"You're a dollar short."
The cashier stared at the unsightliness of a boy who might have forgotten about the sales tax on a bag of spicy cheese balls.
"Oh... hold on just a minute. I got some change in my pocket... somewhere, haha."
As the boy nervously ruffled through the front pocket of his hoodie, the cashier's patience wore thin as the checkout line was noticeably getting longer by the minute.
"Robin... your pocket isn't getting any deeper. There is also a line of people waiting just right behind you."
The sound of pennies rustling around reached the cashier's ears as Robin took out a handful of change, ready to drop all of them on the top register with a big grin.
"Bro, please just take it and get out of my store. I'm not counting all of that."
The cashier didn't expect to meet someone who was so inconsiderately ill-mannered. Never in his life has he given anyone anything for free, yet at this moment the cashier angrily realized that a dollar wouldn't be worth the trouble of counting the handful of pennies. After all, who would put maximum effort just to earn minimum-wage?
"Oh really? That's awesome, thanks!"
Yet somehow in this situation the cashier felt even more in awe of Robin. He recalled throughout his life, of all the people he had met, yet there were none that was this utterly shameless.
The boy wearing a grey hoodie excitedly put everything back. He bolted out of the convenience store with a giant smile without even thinking about what had just happened.
"That was almost too easy."
It was almost entirely too shameless.
Just as Robin was about to leave, a deafening sound of trumpets roared across the entire city. Clouds split wide open, forming a massive sinkhole that spanned across the observable sky. Blinding golden-white light rained down all over the City of New York.
(...)
For a moment, the entire world has stopped talking. What's left was an eerie silence that shadowed the very surface of the earth. Yet, those minutes were only setting the stage for what could only be a cosmic nightmare.
-
-
-
-
Chaos ensued again, and for the first time, everyone spoke the same language: fear and total panic. For everything will soon be nothing.
"Damn it! Emi. I need to get to her. I have a feeling Brooklyn won't last another day."
As Robin rushed home using the back alley. Cars and people alike gathered all over the street, taking part in the mass panic. Some people try to hide, few embrace the chaos and begin to violently take everything they could get before the apocalypse, while others try to escape by other means. There is no need for etiquette in surviving destruction.
Suddenly, out of the corner of everyone's eyes. All the reflections, from mirrors to glass around the world, fade away. There is simply no more reflection. Instead, faces appeared; they resembled the people that it once reflected, but distorted to a blur that created uncanny doppelgangers.
"Get away from me!"
The doppelgangers step out of the reflection like newborns emerging from a body of water. Wielding a sharp and pointy golden stake. They then dash towards people whom they mimicked, attacking them with no hesitation or thought.
The massacre of mankind had begun.
....
Robin hastily made his way across the back alley, avoiding any reflection. He notices that as long as you don't show yourself too close to mirrors and glasses, then your doppelganger won't be able to materialize.
"I need to be back at the apartment; Emi is at home alone. I just hope that she hasn't been hogging the mirror today, though I really doubt that."
After a few minutes of carefully maneuvering through the alleyways of Brooklyn. Robin reached the alley behind his apartment. It seems like the entrance is not accessible through the front door, as people are swarming in front of the entrance, trying to get inside the building. It seems like everyone inside the building is trapped or too busy hiding to get anyone in.
"I guess the only way is up."
Robin carefully pulled down the fire escape ladder on the side of the building. He grabs the rusty ladder and climbs to the fourth floor.
"Shit... I hope I'm not too late."
After reaching the fourth floor, he was completely out of breath. However, the thought of losing Emi became a source of adrenaline that overruled any fatigue he might have at the moment.
"Emi..."
Robin reached the back window of the apartment. He realized that there was no light coming through the glass. Robin wrapped his right hand with his jacket, then shattered the window into pieces. As he looked inside the apartment, the area was in an unrecognizable state; there were trails of struggle, a fight.
