The Observer - Prologue (Unedited)

March 21^st, 20XX.

The moonlight dimly lit the street late into the night. Noises made by animals scavenging food nearby were heard by a man that treaded the empty street by himself. His eyes blankly looked straight ahead. The man was deeply lost in his own thoughts, mostly within regret and despair.

After a few minutes, he arrived at the gate of a shoddy apartment. He opened the rusty gate along with a loud squeak. He closed it again, and went up the stairs, to the floor on which his room was located on. His eyes that were unfocused immediately found a target to focus on when he arrived at his apartment room’s floor. There was a man, standing silently in front of his room’s door while writing down things into a note which he held on his left hand.

He could roughly guess who the man is, as there was only one person who knew where he lived now. He walked up to the man while thinking of the possible reasons why he might be here.

The man turned his head and greeted while waving his hand, “Arkhad!”

“What are you doing here, Arc?” Arkhad asked coldly.

Today was not a good day for him already, and he didn’t want another problem to be stacked on top of it.

Arc visibly waited a few moments before replying, “I ran away from home. I’ve decided. I don’t want to be with them any longer.”

And those sentences finally triggered his restrained emotions. His tired eyes opened up wide as anger rose up within him.

“Do you know what have you done? You had just abandoned your own future! Do you want to end up like me?”

“I know, however- “

“No damned reasons! You just have to endure a little bit more! You should’ve seen how much I regretted my decision! You- “

“Listen to me!” Arc shouted.

After a moment of silence, they both took a breath and Arc continued.

“I know that I would also be regretting this decision, if the world would remain as we knew.”

Arkhad couldn’t help but let his mouth hanged open.

“It might sound hard to believe, but it is true. The world we knew will change. No, everything will change. I’ve gone through it time and again. And now I’ve decided that I’m fed up with them, that I will try to start anew, without them. Maybe now, the future would change.”

Arkhad smiled wryly and opened the door to his room.

“Come in,” a weak voice came from him.

Arc observed his behavior for a while, then sighed and came in.

Arkhad rummaged through one of the cardboard boxes stacked on the corner of his room and took out a backpack.

“I’m going out for a bit.”

As Arkhad opened the door, Arc was about to ask whether he could come, but he rejected his own idea immediately. He knew his brother very well, and the time it takes to digest what he had just said. He decided to let him go alone but warned him.

“Please, I beg you. Don’t go for too long. The Wave will come shortly.”

Arkhad turned his head and nodded lightly. He went outside and closed the door. The complicated combinations of emotions he experienced within this short time frame were more than that of the whole day, making him tired way beyond the time before he arrived at his apartment.

There were only two reasons that made him chose to call the shoddy apartment home. One, it has one of the cheapest rental prices he could find. Two, it is relatively near to a place where he could do what he likes the most and relax his mind.

It was a nearby hill that was still a green patch of land, with trees up north to it. The cold night breeze brushed against Arkhad’s skin as he took a long breath of fresh air. Then, he sat down on the peak of the hill and opened his old backpack.

From within, he retrieved a binocular. By the dirty and old appearance it has, one can conclude that it hadn’t been used for a long time, unlike the other binocular located at his home. The binocular was carefully put on the ground, and Arkhad took out another item from his backpack.

It was a photo album that was in the same condition as the binocular. On its cover that was full of a child’s doodle, the title “My Family”, could be found with a smile drawn right next to it. Slowly, the album's pages were turned, each picture absorbed into his mind. Weirdly, there were black splotches on top of every picture that has a couple of adults in it that covered their faces. In other places, it was torn, and others had a burn mark on it.

The last picture was that of a four-membered family, all smiling happily while one of the identical young men held a binocular in his hand and the other holding a brand new looking smartphone. In the background, a “Happy Graduation!” banner was hanged. But still, like any other pictures, the faces of the middle-aged couple was decorated with a black splotch.

“If only you guys actually changed,” muttered Arkhad.

He finally closed the book, reminisced of the past. The time when his family was still together.

“Though, I wonder whether there was such a time where my family isn’t drifting apart,” he thought to himself.

He picked the binocular that was lying on the ground, and through it, observed the sky. Sadly, the city was too bright to observe something far away clearly, so he turned his eyes into the moon and appreciated its beauty.

He relaxed and thought of the matter regarding his little brother.

“Just why did he left home? If only he didn’t, he would’ve been able to achieve what he wanted. It isn’t anything like him to just go away from something he committed himself to. He had vowed it himself, that he would refrain from escaping, all for the greater good. I admired him because he is actually able to do that while I ran away, leaving him alone within a home that would only hurt you the more time you’re in. He had done great for the past years, so why now? Why leave now, when all is nearly within reach?”

Then, he remembered the thing about The Wave that his brother had said.

Arkhad flinched and muttered, “Eh, maybe I shouldn’t be too hard on him.”

After that, he looked at the clock on his smartphone and decided to go home, considering that his brother had said to not go out for too long. He packed everything back again, his mind thinking that his brother might need him for certain reasons, which he guessed to be relating to psychology.

As he stood up hurriedly, he noticed something in the sky. He scrutinized the spot where he saw it, while his hands opened up the backpack again. He took out his binocular and observed the abnormality from it.

Now that he could see it more clearly, it looked like a transparent bubble that distorted the space near it. It was incredibly unstable, ripples moving on its surface and it was compressing itself.

He kept on observing it until the bubble had the size of a marble. It became a perfectly still sphere, the violent ripples no longer covering its surface.

After a few moments, a white ring of something slowly expanded from its center. The moment it hits the sphere’s surface, it disappeared, producing an otherworldly ringing.

Arkhad knew something was not right the moment he heard the ominous sound and felt the shivers that went down his spine. His curiosity made him watch the sphere for a second more, disregarding his instinct that screamed for him to run away.

It grew exponentially in size but retained the shape of a perfect sphere. The moment it increased its size, Arkhad noticed that the thing was relatively near, not something on the outer space.

And so, he ran as fast as he could. But the sphere’s growth in size was ever-increasing. Soon, he felt an impact on his back that pushed him to the ground. The pressure was so tremendous that he couldn’t move any part of his body, pinning him into the ground. The sphere was squashing him.

His panicking mind found some rest when he saw a figure running up to him. A familiar figure that he always admired, Arc.

“Arkhad!” he shouted.

All Arkhad can do was to use all the energy in his body to make a smile and said a word that wasn’t truly said.

“Sorry.”

The pressure finally overwhelmed him, and he felt his body being swept up by water that made his body cold as if he went to the outer space without any gear. Then, everything disappears.