The Zero Countdown

Chapter 13: First time

The unshackled authority of death prediction, as well as discerning the projection of the future is undoubtedly the ultimate combination of Fantasm Abilities, which has a high probable percentage of winning by circumventing towards a path that has less bloodshed in their hands.

However, Brina was given the liberty of choosing a power amongst the rest of the possible abilities that a player could get who participated in the Zero Countdown. She was well aware of her Fantasm Ability; Fortune Teller can potentially offer a chance of winning the game.

Except, greater power means there bounds its weakness, and the only one she knew that could counter her dominion over the infinite possibilities of time is none other than the keeper of the time.

"Tsk. Here I pray the wielder of the Time Keeper was already dead. But whoever it was, he or she had already set us in a stage we can't escape unless we find the culprit behind all this." Brina started keenly skimming the notes in her smartphone as if her life depended on it.

"Wait, I have no idea what you meant. Who's the Time Keeper anyways?" Elyon gulped buckets. He felt something was wrong though he can't figure it out for a reason or two.

"Our moment is limited, we shouldn't linger here any longer. I'll explain later so I tell you this; forget about the punishment the Unknown Entity impose for involving civilians and kill the one you think is the Time Keeper, or else we'll be stuck here forever."

Elora's desperate to get rid of the Time Keeper sooner than later. Having no idea what she implied, Elyon nodded in agreement and followed her along while her face is glued to her smartphone again.

He hesitated to abolish the beggar that almost got them obliterated, but after learning that a simple late step could endanger Brina and his life, he buckled himself up and assume the worst than murdering someone to survive.

In the end, they ended up walking around the streets as if they were on a stroll. They wanted to borrow Elora so they can uncover who's the adversary they should unveil in the flower shop but they forgot to exchange contacts out of all the things.

Nevertheless, Elyon was born ready as the darkness blankets the faraway horizon, the long night has come and he has to share a tea with Saya, the first suspect he believes the real Fantasm amongst the three.

As they go back to the avenue where the Hestia Flower Shop was located, the two of them already have their g*n unlocked and c****d; it was how desperate they are to pull the trigger just to survive.

"Hah... Do I smell?" Elyon's sniffing his shoulders, worried off something else.

"What for?" Brina looks around. She has the face of someone who doesn't care.

"I should have taken a bath and changed clothes. I'm about to meet a woman who's at her peak and I'm basically not ready mentally and physically." Elyon was simply fretting over his hygiene. He'd never gone out with anyone lately and he's clueless regarding how things would turn.

Still, Brina shook her head unmistakably thinking he's hopeless.

"Look here, Elyon, how would you feel if she really is the Fantasm we are hunting down? Whatever insecurities tie your back, just remember we're on this mission to kill, not to entertain a stupid woman you fancy."

"Alright, I'll remember." He admitted what he lacks than refusing a word of advice from a literal high schooler.

Despite how Brina reprimands Elyon's lack of confidence, she put her hands in her pockets and assumed combat form by keenly surveying the vicinity and eliminating anything that is hostile against them as they walk towards their destination.

Even at the embrace of the moonlight, people were still abundant around the avenue across the intersection next to the Hestia Flower Shop. Some street lights are flickering, guiding the lone workers who luckily get to go home without committing to overtime.

Both of them had a stop at the wooden bench beside the upcoming site of the crime, hesitation stirs in his throbbing heart, still carrying the lavender herb he bought earlier ago.

"Me going with you is inefficient. I'll wait outside and inform you if something happens. Be safe and always watch your back." Brina sends him off on his mission. She'll hold the fort while Elyon does his work inside the shop; for what comes next is out and beyond Brina's prediction of the future because of the disturbance of time.

"Alright. It'll be fast I promise." And Elyon took a deep breath before entering the front entrance, the chimes on the door set off, and that very moment starts things getting strange.

Just as he anticipated, a dim yellow light near the ledges where the potted plants and flowers grow casts Saya's shadow. She was waiting for him all along, he notices tea set on the desk and so he approaches her in full caution.

"H-Hello Saya? May I be your guest for tonight?" Elyon politely asks even though he's already pulling the chair and calmly sitting on it the instant he got there.

"I should be the one asking that. Please take a sip of the green tea I prepared, I'll take out the mooncakes I just baked."

