DB Multiverse

The old man clenched his fists. A tremendous pain stabbed his body as a fire blade. The end of his life was near, he felt it, he knew it.

Suddenly, the horrible suffering left as soon as it has come. Actually, all his pains disappeared in that nebulous fog that now clouded his sight. A strange and turquoise fog. The old man relaxed. He now bide his time, he welcomed death as a relief.

He couldn't wait to leave that world that was covered with grey dust, a world that wasn't his anymore. He couldn't wait to meet up with Alba in a luminous and colourful world where his friends and neighbours were waiting for him. An entire life.

What was the point of struggling? What was the point?

His eyelids closed on tired eyes that couldn't bear the dry bite of that damned grey dust. He closed his eyes and sighed: may that hell he was going through come to an end, and fast! And even though the only thing he yearned for in that particular moment was the peaceful void of the nothingness, the dark movie of the past hours played on the blue screen of his burning mind.

A movie that had started as in a dream. The dream of the happiness of a normal day. The happiness of a beautiful summer day, one of these days that was redolent of the pleasure of the completed work, one of these days that smelled like the scents of a garden, the scent of Alba's cooking, her smile when she saw the day's harvest, the pleasure of the promise of an evening spent with friends, the warm smell of grilled meat and the roars of laughters.

A dream of happiness suddenly shattered by an horrible scream, the loud bang of a detonation, the kind he had never heard before, and it was followed by another, and another!

He felt as if his ears weren't working well anymore. That moment was nothing but an horrifying black hole, a gulf that that looked like the one that had opened beneath his feet, until the moment when the pain made him open his eyes again. The moment he had found himself pinned under those tons of concrete, and under that thick layer of grey dust.

That's when he had seen them!

Yes, he had seen the devil himself, two demons coming right from Hell.

Two monsters that looked like angels with their youthful face and their clear big eyes. Who could have thought that two bodies so frail could contain so much cruelty, so much brutality? He would never have thought such a thing.

They were there, the boy and the girl, the brown haired and the blond haired, so different yet so similar, as a negative reflection. They were there with their big eyes and their radiant smiles.

For the demons were smiling, a broad smile that showed an intense happiness as they obviously were having a good time destroying any sections of wall that hadn't collapsed, striking down the least signs of life using only their merciless hands, hands that were spitting the devil's venom!

The old man let another sob escape from his throat as he remembers and sees his neighbours, his friends, the young mischievous red-head, the son of the grocer, the barber's little dog or the courageous garage owner standing and falling under the merciless fire of the diabolical duo.

As for him, he hadn't moved anymore. Due to an instinct as old as the hills, he had stayed perfectly still under the thick layer of grey dust, biting his lips until it drew blood in order to keep himself from yelling with terror and rage, praying that the demons wouldn't notice that he was still alive. Damned instinct of self-preservation, that was stupid!

All that pain, all that grief, all of it would be over.

And instead of being at peace, he was doomed to watch the awful images the blue screen kept forcing on him.

To watch those unknown people coming in small groups and from the sky. Yes, those unknown persons flew, they all arrived like that, as if it was natural to fly without plane, without veil, without wings. And they merely landed in front of the smiling couple of demons.

It was as if travelling in the air like this was ordinary, they all had landed there. And the smallest, a weird little and bald man, dressed with an orange fighting suit had merely asked: “Why?” after he has looked the ground that was covered with grey dust and bodies, anger and sorrow passing his eyes.

Feelings that most likely were sincere for the old man had recognized the dark hints in the discreet shake that had choked his voice that was meant to sound sure.

Pure emotions that at first got nothing but two loud bursts of laughing, provocative and sarcastic laugh, the devil's laugh.

The blond girl was then the first to answer.

“Why?”

She then had turned to the boy whose hair was as dark as his soul to ask him, a naïve look on her face.

“I don't remember... Do you?”

“Come on, remember... that stupid grocer didn't have oysters.”

Soon, they all found themselves broken on the ground... under the mocking eyes of a young man and a frail young woman that didn't even show the mere scratch.

He wasn't certain that it was what that stupid blond haired girl had answered, that girl who had destroyed his universe for so trivial a whim. What he did remember was the dull anger that had risen in him afterwards.

What happened next too was more precisely engraved in his memory: how could he forget the violence of the fight that followed. The furor of the strikes, the precision of attacks and the brilliant dodges.

How could he forget that even if they were more numerous, the newcomers quickly were in big trouble confronted to both possessed youngsters. Even if they were three against two, even if they fought with rage and determination, even if they counterattacked with bravery… all of them seemed too weak opposed to these two enraged teenagers.

It must be said that the old man was an expert ; he used to watch fights on TV and follow martial arts championships. That was why he immediately felt that these strangers were not beginners, that they all were trained and experienced fighters… better than those he had seen during his life… but against Evil itself, they unfortunately didn’t stand a chance.

Soon enough, they were on the ground, broken… under the mocking eyes of a very young man and of a wispy girl who even didn’t have a graze.