Awake

As he attempted to open his eyes, over and over again, he couldn't. His eyelids felt heavy... So, so heavy. Heavy, like the whole world just so happened to collapse on top of his eyeballs.

That didn't stop him, though. Not one bit, actually. He kept trying, over and over again, not wanting to give up. He was used to failure, after all.

He kept trying, over and over again. How long has it been since he woke up? He didn't know, nor care. He just wanted to open his eyes.

And... That, they did. He finally felt his eyelids slowly listening to him, and his eyes started gathering in all that was around him.

The second his eyes had fully opened, they instantly started bolting around him. He looked up, down, left, right... In every direction imaginable, really.

It seemed like he was in some sort of room, though it looked rather... Empty. His eyes continued scanning it, and eventually, he saw something in the corner of his eye.

When his head basically snapped in the direction he saw said something, his eyes widened and his jaw clenched in anger.

In front of him, standing on a foldable, old looking chair, stood the same man that he had "fought" earlier.

He tried to speak, but no words came out whatsoever. A strange feeling was around his mouth, making him unable to open it. So, he simply stared at the man, in a mix of anger and confusion.

As the man noticed he was angry, the smirk appeared on his face again. That same damn smirk as before...

And, he knew it. He didn't have an actual reason, but it felt like he knew. The man standing in that chair...

He was the real deal, wasn't he?

They kept eye contact for a while, with him thinking of how to fuck the man up in the most painful way there was, while the man's thoughts being unknown.

Well, for now, anyways.

His eyes bolted across the room once more, looking for something, anything, that could maybe him him a hint of where he was.

The floor he was lying on was cold, and the same strange feeling around his mouth surrounded his legs and hands too. Then, the man threw his hand in a random direction, and the feeling around his mouth disappeared.

The first words to come out of his mouth were fueled by anger.

"Who the fuck are you?"

The man, rather unbothered by the foul language that was used, kept smirking at him, quietly. Not even his breathing could be heard.

He spoke again, "What, shadow got your tongue?"

He chuckled at his own joke, and rolled over a bit. The man, however, didn't move a muscle.

"Okay, shit face, you're tough. I'll give ya' that."

He sighed, and looked around the room a third time. Still empty, huh... Or... Wait, maybe it's not as empty as he thought.

In a corner of the room was a box. A plain, cardboard box, that didn't look strange quite at all. It was just that... A random box.

But for some reason... He knew something was up with it.

With nothing to lose, he just threw out a random question, "Hey, dude. What's in the box?"

The man didn't bother answering, but his smirk did die down slightly. So, he decided to push further.

"What? Your fuckin' naughty magazines collection or something?"

The man's smirk had now fully been wiped from his face. And, whether this was accidental or planned, the man was now mad.

He, on the other hand, smirked... His plan had worked.

"Oh, do I take that as a yes? What're you into, man, blondes? Maybe women with black hair, so the two of you can be emo together?"

The man was now pissed off, as he had a sour expression on his face. He threw his hand again, in the other direction opposed to last time, and the same strange feeling started slowly reappearing around his mouth.

"Oh, you're a little pus–"

Before he could finish the, once again, foul sentence, his mouth closed shut. He rolled his eyes, and then simply rolled over and waited.

He waited for anything to happen, really. The man to do something, or someone to come in the room... But nope. Just silence. Lots and lots... Of silence.

As the two stood there, staring at each other, he got an idea... If it was a good or bad one, he wasn't sure... But an idea, nonetheless.

He simply held his breath. Then waited. And waited. And then waited some more.

As his oxygen levels ran out slowly but surely, he stared the man dead in the eyes, with a serious look.

The plan, by the way?

He was gonna kill himself.

Obviously, not actually. If he was important enough to leave alive and capture, he was wanted alive... Right?

But, he wasn't gonna just give it to them, surely... If they wanted him alive, they had to make it worth his while.

He kept his breath like his life depended on it... Of course, it was the other way around, but you get the point.

He just kept staring into the man's eyes, waiting.

Eventually, as time passed, his eyes started to go blurry, his chest started to hurt... This meant he was gonna pass out soon. Perfect.

He kept staring at the man, dead in the eyes... Well, as close as possible, anyway. His head started wobbling and throbbing, his throat burning up.

Yet, he wasn't gonna back down. Either the man released this weird stuff from his limbs, or he dies.

