Arc 0: Prelude 13 - Choice

purpose /ˈpəːpəs/

a person's sense of resolve or determination.

“I… can’t…,” Zachary finally gave his answer.

“Hmph, disappointing,” said the man in the suit as loosened his grasp on the boy’s neck.

The boy gasped for all the air he could at that moment. He coughed multiple times as he placed his hand on the bed to help balance himself from losing consciousness. He felt absolute relief after escaping the clutches of death.

But the men were not so happy.

“Go on, catch your breath,” the man straightened his suit as he stood up, “Think carefully about your future, kid. If you don’t want a crushed windpipe then you better… cooperate next time.”

The boy seemed to be in an awful physical state, so he wasn’t going anywhere — not with those broken legs. They left him hanging onto his life on the bed, still coughing and gasping for air, and decided to collect themselves and leave for the time being.

Walking out of the hospital room, they were met by the busy ambience of the hospital’s hallways, crawling with staff members everywhere.

The men felt somewhat relieved after they were able to leave the bizarre tension of that boy’s room behind. Attempting to suffocate a kid for questioning was jarring, even for professionals like them. He was a valuable asset to them, they knew better than to be reckless like some run-of-the-mill thugs.

It was surprising how he had survived the man’s grip that entire time. However, the man did not exactly want to kill him, both for the information he held and for the fact that he was a powerless kid. Even though he stared him down with the intention of taking his life if he refused to answer his questions, he still had a bit of sympathy.

But what could they do? They were men following orders. They were official watchmen sent by the military police, after all.

“So… what now?” One of the men wondered.

They spoke to one another as they all walked together in unison. They strolled through the hallways, breaking the crowds with their strict formation.

“Nothing in particular. Report back to base and wait,” said another man, Adam, who was the one previously questioning the boy (and who seemed to be the leader among them).

Another came to his side and spoke, “I honestly think it’s quite better this way. Trust me, something’s off about all this. We were already crossing red lines by coming here to the boy, you know what family he comes from.”

“True, but they seem to be pretty disconnected from one another. You saw how his mother was earlier today. Any more of what she did and they would have called for us to take her in and that certainly wouldn’t have ended nicely.”

“But we can’t be too hasty. You never know with chinless wonders like them, they’d be happy to rip you off for all you have if they had the chance.”

Despite being aided by the military police, they could not do entirely as they pleased. After all, there was not a thing in this world a family of nobility could not touch. If they ever so desired, they could bring down the whole system.

That was how fractured the world had become after the war.

“I don’t know what the chief is thinking,” one of them wiped the sweat off his forehead, feeling like they had almost stepped on a landmine back there.

“It’s all that priest’s doing!” Adam spoke with dismay.

“Oh right, that man… He’s from another country, correct? He certainly doesn’t look like a native here.”

“I heard he was trying to negotiate and establish connections here for the “betterment” of his country. But who in their right man comes to the ends of the fucking world for a plan of negotiation?” The man was irritated by just mentioning him, “Why is he so interested in the town? The capital is right there, arms wide open, and he’d have a better goddamn chance there than he will ever have here. We’re all trying to make the most of everything we have, but then there’s that delusional bloke.”

“He’s not delusional, Micheal. It’s the will of the beyond!” the other man chuckled, “I mean you saw how he was. He’s a man of God, right? I mean come on, he wears a giant cross around his neck. What did you expect?”

“I expect them to fall in the same fate as the symbol they chose to remember their lord by,” Adam scoffed.

“Heh, I’d love to see him hear you right now.”

“Oh fuck off, he’d take us all to confess our sins and pray for atonement,” the other man spoke in a mocking and condescending tone.

“Enough of this useless chatter,” Adam interrupted, “Gentlemen, we’ve got work to do.”

“Perhaps we could confiscate the book from that lad we spotted earlier.”

“Right… who knows what content it hol—”

Just then, they all came to a halt. Something felt off.

They were so caught up in their own words that they weren’t able to pay proper attention to their surroundings. But why would they do that? The exit was a one-way path from the hallway they were in. And yet, what was before them was neither the hallway, the exit, nor the street outside.

It was just darkness; a darkness that was as dim as the light of the night sky.

As their eyes adapted to their surroundings, they noticed several buildings in the distance, but they were all visible from the top in their line of sight.

“Hey?! Where… W-Where are we?!” One of the men could hear the panic in his voice.

But even Adam was oblivious to the fact.

And so they had no choice but to look downward.

There it was: the ground. It was what anyone would see if they were to look down at their feet, nothing out of the ordinary. However, their feet weren't nestled on that ground. That ground they were looking at was way down beneath them, exactly seventy-eight feet underneath them. Their feet were just right before that enormous view, right on the edge of dropping down to that ground.

