[Author: Mikan Citrus]

Story Arc 1: The Hero’s Journey 

Chapter 1

I do not want to be alone anymore, for I wish to have true love that is forever faithful.

   There I was, laid down on my mattress in the middle of the bedroom. I woke up from a deep sleep, although I still didn't feel well rested. I went through a few lapses of looking around the bedroom, but ended up placing my head back on the pillow and closed my eyes again to remove my remaining fatigue. That was until I finally had enough energy to fully awaken and regain my consciousness. The first things I saw when I woke up were always the same; everyday felt like the same thing anyway. Same house, same environment, same routine, or rather lack thereof. The walls and ceiling were painted white, as if to remind me how empty and aimless I’ve felt throughout my life. No clear goal in sight, no true motivations in life, no big and grandiose reasons to live—there was nothing like that for me. Such things for me were simply nonexistent so far, aside from a few peaks of joy and cheerfulness on some occasions, there wasn’t much substance for true happiness here.

   Near the bed beside me was a window, allowing me to peek through to the outside world. Although the view wasn’t much, just down the road were the other houses in the neighborhood, along with some bland cars and utility poles. But on the horizon was the sun, subtly beaming through the clouds in the sky to make its appearance known. When things were slow and quiet like this in the morning, with just the gentle sound of the wind and leaves from the large oak trees rustling, it made for quite the sight to take in. I guessed that at least I could enjoy the little things in life like this, even if I didn’t have anything spectacularly grand, but that thought alone wasn’t enough to exactly make me feel better about my situation.

   In the center of the room was a typical flatscreen television. It was formerly used by previous inhabitants of this household, but now it doesn’t get much usage at all besides being a glorified decoration as it was collecting dust. Nearby the screen was a digital clock, and as I finally looked at it I found out what time it was, and just how long I slept in. It was 10:00 AM, so I was asleep for roughly seven hours. I didn’t have an organized sleep schedule, so I simply went to bed whenever I wanted to. The days felt meshed together now anyway, as if I was just drifting through life without much motivation to live, though having such poor sleep often left me tired. I even had the classic trait of sleep deprivation: dark circles under my eyes, though they were subtle, were noticeable.

   After those few more moments in bed I finally got up. I put on my slippers and walked out the bedroom to head toward where I spent most of my day—the basement. It was where I had most of my things set up after all. My computer, the TV I actually used, a sofa bed, and plenty of other things that I put in there to make it more personalized for myself. On the way there I passed by the other rooms, reminiscent of painful memories that I’d rather not dig up yet again; I didn’t want to remember such saddening things.

   There was the hallway leading into the kitchen. A while ago I could have expected for this place to be filled with at least a few people, but now it was empty, void of anyone else’s presence. In fact, now the entire house was empty aside from me, the sole resident of this old place. A kitchen was intended to be used for cooking and dining, but now it barely got any use out of me aside from convenient storage. I didn’t know a damn thing about cooking, never learned to, and that culinary class back in freshman year of high school didn’t teach me anything really. I have dabbled in the skill before, but I didn’t really get into it too deeply. This part of the house has more or less acted like an obligatory set piece nowadays.

   I left the kitchen and turned toward the stairs. I walked down them and entered the basement where I have been spending most of my days as of late, like my own little enclave if the rest of the house wasn’t enough to get away from the outside world. I went toward the section of the basement where I had my things set up. It wasn’t exactly a spectacular sight to behold, and definitely not impressive either, just some basement room modified to accommodate the only person living here—me.

   As always I sat down on my leather computer chair, booted up my PC and TV monitor and went on to do what I usually did. I just tried to fill my time with distractions of entertainment, or at least with what little joy they still brought me. I browsed the internet on my computer, trying to find things that will keep my interest. Watching videos, listening to music, reading manga; I was attempting to figure out what to do next. On the news was the weather, which was cold as expected during Arisaka’s winter season, and right after were reports of an increasing amount of demon attacks throughout the nation’s west coast—not exactly the most uplifting current events. By the end of my surf on the internet, I just ended up binging through some music albums as I had some time to ponder with my own personal thoughts.

   Half an hour passed and I was still feeling bored and listless. The aimless feeling soon mixed in with sadness as my mind wandered and focused on some of the things that made me feel this way. I wished that I wasn’t so lonely, isolated from the world and not having anyone truly close to me. I was treated so horribly in my past, and that haunting fear of not wanting to be hurt again by people ended up sticking with me for the worst. Remembering that when I did try to reach out to people was even worse, those times just never ended up going anywhere. All of my friends gradually drifted away from me, and I didn’t even get together with a girl during that time either. It was a painful loop of dreadful feelings that I didn’t want to deal with anymore, depressing and miserable feelings that I hoped would soon end.

