"Hello? …hello? Are you there? Why are you not answering?"
The voice echoed faintly, pulling him back from the weight of silence. His eyes fluttered open. For a moment, he felt suspended between dream and reality, his mind clouded in a strange haze. He blinked rapidly, trying to reorient himself.
"Oh… I'm sorry," he muttered quietly.
When his vision cleared, he realized he was standing inside a small grocery store. The faint hum of the ceiling fan spun lazily above his head. A fluorescent tube flickered, painting the aisle with a cold, lifeless glow. In front of him stood the store clerk, hand outstretched expectantly. He glanced down at the bag of food in his hands, then quickly slid some bills across the counter.
The clerk barely acknowledged him, muttering thanks before turning away. The main character—his name still hidden in shadow—took the bag, pushed open the creaking glass door, and stepped into the night.
The moment he hit the pavement, the chaos of the city greeted him. Horns blared furiously. Tires screeched. A sea of red brake lights flooded the road ahead. He moved forward, clutching his groceries tightly, until he saw the source of the commotion.
Two vehicles—a car and a motorbike—had collided violently. Shards of glass glimmered under the harsh streetlights, scattered like jagged stars across the asphalt. The two drivers, shaken yet alive, screamed at each other. Their words were lost beneath the roar of the traffic, but their gestures, their fury, carried their blame clearly.
The main character paused, watching them. His eyes narrowed, focusing on one of the men. Something about his face tugged at the threads of memory. A faint recognition stirred within him.
And then—his vision shifted.
A crime scene. A man shouting at him, his voice sharp, commanding, accusing. A bloody street. Sirens in the background. His pulse quickening.
The vision shattered.
He blinked. The man before him no longer resembled the one from memory. His features were plain, ordinary. No hint of recognition remained. With a soft exhale, he stepped back, slipping silently through a narrow space between two stalled cars, leaving the argument and the crowd behind.
The noise of the traffic soon faded. Darkness replaced neon. His steps carried him down a narrow alley where the city seemed to forget its own existence. A cold wind whispered through broken windows and rusted fences. His voice emerged softly, almost like a confession spoken to the shadows.
"I think all the criminals in this street finally learned their lesson. There used to be so many of them here. This whole place was their camp… their den. They would join hands, commit crimes, and return here to stash their stolen goods. But now…" He trailed off, his footsteps crunching softly against scattered debris. "One by one, they're gone. Dead."
He moved deeper into the alley until he spotted a figure slumped against the wall. A man, eyes bloodshot, body twitching with the sluggish poison of drugs. The stench of chemicals clung to the air around him.
The main character stopped. Slowly, he pulled out a crude mask he had fashioned—a simple cardboard sheet, with two uneven holes cut into it. He slid it over his face. The world narrowed into two dark circles.
He crouched down until he was eye-level with the drugged man. His voice was calm, detached, almost gentle."What are you doing here?"
The man's gaze wavered, unfocused. For a moment, silence stretched between them. Then, suddenly, the addict's hand darted to the ground. A glint of steel. A knife.
He lunged.
But the masked figure was faster. His hand shot forward, seizing the wrist. With fluid precision, he twisted the blade away and, in the same motion, drove it back into the man's body. Once. Twice. Seven times in brutal succession. The wet sound of steel tearing flesh echoed harshly in the alley.
The addict gasped, his voice trembling. "Wh… who… are you?"
For a moment, there was no answer. Only the shallow rasp of breath from behind the cardboard mask. Then, with a voice as cold and final as the grave, the main character spoke.
"You can call me… Obliviscythe."