"Finally!" Exclaimed a young boy with a dark disheveled hair. He held tightly a book— A novel rather titled 'Catastrophe Of Heaven' and smiled widely as he walked out of the bookstore. "Now, I can finally read my favorite novel," he joyfully said and kissed the book.
"Northern!" Somebody yelled.
"Yes?" The boy answered and turned around. "James?" He said, surprised and happy at the same time. He walked towards the boy not any much older than him. "Look what I got!" He said, showing him the book.
"What is that?" James asked, staring at the book.
"Don't you know?" Northern asked, frowning that his friend didn't even remember what they had talked about. "This is the novel I told you about, 'Catastrophe Of Heaven'. Did you forget entirely about it?"
James' eyes widened. He had totally forgotten about the novel his friend talked so much about. "Is it the one you saved money for months to buy?" He asked him.
"Yes. That one! See, I finally bought it so you have to join me now let's go and read it, I can't wait."
Seeing how excited his friend was, James was meant to be happy but for some rest, he wasn't. He was not smiling.
Having noticed it, Northern stopped smiling as well. "What is the matter, James?" He asked out of concern. "Why aren't you looking happy?"
It took James some minutes before he finally began to talk. "I am sorry, North," he said. He seldom called his friend North Instead of his full name and whenever that happens, it meant only one thing. "We can never be friends again."
Northern froze for some time. He was yet to process what his friend had just said. Though when his friend called him North, he knew that something was up... He just didn't expect it to be something as serious as cutting ties with him.
"This is the last time we are going to meet. I am sorry but it is for the best. We are from different worlds, you can never be like me even if you try a thousand times. Even if you die and reincarnate, even if you are suddenly born into a rich family... You can't because we are worlds apart from each other. The earlier you give up trying to be your best when you can't even better you life, the earlier for you. Goodbye."
James turned and left even before Northern could fully process what had just happened. By the time Northern realized the severity of things, his friend was long gone and he was left standing in the middle of the road.
He fell to his knees, and looked up to the sky. He didn't cry, not like he didn't want to cry but he couldn't. He has never shed a single tear in all his life, not when he was born, not when his parents died, not even when he was given the worst punishment any human could give a child of his age. He wished he could cry it out —the pain, the betrayal, the maltreatment, the lost if everything. He wished he could let everything out through tears, unfortunately, he couldn't. Instead, he began to laugh.
He laughed so hard that he began to cough, and that's when he finally stopped laughing. He glanced down at his novel, a small smile playing on his now-pale lips.
"I guess you're my only company now," he muttered and opened the book. He knelt there and began to go through the first chapter. "I wish to be like the main character... Finn. He's so handsome and strong."
While he was still there, it suddenly began to rain. The rain didn't give warning and this caused the road to become chaotic as people began go run here and there, looking for shelters. As Northern rose to his feet to also run, he felt his legs stuck to a particular place. He tried to move but nothing was working.
Suddenly, the novel flew out of hand and hung in the air. Then it began to flip through chapters and then finally stopped at chapter ten. The only thing he saw before suddenly collapsing was 'Northern has only an hour to live'
Everything turned dark and before he could realize what was happening, he had fallen to the ground and lost all senses.
------
New World: Uriel.
"The order is to kill him and we have only an hour to do it," a man said to his partners as they dragged behind them a sack.
"Northern has only an hour to live then after that, we'll go for the remaining half payment," the second man said and they all chuckled.
Unknown to them, the sack they were carrying suddenly glowed for a brief moment. When they finally got to a clif, they tossed the bag.
"We'll push him down the clif, right?" The third man asked the other two.
"It's not a bad idea but what if he doesn't die? You know what that means, right?" The first one said, looking bothered.
But the second man waved his hand casually. "It doesn't mean anything. I say we just throw him down there, the river down there will carry him all the way to the demon's realm or better still, he'll sink inside the river forever. It's all the same death. We don't have to soil our hands with his stinking blood. Besides, after all the beatings we gave him, there is no way in this world that he'll survive."
At this, the other two men were relieved.
"It's such a pity that he's about to die and his dear mother is the reason behind his death. I wish he could hear us now," the first one laughed wickedly.
"Enough talking, let's get this over with," the second one said and then they kicked the sack together down the clif. Then began to laugh.
Unknown to them, the mouth of the sack loosened as it fell and a pair of eyes stared at them from inside the sack.
"Let's go back, it's about to rain."
The three men turned and walked away from there, and the sky soon began to darken. Down the clif, the sack fell and landed into the river there. As soon as the bag fell into the river, it began to stir and dark energy gathered around the sack. Soon, the sack burned to ashes and a boy came into view. The dark energy surrounded the boy and carried him out of the river and then dropped him on the dry ground.
Soon after that, rain stopped falling and the stirring river returned to normal. Even the dark sky became bright. And the boy opened his eyes.