Fun Fact: Marriage traditions have not changed much since the olden times. Although most marry for love and companionship, there are still a significant number of couples whose marriage was arranged. Marriage can also be used as a means to climb the social ladder by marrying into a higher class.
~ ~ ~
The cobalt evening curtain lifted gracefully, revealing sparse droplets of stars sprinkled carelessly over the canvas of the night sky.
Its vastness blanketed the fragile world, bringing humbleness to all that it covered and gratitude for the cosiness of home. Faint sounds of activity peppered the otherwise quiet neighbourhood while the drizzle fell on the surrounding greenery, each drop serving as a blessing from the Heavens above.
And then a scream of frustration broke the nocturnal peace rudely.
“This is the fifth time you’ve lost our funds!” a woman screamed. “When will you fix your gambling problems?”
“Shut up, woman! You don’t think I feel bad enough for losing?” The man grabbed her hand roughly, pointing a wand at the bank glyph on her wrist. “Empty the rest of your reserves; I need to win it all back!”
“Hell no, you useless man!” She fought back against his iron grip, trying to push him away. “I’m not letting you throw away our family like that— Argh!”
The woman stood back on her feet, gingerly touching the red palm print on her cheek. Her body trembled as tears welled up in her eyes.
“What the hell?!” she screamed, materialising her staff in her hands. “I can’t believe you actually hit me, you bastard!”
The crystal on her staff burned fiercely as magic charged up within it. The man summoned his staff as well, putting a magic barrier between his wife and himself.
“Firebolt!”
The barrier remained untouched, but the man quickly put it down in shock. An anguished scream shattered the night sky.
“What… What is this?!” The female Mage was screaming in both pain and horror, clutching an ugly-looking claw that used to be her right arm. “What did you do to me?”
“I… I didn’t do anything!” the man stammered in confusion. “Don’t worry, I can heal it!”
He muttered an incantation as he placed his hand on the grotesque claw. Magic flooded his entire body as the Cleric prepared to discharge his healing spell, but that only proved a fatal mistake. The man’s eyes widened in fear as raw screams tore from his throat as though he was being flayed alive.
“Pavlovs! Pavlovs, are you alright? What’s happening—”
The woman shrieked and fell backwards in fear. “Oh gods…”
A low groaning sound seemed to shake the ground as the man’s shadow grew larger and larger. His scream warped into a roar, and dozens of eyes popped up over his now slimy, worm-like body. The monstrosity staggered around, stumbling over its six legs as it swung a tentacle, snapping a nearby lamp post in half easily.
“Pavlovs, my love…” the woman whimpered, frozen to the spot in fear as what used to be her husband inched closer to her. “You’re still in there, right? Please…”
A tentacle wrapped around her waist as the monster pulled her gently closer to it. She cracked a slight smile at its many eyes as time seemed to freeze in one tender, loving moment.
And then he ripped her in half.
Muffled screams punctuated the air as the monster put the woman in its gaping maw, licking up the entrails that were still trailing from the upper half of her torn body. Its teeth ground up what remained of her corpse with a sickening crunch.
It turned its attention to the group of men who had just stepped out of a portal behind it.
“This is much more than a simple disturbance,” the constable leader muttered urgently into the crystal ball by his collar. “This is an emergency. Send for backup as quickly as possible. Contact the Guardian Council. We’re going to hold it off for as long as we can.”
The monster roared in response, as if it was challenging them to a fight.
“Constables!” the man yelled. “Offensive positions, now!”
“Yes, Sergeant!” the constables yelled in response as they surrounded the monster. Their leader brought his hand down, and they took the cue to charge their staves with magic.
It was the last thing they did.
And as more roars and screams filled the neighbourhood, the stars watched on in blind apathy at the accursed world.
~ ~ ~
The sound of fire crackling was deafening, the smell of sizzling flesh nauseating, and the sight of the demon prince once more before him was ever so unsettling. Felix breathed heavily, staring down his own face contorted into an inhuman grin while souls of the damned screamed in anguish and agony all around him.
“I told you, your actions will have consequences.” His doppelganger let out a sinister laugh, although it didn’t seem inclined to attack him for now.
“No, this is just a dream,” Felix retorted defiantly. “This isn’t real, no matter how many times you show this to me. You can’t trick me, Satan.”
“Of course this is a dream, and that’s exactly why this is very real,” Satan replied. “Time is up, impertinent mortal. Your world is dead. Your world is ours to take.”
“Felix?” Another voice broke into the dream. The echo made it sound like it came from far away, although Felix could almost hear it in his mind. Was it real? Or was it part of this dream?
“Felix…” the ghostly-sounding voice repeated itself. “Where are you…?”
Felix scarcely had time to look for the source of the voice when the demon appeared directly in front of him, screaming in his face.
“You are all dead!” Satan roared, its voice sounding more distorted by the second. “Every single one of you, every version of this world, is full of sin! You’ll die and suffer at the end of every path you take. Why can’t you see it?!”
