miss Elaine from the next floor, but she-"
"I think I'll take them, Jason." Grayton interrupted, still maintaining his courteous smile. "I haven't read a newspaper in a while, so this ought to be interesting."
"I'm cautious, not paranoid. There's no reason to assume he's a bad person."
"Really? Well, here you go!" The landlord enthusiastically held out the stack of newspapers, which Grayton quickly accepted. "See you around!"
Before Grayton could say anything else, Jason had already walked away and headed for the stairs. He looked down and glanced at the stack of newspapers in his hands.
"Well, since they're here, I might as well give them a read." Grayton shrugged. He separated the oldest one out of the bunch and placed the rest of the newspapers on his dining table.
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Jason Hugh
As Jason walked down the stairs, he thought about his latest interaction with one of his tenants, Grayton Laurentius.
"There is something off about that kid..."
The image of Grayton's smile popped up in Jason's mind.
"At first, I thought his smile was just a bit stiff because it was the first time we met." Jason made his way to the bottom of the stairs, absentmindedly greeting any tenants that passed by him. "But it's been a few months, and every time we talk, he wears the exact same smile... It's like he practices it or something."
"Barely 17 and already living alone." The landlord frowned. Having been raised traditionally, the concept of separating from his parents so early was baffling to him. "I'm a bit worried about him."
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Grayton Laurentius
"Rise in gang violence... Gold stock is rising... The prime minister is stepping down; I thought he still had like 2 more years into his term?"
Grayton sat on his chair, absentmindedly skimming through the newspaper. At first, he was genuinely reading into the newspapers with his full attention, but after mountains of advertisements and useless, obscure information, he switched to inattentive skimming.
He set down the newspaper and reached for another, sighing.
"These are some shitty newspapers..." Grayton concluded. "I can't believe people still read this stuff."
"Or maybe these are just one of those really cheap newspapers that nobody buys. I wouldn't know." Grayton thought as he started reading.
Turning the page, Grayton spotted a headline about the story of how a whole class of students got expelled because they all got caught cheating using the same answer key (which turned out to be wrong). He found the story amusing at first until an idea suddenly emerged in his head.
"Wait a sec... Expelled..." Grayton immediately rose from his chair, abandoning the newspapers. "What happens if I invert a vortex portal? That would immediately expel some of that blue liquid through, no?"
Eager to test out his theory, Grayton opened his window and looked around, searching for a suitable target. He decided a dying tree located in the parking lot would suffice. It was 8 in the morning, and most of the tenants were either still sleeping or had already gone to work, so the place was quite empty.
After making sure no one was around, Grayton made a finger gun and pointed it at the tree.
"Bang."
Grayton conjured a small vortex in front of his finger. Since it was inverted, it couldn't maintain its shape for long and basically tore itself apart immediately after its creation, but not without spitting out a shining, golden bolt that left a misty trail.
"1- No, 1 and a half seconds of wind up before firing, not bad." Grayton noted with a gleeful smirk plastered on his face. "It's different from what I expected, though. Maybe I'm firing one of the stars? Well, in any case, it achieved pretty much the same result."
He watched as the bolt slammed into the tree. It made a concussive noise, one you would expect from rubber hitting wood. The tree, however, did not budge. Nevertheless, the bolt was still able to launch a few splinters from the point of impact and knock a few withered branches into the ground.
"I assume the bigger the portal, the more powerful it'll be." Grayton hypothesised. "It'll probably come with more wind-up time too, though."
He was about to fire a second bolt when he saw a group of grade schoolers walking across the street, causing him to retract his hand.
"I suppose that's enough for now." Grayton sighed before closing his window.
However, he suddenly spotted something extremely concerning through the window. At first, all he saw was the normal scenery behind his apartment, but looking closer, in dark shadows underneath lush trees and in abandoned alleyways, Grayton saw what he could only describe as ghosts. Whether it be a headless woman inhabiting an empty house or an amalgamation of fish corpses thrashing around in the gutters, Grayton spotted multiple abominations like so residing in dark and empty places, most of them simply staying dormant and watching people where they can.
"Creepy..." Grayton backed away from the window. "And I suppose I can see these things since I got exposed to magic or something... Yeah, I'm definitely telling Vincent about this before I go any further."
He returned to his bedroom and grabbed his sling bag.
"What should I bring? Let's see..." Grayton scoured through his room, putting his phone and water bottle in the bag before checking the inside of his wallet.
