The ceiling lights flickered once.
The world had a shake then. It was like the whole world was trembling. The world shuddered.
The Orion Plaza Hypermarket was really loud a little while ago. There were shopping carts rolling around and making a lot of noise. Kids were. Complaining. The speakers were playing music and announcements, about New Years discounts.. Now it is really quiet. The silence feels weird. It is making my ears feel funny. The Orion Plaza Hypermarket is still and quiet that it feels heavy.
Ethan Cross was standing in the part of the store where they sell fruits and vegetables holding a shopping basket in one hand. In his hand he was turning an apple around really slowly like he was checking it for bad spots. He had on a colored jacket and regular jeans. Ethan Cross looked like a man who pays attention to things that other people do not notice, like how to get out of a place or where someone might be hiding or what he looks like in shiny metal things.
Ethan was thirty years old. He did not look like other people who are thirty years old. The thing is, Ethan should have looked ordinary at thirty.
He did not.
The man had a way of sitting that showed he was used to fighting. His shoulders were not tense. They were ready to move at any moment. He breathed slowly. It was an steady breath. This calm feeling did not come from being happy or content. It came from doing something times. The man had practiced being calm and ready to fight for a time. Years of fighting had taught him how to be this way. His posture was quiet and still. You could tell that he was always ready for something to happen. The calm feeling around him was not really calm all. It was just that he was very good, at controlling himself.
The floor trembled again. It was really scary when the floor trembled like that. The floor was. It made me feel very nervous. I was standing on the floor. I could feel it trembling beneath my feet.
Not enough to knock anything over. Just enough to be wrong.
A woman laughed nervously near the dairy section. She said "Earthquake?"
The lights made a loud noise. The lights were buzzing loudly.
Then someone screamed.
The sound came from electronics it was really loud and rough, like an animal. This was the kind of sound that the brain did not want to hear at first before it could even figure out what it was. The electronics made this sound that was very raw and it sounded like an animal.
Ethan dropped the apple. This happened when Ethan was holding the apple. It slipped from his hand so the apple fell down. The apple that Ethan dropped was an one. Ethan felt bad that the apple fell because Ethan was really looking forward to eating the apple.
The thing hit the floor. It rolled away and then it was forgotten. The floor was where it ended up alone and forgotten.
His body started moving before he even thought about it. His knees bent down. His weight shifted from one foot to the other. His eyes were looking at all the angles as he moved forward the basket was left behind him.
Then reality just fell apart.
A seam opened up in the air above the television displays. It was as thin as a crack in a window. It just kept getting wider. You could hear a sound, like when you rip a piece of cloth underwater. Something actually fell through this seam.
No.
Someone.
The creature landed badly its limbs were all, over the place and its skin was a weird greenish gray color that was stretched too tight over its body. The creature was too thin. Its features were too sharp. The creatures mouth opened up in a grin and it was full of teeth that were not even and were yellowed. The creatures teeth were really yellow. The creature had a lot of teeth.
Another one was dropped beside it.
Then another.
The word just popped into Ethans mind out of nowhere.
Goblin.
One of the women. Then she lunged at the other person. The woman let out a shriek and lunged forward really fast.
This guy was holding a microwave that was still, in its box. He just stood there frozen in place. He was moving too slow.
Claws ripped through the plastic and the flesh and the bone. The blood went flying across the aisle in a wet splash and it was steaming hot as it landed on the tile floor. The claws just kept tearing through everything making a mess with the blood and the plastic and the flesh and the bone.
The magic spell finally broke.
People were running fast. They just kept on running and running. The people did not stop.
People were screaming over the place. The screams just kept getting louder and louder. Carts were turned over everywhere. A woman slipped on some milk that had been spilled on the ground. She did not get back up. The goblin that reached the woman sank its teeth into her neck. It sounded like someone was crunching on ice. The woman was hurt badly by the goblin. The goblin had attacked the woman.
Ethans heart rate did not go up.
Assess.
Prioritize.
Neutralize.
My whole life I was taught to think and act in a way and it all came back, to me in an instant. A lifetime of conditioning snapped into place.
The person turned his attention to kitchen things you know the stuff people use in the kitchen like kitchenware. He started to focus on kitchenware.
Glass broke into pieces when someone ran into a display. Ethan got to it first. He quickly pulled out a chefs knife from the box it was in. The knife felt heavy, in Ethans hand like the chefs knife was meant to be it felt right.
