Chapter 1: The Day Everything Ended

I rubbed my crooked nose as I blinked back the tears that started to form at the corner of my eyes. How long had it been since we last met each other? The days I spent within the iron cell were the most horrible days of my life. Not because of the lack of proper meals, the rock-hard bed and smelly inmates, the nauseating smell of iron, or even the constant beatings from the smug-faced guards that would bet on which of us prisoners would last the longest, but because of the longing for the both of them. There was not a single moment when I did not long to be with them.

“Mommy! Look!” an angelic voice said as he tugged the dress of the blonde woman beside him. His brown eyes were like saucers, pure and untainted. His neatly trimmed red hair flowed nicely towards the back. “The new game is out! It’s out!”

“We’ve already brought you one last week, right?” the woman said with a smile, revealing the dimple in her left cheeks. She placed her frail arms onto the child’s head, ruffling it in mischievous strokes.

A satisfied smile formed onto my sunken face as I watched the two from a distance. My red hair was covered by the hood of my overcoat, eyes staring longingly at the two figures. I kept resisting the urge to approach them, to talk to them, to embrace them, to kiss them, but my willpower emerged victorious as I stood there like a statue.

“Did you wait long?” said the man that came out of the bakeshop right across the street. The mother of my son immediately turned his way then smiled. Her smile was dazzling, almost stunning, but the fact that it was meant for another gripped my heart, crushing it, tearing it. I bitterly smiled as I watched the three enter inside the mall. Like a stalker in the middle of the night, I quickly followed.

The three certainly looked like a family from a bystander’s point of view, and they actually were. Except that the man was not the biological father of my son. He was someone my wife met after I was convicted of murder and was imprisoned for seven years. Luckily, the false charge was lifted and I was granted freedom. Seven years: that was the amount of time they took from me and from my family. Moreover, those years had cost me my wife, something I could not blame her for. Every woman needed a man to lean on, to love, and to cherish. It was something I understood deep within my heart, and I did not have the slightest intention of blaming her.

“Bro, that man is crying,” I heard a whisper from my left. Upon looking, I saw the cursory glances of two teenagers. Their faces were filled with a mixture of curiosity and anxiety. The older of the two gave the other one a nudge before they eventually walked forward and vanished from my sight.

I wiped the tears that had come out unnoticed. To my surprise, a familiar mellifluous voice rang out from my rear. It was followed by a tap on my thin, almost skeletal shoulders.

“Nicholas?” the voice was skeptical. Upon turning around, I was stunned when I met the gaze of the woman that I had loved the most in my life. Her features remained the same as when we first met years ago, so mesmerizing that you could not help but stare at her. No, she was more beautiful right now. My heart literally jumped a beat the moment our eyes met. I guess the fact that she had married a millionaire was something that made her bloom like flower in the middle of the spring. Not worrying about money—that was one less thing.

“Nicholas!” Her voice was now filled with certainty. To my surprise, she leapt and hugged me tight. I almost cried and wailed when my body felt her warmth. It was nostalgic, and I would exchange anything just for time to stop right now, for the fleeting seconds to last forever.

I firmed my cheeks as I willed back the tears from forming. I smiled gently as my hands wrapped around her, hugging her back.

“Hey—how are you?” I tried to say as nonchalantly as possible.

I wanted to tell her how much I missed her, how much I longed to be with her, and how there was not a single day when I did not think of her, but I knew that doing so would break the bond that we have right now: the bond of friendship.

“I thought… I thought… I thought that it’ll be ten more days till…,” she said in almost a whisper. At her back, I could see her new husband, Richard, smugly glaring at my direction. The way his lips wordlessly moved and cursed remained unnoticed by the woman I currently held in my hands.

“That’s the plan, but I got released earlier. Decision of the higher ups.” I slightly moved back, initiating our break of body contact. She had a new husband now, and I was sure that she would have a better future ahead of her with him. I would rather bleed alone than break their family.

“Francesca—I’m really glad to see you… that you are doing fine,” I breathed. I probably looked like a madman with my sunken appearance and creepy, crooked smile, but I did not mind. All that mattered was now. All that mattered was that I was able to see her, able to converse with her.

