A Painter’s Paradise
Cain sat in a concrete room.
The walls and floor, even the ceiling above, was cold and lifeless.
Behind him, a single entrance into the room stood. The door was dented and contorted. Like it had been ravaged by some terrible creature or a bomb simply deformed it.
An icy breeze blew from the door. Snowflakes danced across the floor while white light from the sun narrowly breached into the concrete box.
Cain sat on the floor and he looked at his phone.
"Breaking News!" The article claimed.
Cain scrolled past the title and introduction. He was getting incredibly comfortable with smartphones.
His thumb stopped just when an image appeared.
The image was dark and low quality, but Cain recognized the location.
In the background of the image, a handful of skyscrapers hung above the horizon. It was a coastline Cain was now familiar with.
He read the image's description.
"Mysterious figure hovers above the wreckage in Sao Paulo, Brazil."
That was it. The whole description.
And when Cain scrutinized the image further, he saw it.
The figure.
It was a hooded figure in what appeared to be robes. It lacked legs and arms.
Instead, long strips of cloth dangled beneath it and fluttered in the ever-changing winds.
The image that Cain was inspecting was actually from a video. A twenty-three second video recorded and broadcasted by a single news outlet.
In the video, the hovering figure takes a bullet to the head, but the bullet has no effect. The bullet completely stops in its tracks and near-shatters against the darkness beneath the figure's hood.
In the next moment, the figure casts his gaze somewhere new. It appears as though the figure looks directly into the camera. Immediately after, all goes black.
The figure in the video and the world's newest and hottest topic was of course Cain, but he didn't remember looking into any camera.
In fact, Cain didn't remember noticing the second helicopter until after he activated |Blackout|, but hey, memory is a weird thing.
At least that was what Cain told himself.
Barber told him not to worry about it. That the press and the public would likely never be able to figure out the truth, but that didn't mean Cain was a fan of all the attention.
Reading about himself was… considerably odd.
Especially since he was being referred to as a 'figure' and not even a person, but alas, Cain too forgets that he's no longer human. At least in the honest sense of the word.
*knock* *knock* *knock*
"Excuse me?" Cain heard a man's voice behind him.
"Are you the one who called us in?" The man asked.
Cain put his phone away and stood up. He looked at the man.
He wore an orange hardhat, a bright yellow vest, jeans, and a pair of big boots. He held a clipboard in his hands and a pencil rested upon the tip of his ear.
"Sorry but, are you from A Painter's Paradise?" Cain asked.
The construction worker quickly nodded his head and ripped out his badge from his inner pocket.
"Yes, sir!" He replied with umph. "If you would, please sign here, here, and here."
"Alright…" Cain did as he was told. "So when is Fey coming around?"
"Sir! Miss Fey will be here for the project's final week! She sends her regards until then!"
"Right… okay then." Cain replied.
A Painter's Paradise, although a little cliche, is the name of the company Fey started after exiting the Gate.
Fey, like most of the others, fully reintegrated into her mundane life. Of course, most of the returnees were not granted a special Ability like Fey, so their decision to return to their jobs and lives was an easy one.
Fey, on the other hand, explored other possibilities. She knew her Ability was not combat oriented. Even while in the Land of Trees she spent most of her time behind the wooden walls, utilizing her Ability for artistic purposes such as murals and illustrations.
So upon her return, the idea struck her to do the same.
With her Ability in hand, Fey could enter an artist's market and promise things no other person on planet Earth could perform; such as moving paintings, dyes that change color, and a speed and efficiency unmatched compared to those who still used a paintbrush.
In the end, her dream came to fruition. She started a business dedicated to the exploitation of her newfound powers. The moment she did so, the rich and powerful pockets of the world flocked.
An opportunity to get into the good graces of one of the returnees?
The potential to invest in and support a business guaranteed to be unlike any other? AND with the guarantee that no other company can copy their product since, lo and behold, the product directly derives from a woman with superpowers?
As aforementioned, the rich flocked her way and in an unexpected turn of events, Fey found herself designing homes rather than murals.
The rich and famous of the world wanted to receive the absolute best from Fey and to them, the best meant a home unlike any other. A return to individuality, perhaps?
In the last two-hundred years on planet Earth architecture had grown stale.
Quantity over quality.
Simplicity over complexity.
Ease-of-access over egregious flair.
As a result, the vast majority of homes in first-world countries were nearly identical.
Sure, maybe twenty different models of the same home spans the borders, and maybe their colors change here and there, but for the most part, homes have become unoriginal.
At this point, only the obscenely wealthy of the planet are able to buy empty land, hire an architect, builders, etc., and build their ideal home. And what could make a home more unique, more outlandish, more personalized then a magic painter's magic touch?
Thus, A Painter's Paradise was born and with it, Fey found fame and generational wealth.
So much so that Cain even heard of her antics and at the time, he barely knew how to use his phone!
Regardless, Cain had hired her new company for the construction of his Greenland property.
