00 Hours 00 Minutes 10 Seconds

00 Hours, 00 Minutes, 10 Seconds

The girl was standing on top of the building, the wind blowing her long blonde hair. She was smiling happily, although her eyes were empty and devoid of life. With a giggle and a sigh she stepped forward. Three seconds later her life ended with a splat.



I was reading the newspaper while drinking my tea. I had put out a cup of tea for Alice too, however she didn’t drink it. Of course she didn’t, she was just a fiction created by my madness. In fact it would be rather scary if she did drink it after all this time. While thinking these things with a smile I felt a mental poke.

<<Partner, have you read this?>>

Looking at the newspaper I saw a particular article that read:

SEVENTEENTH DEATH! NEW SUICIDE CRAZE OR MASS MURDER?

Last night another suicide victim was found on Lost Way. Witnesses said that the young female student had fallen from the roof of a local hostel. This has been the latest in a series of suicides over the past week. The IU is not saying anything at this time. However rumours are circulating that this may be the work of a mass murderer. So far all victims have been between the ages of fourteen and twenty, however apart from that there have not been any noticeable patterns.

<<What do you think?>>

‘I think it’s normal.’

Murders were nothing new in this broken world. Some people killed like they breathed. A basic rule of thumb was there were two types of people. People who kill and people who get killed. Even if it was suicide that was nothing to be shocked about either, after the End, hundreds of people killed themselves, unable to cope with the new life they were forced to endure. Even after that it wasn’t abnormal for people who were disgusted with themselves after an Oscillation to commit suicide.

<<However, they felt it important enough to put in the newspaper. Perhaps things have changed while you were gone, Partner.>>

Change. That’s right. Sometimes I forgot that even in this world, time does not stand still and things change.

“What do you think Alice?’

I asked with a gentle smile. I felt a pressure on my back then. It felt like I’d done something that was bringing the world down upon me. It was like when I’d stared at the Other and felt my mind breaking.

         - You should help people.

Alice reached forward and picked up her tea and drank it. No. Stop. Don’t. It’s coming. I saw it. The ruins of London as people screamed in terror and insanity and the toppled building and the blood stained hand extending from beneath it. Stop. Not now. It’s coming. The Other, I was laughing madly at it sitting in a pool of blood. Stop. Don’t look. Don’t look away. Close your eyes. Don’t blink. Sad. Ecstatic. Everyone.

Died?

<<Partner?>>

I came back to my senses, gasping madly. I felt vomit in my mouth. I swallowed awkwardly. Alice was sitting in her seat, staring off into the distance. A pale apparition that would sometimes disappear from my sight. The tea cup hadn’t moved. Everything was normal.

‘Heh. Hehehehe… Ah, hahahahahaha!’

I was laughing madly. As I stood up from the table and ran around the room. I sat down in different seats for a few seconds before jumping up, running around again and sat in a different one. I was having an attack. I was calm and collected inside my mind, however I had lost control of my body. It felt like it was in possession of someone else. However it was a disgusting foreign feeling, not like when my Partner took over in order to protect me.

The me that wasn’t me noticed Alice sitting in her seat, staring off into the distance like normal. My mind filled with rage, hate and disgust. I want to hurt her. Choke her. Kill her. Rip her. Shred her. Chop her. Bite her. Eat her. Lacerate her. Devour her. Strip her. Skin her.

‘ALLLIIIIIICE!’

I leapt across the room in an unnatural bound and smashed into the chair she was sitting on. Of course I didn’t hit her. I went through her and smashed into the wall before dropping to the floor. I stood up, shakily. My hands knees and shins were skinned.

‘Shit! Fuck! Bastard! It hurts! Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah!’

I grabbed a knife from the table and lashed out at her. The knife slicing through her ghostly figure.

‘Die! Die! Die! Die! Die!’

Alice sat floating in the air on the now broken chair as I lashed out at her, my teeth bared in a snarl.

‘Die, die, die, die, die, die! Diediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediedie!’

