"In the heart of the violence

of the Great Cosmos,

you are by yourself.

What more do you need?"

-quote from the ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ Manifesto

"Ayo, I'm in Salvatore makin' Salaat, Bentayga in three flavors/ Shoot the n**ga now, we'll speak later/ Up in Whitney, got the Mac with me hid behind the Warhol/ Dip to Bergdorf, shot up the whole store..."

The smoke was barely spreading in the small kitchen, but the smell was intoxicating.

Fuck...fuck...fuck...do I really do this? Fuck...

San was checking the barrel of the gun, giving it a last general inspection. At the corner of his mouth he was puffing on a blunt, laced with coke as per his words. Next to him the shot of vodka was still left untouched. San wasn't much of a drinker himself.

At the other end of the table, Marko was twisting his wrist, stirring some small cube of ice in liquor, endlessly staring at the bottom of the glass. San had given him a pistol, blocky and black, small handgun. He gave him a small flashlight too.

Just some months ago, everything was normal, I was applying for jobs... now I'm ready to break into a store and steal seemingly magic books. I truly lost it...

These thoughts have troubled Marko the entire day, and his current state of mind didn't help either. He didn't get to sleep a lot last night, and he had to constantly run around the city and look after his shoulder all day. And now this...

"You know, you're not gonna do well like this. Alcohol, not good for this stuff.."

Not too far from where Marko was playing with his glass, a single blue pill was on the wooden table, with a 10 crossed by a line on it. Also from San. Marko hesitated for a moment, pondering this situation for one last time, until he grabbed it and finally swallowed, washing it down with what remained in his glass. He then smashed it on the table determined.

"Go?"

With that, San downed his shot and got up.

"Go."

*

"This little shithole?" San was puzzled as to why they were robbing a shabby looking little clothing store.

"So what, we break the glass and jump in or what, shoot at it?" Marko tapped his pistol on the edges of the door, obviously not in the clearest state.

"You can't be serious, you dumb?"

San kneeled down, taking off his military style backpack in one motion. He was dressed from head to toe in camo too, with a hat and everything. He loved this king of stuff, and took it very seriously. Marko himself had his usual backpack.

"Hold the light here."

He pulled out a small pick and a wrench, then started working on the little puzzle until the door was open.

"Check the registers, take clothes whatever you want. I'm in the storage in the back."

Marko went to the door, and it all seemed to familiar. He felt taken aback thinking about how he was here just a day ago, and under different circumstances. It all felt so surreal. After he stepped inside he noticed something weird. The wall was still there in the middle, with the green glass, but there was no door handle, and the door itself seemed to not be there. There were no edges, no frame.

He stood there puzzled for a second, until he went with his earlier plan. He tried to hit the glass with the handle of the gun repeatedly, but it didn't work. It felt too thick. Marko thought about shooting it, but didn't want to make too much noise. He needed something bigger.

Oh yeah.

With his own experience with the shop, he remembered about the extinguisher. All stores must have at least one. He went back out and checked, and there was one hanging on the wall in the changing cabin.

Weird place to store it.

He returned to the smaller room carrying it, and threw it into the glass as hard as he could. It broke. Reassuring San all is okay after his friend yelled at him, he pointed his flashlight on the other side of the door, looking for some way to open it. He found a weird looking lock that he twisted, then the handle below it and finally got inside.

There they were. The tapestries, the carpets, the books, the antiques..He grabbed some thick books, candles, chalk, bracelets, rings.. everything he could fit in his backpack. It was heavy. There was a golden ring with a red shiny stone on it. He kept that one in his hand.

"You found some good cash?" he asked San as he stepped back into the store, pleased.

Wha-

"What the fuck are you doing?"

He was trying on some jeans.

"You said pick some clothes."

"Yeah why the fuck you need to try them on?"

"Well they need to fit if I'm gonna take them, no?"

He could be very strange sometimes, San...

"I meant like take whatever clothes, fit as many as you can in your pack or whatever, resell them. What the fuck. You can't be serious."

"Eh, wasn't much money in the desk anyway, nothing pricey either. Why did you insist so badly on this stupid place?"

San didn't look to pleased with his spoils, but his attitude quickly changed after Marko threw him the ring.

"I'll be waiting for you outside, put your fucking pants on."

His spirits were exalted. It was this easy to get his hands on the books, on the other stuff... finally he could find some answers, or if he doesn't and it's all gibberish, at least some closure. If no one was going to give Marko the answers he was seeking, he was determined to take them by any means necessary.

