The dark sky was littered with stars, which made it look beautiful tonight. A single shooting star could be seen streaking across the horizon, leaving a faint tail of white light in its wake. If one looked past its fleeting trail, they’d see that for some reason, it seemed as though the moon was hanging a bit lower tonight.
Below this celestial display, two men were sitting on their haunches at the balcony, absentmindedly staring at the sky while smoking cigarettes.
Even though they did not say it out loud, from the somber looks on their faces, it was obvious that they were both worried for their missing friend.
At the moment, both had made a mental commitment to go check again tomorrow.
Hopefully, he would be in his apartment by then.
...hopefully.
If he was not, they would check a few other places that they hoped he would be.
"God, this is really good stuff." Sami’s face went through a quick series of twitches and contortions after taking another sip from the really strong liquor.
Kenji, who was beside him, only rolled his green eyes at him, then smiled. "Told you so."
Sami took another sip, winced, and then smacked his lips. He extended the pouch back to Kenji, but the man shook his head.
"You can have that one," Kenji said as he summoned another pouch from his inventory. Shaking the leather container, he added proudly. "I don’t want to brag, but... I have more than enough. Plus, you know that Momoka doesn’t drink, so all of hers are mine too."
Sami’s eyes widened and he reached out to snatch the pouch. "Then give me some!"
"Hell no!" Kenji immediately retracted his hand with the pouch in it. "I don’t play around when it comes to my alcohol, you know that!"
Sami scowled and muttered a quick curse at him.
Seeing his pitiful expression, Kenji chuckled.
"Tsk." Sami clicked his tongue and looked away. Raising his left hand, he saw that his cigarette had burned down to the filter, so he crushed it in the old, empty tin can that was on the ground beside them.
Meanwhile, Kenji took a drag of his own cigarette and sighed. "The world has gone to shit."
His gaze traveled down to the streets below.
There were still a few people moving around, which made it noisy, although there were no longer cars and trains active to give it that usual background hum of a city.
To tell the truth, it wasn’t like the world hadn’t already gone to shit several decades ago. In the late 2060s, escalating climate change had caused severe disasters across the planet, sparking wars over remaining resources. Over forty percent of the human population was wiped out back then as coastal cities flooded and agricultural zones dried up.
That crisis had triggered the mass displacement everyone called the Great Blend. Millions of refugees from Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Americas had fled toward the few remaining viable regions just to survive.
People always said humans were adaptable, and well, that was true. As the years went by, the surviving remnants of humanity finally managed to stabilize the climate through brute-force engineering. Plus, with billions fewer people burning fossil fuels and driving cars, the planet had naturally begun to heal itself... to some degree at least.
As more decades of shared misery passed, the surviving groups of human beings intermarried, shared languages, and formed entirely new multi-ethnic urban cultures.
That was why the world now in 2110, which should have been hyper-advanced, looked like it had been flung decades into the past. It looked like a gritty, modern 2020s city, populated by a completely mixed, multi-cultural population living in the aftermath of wars and disasters that had destroyed their future.
And now, with the advent of this damn apocalypse, the world that had finally stabilized was once again on the brink of collapse.
Kenji exhaled as he watched two men arguing below over something he couldn’t fully grasp. The older man seemed to be threatening the younger one, while also looking around for witnesses.
Of course, their actions were none of Kenji’s concern, so after a moment, he looked away, took another drag, and exhaled.
Just then, Sami looked at him and asked, "How did you guys do it?"
"Hm?" Kenji turned to him, though after a second, he understood what Sami meant.
Looking away, he began to speak slowly, as if the memory was something he wasn’t pleased with and had already shoved aside, only to have to bring it back up.
"I had our Momoka stay in our apartment while I went to our neighbors. At first, I broke into the apartment directly next to ours. But then I saw a kid there. I couldn’t do it. So I went to the next one. You know that fat bastard, Boris, who lives there?"
His voice grew quiet and his smile slowly disappeared. "I broke into the place and found him hiding in his bathroom. So I uh... stabbed him in the neck. Then I tossed his body over the balcony."
He sighed, and the space between them fell silent for a moment. Until Sami spoke again.
"How do you deal with it?"
Kenji smiled again, though it was a bitter smile this time.
Of course, he understood exactly what Sami was asking. As the older between the two by one year, Kenji had always acted like the bigger brother. Sami would always come to him whenever he needed advice, reassurance, or when he just had something heavy on his mind.
He looked at Sami.