I could hear my Partner shouting through the red haze that had clouded my mind. I started to come back to myself. Separate myself from this thing lashing out madly at Alice. The little doll like girl, who was more innocent then a flower.

‘STOP!’

I shouted, light flared around my arm and the bandages covering my left hand were blown off, as a large metallic claw appeared underneath. I grabbed the arm holding the knife, and stabbed a pointed finger through my wrist.  I gasped in pain and dropped the knife before falling to the ground. This time I did actually vomit.

When I was done I looked around at all the wreckage of the room and found myself thinking:

This, is going to be hard to explain.



When he tried to leave his apartment, Doctor Echo was stopped by of all people, Alice. She was pointing towards a room one of the other tenants stayed in. He tried to affectionately rub her head, but he put his hand through it instead.

‘I’m not very good at the whole breaking and entering thing, so maybe some other time.’

As he walked down the stairs, a pretty blonde man with large, sad looking blue eyes walked past and nodded to him. Was he one of the other tenants? He wasn’t sure since he tended to keep to himself. Maybe he would ask the landlady later.

Leaving the building he walked down the street. As he did, a shadow peeled itself off from one of the walls and started following him.



‘I’ve no need of a Doctor! Go away.’

The door slammed in my face. This was the sixteenth house I had tried since leaving the house. Each time as soon as I mentioned my name they all shouted the same thing and then slammed their doors. I know I was chased out of London and was probably one of the most hated people ever to live in the city, but I didn’t think it was this bad!

I sighed and walked away. Alice was following along behind me tamely as usual. Except she kept turning around to look behind us. I wondered what she was looking at and turned around to have a look myself but I couldn’t see anything unusual.

‘You’re not going mad to, Alice?’

Wait, could a symptom of madness go mad itself? Or was it already mad in the first place…

<<We’re being followed.>>

         - Danger.

The voices of Alice and my partner overlapped. Stopping I turned around.

‘Doc!’

I was hit in the side by something small and fast. Was it a missile? Wait, that’s not right.

‘Doc! You gotta help me!’

The person who’d jumped into me was a small mousy man I remembered vaguely. Twenty-nine years ago he was shot in the stomach. I had removed the bullet and then cauterised the wound while we waited for an ambulance, which incidentally never came. If I remember correctly his name was… Alfred Semon?

‘You have to help me, Doc! It’s my daughter, she’s… she’s not waking up. It’s like she’s dead!’



I was taken to his house. A small two storey building in the better part of town. His wife, a ridiculously young blonde with breasts larger then my head welcomed us and we went to his daughters room. She was a black haired girl, lying completely still and lifeless.

‘Are you sure she’s not dead?’

Delicacy has never been my strong suit. Even before.

‘That’s what all of the other doctors said, but I know she’s not. She was experiencing her first Oscillation just before she went like this, so I know it’s gotta be that.’

I thought about it. There were certain types of Oscillation that did mimic or put a person into a death-like state, however there were far more that would actually kill people. Honestly the chances weren’t in the girls favour.

‘Let me examine her.’

I stepped forward and pulled the sheets off of her.

‘Can you analyse the information for me.’

It wasn’t really a question. We were one and the same so I didn’t even need to ask out loud. And it confused the couple who asked me dumbly:

‘Who us?’

I smiled at them cheerfully.

‘No, my imaginary friend.’

I went back to my examination while they whispered behind me.

With a prickling in my eyes, a mechanism that had been embedded into it activated. Data, statistics everything about the girl’s physical and mental condition flowed into my mind. Of course I couldn’t understand any of it, but my Partner could and told me the conclusion.

‘Your daughter is a pure human with no signs of oscillation and she appears to have ingested a drug that puts someone into death-like state. What is going on?’

I stopped as the door opened and several armed men ran into the room. They pointed guns at me. Guns that seemed to have been grafted, or perhaps melted would be a better word, onto their arms.

‘W-We need the money that the Yvn’s are offering.’

Alfred was whispering in a choked voice. I sighed and smiled at him friendly.

‘It’s okay. I understand perfectly. I forgive you.’

‘Y-You do?’

