9th of April,
It was the day my entire life... no, the world turned upside down. It was the day I could never bury away in my memory...the haunting figure, descending to the earth, spreading its vast figure to the point where it felt bigger than the earth itself. Its words were even more haunting than the figure itself:
"O children of Adam… the Gods, seated upon the thrones beyond stars, have heard your cries. And so, the divine Cup of Reincarnation shall descend to your world one year from this day. He who claims it shall wield the power to reshape existence in their image. You may lie. You may kill. You may burn the world to ash—so long as you win. But know this: only one may claim the Cup. The rest shall be unmade, their souls erased from the book of time. And if none succeed… all of human history shall vanish, as though it never was."
As the crack in the sky healed, the world was put into utter chaos, and all of humanity was too stunned to speak. In just a few days, chaos spread in every corner of the world. Some people believed it to be a hallucinatory experience in denial, some governments tried to control their people, but the people were rebelling. Some were in denial, some were in complete shock. In a nutshell, the entire world was fucked.
15th of April,
Another gray memory was added to my brain, the man who had raised me with love, my father died, turned out he was stabbed in the neck by a teenager in the throat when my father tried to stop him during the rebellion of the local people, it was too late to stop anything, by the time ambulance arrived he was already declared death.
At the funeral, many people were crying their eyes out, but I, on the other hand, was standing next to his coffin, looking at it like a lost child. Many came and patted my head and shoulders saying comforting words to me. Their comforting words were reaching my ears but I couldn't process them...I was angry....angry at all of them, they never came to us when we needed them, now that he's dead, everyone is crying crocodile tears. I wanted to kill them to take out my frustration on them.....every single one annoyed me to my core.
"Yes, uncle, I will take care of myself even after this tragic happening"
I said to my uncle with a forced sad smile on my face, in truth he was the worst one of them, when his sister or my mom to be precise died after giving birth to me their entire family cutted off all connections with them, now they were here in hope of gaining my favour since I inherited my dad's little land and wealth.
After getting back from the funeral and changing into a pair of normal clothes, I collapsed into bed. I stared at the ceiling, more specifically, the chandelier in my room. It was a gift from my father on my 15th birthday. I faintly remembered how we spent the entire day installing it on the ceiling. Suddenly I felt my vision blurring as tears started pouring out of my eyes, finally alone in this house of memories I allowed myself to cry, the man who was my hero....my ideal...the only person I ever loved was now dead, at first I was rejecting it and then griefing over it but now I have accepted it....accepted that my only reason to live was dead now.
"If you ever feel troubled just come to me, daddy will beat all your troubles."
No....
"Let dad help you, son, there's strength in unity."
NO! STOP IT!
I thought of things that my dad had said to me whenever I felt troubled or helpless, but I didn't want to think about them....I didn't want to cry....I wanted to be a strong, masculine man like him, not an emotional, pathetic excuse of a teenager.
CRACK!
Suddenly, I heard the sound of glass shattering. I instantly got an adrenaline rush while wiping my tears with my sleeve. I rushed downstairs into the living room, where there were pieces of the glass window scattered on the floor, but more importantly, standing there was a figure that I recognised very well.
"Ethan..."
I muttered the name of the teenager in front of me....he wasn't just any teenager; once, he was my best friend.
"Quite a sad look you got there bestie"
He said with an eerie smile on his face. He was wearing a long black cloak with a hood on his head but his ugly face was still visible. His green t-shirt and black jeans were peaking through the cloak.
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE!?"
Just as I finished my sentence, he pulled out a knife from his pocket and rushed forward to stab me; his killing intent was gleaming through his eyes. I barely dodged it but it still made a small cut in my left shoulder. I struck him with my knee in his solar plexus, remembering what Dad taught me for self-defence. I then proceeded to slap the knife out of his hand and then struck him in his face with my right shoulder, causing him to fall to the ground. I instantly rushed and grabbed the knife off the floor and pointed it at him as he stood up from the ground.
"Oh so the manchild knows how to fight~~"
He said in a mocking tone, and continued to throw insults towards me to ragebait me whereas I was wondering why the hell he was attacking me but I didn't had the time to ask him as he removed his cloak, his arms and hands were pitch black as soon as he clenched both of his fists something orange colour circuit type of thing flowed through his pitch black limbs then a second after his fists had fire on them.
"W-What....?"
My eyes were wide at the scene in front of me, and a gasp escaped my mouth as he chuckled.
"Oh, you don't know such a simple thing? This is the result of my contract with Ifrit, my own fire magic"
'fire magic? Contract? Ifrit? What the hell is this?..... a nightmare?'
I thought as I looked at him, suddenly he charged forward and punched me in the stomach, which led to me crashing into a small storage room beneath the stairs. I felt like my bones were broken and I couldn't stand up.
'He threw me 5m with a single punch....but how? This isn't humanly possible? I thought I was dreaming.....so what he said was true....magic did exist'
Yes, that's the only mundane explanation I could come up with for such a superhuman feat. The place he punched, the fabric of that place was burned, and there was a burn mark on his chest.
I saw him picking up a photo of me with my dad as he spat on the picture and then burned it with fiery fists.
I noticed an occult book in the left side of my laying body, I had left it opened when I was checking through my dad's stuff earlier today, I found it to be weird because at that time I didn't believe in magic but now first handedly experienced it, I saw a chance of survival through it as he was slowing approaching me with the speed of tortoise while burning my living room belongings.
'If this is an occult book surely it will have something that can help me defend myself from this situation'
I thought as I quickly flipped through its pages, my eyes landed on a spell for a demon named Astaroth, fortunately, despite the book being entirely in Hebrew, there was Romanji written under it in small font.
Noticing the book in my hand he instantly rushed forward at a speed my eyes could barely register. I didn't read what type of spell was in the book but I screamed it at the top of my lungs.
"Astaroth, Adon HaTzelalim, bo elai akshav!"
I closed my eyes as I saw the flaming fist start approaching me.