Chapter Text
"To live without hope is to cease to live." - Dostoevsky
Somewhere within Hollow Zero...
The perpetually overcast sky of the hollow muted the colors of everything below it - the once vibrant, bustling streets of Eridu now reduced to a desolate, colorless wasteland. The square sat abandoned to the elements, once a place where crowds of people shopping and chatting could be found at any time of the day, now even the mosquitoes were absent.
A small squad of armored soldiers made their way cautiously across the weathered, cracked concrete tiles, hugging the walls of the abandoned buildings as they crossed, their suits laden with high tech equipment, high-end rifles in hand trained on corners ahead and windows above.
“Advance slowly, cover each other, we're not out of the woods yet – remember, we've got precious cargo with us. Ethereals aren't the only things we have to worry about, now.” The squad leader reminded.
“Yeah, careful not to fall on your ass, Martinez, that's your paycheck you have on our back.” A soldier cracked to one that had a large case slung over his back.
“Can the chatter, Daniels.”
At the edge of the hollow in a small encampment, a figure sat hunched over a laptop, his eyes fixated intently on the screens showing the feed from the team's helmet cams.
The air grew tense and quiet as the team continued to carefully advance along.
Suddenly,
“Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“...Something's out there!”
Garbled static suddenly filled the feeds on the laptop's display.
“Shit! Open fire! Open Fire!”
“We've got a man down!”
“Where the hell did they come from?! There's too many of them!”
“Holy sh-!”
Overlapped panicked cries filled the comms before they went silent, one by one the helmet cameras lost signal, the man at the laptop tensed. “Come in! Sergeant Lansing, report your status!...Come on, talk to me!...I'm not getting anything here!...Daniels? Martinez? Marcus? Damn it, somebody answer me! Is anybody alive out there? Come in!...”
Minutes passed with nothing but dead silence in reply. The Proxy folded his laptop with a frustrated sigh, and made his way to the nearby fissure leading out of the hollow.
Once outside, where communication with the outside world was possible, he quickly established a comm-link. “Sir...The retrieval team has flatlined. They'd retrieved the cargo and were on route to the exchange before they were attacked.”
A disapproving grunt sounded on the other end of the line. “How soon can our people get there?”
“Hours away, and they aren't prepped to venture beyond the border of the Hollow, it may take some time.”
“That's no good, we need that cargo secured, pronto. Do we have any other assets close to their last known position? Anything we've got – anything...”
HIA Post Lima, Hollow Zero Perimeter
“Deadly anomalies, dangerous ethereals, fanatics, and bandits – none of them will stop the HIA on its triumphant march towards saving the planet! The world fears the Hollow's expansion, join the HIA, and protect the innocent!”
Even inside the tent, The blaring loudspeaker pounded the ears of the man leaned back in the chair, his head lulled over onto his shoulder as he gradually returned to consciousness.
Why do they blare this -inside- the outpost? We're all here because we're working in the Hollow in one way or another... He questioned in his mind.
His blue eyes gradually slid open, and with a grunt, the light-brown haired man sat himself up. His appearance was haggard, his hair shaggy, an unkempt stubble on his face that was well outside of the NEDF's grooming regulations - but it had been years since he had to care about any of that. Now, for better or worse, none of the people in this outpost paid him much mind at all. He was an independent, one of the guys you call when you didn't have enough bodies to throw at a problem, you needed something done off the books, or the prim and proper professionals were simply too expensive to waste.
As the loudspeaker finished its intermittent blasts of propaganda, his head continued to pound. Looks like the hangover was setting in. Glancing around the empty tent, he discretely pulled out a flask from a pocket in his fatigues, taking a quick gulp before shoving it back out of view.
It was then that his PDA began to chime - a special notification sound that dictated that the commission coming his way wasn't HIA sanctioned, though anybody contacting him directly would have had to be in dire straits to do so. Most of his commissions were ones he had to take the initiative in finding.
He let out another grunt, closing his eyes to take a few more seconds to reorient himself as the PDA continued to blare. "Yeah, yeah, I hear you..."
A few minutes later...
The entrance to the hollow loomed over him as he approached the cordon, just as he had innumerable times before. The duo of soldiers guarding the gate moved up to him, one extending his palm while the other clutched his rifle, but both quickly stood down as he produced his permit, giving an affirmative nod and motioning for him to continue forward.
