[1521, The Chichiltic Capital.]
A crimson-haired woman of impossible beauty cast a cold, uncaring downward glare. Her back rested against a splendid throne carved from sun-gilded stone and set atop a dais. She overlooked her royal chamber, framed by a wide banner woven from red, gold, and teal. At its center was a motif of a radiant sun.
The throne room that surrounded her was constructed from sun-baked stone. Colorfully painted high columns and lush greenery served as decoration. Carvings of mythology and gods covered the walls. The royal chamber as a whole exuded a sense of grandeur and tradition that could captivate the senses.
But the gorgeous beauty with the crimson hair seemed utterly untouched by the attraction of her surroundings. Her expression was empty, devoid of awe.
The chamber hadn't a single window, but echoes reverberated through the walls. Wails and deathly cries quietly permeated the space—evidence of the ongoing siege on her capital.
Without a hint of curiosity, the woman kept her twin ruby eyes trained in front of her.
Footsteps could be heard from the chamber's doorway as a solemn man entered. A veil of darkness obscured his appearance.
He strode across the corridor, maintaining absolute silence and mystery. Upon reaching the base of the throne, he lifted his arm and spread his palm. With a flick of his wrist, he drew a blade of dark metal from thin air.
With all of his features concealed, the man aimed the tip of his blade toward the woman.
In reply, the crimson-haired beauty sighed.
Though the two did not share a language or culture, the man's intent was unmistakable.
He'd come to challenge the woman. He intended to drag her down from her throne and strip her of her life.
The crimson beauty understood instantly.
She raised her hand and gave a quick snap. The air surrounding her reacted to her simple act. Scarlet sparks developed, coalescing into orbs of searing flames that gathered around her seated figure. The throne room was suddenly illuminated, but the silent man didn't appear to be affected. He remained a roving apparition, a walking shadow.
The challenger steadied himself in a combat-ready stance, unfazed by the flames.
With a look of indifference, the woman's lovely lips parted. The language she spoke was Nahuatl.
"Since you wish to court death, I shall deliver you to its door."
She got off her throne slowly.
"Do well to tell the souls on the other side who cut your life short. It is an honor to die by my hand."
Now standing, her song-like voice drifted in the room. She raised her slender arm and gave a mental command. The fireballs that hung menacingly around her shot forth.
"I am the great Vampire Empress. My name is—"
Though she spoke them aloud, her next words would not be heard. In that same instant, the shadowy man lunged.
His blade of darkened black met her orbs of searing light in an intense burst of energy. Once silent and vacant of breath, the royal chamber now let out a symphony of steel and fire.
The battle had started even without the two fighters knowing each other's names.
As the two engaged in combat, the cries of war ripped throughout the capital city. Golden pathways were drenched in blood, and bodies floated along once immaculate waterways. Both valiant heroes and vile monsters did battle.
On that night, mankind would triumph over the vampires. The Vampiric Empire would fall at the hands of the knights of the Magic Order. All that they had built would crumble and be lost to the recesses of time.
On that very same night, the great Vampire Empress would be defeated. Since that day, hundreds of years have passed. Even now, throughout all of Mage society, her unspoken name would be inscribed in the exalted halls of legend.
Time always moves forward, relentless in its flow. In the coming centuries, mankind faced all sorts of trials and tribulations. The world reshaped itself again and again. The age of monsters, rituals, and magic would fade into obscurity.
Now, in the early twenty-second century, known as the Post-Collapse Rigor Mortis Era, life marched on. All were none the wiser to what had taken place so many years ago, nor the calamity on the horizon.
***
[January 8th, 2132, Miami, Florida.]
[Exactly one year before the end of the world.]
I sat in the back row, attention drifting somewhere far from the lesson. I closed my eyes and rested my head against the wooden desk. My short, frizzy black hair slipped over my face, and my thin, undersized frame only made me look smaller. Altogether, I lacked an imposing aura.
In front of the class, a weary middle-aged man dragged an Expo marker across a whiteboard. With a dry voice, he explained an algebraic formula. I'm not sure if anyone'd want to know the details of whatever he was babbling about, but I certainly didn't. My neurons were about to melt away from how brain-numbing it all was.