Finally, as his head started wobbling really hard back and forth, and he was struggling to hold it up, he felt his arms, legs and mouth all loosened.

Bingo.

He opened his mouth, took in a big breath, and jumped back, onto his feet.

He was still dizzy as hell, and his legs were trembling slightly, but he could at least hold a battle stance. He stared the man, who was still sitting down on the chair, and still not moving a muscle.

Eventually, the man did move. He crossed his legs, and kept staring. No expression on his face, whatsoever.

Eventually, his eyes wandered from the man, to around the room. They landed on the same box again, and his curiosity kept growing and growing...

He, nor the man, didn't speak a word, but he felt like... Like he was actually allowed to open it. But... Could he?

He took a step towards it... And the man didn't react at all. This meant his hunch was probably right.

Eventually, he got in front of the box. He kept looking over his shoulder, at the man, but he hasn't moved an inch. Not even his head was turned to look at him.

His hands reached down, and he tried to open it, but it didn't flinch at all. He tried again, but it remained still.

This was a normal cardboard box, right...?

His hands reached to try to open it again, but...

Suddenly, a hoarse, deep voice came out somewhere from behind him, followed by rattling of a chair.

"Purple was wrong."

He completely froze, his hand still extended. Even if he wanted to, he couldn't move a muscle. At just the voice, his knees were slightly trembling.

"Wha..."

The voice spoke up again, in the same dead, monotone voice as before.

"You're not ready."

He finally unfroze, and he quickly turned around. Standing right in front of him was the man, who had gotten up from the chair.

He was taller than him, so he looked up a bit, in a combination of fear and shock.

The man slowly rose his hand up, and the same voice from before left his lips.

"Awake."

Then, the man flicked his forehead.

The next second, his senses came back to him, his whole body shuddering and his foot stopping mid-air, as his vision was slightly blurry.

He looked around him, and it all seemed way too familiar. His foot finally touched the ground, and when his vision finally settled down...

He had just stepped into the factory.

Layla softly tapped him on the shoulder, "Hey. You good?"

He looked at her, confused, "Uh... Y-Yeah... I'm fine."

He looked around him once more, but it was obvious he was back at the factory's entrance.

Layla stood in front of him, unharmed, with her backpack on her back.

He shook his head, and peeked inside the factory looking for shadows... But it was empty. It looked exactly like he thought it would, minus the shadows... And the man.

He shook his head again, a bit more thoroughly, slapped himself twice on both cheeks, and took the mask from his hip and put it on, to hide the confused expression on his face.

Layla chuckled, "Why the mask? It looks abandoned to me."

He shrugged, "Just in case."

As they walked through the factory, he kept looking over his shoulder... At nothing. Nothing was in there.

Then... What was that? A dream...? No, no, since when do humans fall asleep mid-step?!

Either way, none of it was actually real. He didn't know whether to feel good about it or not, but when he saw Layla happily skipping alongside him, he let out a small, inaudible sigh of relief.

They then searched the factory as normal, yet found nothing of interest for the case. They then started making their way back, to the hospital.

When they got back to the hospital, Marry came to their room once again. She didn't even bother knocking, and just came in, because why not?

"Hey, hey. I have news on the case I told y'all about."

As he was sitting on the bed; his own bed, finally; he looked towards her with interest.

Layla tilted her head, a bit excited, "Ohhh, some new leads?"

Marry shook her head, "Nope. It's cancelled."

Both of them, at the same time, exclaimed "It's what now?", and Marry continued.

"Myeah... Basically, the dude came in again, said his wife came home by herself. Crazy stuff, really."

He sighed deeply, and looked in the ground, while rubbing his temples, "When was this...?"

Marry shrugged, "I don't know, maybe half an hour ago?"

His eyes bolted back towards her, "Wait. How did the man look like?"

She put a finger on her chin, "Uh... Black hair, decently tall... Why?"

His eyes were basically sparkling now, as he realized who it might be, "Do you have his name?!"

"Yeah. It's, uhm..."

She started thinking for a second, and it finally came to her.

"John Johnson..."

His head fell flat again, and he let out a sigh, deeper than the one before.

"Oh, of course it is..."

As he kept looking at the floor, he started thinking about what had happened earlier.

Was that a dream, after all...?

Well, hostile shadows and a decoy that bleeds black goo doesn't really sound like reality, huh...