As he moved closer to the Hollow's border, he checked his equipment one last time. His semi-automatic shotgun dangled from its sling over an armored vest that had been thrown on over his tan fatigues, a sidearm sat secured in a holster on his thigh.
With everything present and accounted for, he flicked on his radio. "This is Independent Investigator Alan Yeung. I have arrived at the entrance to the Hollow."
"Copy. Carrot data has been forwarded, proceed to the target coordinates, secure the container, and bring it to the exchange location. Out." A voice replied on the other end as his PDA chimed, a route through the hollow downloaded to the map.
Grabbing the full face gas mask off his belt, he slipped it on over his head - a necessary precaution with his only moderately above average Ether Aptitude, and stepped inside beyond the border.
The blinding purple light vanished in an instant, dissipating into particles as he crossed the threshold, the gargantuan sphere enveloping the area now completely gone, even the wall behind him had given way to open air, the cordon replaced with the same scene of barren buildings and desolate streets that surrounded him.
Of course, everybody knew what a Hollow was, at this point. They had swallowed everything outside the city, and after all of this time since the initial disaster, there had been no contact with anybody beyond that impenetrable outer ring. The people of New Eridu may very well be the last remnants of humanity on earth, the sprawling megacity the last bastion of an immense world that humankind was once the masters of, gigantic cities of glass and steel just like Eridu dotted all corners of the planet, humans crossed the oceans at will, conquered the skies, and had even made it to the surface of the moon. The most idealistic and stubborn cherished a dream where one day the Hollows could be eradicated, that one day they can reach beyond the walls of this concrete tomb and live the lives that their ancestors did, while others had resigned themselves to a world without a tomorrow, where the last ember of intelligent life on the planet could be snuffed out in an instant. Most people, however, just carried on with their lives, focusing on their own trivial worries while subconsciously avoiding casting their gaze upon the spheres dotting the horizon - they chose not to think about it, in their minds, as long as they didn't, it could never happen.
Alan had, for the most part, just focused on getting through the days as they came, only caring about the things he could control, and the only things he could control these days were whether or not he had a bed to sleep in, food on the table, and liquor in his cabinet, and even those were prone to a stroke of bad luck.
The reward for this commission was generous, if he was doing better financially, he might have casted a sideways glance at just how generous it was for a simple recovery job, but he had been down on his luck as far as commissions went, and the rent was close to due and very much not going to pay itself.
Old Eridu spanned out before him, the outer perimeter of the hollow still recognizable as the city he once walked years and years ago compared to the anomalous heap the inner areas were. Of course, this sector of the Hollow was far and away from anywhere familiar to him from that time, and that was the way he liked it, why he chose a backwater outpost like Lima. To him, this was just another concrete jungle, and just another job. He wasn't here to confront bad memories, he was merely here as any of the other Scavengers, Trespassers, Adventurers, Loners, Killers, Explorers, and Robbers that ventured inside, in search of valuable artifacts, smuggling contraband, or hiding out from the law.
He cautiously made his way through the dead city towards the target coordinates, his shotgun clutched in his hands, his gaze darting alertly as he hugged the side of the streets to minimize his profile. It was dead silent, as it normally was inside of a hollow, maddeningly so to the uninitiated, the only sounds audible to him were his footsteps and the sound of his breathing through the mask's filter.
The sound of garbled hissing suddenly sounded from a nearby alley. Alan trained the sight on the corner as he crept along, hugging the far end of the street. A trio of Tyrfings came into view, standing dormant, backs to him. He continued to inch along slowly, the shotgun's red dot not leaving them until he had crossed to the other end, out of view. They weren't his problem, no need to make them his, and there was no telling how many more of them would come running if he fired his gun out here.
Slowly, carefully, he approached the target area. He didn't need to check his PDA to know that he was getting close.
A massive streak of dark red painted the grey tiles, leading up to the bisected torso of an armored soldier.
Alan raised his shotgun, tensely gripping the stock as he slowly rounded the corner into the foggy square. More bodies lay strewn about, dismembered and mutilated. Another trail of blood lead through the broken window of a storefront. His eyes scanned the opposite corners of the square, the only sound that of his breathing through his mask. He leaned his gun into the abandoned storefront, the flashlight clicking on as he did a quick sweep of the inside.
