Chapter 5- Inhuman 5

The air was thick with an unnatural stillness, as if time itself hesitated, caught in the web of an impossible paradox. The statue loomed over the desolate landscape, its surface pulsating under the faint glow of the stars. The boy stood frozen, his breath uneven, his mind racing to comprehend what his eyes beheld.

"It's impossible... I came here in the night, yet the statue glows as if kissed by the light of a sun that isn't here. But this is my first time in this world... this can't be real," he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper.

The dealer, standing a few feet away, felt the weight of an unshakable tension settling over him. His instincts screamed danger, his pulse quickened, and a sense of foreboding clawed at his gut. He clenched his fists, forcing himself to focus. The shadows around him seemed heavier than before, pressing in on him, suffocating him with their intangible presence. The cold air carried an eerie silence, void of any sound except for the distant hum of electricity crackling through broken wires and the occasional drip of water leaking from unseen crevices.

"I can feel something different. Why do I feel as though this is my last day? No. Stay focused. Just get the job done, boy." He repeated the words in his head like a mantra, grounding himself. He had never let fear dictate his choices before. Tonight, wouldn't be the first time.

Raising his left hand, he activated the communicator strapped to his wrist. A soft hum vibrated through his skin as the device flickered to life, projecting a three-dimensional map of the area. The world unfolded before him in a swirling display of light and shadow. The neon lines traced out the topography, the towering ruins, the winding alleyways, and the skeletal remains of buildings long abandoned.

"I should visualize my way to my location," he thought, allowing his consciousness to sink into the glowing map. His eyes darted across the shimmering blueprint, searching, calculating. The holographic structures flickered as he adjusted the angle, scanning the terrain for movement. He could see every corner, every crack, yet his vision wavered. Something felt off, as though the world itself was shifting under his gaze.

The environment around him was fragmented. Some structures radiated with an eerie luminescence, while others were drowned in darkness. Even the sky seemed uncertain, some patches were drenched in endless night, others flickered with an unnatural, golden haze. The contrast was disorienting, as if the laws of nature had been rewritten by an unseen force. The atmosphere was suffused with a sense of distortion, like an old photograph slowly burning at the edges.

The realization struck him like a jolt of electricity. "This means he's coming from this way… I should find his exact location." His breath hitched as the display in front of him shifted. A dark void began consuming the landscape.

"Now the place becomes dark… there he is." His voice wavered with disbelief. The darkness wasn't just an absence of light... it was an entity, a moving force, an omen that heralded something more than just another figure in the distance.

And then, as if guided by fate itself, their eyes met.

A chill ran down his spine. His heartbeat thundered in his ears. The air around them warped, the world folding in on itself like an optical illusion that refused to correct itself. He staggered back, his knees threatening to give way beneath him. The weight of the moment pressed down on him, suffocating, crushing. The very atmosphere seemed charged with electricity, an unspoken force tying them together in this singular moment.

"Did I come here before? This place… it feels familiar," he muttered, his vision blurring for a fraction of a second.

The boy across from him mirrored his stance, his expression a perfect reflection of his own shock and confusion. He was younger, no older than fifteen, his face a hauntingly familiar visage... a mirror image cast back in time. His wide eyes, the quivering lips, the disbelief carving itself into his features… it was as if the universe had reached into the past and plucked out a version of himself, one he had long since abandoned.

"This is impossible… it happened again in my world." Their voices overlapped, a whispered echo bouncing off the crumbling walls surrounding them.

Both stood frozen, their eyes locked in an unspoken confrontation.

"You are me."

"No, you are me."

Their words collided in the air, sending ripples through reality. The silence that followed was deafening.

The older one, the dealer, clenched his jaw. His fingers twitched, his mind screaming at him to move, to do something, anything. But what could he do when standing before him was a version of himself that shouldn't exist?

The boy—his younger self...narrowed his eyes. His shoulders stiffened, a mixture of fear and determination battling for dominance in his gaze. He took a cautious step forward, his foot scraping against the cracked pavement, sending a sharp sound into the stillness.

"How is this happening?" the younger one whispered, his voice laced with uncertainty. "Why do you look like me? No, why do I look like you?"

The dealer sucked in a sharp breath, forcing his racing thoughts into coherence. He had encountered paradoxes before, but this… this was different. This was personal. He felt as though he was being dragged into an abyss where logic no longer held any power, where cause and effect were little more than illusions.

"You don't belong here," the dealer finally spoke, his voice carrying an edge of authority. "You're not supposed to exist in this space."

The boy's jaw tightened. "I could say the same about you."

A gust of wind howled through the abandoned streets, sending dust and debris spiraling around them. The weight of the moment bore down on them both, neither daring to make the first move. The wind carried the scent of rusted metal and damp decay, the remnants of a world left to crumble. Shadows stretched unnaturally, twisting and writhing like living things. It was as if the entire city was holding its breath, waiting for what came next.

Then, the communicator on the dealer's wrist flickered violently, its usual calm hum now replaced by a series of erratic beeps. A warning. The lights on its surface pulsed frantically, painting his hand in flashing reds and yellows. A signal of imminent danger.

Something was coming.

A low, reverberating hum vibrated through the air, growing louder, more insistent. The pressure in the atmosphere shifted, an invisible force pressing against their chests. The dealer's breath hitched as he tore his gaze from his younger self and focused on the darkness creeping at the edges of the street.

The boy took a step back, his gaze flickering between the dealer and the encroaching void. "What is that?" he asked, his voice barely audible over the mounting tension.

The dealer didn't answer. He didn't need to. He knew, instinctively, that whatever was approaching would shatter the fragile reality they were barely holding together. The only question that remained was whether they would survive it.

Time was running out.