Looking at it from that far a distance, they felt their vision distort and their footing lose its balance.

“What the fuck?! What the fuck?!” One of the men screamed, “What the fuck, Adam?!”

When they came to the realization, they couldn’t comprehend the fact that somehow, in some way, they had gone up the staircase of the hospital building, all the way to the top till they reached the rooftop. And now they were standing right on the tip of the ledge.

One misstep and one of them would find his corpse stuck to the ground.

“How the hell did we get here?!” Adam widened his eyes in shock.

“Why are we here? Why are we like this?! What the fuck is going on?!”

“Calm down!” Adam tried to collect his thoughts, “Let’s just… step back and—”

“H-Hey,” one of them, who was silent this entire time, called out to them with fear in his voice, “I… I-I can’t move.”

They turned their heads in his direction. No matter how hard he tried to shake his legs, his feet were stuck to the ground.

“I-I can’t move my feet. I can’t move, I…,” the man felt a great pressure against his chest, shortening his breath, “I… I CAN’T MOVE!! I CAN’T MOVE!!! ADAM, WHAT’S GOING ON?”

The man was shivering with fear all over his body, and yet, his feet never moved an inch. It was like his feet weren’t part of his body, as if it weren’t his own anymore. He shook his torso backward, but it was futile. He couldn’t get off the ledge, and neither could the others.

“What in the goddamn…,” Adam said.

“Guys, I…,” the man felt his consciousness slip away, “I don’t feel too good.”

At that moment, Adam and his other partner watched their colleague pass out from the fear before his body lost all its weight and balance, and then he slipped past the ledge.

In that following second, the man was sprawled down on the street underneath, his body mangled entirely in a way unimaginable.

“Oh FUCK!” The other man screamed in terror.

Suddenly, Adam, who was standing in the middle between all of them before, followed behind his colleague, leaving his other partner all alone with his own fear.

The man that was left could not believe what was happening to his colleagues. Both of them simply jumped off the ledge down to their death, just like that. It felt as if there was this strange entity controlling their bodies, compelling them to end their lives forthwith.

No warning. No explanation. It all just… happened.

Knowing that his turn was next, the man could do nothing but scream, “GODDAMMIT!! IT CAN’T END LIKE THIS!!!”

As if his prayers had been answered, the man suddenly regained control over his body, he could feel his legs again. Before he could lose his balance, he pushed himself backward, causing him to fall back inside the rooftop ground. It was a miracle from above, a miracle that he didn’t have the time to rejoice for. Seeing his colleagues die like that edged him further to escape before he could finally feel safe.

Still in a state of panic, he picked up his feet and ran as fast as he could to the door leading back to the staircase. He was running with tears in his eyes and slight relief in his thoughts that he didn’t jump off that ledge. Never did a watchman ever get humiliated in this manner, but this man didn’t care anymore about that.

He desired to live.

Finally reaching the door, he grabbed onto the doorknob—

“GAHHHHHHH!!!”

It was as hot as smelt iron straight out of a furnace.

The man kept screaming as he jerked backward. He looked at his hand, which was deeply scarred with a burn mark that was still fresh with smoke. But then… the scar lit up with fire.

“W-What?!”

The man’s hand had caught fire out of nowhere — just from a little bit of heat from the scar. Immediately after, the fire slithered onto his arm, flourishing its growth across his whole body. He quickly slapped his arm multiple times, attempting to put out the fire with the cloth of his jacket, as he toiled back and forth from the hysteria. Sweat formed on his forehead, he didn’t know if that was from the heat or his loss of sanity, but he didn’t care.

“AH AH AH AH HOT HAT AH AH AH AH”

Soon, his body was up in flames. Despite that, he was still clinging onto his life as best he could, repeating the same action, over and over, when there was nothing he could put out the fire with anymore. He fell and rolled across the ground.

“AH AH AH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA”

His skin was gradually melting. The thin front that identified him as a human was crumbling down. The last shred of humanity within him was gone.

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA”

A minute passed… and then another… and another…

“...”

The screams were gone.

The fire disappeared.

And the world still moved.

△▼△▼△▼△▼△

That night, the hospital staff discovered that two watchmen had committed suicide by jumping off the rooftop, while the third was nothing but a burnt corpse, suffering a death of his own, separate from theirs.

No one knew why they did it or how the other was lit on fire.

Out of everything that happened in town, this was, by far, the most bizarre incident in the town — that was what the people all commonly agreed on.

It was truly the result of the terrible string of fate.