The broken glass crunched under his feet as he moved inside, following the trail behind the counter.
Unsurprisingly, the source lay dead, slumped against the wall, his stomach slashed open by something powerful enough to cleave right through his plating. Alan took note of his equipment - top of the line stuff, well above the grade of NEDF regulars. This guys were some kind of special task force. Slung around the back of his torso was a long specialized container, the package he had been sent to recover. This was no doubt the work of Ethereals, Raiders would have taken the container and helped themselves to anything else on their bodies. As for what it contained, it was none of his business. Rule 3 - Never look in the package.
Alan turned back, training his gun on the entrance as he knelt down. His face grimaced beneath the mask as he tried to work the sling strap out of the wound it had fallen into.
"Eugh..." He grunted, the squelching sound of the strap being freed turned his own stomach, the sling coated in a layer of blood and bile.
At least he couldn't smell it with the gas mask on...
Slinging it over his shoulder, he made his way back to the entrance, peaking out cautiously before briskly jogging off out of the square.
The route to the exchange was to take him to a different exit to the Hollow, no doubt a more discrete location away from the eyes of any of the outposts. The way so far had been clear of Ethereals, but it wasn't long before he ran into a road that had been blocked by rubble. The carrot's path had him going down into a nearby Metro station to bypass it.
"...Shit." Alan grunted out quietly.
He had come this far, and the money was too good to say no to. As for just making off with the package himself, there was no telling who that would piss off, what would happen to his reputation, and if he'd even be able to find a buyer willing to move the merchandise for him, assuming it had any actual value beyond sentimental value, it could be too hot to fence, or too esoteric to get an accurate appraisal for.
He had to go in.
Slowly, he descended the stairs. The Metro was pitch black, the last light had gone out long since the exodus, the mounted light on his shotgun swept the station as he crept inside. Finding the platform clear, he reluctantly dropped down onto the tracks.
He had never liked these tunnels, and the stories he had heard about them only reinforced his paranoia. Pushing out the fears of his carrot data being wrong and being condemned to wander an endless maze of tunnels for all of eternity, he pressed onwards, his flashlight scanning from side to side.
Eventually the path led him to a maintenance access door. The door's hinges creaked as he slowly shoved it open into the maintenance passage. Once again pitch darkness awaited him as he slowly moved forward.
An Ethereal suddenly lurched from the blackness, shoulder checking Alan and knocking him on his back. The Ethereal speared its 'arm' forward, the blade on a collision course with his torso. Alan deflected the blade with his gun, sending it into the concrete floor instead. His boot slammed into the Tryfing's collar, sending it stumbling backwards. The Ethereal roared out a garbled howl from its core as it regained its balanced, its collar petaling outwards as it postured aggressively. The sights of Alan's shotgun snapped to its exposed core, he squeezed the trigger.
The blast of his shotgun deafeningly resounded through the tunnel, the Etheral's core burst apart in an instant, its body began to disintegrate as it dropped to the floor.
Howls began to echo from all around, resounding through the tunnels, uncountable footsteps trudging from the darkness. They were coming.
Alan scrambled to his feet, making a beeline for a ladder illuminated by daylight further down the access corridor. Another howl, skittering footsteps from his peripherals, Alan's aim immediately flew to the Ethereal charging from his peripherals, another blast from the shotgun stopping it in its tracks as he continued his dash forward.
He dropped the shotgun to dangle from its sling as he leaped onto the ladder, clambering up the rungs as the skitters behind him grew louder and louder. An Ethereal leaped up, latching onto his leg, Alan quickly thrust his boot down into its core, sending it thudding back to the floor below as he frantically clawed at the rungs above. Hurtling himself up to the next level, he was met with another charging ethereal, a salvo of buckshot swept it from its feet and onto its back as the full payload nailed its core, the body disintegrated as he charged past towards the bulkhead door to the surface.
Footsteps skittered from behind as he wrenched the crank wheel, rapidly drawing closer as the lock released. He slammed his shoulder against the door to push it open, barging through before quickly hurling the door shut. An Ethereal slipped into the crack of the door at the last moment, its blade thrashing about as Alan threw his weight into the door, pinning the Ethereal between the door and the frame as he yanked his sidearm from its holster, extending it out around the door and firing a burst of shots into its core than made it frantically skitter back inside. Alan stumbled forward as the door lurched back into place. He hastily cranked the door shut before rapidly spinning, throwing his back against the door as he scanned his surroundings.