He sighed again, and got up. He turned to Marry, "Does this town have a library or something, by any chance?"

She tilted her head a bit, "Since when do you wanna read?"

"Right about ten seconds ago. So?"

She sighed, "Yeah, it does. Layla, take him there, will you?"

"Wha... I'm not some personal butler!"

Marry gave her a stern look, but then smiled, sweetly... But also a bit deadly, "What was that?"

"Y-Yes ma'am..."

The two then walked out of the room, then the hospital. Layla pointed down a road.

"We gotta go down there."

He nodded, and they started walking down said road. As they did, a lot of silence was present.

He coughed twice, trying to break the ice, "So, uh... Uhm..."

She sighed, and facepalmed, "You're not the type to make small talk, huh?"

"Not at all, actually."

She looked around, for things to talk about. Then, an imaginary lightbulb appeared above her head.

"Gooot it! So, how did you get your powers?"

He thought for a second, "Uh... That's kind of a multiple choices answer..."

"Wha... How is it?!"

As she was punching his arm, he realized... In whatever that was from earlier, he...

His eyes widened slightly at the realization, and he asked her, "Wait, wait. Tell me more about your powers, will you?"

She titled her head a bit, "Sure, but why though?"

"Just humor me."

"Well, fine, I guess... It's like super speed, you know? It's easiest to apply on the legs to make them super super super fast, but..."

Yes, she did say super three times.

"But?"

"But I can apply it on other body parts too. By that, I mean my hands, obviously." then she held up a hand, and it started glowing pink.

She then continued, "It's a bit tricky though. If I don't have constant focus on it..."

Then, the light flickered from her hand, and it started spasming for a bit, before she tightened her fist and it stopped, disappearing completely.

"...That happens. While I do have said focus though, I can, like, punch stuff fast, y'know!"

He nodded slightly, "I see..."

She lowered her hand, "You still didn't answer my question. How did you get your powers, eh?"

He thought about it again, and decided to give her a real but outdated answer.

"My father... He was a alcoholic. Also, surprisingly, he worked at KilliFrags*. And..."

He started talking and talking, no pauses. He didn't bother looking at Layla for the entirety of his little "story."

And, it went something like this.

One day, many years ago, some people reported in a Killium Fragment, on the side of a mountain road. The appropriate people, who could handle the situation, got on site rather quickly.

They cleanly and swiftly managed to get the Fragment contained, and brought it to HQ. There, a middle aged man, who hadn't been taking his job rather seriously lately, had a plan.

The plan was to show off to his friends. He grabbed the iron box the Fragment was in, and hid it in his bag. Very surprisingly, he made his way home, and from there, he was so happy with his little "heist," that he decided to celebrate.

And by bringing out his true Canadian spirit, he got himself a few beers, sat down on the couch, and started watching a game of hockey on the big TV he had. Thus, leaving the iron box with the Fragment completely defenseless, on the kitchen counter.

He also left his six year old son alone.

The man had almost everything, you see. A good wife, an intelligent son, a good job... But it was all taken from him, one day. When his wife fell ill, in a coma, his life started falling apart. Everything he was working on slowly started... Disappearing. And so, he started blaming the kid...

So, here he was. On the couch, drinking, getting drunk, while his kid was trying to plead with him for food, as he had been starving both at school and home, as he didn't even eat lunch, because nobody packed him one, and for breakfast, he had a whopping nothing too.

He simply got slapped, hard. The man was yelling at him, that he should be left alone, as his favorite team was playing, and winning.

The kid, sobbing, nodded, trying his very best to understand the situation, and went to the kitchen himself, to grab... Something. Anything...

As he arrived and grabbed a cereal box from somewhere in the kitchen, his eyes were attracted to some weird, blue light.

When he looked closer, it was coming from an iron box with a glass lid. "That's weird..." he thought, aloud.

Nevertheless, his curiosity did get the better of him. He reached for the box, and peeked inside, through the lid. A weird, blue rock was inside.

And, as every boy at his age thinks, blue is just the best color ever, right? So, of course, he wanted it, now! He tried to open the glass lid, and to his pleasant surprise, it actually opened.

He reached inside, took it out, and started carefully and closely examining it...

In front of the TV, on the couch, sat a drunk middle aged man, who suddenly heard some weird sounds, in the kitchen. The sounds of something heavy hitting the ground, and the sound of glass shattering.

