In the blink of a second, his small, peaceful world had crumbled right before his eyes. It was too harsh for a mere innocent teenager to encounter the brutal death of his only remaining family member, his mother.
Even though the voice in his head acted as a trigger to ask him to escape, yet still a throbbing, painful ache in his broken heart that was choking his breath.
With his feet, which were glued to the ground, with the utmost difficulty, he dragged them ahead and ran out of the house in a wobbly motion. Tears rolled down his eyes as the painful sight of his mother's death continued to flash on his mind's screen.
"No...This can't be happening. I-It has to be some kind of nightmare! No way it can be true… Mom can't leave me like this alone... She can't!" Shedding bitter tears as he ran aimlessly across the street, all of a sudden, his feet paused in front of a running car, which aggressively honked at him to stop at the last minute!
In that dazed mind, it took him seconds to realize what was happening to him. He was in the middle of the road. Luckily, it was not a busy road. Only a few cars could come on the road after a certain interval, and it was one of such cars that had almost run him over!
Ignus peered with a blank gaze at the car with his face covered in tears and sweat. His throat had turned parched, and he didn't know how far he had run away from his house.
"Hey, Kid!" A middle-aged man in the driver's seat scornfully shrieked at him, walking out of the car. "Why do you want to die in front of my car? You darn moron!"
But before Ignus, who was still panting, could respond to him a word, he flinched with a loud thunderous rumble in the clear sky. As he looked above, a thick, vicious drop of liquid fell on his cheek and then on his forehead.
"Why is it raining when the sky is clear?" He murmured as he touched his cheek. However, immediately he froze in immense shock at the sight.
The liquid that dripped on him from the sky was blood red in color, with the same viscous nature as blood! His fingers started to shiver as more drops started to pour down from the sky, making him scream, "Blood!?? W-Why is it raining blood!?"
THUD!!
Before he could utter a word more, he wobbled in shock after getting a sharp blow on the back of his head. For a second, his vision grew fuzzy as he turned around, noticing that it was the same person who had almost run him over!
But then, a dreadful palpitation shuddered his core, making him freeze. As he watched the man from a distance, he noticed his bodily movements were weird, unlike normal people.
He had a fierce, aggressive look on his face, but what spooked him the most was to see his pupils had turned pale white, which he had never seen in any other man! Moreover, veins popped out on his forehead.
"You want to die so badly, bastard!? Then should I kill you right now!?" The man screamed scornfully at him, clenching his fist.
Ignus, who still had not been able to process the death of his mother, was bewildered to witness the strange happenings around him, including the bloody rain and that fierce man. He flinched further, hearing more loud screams coming from the other side of the road. As he darted his eyes in shock, he noticed huge chaos was going on.
There were a few other men who were aggressively hitting each other, as if they were determined to begin a massacre. Some were even holding knives and daggers, ready to stab each other in the flesh!
In shock and dismay, Ignus stepped back from that mad man when he heard a loud sound of blasting. He looked back and saw a car had overturned on the road in the middle of the road, blazingly starting to burn.
Immense horror overwhelmed him from the inside, making him unable to think straight anymore. He pushed the man away with his elbow and started to run again in the opposite direction. His legs were giving up on strength as if his feet were about to go numb.
However, he could not stop. It didn't take him seconds to realize something strange was happening in their peaceful city! As he ran on the footpath, he heard the loud, frightful screams coming from a few houses.
At that time, the bloody rain had started to pour down heavily, painting the whole ground red. It terrified him. His body was almost soaked and covered in that bloody rain and he started hyperventilating quite hard.
Helplessly, his wobbly footsteps slowed down as he was unable to keep running anymore. His body had reached its limit for him to get some rest.
But the question was, where could he go amidst the chaotic mess around him?
His muddled thoughts made him dizzy as he fell to the ground, losing his balance to stand still anymore.
Panting hard, while he was peering with a blank gaze towards the sky, all of a sudden, his frightful eyes saw another middle-aged man standing right above his head.
Just by having a glance at that man, his whole body was creeped out with goosebumps.
The big eyes of that man were completely black in color, including the white scleral part, giving him a paranormal look. Moreover, he had a devilish smirk on his pale, white face.
The man knelt down on the ground and immediately tried to strangle Ignus, grabbing his neck with both his arms. In a cryptic low voice, he whispered, "I want your soul."
"W-What!?" As Ignus heard the words, he began to release his grip on his neck and push him away with his remaining strength, terrified at his malicious approach.
