Seris applied the product to her face, finishing the bottle. She felt the burning but endured it. And then, her already beautiful face transformed.
The skin became so perfect it looked like porcelain. Her gray eyes stood out with more intensity. A subtle mark below her left eye and another on the right side of her mouth gave her a unique beauty.
Ayren, who was in front of her, watched completely surprised and speechless.
"Seris… you turned into an anime character…" he said, not stopping looking at her.
"Tsk, now I'm definitely a nine, easy. Maybe a nine and a half." She said, looking at herself in the mirror, seeming proud. She was more beautiful than ever, and that made her happy.
"And me?" Ayren asked.
"You're now an eight. Keep dreaming about a nine." She said, laughing as she left the bathroom to grab the other products.
"Ayren, and these, what do they do?"
"These…
…
..
The two tested the products together. One was a cream for hair, they just had to apply it once, and the dry hair, which they both didn't care for, became so clean, soft, and silky as if they had just come from a luxury salon.
The other was a capsule with twenty pills. They promised to completely kill hunger and count as a full day's meal. Not useful now, but they tested it and didn't feel like having dinner.
The last one was a spray that promised to make teeth more beautiful. Ayren thought it would only whiten them, but he was wrong, his teeth looked new and perfect. Seris, who had one slightly crooked tooth, was happy to see it was now fully aligned.
"Ayren? This shouldn't exist, right? Where the hell did you get these things?" She asked, looking at her white teeth in the mirror.
"I got them."
They talked for a while until it was already a bit late at night.
Seris then looked around his room, observing everything. She didn't mind the dirt or the smell or the trash piled up in some parts. But there was one thing that caught her attention.
"You still have the laptop I gave you…" she murmured.
"Yes. And I still use it."
She smiled. She was happy. Without thinking much, she lay on Ayren's mattress as if it were hers.
She looked at him and spoke.
"Since I'm living here anyway. Good night, Ayren." She closed her eyes and fell asleep within seconds.
Ayren looked at her, seeing that she had really fallen asleep.
"Who falls asleep in five seconds?!?"
He left her alone and grabbed the laptop. Opened the browser and dove back into searching for ads. He felt he had put it aside a bit and now needed to focus.
…
..
.
The silence was constant in the small apartment, broken only by the irregular clicks of the mouse. Ayren was sitting on the floor with his legs folded.
He finally found something that really interested him.
[Earn $1000 per hour with this new, surprising, and effective method. You only need a laptop!!]
The kind of thing he would have laughed at weeks ago. An obvious scam, one of the countless absurdities infesting websites. Impossible promises. But well, now it was different.
Ayren clicked. And after fifteen minutes.
Balance: $4,340.00
"Hmmm, there were about three thousand and a bit left from the purchases, the first thousand already arrived. I just have to wait another hour to see if it comes again."
"If that happens, I just need to find several of these, and then I'll earn passive money all the time and can focus on other types of ads. But first I need money…" he said while looking at the room and then at Seris lying down.
He then started searching more and managed to find four more similar ads. In total, if it worked, it would be $5,500 per hour.
And after one hour, he finally saw that another thousand had really landed in his account.
[Institute — AD Click System]
"Perfect… perfect. This way, soon, money won't be a problem at all." Ayren said happily.
Then, suddenly, he saw a different ad. He scrolled down the page and clicked quickly.
[Improve your hearing with this mysterious audio! Listen for 60 seconds.]
"Hmmm, why not?"
He put on his headphones. The sound was weird, but not bad, it was somewhat calming. Like a lake with a drizzle falling.
When he took the headphones off, his hearing seemed to stop working for a few seconds. But that didn't scare him.
Suddenly, he heard the sound of a cat on the street outside. He heard water dripping from Seris's house. In his room, he heard his own heartbeat and Seris's. Again, many pieces of information were thrown into his brain.
But this time, there was no pain or discomfort. And just like his eyes, he learned to control it instinctively. His brain ignored what he didn't want to hear. But, if he wanted, he could hear people talking as they walked down the street below.
On that same site where he heard the audio, a similar ad appeared.
"Heh, I'm a bit lucky today apparently."
[Awaken your hidden sense of smell. You'll be surprised at what your body can do with the right formula!!]
He clicked again. A few minutes later…
A wave of smells exploded in his nose. As if he were remembering every scent he'd ever smelled all at once. He smelled everything from the sweet perfume of Seris to the mold embedded in the ceiling and walls of the room.
He got used to it quickly, and everything seemed normal. Only now his reality, his senses was truly bizarre.
"Well, I'm definitely a superhuman now." Ayren said, satisfied.
At that moment, Ayren felt a little tired, so he tried to nap. And that happened quickly.
