He fell fast asleep, but this time he wasn't plagued by nightmares, he was tasting a sweet paradise-like dream.
Cale felt truly at peace, as if all the nightmares he had been subjected to beforehand were all meaningless.
Right now he sat at a park, hands rummaging through the large pockets of his cargo pants that held of the search, his phone. Cale didn't know why the impulsive desire to take a sudden look at the phone urged him to do it
Currently, his mind was foggy, a certain ringing resounding continuously in his head.
[11:15] AM
The time was the first thing he laid his eyes on, the second thing that Cale's eyes lingered on was.
[September 13 2025]
The date was strange to him, it didn't feel like it made any sense.
But he just couldn't pinpoint exactly what was so strange about it.
Raising his head, he saw two familiar figures side by side.
"That swing is pretty huge"
"I think it's called a Bird's Nest Swing?"
"...That must be like, the most random thing you could remember or even have knowledge of Gabriel"
Catrina glanced at Gabriel. Brows knitting together with the help of a transparent needle
"I know some things~"
Gabriel crossed his arms together
"Weirdo"
"You are more weird"
"Name one thing that is weird about me, brat"
"No"
Catrina raised an eyebrow.
"Why not?"
"Because you'll hit me if I am honest-"
Thud!
"Ow!"
A soccer kick in the calf stunned and shut him up completely. Gabriel winced in pain, clutching his leg that felt worse than getting a cramp, as more time passed, the more painful it got. It was surprising for a girl so small in height, could pack a kick that would make any grown adult feel the urge to sob
'Guess smaller does equal stronger..'
Cale absentmindedly commented, he felt the kick himself once and knew it hurt a lot
"What did you do that for!"
"I just really wanted to kick you for some reason, it isn't anything personal~"
"Liar! That hurt!"
Catrina turned her head and faced Gabriel, she flashed a brilliant Innocent smile.
"..."
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing..."
Gabriel submissively answered the Innocent Catrina, 'Why is she so violent...' He muttered under his breath.
"I heard that"
"It must be your Imagination"
"..."
Both Catrina and Gabriel turned silent, they looked at the swing ahead of them.
"Who's going on it first?"
Catrina broke the silence first and asked Gabriel.
"What's with the sudden change in subject...I heard that they say ladies first, so you go. I'm a gentleman who knows when to be polite"
"I'm pretty generous today, so you go first"
"No I insist you go first"
"I object"
"I object to your objection"
"I request an appeal"
"Denied"
"I request the judge to be investigated for bribe then"
"That's illegal"
"Then bribing is legal is what you're saying?"
"Never said anything of the sorts"
They both went back and forth with each other, stuck in a never ending cycle
Cale looked at them and narrowed his brows tightly together.
'Why are they even bickering?'
He got up from the bench and walked towards them, trying to attempt a ceasefire
"Hey hey, how about you guys decide with a match of Rock, Paper, Scissor-"
"...?"
Cale stopped himself from talking any further, he looked at them both, and there he saw disgusting grins that would make even the devil shudder back and consider making an expansion for Hell.
"He's perfect, right Gabriel?"
"Yeah, he is Catrina"
'Wait, what? Weren't they just bickering with each other???'
He took a brisk step back, they both in sync took a step forward.
'Why did they suddenly decide to gang up on me!'
"It's only painful at the start"
"Don't worry we'll be gentle with you, trust us"
'Yeah right!'
An attempt to de escalate the inclining situation that would inevitably make Cale the victim of their shenanigans
"Listen we don't have to do th-"
"Gabriel. I choose you!!! Go get him!"
"Shit!"
Cale twisted his body around and started sprinting, running as far away as his feet possibly could let him go, but that wasn't enough.
"Hah Ha Ha!"
He took one look behind and saw his eventual demise coming to bloom early
"!!!"
Gabriel ran like a professional athlete, and was closing the distance between Cale and him with each stride that was taken, causing more hope to fade and the urge to scream out want to be taken out on a dog walk
"You're too slow!"
'Why is he so fast!'
Grab!
Inevitably
"Gotcha"
Cale was captured
"Let go!"
