Apocalypse Theory Of The Abandoned World

Strange New World (I)

When Cha Doyun came back to it, he was standing alone inside his apartment holding a robe, a noose that hung from the ceiling around his neck. And as soon as the realization settled, he couldn't breathe anymore. 

  His lungs burnt for air while the noose held tight around his pale neck. It hurt. He desperately clawed at the ropes, trying to release himself. With every passing second without oxygen his vision swam with dark spots and his limbs weakened.

  Cha Doyun still hasn't stopped struggling however. He didn't survive through the previous day just to die like this. The seven minutes he spent trying to live couldn't be wasted like that. 

  In the middle of a seemingly vain attempt to save himself, the dark haired man paused.

 That couldn't be right, the last thing he remembered was entering the corner shop to hide so why was he at ho… The thought trailed off as his burning lungs finally gave up. Once again the darkness welcomed Doyun back with an open arms.

  No, that wasn't right either, for Doyun was still awake. There were no burning longs ,nor swimming vision. No noose tightening around his neck that made him fear for his life. Doyun wasn't even at home.

  Instead he stood in the middle of a crowded street full of people. They all passed by him without a second look nor pointed words, everyone heading towards work and school respectively. A normal city life that he couldn't experience fully.  

  It felt fake.

As long as Cha Doyun could remember, people never treated him like a normal person. He was always the crazy psycho who killed his girlfriend and friends for his own enjoyment. Even if it had been 10 years since then, everyone still held it against him. Whether it was true or not.

 Just as soon as the realization of how fake everything felt, the reality rippled. All around him people started to drop. Screams filled the air around until he was once again standing in the middle of that dreadful day.

 The fountain of blood flowed from the piles of corpses, bathing the city in crimson. Yet, Doyun only felt a strange sense of utter calm.

 Like his surroundings didn't matter, like the lives of the people around him didn't matter. It should have scared him, but it did not anyway.

Suddenly, a sound of crying tore through the air, snapping him out of whatever trace he was in. He frantically searched for the source of the crying, only thoughts of Ah-in and Sung-jin circling his mind.

  And right there a few metres from him on his left stood an angel towering over a limp body of a small boy and a crying toddler, with a lance posed ready to strike.

 Cold fear raced through his veins sparked by the recognition yet he stood still, watching the horrifying scene in front of him. It was like he was watching a play that was composed only for him.

  Ah-in's cry rang through the empty street louder than before. Her small chubby hands reached out towards Doyun, her eyes full of tears with a spark of recognition. Ah-in's whole body trembled with her cries and exhaustion and Doyun wanted nothing more than to swoop her up and protect her from the world.

 But he couldn't.

 Cha Doyun could do nothing but watch as the light of life left those small brown eyes. He saw the blood splatter across the concrete as the small body fell on top of the already cooling corpse of her brother. Then the angel turned towards him and all too late, he could move once again.

  The angel gave him something like a smile- if the crazy looking bloody stretch of slit could be called a smile, and gestured toward his-

 ...hand?

 Something dripped down his hand, prompting the dark haired man to look down at it. His eyes widened at the visage and a small choked noise escaped him. The hand that was clean was now painted in fresh blood .

 'It's your fault.' he heard. 

 Doyun looked up towards the angel, who hadn't made a single sound at all. It's mouth was clamped closed and it's eyes had never strayed away from the thin man. He knew the thing couldn't have spoken, yet how could he hear it?

 'It's your fault you know? You killed them.'

'No.' Doyun denied. 'I didn't! I didn't kill them!' He thought, shaking his head fervently. But the angel didn't let up it's accusations. It merely smiled at the dark haired adult.

 'But you did! You killed them like you killed those boys back then!'

 "That's different! I didn't-" he hesitated.  The angel took the opportunity it was presented.

 'See? Even if you don't want to admit it, you killed these poor kids! You are a mon-'

"SHUT UP!!!!" his voice interrupted the angel. 

 "SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!" Doyun trembled desperately trying to wipe away the blood on his hands. Because he didn't kill them, he didn't kill the kids.

 It was the angel! It was the angel that killed them so why was he-?

 Tears blurred his vision and he stood there, once again frozen in one place.

  'I killed them…' he realized bitterly. The gaunt man had killed the children by abandoning them. He didn't even dare to look up as the angel stood over him.

 A not yet blinding light that engulfed his surroundings came from the heavenly being. It hurt his eyes, so Doyun closed them. Accepting the punishment given to him for being a monster.

 The lance struck down once more to punish a foolish sinner and-

.

.

. 

 -and Cha Doyun woke up.

He quickly sat up with a hand over his rapidly beating heart. It felt like his heart was gonna jump out of his chest and it hurt. Doyun took deep breaths ,trying to calm himself down.

  A nightmare, he had just had a nightmare. Everything was fine, he didn't kill anybody and the world was hopefully not fu-

 His hands brushed against the warm flesh of someone, almost giving him another attack. The dark man turned to look towards where a small boy and his even smaller sister laid, curled around each other.

 'They are breathing and not hurt.' He noted. Doyun felt his eyes sting with unshed tears at the sense of relief that realization gave him. He had only known the kids for a few minutes at best, yet he was already attached. God, Cha Doyun was fucked and he knew it.

 Deciding not to wake the kids for now, he studied their surroundings first. They were laying on a sleeping bag inside a family tent in the shop. Doyun didn't remember fainting on a bed so the kid must have dragged him to it, the older man concluded.

 Both the window blinds were down and the only thing illuminating the shop was the gentle moonlight peaking through the blinds. Sung-Jin probably locked the doors like Doyun told him to so they were thankfully relatively safe for now.

 Sighing, the tired man felt around for his phone until he found it in the corner of the tent. Carefully, he opened the screen and reduced the brightness before he blinded himself. 

 "Thank god for dark themes." he murmured

 as he started swiping through the mountain of notifications on his phone.

 It was currently fifteen past 03 o'clock and the news had blown up from the recent events. A large number of people had been killed and strange monsters had started appearing around all over the world.

 Cha Doyun didn't know how to feel about- well… everything! In only a few minutes his whole world had been turned upside down then shaken several times for a good measure. He was currently just too tired to deal with anything. 

 The dark eyes man continued to swipe notification after notification, not really reading yet still retaining enough to understand the current state of their world until one notification caught his eyes. It was from ApoTheo .

                     [Power Roulette!]

      [PRESS NOW AND GET A POWER!]

Dazed at the random carefree looking notification among the sea of emergency warnings and news, Doyun pressed the screen. 

 It instantly took him to the Apocalypse Theory front page and a giant wheel of fortune appeared on the home screen. It started rolling without any other command and under it a text that read "processing…" appeared. After a minute or two the wheel finally stopped with an answer.

                   [PROCESSING…]

                 

              [PROCESSING… DING!!!]

               [THREADS OF KARMA]

[Congratulations user Cha Doyun! Your power is "Threads of Karma" you can see further info about your power on your character screen! Hope you have a good  time! We will now begin power integration.]

   

 'What?...'

Before Doyun could process what just happened the phone screen glowed bright white and the phone fell into the ground.