"Nothing is going to stop me from using my coupons—I'd rather drop dead!"
Dexter's roar vanished into the churning charcoal-grey sky. Clouds coiled, thick with ozone and the smell of rain-starved concrete.
He ran.
Neon-pink hair plastered his forehead, stinging his eyes.
Boots hammered asphalt—thud-crack, thud-crack—through a graveyard of dead signs and shuttered storefronts. Forty-eight hours without sleep had carved violet hollows under his eyes.
Fingers white-knuckled around a plastic sandwich bag.
Inside, Golden Tier coupons glowed with holographic seals.
11:54 PM.
Lungs burning glass.
Air thick as lead.
He skidded around the final corner.
MEGA-MART: OPEN 24/7.
The sign flickered orange death.
11:58 PM.
He hit the entrance at full sprint. Shoulders braced for cool air and the chime of the bell.
CRACK.
Forehead met glass. He reeled, stumbled, lunged again. Palms smeared the barrier.
The doors didn't slide.
Didn't even shudder.
Inside, aisles drowned in low amber hum. Checkout lanes stood like tombstones.
Open. You have to open.
He pressed his forehead to the cold pane. Without the 80% override, three weeks of groceries came to twelve dollars.
Rice. Browning bananas.
Chalky grain already coating his tongue.
"No," he whispered. Fists thudded the glass. Knuckles split. Pink dye mixed with blood on the pane.
"MY COUPONS! TAKE THEM!"
Silence swallowed his voice.
12:00 AM.
Knees buckled. The bag slipped into the gutter.
He stared at his drowned reflection.
The phone in his pocket gave one final, exhausted buzz.
He fished it out. Screen cracked, smeared pink.
EMERGENCY BROADCAST: SECTOR 4-G
STATUS: ACTIVE BREACH
DISRUPTION CLASS: LEVEL 4—Abomination. Potentially Jin.
ENTITY CONFIRMED IN IMMEDIATE AREA.
Class 4 could level a building.
Class 5 Jin could erase a zip code.
Note: Entity may exceed Class 4 parameters.
Conventional physics suspended.
Physical barriers irrelevant.
Do NOT engage.
Locate Shelter immediately.
Exorcists en route (ETA unknown).
Dexter looked up.
No headlights. No sirens. Even the wind had died.
The sky tore open.
Lightning bleached the world white. Thunder rattled his teeth. Rain didn't fall—it collapsed.
Pink dye liquefied, streaking his cheeks like glowing blood.
One block away, a streetlight vanished. No flicker. Just gone.
Then the next.
Darkness walked toward him, swallowing light one pool at a time.
Then the sound.
Slap… slap… slap…
Flat soles hitting puddles. Calm. Rhythmic.
Dexter scrambled back against the glass. Breath fogged in sudden cold.
Teeth ached.
A figure drifted into the dying glow of the MEGA-MART sign.
Not a tower of eyes and teeth.
A boy, looked around 15. White sweatshirt. Jeans cuffed at the ankles. Black umbrella.
Cherry-pink hair—impossibly vivid—framed a face too still.
He tilted the umbrella back.
Eyes the color of noon sky. Electric blue. Vast. Cold. Empty.
Rain bent six inches from his sleeve, shattering into mist. Not a drop touched the white fabric.
Slap… slap… slap…
With every step the temperature plunged.
Rain slowed, hanging like glass shards.
A low hum vibrated the air—not from the boy's throat, but from reality itself straining.
The 24/7 sign cracked and died. Darkness bruised purple.
In the sudden black, the boy's eyes didn't just glow—they expanded, reflecting a sunless world.
He stopped inches away.
Dexter smelled old snow. Absolute silence.
The roar of rain became distant. The city had been cut away.
Only the boy. Ozone. Crushing blue.
Dexter's fingers went numb. The coupons hit the wet pavement.
He couldn't look down.
Two splashes of pink in a dead grey world.
The hum softened to a slow heartbeat.
Dexter blinked. Breath steadied.
Relief—dizzy, stupid—flooded him.
It's just a kid.
A kid standing calmly in the storm while the world ended.
He laughed once, ragged.
The boy tilted his head, bird-like.
"Why are you sitting outside in the rain?" Soft. Curious.
Obviously he wasn't going to tell him, the real reason and decided to dodge his question.
Dexter wiped pink from his eyes. "Kid… there's a Level 4 breach. Abomination. The whole sector's gone wrong.
We need to be in a shelter."
The boy blinked slowly. "I wanted pudding. Vanilla. I'm out."
Dexter stared.
"Pudding," he echoed. The word sounded obscene against the ozone.
The boy stepped to the glass doors. Disappointment flickered—genuine, almost human.
"They're locked," he murmured.
He turned toward the swallowing dark.
"Wait—" Dexter lurched up.
"You can't just walk out there. Everything's shut. Everyone's gone. You'll die."
The boy paused. Looked back.
"If no store is open, I'll try a vending machine."
He offered the black umbrella.
"More than me," he said quietly.
Dexter took it, confused. "What do you mean?"
No answer.
The boy pointed toward the industrial skyline.
A warehouse screamed—metal twisting under impossible hands. Violet light flared.
The phone buzzed hard against Dexter's thigh—sharp, urgent.
He glanced down.
ENTITY CONFIRMED IN IMMEDIATE AREA.
Proximity: 40 meters.
The building folded like paper. Dust and steel imploded with a roar that shook the ground.
Dexter spun toward the boy. "We have to—"
Hand reached out—closed on empty air.
The boy was gone.
Shockwave never arrived.
Dexter opened his eyes.
The warehouse stood untouched. Silent. Dark against the horizon.
Only rain. Pink streaks pooling around ruined coupons.
He stood alone in the parking lot, bone-dry beneath the black umbrella.
The screen of his phone flickered once more before going dark.
Proximity:
Brief flash—then nothing.