Entering the dark living room of a humbly small apartment, built tall enough for two orphans.
Everything seems to be mostly destroyed. Marks of stabs and signs of things being thrown. Robin also noticed that every glass and mirror in the house was shattered. Suddenly, he heard a loud crack down the hall to the restroom, followed by the noise of a pale scream.
It was his sister.
"Emi!"
Robin rushed toward the hallway and made a sharp turn.
"Rob? Is that you? Don't come over here. The thing standing there isn't me!"
Standing there at a nearly destroyed wood. Its body stripped of wood, piercing through the door was the fearful face of a girl with hazelnut hair, tears dripping from her golden eyes colored autumn, gently demanding to be saved.
Yet, that task seems to be halted by a dark, blurry figure, almost in the shape of Emi. From Robin's sensible eyes, it looked like his beloved sister, same over-done make-up. However, it lacked the quality of a living person; in essence, it felt like a murderous force existing in a casket that was made to look like the person it mimicked.
However, that was not enough to stop Robin's maternity instinct to protect his little sister.
His hands grabbed the closest object next to him. A worn wooden baseball bat, signed by Babe Ruth himself. displayed ever so proudly on the wall within the hallway.
"This will really hurt me a whole lot more than it will ever hurt you!"
Robin charged toward his sister's doppelganger, and in one big swing.
*CRACK!*
The immeasurably precious bat shattered into dust and pieces of wood.
The doppelganger violently fell over and hit the hardwood floor with its head. For a moment, it jolted with freakish movement, and then it became completely still. After a moment, a strange, almost onyx-colored liquid oozed out from the small crater on its head, caused by the impact of the intensely powerful swing.
"Hah... is this thing dead?"
Robin walked over the seamingly dead version of his sister. As he looked down at this mysterious creature, his body trembled with a shivery feeling of guilt; it was his first time killing a person, or at least something that looked like a human that heavily resembled his very own sister.
*glup*
Swallowing what could've been a nasty case of trauma-induced vomit. He gathered whatever leftover of his mental strength and courage to open the half-destroyed door.
"Emi... Are you okay?"
Behind the door was a girl with all her wits expelled after experiencing a near-death event. As her senses came back to her mind, Emi's gaze moved from the bloody floor to her usually timid brother. Yet at this moment, her brother was somebody who had just killed a doppelganger that mirrored her own appearance, with no hesitation.
"I-I'm okay... where have you been? And what the hell is this thing?"
Staring up close, the strange creatures looked exactly like his little sister. The only exception that a regular pair of eyes would use to discern the different was the creature's eyes. Gazing into its iris only revealed the bottomless pit of malice spewing a horrifying aura from the abyss that seems live in that pair of eyes.
Its body lifeless, if it even was living. Its wound oozed a substance out of what can only be comprehended as blood colored with darkness, void of color, completed filled with pure grim.
"I'm not sure. Some kind of nightmarish creature; it sure seems dead though."
Robin inspected the body a bit more. He notices that the creature's left hand is still gripping tightly onto an object shined with gold.
"What's this...? A stake... made of gold!?"
As he picked up the stake from the creature's stubborn grip, he noticed that the stake itself weighed very light. Its material, constantly flowing and shifting like a body of liquid gold-like substance, forming itself into the shape of a stake, over and over again.
A terrifyingly beautiful artifact for many eyes. For Robin, it was a way out of poverty. If the world isn't ending, he would love to sell it.
"Hey Emi, do you think-"
"Robin! Behind you"
Suddenly, the creature that was once dead rose again. It wound healed completed without a trace of the damage that Robin previously left.
Its mouth opens, only enough to mutter...