"I won't"
"Come on Gabriel, we're friends aren't we? you wouldn't do this to me right?"
Gabriel ignored the desperate pleas and kept dragging Cale back to Catrina the boss of this operation.
"Good work Gabriel. I forgive you for your previous remarks"
"Kuk"
Gabriel chuckled, he stared back, his grin became even more disgusting when looking at the innocent man he caught.
"Kek"
Catrina covered her mouth, barely containing her laughter.
"What are you going to even do to me?"
While Cale didn't want to be their plaything waiting to be teased, there wasn't really anything they could really do to him in hindsight
"You will see Cale, be patient~"
Catrina started to drag the caught Cale to the bird's nest swing.
"What?"
Now he realized what they were trying to do.
"Don't tell me you actually think something like a swing can scare me"
He scoffed and shrugged
Cale may not be someone with nerves of steel, but he knew for a fact that a simple swing wouldn't be enough to scare him.
"Oh we know, that's why we have 'tools' for that"
"..?"
'Tools? What tools?'
"Kuku, this is going to be fun"
Catrina and Gabriel laid him down on the swing. The scene reminiscent of a surgeon settling over a patient on the table
In all of this. Cale didn't resist, not because he couldn't, but because he was slightly curious for what they had in store for him.
'Plus, this isn't going to kill me. I mean, what is the worst they can do, tickle me while I was in the swing or something?'
"Ok start pushing him, we have to make this a memorable experience"
They in-fact, had things worse than what Cale imagined, especially Catrina who kept bursting in wealthy laughter like a baboon
Truly a goddamn adorable second-rate villain, though to Cale, her 'creativity' needed to be restrained in his opinion
***
Wobble~
'Wh-What did I just experience?'
He was completely flabbergasted, his entire body still shook like a leaf from what Gabriel and Catrina had done to him.
"Come on It wasn't that bad~"
Catrina said from the side as a support column
For context. Cale asked if he could use her as support In order to not fall, she agreed saying she felt slightly guilty.
'How could they make something like a swing terrifying?'
That took true skill to accomplish.
Gabriel turned and faced him.
"So should we go watch the movie? In half an hour it's going to start"
'I completely forgot about that...'
Being dragged around like a doll for almost two hours was exhausting on his already for some unknown reason fatigued mind, yet the time that passed was swift like the wind breezing by
"Yeah we should, I mean the movie was the only reason I came out in the first place and why I told you two if you wanted to come and tag along"
'It also would've been a waste of money since I went ahead and bought the ticket'
And that's what the trio did, they didn't stop anywhere and headed in a straight beeline for the cinema
At that point. Cale also could walk with no problems so he stopped leaning towards Catrina for support
'When will I stop being pathetic...'
He thought deeply to himself, but he didn't know...why he cared about something so nonsensical
No, it.. wasn't him that spoke in his mind, it was someone else, entirely someone else different
'I will die' A whisper rang out constantly
His foggy mind had cleared, though still somewhat foggy. He at least knew of this fact very well. But not the why
'If such people were in my situation, they wouldn't struggle, they wouldn't even be able to understand why I struggle so much'
Another whisper rang out, this time sounding more intelligent and precise
'I don't blame myself for being pathetic, I understand myself better than everyone that I can't help but be pathetic at the beginning'
Yet another one arose, more condescending than the rest
'The problem was I never improved, I did improve slightly but it was too small of a gain to do anything, I stayed pathetic but I also wondered'
This one filled with melancholy but for some reason glitched and cut abruptly off
'Could I truly blame myself for staying pathetic to the bitter end of this pointless journey for survival?'
It statically started up like a faulty radio, this time a more philosophical stance was taken
'I was normal-No I was below the average, I was just a human with the ability to sense imminent danger to my life, that is all I have and will possibly ever have'
It stopped, slowly fading into nothingness but one last whisper was made, like a radio on its last hind legs
'Even when trading my life to at least bring it all down with me, it failed miserably. Even the point of...my insight betrayed my nature and became useless'
The small whisper kept dragging its words, even though it felt like their life was about to get snuffed
'I'm sorry, even though so much was sacrificed. I-'
"Ah we're here!"