“Leave me alone.” Felix attempted to punch the demon, but his fist only met air. He craned his neck, trying to look out for that voice again. It sounded familiar for some reason. Where had he heard it before?
“So much noise… But I finally found you…” The disembodied voice was back, and it was a lot louder this time. “Why won’t it work? I can’t—”
The voice cut off with a bloodcurdling scream.
“Who are you?” he called out. “Where are you?”
A cold hand caught his neck. Felix tumbled to the ground, struggling to wrest free from the demon’s chokehold.
“You are so full of sin. All of you are.” Satan snarled at the boy clawing desperately at its skeletal hand. “This world’s time is up. You will all suffer.”
“Go—”
“—Away!” Felix yelled, now lying on his bed in a cold sweat. He took some time to catch his breath as he held his pounding head gingerly.
“Ngh… What on earth was that?” He looked around. Thankfully, he was safely back in his room, which confirmed that the ominous vision earlier was a mere nightmare.
Still, his room looked like a hurricane had torn through it. The posters of his favourite dancers were strewn all over the ceiling, while his furniture was overturned and in all the wrong places. Felix sighed. He must have unconsciously turned on his telekinesis while asleep. Pink covered his eyes as he tidied up his room, telekinetically moving everything back into place.
He sat at the edge of his bed in a daze, massaging his temples with his knuckles. This was the third time he had had this nightmare, although the disembodied voice was a new addition. It was so vivid this time that he could still hear the screams of the damned souls in his head.
Hold on…
The boy rushed to his windows and threw open the curtains. He covered his mouth in shock; the screams were not in his mind.
It was like something out of another nightmare. Hideous, deformed monsters roamed the streets just outside of his house while mangled bodies littered the roads. Felix watched in horror and disgust as the monsters flung the corpses into their mouth, chewing contentedly as though they were simply munching on fruit.
Movement from the corner of the street caught his eye.
A lone pair of constables were running into the crowd of monsters, their uniforms stained with what Felix could only presume was the blood of their fallen comrades.
They were firing their technomagick pistols at the creatures in an attempt to kill them, but were only succeeding in drawing more attention to themselves. To make things worse, the male constable’s weapon had just run out of Arcani.
As the monsters descended upon them, he materialised his staff. The crystal ball on top of the cane glowed a fierce yellow as the constable channelled magic into his weapon in a desperate attempt to repel the monsters.
But it was a mistake.
Felix covered his mouth in shock as purple magic corrupted around the man’s body, transforming him into a monster not too different from the ones pursuing him. The monster roared at the night sky, flexing its eagle-like talons.
The female constable reacted quickly, blasting her weapon at what was once her partner as she scrambled back in fear. Felix pursed his lips; he could see tears streaming down the woman’s face.
And unfortunately, her luck had run out as well.
A spare cartridge dropped to the ground with a clang as her shaking hands fumbled in an attempt to refill her weapon. Panting with fear, she quickly picked it up and fired it right before a snapping snout could chew her head off. The monster recoiled temporarily, and she took the opportunity to run out of the slow-moving horde—
She yelped in pain as a claw raked her side and tossed her against a carriage like a ragdoll. It was too late; she had wasted too much time trying to refill her weapon.
The woman crawled painfully on the ground as more and more monsters managed to wrap their various appendages around her body. Low groans filled the air as they began pulling the unfortunate constable back towards them. Despair clouded the whimpering constable’s eyes as she slowly put the pistol to her head, hoping for a more merciful death.
A stray claw knocked it out of hand.
There was a moment of silence as she took in the grotesque look of the monsters.
Primal fear exploded from her in the form of anguished cries as the monsters began pulling at her limbs in an attempt to sunder her body. The constable’s eyes rolled back in defeat as she accepted her gruesome fate—
“Begone, insects.”
The woman’s battered but still intact body dropped to the ground. Her assailants roared in apparent pain as their bodies ground into fine dust in front of her eyes. Her blurred vision shifted to her saviour.
A man— No. A boy— was standing in front of her with his hand outstretched. Two points of pink glowed fiercely from his face.
“A Meta?” she barely managed to croak. “How…”
Her eyes rolled back once more as her body gave in to exhaustion.
Felix concentrated hard, conjuring an army of psionic soldiers to keep the monsters preoccupied while he tended to the surviving constable. He placed a palm on her forehead as his mind connected with hers.
She’s still alive. Good.
He stood up again as his psychic constructs faded away. A suffocating moment of silence hung in the air as the monsters slowly turned their attention to the Tier Five Meta. The pink aura around him flared in response.
They charged at him.
“Go back to hell!” Felix roared.
He flung his arms back, releasing a powerful explosion of psychic energy that crackled through the streets. The night sky lit up as though it were daytime. Thunder cracked from above as Felix’s power cut through the monsters, shredding them into a splatter of gore.
Darkness and silence swept the streets as the psychic released his power, leaving behind pools of blood and the occasional bone on the streets. He cast a grim gaze at his devastated surroundings, scooping the unconscious woman into his arms.
What the hell is going on?
He burst off the ground and disappeared into the clouds.205Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRviaRq9lhJ
