Somewhere between Time and Fate, there was a black room illuminated by thousands of machines. They resembled lava lamps, each of them of a different color, even those that didn't exist on Earth. It was a unique technology beyond the comprehension of the human mind.
In front of one of the machines, there was a crow-like figure manipulating the light emanating from the cylinders. It was looking down at the billions of colors in the lamp-like things.
Suddenly, it stood straight, silently, paying attention to just one.
Taking a piece of that light with a hand that looked more like a claw, it put it aside from the rest in a new cylinder. The moment the fragment touched it, the lava-like substance turned as dark as the rest of the room, if not darker.
With a great twisted smile, it got closer to the substance. The crow ignored the rest of the machines and started to manipulate the liquid, touching it with precaution.
The thing immediately pulled its arm away from it a moment later. Smoke could be seen coming from the place where the black stuff had touched the crow's claw.
Curiosity seemed to be what the look on its face wanted to express. However, if it had been a human body doing that expression, it would've been undoubtedly known as a vicious hunger.
...
When Perse woke up, he was no longer in the alley. He sat in an empty street, covered in a black substance and surrounded by insects way bigger than he had ever seen.
"Uwaaaahck!"
He still felt his limbs a bit numb but he stood up a second after at a surprising speed, which he thought was a reaction caused by the surprise. Perse tried to get everything off of him in vain while glancing around to locate where he was.
'Is it... afternoon?'
The sunlight, which humans had hardly seen before, was now red as blood. The digital screens that covered the side of the buildings painted the corpses in the streets with white and black colors. Unlike before, the silence covering the land wasn't because of sadness, but it felt rather eerie. As if one word could bring the apocalypse sooner.
'I could swear it was evening when I fainted.'
Confused, he started walking. When he got closer to the digital screens hanging in the side of one building, he could finally distinguish the words written in them.
[NEO SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT:
PLEASE ENTER THE TUTORIAL
14:12:48]
'Impossible!'
Looking down, Perse saw that his wristwatch was missing. He didn't know what the clock meant ('maybe the current time or how long has passed since the message?') nor why he couldn't see anyone on the streets, and more importantly…
'How am I- How is it- Wait!'
'Are these… people?'
He still felt disoriented so it took Perse a second to completely analyze what he was watching. The bodies he had found were either twisted or had… mutated, somehow.
What seemed to have been the body of a woman had curved bones coming out of her back. Another one had an arm covered in bloody holes. And one dead body that Perse could barely see in the distance had contorted into a kind of knot using the person's hands.
Had he not lived in the streets his whole life, he would've felt terror by the sight. However, the face that could be seen under the tangled long black hair looked rather… annoyed.
'Why is it that these things are ignoring everything but me? And just what is this?!'
Oddly enough, none of the bodies had been touched by the insects following him. They were attracted to him only. He had even noticed a slug the size of a chihuahua slowly coming at him from a distance. The black substance covering him didn't seem to want to stick to some of the corpses either.
Still with no luck trying to find out where he was, Perse sighed.
'Alright. Good. Great. So… the sun is red. Stuff happened. I lost my watch. One thing is important right now.'
Looking at the state of his clothes and realizing all the liquid, ants, and blood he was still covered in, Perse took a deep breath and gathered his thoughts.
"First of all, a bath," he said to himself.
As if it had heard him, the screen glitched in response.
[NEO SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT:
PLEASE (^_^) ENTER THE TUTORIAL
14:25:11]
Perse looked at the new face emoji on the screen, feeling a knot in his throat.
'These aliens sure are thick-faced. Haha.' He continued to walk towards the building with the most insects around, ignoring the sick feeling on his stomach every time he looked at their size.
'From the looks of it, they want everyone alive to enter the tutorial, but... I can't just trust that.'
It was weird enough that the aliens wanted to give magic back to the humans. But, to do so using the Neo System and manipulating it? The words spoken by the uncanny voice earlier still resonated in his mind, trying to remind him of something important. But, Perse had no idea of what exactly.
'Since the insects seem to avoid the corpses, I'll find a place to relax my body.'
With a relaxed walk, Perse entered the skyscraper with the biggest screen on it. And the moment he was inside, the insects around covered the outside walls, blocking the entrance.
Outside, a person raised from the pile of corpses. The guy looked around and read the messages on the screens. He glanced once at his own mutated body and immediately touched his wristwatch, unlocking it.
…
Inside the building, Perse was welcomed by a wall-long screen that replied the same message as the rest. He looked back at the blocked entrance and then went to the upper floor to find a window, watching the person from above.
'At least he didn't attack me back there. Which means he has just woken up and was being cautious or he was too excited to become a magician.'
'Or he is just an idiot.' He thought.
"Is he playing right now? How fearless do you have to be to just leave your body out in the open? Or maybe he's just stupid?" He said to himself, still looking at the only breathing body among the rest. Or at least the only one he thought was alive. It was difficult to tell if the others were actually dead or just playing Neo.
'Well, there's no need to help him. I'll just look for a bathroom here.'
Unknown to him, the person raised once again. His wolf-like eyes fixated in the place Perse had just been in. Once he made sure that Perse was no longer around the window, his gaze followed the trace of bodies closer to him and looked at what seemed to be a man, exposing his teeth.
The man licked his lips and walked over to him slowly.
…
Out of Perse's sight, in the screens outside the buildings, a new message could be read.
[NEO SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT:
ALL REMAINING USERS WILL BE TRANSPORTED TO THE TUTORIAL! (^_^)
15:59:52]
In the last minutes, he had made sure there was no one alive on the second floor of what seemed to be a newly opened motel. He had chosen to stay in a room closer to the stairs and locked the door so he'd know if anyone tried to come in. Only then, after he found a change of clothes in someone's lost package, did he go into the bathroom.
"F*ck. Why is this thing not wearing off?!"
Even after spending a lot of time scrubbing, enough so that his white skin looked red and the mud and dry blood that had accumulated since the last day he showered was gone, Perse couldn't get rid of the rotten smell that emanated from the black stuff.
Disappointed, he decided to get out of the shower and find something to eat.
Anyone looking at him would've thought that Perse was a fearless person that could be taking things slow even during an apocalypse. However, he was extremely concerned about one thing, aside from his hygiene.
'Why do I feel so light?' He didn't have time to process it before but now he was sure. Contrary to the numbness of when Chris was beating him up or the usual pain in his eyes during the day caused by the sunlight, his body now was as weightless as a feather and he felt as if he had been born again.
'Well, the insects, this liquid, and my weight are one thing, but…'
Some time had passed since he last checked the new messages on the screens. So, after finally having removed the liquid and insects, Perse was conflicted by a new challenge.
Sight.
'And just what is this?!'
He could see one system notification shining in front of him. Not on a screen but floating in the air, without his wristwatch.
[?NEO¿ SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT:
CONGRATULATIONS!^^ YOU'RE DEAD! _(X3 J L)_一]
Perse looked at it once again, flabbergasted.