Then, all his other emotions flooded out, pouring like the deadly rush of a Mutant horde.
"F-fuck." clutching the tangible Rift forming over his chest, Syllian's fear of hope was immediately overshadowed by the most intense dread and despair-inducing emotions his body could bear to produce.
While yes, the Rift was the gate to a universe of hope and dreams that many longed for, it also reigned over their heads like a guillotine.
The chances of being selected were small and the result of being chosen was most certainly death, but those who lived in misery all held a tiny sliver of hope in the depths of their hearts to be chosen.
And he had been selected.
But if he was to be honest, this selection was anything but good.
Battered by another wave of pain as his body slowly disintegrated, Syllian dug his fingers into the straws of his bed.
Crack!
Splitting apart the fragile, mouldy straws, Syllian focused his dilated pupils. Every beat of his thrashing heart could be heard in this ominously quiet night.
Thump! Thump!
Containing his urge to scream, 'H-how long till morning-', his thought process was broken by another surge of pain.
Syllian clenched his pale hands and threw his head at the almost unbreakable wood of his bed, throwing a wild attempt at clearing his fragile mind.
'What happens now, where do I go, what do I do?!'
All his questions remained unanswered in this tomb.
Unfortunately for the stunted boy, there was nothing he could do.
Nothing but grit his teeth, smash his head into a pillow, and swallow every bite of pain thrashing through his skeleton-like body.
'H-help.'
Bang.
Blood leaked from his forehead.
'I don't want to die.'
Bang.
Dripping down onto his bed.
'I want to live.'
Bang.
His dizzied mind repeated the same actions over and over.
Hours seemed to have passed, but light had yet to break through the bottom of his door.
Syllian was a bundle of hypocrisy.
He deemed hope, longing, and any and all emotions related to living a sin.
Syllian burnt it all every day.
But he felt every one of those emotions every day, he lived and breathed due to these emotions.
Not that he cared, so be it if he was hypocritical.
At this moment he wanted to live.
Maybe even revel in the hope of what it would be like if he survived the aftermath of this Rift.
And maybe, just maybe, the hope that she was still around on the other side.
Even if she abandoned him...
"Ugh-"
Scraping his receding flesh, the droplets of blood disappeared into thin air as the Rift continued to spread, eating, and feasting on his flesh and blood.
It was like a plague.
A vicious, relentless plague of hope and despair.
---
Daylight broke.
Wearing a new shirt he rummaged from beneath his bed, Syllian covered the spread of the Rift as he prepared to leave his home.
The pain had reduced and was less frequent now.
The final stage of the Rift was upon him, he had maybe 30-40 minutes left.
Almost the entirety of his torso was covered in the purplish-black Rift that led to the abyss of the unknown.
It was cold, dangerously so.
Every inch of his skin was horribly pale. 'Apparently, Vampires look like this, don't they have fangs too? Do I have fangs?'
It was a small attempt at distracting his mind from the constant aching, headache-like pain spreading through his body.
But it worked.
Looking at the chain on his door, Syllian realised he hadn't bothered checking whether or not it was locked or not last night.
Considering the fact that he was alive and well, relatively so, he wasn't too surprised to see it still locked.
Rattle~
Unchaining the door, Syllian opened it, the ear-numbing screech of the rotting wood scraping by the rusted door hinges greeting him as usual.
'Good morning to you too.'
Stumbling out, Syllian dove beneath the piles of debris lining the path between his humble abode and the street.
A couple of tight squeezes later and Syllian was standing at the alleyway again.
'Funny, last evening I was here thinking life sucked, and now I'm here thinking life sucks even more.'
As he chuckled, a heavy coughing fit broke out of his lungs again.
It was weird, seriously weird.
A Rift covered almost his entire torso, but his heart still beat, his lungs functioned, and his organs continued to work like the badly oiled machine they were.
Stepping into the street full of people traversing the partially restored streets of the ruined city, a cacophony of noise that didn't exist in the alleyway crashed into his ears.
"Buy one get one free! Two for one for every purchase!"
"We are cheaper than the guy next door! Our apples are fresh from the Inner District!"
"Our oranges don't contain worms!"
Street vendors, hustlers, and even the shop owners stood out, calling for any customers to enter their stores.
Unlike the fancy elite of the Inner District, everyone here had been raised like hyenas.
'Hyenas are like dogs, right?'
Disappearing into the crowds, Syllian held together his tattered, yellowed shirt and endured the morning rush.
Nighttime was inhospitable in this rotten city so everyone rushed to complete as much as possible in the daytime, well, unless you lived in the Inner District apparently.
'Those shits even wash their clothes in something called a washing machine.'
Thump-
A sudden tight sensation stabbed into his heart.
'C-crap!'
Barely holding his face together, Syllian's footsteps slowed down, no longer matching the hustling crowd passing by him like mirages.
'I thought the worst of the pain was already gone-!'
Getting bumped by the crowd was the last thing he wanted, every touch reminded his body of the pain it was going through.
Tightening the muscles in his legs, the boy stepped into the ground using every drop of strength he could currently muster.
Not much time remained.
His goal was the barracks of the city guard below the wall.
Usually, it would take Syllian 10 minutes to walk close to the location, this walk, on the other hand, felt excruciatingly long.
