It was raining heavily. Few people were walking by the road, but vehicles were stuck in large numbers. People were returning home from work. Since the gates were opening much more often than before, everyone was scared.
News channels, broadcast on giant street billboards, were only reporting on one subject: the Slasher's.
A few years ago, people suddenly started to vanish from the country, and no one knew what was happening until the truth came to light. Gates were opening all over the world, especially on roads, consuming everything that tried to pass through them.
These gates directly open to another dimension where we need to defend the creator of that dimension, who can be any creature, demon, or even the most powerful being.
The most dangerous gates are 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, and 100.
The lowest-level gates are 1, 37, 11, 45, and 89. The value of each gate differs based on its number.
People started to die because they were not able to return alive from the gate. Every opened gate has a name written at the top, which is a number.
At first, people weren't able to return, but then a miracle happened, and people started to awaken as Slashers. Slashers are those who enter the gates to kill the dimension's owner.
Once someone gets killed in the dimensions, its gate doesn't close, and people who have gone inside die. Gates just disappear and open somewhere else.
And some gates, like 87, 98, and 66, are gates which have forcefully consumed humans before disappearing. Every numbered gate has a different meaning, but so far, only dimension gates were open, and people have a hunch this might not be that simple.
One year ago, someone successfully created pills that helped people awaken as Slashers. However, even after awakening, most of them don't survive and die. But still, guild members wouldn't stop; they wanted more Slashers, believing the more Slashers there are, the better.
All over the country, everyone was given that pill. Now, it depended on each person whether they would awaken after taking the pill. But it was still a failure because 80% of people failed to awaken.
In a small town, Lion guild members were giving pills to everyone. They were wearing raincoats, and umbrellas were in their hands.
After giving pills to the last house in the town, they left.
In that last house, someone was lying down: a guy named Nir. His hair was blue, just like his eyes. His body was weak and fragile. He was coughing continuously, as he had taken the pills.
His eyes were only looking at the main door. A pouring sound from outside was echoing within. Storms were loud in the sky.
"Am I gonna die now?" Nir mumbled.
Nir was an orphan, but his aunt had been raising him all these years, or should I say, abusing him all these years. Just yesterday, her son awakened as a Slasher. She moved out of town right away, leaving Nir alone there.
She knew Nir was weak and couldn't protect himself. Nor could he do anything; he was only 18 years old. As she left, Nir ate whatever was inside the house.
Since this morning, though, he hasn't eaten anything. Fortunately, the Lion Guild members had left some cookies for Nir while giving him pills.
Nir sat up, struggling as his body began to burn. He didn't know what was happening.
He tore the wrapper off the cookie and ate it. As he finished eating, suddenly the power went out in the whole town, not only in Nir's house. The whole town was filled with darkness.
Something unexpected was about to happen that night, something no one had anticipated.
"Ughhh"
"Ughh"
Nir's whole body was burning and aching as if his bones were breaking into pieces. The pain he felt was more than any normal human could endure, yet he endured.
"The Slashers have left. He's alone," voices from the crowd reached Nir's ears. He weakly glanced toward the door, which was slammed open.
They were his schoolmates, the same boys who bullied him at school. Because he was weak, they always targeted him, and today was no different.
Just like every other day, they dragged him outside. Nir's body was already fragile due to the pills, and he had never been strong enough to fight back. That was why he was such an easy target.
They dragged him deep into the mountains, baseball bats and other weapons in their hands. They had already planned to kill Nir today.
One of them was standing there, holding the torch, while six boys were beating Nir mercilessly, and no one came to save him. His screams echoed through the mountain, and since it was night, in that quietness his voice was like an alarm.
Once they were done, they smiled and spat on Nir before leaving. It was still raining heavily. Both of Nir's leg bones were broken, along with his hands. His whole body was aching.
His head was bleeding, and his breaths were slow. His face was turned to the side, looking at the ground, which was so close to one of his eyes that he could see the wet mud near his eyes and hands.
He could feel his heart was about to stop beating. It was clear to him that he was dying there slowly. No one was there to help him.
"Do you want to live, little brat?"
As this voice reached Nir's ears, his eyes had started to become blurry, so he didn't know whose voice it was. But he didn't want to die here for sure.
He nods slightly, even though he wasn't able to move that much. And as he nods, a darkness spreads across his eyes, and a black aura starts to spread around Nir, and soon it filled the whole area where he was lying down.