The night enveloped the city like a funeral shroud, the sky torn open by the radiant glow of emergency signs flashing:
"Portal Alert: Zone 17—Proceed with Caution."
In the distance, explosions painted the skyline with smoke, buildings crumbled to the ground and somewhere— a few hundred more people were learning firsthand that extra-dimensional beasts were not big on diplomacy.
Of course, none of this concerned Lucian Vale.
He watched the distant city burn as he sat cross-legged on a rooftop with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a half-empty glass in the other.
His long and disheveled black hair swayed slightly in the night breeze, but his expression remained bored and mildly inconvenienced by the fact that he was still alive.
Opposite him, slouched in a suspiciously rickety lawn chair, was Dain Crowley.
Dain was not his friend. He made that abundantly clear every time someone mistook them for companions.
Still, here he was... Drinking Lucian's whiskey and sitting on Lucian's rooftop while breathing his' air.
Lucian swirled his drink as he said, "I think... I'm going to die tomorrow."
His tone betrayed no emotion. He wasn't joking, nor was he sad about the fact that he was dying.
Halfway through the sip, Dain sighed. This was Lucian's routine dialogue, drunk or otherwise.
And if not for the free whiskey, he wouldn't even bother coming here to listen to Lucian's self-pity.
"Yeah, yeah. You've been saying that for four years."
Lucian took a slow sip. "This time, it's real."
Dain leaned back, watching the city with mild disinterest. "Right. Just like last year. And the year before. And the year before that." He gestured vaguely at the skyline. "Meanwhile, the world's population is actually shrinking thanks to those damn Dimensional Portals, while you're still here. Alive. Thriving - well, living… kinda."
He did not hold back his words. There was actually no need to - Lucian was the kind of guy who embraced negativity.
"I don't thrive."
"No argument there. Thriving requires minimal effort."
In the distance,
The city burned and the echoes of sonic booms reverberating through the air. Shadows of otherworldly creatures danced against the night sky as a handful of evolved humans battled overhead, while below, people vanished into the voids like badly scheduled meetings gone catastrophically wrong.
Lucian watched all this with a solemn look.
He was not sad about the people vanishing. And he wasn't the type to worry that the apocalypse was near.
No. He was actually jealous about the fact that he was not one of them—that he was still alive and drinking while those people were living his dream.
They were actually dying, but Lucian chose to see it as them being released from the prison called life. And make no mistake, Lucian did not want to die—he was terrified of it. And also the unknown that followed death.
But he hated living even more.
So, he was stuck— trapped between fearing a painful death and being too exhausted to keep living.
Of course Lucian Vale was a coward. If he were a little braver, he might have thrown himself into one of those portals years ago, but he was not manufactured with the bravery stat.
That left him here, drinking while waiting for death to finally shift its focus onto him and come collect what was long overdue.
Lucian's hopes bloomed when a very suspicious palm reader told him his death was not far off.
That particular disaster had unfolded in a dingy back-alley bar, which raised an important question: Since when did palm readers do their business in bars?
Lucian had been enjoying a perfectly mediocre drink in a perfectly crumbling bar when an old woman with too many wrinkles and too few teeth latched onto his wrist.
"Your death is coming," she crooned, her grip bony, unsettlingly strong. "You will not live past twenty-two."
Lucian had stared at her. "Neat."
Unfortunately, she had continued.
"The portals will ripple like an angry sea," she whispered, her breath reeking of something that should've been buried centuries ago. "And from the abyss, a beast of a thousand screaming mouths will emerge. Its fangs will tear through your flesh, its claws will strip you down to—"
Lucian had yanked his hand back. "Alright, that's enough of it. No need for unwanted horrific descriptions."
"You will not pass swiftly—"
Lucian had stood up so fast he nearly knocked over his drink. "Who even believes in palm readers these days?"
Which was hilarious, considering he had spent the last two weeks convinced she was right.
Not about the horrific, multi-fanged, agonizing pain part. No, Lucian had standards. He wasn't dying like that.
He hated pain more than he did life.
And it seemed that there was one more thing he hated more than life.
But the death part? That, he believed, because he could feel it coming for him.
Lucian pressed a hand to his chest, tone unchanged. "It's almost here... My beautiful, painless death, I could feel its touch"
Dain studied him for a long time.