'Can I even make it on time?'
'And even if I do make it...'
What could they do for him?
Pat him on his back?
Encourage him?
It was irrational, but he was an irrational person.
What Syllian didn't know was that it was law in this city to turn yourself to the authorities at the first sign of the Rift.
It made sense, he was a recluse, had a sharp tongue, was condescending, and a hypocrite through and through. Even if people around him knew, they weren't willing to talk to him so there was no way for Syllian to find out.
His mother wasn't around to tell him, nor was she...
"10 minutes until The Unity arrives at the station."
"Carry the ammunition to the loading section, separate the armour-piercing from the incendiary rounds carefully!"
"What are you doing soldier?! Are you blind or deaf or both!"
"Ration up the MREs for today's shift if you don't want to starve to death idiot."
Mayhem abruptly erupted in his ears at some point.
'I made it?'
A dumb smile rose on his thin, malnourished face. Even the bags beneath his eyes eased up for a moment.
Standing behind the fencing separating the city and the military zone, Syllian looked around in a rush, searching for the way in.
He never had a reason in the past to come this close, so the boy had no clue if there was an entrance.
But there had to be.
A train station surrounded by thick walls of steel and mounted with turrets, open-air elevators that clung to the crater wall that rose to the very top of the alloy walls, and a multitude of buildings that contained cafeterias, acted as storage areas, and offices littered the place in front of him.
And on the opposite side of this glorified zone, was a short, 5 foot 5 boy clutching his shirt like his life depended on it.
His rabid eyes were hidden behind strands of dirty dark hair, and every inch of his demeanour screamed 'I'm suspicious.'
"What are you looking at kid."
A voice containing monumental levels of hidden power attacked Syllian from above.
Raising his head in shock, Syllian laid his eyes on a man crouching on top of the fence, his greying, short hair and messy stubble fit perfectly with his military uniform. The epaulettes on his shoulders bore his superior military rank, but Syllian couldn't tell what rank it was for the life of him.
His eyes, however, were sharp, cold and brutally calculating.
"U-uh!" as he stumbled over his words, Syllian cursed himself in his mind as he saw the man reach into the air with his right hand.
So, Syllian blurted out the first word that came to his brain.
"Rift!"
The man's hand paused.
His previous sharp, green eyes contained a hint of confusion.
Hurriedly removing his shirt, the ever-expanding Rift revealed itself to the world.
It had spread down to his calves at this point and was about to reveal itself from beneath his shirt if he had taken any longer to arrive.
The only section it avoided was his head, as though a barrier stood at the bottom of his neck.
"A Ruination Candidate!" utter bewilderment encapsulated the powerful man's words.
"How!"
Even though the man was confused at this irregularity of a child, he dropped down, grabbed the boy by the back of his neck like a puppy, and-
Crack!
The earth beneath him cracked as he soared back into the air, and the victim of his actions, Syllian, barely held back a high-pitched scream to maintain the minute fragments of dignity that remained in his body.
'Don't piss yourself, don't piss yourself, don't piss yourself!'
Luckily for the boy, the airtime didn't last long, and before he knew it, they stood in front of a door to a building at the very corner of the military compound.
Ignoring the shocked gaze of the child in his hand, the man asked him two questions.
"How much do you know and how long left."
"Uh, nothing? And like a few minutes?"
Syllian couldn't see it, but if he saw the man's eyes at that moment, the planks holding together his weary mind would have fallen apart like a sandcastle.
Because those were eyes that seemed to be looking at a dead man.
Rushing in, they breezed by a couple of logistics officers and ended up in the cold, dark basement.
Opening a beautiful wooden door, the man entered the room with Syllian, who was now walking on his own, in tow.
For a few seconds, Syllian admired the beauty of a door.
'I want that when I get a home.'
So, when Syllian turned his eyes to the room, the thing he expected to see the least appeared in front of him.
Another Ruination Candidate.
But this one, this one was already gone.
Lying down on one of four comfortable beds in the room.
"Lay down, and don't talk back."
Nodding obediently, Syllian lay on what felt like a thousand warm clouds.
"This is the Trial of Ruin, a Trifecta of Ruin if you'd like. You will enter a Miniature Visage of Ruin, and be faced with three trials adorned to you by the Net of Ruin."
"Clear them, and you live."
"Fail, and die."
After the word die, Syllian gulped.
"You will be there in your real body, you will have to adapt on the spot."
"The trials can be as difficult as surviving a night in the streets of this ruined city or even as simple as cleaning the street."
As the man explained, Syllian sensed the Rift expand and creep at an insane rate.
The pain accompanying the expansion was as bellowing as it was the night before, no, even worse.
'Much! Much! Worse!'
"Ugh!"
His feet, his toenails, his fingers, his nails.
Every tip, every edge.
All of it was being consumed.
Now all that remained, was his neck.
"Name?"
Syllian spat the word out, "Syllian!"
"Alright Syllian, trust no one, nothing, or maybe trust them, all Trials are different."
The man grew solemn for a moment.
"But please..."
The barrier that held the Rift from claiming his head shook heavily.
"...Survive."
And shattered, consuming his entire being almost instantaneously.
---
[Welcome, Ruination Candidate Syllian to the Trial of Ruin.]
[Prepare yourself.]