"You're a dollar short."
The cashier stares at the unsightliness of a boy who might have forgotten about the sales tax on a bag of cheese balls.
"Oh... hold on just a minute. I got some change in my pocket... somewhere, haha..."
As the boy quickly rummages through the front pocket of his hoodie, the cashier's patience wears thin, as the checkout line is noticeably getting longer as minutes pass.
"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 pulled out a handful of change in the form of coins, all covered in sweat and residues you wouldn't want to know.
Eagerly ready to drop them on top of the counter of the register.
...
"Dude... really? Just take it and get out of my store. I'm seriously 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 realized that a dollar wouldn't be worth the trouble of counting the handful of pennies.
Money is meant to make life easier, not harder.
So why put maximum effort for minimum reward?
Ridiculous.
"Oh really? That's awesome, thanks!"
Yet somehow in this situation the cashier feels even more in awe of Robin. He recalls throughout his life, of all the people he had met, yet there are none that are as utterly shameless.
The boy wearing a grey hoodie excitedly put everything back. He bolts out of the convenience store with a giant smile without even thinking about what had just happened.
"That was almost too easy."
It's almost entirely too shameless too.
Just as Robin was leaving, a deafening sound of trumpets rang 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 is an eerie silence that shadowed the very surface of the earth. Yet, those minutes are only setting the stage for what could only be a cosmic nightmare.
[Experiment had ended]
-
[Humanity has failed]
-
[Divine judgement will begin]
-
[Do not resist]
-
Chaos ensues again, and for the first time, everyone spoke the same language: fear and total panic. For everything will soon be nothing.
Except the world can't end yet. Not until Robin knew his sister was safe.
"Damn it! Emi. I need to get to her. I have a feeling Brooklyn won't last another day."
Robin walloped home using the back alley. Cars and people alike gather 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.
I mean, hey, who can judge you if the world is about to end? Your neighbor would probably do the same thing. There is no etiquette in surviving.
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 the mirror reflected, but distorted to a blur that created uncannily convincing doppelgangers.
"Get away from me!"
The creatures step out of the reflection like newborns emerging from a body of water. They then dash towards people nearby, attacking them with no hesitation or thought.
The military immediately called for lethal force again these creatures, yet bullets and humanity's finest weapons are nothing but a waste in the face of otherworldly being.
Within 3 hours of doomsday. All forces of authority are forced to retreat in defeat.
Gunshots and blood smears all over the streets of New York. Everyone is trying to escape the city before nightfall; most of those stories lead to a tragic end.
....
Robin hastily ran across the back alley. However, as he moves closer to his neighborhood. He notices that his doppelgänger has yet to materialize.
Puzzled, he questioned himself. Was he perhaps too ugly that even the evil version of himself refused to be summoned to attack him?
He isn't special, or at least he didn't think so. Maybe it was pure luck that he made it this far.
Yet none of that question could solve the current crisis. His sister is currently at home alone. The worst thing could have already happened, but for the sake of his mind, he would rather imagine otherwise.
"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, his body almost gave up because of exhaustion. However, the thought of losing Emi became a source of adrenaline that overruled any fatigue he might have at the moment.
"Emi..."
Robin finally found his way to the back window of his apartment. He noticed that there was no light coming through the glass. Wrapping his right hand with his jacket, he shatters the window into pieces. As he took a look inside the apartment, the area is 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 notices that the mirror in the hallway is destroyed. Suddenly, he hear a loud crack down the hall to the restroom, follow by the noise of a pale scream.
His sister.
"Emi!"
Without a thought, in a pure rush of instinct, Robin made his way to the hallway as fast as he could run.
"Rob? Is that you? Don't come over here. The thing standing there isn't me!"
Standing there in front of the bathroom door, a doppelganger that looks exactly like Emi. A small face of a girl with hazelnut hair, tears dripping from her eyes colored by golden autumn.
"Emi...?
Are there any doubts in his spotless mind? For him that is Emi? That hair, those eyes, and even her crying expression every time she sees those dramas.