His heavy, ragged breathing fogged up the inside of his visor, his hands tightened around the grip of his pistol as his eyes darted from one side of the street to the other.
Nothing.
He slowly inverted his shotgun, sliding more shells from the side saddle into the magazine tube, and continued.
Thankfully, the rest of the route to the exchange was uneventful after that little 'adventure'. It wasn't his first scrape with Ethereals - far from it, but all it ever takes is one mistake, or just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was no void hunter... He wasn't like her. If he was...
Alan tore his mind out of the spiral the moment she popped up in it, like he had so many times before. He shifted his gaze back to the map of his PDA. Just focus on the job, just need to go a little further.
As he reached a ordinary stretch of road, the moment of truth had arrived. He strode forward down the street that looked as if it was to stretch on for several blocks, but the moment he hit the marker on the PDA, the stretch before him disseminated. He emerged on the other side of the Hollow's dome, the ruined, cordoned off outskirts of Eridu lay before him.
He waited...
A short while later, two black 4x4s with tinted windows rolled up a while later. He stood from the slab of concrete he had sat on as a group of masked commandos emerged,
"You're by yourself? You'd have to have a death wish to go in their alone, or just crazy." The Commando greeted. "Where's the rest of you?"
"Around." Alan lied. Of course, he was alone, but they didn't need to know that. He unslung the artifact container, dropping it to the ground before him, his shotgun lowered but still clutched in his hands. "Payment."
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves. You know how this business works, Mr. Yeung, and I'm sure you're well aware of the importance of caution."
Alan motioned to the container with the muzzle. "Check it."
The Commando cautiously approached, grabbing the container, giving it a quick shake, hearing the rattle of an object inside. "Fantastic. Our mutual client will be most pleased."
"You're not going to look?" Alan asked.
"This is a sensitive matter, Mr. Yeung, one that needs to be wary of prying eyes." The Commando replied.
"Then wire me my money." Alan demanded.
"We'll be paying you in cash. Your reward is in the truck, please follow us."
Alan stood his ground, his grip tensing. "Bring it out here and give it to me."
The squad began to disperse, but Alan pedaled slowly towards cover, keeping all of them in view as one tried to move towards his flank.
"That is not the wishes of our client, do you not wish to get paid? Your paranoia is understandable but it's about to cost you a lot of money and a wasted trip." The Commando reassured.
At this point, the Commando's words were just noise to Alan as he made it to a thick slab of concrete.
The first lesson you learn in this business - If there is ever any doubt, then there is no doubt.
Alan's red dot snapped to the closest Commando to him, a lightning quick shot blasting into his pelvis and sending him flopping to the floor with a shriek. Alan dove behind the slab just as a salvo of retaliatory shots pounded against it. He yanked a smoke grenade off his belt, pulling the pin and hurling the hissing cylinder over the wall. His pistol extended over the wall, hammering out a burst of shots in the direction of the gunfire as the smoke plumed into an obscuring cloud. The sound of tires screeching could be heard between bursts of suppressive fire, their Quick Reaction Force rapidly dismounting and joining the fray. As soon as the screen was thick enough, Alan darted out of cover, sprinting in the direction of the hollow as shots kicked up chunks of rubble from all around. Without a thought or a plan, he hurled himself beyond the border of Hollow Zero...
As he emerged into the hollow, Alan wasted no time ducking into a nearby alley for cover. He posted up on the corner just as a group of brave ones with acceptable ether aptitude emerged through the fissure. The blast of his shotgun resounded off the nearby buildings as one of the Commando's helmets violently dented inwards in an instant, sending him convulsing to the floor, the rest of the salvo sent the group scrambling for whatever cover they could find before Alan took off further down the alley.
"Stop! Stop! We don't have a carrot! Back through the fissure!" Alan heard the Commandos cry out from behind him.