   I didn’t want to die single, I wanted to experience the joys and happiness of true love. Having a sweet and beautiful girlfriend, kissing her, going on dates together, cuddling and falling asleep in her arms after having the time of our lives. I wanted a fulfilling relationship like that with a cute girl, but it felt so distant. I didn’t really have many friends, let alone a girl that I could ask out or something like that. Besides, what girl would want to see this poor excuse of a house anyway.

   My mind continued to wander until finally it reached another issue I had to deal with. I knew I had to do something about it, and continuing to push it away wasn’t exactly going to help. The issue was work, and I needed to keep doing more of those freelance jobs to make a living. My metahuman abilities made it easy enough so far, but I was surprised I haven’t died yet due to this line of work. There wasn’t much money left behind for me to use, definitely not enough to last me for the long term, and I didn’t want to rely on my relatives for money all of the time. So today I decided to tackle this problem; it was yet again time for me to take on one of those contracts offered to freelancers like me, and so my destination was the local coffee house around the neighborhood. Plus I was hungry anyway, I didn’t have any breakfast yet, and I still didn’t quite know how to cook properly so I had to go out somewhere to grab some food regardless. There was also the fact that as much of a pain it was, these types of dangerous and violent jobs made me forget about my depressive feelings.

   I got up and readied myself for the day, dressing up in my usual outfit for going outside. A black t-shirt and leather jacket with a brown fur collar, black cargo pants with plenty of pockets, and a pair of black combat boots that were reliable and durable, but were not overly bulky so as to not hinder my mobility. The dark color of my clothing matched with my black wavy hair and irises, while contrasting my fair white skin.

   Of course with this being the Republic of Arisaka, I unabashedly exercised my right to keep and bear arms, and carried a firearm with me as often as I could. It was something of a tradition and an honor, the concept of carrying a gun was so deeply ingrained into Arisakan culture that it was simply just second nature to most of us. Much like how the Japanese viewed swords in a spiritual light, us Arisakans had a similar outlook on the great equalizer known as the firearm—a symbol of freedom, independence, and being proactive with your own personal security and of the innocent life around you.

   Acting as my EDC sidearm was the Dimalanta Armory 1911 “Ikazuchi.” It was essentially a modernized, and perhaps even perfected version of the original 1911 design. It was a masterfully crafted double stack handgun of Arisakan steel, loaded with 17+1 rounds of the powerful .50 Action Express cartridge, fitted with composite black and white G10 grips, green fiber optic sights, an eight inch longslide and barrel, and topped off with a refined black nitride finish. It was a tailor-made firearm for me through and through; in fact it was a gift personally crafted from my aunt and uncle—the heavy beast of a handgun was a true “big iron” on my hip. Another personal touch my relatives included were the precise engravings on the firearm: Hero Dimalanta—which was my name—on the slide’s right side as a mark of ownership that it was indeed my own customized 1911, and Ikazuchi on the left. Such a girthy hand cannon might appear a bit overkill to some, but in an environment where superpowered demons and humans were commonplace, this ostentatious amount of firepower was very much appropriate.

   With a calm and deep breath I stepped out of the house and into the outside world. Even with my own personal worries it was still refreshing to be able to take a calm walk through the expansive outdoors. The entire city itself was huge, larger than even the neighboring overseas cities of Manila and Tokyo combined in both sheer area size and population. However, this part of the Arisakan capital city was more quaint and picturesque. The architecture was of past eras, the old East Asian style that the buildings in this district of Amaterasu were known for, mixed in with newer structures of the modern age. Finally I arrived at the coffee house—I stepped inside and glanced around the familiar place; since it was a cafe, there was of course always a subtle scent of coffee lingering around the place. It had the style of a contemporary eatery with classical undertones, fitting its location amidst the urban center, and there were only a moderate amount of other customers in the establishment.

   I placed my order, a simple breakfast meal of a sandwich filled with ham, bacon, eggs and cheese, along with a strong cup of Arisakan coffee. Not a huge breakfast, but it was enough to get me through the morning for now. As I waited for my meal to be ready, I went up to the job board and looked at the various contracts available for freelancers such as myself. There have been monsters such as demons, vampires and the like popping up much more frequently around the region, but at least that meant more jobs to take on and more money to earn. Today I was being a little more picky with the contract I wanted to choose. I needed something that paid a lot so I could be well off for a while and not have to worry about money. If it ended up being a high risk and high reward type of deal, then so be it. A lot of these contracts were small fry, many of them only offering a few grand in exchange for risking your life with hunting down monsters. That was until finally I spotted a job that I had deemed suitable for me personally. After my meal arrived I quickly ate it all up and accepted the job. The details of the mission seemed to be simple enough, an old abandoned church on the outskirts of the city that needed to be cleared up of an undead vampire infestation, and it paid more than enough to deal with the bills for this entire month too. Though it appeared a convenient way to make a ton of money at once, the offer seemed too good to be true, so I accepted the job with caution.

Mikan_Citrus

Thank you for reading, and I hope that you decide to follow me on my exciting journey as an author as you enjoy my works!