Prologue

December 31st, 2011, Saturday. One year before the end.

Hear that? It's the noise of irritation of New Year. I covered my ears and turned over in my bed. "I guess this is another by myself, eh?" I mumbled to myself. I looked at the picture of my parents on my nightstand. "Wish you two were here…I wish I could understand what happened." I said to myself.

As the fireworks began, I lazed on my mattress wondering what my seventeenth birthday would be like. Quickly, the fireworks died and everything faded into a dense, white fog.

I was in a plain of dead grass with one single tree in the center. The sky above was orange as if the sun was setting. The tree was dead and had seven rotten apples around it. One apple had been bitten into and was the most rotten. I unconsciously used my leg muscles and realized I could move.

Slow, unnerving crunching of grass came from behind the tree. I peered hesitantly behind the tree as an old man slouched there. His hair was waist-long, gray and parted in the middle. I stopped looking and hid behind the lifeless tree. He turned quickly and smiled at me.

"Who are you? Where am I?" I said, looking around. This place was deader than a nursing home.

"Alpha, the light bringer. Thy place is known as Hikari; the plain that begins life." The old man says calmly.

Chills went down my spine. This Alpha person looks familiar. "Begins life…? If this is the beginning of life, why does it look so dead?"

"Unfortunately," His expression darkened. "Seven demons have caused this mess. If Hikari is not saved, the world below will die. Meaning, end. I have brought you here for a reason, my son. It is for the fate of-"

"Stop right there, old man. Don't call me your son. Second of all, I don't buy into this crap, even if I could afford it. Thirdly, I'm probably going to write this off as a dream when I wake up." I interrupted.

"Allow me to give show you what I mean. The power of demons. I will show you that this is not a dream." Alpha said, opening his eyes showing me his glowing golden irises.

A burst of dust and dead leaves blew in my face, blinding my vision and knocking me down.

I was abruptly ejected from the vivid dream by the deafening sound of the construction crew nearby; a school was being built. I got off my bed, took a shower, and ate breakfast. I picked up my phone near my bedside and looked the time.

January 2th, 2012 8:10 AM

Damn, strike one. I was in a mini-coma for a day or two and no one bothered to check up on me? Eh, whatever. It's not the first time I stayed in my room for a long period of time. I guess sometimes I'm depressed. I decided to take a shower, eat breakfast and head for school. It's a mile walk from my house. I would stay at the dorm at school, but I dislike people. Or maybe, those who're happy. I haven't been since I was ten.

As I run through Black Pine City (Odd, right? In any case, it's the city where I live.), I passed by many people. They looked at me the same way the staff at my school do. The staff think of me as a juvenile delinquent. Who cares, ya know?

I nearly arrived at the school. I'm two blocks away from it. I thought that I might've wasted too much time, and so I took my phone out of my back pocket. I pressed the side power button and turned the screen on. My lockscreen was glitched. All of the text normally there was replaced by ancient letters or hieroglyphics of some sort.

I looked at the sky and it was deep red. Like blood. A storm? No, the sun's still out. The sun was black instead of bright yellow. The glass of cars and windows turned black. I heard something that sounded like a snarl or a low growl. A dog…? I kept walking towards the school, being wary of my surroundings.

I began feeling some weird, oppressive atmosphere and at the same time my throat became a desert; dry. The overwhelming sense of death and despair began to overtake me. The air became thick and gravity was stronger. Even the trees started to depress. I tried to walk faster but the more energy I outputted, the heavier my steps became.

A loud growl echoed throughout the city streets. Car windows and building's glass broke with it. Glass shards hit the sidewalks and shattered. I tried my hardest to walk, but it began to hurt. I started sweating. My palms leaked. The growling continued.

Fear enveloped my mind and body.

Is this how my life is going to end?

Me, dying as a worthless, antisocial piece of trash?

No one remembering me, do I really want that?

These series of thoughts hit me like a ton of bricks.

There was a little girl down the block crying all by herself. She appeared to be ten or eleven years old. "Hey, are you okay?" I called out to her but she did not respond. I kept at it and she looked up and smiled. I waved. As soon as I did, the growling stopped. As I began walking toward her, my steps gradually became lighter.

A strange red liquid oozed from the broken window, leaking onto the sidewalk and into the drains. As I walked towards the youth, the blood-like liquid squished at my feet and shards of black glass broke.

This feels familiar, but why?

I was roughly six yards (eighteen feet) close when a crash came from a grocery store next to her. It was the growling beast: a ten feet tall lion. It was white and had glowing, red eyes. Its mouth was secreting flames.

The beast charged at the girl and ate her whole. A sickening scream came from her as bright blue liquid splattered the city sidewalk. Blood? A disheartening crunching sound came from its mouth.

Could I have saved her?

Pleased purrs came from the mouth of the giant feline. It began to lick itself, ignoring the flames from its mouth. I clapped my hands and bent over.

"Here, kitty-kitty…" I shouted, attempting to get the feline's attention.

With the flick of its wrist, the lion flung an SUV and a taxi at me. I ran towards the lion without hesitation.

I barely managed to dodge the cars before I ended up right under the beast. It snarled and drooled, leaving me drenched with cat saliva. The white kitten opened its mouth and showed me its teeth.

