[AMBIENT: NARROW ALLEYWAY]
[SFX: FOOTSTEPS ON COBBLESTONE]
"Watch out!"
The shout came too late. Rough hands shoved Sin sideways, sending him stumbling into the mouth of a narrow alleyway. He caught himself against the damp brick wall, then straightened slowly. His gaze lifted—empty, unfocused—meeting his attacker's eyes for barely a heartbeat before sliding away. No anger flickered there. No fear. Nothing that suggested he might fight back or even raise his arms in defense.
He simply turned and continued walking, as though the confrontation were no more substantial than wind through the alley.
"Did you even hear me talking to you, Sin?"
The voice followed him, closer now, edged with the kind of frustration that came from being ignored. Sin's pace remained unchanged. His eyes stayed fixed on the cobblestones ahead, counting the cracks between them without really seeing. His shoulders curved forward slightly, as if he carried something heavy and invisible across his back—something he'd been carrying for so long he'd forgotten what it felt like to stand straight.
[SFX: PUNCH IMPACT]
"I said stop! Do you *hear* me?"
The fist connected with the back of his skull—a dull, meaty thud that sent shockwaves through his vision. Sin's knees gave way. The alley tilted, edges blurring like watercolors bleeding into one another. He caught himself on one hand, the rough cobblestones biting into his palm, tiny stones embedding themselves in his skin.
[MUSIC: TENSE STRINGS]
Slowly, he raised his head.
His eyes met the young man's—and there it was. That subtle crimson tint, not blazing red but unmistakable. Like wine diluted in clear water. Like something wrong trying to pass for normal. They'd been this way since childhood, these eyes. Long before he understood what *different* meant, they had marked him. Long before he'd learned that people feared what they couldn't explain, what didn't fit neatly into their understanding of how the world should work.
"What do you want?"
The question came out flat, genuinely annoyed. Not frightened. Not pleading. Just tired. All he'd wanted was bread. Something simple. Something ordinary. Walk to the baker, exchange a few coins, walk home, eat dinner. A routine so basic it shouldn't have invited this kind of attention. The loaf was probably still lying somewhere back on the main street where he'd dropped it when the hands first grabbed him.
Instead, here he was again—another alley, another fist, another reminder that peace was a luxury he apparently didn't deserve.
*Why can't they just leave me alone?*
The thought echoed in the hollow space behind his ribs, the same thought he'd had a hundred times before, in a hundred different alleys, with a hundred different faces sneering down at him.
"You know, Sin..." The aggressor's smirk widened, his lips curling with satisfaction. He took a step closer, boots scraping against the cobblestones. "I feel like you've been a little bit... *disobedient* lately. It's time I showed you who the real top dog is around here."
Sin stared up at him from his half-crouch on the cobblestones. Something flickered in those wine-tinted eyes—not quite defiance, but close enough. A spark of something that hadn't been completely beaten out of him yet, though gods knew they'd tried.
"And that's supposed to what—intimidate me?" His voice carried a dangerous edge of sarcasm now, sharper than before. "Listen, I'm not easily intimidated. Your threats are about as frightening as a kitten with a bell around its neck. I'm positively *trembling.*"
He made a show of holding up one hand, keeping it perfectly steady.
The young man's face flushed dark red, veins standing out along his neck like cords of rope. "I will kill you *permanently*—"
"Well, I must have missed something." Sin's tone shifted, taking on an almost conversational quality that made the insult land harder. He even tilted his head slightly, as if genuinely puzzled. "When you die, it's already permanent. So adding 'permanently' is redundant. Unless you're planning to kill me twice, which would be quite the feat. Perhaps you could explain the logistics of that? I'm genuinely curious how one goes about killing someone who's already dead. Does it involve—"
[SFX: PUNCH TO FACE]
The fist slammed into his mouth, cutting off the words. Sin's head snapped back, cracking against the brick wall behind him. He tasted copper, warm and metallic, flooding across his tongue. The world went white for a moment, then slowly resolved itself again—cobblestones, brick walls, the young man's furious face looming above him, distorted and swimming in his vision.
Blood traced a warm path from Sin's lips. The metallic taste of copper flooded his mouth—familiar, bitter, final.
[AMBIENT: CITY STREET]
[MUSIC: TENSE CHASE]
"Time to go," he breathed, the words barely forming before his legs carried him forward. His heart slammed against his ribs with each desperate stride toward home. The evening air burned in his throat as he ran, his vision tunneling to focus only on the path ahead.
"Don't you dare run from me!" The man's voice echoed off the buildings, raw with fury. "We're not finished! You hear me? Get back here!"
Sin risked a glance over his shoulder. The man was still there, face twisted with rage, closing the distance with frightening determination.
"I said stop!" the pursuer shouted again, his footsteps pounding the pavement in rhythm with Sin's racing pulse.