G̵̨̠̤̳͈͒͒͜Ĩ̶̦̙͉̯͖̦̪̖͉̤͎̯̇͐̏͛̎͝V̷̡̘̲̞̥̺͈̞̣̯̯̐͋̀͒̏́͋̂͐̇͋͋͜͠E̶̢̩͍̳̐̓̎ ̴͔͉̖̘̪͊̏̄͆̓͐̈I̴̧̗̙͉͘T̶̳̹̗̏ ̸̨̱͎̽B̶͚͉͈̫̖͗́͑̇̿̒͝Ả̶̼͐̑͐̎̾̒̏̾̆̽̕C̵͕̗̳͈̭͎̪͋̽̈́͐̒̚͜K̶̡̡̙͎̯̹̺͖̈̒̂̾̾̈́̌̄͐ͅ
A disorganized sound that barely sounds human, inducing instantaneous headaches via telepathic screeching.
"Aughh!"
Both Robin and Emi instant knee on the ground. Covering their ears and grasping their heads.
"My head feels like it's going to explode!"
His vision was getting darker than his sense of touch was fading away. All because the doppelgänger spoke her word, demanding what he had taken from her.
Yet, the deafening voice wasn't the only thing that could be a concern in the room. As his sister's doppelgänger charged toward Robin, the entire room was filled with murderous intent.
"Robin!"
Emi cried out for Robin. His body begged to be unconscious, but he knew better what would happen if he were to accept the thought of just letting go for a moment. Without him, who would be there for Emi? His parents? If only they were still alive, then maybe. Yet this is his reality.
"Ughh...AGHH!!!"
Gripping the golden stake tightly. Robin spun with all his weight and conviction. With full force.
*STAB!*
The sound of blood dripping down the hardwood floor echoed and bounced around the hallway. A moment of complete silence passed. Robin looked up to see the face that mirrored his sister, its eyes deep with abyssal energy, slowly fading away from the mortal wound caused by its own weapon.
Its hands slowly covered Robin's face, a gesture of love and familiarity. What perhaps seems unknown to a bloodthirsty monster, was expressed in the most sincere touch.
"Emi...?"
The doppelganger's body began to fade away. A drop of tear fell on Robin's right cheek. Maybe it was too real, too close to the face of his little sister. He couldn't help but to felt some ounce of guilt, at least for that moment.
"Robin...? Are you okay?"
Emi's voice snapped him out of the moment.
"Y-yeah... I'm fine. We should get out of here."
"Um...Robin?"
"Emi? What's wrong?"
"Why is your nose bleeding?"
"What are-"
*wishhhh*
"Augh!"
Pain shot through his body.
"It hurts! My heart. Every vein in my body feels like it's going to burst!"
The surrounding air became denser, glowing with a blue hue. Then it moved toward Robin's heart in a vortex pattern. Seemingly painful and forcefully intrusive, it all got sucked into his chest.
*ding!*
[A Soul from Another World Has Been Absorbed]
[System Migration Proceed]
[System granted!]
[100 Essence absorbed]
[Level Up! 0 -> 1]
"Huh!?"
As the pain in his heart subsides.
Lines of text glowing with a spectral blue appeared before his vision. It almost seems ridiculous, a video game-like leveling system? What is this? A fantasy novel?
"Robin! Are you okay? What's wrong?"
Rather than the lingering ember of pain from gaining the system. Robin was more surprised that Emi didn't see the flowing system screen in front of his face. Was he the only one who saw this strange thing?
"Emi, please tell me you see this thing"
Emi stunned, even surprised at his response after almost dying of a heart attack.
"What are you talking about? What thing?"
So he was right. Maybe it had something to do with killing the doppelgänger. It said that a soul has been absorbed. Did he accidentally absorb it by killing it? More than that fact, it had a soul in the first place?
*THUDDD*
Suddenly, a loud rumble was heard across the entire city.
Then the grimly red sky split open. A massive sinkhole appears with an effortlessly strong vacuum, creating a portal of pitch crimson.
"What in the world is that...?"
