A sunny sky with summer at its peak near the equator of the earth. It was just the start of the day, yet the heat was already enough to boil an egg lying flat on the ground.
And to add to the burn was a busy pathway full of crowds of people; the summer heat and loud noises across the streets made the beginning as bad as it could be, at least for this little boy here...
"Where is your mother? Why are your sleeves so messy, tch?" a passing lady remarked while glancing at some elementary school boy with slight messy sleeves of a white shirt as he was on his way to school.
"Really, the young parents these days... What a mess." She sighed, glancing down at the boy who was just staring down at the ground, all nervous and confused about what to say, but even in such a condition, without even batting an eye, the lady clicked her tongue, "Tch! Fix it! Why are you standing like a roc--"
"Mind your damn business, will you?"
But her sharp words were cut short in the middle by the intrusion of a man wearing a white hoodie and headphones over his head.
"Ha?!" The lady looked flabbergasted the moment she heard the man's remark, her wrinkly face turned towards that man, ready to pounce with her vicious words, but before her eyes could even reach the man, the man's voice surfaced in her mind.
"Why are you picking a fight with children on the street? Does your husband not give enough attention?" He scoffed while taking down the headphones as he knelt down in front of the kid and, without a word, started to fix the unkept sleeves over his shirt.
"You?! How dare you speak down to me in front of a kid?!" The lady really couldn't hold her vicious tongue, but unfortunately for her, today she had encountered a bull instead of cows in the streets.
"Don't mind snaky bitches like her; people like her just know to complain about other's problems instead of helping them." The man mumbled to the child and placed a bar of chocolate inside the chest pocket of the shirt.
"Good day, kiddo."
His greeting was quite light, yet the warm smile he showed had already warmed up this kid's morning: "Good day to you too, big bro!!!" The kid greeted back with a wide smile on his face as he ran away to join his group of friends just a few metres ahead.
The man just watched, and finally, as the group of kids vanished somewhere in the busy crowd, his warm smile replaced with a dark frown, he moved over to the lady still standing in front of him.
"You..." but it wasn't just him; the woman also unleashed that ugly groan as she shouted, "Do you have any manners?! How dare you---"
She was drawing all attention from the crowd and was just about to pounce, but her words were once again cut off in the middle as the man raised his hands up as if he was surrendering. He apologised, "Oh, sorry about that."
Replacing the frown with a smile, he extended his name card towards her. "I had no intentions of offending you, lady. My name is 'Advait'. Actually, I'm the orthopaedic surgeon at XXIMS Hospital, but recently our hospital is trying out some free medical care for skincare treatments too. Are you perhaps interested?"
"Huh?"
Advait asked so kindly that for a moment, even the woman sizzling with rage lost her rage; her eyes fuming in anger washed off as her raw gaze finally fell over the man.
Smooth rich black hairs, skin shade a mix of pale and somewhat brownish and a body pretty fit and muscular enough to be seen from over his baggy clothes too.
'... Isn't he quite handsome?' Her eyes seem to have gained some rosy filter at the moment.
"So are you interested?" Advait chuckled seeing her eyes fixated on his arms; the lady also snapped out of the daze, and with a flustered look, suddenly started to nod, "Y-yes, please!"
'R-right?! Even if he has a rude mouth, getting free skincare is cheat! They are so expensive these days! And he seems so warm and polite!? Did he perhaps fall for me?'!
She was still lost in thoughts, but Advait had already stepped right in front of her with both his hands wrapped around her face, so close that she could feel his hard breaths right on her lips.
"A moment, please; let me inspect the condition of your face..." he murmured, and his serious gaze remained fixated tightly around her eyes.
"Huh?" The lady, on the other hand, was quite literally having her wet dreams in daylight in the middle of crowded streets; her ears were beaming red as her blushing face was red from all corners.
'W-what do I do?! Did I brush?! I did right?! I forgot, maybe! I have been single for such a long time now because of all my jobs! I really didn't take care of my body; he won't be judgemental, right?! He is so kind and handsome?! Even his height! He should be around 180 cm? Right? I should try asking him out for a coffee in my hous--!'
She was lost, but that daze was snapped away as she observed a sudden frown over Advait's face.
"Hmm..." he grumbled and suddenly stepped back, grabbing his headphones hanging on his neck.