The whisper finally died off, killed off by the sudden words spoken by Catrina
'That felt slightly weird, wait...what exactly felt weird?'
As if erased from the world itself manually, any certain creeping unease slowly dissipated but it still lingered, the words still lingered but they felt scrambled and misplaced, as if someone were encrypting them
"Well what are we waiting for it's going to start if we just wait here!"
Gabriel sighed and then followed Catrina into the cinema. Cale following slowly from behind
The group walked to the counter, there were many people so they had to wait in line, to have them painfully wait for them to check their tickets
"This is going to take a while"
Cale muttered under his breath, normally it wouldn't take so long, but apparently someone in the front was making a scene, so it took longer for them to enter the theatre, and when they did enter
"Where is our seat...."
Gabriel looked around to find the reserved seat.
A big number on Cale's phone sat at the top, in bold
B28
"Ah found it, it's over there"
Catrina pointed at the seat in the far back
"You can see that?
'That's surprising?'
"Yeah I can~"
Catrina said this nonchalantly as if it weren't a big deal, but both Cale and Gabriel knew she liked being complimented more than anyone
"Aha! So I'm in the middle one!" She raised her hand which was holding her phone which had a cute chibi panda-phone cover eating bamboo
They took their seats. Catrina in the middle. Cale was on the right, at the edge while Gabriel was on the left.
Around 20 minutes had passed before the movie finally started.
"Is it finally starting?"
"Took them long enough"
Other people who came to watch the movie complained, but the complaints quickly died down when the movie started.
"...?"
But there was nothing playing
'A black screen? don't tell me they have maintenance issues again'
Everyone waited again for another 30 minutes, the silence pressing deeply. Cale was patient, after all he really wanted to see the movie since it was his all time favorite movie in the franchise.
But the situation made no sense...
Clap!
Clap!
Clap!
Clap!
"This is incredible!"
"How can a movie be so moving?"
Every single living creature in the theater was clapping their hands, many of which were even crying, all of their words held only praise for the nonexistent movie in front of them.
"What is-"
"This is a masterpiece Cale! I can't believe it! Sniffle"
Catrina next to him stood up from her seat clapping her hands so hard they started to swell red, she was crying tears of joy. Her smile stretching so wide it tore the skin of her cheeks
Gabriel was no different, he was blowing his nose, tears kept streaming down his face.
Hic
He even started having hiccups.
"..."
Cale was a movie enthusiast, but even he wouldn't be like this.
'No, this...doesn't make any-'
He tried getting up. But before he could even finish his sentence
Buzz
Something that eerily sounded close to a buzzing sound a mosquito would make resounded in the theatre.
The sound screeched wildly in his mind, a splitting headache followed suit.
Cale clutched his spinning head in pain, eyes widened at what could be seen on the screen.
"I-Is that..."
His voice cracked
"Me?"
He saw himself on the glitching screen, leaning on the wall, clutching his stomach that kept pouring blood out.
The entirety of his body was riddled with gaping holes, face barely recognizable with all the blood that was stuck to it like glue.
Then he felt a certain sense of fear hold him in place, looking at the being that resembled 'Cale'-no to be more precise at his eyes.
They looked straight at him. It ignored every single being in the theater and only looked at him, the pupils were dilated and filled with a swirling abyss, an abyss so intense It threatened to swallow him whole.
Cale gulped, mouth turning dry and heart beating loudly, but he kept observing 'Cale' and took in everything that his eyes could catch on the screen.
The 'Cale' in the screen wore a black cloak with an intricate silver symbol on it, it also wore a Impeccable beautiful black suit with silver patterns decorating it all over under the cloak and his hands were donned with black gloves with the same intricate silver symbol as the cloak.
Any other detail couldn't be caught besides that, because.
Shaaaaa~
'Cale' turned into ash, his entire body, his cloak, his suit and gloves all turned to ash, not a single thing remained of him and his surroundings also turned to ash along with him.
Before the 'Cale' on the screen completely disappeared, he saw it. In his lifeless eyes regained a glint of hope and his lips parted into a smile, but even that smile turned to dust along with the screen.
And that is also when everything was consumed by an eerily gentle darkness.