*RUMBLING*
Everything vibrated violently; even the bird could feel the terrifying force. The sinkhole grew larger and deeper. Within the eye of the vortex, a colossal-sized human hand crawled its way out, first with its fingers, then elbow. Finally revealing its pearly white face. Human-like features with a hint of divinity. Its eyes opened, yet there was nothing... beside an empty void of infinite, mournful darkness that spilled the blackest shade of blood. With a twisted and insane-inducing expression, it would simply smile toward Robin, who was frozen with incomprehensible fear in its presence.
"..."
There was nothing to say, nothing to do. Besides watching it all unfold in this nightmarish reality.
With the last struggle, it moved even more. Forcefully push its torso out. Revealing its massive wings that span hundreds of miles across the entire city and beyond.
"It's... an angel?"
Emi believed that it resembled an angel, a miracle of a being that was often told to appear in old stories from humanity's oldest books. Yet for Robin, Emi's perspective of the creature could only be an overstatement; its body written with nothing but wounds and scars, followed by black smoke and flickering red embers. The once angelic creature seems to be corrupted beyond salvation by its creator.
Without wasting a second. His instincts begged him to move.
"Emi, we need to run. As far as we can"
As soon as they started to move their feet to run.
T̶̙̞̟̤̯̙̿̌̎͋̌̕͘ͅH̶͓̩͕̫͕̔͌̓̊̽͛̅̂̔̉̈͗̽Î̵̛̲̥̟̞̙͚͈͓͚̀͗́̋̍̈́̽͐͆͗̆͠ͅE̶̢̡͙̜̯̟̭̤̮̯̖̓̇͒F̸̨̽̒́́̓̄̈́͝
A high pitch sounds hijacked their minds once again. This time their entire body could only freeze in shock at the sound of the corrupted angel. It's horrifying word directed and channeling its chilling essence toward the Robin's mind.
S̸̛̯̗̮̖͛̓̎̈̾͐̍̚T̵̳͌͐ͅÉ̴̻̫̝̓̀͗̏̒̾͘͝A̷͈̖̯̝͚̤̽̍̂̀̊͆̎̉̆̐̾̓́̃̚L̴̛̞̲͕͇͍̭̍̑̈́͊̑̓̿͌̌̋̍̇̾͘I̴̡̢̧̡̥̬̭͕͉̮̙̫͕͎̩͋̍́͗̓̔Ň̶̛͍̻̭̆͛̈́͊͑̒̆͑̂̄͛͘G̶̭͙͔̽̊̄ ̵̡̣͚̬͙̖̼̯̰̮̤̝̚M̵̻̠͇̲̞̻͎̤̟̬̯͙̄̆̀Ỹ̸̖̬̭̟͐̇̈́̀́͗̅͂̆̕̕ ̸͇̬̪͎̠̟̞̤̑́̄͑͒̌̋̎͗̂̅̑̎̆W̷͔͓̬͕͙̜̯̪͙̺̓͒̔́̀̒̔͂̾̓̈́͜͜͝Ĕ̸̤͍̙̘̳̔̀̊̈́̎͂͋͆̽͂͘͠͝A̴̖̦͉͈̲̰̠͚͉̝̪̙͐̽̅͐͊̓̿̕P̶̧͈̭͎̥͇̱͙̫̱̈́̈͑̓̃͛̓̇̃ͅͅͅǪ̷̝̙̘̤̗̱̀̍̌͑̌́̔̋͒̽̓͜͠Ṉ̵͓̥̻̫͙͙̤̫̫̱̘̲̇
The deathly energy grew even more intense, condensing the air molecules surrounding the city, making it as dense as water.