Then he shrugged. "Alright. Sure. I believe you. And… what's the plan? Going out in style? Jumping into a portal? Picking a fight with something that has more limbs than moral values?"
"I don't need to do anything in particular. It's coming for me."
Dain drummed his fingers against his glass. "Well, if you're right… then I guess I'll be needing a new drinking buddy, remind me to post a flyer."
Lucian hummed, unfazed by how nonchalant his 'friend' was about his death. "Try not to replace me too fast. Might make me feel bad in the afterlife."
"Sure, buddy... It's almost impossible to find a simp like you who pours whiskey for free anyway."
Lucian took another sip of his drink, then frowned. He felt something off.
He narrowed his eyes and slowly turned his head to see Dain casually pouring himself another glass from his whiskey bottle.
This bastard… this thief who was not even his 'friend' had the audacity to mock him while drinking his whiskey?
Lucian's expression remained unreadable, but there was a distinct drop in temperature.
"What are you doing?"
Dain, completely wasted, raised the bottle slightly. "Uh... wasting my liver?… Listening to your bullshit?… Take your pick."
Lucian's voice was dangerously even. "You're drinking my whiskey."
Dain gave a slow nod. "Mmm."
Lucian shut his eyes for a moment, as if contemplating whether murder was worth the effort.
"Drinking Rule No. 21, Crowley."
"…What?"
"Drinking Rule No. 21," Lucian repeated. "You must agree and put up with every nonsense of your drinking buddy if you are drinking his whiskey." He slowly opened his eyes, locking his lifeless stare onto Dain. "You broke the rule."
"Oh my, and what exactly is my punishment?"
Lucian suddenly grabbed his glass as he stood up and walked to the far edge of the rooftop. "I am revoking your whiskey privileges."
"The hell you are—"
Lucian turned, his gaze fixed on Dain, and gracefully dropped the glass off the rooftop.
Dain let out a strangled noise as they both listened to it shatter somewhere below. He felt like his heart, too, had shattered at that moment—because Lucian had just wasted nearly 87 ml of 'his' whiskey.
Didn't this bastard say he followed the drinking rules? Wasn't wasting alcohol a forbidden rule?
A long silence stretched between them, but a storm of curses exploded in Dain' mind, directed toward this bastard.
"Please go die quickly."
Lucian sat back down, completely unfazed. "Thanks for your kind blessing. I'll be sure to pass on your name to Yama King in the afterlife."
"I would pray and light incense at your grave every day if you don't haunt me after you become a ghost."
"No promises."
Lucian snorted as his fingers brushed against the pendant around his neck—the only thing his irresponsible parents left him before they abandoned him. A constant reminder that they were alive, thriving, and disgustingly wealthy while he marinated in self-pity.
He hated this pendant more than life. More so than pain. also he hated pain more than life. Meaning, he had exactly two things he despised more than life itself.
Did he hear himself when he said things like that? He hates a pendent more than life?
Not that it mattered. Because, this cursed thing would not leave him alone.
Once, he dropped it into an active portal. It reappeared on his nightstand.
Another time, he paid a rogue to take it as far away as possible. The next morning, it was in his coat pocket.
Most recently, he melted it in a blacksmith's forge, watching it drip into molten slag. That night, he woke up clutching it in his hand.
His parents were truly one of a kind experts, excelling in making his life more miserable.
He delivered a deep prayer for his parents to any gods still on the clock:
"May their wine turn to vinegar and their gold to rust. May their beds be uncomfortable, and their dreams filled with tax audits."
A peaceful silence followed...
He took another sip of his drink as he savored the smooth burn of the whiskey.
Dain sat beside him, glaring at him like a man denied his last meal.
Lucian didn't smile. He was the type to flash a smile. But there was a subtle, smug satisfaction in the way he drank.
He was miserable.
And if he had to suffer through this life, then it was only fitting that the people around him suffered too. Who knew? If he pushed them far enough, they might even snap and kill him themselves.
Wouldn't that be convenient?
And they remained there, Lucian drinking in the cold night air, Dain stewing in his whiskey-less misery, the world crumbling in diatance—waiting for a death that, if history had any say, probably wasn't coming.