Advent of Cataclysm.

"The Devil told you, is that code for something?" Ava chuckled, but her joke recieved no response, after he spoke Kai had gone silent again. "Are you being serious?" 

"Yes." 

"But... the devil doesn't exist-" 

"I used to think the same," He slowed down and turned into an alleyway with her, walking until they were halfway through and then unhooking her arm from his. "Do you know why I saved you from those thugs that day, Ava?" 

"Love at first sight?" She chuckled, but found her humour lost on him once more when his grey eyes locked with her hazels. "Why did you?" She asked, averting her gaze to the ground and grasping tightly to the edge of her sweater. "Everyone else noticed, but you're the only one that came to help me." 

"Wrong, I helped you because they don't notice you; not the people, and not them," Kai made a gesture to the alleyway and then pointed at her. "Everyone has at least one demon or an angelic presence lingering around them, mostly demons, but you, Ava, you have neither Angel nor Demon on your shoulder, you're completely invisible to them, nobody cares about you." 

"So you-" 

"I felt sorry for you," Kai scoffed and turned to walk again. "I helped you out because nobody else cares enough to do it, it doesn't mean that I suddenly love or even like you, it was a decision that I made out of pity." He began walking away but found his arm being hugged once more. 

"So then," She stared up at him with a smile. "You see me when nobody, not even angels and demons pay me any mind, why would I ever leave your side? I'd definitely rather be by your side when everything comes crashing down." 

"Are you serious right now?" Kai's brows furrowed in worry. "Are you for real?" 

"So?" She smiled and began pulling him along. "Where are we going today, do you have a bucket list of things you want to do before the world ends?" 

"Why are you like this?" Kai finally asked the question that was plaguing his mind the most after they exited the alleyway on the opposite side headed down the small hill their school was perched on. 

"Well," She rested her head against his shoulder smiling. "In this little suburban town on the outskirts of South City, there are rarely any interesting pepole, I met a guy I really like, he just moved here about a month ago, you see; he saved my life and then told me the world would end soon," Ava sighed. "I know he's special, don't ask me how, I just do, so I believe everything he says, even when it makes no sense and borders dementia."

"You're delusional-" 

"He also told me that he doesn't actually like me, that I was a case of pity," She seemed to sober from her high levels of dopamine when she touched that subject. "But, in this little forgotten town full of cheap houses, retired criminals and broken families, he saw one girl who wasn't anything special and chose to give her his attention, even though he thinks she's nothing special." 

Ava turned her eyes to Kai with an expression of both pain and relief. "I had no hope before you showed up, I always thought I'd end up in a ditch before I was too old because of the amount of bad people here, but when I am near you, Kai, I do feel special, I feel like I at least matter to one person... so why would I give that away?" She asked. 

"Even though you know that I don't want you around..." 

"You are still noticing me, like you said; I am a nobody from nowhere and going nowhere, but if I just follow the path you walk, I can be someone," She chuckled. "I may be invisible, but I still have a brain, at least." 

He had no retort for that, this girl was crazier than he was.

"Kai." 

"Hm?" He looked over at her, but she was staring at him as well. "What?" 

"I said nothing." She answered after a few more seconds of silence. 

"Kai." He heard the voice again and looked to the other side of the road pulling her closer on instict and stopping in the middle of the crosswalk. 

"Are you okay?" 

"What?" Kai looked down at her, and then snapped upwards again when he heard his name echo through his head.

"Is something wrong?" Ava tried pulling her hand away while looking around but his grip on her arm only tightened while he continued hearing his name echo until it was a loud roar pounding against his head from every angle like the deafening whistling of a jet engine. 

"The skies blacked out, and birds began falling from the air, buildings started burning, and the grounf began quaking and slowly opening up beneath his feet, but then the moment before the sudden phenomena swallowed him he felt a stinging sensation across his cheek and everything he was seeing vanished allowing him to finally breathe again.

"Get your shit together!" Ava screamed at him, holding his shirt with one hand as she prepared to slap him again. 

He easily caught her weak swing, but he was still so shaken by what he had seen that he couldn't even keep holding on to her. "What was that, what happened to you?" Ava asked, clearly disturbed by something. 

"You saw it too?" 

"I didn't see anything, you completely lost your senses and started saying some weird shit, so I slapped you!" She let go of his shirt and held her cheeks walking to the side and standing by a wall, flustered. 

"What did I say?" Kai approached her quickly, urging her for some kind of answer, usually it was the morning routine of hellish torture which his body would soon forget and then he would spend the day preparing for the next day, but something different happened this time, something that he not only had any memory of, but it had also completely messed with his senses. "Ava!" 

"I don't know, I have never heard a language like that before!" She flashed her hands in a gesture of defeat and shook her head. "How do you not remember saying that? It sounded like your throat was being torn apart with every word!" 

"Can you at least try to remember some of it?" Kai asked her again, but she was too startled to even try forming those words, not that she even could, since the words he had spoken would have indeed required her to rip her vocal cords to speak them. 

"Can you write them down then?" He pushed for another solution, but after a few seconds of pondering that option, Ava shook her head and crossed her arms. 

"Not even one word, it sounded like thousands of people were speaking all at once, nut it was all the same set of words over and over again, I thought you'd have died if I didn't do something so I smacked you as hard as I could, it was like you were-" 

"Possessed." Kai finished her sentence, staring at his hand at a singular black stripe across his forearm resembling a tattoo.

He had grown used to seeing this strange thing on his arm, it usually showed up halfway through the mornings when he was experiencing the flames and then vanish right after.

Ava seemed to notice it as well since she had already been forming the habit of observing his every feature and behaviour.

"You think you were Possessed?" 

"I don't know, I couldn't move, I couldn't breathe, I was seeing things that weren't real, it felt like what possession ought to be," He stuck his hands in his pocket and sighed. 

"You seem so cool about it though, I thought you were curious and wanted answers." Ava hopped to his side and took his arm again. 

"It might happen again, plus you are the only one who witnessed it and you can't help in any way right now so stressing over the details is pointless," Kai looked across the town and towards the business district where Susana worked. 

"You should stay away from me," Kai, after taking a breath and going through the usual tests to ensure he was okay, turned to Ava and pushed her shlouder. "I don't care what your excuse is this time, if you follow me, I'm gonna be the one who ends up hurting you."

"But just now, you-" 

"Spend the day however you want, spend the rest of your life however you want, I can't be having you to worry about as well." He pushed her once more, his eyes wide with an alien hostility mixed in with terror she had never seen on anyone's face before. 

"Get lost."