Vanilla ice cream was underrated.
Evan had always thought so.
No distractions. No gimmicks. No colors trying to convince you they mattered more than they did. Just cold, sweet, simple. Honest. It tasted the same whether you were rich or poor, tired or triumphant.
He sat on a low concrete ledge outside a small shop that had no reason to remember him, spooning vanilla into his mouth while the city moved around him like it always did.
Cars passed.
People talked.
Someone laughed too loud.
Normal.
That alone made it valuable.
He didn't rush. He never rushed anymore. Twenty years of patience had trained something fundamental into him—haste attracted attention, and attention attracted problems.
Still, he could feel it.
Eyes.
Not dramatic ones. Not the kind that made your skin crawl. Just… weight. A subtle pressure, like when someone stood too close behind you in line.
He didn't turn around.
Didn't acknowledge it.
Let them watch.
Evan finished the cup, folded the thin paper rim inward, and dropped it into a nearby trash bin. The shop's fluorescent lights buzzed faintly behind him. He wiped his hands on a napkin and stood.
As he walked, the Shop unfolded in his mind—not visually, not as a hologram, but as a ledger that existed alongside his thoughts.
Balances.
Margins.
Turnover rates.
He placed the order casually.
> Purchase Confirmed
Item: Stim Packs
Quantity: 500,000
Unit Cost: $2
Total: $1,000,000
No hesitation.
No second thoughts.
The numbers settled into place like they always did, clean and obedient. Another half-million units, already routing themselves through logistics that didn't exist on any map. Warehouses Evan technically owned but had never physically entered filled silently.
They would sell for twenty dollars each.
Ten times markup.
Nobody cared.
That was the funny part.
People raged about prices when it came to luxuries. They argued over phones, cars, houses. But when it came to survival, logic bent.
Twenty dollars to erase pain?
To heal wounds?
To undo blindness, even briefly?
That was cheap.
Too cheap for outrage.
So they bought.
They always bought.
Evan didn't feel guilt.
This wasn't exploitation.
It was inevitability.
That single product—just one—would fund everything else. Infrastructure. Protection. Research. The dangerous purchases. The ones that couldn't be explained away as medical miracles.
The Shop didn't judge.
It only counted.
The city felt different at night.
Quieter, but not calmer.
Streetlights hummed overhead, casting pools of amber across cracked pavement. Evan walked with his hands in his jacket pockets, posture loose, unremarkable. The kind of man people looked through rather than at.
Cars passed slower now. Foot traffic thinned. A couple walked ahead of him, laughing softly. A family lingered near the curb—parents distracted, a child tugging at a sleeve, pointing excitedly at something Evan couldn't see.
He clocked it all automatically.
Exits.
Distances.
Cover.
A habit he didn't remember learning.
The feeling returned.
Not eyes this time.
Something deeper.
The ground vibrated faintly under his shoes.
Evan slowed.
The air changed.
It wasn't wind. It wasn't pressure. It was… density. Like the space ahead of him had thickened, resisting movement.
A low rumble rolled through the street.
Not thunder.
Not an engine.
Something alive.
People noticed now.
Conversations faltered. Heads turned. Someone laughed nervously, as if sound alone could dismiss whatever was coming.
Then the street shook.
A deep, bone-rattling impact cracked through the asphalt two blocks ahead. Car alarms screamed to life all at once. Windows shattered in a chain reaction, glass raining down like violent confetti.
Evan stopped.
His heartbeat didn't spike.
That was… interesting.
Another impact.
Closer.
A car flew through the air.
It wasn't tossed—it was thrown, spinning end over end before slamming into the side of a building. Concrete exploded outward. People screamed.
The family beside Evan froze.
The father pulled the child back instinctively. The mother turned, eyes wide, mouth already opening to shout something—anything.
Then it landed.
A shape dropped into the street with the weight of a collapsing structure.
Metal screamed as parked cars crumpled like paper. The asphalt cratered inward. Dust and smoke billowed outward, swallowing the street in choking gray.
Evan raised an arm to shield his face.
When the dust cleared, it stood there.
Tall.
Broad.
Wrong.
Green skin stretched over muscle that looked poured rather than grown. Veins bulged, pulsing with something that wasn't just blood. Bone protruded where it shouldn't have. A face twisted into something that might once have been human, now locked into a permanent sneer of rage and triumph.
Abomination.
Evan recognized it instantly.
Not from fear.
From context.
The creature threw its head back and roared, voice tearing through the street like a physical force.
"I AM A GOD!" it bellowed.
"HAHAHA!"
The sound hurt.
Not just ears—organs. The air vibrated violently enough that Evan felt it in his teeth.
Abomination's arm swept outward.
Casual.
Dismissive.
A car lifted off the ground like it weighed nothing.
Time slowed.
Evan saw the trajectory.
Saw the impact point.
Saw the family.
The father shoved the child backward.
Too slow.
The car hit.
There was no scream.
No chance.
Just force.
Metal met flesh.
And then there was nothing left to recognize.
Silence followed—not true silence, but the hollow kind that settled when something irreversible happened too fast for the world to react.
Evan stood there.
Alive.
Untouched.
Breathing.
The ice cream taste was still faintly on his tongue.
Abomination laughed again, already turning toward new prey, new noise, new destruction.
Evan didn't move.
Didn't scream.
Didn't run.
For the first time since waking up in this world—
The Shop pulsed.
Not a purchase.
Not a notification.
A prompt.
And Evan Cross, standing in the wreckage of a city that suddenly felt very small, realized something fundamental had just changed.