It was yet another day in this wretched cycle.

It was around midnight, I had just gotten home after getting wasted at a party downtown.

I left considerably early compared to usual due to circumstances.

Why the fuck did the retards think it would be okay to bring cocaine, even though we told them not to beats me.

I knew we had snitches, and boy was I proven right.

As I was taking a quick dip in the shower I could hear the police sirens blaring in the background as they were rushing to that party, probably.

It was very obvious, the host sent too many invites around.

We were bound to get hit with some people who didn't like our little jolly group too much.

It was the right call to leave early.

I told some of my closest friends there to do the same, hopefully, they actually listened to me.

And I have to go back to college in 2 days.

For fucks sake, at least I finished my assignment.

They made us read that entire fucking book and record interviews with mental hospital patients.

What are we supposed to even gain from that?

Isn't the entire point of psychology to make sure that people don't get to that point anyways?

Education sucks man.

But that's enough of that.

We will assess the full damage by tomorrow when they all end up locked up at the local police station.

Can't wait to bail them out once again.

At least 5K riding on that shit.

I turn off the shower and grabbed my bathrobe to wrap it around myself.

I step out and instantly get hit with the forces of nature when my body is met with the less humid, colder air of the bedroom compared to the sauna that was the bathtub.

I check the time, around 1 am.

Small problem, I am not sleepy at all.

The alcohol has begun wearing off, and even with the hot shower, for some reason, I couldn't get that sweet medicine called sleep.

So I do what any responsible college student/Adult would do.

Now listen, I have never been rich.

But compared to most people around my age?

I was relatively well off, so I had options.

I got myself some red wine from the fridge, some cheap local brand.

Poured me a glass.

Got to my small apartment balcony, and lit some candles.

Prepared some cheese, nuts, and wine.

Opened the lounge chair that I managed to steal from the local beach when I was like 17 on the balcony.

A good 70-degree angle to not choke on the snacks while I lay down sit.

So I admired the view.

I will have to be real, people usually aren't too fond bustling of cities.

Even less with the huge noise and light pollution around.

The billboards and apartment lights, mesh into the concrete and glass towers.

Many see this view and call it one of the greatest disasters humanity has caused.

But I was having the time of my life.

Well, you could also point to that being a side effect of heavy intoxication, but I digress.

I am not an alcoholic. I usually drink only on party days like these, not by my lonesome.

But let's call tonight a treat for a restless soul.

…

If only that moment could last forever.

I remember how happy I genuinely was as if the cycle had been broken that day just me for so that I could enjoy what the world had to offer.

They always say that happiness matters because it is fleeting.

Oh, how true they were.

Because things started going downhill, rapidly.

With the ever-increasing amount of alcohol in my bloodstream.

The self-imposed discipline started weakening, and shaking.

At first, they seemed harmless, fits of laughter.

Followed by delirium.

I think I started texting my exes.

People call that a mistake, but at the moment it seemed like a great idea.

Fuck around with the people who tried to ruin my life.

Show them just how much I was flourishing without them y'know?

Everyone has had that impulse at least once.

Whether out of hate, or out of pride.

Or out of sheer stupidity.

In any case, it was an act that shouldn't have been.

I didn't even gain anything from it.

Hell, I lost some things probably.

Most responses varied from:

''What do you want now?''

to

''Haven't you already gotten back what you wanted?''

Despicable people honestly.

This is why I think I began going down the incel route.

These people came to me for the money and the reputation.

Personally, after a short amount of time, I weeded every single one of them out.

The damages were prevented from ever taking place, and catastrophes were averted.

But some, some of my friends were not so lucky.

I lost them to those damned witches.

Lives ruined.

People so full of fucking hope, demolished by those SNAKES.

They got dumped.

Some lost their life savings, some even lost their kids.

I went down that shithole, and came out an ''incel''.

Let the people say whatever they want, I am not going back into that ring ever again.

Never listen to those devils.

Fuck man…

I get up from the chair, wasted.

It has always been like this.

Something is wrong with this world, but I just can't quite put my finger on it.

If there is a god, gods, I want to ask them why they designed it this way.

Why are people so easy to fall into their own emotional instability?

Why is it also the same with me?

Life would have been so much better if I was just that bit more rational, not following where my heart led me, but my mind.

The human ''soul'' is flawed.

That's why I am studying it.

One of the reasons why I followed the concepts of love.

Because it would lead me to answers.

All I got instead were vultures trying to steal scraps from what they deemed a walking corpse.

What a fucking joke.

I stumble towards my phone and grab it.

Maybe I should cut contact with everyone you know?

Leave the hustle and bustle of the city, leave this damned place.

Explore nature, go on trips.

I hang on the rails that are keeping me from falling 5 stories down to that asphalt.

I close my eyes and take in 1 last breath.