Ḱ̵̢̧͎̝̱̰̫̲̹͉̎̓̋̇̀̾̆̕̕ͅI̴̡̭͙̻̟̰̖̥̪̮̍͐̐̿̚L̷̡͎̜̼̺͉̪̮͎͗̅̒̈̽̌̍͌̎̔̑͊͜͝͠Ļ̶̛̞̣̹̦̠͚̖̭̯̖̲̪̂̇̔͋̓̄́͋͘͝͝I̷̢͙̳͉̲̰͖̫͎͗͋̈̌̀͑́̌́̽̒͋͆͘͜͜͠Ļ̴̧̢͖̺͙̘̤͔̱͔̑́́̍̇́͆̀̈́̉͑̈́͜͜N̶̡͈͕͙̬̥̩̥̬̞͈̍̆̈̿̀̂̎͂́̊̚̚͠ͅG̴̛̻̱̯͖̲̈̀̄̾̍̅̔͐̄̉̕̚ ̶̛̛̥̫͂͊̈́̀͑̿͗͘Ḿ̵̗̲͍̪̤̓́͐̌͐̚̚̕͜Y̷̡̟͙͓̮̮̪̺̅͒͒̂̔̽̆̕ ̴̨̨̭̦̭̝̺̻̗͎̹̝͌͌̆͆̒͂̀̑Ç̷̧̦͕̻̟̟͍͓̻̥̩̝͙̔̆̓̅̂̚͝H̶̨̛̛̦͖̦̫̟̪̹͔̲̙͓̿͐͜͜I̶̜̥̣̤̣̮͍̝͔͊̽̑͐̂̄͋̎̋̄̈́̎L̵͔͆͛Ḑ̶͚͓̗̩̥̙̙̀̓̿̊͌̈̉́̅̉͝͠͠
Ṷ̸̩̠͚͌̌͐̋̄͛͠͠N̴̛̛̛̘̥͈̫̖̟̒̃̌̑͌̇̓W̴̧̭̤̖̞̲̥͚͔̓̿̀̈́̔̈́̾̊͊͋͆͠͠͠O̸͍̫͕̳̥̰̝͎̦̿̆͗͂̚͘R̶̢͖̮̤̮̝̻͍̰̳̳͛͒̈̆͋̕͜T̸͉̓͆̅̍̆́͛͘̕͝H̸̻͔̱̭̮̦̝̟͓̘͛̍ͅͅY̸̛̠̜̪̻̫̫͎̼̰̱̗̞̼̾͌̋̽͛̎͊ͅ ̷͕̪̪̚F̵̛͔̖̖̽͂̓ͅḮ̷͙̼̃̃̇͝͝Ļ̴̨̛̟̺͎̰̣̥̗͎̲̝͗́̀͊̑͑͊̄̈̌̒̿̏͠Ț̸̡̹̞͖̻̭̣̱̖̼̇̇̇͜ͅH̸͚͓̲̬̱̱͕̲͖́͊̄̈́͑̚͘
"H-uhh!"
The entire city gasped for the last bit of breathable air.
Robin's eyes opened wide. Seeing Emi was also struggling to breathe. Yet, this was an impossible situation to run. A god-like being, descending onto New York, seemingly to make his life hell.
The angel points its deathly figure toward Robin.
D̵̢̤̦̹̙̬͚̗̺͍̃̑̀̒͘Į̷͉̻̪̥̤̰̟̣͍͓͍̞̪̇͆̇͂̃̌̉́̈́͘S̴̢̡̛̱̟̖̭̳̟̬̜̖̀͛̓͒̍͝ͅÄ̵̖̥̳̪̭̱̞͎́̏̌̓̂̔̈́͐̉̊̃̅̈́̕ͅṔ̵̢͎̫͔̲͍̖͍̦̣͒̓̍̔̕̕͠ͅP̴̖̱͙̮͉͎̜͆͋̆͛̐E̵͉̾̈́̑̇̒̌̓̓̕͝Ȃ̶͔̺̜̭̪̏Ṙ̶̖̯͎̝͉̗̖̗̂̌̓̽́͒̓̍̂̆͂͘
A simple gesture, one word. That was enough to command the force of the universe to tear the existence of a mortal whose only sin committed was to continue to be alive, in a world where the decree of death was mandated.
Atlast...
The thief who stole from an angel was atomized.