Chereads / The Prophet: A Seer's Tale / Chapter 23 - CHAPTER 23: LIFE/LIVE

Chapter 23 - CHAPTER 23: LIFE/LIVE

The door creaked open and a little girl groggily walked out. She rubbed her eyes, trying to banish the sleep from it. "Mama" she called out. She walked forward and hit a certain brick wall. She looked up to see that it wasn't a brick wall but a person. A man named Mirai sat there. He looked at here and turned away. He gulped down his beer and slammed the glass on the table. "MORE!!!" he called out.

A woman appeared from behind the counter. "Sir, the money you gave me can only accommodate one more drink" she said. "Sure, sure" he waved off. The girl ran to meet the woman, her mother. "Mama, who is that?" she asked, cautiously eyeing a drunken Mirai. The woman smiled and patted the child on her head. "He's just a customer" she answered. The girl looked at Mirai again and stared at him. Picking a bottle of beer from the rack, she poured the foaming yellowish liquid into a massive glass cup.

Mirai grabbed it from her hands and gulped the entire contents of the cup in one go. He paid no attention to the looks he was receiving from the other men in the bar. He dropped the cup and let out a loud belch, irritating the men that sat near him. His eyes were seeing things as the alcohol went to his brain, intoxicating him. He closed his eyes and shook his head. A feeling of clarity came back to him. The effect of the alcohol had disappeared.

Anger took over him. He grabbed the glass cup and smashed it to the ground, startling the other customers. "FUCK!!!! I CAN'T EVEN GET DRUNK!!!" he shouted in desperation. He was filled with anguish that welled from deep within his soul. He stood up and looked through the broken ceiling to the darkened skies. "SIR!!" shouted the woman from behind the counter. She walked out, went over to Mirai and held him by the shoulder. "You have to pay for that glass" she said angrily. Mirai looked at her and smiled sadly. She didn't budge and looked him straight in the eye. "I'm not running a charity here" she said, determined to get her money.

Mirai pushed her away from him. She fell to the ground with a loud thud. He went over to her and held his middle finger to her. "Fuck off" he said and turned away to leave. A firm hand held him back. A fit of rage came over him. "I SAID FUCK OFF!!!" he shouted. He turned back to see it was a large muscled man that held him. The woman's customers all stood up with anger written on their faces. "You're worse than the beasts out there" said the large man that held him. "YEAH!!!!" shouted the men with solidarity. They all agreed with one mind to beat the hell out of this disrespectful man. One picked a bottle, the other a large rock and the rest massive sticks of wood. They advanced towards him with the various weapons that resided in their hands.

"CATCH HIM!!!"

Shouts of angry people followed Mirai's bloodied feet. They threw their sticks and stones at him but he kept running. He abandoned his shoes long ago and ran with his bare feet. The men kept pursuing him like a predator after its prey. He ran for what felt like hours but the men did not stop. Their mind was so fixated on one thing that they hadn't noticed that their loud noise had awakened the monsters that had slept.

The shouts of euphoria slowly died down and turned into screams of terror. Mirai looked back to see the men that chased him get eaten headfirst by a grotesque creature. It looked like an insect. Its long limbs had hairs on them and its head had large mandibles. Long antenna protruded from this head. Its wings buzzed at an immense speed. However one thing differentiated it from insects; its abnormal number of eyes. Thousands of large humanlike eyes filled its head and they moved in all directions. Mirai watched this beast chew the heads of the men like it was a snack. The monster twisted its neck to Mirai and quickly swallowed its human meal. It threw the remaining bones away and spat out their blood, dirtying the pavement. It turned its focus to the one remaining person alive, Mirai.

Mirai's immediate goal changed from outrunning the men to surviving this monster. He instantly took off and ran at speeds he had never run at before. However, this wasn't enough as the monster fully unfolded its large jellylike wings and blasted through the distance between them. Mirai looked back and saw that the monster was right behind him. He ran even faster but the beast was able to keep on his tail, following him despite every turn and manoeuvre.

"HEY!!! YOU THERE?" Mirai called out in his mind. He had been trying to reach the voice in his head since he ran from the men but he had lost contact ever since he met Time. "C'MON ANSWER ME!!!" he called out again but he received no answers. He looked at the thousands of eyes that looked at him as prey and kept on running. He took a bend but saw he had reached a dead end.

He looked at the insect like creature that advanced towards him. He raised his hands to the air in total surrender. He had truly given up on life. He looked at his killer and laughed in the face of death. Suddenly, he saw a man at its back. The creature suddenly stopped and burst apart. Its purple blood splattered on Mirai's face. Its entrails littered the ground. The man turned and looked at Mirai's face. His hood fell off and revealed a man with sharp eyes and rough hair; Ubica.

"Hey" called Mirai to the man who had just saved his life. "Shouldn't you be annoyed at your uselessness?" Ubica shot at him. "What?" Mirai asked in shock. A curve ball had just been thrown at him and he didn't know how to answer. "I saw when you were about to fight the owner of that bar. I also saw when you ran away from those men that were chasing you like a little girl. You always want help, never fighting for yourself. That's why you have no one" Ubica said.

Ubica was truly annoyed at how Mirai behaved. He didn't know that people could be such cowards. Not that he was exempted himself but at least try to do something for yourself. Those were his thoughts as he talked to Mirai. "What do you know about me?" Mirai shot back. It was getting Ubica more angry to talk to this man. He turned back and said "I know you're a drunk"

Mirai got extremely angry. Who gave this man the right to talk to him like that? He ran to him and tried to swing at him but was met with a kick to his face. Mirai was sent flying to hit a wall. Blood came from his nose and rushed down his face. Ubica walked towards him and kicked his head off.

Mirai was on the ground with the aftereffects of hitting a wall getting to him. He touched his neck and saw it was still there. "I thought…." He questioned but was cut off by Ubica. "If you don't want to really die, then buzz off" he said as he walked away.

Mirai curled up into a ball with his mind reeling with the effects of the events of that day. He never thought his life could end up degenerating to that. His existence was inconsequential to the world. He had lost the little thing that he had; friendship and now he was on the streets, haggling for food and drink. Why did he end up like this? A tear dropped from his eyes and the waterworks began.

"Living hurts sometimes"

He was nothing. His being was as desolate as the world he had seen from the beginning. Yes. Desolation and destruction were his inheritance. He was born to be alone with no one to care for. Mirai stood up and wiped the tears of his eyes. He steeled his heart and his resolve. He just had to keep on living. For what? The reader asks. Just for his own self, the author answers.