Twilight Hero Chapter 1

Awaken.

I snapped awake.

Who...? What? Where...?

I blinked in confusion as I looked at my surroundings.

I... Appear to have two different simultaneous perspectives.

One is my bog standard eye sight in front of myself. From that perspective, I appear to be inside some sort of room with a domed ceiling about two stories high, only instead of a smooth dome shape, it's angled and there are four pillars set into the walls equidistant from each other that are also angular, like crystals or wedges. Everything is white. Like, bone white. The floor, the walls, the ceiling...

My second perspective is... Not one I'm used to. I appear to have 360 degree vision both outside and inside... Some sort of building? The building is the same color of bone white as the one I can see with my own two eyes, but there's something strange. In my view of the interior, there's a robed man standing in the middle of the room.

I don't recognize him. His black robe is shiny like velvet with white trim, and his skin is shockingly white, almost the same color as the floor he stands on. He has long black hair that looks a bit scraggly, along with a beard I would describe as medium length.

I'm not sure who the man is, or why I seem to have the perspective of some sort of building, or where I am, but I got a bit of a shock as I turned my head to look around, and the unknown man mirrored my moves perfectly.

I turned the other way and the man turned too. I looked down, and stared as I realized I have a beard on my face, and I'm wearing a robe that's a dead ringer for the one I can see the man is wearing, complete with ivory white trim along the edges.

Hardly daring to believe it, I slowly raised my arms, watching the man I can see do the same... And then I abruptly did jazz hands, then started dancing about and hopping on one foot and then jumping jacks, and all other sorts of nonsense to throw off the mirroring of the stranger copying my moves.

Only... They're being copied perfectly. I slowed to a stop. I felt my face. I watched the man feel their face. The features I can feel... Aren't my features. They feel subtly off. They match what I would imagine the man looks like.

I... I think I'm the man I can see. I don't look like myself anymore...

Why do I look different? And why can I see from the perspective of whatever this building is?

Stranger still is the outside. It's an alien landscape. The sky is white and the clouds are black. The ground is white too, but it's a field of dirt and rock, completely lifeless, except for this building in the middle that kind of looks like a bone white gothic citadel, if such a building could be small and with only one room.

There's four doorways set between each pillar that all lead to the outside. The doorways are large archways, big enough that a case could be made for the building actually being a really fancy pavilion.

The outside of the building comes up to a sharp angular point and looks kind of like a multifaceted crystal, but lacks any sort of ornamentation beyond that. Going by the size of myself on the inside, I'd guesstimate it to be about the size of a two story house, twice as tall as it is wide, with the floor forming a platform with 20 sides, and faint lines on the floor forming geometric shapes connecting from each point and intersection. It's actually rather pretty-

Come.

I blinked and looked up towards the ceiling. That voice... Echoed everywhere. Like it was in my head. It also wasn't just a voice. Or a single word. Compounded with it was an idea. A set of instructions.

Hesitating for a moment, I slowly moved to follow the guidance if only to figure out what's going on, and... The best I can describe it as is I willed myself to step between. Between what? I don't know, but it came with a strange sense of turning around without turning at all, and abruptly my surroundings changed completely.

The building is still there, but outside is... A town? And screaming people. And half of a building collapsing to the ground, the other half... Where the citadel now is? Oops...

Feeling bad, but still following instructions, I raised my hand and... Pushed my will towards a random person. Unsure exactly what's happening. The man froze on the spot and started trembling, before his skin suddenly changed, breaking out into green splotches that overtook his normal coloring so fast you could miss it if you blinked.

I felt suddenly drained and became aware of some sort of energy that I'd just expended in its entirety to do whatever I just did, but it's refilling quickly.

I then blinked in shock and some horror as the newly green man turned to the person next to them and... Raised their arms, grabbing them and leaned forward to bite them, tearing at them. The woman screamed and people started running, though some idiots further away who had brought out their phones were recording what was happening.

The poor woman's screams abruptly cut off as her throat was torn out, before the green spread on her too and the man stopped biting her and they both immediately started shambling towards the next closest living person.

I stared in shock, completely numb. Did... Did I just start a zombie outbreak?

I continued to stare as people ran. The two zombies continued to give chase.