Of course, he didn't have a carrot he could use either. His spur of the moment decision had shaken off his pursuers, but he had effectively traded one problem for another, and if he had taken the time to think it through, he would have taken a shot to the head over getting corrupted any day of the week. As he slowly slid more shells into the magazine, he tried to gather his thoughts on what to do next. He could go out the way the Commandos left through, but they would be expecting that. He'd be emerging blindly into a killbox just like the one he had set up for his pursuers inside the hollow, with no cover and an entire platoon's worth of crosshairs on him. He might as well shoot himself and save those Mercs the bother.
The other alternative was try to find his way back to Lima from memory and pray that the terrain hadn't shifted yet...
With a sigh, he pulled a shell from the side-saddle, setting it aside in a pouch on his belt. Ethereal Cores were formed from corrupted brain matter, which would be hard to do if said matter was in a million different pieces splattered up and down every which way.
He didn't get far when more trouble made itself known, he had rounded a corner to find himself staring down a group of Tyrfings, however, the moment he raised his gun at them, they began to peddle backwards and scamper off. Alan was about to question whether Ethereals were finally evolving to understand what staring down a shotgun barrel entailed when a rumble behind him gave him the realization that it wasn't him that they were running from.
The wall behind him burst open, chunks of rubble sent flying as a hulking mass of black and white crystals crashed through, green spikes adorning the ends of its fists giving it a twin pair of man-sized meat tenderizers.
Farbauti.
The roar of the monster shook the earth as it charged forward. Alan fired a shot at its core, but it raised its arm to shield its core just before he had let down the trigger. As the Farbauti closed the gap, it raised its arm higher, Alan swiftly dashed forward, weaving under the beast's hulking arm as it crashed down where he had been standing.
He sprinted through the destroyed brick wall and emerged onto the avenue, through the maze of abandoned cars as the Farbauti reoriented itself and charged after him in pursuit.
The crunching of glass and the twisting of metal grew closer behind him, the vehicles overturned and flung aside as the monster charged through the gridlock. As the volume of traffic began to decrease before him, Alan soon saw that he was headed straight towards a collapsed overpass, the bridge before him reduced to rubble lining the freeway below. He skidded to a halt, as the Farbauti closed in, he quickly hurled himself to the side out of its path as it galloped towards him.
The Ethereal skidded across the asphalt as it spun itself around, its hind legs nearly losing footing along the edge. Alan rolled onto his back, yanked an impact grenade from his belt and hurled it straight at the hulk.
The grenade struck true, detonating on impact with a forceful blast that knocked the creature backwards, its hind legs slid over the edge, its arms quaking the ground as they clambered desperately to hold itself up as it danged over the rubble below.
Alan pushed himself to his feet, he raised his shotgun as he encroached upon the hanging Ethereal. He hammered the trigger, firing blast after blast into its core, each spread of buckshot growing tighter and tighter as he advanced closer and closer. When he felt the bolt lock back, he dropped it to its sling and rapidly yanked his pistol from the holster, rapidly dumping the magazine until finally, the core evaporated, the beast gave up its struggle and plummeted below as it disintegrated.
However, the tremors didn't stop. Crack formations rapidly shot across the remains of the overpass, enveloping Alan's footing in an instant. The last thing he remembered was the bridge giving underneath him and sending him plunging into the rubble...
Pain. That was the first thing his mind registered all across his body, a searing agony enveloping his whole form. He writhed, feeling the coarse rubble beneath him as he opened his eyes, his mind reorienting where he was and how he had got here.
What he saw through his blurred vision and cracked mask, however threw his mind into a spin. Someone was kneeling over him, a woman, her palm against his sternum, emanating a warmth that was slowly receding the agony that had overtaken his body.
Long silver hair, that yellow jacket...
Am I dead?...Is this what people who become Ethereals see?...
"Yijiang..." Alan grunted softly, his right arm slowly raised.
The hand on his sternum tensed suddenly. "How do you know that na-...Alan?..."
Exhaustion crept over him as the ether was expelled from his body. He slumped back down against the rubble, before the woman hurriedly wrapped his arm around her shoulder, and hoisted him up, following the lead of a small black bird.
The following minutes had been a blurred haze of being helped along the same-y streets, until they followed the bird through a fissure, emerging into the 'big land' once more.
Alan gasped through his broken mask as the ether-free air hit him, soldiers and investigators bustled around the outpost as he was led to a bench, coughing and sputtering as he was sat down. He pulled off the mask, taking another deep breath liberated from the mask's filter.