[SFX: BODY FALLING]
[SFX: CONCRETE SCRAPE]
Behind him, a sharp curse cut through the air as his pursuer's foot caught an uneven section of pavement.
"Shit—!" The word ended in a grunt of pain.
The heavy thud of the man's body hitting concrete sent a jolt of relief through Sin's chest, but he didn't slow down. He didn't dare look back again. Whatever happened back there, it bought him time—that was all that mattered.
[AMBIENT: APARTMENT HALLWAY]
Sin's lungs burned as he finally stumbled into his building. The stairwell echoed with his ragged breathing. His trembling fingers fumbled with the keys before the lock clicked open. He pushed inside and slumped against the door, gasping, his whole body shaking from exertion and fading adrenaline.
"The bread," he muttered between ragged breaths, a bitter laugh escaping. "I went out for bread." He closed his eyes, feeling the adrenaline drain away, leaving only hollow exhaustion. His hand touched his split lip, came away with fresh blood. "If that bastard hadn't jumped me, I'd be eating dinner right now. Instead..." He pushed off from the door, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Sleep it is."
[AMBIENT: QUIET APARTMENT]
[MUSIC: MELANCHOLIC PIANO]
The couch received him like an old friend. Sin collapsed into the worn cushions, his body finally surrendering to the weight of the day. He didn't even bother removing his jacket. The silence wrapped around him, and within moments, consciousness slipped away into darkness.
[AMBIENT: MORNING BIRDS]
[SFX: GENTLE AWAKENING]
Morning light filtered through the curtains, painting golden stripes across the floor. Sin's eyes opened slowly, focusing on the familiar cracks in his ceiling. He rolled his shoulders, stretched his arms overhead, feeling something he hadn't felt in weeks—actual rest. No nightmares. No waking up every hour. Just deep, dreamless sleep.
"Haven't slept like that in forever," he murmured, sitting up. His stomach immediately reminded him why he'd gone out yesterday. The hollow ache of hunger gnawed at him. "Right. Breakfast. If I can find anything."
The pantry door swung open to reveal exactly what he'd expected—nothing. A half-empty jar of expired jam. Some stale crackers he'd been avoiding for a week. He stared at the empty shelves for a moment, then closed them with a resigned sigh.
"Grocery run it is, then."
Fresh clothes. Another trip outside. The routine of survival. He changed quickly, grabbed his wallet, and headed for the door.
[MUSIC: DARK SUSPENSE]
[AMBIENT: EERIE SILENCE]
Sin stepped out of his building and froze.
The man from yesterday lay sprawled on the pavement, exactly where he must have fallen. But something was wrong. The stillness was too complete, too absolute. No one had moved him. No one had called for help. He was just... there.
[MUSIC: OMINOUS STRINGS]
Sin approached slowly, his pulse quickening. The man's eyes stared upward, unblinking, glazed with a film that hadn't been there in life. No rise and fall of breath. No movement at all. The body lay in an awkward position, one arm twisted beneath the torso, the other stretched out as if reaching for something.
He knelt down, pressed two fingers against the man's neck. The skin was cool, waxy. No pulse thrummed beneath.
Dead.
Sin pulled his hand back, his mind racing through possibilities. Heart attack? Someone else found him? Does it matter? He glanced around the empty street. Should he call someone? Report it?
He stood, brushing off his knees. Not his problem. Not his responsibility. The man had attacked him first. Whatever happened after that... He had his own survival to worry about.
Still, the image lingered as he walked away. The empty eyes. The unnatural stillness.
The grocery store welcomed him with familiar fluorescent lighting and the faint smell of produce. Sin grabbed a sausage roll from the bakery section, paid at the self-checkout, then wandered the aisles without purpose, his thoughts still circling back to the body outside his building. He picked up items absently—bread, finally, some cheese, a carton of milk—his basket filling slowly as his mind remained elsewhere.
Then he saw it.
[AMBIENT: QUIET STORE]
[MUSIC: MYSTERIOUS ETHEREAL]
A red orb, suspended in the air above a display shelf. It pulsed with inner light, casting crimson shadows that shouldn't exist. It hovered, defying gravity, defying logic, defying everything Sin thought he understood about the world.
He stared, unable to look away. The orb seemed to pulse in rhythm with his heartbeat, drawing him closer.
"What the hell...?" he whispered, his basket slipping from his fingers.
# Revised Section:
Sin scanned the air around the orb with meticulous precision, his eyes searching for wires, strings, hidden projectors—anything that might explain its impossible suspension. Nothing. His engineer's mind grasped desperately for rational explanations: magnetic fields, optical illusions, some kind of holographic projection. But each theory crumbled and turned to dust before the undeniable reality of what hung before him.