His requests were modest: a heated hatch in the field in front of the mineshaft alongside a helicopter pad, a first floor expansion so that the first floor has seven bedrooms, two common areas, six bathrooms, and one bathhouse.
He wanted the second floor to be expanded further into the earth. There, he'd like the second floor to act as his training grounds: a fully equipped gym, a pool, a standard track, two wide-open spaces reserved for sparring.
These wide-open spaces should be equipped with all classic and standard weaponry including swords, shields, daggers, axes, hammers, spears, bows, crossbows, pistols, assault rifles, SMG's, single-barrel rifles, shotguns, and snipers.
In addition to the weaponry in the training halls, Cain requested a hidden room somewhere on the second floor specifically for explosives.
Last but not least, Cain wanted a tower.
He didn't want a skyscraper. The tower shouldn't be piercing the clouds, but for the mineshaft that traveled higher into the mountain Cain wanted an elevator that would lead to the tower's entrance.
The tower would be built beside the tip of the mountain and it would topple above the impeding mountains, allowing Cain to see in all directions around his property unobscured.
The project is estimated to last four months and cost the United Nations a whopping 732 million dollars. Surprisingly, a good chunk of that money was solely to pay for the cost of importing so many various materials into the country of Greenland.
After Cain signed the paperwork, the construction worker hurried outside where he began to delegate certain tasks to certain groups.
Cain followed him outside and immediately, he was blown away.
Hundreds of people were walking through the marsh of Greenland. Behind them, bulldozers, cranes, cement mixers, excavators, dump trucks, and so many forklifts.
Truck after truck after truck filled the valley split between two mountains. Materials began to pile up all around from stone, to marble, wood, glass, brick, cobblestone – and so much more that Cain could not identify.
He looked down at his phone.
Church had sent him a text.
"Are you in Greenland?" He asked. "If so, meet me here at 8 if you can."
***
Teddy ran until his lungs burned.
His throat was dry. It felt as though it might crack, but he persevered.
Through the densely packed trees he ran without care.
Yet, he could still hear the battle behind him.
The cries and shrieks. The bellows of monstrosity that erupted from the Orc's guts.
He heard the sound of gunfire rip through the wind.
He was scared.
Who was he to join a war? To fight with his life on the line against beast and foe unmatched?
Teddy was a game tester.
It was his dream job and he was lucky enough to score it right after high school.
For days on end, all Teddy would do is grind alpha versions of new RPG's and MMO's alike. His job was to find bugs and glitches and he was really good at it.
Consistently, he discovered exploits within dungeons or the status screen or daily login's.
Then one day, while playing a new RPG, he was slaying Goblin's in the beginner village. He chose to play as a Druid, a race in tune with nature, blessed by the Spirits of life and granted authority over wood.
In the middle of that playthrough, Teddy's atmosphere abruptly changed. The outskirts of the beginner village, a lush forest stockpiled with tutorial dungeons and randomly generated encounters; suddenly his room looked like the forest he was exploring.
Then, he felt the breeze brush against his cheek.
More people appeared around him.
They stood in a lush field of grass beside a forest that stretched as far as the eye could see. Beneath him, freshly yellow dandelions bloomed all around.
Teddy didn't budge at first, he refused to.
He scanned his surroundings and found similar looks of confusion everywhere he looked.
That is, until he caught sight of a woman. The only woman in the crowd of men, in fact.
He saw Olive. He saw her indifferent gaze jump from head to head.
She was analyzing the summoned men. Sizing them up, as they say.
And beside her, Isaac's broad chest and stern expression betrayed the look of confusion all the rest wore.
His life had changed in but a moment.
Now, he ran for his life and, internally, he wished he had tried a little more in gym class.
Suddenly, the forest split open. Teddy found himself in a clearing between the trees.
The clearing was filled with flowers and butterflies, bees and bushes.
The battlefield was over a mile away, but the screams echoed nonetheless.
He heard the bushes behind him rustle.
His heart squeezed.
Tension amplified.
Then, a woman he was newly acquainted with burst through the thicket.
Morgan's pale arms were covered in cuts and bruises.
Her black hair was tangled and ratty.
She kneeled over and placed her palms against her knees.
Gasping for dear life, Morgan coughed and coughed.
Her face was flushed red. Her pupils were dilated.
She looked at Teddy.
"I can't do this!" She nearly wept.
"They're dying back there!" She screamed. "What are we supposed to do?! Did you see them?! They're huge!"
Teddy watched her breakdown. He hadn't said anything yet, but his heart ached something new.
He touched the grass beneath him.
"It's okay." He told her. "None of them followed us. We'll be safe here."
Teddy extended his hand forward.
"Come on." He said. "I'll get us out of here!"
///LostNoteFound///
DevilGod_of_Chaos and moofin!! The two hombres! Thank you thank you! ;*
Sorry I'm a little late today — my dad's back in town for the week. Have a great weekend!!