"Is this the end?"
"Junior sister, is-is this really the end?" A girl with a body full of injuries clung on to a tall figure who was staring at the black clouds that were rising up in the horizon, slowly covering the whole sky.
This was humanity's probably last struggle against the heinous creatures of darkness. After this war, there was no doubt...
Humanity will cease to exist!!!
All the immortal cultivators, even those who were proud in their cultivation base and talent were down on their knees with only one expression pasted on their pale face; defeat!
"Not yet," She lightly patted the hands that were holding on to her and smiled in reassurance.
That smile!!
"No, you can't..." She tried to stop the girl but she was too late.
Suddenly there was a flash of blinding light.
All it took was this measly one second for everything to end...
____________________________________________
[Meanwhile on a modern and seemingly normal day on Earth in city C]
"You look beautiful." A man whispered in his low voice looking at the bride clad in a white long wedding dress, who was smiling showing her cute dimples.
Her face lit up making her look as bright as the sun while the real sunlight falling on her pale smooth skin made it glisten like precious jade.
Xin Xiao once again whispered to himself.
"...I wish... I was the one holding your hand..."
He wore a dull green shirt paired with a shabby jacket and sat in the far corner of the chapel looking lifelessly at the center where the ceremony was going on.
"Do you take her to be your bride?" The priest glanced at a tall man who had the silliest smile on his face as he vigorously nodded his head in agreement.
"YES, I DO."
'I do too.' Xin Xiao gave a sincere response in his heart all the while he felt his heart crumble down.
"Do you take this man to be your husband?" The priest once again asked in his loud and precise tone looking at the bride through his glasses.
The bride stood still without speaking anything.
The people seated in there looked at each other in awkward silence. The priest looked at the silent bride with a questionable look.
"Do you take him to be your husband?" The priest asked again emphasizing each word.
'Ba-Thump...'
'Ba-Thump..'
Xin Xiao looked at the silent bride, a small hope igniting in his dead heart.
The groom who was smiling like an idiot suddenly turned dark as he looked at her with pitiful eyes.
"..Heyy..." He whispered to her trying to get her attention.
The bride looked at the groom and playfully bit her lip. She gave him a flirtatious wink before replying joyfully.
With his heart thumping as crazy Xin Xiao waited for her answer.
"YES...I DO. With all my heart." She looked at the groom with eyes overflowing with emotions and affections all of which were directed at the man on the chapel with her.
'Please don't.' He begged in his heart. He was not ready to hear the next statement.
"Then I declare...." The priest confirming their answers proceeded to announce their successful marriage.
''P-Please don't...' Xin Xiao wished the world would end right there. But contrary to his wishes the priest completed his statement.
"....you Husband and Wife."
The whole garden soon filled with claps and cheers as the bride jumped at the groom who caught her in a big hug.
She raised her head slightly, her rosy plump lips touching the thin lips of the man in a slow kiss which within a few seconds turned into a passionate one.
The crowd gasped at their boldness while some people cheered for them. Some blocked the eyes of their children.
'Don't look right now.' A woman giggled lightly blocking her son's eyes with her hand while looking at her husband flushing slightly.
"Heh....what am I even here for?" Xin Xiao looked at the scene dead-eyed. "Just to suffer?"
He did not need anyone to answer. He knew it much better than anyone else.
He slowly stood up from the bench he was sitting on, the bones in his knees produced a creaking sound.
'Tskk...' He frowned in pain clutching his deteriorating knees. Taking the support of the bench he slowly got up limping like a cripple.
'If this continues I might become a cripple.' Xiao made his way out of the garden dragging his sore legs. Before he exited the place he looked back at the bride.
"Always be happy." He gave a sad and bitter smile before turning away.
No one noticed him leaving just like how no one had noticed him entering.
-
"Damn..why are my eyes so wet today??." He wiped his teary eyes with the back of his hand as he continued down the lonely street but it couldn't hold a candle to the emptiness inside his heart.
"Must be sand.." He once again wiped his eyes but that only made his eyes more blurry.
But the road was clean with not even a speck of dust.
He did not see where he was going clearly nor he could think properly. He was just wandering wherever his feet took him.
Xin Xiao was once upon a time a loser man and he still was considered a loser in the eyes of society to date.
