Chapter Two, The Beginning of the End.

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  "Huh?" Everett whispered. His head turned back towards the towering white faced man behind him.

  "Hehehe." It laughed, a wide smile appearing on its otherwise blank face. A long red tongue dropped out of its mouth. Saliva fell onto the ground behind the bench.

  "What is it, Mister E?" Reese questioned nervously.

  Though, Everett ignored her, he was far more focused on the creature before him.

  "What did you say?" He asked, watching as tentacles sprouted from the featureless man's back.

  "I said, the world is going to end, Mister Everett." The creature's head came face to face with Everett's.

  Since when did they joke like that? Everett questioned in his mind.

  Never.

  Never. Never once have any of his delusions said anything like that.

  Usually, they would insult him, maybe those around him.

  "T-The world?" Everett nervously asked, his hands jittering.

  "Ahaha! Now you pay attention to my words..." It responded.

  "Mister E?" Reese muttered.

  "One moment." Everett said firmly, lifting a finger in her direction, shushing her.

  "Keke, yes! This world as you know it will end!" The faceless man spoke, throwing it's long lanky arms into the air.

  Without hesitation, Everett's head swiveled to the other entities around him.

  Most of them had a smile on whatever appendage that could be considered their head.

  "What?"

  "We can all feel it."

  "Correct!"

  "We are all aware that there is something attempting to breach the walls of reality."

  "Indeed."

  "But there is something else..."

  "Something that is already within this reality."

  All of the entities around him took their turns speaking, building off of one another. With each of their additions, more horrible news was thrown at him.

  "We can feel it stirring."

  "It is not far from here-"

  "-Out at sea."

  "It is a danger to all life."

  "Whether it is life from this realm-"

  "-Or another."

  Everett's face showed pure disbelief and confusion.

  "Do you not believe us?"

  "He does not..."

  "You will see when you awake in the morning."

  "This country will be doomed to destruction in less than a month!"

  "Though of course, if you wish to live..."

  "Then we will do our best to keep you alive."

  "After all!-"

  "You are special."

  "In a multitude of ways!"

  After only a few moments of listening to the dozens of overlapping voices, they all vanished.

  In an instant, all sounds, and all creatures around him, vanished.

  There were no longer the towering creatures looking down at him from above.

  There were no small alien creatures running around the ground.

  There were no strange entities floating around in the air.

  It was pure silence, all he could hear were the ambient sounds of the night, and Reese breathing.

  "Crickets." He muttered, his mind in shambles.

  "U-Uhm..." He heard Reese stumble, feeling her hand touch his still raised finger, bringing it down.

  "Ah..." Everett turned to face Reese, the pure fear in his eyes transferring over to her.

  "I'm sorry! I-It was..." He stuttered, having no idea what to say.

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  "An episode?" She asked nervously with a blush.

  "Well, I would assume that's what you call them... But, it's okay Mister E, I'm here." She said, scooting closer and wrapping her arms around the still stunned Everett.

  W-What was all that... Where did they go? Everett asked himself, his arms slowly reciprocating the hug. His ears took note of her words, trying not to push them away.

  "M-My name is Everett." He mumbled, receiving an affirmative nod.

  "Okay Everett. It's nice to meet you fully. My name is Reese." She replied, a smile laced within her voice.

  He could feel the warmth of her breath grazing his neck. Her body heat engulfed him, doing its best to ward away the cold air.

  Their embrace was shared for a long minute. Everett's discomfort was very present, but it seemed to be receding with every passing second.

  Slowly, he backed away, a confusing expression on his face.

  His eyes rerouted their movement, stabilizing through his madness. His gaze interlocked with Reese's, a warm smile emerging on her face.

  "The fish are cute aren't they!" She exploded, turning towards the pond. "It's like... When I have problems, feeding these little guys just makes all the thoughts go away." She said.

  Everett's eyes alternated between her and the pond. Seeing her face, and the honesty she was showing...

  He couldn't help but be influenced.

  He took a deep breath, his hand dragging over his mouth.

  "You know, I enjoy feeding as well." He spoke, a small smile showing itself.

  "Oh? You like fish pellets?" Reese questioned.

  "N-No, I like cooking I mean. Like feeding others? You know?" He stumbled over his words, embarrassment clear in his body language.

  "D-Don't worry I understood..." She laughed, almost hysterically. She had no choice but to cover her mouth, afraid of being too loud so late at night.