As it did, I could see a finger in its molar. A small finger with a butterfly ring on it. Fire emerged from its mouth and burned the finger away. It was the little girl's finger most likely. I gathered my strength into one point, my knee. "This'll, literally, hurt me more than it hurts you!" I shouted as Ithrust my knee into the beast's mouth and shattered its teeth. I ignored the burning flesh of mine as the lion dropped.

The cat dropped to the ground, covering the sidewalk and streets with its massive body. The body became jittery like TV static. It faded into a white light. It left behind a white orb. I picked it up with the thought of me needing a weapon. As soon as I did, it transformed into a silver sword.

'A few minutes ago, I could have been a cat's chew toy. You're a little late, you know?' I thought to myself.

The fog appeared again and I was back at the dead plain. It looked less decomposed and the apples were less rotten (but you know, still rotten).

I looked behind me and there he was. The old man known as Alpha looked livelier than the first time I met him. He gave a warm smile and said, "Good job, Michael!"

"You mean I just played beast tamer withan overgrown kitten to save a field? Yeah, whatever man. Where's my reward?" I repressed my happiness for this was the first time someone praised me.

Alpha walked away muttering something

"Hikari shall be restored!"

I had so many questions to ask but I was interrupted.

The fog came again.

"Before I forget," Alpha smiled. "To save the world, you must harness the power within you and engage those seven demons I mentioned. You must defeat them before December 21st, 2012, or the world will end."

"Huh? The world's coming to an end? What? You never told me this! You mean I gotta fight things like that again?"

"I've run out of time. I do not have enough energy to maintain connection between both worlds. I will send you a text message." It sounded like he shouted it from a distance.

I snapped back to school yelling out "Hey, wait!" like a creep. A girl was in front of me. The brown-haired girl stopped and had a shocked look on her face.

"He talked?" Is probably what she thought.

"O-oh sorry for calling you, I thought you were someone else…" I tried to play it off.

She smiled cutely and said it was okay. We walked into the school building with small talk while getting looks from other students.

"She's popular, what is she doing with that freak?"

"That kid don't even talk, how'd he pull that?"

"Where's Dante? I'll beat him to a pulp 'cuz of this."

As we entered the Black Pine City High School, I felt my chest tighten (or to be more specific, the area near my heart). What the hell is this?

Five Years Ago… June 6th, 2006

It was a normal day for Michael Marks. Michael was playing a pickup game with his best friend, Luke. As the sunset came, Luke abruptly left the Marks' backyard. Michael wondered where his friend went as he entered the three-floored house. He remembered his mother told him not to dribble inside the house so he threw the basketball into the yard. His stomach rumbled as he entered the kitchen.

Michael took some cereal and poured it into a bowl. As he did, he saw a shadow move upstairs. Michael dropped the porcelain bowl, took a knife from the sink drawer and followed the apparition. The specter laughed sinisterly as it went down the second floor hallway. As Michael chased the ghostly figure, the hallway seemed to stretch. Normally it would take him about thirty seconds to reach the end took him five minutes.

The shadow went underneath the door and the lights flickered. The lights were abnormally green. Michael was scared but that driving fear pushed him forward to open the door. What the young child saw was his mother and father both hung from the ceiling fan. That, however, is not what shocked him the most. At the same time, it appeared his mother and father were suspended in the air, completely devoid of life. Next to them was a six winged, gray parted hair, thinning man smiling wickedly. His golden eyes seemed to pierce through Michael Marks but he stood unscathed.

Michael made quick eye contact with the old man and looked back at his parents. He winced and saw something unusual. Black and white feathers surrounded his mother and father. The window tinted black, the moon and stars turned black. Blood leaked from the television and the mirror inside the room. Michael ran to the six-winged man and began to pound him lightly. It proved to do no damage. The angel-like being flicked his old gray finger and Michael was thrown into the TV. The last thing he heard was an evil laugh. The feathers exploded in bright purple light and so did the house.

Michael Marks had awoken to a siren and found himself on a stretcher, being taken to the hospital. Michael's arm was handcuffed to the stretcher. A police office named "Lucas" read Michael his rights but he was distraught at what happened, so distraught that his face was stuck in the same position for a minute; a semi-frown you could say. A single tear left his brown eye as his face moved into a sad position.

Michael was not hurt at all and was given custody to the CPD who severely pressured him about the incident.

Did you kill them?

How did you kill them?

Why did you do it?

Don't you love them?

Michael screamed, I didn't do it and told the officers what he saw and they thought he was crazy. He was moved to a foster home and nearly every day his foster parents beat him or worked him to exhaustion, calling him things like 'murderer' or 'demon'. Michael ran away from there and found a rundown apartment near a school.

Michael was there, bloodied and bruised, begging to be let in. The cold autumn air was burning his fresh wounds.

A man of Chinese descent with bad grammar let him in. The man's name was Lu Si. Lu Si let Michael stay for free and the two became really close.

Lu Si recognized him from a year back and let him stay.

"Don't trust-"

Yo! This is kinda a rewrite of a story that I wrote in eight grade. I really was interested in the plot and so I wrote some more of it. I came back to it and realized it was garbage and so I rewrote it. This first chapter isn't the best, it's just a rewrite of the one I wrote years ago./

Please bear in mind that this is just the first, I'll actually put in effort to write in the coming chapters.

Thanks for reading~

~TheJesterArcana