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When the apocalypse came upon the Earth, no one was prepared. There weren’t any warnings, no signs that anything was wrong until it was too late to prevent it from getting worse. The apocalypse wasn’t started by an incurable disease that turned everyone into zombies. It began when stars surrounding the planet began to die. The radiation from the constant supernovas tore holes in Earth’s ozone layer and reached the planet’s surface. Vegetation was destroyed and nuclear storms ravaged the land and seas. Humans were affected as well, some mutating uncontrollably into savage monsters while others changed internally, retaining their normal outward appearance. The apocalypse also brought upon an unnatural phenomenon when people died. The souls of the deceased could be seen leaving their host’s body, and people could even keep them in jars. Despite the lack of media to spread the news, it soon became common knowledge around the world that souls of the lost could be captured; they gave off eternal light that was rumored to burn brighter the more a person had loved in their life.
It wasn’t unusual to come across someone who never had anyone in their life to lose, who never had to own a soul jar, but Marco hadn’t expected to run into such a person after fleeing from a rabid mutant. He’d chosen to drop down a manhole on a whim that the sewer’s stench would mask his own scent. Once down there, with the glow of his soul jars dimmed from the outer material of his bag, he could barely make out the figure of another human. He edged forward, prepared to search through the pockets of what he thought was a corpse, until a foot connected with his gut, sending him reeling back. He caught a glint of metal and raised his hands, crouching down to appear less intimidating.
“Sorry,” he whispered, voice echoing slightly in the damp tunnel. “I thought you were dead.”
It was blunt, but true. His almost-victim didn’t have a soul jar with them, which added to his previous assumption that they were deceased.
“My name is Marco,” he offered, attempting to put his fellow survivor at ease.
“I’m Ēsu. You can call me Ace,” the other finally replied.
Marco relaxed and slowly settled onto the cold concrete, crossing his legs and slowly lowering his hands to his sides. Ace didn’t move from where he was sitting rigidly against the wall.
“Please point your gun at me if it helps you relax.” Marco knew he couldn’t die from being shot, anyway.
Ace jolted, as if he hadn’t expected to be spoken to again, but didn’t raise his weapon. Marco shrugged and pulled his bag off of his back, moving it to his lap and unzipping it. The sewer tunnel was suddenly lit up as if a portion of the sun had made an appearance. Marco gently moved around the jars in his bag, trying to search for the withered apples he had the fortune to find before the mutant tried to eat him.
“Are those soul jars?”
Ace’s voice was a lot closer than it had been before, and Marco looked up to see that his tunnel-mate had indeed closed the distance between them. Ace’s eyes were as dark as his hair and he had freckles on his face. If Marco had to guess, he’d say that Ace was of Brazilian descent, despite the Japanese origins of his name. It was quite a contrast to Marco’s own blond hair and blue eyes.
“How many of those do you have?” Ace asked, breaking Marco out of his mental cataloging of how different they were.
“Only twelve,” Marco said nonchalantly.
“Only?”
Marco had expected such a reaction. Not many survivors had more than four people to lose, if any, much less twelve. Marco had been traveling for a long time, and he lost his father and all eleven of his brothers on his journey. He knew he would, though. When the apocalypse hit ten years prior, he had ceased to age -- he was now twenty-nine and still retained the appearance of an older teenager -- and upon being injured, he healed through flames. His father had likened him to phoenix. “Phoenix Marco” had become a common nickname amongst his family, despite some teasing from his older brothers about his flames being the color of cerulean peacock feathers.
“Yeah. I have fourteen jars, but they’re not all holding souls.” Marco didn’t add that the empty jars were reserved for any friends he might gain and lose along his journey.
Ace looked intrigued. They spent hours talking about the apocalypse and Marco enjoyed being able to reminisce about his family with someone other than his own conscience. Because of the constant destruction of stars, it was never really night, but darkness still made it’s appearance when, behind the storm clouds, the sun was covered by the moon, so Marco closed his bag and set it between them as they went to sleep.
The next day, when he prepared to set out again, Ace requested to tag along. Marco readily agreed; he’d enjoyed the company after so long alone. They set off after splitting some food that Marco had come across. He knew none of the food was poisonous or harmful because he had thrown out whatever had made his heart stop or caused him to be sick beforehand. Only an hour into their journey, Ace’s stomach growled. Marco glanced over at him and was amused by the red hue that fought with freckles for attention on the young face.
“Sorry. I’ve got a big appetite.”
Marco wondered how that was possible with so little food available. Ace stuck his pinky in his ear, looking a little sheepish.
“Can we kill a mutant or something?”
Marco blanched for a moment, thinking Ace meant someone who’d received abnormal abilities like himself, but then he realized that the giant mutated monsters were the topic of conversation.