Meanwhile, on his mattress, Seris slept deeply, curled up in a position that looked uncomfortable. But she was fine.
Inside her mind, Seris found herself in a familiar but not very comfortable place.
It was a deep darkness, cold and hot, enveloping her completely.
And then, the same feeling as before.
The demon, or whatever it was, was there. Watching her from all sides.
'So… did you like it?' Seris asked in her mind, trying to sound neutral.
"So, you've already learned to communicate. That's good, that's good. Rotten soul."
"The soul you gave me was delicious. Full of lies, hopes, and illusions. Willpower, yes."
'I did my part.'
The demon didn't answer. She just saw something coming toward her. Even without eyes, she could see what it was.
A dark stone, but it looked alive, she felt it pulse in a strange way. Like a small heart.
"Keep and care for this. Rotten soul. When the time comes, it will be useful. Remember that you can only use your power once. And with each new use, the price will double. Use it wisely."
Before Seris could ask or say anything else, the darkness dissolved, and she found herself awake, staring at the ceiling and breathing heavily.
Daylight was already coming through the gaps in the improvised curtain made of old sheets. Ayren was sitting on the other wall, awake, typing on the laptop.
Seris stretched and yawned loudly.
"Slept?" she asked him, seeing him practically in the same place as when she fell asleep.
"I slept for four hours. I can't sleep more than that for some reason. But I don't feel tired, so it's fine."
Seris got closer and sat beside him, her shoulder touching Ayren's while he looked at the laptop.
"What are you doing?"
"Earning money for us."
"Hmmm, what a hardworking boy." Seris said with a smile, teasing him.
She stayed silent for a while.
"Are you going to tell me about your demon and where all this is coming from?" she asked seriously.
Ayren looked at her face.
"If you want to know… I also have no idea. Just that the ads we always see have now become real for me. Something like that. Actually, why don't you try it?" Ayren had a new idea.
He tells her to click on an ad that promises $300 just for watching a video. She watches it, but he doesn't earn any money. And, as he guessed, no money dropped into Seris's account either.
"Hey, that's a bit unfair. Your demon is so good to you." Seris says with jealousy and anger at that being she had never seen but who appeared in her dreams.
"And you? Any news? You offered a soul, so you must've gotten something."
Seris suddenly puts her hand in her pocket. And from it, she pulls out a small stone. It was the same as the dream, but now it was in her hands.
"He only gave me this… said it would be useful sometime. That idiot didn't give me any explanation on how to use it."
Ayren stared with his eyes. Even with the greatest zoom, he couldn't see anything too special. He just felt that sometimes the stone seemed to pulse a bit. And he could hear that pulse.
"Seems… like it's alive. Doesn't it?" Ayren murmured, still looking at the stone.
"I have no idea, but he said recharging it will cost two souls… and the value will always be doubled." Seris said, looking into Ayren's eyes.
They stayed silent for a while.
"We should leave this place." Ayren said, breaking the strange silence.
"Now?"
"Not exactly now, if you don't want to. But soon. This place… is small, and it's starting to disgust me." He said, looking at all the dirt, insects, and accumulated trash that only he could see. Besides the unpleasant smell.
"Why didn't you ever leave before?" Seris asked, looking at him.
"Because you were here."
Seris laughed. It was a light, ironic, but sincere smile.
"What nonsense…"
'This idiot really knows how to make me happy.'
"I also never left here because I couldn't let you die alone. If you're going to die, you'll have to take me with you, got it?" She said with a serious face before smiling and continuing.
"But now I really think we should go. There's nothing here for us, nothing holding us back. Now we are… special. Yes! Blessed." She said, spreading her arms and raising her head with a sarcastic smile.
"Sure, sure. Blessed by a demon and a who-knows-what."
She laughed, and Ayren did too.
"Let's go to a new age. A new place. Different. Something cleaner. And forget this horrible place."
Ayren searched on his phone. For apartments, he searched in a bigger city. He no longer wanted to live in this place he had always disliked.
"I know one we can visit today. What do you think?" Ayren asked, showing expensive apartments in a rich neighborhood of a big city.
"You really have all that money now?" She asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Obviously, I don't have it yet. But there are other ways to move there quickly. I got something interesting right before you woke up… so don't worry."
"Ayren, how are you going to explain where the money is coming from?" Seris asked.
"Oh, well. I really didn't think about that. I'll think about it later."
"So shall we? We'll leave everything behind. And start a new life. Right?" Seris said, looking at the apartment and then at Ayren.
Ayren closed the laptop. The sound of it closing marked the end of this phase and a new beginning. A beginning of something much, much bigger.
Ayren and Seris left the apartment and then the building. Leaving everything the same. They took nothing but their identities. But who can say if they were still the same as shown on them?