As a parent, he, of course... Didn't bother getting up to check, and he yelled at the kid to clean up whatever mess he had caused. When the kid didn't respond to him, this fueled his drunken anger.

He got up, and stomped to the kitchen, yelling something about disrespect, rudeness, and stubbornness, alongside a lot of curses thrown around. And I mean, a lot.

In the kitchen sat the little six year old kid on the ground, crying and bleeding from his left hand, with a weird black rock in his right one. The black rock was, of course, a Vessel.

As any worried parent would... He raised him from the ground, and as he was crying, hoping for comfort, slapped him across the face. Full adult force.

As the kid spit blood, he started crying even harder, and apologizing a million times over. The man, his father, didn't listen whatsoever. He slapped him again, and was now shouting with his whole might, about how everything was his fault, and his fault only.

He was yelling about how he was gonna lose his job, about how it's his fault that his wife was in the hospital, and how he was a massive, disgusting, shitty disappointment.

He raised his hand, to hit him again. But the kid, scared, also yelled at the top of his lungs. Not any words, just random gibberish.

He raised his own hand, to protect himself, not wanting to get hit again. As his father's hand came flying at his face, before it made contact, the kid did what any scared kid would.

He swung too.

He was rather short, so he swung as high as it was humanly possible for him. He closed his wet, teary eyes, and his fist made contact with... Something.

His father's hand never connected with his face, though. He slowly opened one eye, and peeked up. Yet he saw... Nothing. Just the ceiling.

He looked around for his father, but he didn't see him. When his eyes finally hit the floor, the kid's eyes widened to incredible proportions, and tears started flowing again.

On the floor, next to the box and glass shards, covered in blood, was his father. He raised his right hand, slowly, and looked at it as the tears grew in intensity.

His hand, that he used to punch his father, had flesh on it. Flesh that was not his. It was also red.

Very red.

Why was it red?

What was the redness?

Why did it feel so wet?

What was happening...?

He had a million questions, but nevertheless, he looked down again, at his father. He wasn't moving.

He wasn't breathing...

But, most importantly...

His jaw wasn't attached to his face anymore.

It was hanging loose, from a single strip of flesh. The kid wanted to scream, cry, do anything... But nothing was coming out anymore.

The tears stopped, for whatever reason, as the kid kept looking down, at his dead father. His eyes, still wide and wet, were bolting across the whole floor, from the corpse to the box to the black rock.

He looked at his own hands again, and... They were glowing blue, alongside the red liquid.

He looked at his father once more, and he remembers just one more thing, before he passed out, from a multitude of reasons.

"...D-Dad?"

Then, he fell to the floor too, his consciousness slipping away.

Layla, who until now had been listening, remained silent, and looked in the ground as they continued walking towards the library. You could cut the tension with a knife, if you had one or wanted to.

She thought long and hard about what to say, but nothing good was coming to mind. She finally cleared her throat, and said something.

"Well... I'm sorry I brought that up then..."

He, on the other hand, seemed rather unfazed by the whole thing, and kept walking.

"It's fine. I over-shared."

They kept walking and walking, once again in silence. Eventually, a bit later, after the awkwardness from earlier died down slightly, they arrived at an old looking building. It had a sign outside, "Local Library."

The building, apart from old, looked... How to put this nicely... Like it went through five different World Wars. That were lost.

"...So this is the library."

She let out a small sigh, "The one and only."

He too let out a big, deep sigh and walked up the steps. He then opened the door, and to his surprise, it wasn't all that bad inside.

It was pretty well lit, and a young lady stood at the counter. She welcomed them in, then let out a small "Oooh."

"Lay, hello! What bring you here?"

Layla did a little wave towards her, "Hi, Sarah. My friend here wanted to visit the library."

He also waved, then without saying much; or rather, anything; went straight in.

Layla sighed, and facepalmed, "He's a bit shy, so excuse him..." and then she followed him.

He went straight to the F aisle. He started going through the books.

Layla yawned, and asked, "What're you looking for?"

"Stuff." he replied without even glancing towards her.

He searched everything, but nothing of interest was here. He moved on to K.

Layla raised an eyebrow, "Now I'm curious. Y'gotta tell me."

Without much care, he answered "Stuff." again.

She let out a sigh, and leaned onto a shelf.

He continued looking through the books, and one caught his eye. He reached for it, and opened it.

"Killium Fragments Undiscovered, huh..."

