Black panel. Just text.

  "When I killed my father, no one came after me. Not a single police officer. No family members. Everything was just... silent."

  Another beat of darkness.

  "That's when I knew something was wrong with this world."

  Industrial District Streets, Present

  A man appears to be walking, with his little sister holding his hand and skipping ahead. The man is walking on a sidewalk in an industrial district, with bustling shops and alleyways on their left. The streets are littered with noise pollution, mainly from cars, and skyscrapers line the background, emitting a black smoke that compliments the grayish sky.

  Two guys on a motorcycle approach, zooming past the siblings. The driver turns to look at the girl, a sly grin growing on his face.

  Suddenly, the motorcycle suddenly explodes, release a shockwave that blurs the scene.

  Cars stop and honk at the crash.

  When the smoke clears, a wall appears in the middle of the road, marked by a scrunched-up sheet of metal and a splatter of blood that leaves a stain on the concrete obstacle.

  “Mercury? What was that noise?” the sister asks.

  “Don’t worry about it. Just keep walking forward, okay?” he replies with a grin on his face.

  The man keeps walking. His sister continues ahead of him, oblivious to the wall that shouldn't exist impeding the flow of traffic.

  They disappear around a corner as sirens start in the distance.

  Residential District, Present

  Niche wakes up, looking around his room at the mess. His sheets lay half on the floor, and one of his pillows sits on his keyboard.

  I’m usually not this messy. What the hell happened here yesterday?

  Niche stares at his ceiling. Something's wrong with the water stain in the corner.

  Wasn't that shaped like a rabbit? Now it looks like a crown. I must've dreamt it.

  After getting out of bed and taking his time to get ready, he staggers out of the house. Tripping over himself, Niche makes his way over to the sidewalk.

  "Morning, Niche!" A woman calls, waving from her garden.

  What was her name? She looks familiar.

  He waves back automatically, “Hey.”

  It’s really bright today for 7:30 AM. And that woman is watering her yard, but the water doesn’t usually turn on before 8…wait.”

  Genuip High School, Present

  Niche walks through the front door of his classroom.

  8:07. Only two minutes late to class.

  “You’re late, Niche.”Niche walks to his seat and sits down.

  One Hour Later, Classroom

  “Okay, class. look on the board for your assigned partners, and for homework read up to page 17 in the textbook. You're all dismissed,” the teacher says.

  Ryota walks up to Niche while he's packing his bag.

  "Hey, Niche, right?" Ryota says with genuine interest. "This should be interesting. I was hoping I'd get paired with someone who actually seems to know what they're doing."

  Niche looks up, surprised by the friendly approach.

  "Yeah. You're Ryota?"

  "That's me. So, what are you thinking for this project? Minimum effort, or should we actually try on it?" Ryota sits on the edge of the desk. "I'm up for whatever you have in mind."

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  "I have some ideas," Niche says.

  "Cool. Want to work on it tonight? I don't have anything else planned."

  "Can't tonight," Niche says, both of them walking to the door.

  "Everything okay?"

  "Yeah, just... some personal things to take care of."

  "Fair enough. Tomorrow then?" Ryota and Niche exit the room and are walking down the stairs. "Oh, shit. I forgot my charger in the science room. Be right back."

  He jogs back to the room, while Niche continues, exiting the building.

  The parking lot's mostly empty. He's halfway to the street when he hears an engine rev.

  He turns. A car speeding straight at him, maybe thirty feet away.

  His body moves before his brain catches up. Diving left, Niche avoids the car, but it still crashes into something. Like it hit an invisible wall in mid-air, the front end of the car crumpled slightly, as the car hovers in the air.

  What the hell? How did this car suddenly stop as if it hit a barrier? And why was it aiming for me anyways? There was no driver in the vehicle, so how was it moving? And who is this man on the ground? Surely, he couldn't have been the one driving...because this man lying on the ground has no cuts or injuries on his body.

  Niche stares. The driver's lays down on the ground ten feet in front of the car, now unrecognizable from a pile of blood. The car hangs in the air for maybe two seconds, then drops.

  Metal hits asphalt hard. Car alarm blaring. Niche's ears ring. Someone's screaming.

  When did people get here?