His heart dropped. The street finally lit up, half a dozen people surrounding the store. He stood there frozen for a moment, not even processing what they were yelling at him, then without thinking or breaking his stare into the void, he shot. Aimlessly, without intent or target, he just shot his gun wherever his hand decided to. The blast broke his trance, and he ran back inside.

"What the fuck did you do, who was yelling outside?"

Marko tried his best to answer his friend, about the people following him, but words were just pouring out of him.

Do I even make sense to him?

Their conversation was interrupted by a couple of bullets breaking glass and flying into the store. San looked both shocked and enthusiastic.

This crazy mother...

He rushed back behind the desk, and asked Marko to help him flip it over. It felt heavy. There were many drawers in it and it felt like it was made out of steel.

More shots came from outside, at which point San pulled his own gun, planted it on the edge of the desk and started firing. He started yelling.

"Is there a way to go out back, in the building?"

Marko just stood in place. He knew what his friend was asking for, but his body didn't respond.

"Go, go!"

He stood ducked and made his way around the wall in the back part of the store. There should be a store here at least, or maybe in the storage.. none. He returned while shots kept ringing and wrecking everything around them.

"No exit in the back!"

"Shit.."

San sat back behind the flipped desk, reaching in his backpack once again. He asked Marko to shoot his pistol to cover for him. He pulled out 2 weirdly covered tubes, and lighted them both at the same end. He threw one outside the store, then one in the store closer to them.

Smoke started rising out of them, yellow and milk white respectively.

"We gonna empty our stuff, then wait in silence. They're gonna think we can't reload. Maybe step inside, that's when we run out." He rolled his eyes back and sighed once. "You got a place to stay?"

"Yeah I'm gonna manage. You should go to Bins too for some weeks, maybe even couple of months." He paused for a moment. "Listen don't like call me or anything, I'm not gonna call or message you either. I'm going to this distant aunt's place, I got an old laptop there logged into Steam. If I don't message you on there in like a couple of days, just don't reach out."

They both nodded, then proceeded with their plan. Somehow it worked.

San took the left and ran between the blocks towards the bridge. Marko decided to take the right. He would run down the street he lived it, where it all began with that weird creature. Reach the main intersection at the end, and then down the main street towards the museum.

It started to rain.

He went past the museum and into a large park called Silva. Past the trees in the middle of the park was a smaller one, the playground. He had found memories of coming here with his family, especially 1 time when they came here to fight with snowballs during a winter. That was Marko's favorite winter.

This playground has a bigger platform you can climb on to get to multiple slides, or you can climb higher on a smaller one with a roof on top. It was supposed to resemble a castle's tower. Protecting him from the rain, this should be a good hiding place. Surely the men would check his home, or store or other places, but wouldn't follow him here.

He took this moment of peace to check the stuff he's gotten. Looked through some books, though there were mostly drawings and text written in a language he couldn't read. "On Circular Casts" this one was called, and it was separated by sections. Mind, wind, energy... what is this all about, crazy stuff...

*

"Fuck this fucking umbrella, they couldn't give us some decent stuff."

It finally opened after jerking it a couple of times.

There were some trees and bushes here and there, an system of alleyways crossing it. Nothing spectacular. Is this what they call a park?

"You sure he likes to hide here?"

There was just a timid not, no words were uttered. That's more than enough for a response though.

She pointed to the men standing in the rain.

"Get him."

*

Beams of white peeked over the edges surrounding the platform, and it illuminated the inside of the roof. Marko's heart dropped once again. The lights were followed by a deep voice yelling:

"Come on Marko, come out. We just wanna talk."

Bullshit.

He tried his hardest not to panic, but it was overwhelming him, this whole situation. How did he get here? How is he going to get out of this? Men in black suits, with flashlights and guns all pointing at him. All sure to get him. He didn't even have any bullets left himself, as he emptied the clip back at Arregat.

Then the realization hit him.

The book. There could be something in the book he could do. This sounded crazy, impossible even, but at this point he didn't care enough to measure the possibility of something being real or happening. He had to try anything.

He flipped the pages in quick succession, skimming through whatever words he could read. Mind b-, no...

The next one caught his attention. "Circular Wind Gust". He could maybe push the men back or turn them over. Would this even work?

Fuck it... fuck it, let's go.

There was a large circle drawn, with a smaller one inside it and a smaller one even inside that one. On the outer edges of the middle circle there were 3 symbols drawn, in triangular position from one another, and inside the smallest circle there were 2 curved lines on the sides of it.

