The Neighbor

Trigger Warning: Mentions of Sexual Assault

Sitting in the passenger's seat of a moving van, Ky's eyes lit up upon entering the sprawling, busy streets of Manhattan for the first time in years. Immediately, the heads-up display in his visual field began blaring with notifications of events all around the city. Ky could feel a sense of excitement and wonder; feelings he hadn't felt since his first day participating as a beta tester. However, he was quickly reminded of the game's sinister nature and his excitement waned.

Before long, he and his father had arrived at their new building, an expensive-looking apartment complex in the Upper East Side of the city. The two men spent the entire day moving their belongings from the truck to their apartment building and once night fell, so did the two Tempus's in their beds. However, as the older of the two was fast asleep, the son, Ky Tempus, lay awake in his bed, staring up at the ceiling anxiously.

'Man, I'm so exhausted, but there's so much to explore out there. There's even a Domain nearby... At the same time, it's horrifying. The only other beta testers I'd ever come across were that Celcius kid. I wonder... What other types of people and powers are out there...'

As Ky lay in bed, staring at the white void above him, a shadowy figure suddenly passed by his window. It happened so suddenly, Ky's heart jolted and he nearly fell from his bed. 'The hell was that?' Ky got out of bed and looked out of his window, but he couldn't see what it was that'd flown by. Curious, he reversed time by more than enough seconds before slowing down time and waiting for the figure to pass by once more. 

Snap!

Ky snapped his fingers, freezing time around him and the figure just before it passed by his window. However, the world wasn't the only thing frozen, as for once, Ky himself was frozen in place; not due to the nature of his power, but due to the horrifying sight in front of him. There was a boy, one who looked no older than middle school aged, staring right back at Ky with the blankest gaze the time warper had ever seen. 'Did he... Did he just kill himself?' Ky's stomach churned as he thought of why a child so young would want to end his life in such a way. 

The Tempus family's new building was twenty-five floors tall and the Tempus family lived on the tenth. 'There's no way I could reverse time and make it all the way up to the roof to save this kid...' In the reflection of the glass, Ky could see his digital clock behind himself, it read 8:05 PM. "Second Chance." he whispered.

Though the thought of it was terrifying, all Ky had to do was die and he'd be sent back to 8:00 PM, buying him enough time to get to the rooftop and save that boy. Despite the fact that he'd seen Second Chance work before his own two eyes, Ky was still hesitant to attempt to take his own life in order to save another.

Ky took a deep breath as time resumed and the boy's body continued plummeting down toward the Earth. 'You wanted to be a hero, right? Well, now's the chance.'

Determined, Ky grabbed his trusty katana, held it up to his stomach, and exhaled. 'Okay. Ready? Three. Two. One!'

Though Ky counted down, his hands did not move. Stabbing himself of his own free will was a far cry from pulling a trigger whilst being mind-controlled. 'C'mon. You're gonna be fine. Stop being a pussy! Three. Two. One!'

Ky pulled the katana away from himself, prepared to pull it back toward himself and impale himself through the midsection, however, he found himself frozen once again. He couldn't bring himself to drive the blade into his own body. However, Ky wasn't completely out of ideas.

Using a combination of abilities, Ky froze time and covered his Katana in a Temporal Cloak whilst applying force to it, speeding the time around it while simultaneously freezing it in frozen time. Ky then walked in front of the blade and held his hand up to his face in preparation to snap his fingers. Once again, Ky was too afraid to take the initiative, but time resumed nonetheless once the timer expired and the blade impaled Ky through the heart.

However, unlike before, Ky was not instantly transported back in time. For a brief moment, perhaps only two or three seconds, he found himself sitting in an empty void, the only thing accompanying him in this dark, infinite emptiness was a beautiful woman with long, brown hair that covered her bare chest. She was crouched down in front of Ky, dangerously close as if she were inspecting him. She smiled at him within those few moments and whispered an all too familiar phrase to him, "You are humanity's last hope, Ky Tempus."