  Everett could only stare, in shock and awe. It was a simple interaction, but it was one of the few in his life in which he was treated like any other person.

  For a moment, he felt like a normal guy.

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  ...

  Everett and Reese spent a few more hours of the night together. Half talking, half feeding the fish.

  In the moment, the two learned a lot about each other.

  Reese came to understand a bit of Everett's backstory. A boy born with schizophrenia, who excelled in school while he grew up, and was often bullied.

  Eventually he was homeschooled, living with his mother as his father had long passed, even before he was born.

  She learned of how his mother died when he was 17, and how all of his life his schizophrenia took up a large portion of everything.

  He heard many voices, saw many things that weren't real, and all he could do was take pills that barely even worked.

  As for what Everett learned of Reese...

  He came to understand that she had not always lived in America, as she was born in China, though she moved away while she was still young. She went to a private school, her parents being well off enough to afford it.

  She was well educated, and had a love for animals, so much so that she was even studying to become a veterinarian.

  She was 19, on the verge of turning twenty, and she still lived in a quite large house with her parents.

  Her father was on his deathbed, and her mother was taking it as well as she could.

  They spoke for hours, Everett speaking the most he ever had to a real person.

  Eventually, it was nearly 4 in the morning. Everett was reduced to a drowsy stumble, tripping into his apartment. He quickly found his bed and fell face first into it.

  He cherished the absence of the voices, the strange feeling of not seeing the dark entity always sitting in his corner.

  It didn't even take a second for him to fall asleep.

  His conversation with Reese had fully pulled his mind away from the words his "delusions" had spoken to him...

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  ...

  Screams rang inside of Everett's ears, waking him up.

  His eyes shot wide open, and his arms lifted him off of the bed.

  He could hear the screams of women, children, and men alike, all of them sprinting through the streets.

  "What the..." He mumbled, slipping around, the vertigo getting to him

  "Stood up too fast." He whispered, running towards his apartment window.

  Before his eyes were dozens of people running through the streets, cars driving as fast as they could.

  He could hear a rumbling a few blocks down, car horns blaring.

  "You woke up, Mister E!" Everett's head swung around, watching as his entire room was filled with creatures looming over him.

  "Holy fuck." He jumped, staring into the blank head of the ever familiar Faceless man.

  "Welcome to the beginning of the end!" He threw his hands up into the air.

  Everett quickly got over the reappearance of his long lost friends. He turned his attention to the streets before him, his face pressed against the glass.

  He listened intently as the rumbling and blaring of car horns got louder, the sounds of destruction following.

  "As this is a historical event in the history of Earth-..."

  "We will allow you to witness the infantile form of the manifestation of a concept!"

  "A concept that wasn't born through experimentation."

  "A concept that was simply born through an unfortunate series of events."

  Everett couldn't help but soak in the words of the entities behind, all the while his face was plastered against his window, watching for the creator of the rumbling to appear before him.

  "But after this, you will be taught to control the powers you hold."

  "And then we will teach you even more powers!"

  "And in the end, you will grow."

  "And you will grow to understand us!"

  "And you might grow to hate us."

  "But in the end-"

  ""You will grow.""

  Everett intently listened to their words, the confusion seeping into his mind, but he didn't let it distract him.

  He stared into the street, cars piling up as a massive creature finally came into his vision.

  "What is that..." Everett asked, his grip on his window sill tightening.

  He looked at the creature dragging itself through the street, pure horror taking over his body.

  But it wasn't because of the creature itself... he had seen uglier and scarier beings before.

  It was the fact that it was all real.

  Cars were being trampled, buildings tumbling to the side, people running through the streets.

  Of course there were those that did not run fast enough, being stepped on by the arms of the creature.

  It seemed to be hell on Earth.

  A creature, wider than a street, dragging itself through a city by it's thick forearms.

  Its belly scraped the ground, small limp fin like legs dangling at its lower half.

  It had a crocodilian face, and its eyes were filled with unintelligence, bulging from the sides of its head.

  It had fin-like spines running along its back, reaching all the way down to the long tail that dragged far, far behind it.

  "W-What is that?" Everett asked again, turning back to the nightmares behind him.

  "Oh! That thing?"

  "It's the manifestation of evolution."

  "A creature of no limits, with adaptability beyond nearly all known existences."

  "It is the potential end of not just this world, but the trillions within this universe..."

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