"Bye, Andy!"
"Get some rest, buddy."
"Good one, today!"
He turned away from his bandmates and started stepping away, waving his right hand goodbye with a nonchalant shrug, "I'm off then."
As he walked further away from his friends, his shoulders slumped over and he sighed to himself.
'Who am I kidding? There were only three customers at the pub today and they were too drunk to even listen to us.'
His hand slipped into his pocket and held on to the scrunched up 20 dollar note that they had each received as payment.
'Should I...'
He considered stopping at a 24-hour burger joint on the way back to his parents' apartment. It was a chilly night and a hot, sloppy burger sounded pretty good even though he wasn't exactly hungry. He zipped up his fake leather jacket to his neck and dug his hands in his arm pits as he observed the mist that came out of his mouth every time he breathed out.
As he walked through the dark and damp streets, he could smell the piss on the sidewalks and he shuddered imagining his loafers walking through puddles caused by others.
'Ugh. Fuck my life. Not a single girl at the bar tonight as well. Only some drunken old men.'
His steps slowed for a moment as he remembered what he would face at home as well. By the time he got back, it would be past 3am. He could just imagine his parents heading out in the morning while he slept in, shaking their heads in disappointment and screaming at him to find a job.
After all, it wasn't his fault that he wasn't able to pay rent on that cheap-ass apartment. Shouldn't his parents be doing better by this point of their lives instead of pressuring him to do more, try harder, find work, and on and on and on? Can't they see how difficult it has been for him to get a good job with only a music degree from some rubbish community college?
He shook his head as he thought about how unfair life was to him. He stopped in front of a dark, closed shop and looked at himself in the reflection of the glass window in the light of the streetlamp.
'My life sucks. My parents can't stand me and no girl would ever want me anyway.'
He was slightly taller than average, with a body that was too skinny and pale, pasty skin, compliments of spending his younger years indoors addicted to computer games. He never took to sports or the outdoors, and would either be gaming or playing his secondhand yamaha keyboard at home so he didn't get out much under the sun. As a result, he had an unhealthy pallor on a face that may have had a chance to be handsome if not for the deep, sunken eyes and eye bags from getting too little sleep.
As he stared at himself, he suddenly saw a bright flash of light in the reflection of the window. He turned around and saw the yellow light fading in the narrow alley on the other side of the road.
'What was that?'
Without thinking, he walked towards where he saw the flash, feeling curious as to what could have caused it in the middle of the night.
'I'm not gonna get mugged, right..' The thought crossed his mind before he laughed it off.
As he walked into the dark alley, he say a figure dressed in something white who looked to be lying on the ground about 20 yards ahead. He thought he heard a moan of pain.
"Hey, lady...are you OK?" he asked as he walked closer and could make out that it was a slim woman. 'What the heck, is that blood on her dress?'
He reached her and as he reached out to touch her to check on her, his fingers came away with a dark, thick liquid.
"Oh shit lady, what happened? Let me call 9-11." he started reaching for his phone in his pocket.
Right at that moment, the woman's eyes opened wide and he was startled to see that they glowed green, like those glow sticks at the fancy nightclubs. Her eyes glared at him with what looked like terror.
"Nah, hey, I'm not here to hurt you. I'll get help, OK?" he tried to reassure her as he saw her fear.
Until he saw that her eyes were not focused on him, but on something behind him. With superhuman willpower, she pulled herself up to a sitting position, placed her hand on his shoulder and pushed him aside with more force than he could imagine from such a slender figure.
As he fell sideways, he saw her lift up her other arm right when a massive, black figure slammed into her. Except...it never reached her. A golden bracelet on her arm lit up and he could see numerous beautiful patterns shine out before the figure was thrown backwards as though it collided with a truck, smashing into some garbage cans at the side.
In the light that was casted from the bracelet, Andy saw a gruesome creature that he'd never imagine even in his worst nightmares. There was a hooked horn growing out of its forehead and two, blood-red eyes that communicated a ferocious hunger. And the body was even more otherworldly with four arms and two legs, accompanied by a wicked looking tail.
'Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, wake me up now!' his mind screamed to himself.
In horror, he saw the creature getting to its feet again and glare at the lady, who was now on one knee and holding her bleeding side with heaving breaths. Even in that position with her golden hair flying around her glowing green eyes, Andy caught his breath as he saw her transcendental beauty almost as though everything were in slow motion.
'This must be a dream. There's no girl who could be this pretty. And there's no creature who could be that ugly. So if it's a dream...'
In his hazy, unclear thinking, he instinctively jumped in front of the woman just as the monstrous creature lunged at her again.
'...then I must be the hero.'
Right at that point, his mind finally registered that the woman had pulled out a slender sword which had been hanging at her waist and reflexively pointed it towards the monster who was rampaging towards her.
"Oh shiiii-..." he started saying before the creature's momentum slammed against his back, impaling him on the woman's sword. He fell face first into her, coincidentally pressing his lips against hers, as her sword pierced right through his navel area bursting out of his back.
'If this is a dream, why does it hurt like hell...Oh shit, what if it's real?'
With his lips still inexplicably pressed against hers, he felt his blood and strength ebbing away from him. As he approached death, he suddenly thought to himself, 'I can't believe I'm going to die while I'm still a virgin. And fuck, it should be the other way round, not the girl impaling me with her sword, but me with my divine sword instead. Aw, come on man, this sucks.'