From the uncertain look on his face, Kenji could tell that Sami, too, had taken a life. Sami might seem fine and willing to kill without hesitation. After all, they had shared a rough life back in the orphanage and had been forced to live like feral dogs just to get by.
But then, at the end of the day, human emotions were complicated. Although a person did what they needed to do to survive, that did not mean the demons of guilt wouldn’t haunt them afterward.
After a moment, Kenji’s smile widened as he reached out and startled Sami by looping his arm around his neck, pulling him into a rough headlock.
"Listen here, kiddo."
"Hey, I’ve warned you to stop calling me that!" Sami scowled as he tried to free himself, only to realize he couldn’t budge.
’Is this dude under the Warrior Tree?’ He arched a curious brow.
Kenji chuckled, tightening his hold for a second before loosening it just enough so Sami could breathe. "Whenever you find yourself between a rock and a hard place when it comes to taking a life, always, always listen to the voice that tells you: ’It’s either them, or me.’ Remember the promise we made to ourselves back at the orphanage. ’To the end of our days.’ Yes, the world has gone to shit. We are no longer able to work toward the dream lives we always wanted. But regardless of that though, the goal remains the same. We must survive to see the end of our days. No matter the cost."
He paused and looked pensive, almost as if he were giving that advice to himself as well. During this brief pause, he didn’t realize that his grip on Sami’s neck had loosened completely.
However, Sami had long abandoned struggling and remained still, listening quietly.
Kenji sighed and crushed his cigarette against the tin can. Then he picked up his pouch of liquor and shook it, flashing him a small grin. "As for how we deal with what we do along the way? Well, what better way than drinking the demons away, huh?"
Sami smiled.
It was a wonderful advice, really.
And for some reason, it did make him feel better. Raising his own leather pouch, he joined Kenji in taking a long, burning swig.
They sat on the balcony while the streets below grew quiet, and kept drinking until both men eventually passed out.
***
...
..
.
"Wake up, guys!" Momoka shook Kenji, who was lying sprawled over the couch with his head dangling off the edge and one leg hooked awkwardly over the armrest.
He groaned and smacked his dry lips, but ended up wincing and turning his face into the cushion to block out the light, filtering in from the balcony.
Seeing that he was useless, Momoka frowned and quickly moved over to Sami, who lay stretched out on the floor a meter away.
"Just how much did you boys drink?!" she grumbled, nudging his shoulders with both hands.
Sami groaned. "Too loud. Why are you so loud this early in the morning?"
"Huh?" Momoka arched a brow and retorted with a lot of irritation. "It’s past 1pm!"
"Aish... I think my head is about to split open." Sami groaned and rolled over on his side, covering his ears with both hands.
The hangover from the Ogre’s Spleen Wine was terrible!
All Sami wanted right now was to just crawl into a tunnel and stay there.
However, for some reason, Momoka had an urgent expression on her face.
She continued to shake Sami, even giving his already aching head a sharp smack. "Wake up, silly! It’s urgent! There’s an Emergency Quest in ten minutes!"
At the mention of a Quest, both Sami and Kenji snapped their heads up. While one’s eyes were wide open, the other’s remained shut, yet both carried the exact same expression on their faces.
...What was it this time?!
Truth be told, Sami began to feel slightly upset. It was that feeling one would have when they were on their day off, and the boss suddenly calls them to turn up. Something about an emergency.
Sami barely had time to grumble before Momoka hurriedly pointed out at the sky through the open balcony door.
"Look!" she yelled.
But how could he? He was practically blind and confused.
Without wasting much time, he looked away from Momoka and muttered to himself under his breath. "I am perfectly fine."
...A few seconds later, not only could he see perfectly fine, but even his terrible hangover vanished instantly.
Pretending to still be miserable and out of it, Sami groaned as he pushed himself off the floor. He then stumbled over to the balcony with Momoka dragging him along by his forearm.
Even Kenji had somehow managed to pull himself off the couch and followed right behind them, his face pale as he rubbed his aching temples.
When they got outside, to their surprise, they saw that the massive blue screen that had filled the sky on the first day of the apocalypse had returned.
The wordings on the massive blue screen were ominous, filling everyone who looked at them with a sense of dread.
[Emergency Quest: A few Rank 5 to 7 Calamity Bridges have formed linking District 7 to the Outer Realms.]
[Protect the District, find the Hosts and destroy the Bridging Cards.]
[Time left until the invasion: 00:08:57]