The classroom scene that surrounded me provided no solace to my sorry state.
The desks were all facing the board, evenly spaced, and set up in a strict row formation. It was just what you'd expect from a reputable, academic institution such as this one. Even the paper decorations and posters on the walls were generic, mass-produced garbage.
The ever-dimming sun filtering in through the window implied that it was well past normal academic hours. Given that fact, only a handful of students sat at the rigidly arranged desks. They all sat in clustered groups; this gave the room a distinctly scattered look. As humans tend to do, they all chose to sit alongside friends and acquaintances.
Naturally, that meant that I was alone, the only person in my row of desks. Not a soul would choose to sit next to me. Not that it bothered me; of course, I wasn't so easily rattled.
In any case, my peers would never be able to relate to me. It would have been a mistake to put me in the same boat as the others.
A girl with violet hair sat in the front row among a group of girls. A notebook with a page of thorough notes was open in front of her. This gave the appearance that she was quite an intelligent pupil at first glance, but her behavior belied this. Not focused on the lesson, she gazed idly out the window at the distant skyscrapers.
I looked out the window impassively, trying to figure out what had drawn her interest. The skyscrapers beyond the glass stood tall but blurred by distance, their shapes little more than smudges against the fading light.
I could accept that they were grandiose in theory, but if I couldn't touch or engage with them, they had no significance to me. As they were, they were only good for playful imagining.
For both that girl and me, those skyscrapers were hopelessly out of reach.
I turned back to the classroom and examined every single person seated there. Once more, I felt as though none of them could have comprehended what I was thinking.
In a world like this, a painfully normal one, there was no chance they would understand. They were merely human, nothing more than humans adhering to the laws of the world and their base natures. A single word could perfectly describe both them and this world.
Mundane.
Everything moved as usual. This casual, after-school routine would continue until it reached its conclusion in an uneventful manner.
I bit the inside of my lip in displeasure at the idea.
Bam!
I leaped from my chair, stood on top of it, and pounded one foot against the desk. I gained ground, making up for my lack of natural height. The quiet of the classroom was broken by the loud thunderclap produced by the strong smack against the wood. Several students jolted upright, their attention stolen.
An uncertain, quiet chaos spread amongst the onlooking students. As they waited anxiously to see what would happen next, they murmured to each other. The kids were facing forward due to the desk layout, but my outburst made them all turn around. The girl with the violet hair in the front row was the only person in the sea of faces who had not turned. Her eyes stayed fixed on the window, and she didn't even flinch.
I threw my hand into the air, pointing to the heavens. My dark complexion gleamed, and a haughty smile appeared on my face. My movements were so fast that the jacket of my uniform spread out behind me like a cape.
'Embracing the supernatural and piercing the veil of normalcy.'
That's how I would've described this epic moment, but the stifled laughter would disagree with my assessment. The teacher's expression held weariness, but the violet-haired girl responded differently. She predicted exactly what would come next.
Before I spoke, I licked my lips and pumped out my chest. "As the Dark King, I vehemently oppose this absurdity that you refer to as education. With my blade of destiny, I shall be the hero who opposes your evil."
The teacher, the utterly helpless fish out of water, muttered. "...Charlotte, could you please... I'm not suited to dealing with...this..."
The girl with violet hair, Charlotte, winced. She got up stiffly and looked at me at last. Her irritation was accentuated by her soft facial features. She approached me slowly.
"Hey," she said in a flat voice. "Could you, pretty please, get down and relax?"
A booming reply met her plea, as though the volume of the statement could make up for realism or credibility. "Ha! Sit? As if the whims of the Dark King can be contained by these flimsy excuses for furniture! A massive storm is approaching, and the days of the past are fading. I can sense it, yes. On the name of the great, unstoppable, amazing, super cool, handsome Dark King Ve—"
My shaky footing failed me, as if on cue. With a spectacularly ungraceful wobble, I tipped backward, arms flailing, and crashed to the ground in a heap.