As if Ky blinked, he found himself back in his bed with text floating in the center of his visual field. 'Who was that!?' Despite having many questions about what'd just occurred before his very eyes, Ky had more pressing matters to attend to.

[Second Chance: Activated]

Ky glanced at the clock, seeing that it read 8:00 PM. Without even a moment's hesitation, Ky sprung out of bed and started running out of his apartment. As soon as he busted through the door, he nearly knocked over one of his neighbors who happened to be walking down the hallway. "Sorry!" Ky apologized without even stopping, though the middle-aged man seemed to take no offense in his actions and proceeded on with his day.

To Ky's dismay, the elevators were down, but he didn't hesitate for even a second to take the stairs. In just a few minutes, Ky made his way up to the rooftop and saw the boy aimlessly walking toward the ledge as if he were some sort of zombie.

"Wait!" Ky reached out and grabbed him by the hand before leading him back inside the building, seemingly knocking the boy out of his trance.

[Death Prevented! +250 Law EXP]

The boy, despite being free from whatever was controlling him, looked shaken and scared. He even looked afraid of Ky, despite being saved by him. "Are you okay? What happened?" Ky asked, but he was unresponsive. 'Is he a beta tester? I'll look through his memories to get a better look.'

Ky started looking into his past, and what he saw was the most horrifying event he'd ever seen in his life. The boy was sitting on the stairs of his apartment reading a comic book, in fact, Ky walked past him a few times earlier that day as he was moving in. As the boy read on the steps, a man who looked like he was in his forties or fifties appeared and looked down at the boy with an eerie grin. Perhaps it was due to trauma trying to block the boy's memories, but the man's face, outside of the smile, was completely blank.

The man grabbed the child's hand and told him, "Come with me to my apartment." Ky could hear the boy's thoughts. 'No.' he said internally, but despite not wanting to, it was as if his body moved on its own.

It was as if he was being mind-controlled.

The boy followed the man into his apartment, still thinking the same thing. 'No. Why can't I move? Why can't I control my own body!? Where is he taking me!? Why can't I scream for help!?' The child tried his best to muster up a scream, but it was as if he had no mouth.

Ky watched in horror as the boy entered the apartment with the strange man and the door locked behind him.

What happened next was the most horrifying and despicable acts Ky had ever witnessed being done to a child, acts so sick that Ky wouldn't dare even repeat them to another person. As Ky relived the horror through the boy's eyes, he could feel every emotion and unwanted sensation. Tears began falling from Ky's eyes and his body began trembling with unfathomable anger. When the man was done, he only had one thing to say to the child. "Now go jump off of the roof so this can remain our little secret." As if the child was a machine he turned around and headed for the rooftop where he would have jumped and killed himself if Ky hadn't intervened.

As soon as his consciousness reverted back to his own mind, Ky looked at the boy, both of them having tears streaming down their faces. "I'm so sorry..." Ky, seeing himself in those memories, couldn't help but feel guilty. He was so focused on his own business, that he failed to notice the boy being led away by that disgusting animal of a man. In Ky's own mind, this was on him despite it not truly being anyone's fault but the assailant's.

[New Quest - Find the boy's neighbor]

"I'm going to take you somewhere safe, is that okay with you?" The boy nodded. Ky escorted the boy back to where he lived and knocked on the door. He couldn't handle facing the child's parents, so he left the moment he heard them on the other side of the door.

The boy's memories were still inside Ky's mind, and as fragmented as they were due to trauma, Ky was still able to piece together one important part of the puzzle. The man's room number was 1081, just a few doors down from Ky's apartment. 

Before long, Ky wound up at the right place and knocked on the door. When the door opened, Ky's heart sank to the bottom of his stomach.

The man appearing before him was the same man he'd bumped into when he rushed out of his apartment. With a metal baseball bat hidden behind his back, Ky could see a prompt appear in his visual field, giving him a choice. However, the choice had already been made before the prompt appeared.

[Law - Bring him to the authorities]

[Chaos - Enact judgement yourself]

"Hello, neighbor!"