I have chosen my mind.

With my eyes still closed-

I hurl my phone into the streets and wait for the cracking noise it will make.

A shame, I had grinded out some games a few days ago, and almost got into some local leaderboards too.

It's been like what?

8 seconds now?

I should have heard it by now.

So with my eyes closed I wait a bit more.

For the cracking that will erase my regret.

It doesn't come.

What?

I open my eyes…

And I am not greeted with the familiar city nightscape.

I am greeted by; Hell upon Earth.

There are no other ways I could explain what was happening in front of me.

A sea of fire as far as the eye could see.

But there were no sounds, no wind.

Not even heat emanating from this burning world.

And I continued to watch as it all got even worse.

Buildings started disappearing into thin air.

Without any warning, they would leave behind nothing.

I was startled.

Any man would be.

Was I hallucinating?

I grabbed the guard rails with all my might and forced myself to look down.

People were walking, inside the flames.

But something was, off.

They weren't moving.

Have you ever had a game disconnect from the internet while you are playing which would cause the background animations to keep running while the game dies.

That's the only way I could explain what I was seeing.

I had to be hallucinating right?

But things were getting worse and worse with each second.

The textures of things, they were changing.

Anything that my eyes could see, almost as if they were being deformed in real-time.

Then they began changing shapes.

Trees became metal poles, man became trees.

Clouds up above turned into trains and started falling down.

Except they didn't.

It wasn't just the humans.

Nothing except me seemed to be obeying the laws of physics.

The clouds, now trains, were just floating up in the air.

I puked at that.

I puked off of the balcony.

But I could see, that viscous green liquid would just stay up in the air after falling for a few seconds.

That's when I saw my phone too.

It was right there, floating in the air.

Limbo.

That was the only word that could describe this madness.

It was almost like the entire world except me had gone rogue, and as the gods were fucking around I was left in a broken limbo.

I was never a religious person despite my earlier comments.

But I was not an atheist either.

I believed that the existence of Gods couldn't be proven, nor could they be entirely debunked.

So then, what were those little girls I spotted doing, floating around in the air?

We made eye contact, shit.

I tried to run, tried to back off.

But I was frozen, my legs would not listen to me.

All I could do was watch in horror as 3 of those, things, began to float toward me.

There was something wrong with them, as they approached they never broke eye contact.

And I could tell, they weren't human.

I said I was after the secrets of the human soul, right?

So I knew a few things about it, or at least I hope that I did.

And from my knowledge, I could tell.

There was no ''soul'' within those, beings.

They were not human.

They may have taken the appearance of children, but they were anything but.

So I could do nothing but watch, as they crept.

Closer, and closer, and closer…

They eventually landed on the balcony, and with that, I fell to my knees.

I put my palms on the balcony and put my head down.

It was too much, looking them in the eyes.

Shock after shock, that was not a healthy sign for the human psyche.

Looking into their eyes had just made it even worse, not the mention the creepiness that comes with their form.

My body was practically trying to shut itself down, hyperventilating.

Were they gods?

Had I just experienced the apocalypse?

Were they about to end my life to-

''I was expecting more from this experiment.''

Said a metallic voice.

Expecting what?

''He is number .''

''Good to know that the program worked and kept him intact. We wouldn't want our lucky winner to be lost to a malfunction would we?''

They were speaking to each other.

A different voice had answered.

They did sound like little girls, or they would if you could ignore the obvious wrongs with their tones that a child could never hope to produce.

''Let's see.''

''It really is incredible. It managed to somehow take bits and pieces from the source code while keeping its sense of self and reason.

It is the perfect specimen for the host too, it could very easily assimilate into the cube and fuse with the host from there on.''

Host?

Specimen?

I didn't care.

I couldn't.

All I could do was breathe heavily while trying to keep my sense of reason in front of this, madness.

!

I felt a slimy tentacle grab my chin, they forced me to look up.

Back into their eyes.

I tried to keep my mind distracted with literally anything else.

But I failed.

The being who was controlling the tentacles, sprouting from her body gave a nod to the ones beside her.

She looked, almost satisfied.

She stopped studying me, took away that disgusting tentacle thing, and turned toward the 2 beside her.

''This specimen is not perfect, but it is fit for our needs.''

She walked to the edge of the balcony.

''Finish the purge on A.A.R.T.H and begin the steps for the host assimilation process. We don't have much time before the KANSEN launch their offensive for this facility.''

She looked at me one last time before flying away, how she was even managing that gnawing away at my fracturing mind.

''I look forward to seeing how it will do.''

And so she began flying away.

While the other 2 beings began to approach me.

Her monologue and dramatic exit had given me some time as I thought things over.

So I realized this crucial detail too late, just as my vision began to get filled up with unknown scripts and numbers.

Weren't those things, Sirens?

Shit.