AIN: The Eyes of Deception

Chapter 3 : Not a Coincidence

"I don't know what you're talking about," Arel snapped, his voice raspy and shaking. He tried to step back, but his legs felt heavy, as if the concrete beneath him had turned into a swamp. "I just want to go home. I just want all of this to stop."

The little girl tilted her head, her hair falling to cover part of her face. "Home? Arel, you have no place to call home anymore. Your home is now wherever you set your sights."

Arel shut his eyes tight. He tried to ignore the girl, tried to deny the reality that he had just caused a man to collapse with nothing but a dark thought. However, the ink shadow on his shoulder whispered, its voice feeling as if it were crawling deep into his ear canal, cold and tempting.

Look at her, Arel. She's just an innocent 'Level 1.' You have far more potential than this little girl. Why are you trembling? Why are you afraid of your own shadow?

"Shut up!" Arel barked at the empty air. The people around the bus stop who were previously busy with their phones started to look over. They stared at Arel with strange expressions, the way people look at a young man shouting at a wall.

Arel noticed their stares. Damn it. Paranoia began to hit him like a tidal wave. He was terrified that if he looked at them too long, with too much hate or irritation, the tragedy would repeat itself. He imagined the sidewalk crumbling, streetlights falling on their heads, or whatever else his Evil Eye could do.

He quickly hung his head, forcing himself to push through the crowd. He tripped, his heart pounding wildly, thumping against his ribs as if trying to burst out. Don't look. Don't focus. Don't hate.

Every second felt like a year. He broke into a jog, ignoring the shouts of a man whose shoulder he'd clipped. Arel didn't dare look back. He kept running until his legs gave out and he reached the narrow alley behind his apartment. There, among the trash and the city's stench, he collapsed.

That night was the start of a literal hell. Insomnia gripped him like shackles. As soon as Arel closed his eyes, he saw the faces of the people he had harmed. Riko's mangled face, the face of the man in the suit sprawled on the asphalt. And in every dream, the ink shadow stood there, sharpening its black claws against the walls of reality.

Arel woke up with cold sweat soaking his sheets. The wall clock read three in the morning. His cramped apartment felt suffocating. The darkness in the corner of the room seemed denser than usual. Arel tried to close his eyes again, but a faint creaking sound from the wardrobe caught his attention.

"Who's there?" he asked, his voice barely a whisper. There was no answer.

He switched off the bedroom light, hoping the darkness would hide his fear. However, once the room was completely dark, he saw something on the wall. At first, he thought it was just eye strain from exhaustion. But then, he saw it clearly.

A silhouette.

It was a shadow that didn't mirror his movements. While Arel lay still, the shadow on the wall seemed to move on its own. The figure slowly raised its hand, as if stroking the wall of Arel's room with long, slender fingers. It wasn't Arel's shadow. It was another entity, something born of his own emotions, something he had summoned into the physical world.

"What do you want from me?" Arel asked, his body freezing.

The shadow stopped moving. It turned toward Arel. Even though it had no eyes, Arel could feel the figure staring at him with an intensity that made it hard to breathe.

I want what you want, the voice whispered in his head. You want to be somebody, don't you? You want the world to stop walking all over you. You want to be the one in control.

"I never asked you to come!" Arel yelled as he reached for the desk lamp and flicked it on.

The brilliant light flooded the room. The shadow on the wall vanished instantly, but the cold remained. Arel shook violently. He pulled his knees to his chest on the bed, trying to steady his erratic heartbeat. This isn't real. It's just stress. I'll go to the doctor tomorrow. I'll get help.

However, when he looked at the wall again, he saw a faint scorched mark in the shape of a palm. Arel nearly gagged. He wasn't just hallucinating. Something had left a physical mark on his world.

"I have to get out of here," he muttered.

He tried to get up to reach for his bag, but suddenly, the bedroom light began to flicker erratically. Ting! Ting! The sound was sharp, deafening. Every flicker of light brought a change. With each flash, he saw the shadow in a different position. First at the corner of the wardrobe, then near the door, and finally, right in front of the large mirror hanging on the closet door.

Arel stared at the mirror in horror. In it, his reflection looked pale, the dark circles under his eyes incredibly prominent. But his reflection wasn't staring back at him. It was looking toward the bed, toward the spot where Arel was supposed to be.

And behind Arel's reflection in the mirror, those two entities stood clearly.

Aelion, a dimly glowing figure, stood with his arms folded over his chest, his calm face looking deeply disappointed. Meanwhile, Velkris, the ink shadow, stood right behind the reflection's shoulder, his long hands gripping its neck as if he were holding a doll.

Arel tried to scream, but the sound was trapped in his throat.

"You aren't part of me," Arel whimpered as tears began to fall. "You're a curse."

