Chapter Text
The sun hung in the sky; the buildings stood tall and proud on the ground; the trees swung with the wind; people roamed in the street.
It was loud yet quiet…
Though cars raced the roads and people rushed the streets, the usual chirps of birds and barks of dogs were silent; Though ads played on the screen and music filled the square, the usual howls of winds and cool breeze were absent.
It was peaceful, yet it brought no peace to the heart.
The people were thriving but the world was holding its breath…
Waiting for the storm.
When it finally let out its breath, terror bestow the world as the sky was suddenly engulfed by darkness, drowned in a black darker than midnight, death rained from the heavens in the forms of obsidian feathers, fluttering in the air with all the elegance in the world, steadily floating down, slow-dancing their way to the earth.
No one knew what was happening as they looked to the sky, finally stopping in their footsteps. Some were fascinated, some were fearful, and some were curious, but confusion was present on everyone’s faces.
The real dread came when the feathers touched the ground. Every surface the feathers touched started to wither, be it concrete, metal, wood, or… flesh.
The withering was slow, turning everything to dust layer by layer. And everything that was unfortunately out in the open was withered away by the feathers as they covered every inch of the earth.
Before anyone could react, black had already surrounded everything, and no one could escape their deadly touch.
The withering was cruel as it ate their way in bit by bit, at first it was just their clothes, but when it touches their skin, the agony begins, though the feathers are as soft as clouds, they consume everything they touch, and pain surges as the withering continues to eat it’s way to their bone.
It only lasted a minute, but for the world, the suffering lasted for an eternity.
The sun hung high in the pitch black sky; the buildings crumbled to the ground as bricks and concrete withered; the trees decayed as leaves disintegrated into dust; people, at last, lay still as bones, blood and flesh filled the streets.
It was now quiet.
The once lively city was now painted in black and crimson. Black roses started to bloom on the unmoving corpses and together, they formed a garden of the dead. Black petals, although blossomed in blood, were not tainted by any filth.
In the middle of it all stood a young man.
Aside from the now nonexistent backpack that he raised above his head and bits of his clothes, he was unscathed.
He stood there, frozen, eyes wide, hands shaken. His mind was running a thousand miles per second as he played back to the scene where everything turned dark, to the hundreds of agonising faces, to the outstretched hands, to the deafening screams.
Guess he finally knew what his power was.