He flipped through the pages. We went through countless colors of Fragments, most of them being real real. He flipped through cyan, purple, turquoise, white, black... All of them had a speculated power. For example, black was death, white was life... But this was a bit too cliché to be true, no?

He sighed, and continued flipping through. Eventually, he saw what he wanted... Orange.

He started reading with a scary level of observation and attention.

"The power that might exist in a Orange Fragment... Is..."

He let out a huge, exasperated sigh, and slammed the book shut, putting it back in its place.

"Necromancy, my ass..."

Layla, who was still leaning on the shelf, yawned, "You done yet?"

He grunted, mildly annoyed, "I guess."

He looked towards her, and his eyes widened, his expression lightening slightly.

She tilted her head, "Eh? What's up?"

He walked closer to her, and slammed his hand near her head.

She got flustered, and started stuttering, which was unusual for her confident yet comedic personality. Her position also slightly died down in confidence, as she wasn't leaning on the shelf fully anymore.

"E-Eh? What...? What?! I t-thought you said you weren't...?!"

He then put his other hand on her shoulder, and looked in her eyes, "Layla..."

He then simply shoved her away, with a bored expression.

"Can you move. You're blocking the shelf."

She remained speechless for a second as she got pushed, and blinked a few times. Her face slightly lit up red.

"You... You little motherfu...!"

As three thousand different curses and angry words were thrown at him, he ignored her, and picked up the book he saw earlier. He started flipping through it.

The book's title was "Lost And Fallen Heroes," and it was right under a sign that read "Just brought in."

He flipped through it, but didn't see his old name. He let out a small sigh, but it wasn't that surprising, really.

He was technically dead for only a few days now, so...

Well, in this cave, day and night cycles aren't actually a thing, but still. Something like that, anyway.

He put the book back, and looked at Layla, "I'm done, let's go."

Her face wasn't red anymore, returning to its usual white, and she let out a deep sigh for a rather big multitude of reasons, and then they started heading out.

On their way out, Sarah called out to Layla, "Hey, hey, Lay! Wait up!"

She turned her head towards her, "Hmm?"

Sarah continued, "Look, this newspaper from above came in just yesterday. Wanna take a look at it? I know you haven't really been up there lately."

He immediately slammed his hands on the counter, scaring Sarah slightly, as she jumped back and let out a small yelp.

"Please let me take a look at it."

Sarah handed him the newspaper, "S-Sure..."

He took it, and started reading it carefully. As he read it, a smirk appeared on his face. It only grew larger and more sinister as he kept reading.

Layla tilted her head, "What's so funny?"

He started chuckling, and pointed to the newspaper, tilting it so she could see its contents.

"I'm dead!"

On the front page read "The Death Of The Guardian Confirmed. Small Local Hero Dead!"

He started full on laughing now, and he couldn't calm himself down for a bit. When he finally did, he wiped a tear away from his eye, and took a big breath.

"Haah... That's funny. It is, it really is..."

"H-How is it funny?"

He held back another laugh, "These bastards didn't care about me until I was dead, y'know?"

She reminded silent, as he was still smiling, clearly in a good mood, for whatever reason.

"Ah, no, this is great... Okay, I'm done now, for real. Let's go."

He threw the newspaper back onto the counter, and left the library. Layla turned to Sarah, "Well, uh... I'll see you later, okay?" then quickly followed him.

As the two left, Sarah let out a small sigh of relief.

"That man didn't seem very... Okay... Like, mentally..."

She looked at the newspaper, "Who was this Guardian guy anyway...?"

She shrugged, and put down the newspaper, going back to whatever she was doing.

On the front page, right below the title, was a list of casualties, and a list of villains present at his death.

|The Leopard

|The Viper

|The Quake

|The Arson

|The Shark

|The Atlas

These were the main ones present. There were also some smaller thugs mentioned somewhere on the page, but they were rather unimportant.

Oh, but now... Said list was memorized by the one and only... The man they had supposedly killed.

They didn't know this yet, but... He was out for vengeance.

And thus... Let the hunt begin!

|KilliFrags

• The main source of Killium Fragments finders and containers.

• They specialize in locating Killium Fragments and containing them, for multiple reasons that are unknown to the public.

• Rumors say that they keep the highest grade Killium Fragments for their own special military force of Killium Users and sell the lower grade ones... But these rumors haven't been confirmed. Nor denied.