Yet Robin knows too well. That thing isn't his sister. The real one should be inside the bathroom. The one screaming his name and warning him. That should be her.
As Robin approached the creature that mimicked his sister.
The doppelgänger turn around. The face of his little sister, knowing that she isn't his actual sister, sent a chill down his spine.
However, that was not enough to stop Robin's maternity instinct to protect his little sister.
His hand 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 charges toward his sister's doppelgänger, and in one big swing.
*BAM!*
The immeasurably precious bat shatters into dust and pieces of wood.
The doppelgänger violently fell over and hit the hardwood floor with its head. For a moment, its body still seemed to move, 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 the mysterious creature, his body trembled with a shivery feeling of guilt; it's his first time killing a person, or at least something that looked like a human that heavily resembled his very own sister.
*Swallows*
Swallowing what could've been a nasty case of trauma-induced vomit. He gathered whatever leftovers of his mental strength and courage to open the bathroom 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 despair's darkest corner, silently echoing endlessly through its eyes.
Its body lifeless, oozing 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 brimming with the light of gold.
"What's this...? A dagger... made of gold!?"
As he picked up the dagger from the creature's stubborn grip, he noticed that the weapon itself weighed as much as a paper clip. Its material, constantly flowing and shifting like a body of liquid gold-like substance, morphing itself into the form of a dagger, enchanted by unknown scribbles that glow with a divine warmth.
A terrifyingly beautiful artifact for many eyes. For Robin, it was a way out of poverty. If the world isn't ending, he will sell it, paying no mind at all.
"Hey Emi, do you think I can sell-"
"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 eye hazed with a raging red, enough to scare off even a white tiger. Its mouth opens just enough to mutter...
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, seemingly demanding back what he had taken from her.
Yet, the deafening voice isn't the only thing that causes panic in this situation. As the doppelgänger slowly approach Robin, walking slowly, each step weighed heavier than the other.
"Robin!"
Emi cries out for her big brother. 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. However, this is reality, his reality.
"Ughh...AGHH!!!"
Gripping the golden dagger tightly. Robin spins with all his weight and conviction. With full force.
*STAB!*
The sound of blood dripping down the hardwood floor, each drop of the creature's blood weighing heavy enough to vibrate the floor ever so slightly. A moment of complete silence. Robin looks up to see the face of his sister, her eyes deep with abyssal energy, slowly fading away from the mortal wound caused by her own weapon. Yet, he knew it was nothing more than a doppelgänger; his heart could only fool him at least once.
The creature's 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 doppelgänger'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 feel some ounce of guilt, at least for that moment.
"Robin...? Are you okay?"
Emi's voice revived 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-"
"Augh!"
Pain shot through his body.
"It hurts! My heart!"
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. Stretching every single of his blood veins to their thinnest.
*ding!*
[A worthy soul has been absorbed]
-
[Hello, Robin]
-
[System access requested]
-
[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? Have you gone crazy!?"
So he was right. Maybe it had something to do with killing the doppelgänger. It is said that a worthy soul has been absorbed. Did he accidentally absorb it by killing it? More than that fact, it had a soul in the first place?
*RUMMMM*
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...?"
*rumble*
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.
"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 urged him to move.
"Emi, we need to run. As far as we can"
As soon as they started moving.
T̶̙̞̟̤̯̙̿̌̎͋̌̕͘ͅH̶͓̩͕̫͕̔͌̓̊̽͛̅̂̔̉̈͗̽Î̵̛̲̥̟̞̙͚͈͓͚̀͗́̋̍̈́̽͐͆͗̆͠ͅE̶̢̡͙̜̯̟̭̤̮̯̖̓̇͒F̸̨̽̒́́̓̄̈́͝
A high pitch sounds hijacked their minds once again. This time their entire body could only be hopelessly paralyzed at the sound of the corrupted angel. Horrifying words directed and channeling their 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.
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 turn the city of dreams into a complete nightmare.
The angel points its long and grim finger 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 destruction was mandated.
Finally...
The thief who stole from an angel was atomized.