Marko picked some grey chalk from inside his backpack and got to it. He tried to take his time but the man yelling wouldn't give him rest. He was never good at drawing, and the situation making him shake didn't help.

"Come on Marko, I know we had a situation earlier at the store but it was just a misunderstanding that's all. We really just wanna talk, really, we don't even have guns."

Marko didn't even bother to check if that was true or not. He couldn't risk it, nor could he take a break from drawing the circles.

After he was done he saw the positioning of 2 hands drawn on the pages, and 3 short words joined by a line under the circles: Fa-Ral-Lü. Maybe this is what the symbols were supposed to be read like.

He tried to imitate the placement of the hands. He held his left up to his face, palm and fingers straight, his middle finger placed in the middle of his forehead. The backs of his hands were touching as he held his right pointing downwards and open, as if to hold something.

What now.. maybe repeat the words?

"Fa-Ral-Lü." There was nothing. "Fa-Ral-Lü." Still nothing.

What the fuck?

"Come one Marko, we're not here to hurt you. Truly."

The rain was pouring in the dark.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath tried to free his mind of worries, then uttered the words once again.

"Fa-Ral-Lü".

He opened his eyes and saw a weird room around him, small and with weird shapes and forms. He heard the rain, then the man yelling though his speech was distorted. He saw clouds around him, then after blinking again he saw a large field, then a library, a tomb, a strange city and then the moon bellow his feet.

He was back in his city and saw a man's face looking at him from the clouds, then found himself in that weird room again. He opened his eyes and saw a strange light flickering under his right palm. It was like a ball but shaped carelessly, like a flame. It was white, like milk and like electricity both at once.

His heart dropped for a third time tonight.

Is this real?

He was back in the room. There were 3 other figures there with him. They had the shapes of humans, though they were covered in some white suits that Marko couldn't discern or comprehend. Their faces were covered but he thought he knew who they were. He 'felt' it in his heart.

He saw he was holding a crystal in his hand and was kneeling, and one of the figures came towards him. It had a feminine build.

The figure caressed Marko's face, and the warmth of the touch made him tear up.

His sight kept swapping between his hand with the white flame and the vision of holding the crystal. The rain was covering all the yells of the men around him. It sounded mute and muffled. He finally took the crystal and stabbed it in the center of a weird hole in the middle of the room, and as he did hundreds and thousands of little lines that spurred out of the hole became visible as light ran through them all over the room. In the ceiling and the walls and the floor, and there were no corner or edges, just roundness and conjoined shapes. For a moment this sight reminded Marko of digital visuals of the brain.

As the room was lighting up, back in the tower of the playground Marko noticed he also plunged forward smashing his right hand in the middle of the circles, and a weird light went out in a circle with a scant blast.

He stood there for a moment, overwhelmed but everything he had seen and experienced. Finally he looked over the edge to see the men fallen on the ground. He picked up his stuff and ran out, still dumbfounded by what had just transpired. Then he came back to reality and started picking up the pace.

After leaving the park behind he ran into some cars and vans, and saw a woman in smoking under an umbrella. She was dressed in some weird, long black dresses and coats.

"Oh, look who we have here."

There was another person next to her, but they turned around so Marko couldn't see who it was. He didn't stop one second and kept running down the street and between the houses. He intended to leave them behind in the maze of small streets and houses of his old neighbourhood. He heard a faint "Oh what the fuck!" behind him.

Yes, just like yesterday... this is my place, you won't find me on my turf.

He kept running and running, turning every corner never looking behind him.

After he took one more left, the woman was there without her umbrella.

"Look what you made me do, now i had to get all wet!"

She sounded pissed.

If anything Marko was more shocked. How did she manage to keep up with him? She was wearing tall heels, and those clothes didn't look like they were made to run a marathon in them. And how could she know to follow him around all these streets?

Marko tried to run again, but this time he couldn't escape.

She reached forward with her hand, and from under her large loose sleeve came out small metals, looking like arrow points, attached to some long and thin chains. Or were they strings? He didn't have time to figure it out. They were too fast, and in a split moment coiled all around him and restrained him.

He could feel their grasp around his body, and it was heavy and tight. And he could feel his power leave his body, as if it was sucked out of him. There was no pain though. It felt like letting out a deep sigh or a deep breath. And as his consciousness was fading away, he never heard the thump, or felt the pain of his body dropping on the ground.

Marko fell into a deep slumber.