“They can be killed?”
Ace gave him a look that made him feel dumb, much like when he accidentally made a fool of himself in front of his family, but he’d honestly never tried to kill one of the beasts. He always ran, not wanting to risk one of his jars breaking.
“Well, yeah, that’s how I eat them.”
Marco shrugged and grumbled a little, which made his companion laugh while taking the lead. It didn’t take long to find a mutant, and it looked like the one that had chased Marco the night before. Of course, the mutants never looked very different from each other.
“Alright, watch and learn,” Ace boasted cockily.
Marco crossed his arm, waiting for Ace to drawn his gun, but the brunet just approached the deviant creature, whistling sharply to catch its attention. It turned away from where it was digging around in rubble and it roared, a loud noise that practically made the air vibrate. It charged for Ace and Marco tensed, prepared to drop his bag and save the dumb brat, but then Ace’s hands lit up with fire and he ducked into a crouch when the beast tried to bite him, grabbing its neck with his flaming hands and making it scream in a pitch that made Marco’s ears ring and his temple pound. Then the scream cut off abruptly and there was a loud thump as the creature toppled over, successfully decapitated. Ace turned to Marco, grinning, and lifted a hand that showed no signs of his ability except the flame that flickered atop his pointer finger, which he promptly blew out before tucking his finger into the waistband of his jeans, as if holstering a gun. Marco snorted at the ridiculous gesture, then shuffled in place, embarrassed at the childish reaction. It seemed to please Ace, though, as his grin grew wider.
“That’s cheating,” the older male pointed out as he joined his new companion.
“Is it?” Dark eyes flashed mischievously. “I’ll try to remember that next time.”
Ace decided to go gather materials for a fire while Marco was left with the task of cutting up the beast. He didn’t have a knife on him, so he took out one of his empty jars and walked a few steps away before smashing it against the ground. He picked up the largest shard of glass and returned to the carcass, gripping the glass tightly and ignoring the blood that ran down his arm as he jabbed it into the monster’s stomach and began the process of gutting it. By the time Ace had returned, arms loaded with more material than he should’ve been able to carry by himself, Marco had carved up the beast and his hands were free of their previous lacerations, the only proof being the blood along his arm and staining the blunt side of the shard. Fortunately Ace thought all of the blood came from their food and didn’t ask any questions. As much as Marco trusted Ace already, he wasn’t quite sure he wanted to reveal his own ability. With a warm fire and new company, Marco felt more content than he had in a long time. Not only did he have a full stomach, but he was in the company of his family and a friend.
“Ready to go?” he asked, standing.
Ace stood as well, kicking dirt onto the fire to put it out, and grinned. “Yep.”
For weeks afterwards, the duo fell into a routine. They’d wake up in the morning, hunt down a mutant to eat, then walk until nightfall. Sometimes, if Ace was particularly hungry, they’d have to get another mutant in the afternoon, but usually his “big appetite” was sated by a morning meal. It felt so normal, as if they weren’t living in a time where fearing for one’s life was the only way to survive. Marco felt the contentedness bloom into insurmountable feelings of joy, irritation, and love, emotions he hadn’t felt since the last of his brothers left him, and he should have known that it would end.
When winter arrived, three months since Ace joined Marco in his journey, it came in the form of fine grains of salt entwining with snowflakes that carved paths to the ground. The weather made Marco feel drained and exhausted and Ace seemed to be experiencing the same effects, practically falling asleep on his feet. They began hunting less and resting more often, usually beneath some sort of cover to regain their strength without the salt-snow mixture coming in contact with them. The last thing they wanted to do was wake beneath a pile of the concoction and be unable to dig themselves out.
“I bet this is what hibernating animals feel like,” Ace moaned as they traveled through a particularly thick storm of white. “Can we stop?”
The idea was tempting, but Marco just wrapped an arm around Ace’s shoulders to keep him walking when he began to falter.
“No, we have to find shelter, remember? Tell you what, if you can find us someplace dry and warm, then we can stop.”
Ace brightened up and it was almost as if he had his original energy back as he leapt out from beneath Marco’s arm and sprinted ahead. Marco continued his leisurely pace, grinning at his companion’s antics. That smile disappeared almost as swiftly as it had appeared when he heard a panicked scream coming from the same direction his freckled friend had vanished into, followed by scattered gunshots and a chilling, inhuman screech. Forcing his body out of its sluggish state, Marco ran towards the cries, heart pounding in his ears as jars clunked around in his bag. When the phoenix finally found Ace, it felt like his breath was wrangled out of his lungs. A mutant, larger than the ones they usually attempted to hunt, had him pinned to the ground. Ace was bleeding, something Marco had never seen before -- Ace’s abilities made him turn to flames when something pierced or came in contact with his body, leaving him unable to be injured in the first place. Marco reached into his pocket, fingers curling around the glass shard he’d kept from their first mutant kill together.