I... What should I do? Should I stop them? Can I stop them? I don't feel like I have any control over them, and those were the last of the instructions I had. Note to self, fuck those instructions. They can go take a running leap off a cliff!

I watched in a muted sort of horror as a few people started attacking the zombies, and the zombies just ignored it, grabbing at them and attacking them too, overpowering and killing them, upon which they turned into zombies as well and turning against the rest of the living, their weapons forgotten.

I had a brief moment of panic when I realized that I was the closest living person to them, but the zombies seemingly ignored me, intent to go after everyone else. That's... Good, I guess?

People kept fleeing, some into their homes, others further down the streets, hopping into cars and driving away as fast as they could. And the zombies continued to attack, busting down doors and windows, and even walls on occasion to get inside. Everywhere were screams, and a few cars had accidents while speeding to get away, and I nearly choked as one building caught fire from the inside for no apparent reason.

I started hearing gunshots, but they petered out. I'm guessing the clip ran empty? Either way, it didn't start back up, but gunfire from a different direction started up too.

This continued for several minutes at least before I felt something in me click and I realized it was the feeling I got from when I... Did whatever I did that made the surroundings change to this small one road town. It felt suddenly like I could go back, and I hadn't even realized that I couldn't before. Or... No, that's not correct. It felt more like... That I shouldn't?

Well whatever it is, I feel like I should now. It doesn't seem like a continuation of the directions I got before though, just... A feeling that there's nothing left to do here? Or something?

But what about the zombies? I...

I realized with a sickening sensation that I couldn't hear anything anymore. The entire town had fallen silent. All of the zombies I could see had stopped heading towards the nearest living person and were just milling about mindlessly, not really doing anything.

Does that mean...? There's no one else left alive in the town?

Grimacing, I considered finding a gun and trying to finish off the zombies, but... I wouldn't know where to look, and I'm worried if I try, whatever stopped them from attacking me will wear off and I'll be torn apart too. And besides, some of those people were recording, and plenty got away in their cars, so... If the zombies are just going to stand there, I'm sure the army can deal with this by firebombing the area, right?

Actually... Now that it's quiet... I can hear... Something? Some sort of buzzing?

Abruptly the open archways into the pavilion sealed closed with solid walls and almost in the same instant, a giant fuck off laser hit the building! Right on the door at an angle that would have hit me had it not slammed closed!

Panicking, I did that thing that felt like turning without turning, and my last sight of the blue sky was the laser getting big enough to encompass the whole building before it was abruptly replaced with a white sky and black clouds. And the immediate lack of a gigantic laser beam firing in my direction.

I winced as I examined the building after the archways slid open, the walls seemingly melting away from the inside out. Everything is scorched like a crater, the walls, blackened...

Speaking of blackened, it somehow escaped my notice until just now that the walls are white again, where before while under a normal blue sky, the whole building had turned solid black. And not a normal black either but almost... Glowing, in a way. Like, it radiated darkness.

The walls are still cratered where the laser blast hit, but they're seemingly healing right before my eyes, and quickly.

On top of that... The citadel and I aren't the only things that came back. The town is here too. And so are the zombies.

Only... The town is... Healing? Just like my citadel is? Pieces of fallen debris and rubble and broken in windows and holes are disappearing, flowing into place and sealing over, leaving the buildings completely fixed. And the zombies... The green is slowly leaving their skin, leaving behind pale white. Skin as white as my own. And what injuries the zombies had healed over too, just like the buildings.

I began to feel some concern though as first one, then more turned to look directly towards my direction, and started making their way towards me.

I, uh... What should I do? Are they... Huh, that's odd. My first thought had been 'angry mob' but they don't look angry. They're... Smiling?

The first and closest one made it to the edge of the floor I'm standing on and stopped. Then immediately went to their knees and bowed, prostrating themselves all the way to the floor. What the hell?

They're saying something. I can barely hear them. Until it grows louder and I realize that they're chanting. It grows louder and louder until it's practically a jubilant shout, if muffled by the floor:

"ALL HAIL THE MASTER OF TWILIGHT! ALL HAIL LORD OZYMANDIAS!"

...

Oh boy...