They arrived pretty quickly, the time spent in the train, seeming to have gone by in a flash. Walking away from the subway, the father and son hailed a cab and went home.
"Welcome home" Jonathan boomed as he opened the door, "your little room must be missing you".
Ellis rolled his eyes at the constant "little" gimmick associated with him or anything related to him, a smile blessing his features.
"Go unpack and freshen up, I'll go make dinner"
Giving a short "hmmm" Ellis trotted to his room, his father's phone still clutched in his hand.
Giving the room a sweeping glance of admiration and relief, he jumped straight to bed, not even bothering with taking off his clothes.
Turning on the phone in his hand, he scrolled immediately to his favorite app.
WEBNOVEL
Although Ellis like any other child was interested in games and things of the like, it still didn't beat the thrill he felt from reading novels.
"Four hundred new chapters. Oh, it's completed too. Awesome!" He murmured.
Downloading the chapters he'd missed, he immediately engrossed himself in reading. Ellis fell in love with this particular book "Evolution is the road to Mythic" because well he was sort of a sci-fi junkie, and not just that, he felt the MC was HIM!
It was like he was looking at himself in a book. Only that this one wasn't bored with the mundane of this life. Like all web novel addicts, once or twice he might've wishes for an apocalypse, or wondered how life would look like in such worlds.
Throwing the useless thoughts away from his head, he went back to reading.
"Six hundred and forty eight chapters read... two thousand, four hundred and three more to go" he huffed as he finished a chapter.
Though his memory of the previous chapters were not so clean anymore, reading from where he stopped reinforced the crucial details he needed to know, so as not to get lost.
The concept of time seemed to lose meaning to him, as he immersed himself in a different world.
Lightning flashed outside by his window, but he didn't notice it, until...
RUMBLE!
The earth suddenly quaked, shaking with a force that rattled his senses awake, and told the tale of an approaching earthquake... or so he deduced.
However, as sudden and abrupt as the earthquake had come, it left just as sudden.
"What was that?" He muttered.
"Ellis! You okay?!" Jonathan shouted from downstairs.
"I'm fine!" He yelled back.
A flash of lightning then caught his attention, causing him to finally pay attention to the outside.
A few seconds later, he saw what was like a shooting star in the sky, and a small smile inadvertently broke out on his face as he remembered what John had said: "If you see a shooting star in the sky tonight, then you know it's this Big man"
"Could the shaking be have been caused by the rocket launch?" He questioned himself, but immediately dismissed it. "Nahhh... It's too far. That's like how many cities away?"
He found himself laughing lightly, before he suddenly frowned.
The shooting star, or what looked like it, it didn't appear to be shooting upwards but...
"Is this thing coming down?"
He could've sworn it looked bigger than before, and it appeared to be... falling?
His eyes suddenly flew wide open, John's image flashing in his head. And an irrational panic forcefully crawling it's way up from the bottom of a memory he had long buried in his mind.
He couldn't loose another person again!
He felt his breathing begin to come in short bursts, and his heartbeat spiked erratically, his palm clutching so hard against the smartphone in his hand that his knuckles turned white.
As if to mock him, the lights began to flicker continuously, and then...
BOOM!
The sound of an explosion rocked the air coming from downstairs... Downstairs!
Ellis' heart seemed to stop altogether with the explosion, his face paled, and eyes wide.
Without a word, he dropped rigidly to the ground, like a puppet with it's strings cut, his tight knuckles loosening against the smartphone, and his hand brushing against the chapter percentage bar, until it got to the last chapter.
It seemed to be an end to a fight, or rather the final fight ti end the book, accompanied by words gratitude and acknowledgement to the readers.
But the way the battle ended, seemed to be something quite interesting.
It read...
["In exchange for your life, make a wish."
Looking up to the sky where the voice had come from... bloodied and battered, his chest heaving in short, ragged breaths. With spasms of pain wracking his body, he finally made his wish.
"I wish… I wish for my world to be saved."]
Something that didn't seem to be how a book should end lest it sparked outrage by the readers.
But well, although Ellis' eyes were wide open, they were wide with horror and panic. The trajectory of his sight also wasn't pointed remotely close to the device held loosely in his hand. His head was even faced the other way.
But those were not the real problems. The real problem was that Ellis Jonathan's heart was no longer beating.
He was dead!
--------------------------------------
His head pounded with pain, and his mind felt like it was split apart. From within him, he felt pain unlike any other.
It wasn't a physical kind of pain, but at the same time, it wasn't something he could explain... Not like he could explain anything right now. He felt like his body (physically now) was burning from pain, and his hearing was filled with static.
He felt like he was drowning and couldn't help himself up. It was all too hazy, and nothing coherent could be formed. Not in his mind, nor could he hear a thing.
Well, it seemed he could as a voiced seemed to slice through whatever he was going through. As though speaking directly to his soul, dripping with detachment and a drop of disdain.
"Finally. The last one of this filthy bloodline. Say hi to your ancestors in the afterlife for us... Whitlock"
Something finally managed to come into vision though blurry. However, the only thing he could make out was a silhouette that seemed to press into his soul, with two red orbs for eyes, staring right into him.
Then the silhouette pulled away, the light footsteps and it's cadence drumming deep into his ears and then into his soul, through the static noise.
Then everything went black.
************
Well, now let's cook 🔥
Someone hold my beer.
Ahem... Power stones. Send 'em all!