  A group of people already swarmed to crowd Niche, taking videos and photos of the scene but too far to accurately capture Niche’s stunned image.

  "Shit! What the hell happened here? Dude, are you good?" Ryota's runs over, placing his hand on the frozen Niche’s shoulder.

  "I'm..." Niche looks blankly in front of him. "Did you see—"

  "See what? That asshole nearly killed you!" Ryota's pulling out his phone. "We need to call—"

  "It stopped," Niche says quietly. "In the air. The car stopped."

  Ryota pauses, looks at the car. The front bumper's warped upward, like it hit something above ground level.

  "Yeah," he says, lowering his head. "I saw."

  They stand there for a second in silence.Shit. Whatever this is wants to kill me, which means being near all these people directly threatens their lives, Niche thought. I’m not exactly sure who or why I’m being targeted but…

  “Wait who -” Ryota tries to ask, but Niche is already gone.

  Full sprint down the street, school bag bouncing against his back, Niche takes off.

  A streetlight falls toward him - he dives left. The metal crashes where he was standing.

  Construction scaffolding collapses as he passes. Wood and metal rain down. He shields his head, keeps running.

  I can’t exactly go home right now. I don’t want this guy who’s doing all this to know where I live.

  He cuts through an alley. A dumpster rolls out from nowhere. He vaults over it, barely keeping his feet.

  City, Present

  The city is busy. Skyscrapers fill the sky. One in particular - the tallest one – is a government building that towers above the people.

  “Sorry!” Niche calls out as he runs through a city, a lamppost crashing down behind him and cracking the street.

  Everyone stares in shock as piles of trash fly at him.

  Niche pulls out a knife from his coat pocket as he runs, pulling his sleeve up to his shoulder with the other hand. He slashes the knife across his arm, seething from pain but catalyzing a burst of adrenaline. His eyes change, revealing a strange pattern, and his body seems to dissipate into a gaseous state.

  Niche’s new state changes his mood, as the frightful demeanor was quickly replaced by a face of pure excitement. He appears to smoothly jump hundreds of feet halfway up the side of the grand government building - barely dodging the earth spire that shot up from the ground to attack him - as if his feet were made of springs. Defying gravity, his feet, after making contact with the side of the building, appear to carry him up the building as if he were scaling it with minimum effort. He is a sure he is safe as high as he is until another spire launches from the side of the building at him. Niche leaps from the side of the building upwards, dodging the mass that attacked him, and landing safely on the top of the grand tower. Niche’s eye pattern suddenly disappears, turning his eyes back to their normal red color. Immediately exhausted from this effort, Niche pants to regain energy. At this same time, birds start flying at him from one direction, the ground cracks in the other, and the metal on the top of the building warps in to enclose Niche’s feet.

  Shit. I can’t move, and even if I could I wouldn’t be able to dodge all of this with the little energy I have left.

  “Oh Niche. Always getting into trouble,” a faint voice mutters flatly.

  The next second, Niche is teleported back to his school, where the locks on his feet have been cut off and are now disintegrating into the air.

  “D-Did I just…teleport?” Niche asks surprised, attempting to derive an explanation for what happened. “And I’m back at school now?”

  He stands there for a second, then immediately takes off when his mind catches up with his body. Niche’s body physically moves the same movements for the second time today, but this time the scene is quieter. Few students still remain at school, being passed by Niche, who tries to process the events that’s just took place.

  What the hell is happening today? Niche desperately wonders.

  Niche sees his house two minutes into his chaotic sprint.

  I’m not getting attacked anymore, so maybe when I mysteriously teleported, my pursuer lost track of me. It should be safe to go home now.

  He slams through the front door, locks it, and leans against the wood frame, panting.

  I’m not sure what happened, and I don’t think I can ever make sense of it on my own, so I’ll just try to forget these events that transpired today.

  Behind a concrete wall a few houses down the street across from Niche’s house, a figure appears. They look like a normal civilian, except on the back of his hand a marking is shown, and part of their figure looks slightly distorted.

  This man watches Niche's house for a moment.

  “Damn it, Mercury. I told you to not mess with my prey, and then you go out and do this shit," his tone carries mild annoyance as he mutters under his breath.