The first goblin jumped out from, behind a stack of snack boxes.
Ethan walked into the curve of the arc. The arc was where Ethan stood now. He was, inside the arc.
The blade flashed once. It was a quick movement the blade flashed only that one time. The blade was very sharp. It flashed in the light just that one flash.
The goblins head came off easily it spun around before it hit the ground. The rest of the goblins body fell down a later and when it did a faint blue glow started coming out of the dead goblin it looked like smoke rising up. The blue glow, from the goblins body kept moving it was really strange to see the blue glow coming from the dead goblin.
The light came into Ethans hand. It was like the light was moving right into Ethans hand. The light filled Ethans hand. It was a really cool thing to see. Ethans hand had the light, in it now.
Warm.
Sharp.
His vision became really clear all of a sudden. The colors were so bright they were almost too much to look at. The sounds were really loud and easy to hear. His vision and the world, around him were super sharp and clear the colors were extremely vivid the sounds were extremely clear.
The man did not stop.
Two guys came at him together. One of them came at him high. The other one came at him low.
The man kicked the ones knee backward until it snapped then he drove the knife up under the jaw of the other guy twisting it until the other guy stopped fighting. The blue light came into the man again. This time it was even stronger.
Three.
A goblin charged from the right.
He grabbed the creatures wrist. He could feel the tendons ripping apart under his hand. Then he pushed the knife into the creatures eye. The creature started shaking over and then it just went still. The creature was not moving anymore. He had stopped the creature.
Four.
Breathing steady. Movements economical.
This wasn't heroism.
This was execution.
A teenage employee was hiding behind a freezer. The teenage employee was really scared and shaking. The teenage employee was holding onto a mop. It looked like the teenage employee was going to use the mop to defend himself.
Ethan told him to run. He did not even look at the person when he said it.
The command really cut through all the chaos. It was like the command was a knife that cut through everything that was going on. The chaos was really bad. The command was clear and strong. It cut through the chaos and people started to listen to the command. The command was the one thing that could cut through all the noise and confusion.
The boy ran fast outside. He was a boy and the boy loved to run around. The boy felt happy when the boy was running.
The big store was turning into a bad place. People were lying on the floor all mixed up with food and other things that had fallen off the shelves. The alarms were going off. Nobody was paying attention.. The weird holes just kept appearing.
The pressure changed then. It was not the same anymore. The pressure was different, after that.
Something big just stepped through.
This thing came out from the butcher section. It had to duck down to get under a sign that was hanging. It was a lot taller than the ones.. It was broader too. The skin on this thing was all scarred up. It had tusks coming out of its jaw.. It was holding a big bone, like the bone, from a leg in its hand. It was holding this bone like it was a club that it could use to hit something.
The sound was really loud it roared.
The sound punched through Ethan's chest.
The creature charged.
The club hit the shelf hard and it broke into pieces. The cans, on the shelf went flying. Ethan moved quickly to the side. Got behind the club. Then he took the knife. Pushed it into the back of the clubs head with all his might. Ethan was trying to stop the club. The club was strong. Ethan was determined to stop it. He used the knife to hurt the club.
The goblin leader fell down. The goblin leader was not standing anymore. The goblin leader had collapsed.
This time the blue light went off.
It really flooded him. This feeling was. Exhilarating at the same time. It was like it was rewiring something inside the bones of this person. Some words just burned themselves across his vision. They were impossible to ignore. The words were that powerful.
[Awakening Confirmed]
[Hunter Classification: Black Rank]
[Unique Skill Acquired — Energy Drain]
The notifications just faded away.
Ethan stood there surrounded by the people his knife was dripping, with red blood and his chest was moving up and down very slowly.
The sirens were wailing outside they were really away and it sounded like they were overwhelmed. There were shadows moving around beyond the glass doors at the entrance and you could see shapes of people pressing close together just waiting.
The world had not come to an end.
Something had really changed now. The thing that was, in one place is not there anymore. It had shifted.
For the first time since Ethan Cross had left the life of blood and orders behind Ethan Cross felt something bad was happening inside his chest.
Purpose.
He turned toward the doors. His blade was steady in his hand. More rifts were tearing open behind him. The man held the blade tightly ready for what was coming. The doors were his way out and the rifts were getting closer so he had to move fast. He kept a grip on the blade as he looked at the doors and the rifts, behind him.
This wasn't a disaster.
This was the beginning.