"W-what happened, doctor...?" the lady questioned in concern as she observed his reaction. Advait, on the other hand, just placed his headphones over his head once again with a chuckle and ran away somewhere towards the crowd.
But that too was not before a loud shout, enough to draw all attention of the crowd watching this drama towards the mean woman at the centre of all that.
"Get a damn plastic surgery!!!"
With that Advait simply vanished in the crowd, leaving the woman alone in the middle of snickers and chuckles from the crowd.
Now, as she was the centre of all ridicule and laughter instead of that little kid, her confident glint in her eyes was instantly taken away, replaced with fuming rage and frustration.
"You mashed egg-looking fucker!!!" she yelled while smashing her heels over the ground, accidentally breaking those too, and with no more ground to fall lower, she had to close her mouth and run away somewhere away from people's snickering gazes.
"Hahaha!" Advait, finally away from both the crowd and the woman, couldn't help but giggle out loud while entering a cafe and snacks parlour nearby which he was regular at.
He took down his earphones and sat down over an empty seat by the corner of the window while signalling the guy at the ordering desk. Being a regular, he was familiar enough with almost all the staff here.
In just a few minutes, someone brought him his morning tea along with the egg sandwiches he enjoyed for the morning as snacks.
He grabbed his warm tea first, taking a big sip as he relaxed his back on the seat while staring at the crowd through glass walls outside the cafe.
'Funny gal...' he thought to himself, still amused by the fun encounter early in the morning. He kept quiet while drinking the tea, but at the same time, the momentary happiness also washed away, replaced by a deep look in his eyes.
'But still...' he thought while placing an empty teacup on the table, 'Society is shit...' He frowned, reminiscing about the situation of life he had observed. 'People will blame others for their own problems instead of helping them; the crowd will watch others face these problems, and all they know is to laugh at someone being humiliated.
Everybody is so in a rush, so much that rushing to judge others at their first glance has become their second nature, picking fights with anyone who is vulnerable, principles vanish the moment they catch sight of personal gain, ignoring justice if it's not dramatic and funny, revenge-driven morals rather than reform, harsh standards and---'
Advait almost seemed to be lost in a moment of trance while sitting there in silence, but that was destroyed too as a new customer walked into the quiet cafe.
"You!!!" It was the same woman who was humiliated back in the streets by Advait; she screamed the moment she caught a glance of Advait fuming in all her anger.
"Fuck..." Advait almost puked at the tea he had just drunk. 'Is Karma my personal bitch or something...' Advait sighed heavily as he watched the woman striding towards him with heavy steps, with her arms tightly wrapped around her purse; she seemed ready to swing at Advait's face the moment she reached near him.
Advait also seemed ready for this confrontation, which was bound to get ugly today, but even he didn't expect...
In fact, none in this whole world ever expected the phenomenon which was about to occur next.
The sunny day, the hot summer and overly warm sunlight – all of it was suddenly blocked away as an enormous figure of an absolutely unseen and creepy red-feathered creature covered the sky with its enormous wings.
Maybe it was survival instinct or just a random reaction, but both Advait and the woman walking towards him paused and turned to look forward at the sight outside of the glass windows of the cafe.
The huge crowd full of people in the busy street was suddenly replaced by the sight of a raw blood massacre; all sorts of vicious creatures that were never even heard of were suddenly flooding the streets.
Strange creatures, unseen and unimaginable, yet right in front of their sight, created a sight which was like the creation of hell on earth.
Creatures who seemed like mutated beings born of the fusion of serpents and bees, their vicious fangs and venomous stinging needles all over the back of their spines, a swarm of those was hovering over the heads of people, ripping their flesh and assimilating inside their bodies.
Monkey like demonic spirits with dark ashen fur, cookies, and glowing greenish energy radiating around their whole bodies, 3 enormous crazed eyes on their heads, and sharp claws that pierced through human skin like it was a cake.
Advait watched this horrible sight with eyes wide open, as right in front of him hundreds in the crowd were ripped away like squashed tomatoes.
"Kyaaaaaaa?!"
The woman who was here to fight against him collapsed on her knees in fear watching the gruesome sight and started to move while crawling on the ground as her feet already stopped listening to her will the moment she caught this sight.
And at a moment like that, something more unexpected emerged in Advait's eyes.