“Hey!” Marco yelled, trying to get its attention while attempting not look at the still, bloody mess his friend was becoming.
The beast turned its attention to him immediately, jaws smeared in Ace’s life essence. It let out a thunderous roar and charged for him. He was prepared, rolling to the side and coming up on one knee, stabbing the glass into the beast’s side. The shard was ripped from his hand as the monster turned to face him, clattering across the ground. Marco dove for it, but the mutant was faster, it’s claws digging into his stomach and chest and tearing an anguished wail from his throat as he was tossed aside. He landed on his back, lungs deflating once more. He could taste blood as he curled in on himself and coughed, waiting for the familiar flames to appear and take away the pain, but nothing happened. He was dizzy, bleeding, and too weak to move as the monster approached. As it raised a clawed hand, prepared to finish him off, he closed his eyes and awaited a demise he wasn’t prepared for. But instead of more pain, or the blissful abyss of death, he heard the beast gurgle and he was drenched in something warm and sticky. He opened his eyes and found the head of the mutant mere inches from himself, but it had been removed from its body, both of which were steaming in the cool air. Clenched tightly in Marco’s quaking hand was the glass shard.
Marco didn’t take the time to wonder how he managed to kill the beast as he tried to get to his feet. When he tried to straighten, the deep punctures in his torso throbbed in unison, giving him a painful reminder that he wasn’t healing. He settled for pulling himself across the ground on his hands and knees, locking his elbows so his trembling arms wouldn’t give out from underneath him. He didn’t care for his glass shard, which had slid out of his bloodied hand, or the possibility of his own death. He could see Ace, and he knew that Ace was dead because there was a shimmering orb of light rising from his chest. It hovered above the gaping wound inflicted by the monster, lighting up the world as if it were a supernova. It was brighter than any soul Marco had ever encountered, including those of his own family members, and as he reached his friend’s body, he pulled his bag off of his back. He opened it and removed an empty jar. With trembling hands, he unscrewed the top and lifted the glass until the soul was within its waxy confines. The jar was almost too small to contain it, but it did, and Marco closed it before clutching it to his chest. Tears cascaded down his cheeks, leaving rough patches for the brisk winter air to abuse. He cried himself dry before he could move, and by then his joints were stiff from the cold. He pulled himself together as he closed his backpack, put it on his back, and gathered up Ace’s soul jar before forcing himself to his feet and stumbling forward to find a place out of the salt-snow where he could mourn himself to sleep.
It took months for the winter to end, and when it finally did, the scars that’d accumulated from the mutant’s attack, as well as from beasts he faced afterwards, burst into sapphire flames and left his skin unblemished, as if nothing had changed since he began his journey. Except things had changed. As if Ace’s death had triggered some sort of cataclysm, as soon as winter finished its course, grass, seedlings, and vegetation that hadn’t been seen since the beginning of the apocalypse began to make a reappearance. Clouds came and went in cycles rather than dominating the sky, and the sun warmed the Earth once more. Nights were dark, dotted with stars too far away to cause as much damage as the previous dying stars had and the silvery moon. Marco started traveling primarily at night as more and more non-mutant people began to make a reappearance.
During one of these travels, he encountered two other nocturnal survivors, a red-haired man who was missing his left arm and a young boy, not much younger than Ace had been, whose face was marred by a scar beneath his left eye. The boy was carrying one soul jar while the man had three.
“Hi, stranger,” the redhead greeted, hand resting on the hilt of a sword sheathed at his right hip. “I’m Shanks.”
Before Marco could tell him to go about his own business, the boy was speaking up.
“Whoa, that’s a bright soul jar!” he exclaimed, focusing on the jar that was tied to Marco’s hip, providing an almost daylight-like light.
“Luffy,” Shanks said in a warning tone.
“Is that the brightest soul in the world?” the young teen asked, eyes bright with curiosity as he looked up at Marco.
Marco was abruptly reminded of how Ace had looked upon seeing his family’s soul jar, and he recalled the rumor his father had overheard, about how souls glowed brighter the more a person had loved in their life. He remembered how mistrustful Ace had been upon their first meeting, and how much he had changed during their time together. Marco couldn’t stop a small smile from spreading, erasing the previous indifferent expression he’d gotten used to wearing.
“Yeah,” he mumbled, watching Luffy’s face brighten with amazement. “His name was Ace. He lived with no regrets, and he loved so much that he had some to spare, and it went to the world.”