He made barely enough to fill his stomach and there were times when he slept with a hungry stomach shivering on the cold and concrete floor of his cheap rented room in the basement of a building.
"Your knees are getting worse." The doctor had sighed looking at the X-Ray report of his knees. He saved up money for a check-up only to learn his knee cap bone had decayed and continued to deteriorate.
"Fuck my life...everything sucks...." Xiao cursed gripping his old jacket.
Being born poor and an orphan was not his fault and neither was his current situation his fault. One thing led to next and before he knew it he was scraping at the concrete ground day after day in hope of finding a handful of earth. (mud)
Limping he continued walking cursing the one who gave him birth and abandoned him on the doorsteps of a temple.
He cursed the girl who happily married the man of her dreams shattering his heart to pieces.
"Fuck this shitty world." He cursed the world that was unfair and unjust all the while wiping the overflowing water in his eyes.
-
-
"Haiiiiii....." A bald man scratched his obese stomach yawning.
'So sleeepyyyyy.....haiiii...' He gave another long yawn squeezing out two drops of tears from the corner of his eyes lazily.
He shook his head to ward off the sleep that was overtaking him.
It was the weekend so the road was empty with only a few vehicles running. That too gave him an excuse to drive lazily.
Xin Xiao walked on the zebra crossing to get to the other side of the road sniffling as snot-filled in his nose since he was trying to hold back his tears.
*Teet..teeet.....*
A loud horn echoed throughout the empty streets startling the shit out of Xin.
"Move away." The man on the driver's seat shouted at him but Xin was too far to hear him and frozen stiff to move his limbs even if he did hear him.
"Why this shit is not working!!" The driver was wide awake now and trying to stop the truck but for some reason, it was not stopping.
Xin Xiao blankly stared at the Truck which was zooming in on his vision.
*Bang.....*
*Crash..*
With a screech, the Truck stopped after hitting Xin. The driver took off his seat belt and jumped out of the car and went to check up on the dying man he had just hit.
A shabby-looking man lay on the road groaning in pain, his clothes soaking in his pool of blood.
"Is he dead?" The driver who was scared shitless observed the unmoving body of the man.
His consciousness was barely there, Xin looked at the sweating man raising his hand.
'Don't want to die.'
'I have to see Yu Yan playing with her kids.They would probably be as cute as her.'
Xin Xiao had only one thought in his mind. His mind was filled with the girl he had loved his entire life.
'H-Hel-lp..' He could barely speak but managed to get the attention of the driver. Hearing him speak the expression on the driver's face turned ugly.
"This fucker is still alive??" The driver looked around at the empty street and finding no one to bear witness he went to the roadside and returned with a rock as big as his head.
"Sorry man...but I don't want to pay for your fees and I do not want to be charged with hit and run case.....Let me end your and mine, both of our misery." The driver spoke as if he was doing him a favor.
'Ahhh...I knew this world was shitty..' Xin Xiao stared in silence even when the big rock slammed right on his face.
The driver looked at the clump of flesh which just a moment was the face smashed to pulp, with blood splattered everywhere.
"W-What have I done??" When it dawned on him that he had made things, even more, complicated the driver panicked.
Throwing the stone away and making sure his pulse was dead the driver quickly took off. He had fucked up either way.
Xin Xiao felt an excruciating pain which subsided soon only leaving him..
*emptiness*
*Darkness....*
*Silence*
Until there was nothing.
-
-
'What's this feeling?? Hmm...it's soft....a little bit squishy....hmmm.."
Xin Xiao slowly groped the heavy bumps on his chest noting down the feeling since he couldn't see properly, the surrounding where he was at being dark devoid of any light.
That was a new feeling to him.
' But somehow...it feels nice..'
"Nice? Squishy?" Xin suddenly remembered an important detail.
"I DIED!" He could even remember how it felt when the boulder smashed his head.
Question marks filled his thought which came to an abrupt interruption when a mechanical voice greeted him.
Beep...Beep..
<20%, 30%...50%...99%.....99.6%....100%)
'What soul and vessel?' Xin Xiao who was a little slow in understanding things had a blank expression on his face which turned even blanker at the next thing the voice spoke.