But his grip was too strong and that had started to make his breath stifle as Ignus cried out, staring into his eyes, "NO! L-LET ME GO! I CAN'T DIE, NO!"
"Stop resisting, kid." The man tossed a cunning smirk at him as he tightened his grip around his neck, "I am starving... I need your soul, huh!"
But before the man could complete his grumble, all of a sudden, he flinched hard to witness a paranormal happening! His arms, with which he was choking, had started to burn on their own in a blazing golden yellow flame, as he panicked, "W-What the heck is happening!?"
Strangely, that fire wasn't affecting Ignus at all, but his grasp on his neck had started to loosen. Before anyone could process a word, a blurred vision suddenly flashed before Ignus in the blink of an eye.
In that vision, he noticed the same man who was choking him, but he looked more like a normal man compared to his present self.
He was sitting near a lakeside, holding his young daughter on his lap, and a pretty woman seated next to him, probably his wife. At that moment, he looked like a happy man living the best moment of his life.
"UWAAAHHHH!!??"
Ignus immediately retrieved his senses back from that strange vision with a shriek, as he wadded his eyes in shock.
The entire body of that man had been set on fire, and he saw him turning into ash right before his eyes. Using his remaining ounce of strength, Ignus pushed his scorching body away and stood up on the ground to run away from him.
A strange throbbing pain ached his heart as he took advantage of this opportunity to flee the horrifying sight. His body was shivering hard with countless questions popping into his mind one by one. He couldn't understand how the man got burnt into ashes just by touching him! And why couldn't he feel any heat from the fire?
Most importantly, why did he see that vision?
As he ran a few steps ahead, he encountered another two strange men like the previous one. The only difference was that these men had long claws grown from their nails that had deformed their hands, making them seem like they were the hands of a beast.
Before he could react to anything, one of them violently ran towards Ignus with the intention of attacking him. Sensing the danger, Ignus curled his trembling fist, but before he could throw a punch in self-defense, the man leaped the distance between them with lightning speed and held Ignus by his neck!
Ignus was lifted into the air as the man tried to dig his nails deep into the skin.
An immense sharp pain quivered his body as he felt like his soul was leaving his body. But this time too, the strange incident happened when the same blazing golden flames appeared all over that man's body, turning him to ashes as he screamed!
Ignus once again landed on the floor, coughing hard and hyperventilating as his neck had started to bleed badly. He gasped for air while noticing the scary expressions on the other man, who was standing a few feet apart from him, looking at the man who had just burned into ashes!
"For the Dark Demon Lord, we will wipe out humanity!!"
The man rumbled aloud, causing a sharp echo. His resonance was so strong that a few more such strange men started to approach Ignus with slow steps. All had that evil, malevolent expression on their pale, bloodless faces.
'What's happening? Am I in some kind of dream? Why are they trying to attack me? Why are they demanding my soul?' His anxious thoughts puzzled him inside as he watched himself getting surrounded by their approach from every side.
This time, he didn't fail to realize that a strange apocalypse had taken over the world. People were transforming into strange creatures, losing complete control of themselves.
Neither were they zombies nor beasts, but something more horrifying!
At that very moment, a huge dark flash appeared above the sky, which immediately halted the approach of those people.
As Ignus glanced above, he noticed the rain had already stopped, but he saw a strange flying figure with dark raven wings at the center of the sky.
It looked similar to the creature that killed his mother, but this one looked a bit smaller in size than the previous one.
Moreover, this demonic figure had a beastly deformed face with small horns, whereas the previous one had a pale-white human face, whom he had glanced at for a second before running away!
The sky, which was clear earlier, is now covered in dark, thick clouds.
As soon as the demonic figure landed on the ground, a strong jolt of an earthquake hit the ground again. He took out a huge shining sword and pointed it high in the sky before declaring, "Rejoice everyone! Our Dark Lord has marked the closure of the Gates of Heaven!!"
A bolt of sharp-striking lightning from the sky hit his sword.
Before Ignus could understand anything, the remaining ounce of strength in his body had started to deplete, making him collapse down on the ground. In a faint blurry vision, he heard the loud rejoicing sound of laughter resonating in the atmosphere as if his eardrums were about to burst.
His eyes were still half open in a daze. Tears dripped down the corner of his eyes as he murmured one last time before losing his senses.
"Mom... I... I want to see you... Mom... Why is this happening to us?"