"O-Okay. I'll be waiting for you." Elyon stuttered. He never thought the situation escalated quickly.

He smells the sweet yet strong fragrance of incense, the dim yellow light is present to set the mood for something. Despite how strange his experience so far, he realizes Saya invited him to date more than a drink. But since he's already there, he couldn't turn back and run from what he started.

Holding the ceramic drinking glass embellished in white and blue stripes as he sips the lukewarm green tea, some bitter small pebbles brushes along his tastebuds that concern him a bit.

"It's great but I feel like there's something wrong. It could be funny if there was a sleeping d**g on it hahaha...what...?"

Before it even crosses his mind, Elyon accidentally dropped the glass he's tightly holding, spilling the tea on the desk as his head falls heavy near the tray beside the sugar canister.

"What is the meaning of this... Don't tell me?!"

For a blunder that he unknowingly executed, Elyon only realized his mistake the moment he hears Saya chuckling behind the counter that turned into a burst of laughter resounding her victim's foolishness for falling under her lure.

"I never thought you are that foolish, Elyon..." The pristine and kind voice of Saya all but disappeared, what was left is the seductive tone she unveils whilst she's caressing his neck down his chest.

"Why..." He couldn't move nor say any word, stuck in paralysis as his eyes were shutting close.

"I'll do this over and over again... I'll favor you to the fullest!" Her atrocious assertion was the last thing he heard before his consciousness totally departs.

In a shady cold room somewhere in the silence of screeching darkness, Elyon found himself chained to both his legs and wrists, his posterior's stuck on a wooden platform and there was nothing he could see other than the utter absence of light.

"Show yourself! I know you're here!" Elyon openly acted tough yet his growling composure was the opposite of what he feels inside; trembling and about to fall apart.

"My, my... You're such a sweetie Elyon. I had taken the liberty of enjoying your body while you're out of the cold."

Saya confessed, lights suddenly flashed and switched on that Elyon inadvertently winced. As he slowly regains his visions, he was there regretting his decision and wishing he was blind.

"What are you... Who are you?!" Elyon couldn't believe his eyes any longer.

He found himself n***d and disarmed, but what appalls him was Saya's hands drenched in the redness of blood, and at the walls where the bonsai trees should be hanging were instead filled by innards and limbs protruding from the evident corpses and human remains.

"Hm... Who turned on the lights? Oh well, you're now part of my collection anyways! I'll harvest you know and plant you back on my ceramic pots..."

Carrying a redded shears she's keeping in her hands, Saya unhurriedly comes towards Elyon, to which he understood the ephemeral duration he possesses and that he need not his ability to tell he's dying for his own foolishness.

"I already used you to my heart's content. It's time for your turn...And feed my roses' thorns!"

"No, please! Don't-"

What threw up the tea he had earlier along with the redness of loss painting his chest with the color of death; the shears' edge penetrates his heart, cutting a few blood vessels that render him disabled of utterance.

It was as though he's living in his own nightmare, what he experiences isn't a game anymore; it became a one-sided homicide in which he can't do anything other than stare at his killer hangs his entrails because she's lost his mind.

As he takes his last breath and his certain death eliminates him in the game, what he saw while his life flashes before his very eyes is the image of a man slipping across the wall and leaping on Saya's rear, and in mere seconds, he woked up sitting on a wooden bench in a park from a familiar avenue he could never forget.

"Why am I here...? Why is this-"

Upon comprehending he went back to the avenue outside the Goldenfang Company before Elora and Ruther parted from him, Elyon fell on his knees and crumpled over the ground writhing in agony and distress.

For emotionless pain that he felt from getting killed all backfired hitting him harder than a truck could have done. It flowed directly to his body inflicting him a mortal wound that is enough to wish he never lived again.

"Elyon?! Are you okay?" Elora shook him countless times, Brina and Ruther were extremely worried that he acted strange out of nowhere.

"I'm fine... You two are going somewhere, isn't it? Leave things on us for this area." Elyon pretended he's fine.

However, by that duration he felt the obvious strange thing that occurred, Elyon was the only one who realized they went back in time, and the subject Brina was discussing regarding the appearance of the Time Keeper.

He finally understood what she meant by getting stuck in a loop of endless time now that he experienced it for the first time.