Huff huff

His sides burned, his legs burned. Every part of his body burned, his shoes were torn and frayed. Making every step extra difficult.

His breathing was ragged, sweating tremendously. His throat was dry, he hadn’t had anything to drink yet ever since the whole world went crazy.

Stopping behind a still burning car, he collapsed to the ground. Looking around using the fragments of the side mirror to check.

Damn it, it had just been another normal day. Wake up early, go to class and sit down in the lecture hall for hours while he pretended to understand. Before leaving and studying at home to pretend he could understand even more.

Maybe go out with friends every once in a while, enjoy some drinks and hit on any pretty girls he saw while out.

It wasn’t the best life sure, but it was leagues better then this!

Kirik kirik

Looking in the cracked side mirror, he spotted several large creatures the size of the car he was hiding behind. Resembling large ants with mandibles that could eat his head in one swift bite.

Letting out a curse in the process, he forced himself to stand up.

More monsters here, he had to keep moving now.

Monsters, the size of vehicles and big enough to treat humans like prey. He had witnessed the security guard at their campus unload an entire magazine’s worth of bullets into a wolf headed muscular creature. Only for each bullet to harmlessly clink off its skin.

Spotting a convenience store, he changed targets. He hadn’t eaten anything for breakfast, and his mouth was dryer then a desert.

Bananas, protein bars and yogurts. As much as he would have loved to gorge himself on the other options. With how often he would be running lately, he needed something that was easy on the stomach—something with lots of energy and carbs.

Finding a chocolate bar, he shoved it into his pocket as well. Pocketing it for later.

With everything in the world going crazy right now, having something familiar like this brought him a lot of comfort.

Exiting through the back exit, he let out a breath of relief upon seeing it was clear again.

In fact, it was eerily quiet.

The few lights present flickered briefly, the sky darkened slightly. The only sounds were those coming from his shoes, still slick with blood letting out a squelch with every step.

...too quiet.

SCRAA

Leaping from one of the neighbouring rooftops, a four legged creature with spikes jutting out from every part of its body leapt at him. Letting out a screech that hurt his ears.

Acting instinctively, he immediately ducked. Feeling the wind flow overhead as it flew past him and into the wall.

As much as he would have loved for it to just splat and die right there. The world never moved according to his wish, as it got up again completely unfazed.

Letting out another curse, he turned and ran as fast as he could. Hearing its legs scuttling across the cement as he turning and twisted through alleyways in an attempt to lose it. All to no avail.

"Haha..."

Spotting a brick wall dead end. He let out a defeated laugh.

Yeah right. He was only turning twenty this hear. He still had some much life left to live!

Raising his fists and getting into a stance, he waited anxiously for the creature. Hearing its skittling as it made its way towards him.

How something with no eyes and probably no nose managed to find him was a mystery, but he wasn’t the biggest fan of mysteries anyways.

’Now!’

The moment it bounded around the corner and spotted him. He immediately ran towards it with all his might.

Screaming a hoarse cry, he swung his right arm with all the force he could put into it. Feeling a sharp stinging pain as one of the spikes entered his knuckle.

But that pain was temporary, surviving was more important!

The creature let out a shriek, the force slamming it into the floor and splattering blue blood everywhere. Another sign of just how abnormal this thing was.

Running over to the creature, he raised his leg up high and stomped on it with his heel. Using as much force as he could muster to the point his feet started hurting and his heel likely suffering minor damage.

BAM BAM

Only after it was reduced into blue bug paste did he finally rest and take a breather.

"Damn it, my shoe’s all ruined now."

It had served him well these past five years, but the recent few hours had taken its toll on the pair.

Just then, he heard the sound of the same skittling again. Except it was multiplied by about a hundred.

Looking up, he spotted the same creature again. This time, dozens and dozens of them clicked and produced that grotesque sound as they stared down at him. A few remnants of blood on their spikes hinting at what they had been up to.

"...This is bu-

Clink.

A sound like a small piece of metal being dropped resounded in his ear.

A grey mass descended from an unknown location, he could only catch a glimpse of a metal sword in her hand—long and double edged, before it abruptly flashed. Catching against the last rays of the evening sun as it mowed down the creatures mid-air.