"I'll buy lunch for both of us on the way." Grayton thought, stowing away his wallet with the rest of his belongings.
As he made one last check around his room, he spotted a pair of dusty police batons under his study desk.
"Ah, these... Apparently my 8th birthday present." Grayton lifted them up from the floor and blew the dust off their surface. He looked at them with a solemn expression as he held them. "Looks like my past self wanted to become a police officer, apparently. That ambition is lost on me, though."
"Still, I may need them today..." Grayton thought, reminded of the apparitions he saw. "Eh, who knows? Maybe they're not even evil. You know what they say: never judge a book by its cover."
He decided to bring them with him. He then donned his grey trench coat and stuffed the batons in its breast pockets. Judging himself ready, Grayton grabbed his keys and exited his apartment.
"What should I get for lunch?" Grayton thought as he locked his door. "Maybe fish and chips? Yeah, that sounds nice."
He strolled through the streets, avoiding the park for the first time in his life. Instead, he took a direct route to his destination.
"It's faster this way, anyway." Grayton reasoned. "Let's see... It's been a while, but if I remember correctly, it should be this way." Grayton thought, taking a turn into a backstreet alleyway.
"Yeah, I remember now, this alleyway connects to another one." Grayton walked, seeing another alleyway perpendicular to the one he was in at the end of the alleyway. "I should probably tell Vincent I'm coming." He pulled out his phone and searched for Vincent's contact.
Reaching the fork in the backstreets, Grayton was about to turn left until a scythe-like appendage reached in front of him. It was like a praying mantis's front leg, but unlike the clean chitin exoskeleton mantises possessed, it was covered in exposed flesh and veins, ready to strike. On top of that, said limb was dripping with blood and had jagged shards of bone poking out of its edge.
"Stay calm; it's not attacking." Grayton thought, keeping a blank expression on his face. He turned off his phone and tilted it to the right only to see an equally horrifying sight. In place of the creature's head was a jawless skull with two unnaturally long canine teeth held up by a wooden stake that pierced through the top of its skull, acting as its neck. Its empty eye sockets were filled with what Grayton could only describe as an immense thirst for blood.
The rest of its body wasn't much better either. The stake was connected to a bloody, exposed ribcage and spine. And the beast stood on a pair of lanky legs that had more joints than a leg would normally need, held together by bits of flesh and spring-like muscles.
"I take back what I said, it definitely wants to eat me! But why isn't it attacking?" Grayton questioned. The cogs in his head were spinning rapidly, trying to come up with some sort of conjecture before he could get mauled to death. "Is it testing if I can see it or not? In that case, I'll buy time by playing with my phone, but... Why wouldn't it attack normal people?"
"Ah, damn. The pizza place is closed!" Grayton complained out loud, trying to test his theory. Using the reflection on his phone, he saw that pretending to be unaware of its existence seemed to have dampened the hunger behind its eye sockets. The creature almost looked disappointed.
That's when he spotted the half-eaten carcass behind the spectre. Thankfully, most of the poor man's face was already gone, which allowed him to dehumanize him easily. However, this revolting scene really made it clear how much danger he was in. And in combination with the death stare the creature was giving him, Grayton's heart rate started to skyrocket.
"Hoh, so it's not hunting me simply because it already had its fill." Grayton concluded. Despite his heart beating out of his chest and the apparent danger of the situation, he found it to be strangely thrilling. "I'm guessing people who can see them are tastier or something; that's why it was testing if I could see it."
However, Grayton had stood still in that position for too long, and it was starting to get suspicious.
"I could escape easily if I simply pretended it doesn't exist and turn left." Grayton deduced, putting his phone safely in his bag. "However..."
He took off his sling bag and dropped it lightly on the ground, before forming a finger gun with his left hand and pointing it to the right, smirking.
"Bang."
Grayton conjured a portal the size of a wall clock in front of his index finger. The next moment, a glowing yellow bolt shot out of the portal, hitting the beast on its ribcage before it could even react. The creature howled as the bolt ragdolled it backwards, disintegrating a good chunk of its rib cage during the process. It continued to howl and scream on the ground, clutching its chest, creating an unholy cacophony of agonizing sounds.
"That was way more effective than I expected. Maybe ghosts are weak to whatever's in these portals?" Grayton thought as he reached into his breast pockets and pulled out his two batons.
"Let's have some fun, shall we?" Grayton grinned.