1 A Hole In The Sky

A barely opened eyeball, drenched in blood, moved its retina around slowly with a sense of fear and confusion.

'It's cold...' Lance Reinhardt thought, his brain feeling as though it would shut off at any moment due to the excruciating pain throughout his entire body.

As he looked around his small apartment building that was completely ravaged and splattered with blood, he wondered just how all of this came to be.

Just a moment before, he was...

-Two hours earlier-

A boisterous-looking young man walked along the park path as he whistled to himself. He had a nonchalant expression and his hands in his pocket, yet his walk seemed confident and carefree.

He was wearing an old and techy watch on his wrist, slides without any socks, a pair of yellow shorts, and a simple blue shirt with a few symbols that could be seen on the back of it. The day was bright and blue, only the sun existed in the vast sky above him.

The trees and the grass were all lively and green, warm wind filling the air. "20 from cleaning the toilets, 10 from mowing the lawns, 30 from helping with the manual labor, and..." Lance began to count on his fingers.

"Only 5 from washing those dishes. Che! That cheap old bastard. If he had given me 10 like normal, I would have had this month's rent." He indulged in his anger for a few seconds longer before taking a deep breath and putting his hands back in his pockets.

"Well... I guess there's no other choice." A grim expression shadowed his face. "Since worst has come to worst, I will have to," He paused, not wanting to finish his sentence as if he was devastated, "not buy the next volume of One Piece this week." He said to himself with utter gloom as his shoulders quickly drooped in and his atmosphere changed to one of depression.

Lance soon came to a stop at a four-way intersection, where he continued to nonchalantly whistle to himself the tune of "We Are" as he waited for the sign to turn from a red hand telling him to stop, to a white figure walking.

He crossed this road every single day, and today wasn't any different. The traffic was the same as usual, slow and calm. Except, a few hundred meters away on this road was a different type of vehicle that swerved through the road at oddly fast speeds.

It was an old truck, one that was speeding through the road while revving its engine wildly as if to show off. The truck driver, who wasn't paying attention to how he was driving, was a young man in his late teen years with long black hair that covered half of his face.

He had several tattoos on his arms and was smoking a cigarette as he violently banged his head to the loud rock and roll beat that was playing in the car. In his cup holder could be seen an open bottle of half-drunk vodka.

This truck... made its way past Lance. He noticed how fast it was moving, turning his head to look at it as it disappeared into the distance. Nevertheless, he quickly shrugged it off and moved on, his light having turned to the pixelated walking man.

He soon returned to his two-room apartment that was in the city. It was an old, slightly run-down building that was 6 floors in total. He lived on the 6th floor, apartment number 56.

After taking off his slides, he reached into the cupboard, took out a bowl of instant ramen noodles, and poured in some hot tap water before putting it aside and going into his room.

He walked to a wooden box on the table beside his twin-sized bed and put the money he had earned that day inside of it through a small slit on the top. On the front side of the box was a label that read "One day."

His expression was somber, his eyelids loose and his inner eyebrows raised.

*♫♫♫!!!*

Loud music suddenly played from the other apartment next to Lance's, spooking him slightly and placing an annoyed expression on his face. The paper-thin walls always made it so that Lance could barely have peace of mind at home.

After heaving a heavy, exasperated sigh, Lance quickly straightened his posture, closed his eyes, and forced a grin on his face. All he could recall doing next was sitting around, waiting for it to reach midnight so that he could start his late-night shift at the local grocery store.

However, just as he was rereading the last edition of One Piece that he had bought the week prior, Lance suddenly felt a cold chill seep into his spine, sending shivers down his back.

Before he knew it, all the hairs on his body had erected straight, the air around him feeling far more hostile than before. In slight bewilderment, Lance slowly put down the manga and walked over to his window to see if he had closed it.

Even if his window had been open, there shouldn't have been a reason for such a cold feeling since, just an hour ago, the winds had been quite warm.

Nevertheless, he convinced himself that it might have been the open window that caused this sudden burst of cold air. On arriving at the window, he noted that it wasn't open. He took this opportunity to look out into the city, however.

His view was surprisingly good for such a crappy apartment. It was the thing he valued most about this place. He loved seeing things from high altitudes. It gave him a feeling of freedom and bliss, something that he always dreamed of.

Lance was orphaned from a young age. Not knowing anything about his family or his past, he was thrown headfirst into a world of crime. Due to this, high school was nothing but a distant dream, instead, his school was the streets.

Broken promises, lies, and odd jobs were his favorite subjects, mostly because they were the only ones he could attend. Although it sounded like a disaster, the street wasn't a horrible teacher.

It taught him how to survive on bare necessities, to count on only yourself, and to never stop fighting, even past your final breath. Still, this meant he had to stop pursuing his dreams from a young age.

Although this was true, Lance never called it giving up, because he hadn't. Still, to this day, he saved up cent by cent to one day start some sort of business and gain financial freedom.

Although it might have been a far-fetched dream or even pure delusion, he was adamant about pursuing it. That's just how ignorant he was.

If freedom from restrictions was his ultimate goal, then he knew that getting his finances up was his best shot at getting there, at least in this corrupted world...

'Ahhh- shit. These night shifts are probably making me hallucinate about the temperature... I guess I'll just sleep.' He thought to himself after looking out the window for a few seconds. However, just before he could turn away from the window, he suddenly noticed an odd shape far away in the distant sky.

A hole.

'A hole in the sky?' He thought to himself as he saw it, squinting his eyes to get a better look. Ever so slowly, something began to come out of the hole like it was floating.

Looking down onto the bustling city below, Lance noticed that several vehicles had stopped to take a look at the peculiar sight. News channel vans even pulled up before he knew it.

'Those bastards are always quick on the case.' Lance joked to himself.

*♫♫~~"BREAKING NEWS! Reports indicate that an odd floating object has just been seen coming down from a hole in the sky! In fact, if you live in the San Morino area, you very well may be able to see it outside of your home right now, folks! Currently, we have no intel on just what this object could be-"*

The TV in the other room switched from music to the news abruptly.

'Serves em' right.' Lance cheekily thought to himself but also kept note that this event was serious enough to warrant such action by the government.

After a minute went by, the thing coming out of the hole had fully revealed itself. It seemed to be the silhouette of a person, but it was too far away to distinguish.

As Lance looked on in awe and surprise, the voice from the newscaster in the other room sounded once again. "It's a-!" Shrieked the caster, but his voice quickly quieted into oblivion as though he was moving away from the microphone.

Lance heard this, along with several screams coming from apartment rooms near his. He didn't have a TV, so he had no idea what they were seeing. In the room next to his sat a fat man on the couch, only wearing a pair of boxers.

He was frozen in shock, all the hairs on his body erected. His eyes were wide as two planets, and his mouth was slightly agape.

"What in the world... is that?" A woman who stood behind the sofa said, staring at the TV, which showed a close-up of the figure in the sky.

...

*SLAM!*

The door to their room suddenly swung open as Lance quickly walked inside and faced the TV.

"Hey! What the hell do you think your doi-" The fat man spoke but was quickly cut off.

"Shut up fatso! This would be the end of the world for all we know." Lance said, still staring at the TV, his face now also showing shock.

'Is that... a demon?'