Year 2011. Date: 31 December.
It was a cold clear night. The moon above was red, not the usual white. The time on my wall clock showed 11:59:50 PM.
I tilted my head back, eyes gazing through the window at the sky. My breath fogged up the cold glass, but all I cared about was the strange colour of that moon.
Everyone else was shouting the countdown. 10… 9… 8… 7… 1… Their voices overlapped together, welcoming the new year.
"Happy New Year!"
"Welcome, 2012!"
The TV in my room was on, buzzing with noise and cheers, but I wasn't watching. My eyes caught something streaking across the dark sky. A star, falling fast.
A shooting star, I thought. Just a normal one.
So I made a wish, like a kid should. My lips curled into a grin as I whispered,
"I wish… when I grow up, I'll have countless beauties clinging to me. Hmph, even the heavens must not allow me to die single!"
[ Warning: Demonic Fragments Detected ]
[ Host Identified: Abyss Anchor ]
[ Directive: Return all fragments to the Abyss ]
[ Host body incompatible — vessel too weak ]
[ Error… Error… system rebooting… ]
[ Abyss Seed entering Dormant State ]
And for a second — just a blink — something like a hiccup brushed in front of my eyes.
A flickered blue screen, like when a screen lags for a millisecond and recovers.
It vanished before I could catch it. I shrugged it off. Kids see things when they want to be special.
Yeah, cringe, but I was dead serious back then.
I mean, what else would a ten-year-old boy wish for? Girls were all I wanted.
But the stars didn't answer my childish wish. They had other plans for me.
Because that night… the world changed.
---
The sky wasn't right. The red moon I'd been staring at suddenly lit everything up in an ominous glow.
Even the air changed. One second it was normal; the next it felt thick, like fog rolling in from nowhere.
Then came the sounds. Dogs barking like they'd gone rabid, glass shattering, people screaming.
When I ran outside, the neighbour's dog — the same mutt I used to feed biscuits to — had eyes glowing red, its jaw unhinged wider than it should.
It wasn't the same dog anymore.
That was the first time I saw a pet turn. And that was the first time I knew the world wasn't coming back.
… And then it hit me.
The Mayans.
Everyone used to laugh about it. "2012, the end of the world!" Memes before memes were even called memes.
Some laughed, some made memes, some said the Mayan calendar just "ran out."
People joked the earth's subscription expired. Others said they'd throw one last party before the planet exploded.
I even watched that Hollywood movie—cities falling, giant waves, earthquakes tearing the ground apart—and walked out thinking, 'Ha, see you in 2013.'
But standing there, under that red moon, listening to the screams? I couldn't laugh anymore.
Because the Mayans weren't wrong.
They didn't ran out of dates.
But what if it wasn't the end of the calendar?
What if it was the end of the lock?
When the calendar hit zero, the seal broke—
and the Abyss spilled into our world.
Because the world really did end in 2012.
Just… not in the way anyone expected.
---
The whole world mutated. Plants, animals, insects, even the tiny things we couldn't see. Everything changed completely.
That night was called D-Night.
Doomsday Night.
Animals began to mutate into things humans couldn't even dream of.
They looked like creatures ripped straight out of some fantasy novel or from other planets, so scientists just called them Otherworldly Beings.
Yeah, real creative. "Otherworldly" when they're literally from Earth. But who cares about names when a chicken now has six eyes and breathes fire?
Plants mutated too. Forget sunlight. They decided meat tastes better. Imagine going out for a morning jog and a flower tries to eat you alive. Yeah, welcome to the new world.
And the pets… oh, the pets.
Your cute little dogs, the ones you hug at night, the ones wagging their tails when you say, "Sit, Tommy." "Good boy!" The ones you feed biscuits to.
Yeah, those same good boys?
Now they eat you.
So they're not good boys anymore. They're bad, bad boys. The kind of bad boys that make even demons look like lapdogs.
And guess what? Poodles. Yes, poodles. Those fluffy little things with bows in their hair? They got ranked F-tier in the official "Most Dangerous Otherworldly Beings" list.
F. Tier. Imagine dying from something that looks like it belongs in a fashion show.
So next time you see a poodle, don't even think about giving it treats. Don't even look at it. Because that will be your last day on Earth.
Especially if you've got chocolate on you. They evolved to smell it from a mile away. Forget wolves hunting blood. Poodles now hunt Dairy Milk.
---
Unless, of course, you're one of those lucky bastards who awakened as a B-rank, A-rank, S-rank, or even SSS-rank superhuman. Then sure, go ahead, pet them, scratch their bellies, and give them chocolate fondues if you like.
But if you're trash like me, stuck with a trash bloodline… stay home. Stay alive. Read novels. And pretend you're an SSS-rank hero with a harem big enough to fill a football stadium.
---
On that day, humans also evolved. Why? Because duh, they had to. Our tanks, jets, and nukes? Couldn't even scratch the fur of those new otherworldly creatures.
Imagine launching a missile at a mutated rabbit, and the rabbit just sneezes and keeps eating grass. Yeah. That bad.
Cities fell overnight. Whole countries? Poof. Gone. The map of Earth looked like a jigsaw puzzle someone stepped on. Millions of people died in just one day.
But then… humans awakened their bloodlines.
"And then they came forth!" I stood on the bed with a towel as a cape, fingers stabbing at the ceiling like some superhero.
"Superhumans! Stronger than any tank, faster than any jet, tougher than any nuke! They beat the crap out of those otherworldly monsters, slammed them into the ground, and pulled humanity back onto its feet!"
I flared my towel-cape dramatically, nearly falling off the bed. My sister just stared at me like I'd lost half my brain cells.
"Yeah! Superhumans, the saviours of Earth! With one punch they made mountains tremble, with one slash they cut beasts bigger than skyscrapers, and with one flex they made normal humans believe again!"
I coughed twice, tried to look cool, then muttered, "Basically… they saved the world. Totally epic."
That was me, playing hero for my little sister.
We grew up in the same orphanage. She was two years younger than me. I was like a big brother to her.
I lost my parents on D-Night, and two years later, I was living with my beautiful foster sister under the same broken roof.
But fate? Yeah, fate's an asshole. Because when it was finally my turn to awaken… they gave me the most useless bloodline in the entire world.