"Rest. You came dangerously close to being corrupted back there..." The woman calmy but firmly instructed.
Her expression was stoic, but the golden eyes fixed upon him betrayed a hint of emotion within her, her silver hair blowing softly in the stormy wind, adorned with that black hairclip across her fringe.
"Yixuan..." Alan broke the silence, a storm of warring feels hitting him all at once within him. Another silence passed, his eyes darting away before moving back to hers before he let out a bitter sigh. "...What do you want?"
Yixuan's lashes trembled slightly as her eyes shifted downwards to the bottom corner. "I didn't know it was you at first. I was on an investigation for Mayor Mayflower when I heard the commotion... I'm curious as to why you're out here wandering Hollow Zero..."
"What's it matter to you? I'm expelled, remember?" Alan challenged.
A soft sigh escaped Yixuan. "Alan...it's been ten years...If you want to come back..."
Alan shook his head with an exhale. "It was mutual. I was done playing hero."
"And yet, the next time any of us heard about you, you were enlisted in the Defense Force." Yixuan remarked.
"It was that, or go to prison. It wasn't a hard choice." Alan dismissed. "I did my tour and got out. Never looked back. As I said, I'm through with heroics."
Yixuan breathed out. "...Why are you so adamant of that?...Does this life you've made for yourself here really provide you with more fulfillment?"
"...Look behind you, Yixuan." Alan's head motioned towards the gargantuan dome that had enveloped Old Eridu. "All of that training, all of those companion hollows we bled ourselves dry closing up. Shifu had to give his entire life into that blade to keep them contained...And then what happened? The biggest fucking one we've all ever seen just popped out - out of nowhere, swallowed up the entire city in the blink of an eye. Shifu, all of our friends...Yijiang...none of it meant anything." Alan's right hand clenched, his tone rising as he spoke. "None of the sacrifices we made, or that cursed fucking sword made a damned difference. It all just got snuffed out in a flash, before anybody even knew what was happening." Alan's heart raced in his chest, jaw clenching,
"Alan..."
"It was all for fucking nothing. We were all living a fucking lie!" Alan spat out, before taking in a deep breath.
Yixuan's eyes sunk deeper downwards. His 'imbalance' had only grown worse with time - it was a folly that had long plagued him, one that her old Shifu had tried to instill out of him. He had been a talented fighter, but he struggled with his attunement to the more mystical techniques. Before it could be truly righted, however, disaster after disaster had hit the Summit. With the Old Man and Yijiang gone, his heart became clouded, and all balance was lost...And so the last disciple of Yixuan's generation departed.
She finally broke the silence. "Very well...Let me speak plainly - the divinations for today had said that I would run into an old friend in danger...And the divination I had done for you stated that you would have great need of your friends in the future. You still know how to read divinations, don't you?"
"As much as I try to forget, but somebody keeps leaving them for me in my mail..."
"Indeed. I wanted to tell you that you still have more friends than you know."
Alan stood himself up and turned with a dismissive wave. "Well, tell those 'friends' that I don't need their divinations, or their messengers, or their warnings. Tell them I'm through. Tell them that life's over. Tell them - Alan is done."
He began to stride off when Yixuan calmly called after him.
"You can't run from life like you did from us, Alan. Life has a way of finding you, no matter how deep you try to bury yourself."
Alan only stopped for a second, before he continued onwards, vanishing towards the perimeter of the outpost.
Yixuan stood motionless, the wind picking up around her as darker clouds rolled in.
"Hey, is that the Shifu of Yunkui Summit?!" A voice called from her peripherals, an eager HIA agent strolling up to her side.
"Oh, wow, it is! Hey, Shifu, can I get-"
"One billion dennies..." Yixuan uttered.
"H-Huh?"
"Divinations will be one billion dennies, today." She repeated.
"U-Uh.."
Yixuan let out a long, heavy sigh, turning and striding off without another word...
The thunder rumbled above, droplets of rain began to drop from the sky as a wet smell permeated the humid air of the narrow side street in the Janus Quarter. Alan walked down the sidewalk, now dressed in his street clothes - a T-shirt and pair of worn jeans, his equipment discretely tucked in a gym bag at his side. The rain began to pick up, going from a light sprinkle to heavy splatters darkening the white concrete of the walkway. People around him began to run for cover, pulling out umbrellas or covering their heads with books or backpacks, but Alan kept casually walking towards his apartment as it progressed into a torrential downpour.
