"Oh, fuck, can't I just find a good comic to read?" Sam muttered , already on his third damn store. The first two had nothing that grabbed him. Sure, they had new stuff, but it was all the same old vampires, werewolves, mutants, aliens... What, no originality anymore?
The last guy had told him there was something different at this shop, a whole new style of comic or whatever. He wasn't expecting much, but hey, at this point, why not check it out?
"Yo, boss! Any new comics?" Sam yelled as he walked into the shop.
The shopkeeper glanced up from behind the counter. "Oh, you're in luck today, my man," he said, pointing toward the right side of the store. "Got something new out, just dropped today. Check it out."
Sam's eyes followed the shopkeeper's gesture as he strolled over to the new release. Picking up the comic, he frowned slightly at the cover. It was simple just a boy sitting on a chair, one hand holding a book, the other resting near his forehead like he was deep in thought. Nothing flashy.
"Looks boring," Sam muttered, flipping the book open and completely ignoring the title.
But the moment he opened it, his eyebrows scrunched together in confusion. Written in bold, the instructions read, "Start from the last page, read right to left."
"The hell?" Sam muttered under his breath. Who even reads like this? Still, curiosity got the better of him, and he flipped to the end and started reading.
"Humans are thought to be at the top of the food chain. But there are beings who hunt humans as their food.
The monsters who feed on the dead flesh of humans...
They are called... GHOULS."
Yes, the world Stephen ended up is Tokyo Ghoul. A world drenched in blood, tragedy, and the grim reality of creatures that thrived on human flesh. A world where cannibalism wasn't just a taboo it was survival.
"Seems similar to vampires," Sam muttered to himself before shaking off the thought and focusing on the pages again.
As time passed, he started piecing the story together. The boy, Kaneki, was attacked by his date who turned out to be a ghoul. Sam couldn't help but chuckle. "Yeah, every story starts with betrayal," he scoffed. "I bet he's gonna turn into a ghoul." Confident in his prediction, he continued reading.
After the girl ghoul's death, caused by a freak accident with a steel beam falling, her organs were transplanted into Kaneki. And just as Sam anticipated, Kaneki soon began to realize he wasn't the same anymore. The food tasted disgusting, every bite feeling like ash on his tongue. And then came the hunger the gnawing, uncontrollable hunger for flesh.
"Called it," Sam muttered, smirking to himself, but his smirk quickly faded as the story took a darker, grimmer turn.
His reading, however, was interrupted by a loud cough.
Sam glanced up, annoyed, only to find the shop owner staring at him expectantly. He immediately got the message. "Alright, alright. I'll buy it," Sam grumbled, closing the manga with a reluctant sigh and heading to the counter.
Sure, there wasn't any superhero plot so far, and the whole cannibalism thing wasn't exactly groundbreaking. But it still managed to hook him. It was raw, gripping, and, most importantly, entertaining.
After paying, Sam left the store and made his way home quickly. Once inside his room, he locked the door, ensuring he wouldn't be interrupted.
The story continued with the appearance of another ghoul the same waiter from the coffee shop. Kaneki's hunger escalated drastically, and even the presence of a human made him see them as nothing but food. Unable to resist, he tried to remove the organs from a body, but the knife didn't hurt him. Instead, it bent unnaturally.
In desperation, he decided to seek out help, reaching the waitress ghoul. However, the girl refused to assist him. Just as she was about to turn him away, the old man the shop owner interrupted, handing Kaneki a package containing human flesh.
After returning home, Kaneki couldn't summon the courage to eat the human meat, throwing it against the wall in disgust. Desperate, he tried other food, but nothing satisfied him until he drank coffee.
He went out to buy more coffee, and on his way back, he caught a strange, appetizing scent. Following it, he reached an alley where he saw a human being devoured by a ghoul.
The ghoul noticed Kaneki and warned him to leave, but then came a twist. The ghoul was instantly killed by another ghoul one wearing glasses who arrived at the scene.
Kaneki recognized him from the mall. The man in glasses was a ghoul, too.
As the man in glasses prepared to kill Kaneki, Touka appeared, fighting off the man and forcing him to retreat.
Touka then forcefully made Kaneki eat the human flesh. His reaction was one of disgust, and he shouted, "I am NOT like you monsters! I can't eat human flesh! Don't confuse me with monsters like you!"
This angered Touka, and she kicked him, telling him that while he wasn't a ghoul, he wasn't human anymore, either. Her words left Kaneki in deep self-doubt.
The next plot follows in school as kaneki and his friend hide enters the class he finds the ghoul from yesterday again.
It seems there was hide and nishiki the ghoul.
Reading it, Sam could tell that it wasn't the best story he had ever come across, but it wasn't too boring either. It had enough to keep his attention raw, dark, and different from the usual stuff.
Of course, Sam wasn't the only one with these thoughts. Across the city, many others had picked up Tokyo Ghoul and were finding themselves hooked by its dark, twisted narrative.