I moaned once, sprawled out on the ground.
The whole class burst out laughing as they watched from the sidelines, and Charlotte shook her head above me. She spoke in a low voice that only I could hear.
"Why do you do this to yourself?"
If I had a simple answer to her question, I might've voiced it aloud. Sadly, the two of us lived in different worlds. As if I could dumb down my noble thoughts such that her feeble mind could comprehend them. I was far too great.
I stood and brushed off my sleeves. "Because the paranormal does exist. You may be laughing now, but there are things in this world that you could never understand."
The roaring laughter continued. No one took me seriously.
Sure, though I would never say it aloud, I don't exactly have any concrete evidence of the supernatural being real. Aliens, ghouls, werewolves, or even just plain magic. There was no way that I could be certain that those exist, but why does that mean I have to regulate myself to a life of meaningless monotony?
Did they not understand it at all? Even from their perspective, the prospects were incredible!
If such things existed, wouldn't it be fantastic? Every individual on the earth would have the chance to be different. It wouldn't matter if you were born in the correct city or into the appropriate family. No one would be excluded if each person had their own special skills and lore. Grandeur would be something attainable by everyone, not something safeguarded for those born with a silver spoon in their mouths.
It would be a utopia of dreams. An ideal world.
"Ah, that'd be the best..."
Charlotte planted one hand on her hip. "Please take a seat again if you're finished. Like everyone else here, you're here to prepare for the SAT, correct?"
I clicked my tongue at her words. "Study? For the SAT? Charlotte, Charlotte… you wound me. Do I look like the kind of transcendent being who needs to shackle himself to standardized measurements of puny mortal intellect?"
Her eye twitched. "Am I correct in saying that you were required to come here since you didn't pass the practice test? No, I'm positive I'm correct. You ought to be begging for additional tutoring. You need it more than I do."
"A deliberate choice," I declared, sweeping one arm dramatically to the side, "so the Union of Holy Justice wouldn't track my extraordinary potential. If they detected even a fraction of my latent power, they'd bring warships and blow this whole dimension to high heaven. You should be grateful that I failed that test."
I ignored her when she tried to respond to me. We've performed this song and dance countless times; we just keep going back and forth with no end.
"Hold on a second! The bells of fate are ringing out to me. It's my duty to reply."
Charlotte stared. "What are you even talking about—"
"I have no time to explain!"
And with that, I bolted. I had no intentions of forcing myself to stay within the confines of this classroom. With this chump as the teacher, it's not like I was going to learn anything anyhow. Being here was a waste of time. Test scores or otherwise, staying here was beneath a Dark King.
I flung myself swiftly in the direction of the door. Once she realized my intent, Charlotte reached out to touch me, but all she got was air. In an instant, I was gone.
She took a long breath, exhaled, and turned on her heel, ready to return to her seat. But just as she was going to continue, she saw something glimmering on the ground.
"Of course..."
Due to the speed of my fleeing, I didn't realize that my phone had fallen from my jacket. It was lying on the ground now. Charlotte stooped to pick it up and gazed at it thoughtfully for a moment. Finally, she made the decision to put it in her sweater pocket.
Except for the occasional echo of footsteps from classrooms where weary students labored through SAT preparation, the hallways were silent. Since not many people had stayed after hours so late, I slipped through the halls undeterred. Before long, I was in front of the double doors that led to freedom.
The sun's residual warmth touched my cheeks as soon as I stepped outside. The sky overhead was a lovely orange-blue gradient.
I walked along the concrete path that ran through the courtyard. Some stragglers hung around the vending machines or by the benches, but none of them seemed to notice me. I reintegrated into the world at that very moment.
"By the way," I said softly, almost to the wind — and yet, as if I expected someone to answer, "you might as well know who you've been following this far."
I extended my hand, pointing to my head, as though presenting a crown. "I go by many titles," I declared. "But the name I prefer... the name you may remember... is…"
"Veri. Just Veri, no surname needed."
Having said my peace, there was no reply. I slump my head, my heart filled with a sense of detached longing.