Chapter Text
Zimri had just gotten off work.
He turned the keys in the ignition, his shitbox car making a weird ass noise before it finally turned on. He had to stare at the vast and empty parking lot while doing so, eventually bonking his head on the steering wheel in frustration. After this he was never, ever, ever, ever, going to have children. Maybe he should have taken his parents advice and became an accountant, because this dead end job at chuckee cheese of all places made him want to rip his very short hair out of his head. After matpats pizza conspiracy theory about the slices being exchanged in the kitchen and saved, customers complained non-stop about it.
Zimri pulled the gearshift back, backing out of the parking spot and getting onto the main road. He tapped the steering wheel, his car quiet because the summer heat made his radio short out. His window was permanently cranked down, he would have got it fixed but he had zero money to do so. The road to his shitbox apartment was bumpy, he routinely had to hope nobody smashed glass on the ground earlier and popped his damn tires. He stopped the car, the engine hot. A full moon in the sky illuminated his car, he exited the car with his keys in hand. Taking the elevator was a no go because it was broken, last time he tried he got stuck in it for 30 minutes.
Sticky carpet was pasted to the floor, his boots sticking to it slightly as he unlocked his apartment door and went in. He turned on the lights, the bulbs buzzing slightly, going out before flickering back on. Zimri kicked off his shoes, going to the tiny kitchen and opening the rusty fridge. He grabbed a microwave dinner, it was the only thing he could afford with his salary at the capitalist hellscape known as chucky cheese. He also grabbed a beer obviously, ignoring his neighbors' weird grinding noises downstairs and settling in his chair and turning on some sort of BL anime he liked. He popped off the cap and chugged it first as every normal person does.
Maybe he should go home to his parents or to his friends home, but those weren't options he had anymore. Zimri knew himself he had a 6th sense for things, others could see it too. He could predict when somebody could answer a call or walk into a room, he was able to guess what his friends' parents made for dinner and strangely enough, when animals died. He braked in a car once after a burning sensation shot through his body, the braking saved him from a 66 car pile. His parents knew about it but they refused to admit it, they kicked zimri out to a friend's house because he acted "weird" to them. The friend's house was a weird place, their parents were believers in a weird cult from some sort of game or maybe web series? It had been years and he didn't remember anymore. The house sucked, that's all he knew.
A sharp tingling feeling woke him up from his slumber in the recliner—he must have fallen asleep in the chair—it was dark except for the TV, just then his stupid phone rang. He reached over for his phone, the hatsune miku phonecase on it a radio active blue. He looked at the number through tired eyes, it was his manager at chuck e cheese. He answered it on the 13th ring. “Hello?” his voice was groggy, he was a little surprised, he didn't know that was his morning voice. “Hey, zimri, we need you for an event today.” his voice was.. Sticky? That was the only term he could use to describe it. Zimri glanced at the clock, it was 3 am. “And you're calling me in the middle of the night to tell me this??” he said, annoyance seeping through his voice.
“Oh c’mon, you won't get a promotion with that attitude!” he was cheery for it being so late, “its at 5 am and Cheryl called out sick, we have nobody else. Besides, your pay will get docked, sooo…” his voice made zimri’s skin crawl but he had no choice but to accept, he could NOT lose this job. He inhaled, “fine.” tapping the end call button and setting an alarm through tired eyes. He peeled himself and his phone out of the recliner, shutting off the tv that was playing late night advertisements. He settled into his twin mattress that might have some unidentified species of mold on it and went to sleep.
Another tingling sensation shot through him, he just ignored it before rolling over and went back to bed. His dream was too good to interrupt it with things such as "responsibilities."
Zimri had set his alarm for 4:30, enough time to get ready for work, but he set it for PM instead of AM. his senses weren't enough to save him unfortunately. His neighbor downstairs made a nuclear bomb, exploding at 5:01 AM in a police standoff. Somehow Zimri slept through it, but he didn't know about any of this, because he was dead.
That's where his thoughts might have ended, but a blinding light shot through his body and it felt like his entire spirit coiled. He gasped and opened his eyes, sitting up from a velvet rug with weird symbols engrained in it. He stared up, his vision still blurry, but he felt drawn to something closer than he realized, like a part of him that he lost and was finally so close to finding. Zimri pushed his body up, with his arms instead of muscles, his torso barely corporating with himself. He looked up with horror. His body was coated with a neon blue, cuts and bruises littered his entire body, the blue stuff also seeping out of him.
Red cloaks dressed figures in front of him, his vision was blurry and he was nearly passing out, he felt like he was about to puke. A single voice shot through his head before he blacked out, the tone sounding like a soft ghost's voice.
“Zimri.”