Velkris, the ink entity, leaned down inside the mirror and brought his face close to the reflection's ear. He turned his head slightly, as if looking directly into Arel's eyes in the real world. His sharp grin looked so real, transcending the glass boundary that separated them.

"A curse?" Velkris laughed, a sound like paper being forcibly torn apart. "You're wrong, Arel Virel. We are your true self. We are the manifestation of the desires you've buried beneath that pathetic 'good guy' mask."

Aelion, the light entity, finally spoke. His voice was clear, echoing through the room, calm yet deadly. "Arel, Ain isn't about who you hate. Ain is about what you give to this world when you feel you have nothing left. You're afraid of us because you're afraid to admit that every bit of destruction... is the result of your own need to feel significant."

"Enough!" Arel threw a pillow at the mirror, but it only hit the glass surface and fell to the floor.

"You can't hide from us," Velkris continued, his voice now sounding like a whisper inside Arel's brain. "Every time you close your eyes in fear, you only give us more room to grow. You don't need to see your targets to destroy them, Arel. You only need to... think about it."

The bedroom light exploded right then. Shards of glass scattered everywhere. Total darkness swallowed the room. Yet, in the middle of that darkness, two pairs of eyes began to glow. One was a cold, dim silver, and the other was a dark red, like blood beginning to clot.

Arel felt the air pressure become incredibly heavy, as if the weight of the entire world were resting on his shoulders. He didn't dare move. He knew that if he moved even a little, if he let his hatred or fear take control for even a second, he would destroy his apartment, or perhaps something even worse.

"What should I do?" he whispered, his voice trembling.

"Learn," Aelion replied briefly.

"Learn to be a monster?" Arel countered with a bitter, sarcastic tone.

"Learn to be a master," Velkris said, releasing his grip on the reflection's neck. "Because if you don't lead your own desires, Arel, then those desires will be the ones to kill you."

Suddenly, there was a loud pounding on his apartment door. BAM! BAM! BAM!

"Arel! Open the door! We know you're in there!" a man's voice called from outside. It wasn't the landlord. It was a man with a very sharp aura, someone who reminded Arel of the man he'd encountered on the street earlier.

Arel went still. He stared at the door as it shook violently. Panic surged again, triggering a wild heartbeat. As soon as the panic set in, the ink shadow in the corner began to move, crawling up the wall at an impossible speed.

They're coming for you, Arel, Velkris whispered. Will you let yourself be destroyed, or will you let them be the ones to feel that destruction?

Arel stared at his trembling hands in the darkness. He realized one thing. The world had never been fair, but now, he was no longer a part of that world. He was something new. Something dangerous. And as the door began to crack under the force from outside, Arel no longer felt like hiding.

"Come in," Arel whispered, his eyes, once full of fear, now turning into a dark and unreadable gaze.

He didn't need to see who was behind the door. He only needed to think about what they deserved. And for the first time, he didn't feel afraid. He felt... hungry.

The apartment door burst open instantly, torn from its hinges with a deafening crash. Three men dressed in black rushed in with weapons drawn, ready to strike. But before they could even step onto Arel's bedroom floor, they stopped abruptly.

They clutched their own throats. Their faces turned blue, their eyes bulging as they gasped for air, as if invisible hands were crushing their windpipes with massive strength.

Arel stood in the middle of the room, his eyes no longer fixed on them but seeing through them, through the walls, through reality. He could see the threads of possibility connecting the men's hearts to him.

Sever the threads, Velkris whispered.

Arel closed his eyes, and with one deep breath, he imagined their breathing stopping.

Silence.

The three men collapsed to the floor with a thud, lifeless. Arel slowly opened his eyes. He felt no remorse. He only felt a cold, sickening satisfaction.

"It's no coincidence," Arel whispered to the corpses in front of him. "This is my choice."

Behind his shadow, Velkris's grin widened, while Aelion simply stood with his head bowed, watching as a human slowly lost his humanity for the sake of a power that should never have been touched.

Arel stepped over the bodies, out through the ruined door, and into the silent apartment hallway. He knew that after tonight, he would never be able to return to his old life.

"Who's next?" he asked the empty hallway.

And from the end of the hall, the sound of steady footsteps began to approach. Someone was walking toward him, unhurried, unafraid. Someone with an aura far thicker than the men he had just killed.

"You have quite an interesting talent, Arel," an elegant, sharp female voice echoed down the hallway.

Arel turned and saw a woman walking closer in a perfect business suit. Her eyes were sharp, radiating an aura of dominance that made the ink shadow behind Arel hesitate for a moment.

"Lyxaria Venn," Arel muttered. He didn't know how he knew that name, but it simply appeared in his mind, offered up by his Cupids.

The woman smiled, a predatory smile that knew exactly what its prey wanted. "Let's see how far you can play before you realize that this world doesn't belong to you, Arel... but to me."