He almost thought that a cloud had descended, one that rained blue blood rather then rain.

At the end of the carnage, a stunning woman in a long flowy robe stood there.

Brandishing her sword, she wiped the blue blood off of it before putting it into a sheath. Staring at him intently.

"How...how the hell did you manage to kill so many like that?"

He had never seen anything like that ever before in his life, she was moving like a blitz. With him barely able to keep up with her location as she cut down each if the monsters that he had struggled with.

Rather then answering him, she only tilted her head slightly.

The next words that flowed out of her mouth didn’t resemble any language that he knew of.

Her tone rise and fell every with every word, and there were lots of different vowels. The language itself sounded like complete gibberish, but most languages tended to sound like that when you didn’t understand a single word.

"Uh...do you like chocolate?"

He was a man of principles after all, he wanted to at least repay her somehow.

Holding out the chocolate bar he had pocketed earlier, he handed it to her when she walked closer. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

He also wanted to form a connection with her, using his hands and body to try and get his meaning across to her as best as he could. Spoken language didn’t always work, but vaguely gesturing with your hands and acting out the meanings always worked, usually.

"Please. Protect. Me."

It wasn’t everyday that you could meet someone who could literally defy physics and biology and manage to move like that.

He wanted to learn how to do that as well!

It also helped that she was really beautiful.

---

"Is that seriously the only scene for Lin Qingyi and Arthur?"

"Yep."

Lucy stared at the curtains, which had temporarily been pulled while they quickly worked their magic to set the stage again.

For a small introductory scene for the convergence of realms, it had been surprisingly detailed.

Not very historically accurate however.

Neigh

Sss...

Next to her, a strange purple horse which seemed to be on fire neighed softly. A strange sight maybe, but most people in the academy had gotten used to the strange sight already. Vesper was remarkably intelligent—enough to know when to be quiet and when to not. So he didn’t actually disturb anyone, and his flames didn’t burn anything unless he wanted them to.

Seated on her lap as well, a bright blue snake hissed. Flicking its tongue out each time the blue blood sprayed on the stage.

Tickets to this play actually costed points. It was how the drama club earned some of their budget. It was only two points a ticket with the better tickets being ten points, but it still costed points. For regular students who didn’t earn much, buying better tickets just wasn’t really worth it.

The entire first row of the auditorium consisted entirely of the special class students. Even if they weren’t participating, they still had to show support for the ones who did.

They were also curious about all the rumors flying around.

"Where’s mom and dad?"

Most striking of all, a young girl. With fiery red hair, kicked her legs back and forth in excitement.

Lucy put a hand on her lap, "Don’t make too much noise, you might disturb the others watching."

"Okay."

But to an outsider’s view, it seemed like she was talking to an invisible person. Since Erin was currently being hidden with magic to prevent the entire academy from knowing about her. It was just troublesome.

Seeing this, Noelle asked her. "How does she listen to you? I asked her to stop moving so many times already but she doesn’t listen."

"Telling someone to keep quiet and to stop moving is different."

"They’re basically the same."

"Not for Erin."

Noelle let out a sigh. Crossing her legs and folding her arms in.

"I think it’s different as well."

"I didn’t ask you Zachary."

There were also two more empty seats reserved in the front row, next to Zachary and in between Noelle meant for Arthur and Lin Qingyi.

Since they were only in the opening scene, they also wanted to watch the rest of the play with them.

"If he was only in the opening scene like Lin, how come Arthur skipped so much more classes then her for practice?"

"He just lied."

"...no wonder."

Arthur was truly shameless, lying to their teachers about practice just to skip class.

Sure they were allowed to skip class for practice, but they also had to actually have practice. But it seemed the teachers just never checked or cared enough.

"Maybe I should have auditioned as well..."

Zachary rubbed his chin, feeling a small smidget of regret.

Attending class all by himself was pretty lonely, and the past months hadn’t been easy with Arthur, Raymond and even Thomas being busy with practice.

But if Arthur got in, then surely he could have got in as well?