An Illusion of Will

Chapter 5: Blood Leaf's 15th Mortal Ring

The days stretched, and Al isolated himself from the outside world. His absence from school raised concerns among his teachers and classmates, but no one could reach him.

Al's mother, desperate to see her son emerge from his seclusion, could not wait any longer. She tried everything she could think of to coax him out. She prepared his favorite meals, a spread of comforting traditional Italian dishes. She laid them out on the dinner table, hoping the aroma and familiarity would entice him to join them.

However, Al showed no response, remaining locked away in his room.

Linda was not the type to let food go to waste. She packed the untouched meals for John to take to work.

Even John occupied with his work and the legal matters surrounding the disappearances, tried to reach out to his son. He knocked on Al's door, attempting to engage in conversation and offer support, but he was only met with silence.

Al's mother, growing increasingly worried, even attempted to remove him from his room physically, but he proved too heavy for her. It was as if a thick barrier had formed around him, isolating him from the outside world.

The days continued, and Al remained secluded, lost in his thoughts.

"I want to tell them everything, but they wouldn't believe me..." he said to himself for the hundredth time.

His stomach churned. The mere thought of food made him nauseous, especially meat.

The memory of Mark's mutilated face haunted him, filling his mind with gruesome scenes that replayed over and over. Sleep brought no relief. His mind would become a battleground of memories and nightmares as darkness fell.

As news of the vanishings continued, they reached Al's School and received word that one of their alumni, Mark, had vanished. Al's classes were soon suspended, and he remained confined to his room, unaware.

His world had shrunk to his thoughts, consumed by the events behind Mark's actual disappearance.

In the wake of the vanishings, the world was thrown into a state of chaos and confusion. The event's magnitude prompted swift action from global competing nations. Enemy nations quickly allied to stop their governing systems from collapsing. An emergency meeting took place to address the unprecedented loss of human life and, more importantly, the manpower needed to run a nation.

While some religious leaders saw the vanishings as a manifestation of their own God or Planetary will, others embraced the idea of a collective spiritual tribulation, a shift in the homeostasis of the collective.

Fueled by paranoia and skepticism, small sections of the population began to speculate a depopulation attempt by globalist organizations. These individuals questioned all and any official narrative shared by their governing powers.

Some weeks later, Al came out of his room. He even managed to eat half a plate of his mother's cooking.

Life continued to move forward around him, and his father's work demanded even more of his time. As the world grappled with the aftermath of the vanishings, his profession faced an influx of work.

A particular group of sick individuals took advantage of the catastrophe that fell on humanity, using the vanishing to get away.

Al began speaking to his mom again at home but only discussing trivial matters. Returning to his room, Al closed the door behind him, shutting himself off from the outside world. One thing repeatedly resurfaced in his mind, "Immortality? Could such a thing really be possible?"

The bags underneath his eyes diminished his youthfulness. After the school announced there would be no graduation ceremony, Al spent most of his days running and training despite getting almost no sleep or rest.