Inhuman Apathy

A man ran through an empty hallway. Cold locked onto his skin; enveloping him with its choking sensation. Darkness surrounded him from all sides as he ran through the endless void, accompanied by his own footsteps and the sounds of battle.

“Dammit…how he ⸺ how did they find us here of all places?” The man asked himself, stumbling over his boots, and meeting the black marble beneath him with a hard thud. Like a drop of hope in an empty jar, he felt the moonlight slide towards his fingertips.

He dragged his gaze across the floor as he stood and, in that moment; he wished he kept his eyes towards the marble. Only a few meters away lay a mountain of corpses. He traced the outlines of the faces that he could recognize before resting on the sight of who stood at the top of such a sadistic display.

Two cloaked figures stood atop the mountain of bodies like a resting place for sleeping demons, or a sacrifice to an unknown god.

“I — I thought you two weren’t supposed to be here. This wasn’t a part of the plan at all. You would be able to complete your mission and my team would live⸺”

“Live?” A cloak figured chuckled as the moonlight flooded into the room, illuminating his unnatural golden gaze for the man to see. “You really thought that you would defy a god and just live… of all the idiots we’ve betrayed, you might be the funniest. I’ll give you that much.”

The man was frozen. His mind raced through all the possibilities of what he could have done differently or maybe if he just ⸺ He looked forward only to see one of the cloaked boy disappear like a ghost. Energy shimmered around the man’s ears and his eyes flashed to the sight of the boy behind him.

His eyes flashed a luminescent gold.

Chains flooded from all around, forcing the man’s body to the ground. He looked around like a cornered beast as his eyes took on a similar glow; pink energy flooded all around him while he struggled.

“You—you don’t know who I am, do you?!” the man snarled at the boy, His energy slowly leaked from his body, no longer of his own will. His healthy vanilla skin grew paler than the moonlight above and his pink eyes were slowly overtaken by darkness.

His animalistic voice gave birth to weak and frantic pleas.

“I — I can give you the world, you know? Money, Power, just join me. I know the Deadly Sins have no power anymore. It’s — I know it’s true, just let me go ⸺ please.” he choked.

The chains grew tight with each word the man spoke. The boy licked his lips at the sight of him before allowing his chains to rip away from the man, slicing his weak skin. Crimson blood littered the floor while the man clung to life.

No matter what happened, whether he lived or died; the last thing he saw would remain imprinted in his mind for an eternity. The boy kneeled down to lift the man’s face to see his golden eyes clearly.

They were familiar.

“You — you really are⸺”

The boy cut him off. His condescending tone bled into one of inhuman apathy.

“I couldn't care less about who you are or what you could ever offer to me. Your human gifts are nothing in the face of a God.”

The man knew of the legends and myths. Seven mythical beings that were capable of rending the earth and the heavens where they dwelled within. Seven beings with the mere goal of providing humans the path to ascension: The Seven Deadly Sins.

The boy cracked a cheeky grin at the sight of fear in the man’s eyes.

“It’s useless, so give up ⸺ and die.”

Crimson filled the moonlit sky, and blood leaked from the man. His body hit the floor, hollow and lifeless.

“You never were the type to leave survivors…were you, Greed?” The second cloaked figure descended from the mountain of bodies. Her crimson eyes lingered on the sight of the pale corpse of the man carefully before moving to the boy in front of her.

Greed discarded his cloak to reveal his crow-feathered hair. Moonlight contrasted against his dark skin as he opened his eyes back to the world, yet unlike the man’s, his own eyes retained their golden hue; merely subdued.

“He served his purpose — to think the leader of another rebellion cell would easily sell out his comrades without a second thought… It’s pitiful, honestly,” Greed muttered under his breath until he watched the girl check the man’s vitals. “He’s dead, Nabi.”

“Unlike the rest, you took his reiju?” Nabi asked, coldly.

Greed gave a childish chuckle at the girl’s words, but didn’t reply. His face loosened up as a careless look found itself on his face. Nabi noticed the look. It was odd, but who was she to question it? She let out a cat-like yawn as her cloak fell and her face was revealed in the moonlight. Unlike Greed, her skin glistened like silver.

“Nabi, you ready?” Greed asked.

Nabi didn’t grant him much of a response, instead choosing to walk further into the darkness.

“I — I guess you are then,” Greed muttered to himself as he stuffed his bloody fingertips into his pockets and followed.

The two stopped in a large circular chamber. Moonlight poured from the ceilings above onto the seal in the center of the room: the Symbol of Greed. Three circles rested on each edge of a larger one. It pulsed with golden light, swirling around the four circles within it like a beating heart.

“Greed, knife,” Nabi muttered to Greed.

He waved his hand through empty air as golden sparks followed behind it and brought forth a small crimson blade that he pictured so many times before. He tossed the blade to Nabi, and it was small enough for her fingers to envelop. Reiju fell from her fingertips in the form of blood. As if it pierced the beating heart of the symbol; the golden hue it had turned crimson.

Nabi uttered a short incantation before igniting her own reiju like a flame.

“Contract Series: Warp Gate - Invid.”

Nabi's eyes mirrored the symbol in its scarlet glow as particles swirled around the two. As it enveloped their bodies in crimson light, they broke down into energy resembling the petals of a lily. With a blinding flash of light, their bodies vanished from the chamber.