Crow Killer Blues

July 17th 2025

11:43

A subway car rattled around a bend, packed but not suffocating; enough people that most seats were taken and a few stood swaying with the motion.

Then the world split open.

Ahead of the train, a massive winged creature with the body of a fish swooped down, a horned skull-mask clamped over its head. Its jaw unhinged as it rammed the front car. Those not instantly impaled were swallowed whole. Others were swatted aside, hurled into buildings until metal walls buckled and bodies flattened under the impact of its tail.

There were no screams.

Everyone died too fast for any sort of sound to escape.

Below the highline, streets dissolved into chaos. Smoke and mist spiraled under the support beams, creating a tornado of grey haze, the center had a prominent human face in the centre watching every living person simultaneously.

Then came the smaller things.

A horde of thin, bird-like humanoids, creatures shaped somewhere between a chicken and an infant- swarming the ground. They picked at debris, cars, walls…

And then people.

This time, the screaming finally began.
Hell had merged with Earth, spilling monsters and spirits into the mortal plane.

At an school overlooking the nightmare, a fourteen-year-old boy with messy blonde hair was confessing his feelings. He bowed, offering his crush a handwritten letter with a heart on it. Her black hair danced in the wind; her smile brightened, dimples showing.

Blood.

Her smile stayed warm for half a second before a massive red arm punched through her chest. Two more followed, each dripping with gold bangles and jewelry.

She didn’t die. Not immediately.

Flames erupted along the demon’s limbs, burning her from the inside out, sealing wounds only to tear them wider. A blade formed in its hand, and with one clean motion, it sliced her in half. She folded open like a book.

The boy stared. Frozen. There was no fight or flight, just shock as he faced the red, multi-armed, multi-headed demon that had taken everything from him.

In that moment, the first human Astral Affinity was born.

The boy, Yosuke Hasegawa, became Yosuke Spica, child of Virgo. Knowledge of his powers flooded his mind in a single overwhelming surge. His strength exploded. He tore a slab of roof from under his feet, spun it into a thin wire of stone, and wrapped it around the demon. One pull. One instant.

The creature’s limbs and heads were severed.

While classmates and teachers were slaughtered around him, Yosuke’s purpose crystallized: kill them. Kill every spirit that stole his future.
Ten. Twenty. Thirty.
Within hours he tore invaders apart in every way imaginable.

Ripping.
Tearing.
Breaking.

But it meant nothing.
For every creature he killed, dozens more arrived.

July 19th 2025

16:37

Two days since The Merge. Nearly two hundred spirits dead by Yosuke’s hands. His clothes shredded. His body bleeding. His stomach empty.

He climbed out the window of his makeshift base, a fortified classroom, and descended using a crude pulley system built with his Astral Affinity. For the first time in forty-eight hours, he stepped beyond the schoolyard.

The streets he once walked with friends were now painted with blood. Bodies missing parts. Ruins everywhere. And the creatures, the “things” which he had classified into four groups:

Xenomorphs: Non-humanoid spirits that fight on sight, with intense amounts of speed and/or strength.
ETs: Spirits that imitate humans, with human-like strengths and weaknesses.
Predators: Humanoid in silhouette only; monstrously strong, with abnormal amounts of limbs.
Stitchs: Passive unless provoked, usually avoidable.

Every spirit fit at least one category.

He headed toward the supermarket he used to visit after school. The one across from the karaoke joint where he and his friends celebrated half-term. Most buildings stood half-intact; others were collapsed from the inside out. The initial chaos had quieted. Mainly because there were fewer humans left to kill.

Outside the shop sat an unlocked bike. Easy pickings.
But first. Food.

He swept through the aisles, stuffing soon-to-expire items into his bag. He grabbed three cans of beer: one to try, one to drink if it was good, and one to keep if he never found more.

Supplies in hand, he mounted the bike, faster than walking and much stealthier.

Ironically, that’s when everything went wrong.

A monstrous fish-thing with centipede legs burst onto the road behind him. Gold and silver scales shimmered as its human face peeled open like origami, revealing layers of teeth. Human arms sprouted beneath it, slamming the pavement, cracking asphalt, and bursting sewer pipes in geysers of filth.

Yosuke lashed out, an earth-thin wire shooting from his palm, hooking trash cans, mailboxes, even bicycles. He whipped them behind him, smashing them into the creature’s skull.

He climbed up on the bike seat, turned to face the monster, and swung a makeshift yo-yo made from a cola can wrapped in stone-wire. Strike after strike dented its head. With one final throw, he tangled its limbs, sending it crashing into a car and caving in both the vehicle and the creature’s human face.

Yosuke and the bike slammed into another car. The windshield shattered, alarm blaring through the empty street, loud enough to wake every creature nearby like a dinner bell.