The strangest part? No one else seemed to see it. The few who did—their eyes widening in recognition of something fundamentally wrong—fled the store without a word, without even collecting their shopping baskets.
Curiosity gnawed at him like a living thing until he couldn't resist any longer. His fingers reached out, trembling slightly, and touched the sphere.
[SFX: ELECTRIC SHOCK]
[MUSIC: INTENSE HORROR]
Lightning tore through his body with the force of a freight train. Sin's legs buckled instantly, and he crashed to the floor, his skull cracking against the linoleum. His eyes blazed with white-hot agony that burrowed deep into his bones, past muscle and marrow, into the very essence of what made him human. He felt them—actually felt them—cracking like dried wood, splintering into fragments, then reforming into something denser, something stronger. His organs twisted and shifted inside him, their familiar positions abandoned as they reshaped themselves into something new, something other. Every cell in his body screamed as it transformed, as if his DNA itself was being rewritten in fire.
[SFX: AGONIZED SCREAM]
His shriek echoed through the store, raw and primal, a sound no human throat should be capable of making. Shoppers rushed toward him from every aisle, their faces masks of concern and horror, hands reaching to help, to comfort, to do something—anything. But their touch only magnified the torment a thousandfold, each point of contact sending fresh waves of searing pain through his nervous system. His body convulsed in violent spasms, limbs jerking at impossible angles. Tears poured down his face in rivers, mixing with the cold sweat that had broken out across every inch of his skin.
"Make it stop! Please, God, make it stop!" The words ripped from his throat again and again, a desperate prayer to anyone who might listen—to God, to the universe, to the malevolent force that had done this to him. "Please! I can't—I can't take anymore! Somebody help me!"
[MUSIC: RELIEF STRINGS]
Then, slowly—mercifully—the pain began to ebb. It retreated like a tide, leaving him gasping and shaking on the cold floor.
When he could finally move without triggering fresh agony, when his muscles would obey his commands again, Sin knew with absolute certainty that something fundamental had changed. Phantom sensations rippled through him in waves—tingles of electricity, pulses of heat, currents of something he had no name for. But beneath them, underneath the strangeness, he felt... different. Profoundly, irreversibly different. His bones seemed both harder and more flexible, as if they'd been reforged in some cosmic furnace and quenched in starlight. His blood ran warmer in his veins, almost hot, pulsing with an energy that felt barely contained. Each breath came easier, deeper, as though his lungs had expanded to twice their former capacity. His thoughts moved with crystalline clarity he'd never experienced before, connections forming at lightning speed, perceptions sharpening to razor edges.
*What's happening to me? What have I become?*
He staggered out of the store on unsteady legs, forcing himself to ignore the strange new currents flowing through his body, the whispers of power that called to him from somewhere deep within.
[AMBIENT: QUIET APARTMENT]
[MUSIC: CONTEMPLATIVE PIANO]
Sin stumbled through his apartment door and collapsed onto the couch, his body still trembling with aftershocks. He held his hands before his face, studying them with a mixture of fascination and dread. His nails had elongated significantly, tapering to subtle but unmistakable points, like claws waiting to emerge.
His gaze drifted to the mirror on the living room wall. He approached it slowly, almost afraid of what he'd find, each step an act of courage.
The reflection staring back at him had eyes of pure crimson—deep, complete, glowing faintly with an inner light, with no trace of their former brown color remaining. They were beautiful and terrible in equal measure.
"My eyes..." he whispered, leaning closer to the glass, watching those alien eyes track his movements. "They're completely red. Completely... inhuman."
He examined the rest of his body with mounting anxiety, stripping off his shirt to check for other changes. Aside from the nails and eyes, he found no other visible transformations. A small mercy, at least. Perhaps others wouldn't notice immediately. Perhaps, if he wore contacts, if he kept his hands in his pockets, he could still pass for normal. Perhaps he could still have some semblance of his old life.
He prepared his sausage roll mechanically, his hands moving through familiar motions while his mind churned with impossible questions. What had caused this? What was he becoming? The pain, the transformation, the floating orb—none of it made sense. Nothing in his understanding of reality could accommodate what had just happened to him.
After eating without tasting a single bite, exhaustion crashed over him like a tidal wave. The ordeal had drained every ounce of his energy, leaving him hollow and spent. He barely made it back to the couch before his eyes began to close, those strange red eyes that no longer felt like his own.
[SFX: DIGITAL GLITCH]
[MUSIC: OMINOUS SYNTH]
As consciousness slipped away, as the world began to fade into darkness, a red screen flickered into existence before him, hovering in the air like the orb had done, pulsing with that same otherworldly energy.
[SFX: ROBOTIC VOICE]
"System activated," announced a voice—cold, mechanical, utterly inhuman, devoid of any warmth or emotion.
But Sin had already fallen into the depths of sleep, unaware of what had just begun, unaware of the journey that awaited him.