‘Yes. So I hope you’ll forgive me when I make your daughter an orphan.’

There are two kinds of people in this world. Those that kill and those that get killed. Ten years ago I was the type that got killed, I would have gladly given up my life to help someone else. However, time makes things change. I was now the type that kills. I would not allow myself to die until I had finished my mission.

That was why I sold my soul to the devil. And gave my arm to his pet dog.

<<Who are you calling Satan’s pet dog. I’d turn that prissy demon into charcoal.>>

My smile got wider and wider until it almost looked like my face would rip. Gripping the bandages on my arm I tore them off as bullets started shooting at me.

<<Greifburner.>>

The arm that appeared was covered in hardened scales, fierce talons extended from my fingers. Raising my hand, fire burst out of my arm, instantly melting the bullets that were about to hit me.

<<Did you pathetic humans think you could beat me?>>

‘Know your place, dogs.’

Many events occurred during the End. The appearance of the Other. The start of the phenomena that warped a person’s DNA also known as the Oscillation. And finally the uncovering of certain beasts that had been sealed for time’s unknown. Like the creature I called my partner. The Last Dragon, Varrian.

I leaped through the fire I had shot from my hand and grabbed one of the attackers. Squeezing his skull he squealed and screamed in fear before his head caved in. Bullets tore into my coat however I was already gone. I stood behind one of them, my scaled hand sticking through his chest. Squeezing my hand into a fist flame burst out of my arm, quickly reducing the idiots body to ash.

Finally that just left one gunman, the traitor and his wife. Oh, and his comatose daughter.

The gunman tried to open fire, but his gun gave a pathetic click. I stepped forward and brought my hand down over his body. With a burst of blood his body tore open and he fell backwards. Despite how severe the wounds looked they wouldn’t kill him, unless he did something stupid like no getting treated.

‘You’re going to deliver a message. Tell the Yvn family that if they really want to kill me then they should bring an army.’

Letting out a squeal, the man through himself out the window. Looking out I could see him running off into the distance.

I turned to Alfred and his wife they were sobbing pathetically. Alfred bent down onto the ground and start begging me to spare his life. I smiled as I listened to his words about not meaning to, if it wasn’t for the money, I would never betray you, I won’t ever come near you again. I heard a dark chuckling in my mind.

<<It’s been too long since I’ve had a human begging me for his life.>>

You sound a little too happy about that Varrian.

‘When you tried to sell me out you should have known that failure would mean your death. Even if I don’t kill you, the Yvn family will.’

They were sobbing. I could hear the sound of the girl rousing herself behind me.

‘Let’s do it cleanly.’

<<Got it. Fullmetal.>>

The dragons arm disappeared to be replaced by a hooked metal blade. I swung it down, painting the walls red.



The girl had heard about her parents plan. The Yvn family, a Mafia syndicate operating in London, would clear all of her parents debts if they helped them kill someone called the Doctor. She had taken the medicine that would temporarily kill her without hesitation. She loved her parents. Her mother had walked out on them a few years ago but Sharon had been a better mother to her then her biological one ever had. If she could help them lead comfortable lives she would be happy.

Sitting up on her bed, the first thing she noticed was the blood drenching the sheets. Everything became shaky and stutter as though she couldn’t focus. Looking over she saw a corpse that had its head crushed. All sorts of disgusting stuff was coming out of it. She felt like vomiting. But it got worse as she continued turning her head. Standing just beyond a pile of dust or maybe ash, was a man.

He wore a blood stained travelling cloak, his clothes underneath were worn and ragged. Bandages wrapped one of his arms and he wore a very odd hat. He was also covered in blood from head to toe, it was especially thick around his bandaged arm. Her eyes widened as she noticed the two corpses slumped on the ground behind him, their necks slit open.

‘Daddy… Mum…’

‘Tell everyone what you see here. Tell them what happens if they betray the Mad Hatter.’

The blood stained man turned to leave but stopped before telling her sadly.

‘If you want to get revenge then come and kill me anytime. So long as you don’t mind ending up like them.’

The girl started screaming.