Tears started forming at the corner of her eyes, and I saw her firm and resolute expression as she tried to will it back. Our son was watching, and she would rather not cry in front of him, to appear strong and reliable. She turned around then gently grabbed our eight-year-old son’s hand.

Unsure of what to say, her eyes swiveled from me then to our son, then back. She almost stuttered when she introduced the child. “T-This is Marco.” I smiled for I already knew. She turned to our son then added, “That man is Nicholas—your….,”

Your father, was what she wanted to say, but was something she could not convey. When she remarried, it was written in the contract that I would no longer be connected with the both of them. It was the condition given by the millionaire bastard before the wedding ceremony.

“Who is he, Mommy?” our son, Marco, asked as he stared at me, filled with wonder, not at my sunken face’s strangeness, but probably at my inexplicable familiarity. He smiled, revealing a missing tooth. “He seems nice! Is he a friend?”

My heart stopped for a moment when I heard the words that came out of my son’s mouth. He had never met me before, but the way he spoke such words made it seem like he was comfortable with my presence. I pulled the hood tightly over my head, shadowing the tears that had uncontrollably fallen down my cheeks.

“Yes, a friend,” Richard said with emphasis on the last word. His lips were smiling, but his eyes were glaring. He grabbed my son towards him and added, “Just a friend. Now—there was this certain game you wanted to buy, right? Tell me. I’ll get it for you.”

Immediately, my presence vanished like wisp and smoke as Marco’s eyes glittered with excitement from the mention of the game. My wife cast an apologetic glance as she slightly lowered her heard, unable to do anything.

“I understand. Go,” I mumbled, just loud enough for the new husband to hear, grateful for the fact that the hood lightly shrouded my face. I repeatedly told myself that I should be grateful just for the fact that I was able to meet them, that I conversed with them. I should be content with just that much.

After a smile that conveyed seven years’ worth of emotions, I turned around and vanished amidst the sea of people.

***

Half an hour had passed since then, and I sat motionlessly inside a coffee shop inside the mall. I tugged out the hood and revealed my face, brooding and blatantly filled with nothingness. I had lost seven years of my life and along with it, my family. But I knew that I had lost more than just that. I had lost my reason for existence. I had lost my reason for living. I was drunk in grief as I gulped down the coffee before me in one go. At the corner of my eyes, I saw the surprised look of the waitress. It was the strongest black coffee in the house.

“So… this is what it feels like to start over again,” I mumbled, lips smiling in inexplicable irony. I wiped my lips with the napkin and placed a few paper bills onto the table then left. Just right after I exited the shop, a surprising scenario unfolded before my very eyes. The ground shook and formed cracks, dusts and detritus falling down the ceiling. The lights vanished and turned day into night, then blinked back into life like broken bulb in its last flicker. I fell down butt-first onto the ground as my almost skeletal body lost its balance. Numerous shrieking sounds were heard as the unexpected quake suddenly hit us. The alarms went on and everyone crouched as they stabilized their footholds. Eventually, after a few more seconds, the quake stopped.

I heard numerous sighs of relief as people got onto their feet one after another. A loud, almost mechanical voice echoed inside the mall, “To everyone—please proceed outside in an organized manner. Please do not panic. Do not run. Do not use the elevators. Just follow the guidance of our staff and seek a safe shelter outside the building.”

Suddenly, to everyone’s surprise and horror, a blue window popped before our very eyes. The words written were incomprehensible but ominous, definitely diabolical.

The East District has now become the territory of Lak ‘Amesh

The message lingered there for a few more seconds before it eventually faded away and vanished, leaving nothing but the curious looks of those that witnessed it.

The ground again rumbled, and to my absolute terror, numerous beasts that spanned around four meters in size came rampaging inside the mall. Glasses were shattered and woods were splintered as their hairy bodies with limbs as thick as tree trunks ravaged everything the eyes could see. Blood splattered and painted the walls as the bodies of those inside the mall flew in all directions. Cries of despair, horror, and agony reverberated, with the tearing of flesh and breaking of bones as background.

The monsters roared, signaling the event that would later on change my very life. Black circular horns, black furs, head of a cow, muscular body of a man: they were undoubtedly beasts called Minotaurs.