The door to the dark apartment creaked open as Alan stepped inside. The dull gray of the overcast sky illuminated the cluttered interior, boxes of stuff from his other apartments lined the walls that he hadn't bothered unpacking - no time, no energy, maybe even no point. Dishes sat piled up in the sink, trash can overfilled, the floorspace mostly barren except for a small table with a laptop he used for commission work. A TV sat mounted on the wall, an N.E.D.F. flag mounted above it. He strode over into his bedroom, dropping his bag to pull out the shotgun, propping it between the bed and his nightstand before taking his pistol out of his waistband and placing it onto the nightstand itself.
He made his way to the kitchen - not to the fridge or the pantry, of course, he had just been screwed over on a commission and was now out several bullets and a gas mask, which means he was going to just have to sleep off the hunger until breakfast tomorrow morning if he wanted to have a chance of making the rent this month, and he was already fresh off having to move into a cheaper neighborhood. He went for the liquor cabinet, for a bottle of whiskey - little nightcap to knock him right out...
A shot? No, he'd need a glass just to make sure he got enough to help him sleep. He topped off the glass generously, and down the hatch it went.
He let out a breath of relief as he felt the burn of the alcohol going down. In fact, he could go for one more - he was still sore from getting slapped around by those Ethereals, taking that fall, and nearly getting corrupted. A little more would numb the pain and help him sleep...
Downing the next glass, his thoughts drifted to how today had went - he had gotten screwed over on a commission, almost died, and ran into her. Fucking Mondays, right? He deserved something for himself, a little bonus, he could treat himself to another glass. It was a special occasion...
Glass after glass went down, until finally the entire fifth had vanished. At least he couldn't think anymore, couldn't remember, couldn't regret, neither ten years ago, or the things he had said today. He couldn't feel the bruises anymore, he couldn't feel much of anything in fact, which was just the way he liked it...
If only everything would stop spinning...He tried to fixate on a reference point, get everything to stop swirling around, but this just made the knot in his stomach more prevalent...
"Ah...fuck..." Alan slurred out with resignation, stumbling over to the bathroom.
He dropped to his knees, and leaned over the toilet just in the nick of time as the dam broke, hurling into the bowl before slumping over onto his back on the tile floor.
Looks like it was going to be the bathroom floor again tonight...at least he would be able to sleep...
Meanwhile...
Suibian Temple, Failume Heights
"Are you sure it's okay to be in Shifu's room like this? I can't help but feel like we're invading her privacy..." Wise questioned as Ye Shunguang meticulously waved the duster across the furniture.
"Just think of it as a way of apologizing to her for keeping my being here a secret. I'm supposed to be at the Summit, remember? She won't be as mad if she sees that I've been helping around the temple while I'm here." The Thiren replied.
As she withdrew the duster, Shunguang's gaze swept around the room. "There. At least it's better than it was..." Suddenly, her eyes fell on a photo frame on a shelf than had been turned onto its face. "Hm?...Did I knock that over?"
She slowly lifted the photo frame, the photo inside coming into view.
"I don't remember seeing this earlier...Maybe it was already like that?" Wise remarked. "This is...Shifu when she was younger."
Next to Yixuan was a brown haired man with blue eyes in Yunkui Summit attire, and in the middle, with her arms around both their shoulders, was a red-eyed woman, wearing the jacket that Yixuan wore now, her silver hair styled into a long ponytail, all of them smiling brightly at the camera.
"And that other girl...must be Shifu's late sister, Yijiang..." Wise continued. "...But I don't recognize the man...Senior, has Shifu ever mentioned anyone like him?"
Ye Shunguang slowly shook her head. "...No...Never...I've never even seen this photo before...They all seem...close."
Her eyes continued to fix on the photo. Yixuan, her sister, the boy, they all looked happy, and she couldn't help but feel a sense of melancholy at the moment frozen in time. She couldn't imagine what Shifu would feel whenever she looked at it, but it was easier to infer with the idea that Yixuan kept the photo turned down.
The Thiren slowly placed the photo where she found, and turned it back down how she found it. "Come on, we've snooped enough..."