The Universe Of Tomorrow

Shadows Over the City of Tomorrow: My Brief Return

Dear readers,

I know it's been a long while since my words last graced this platform. The rhythm of the Cleansed World has a way of distorting time, making months feel like mere moments and vice versa. Today, I reemerge from the shadows, albeit briefly, to catch you up on the sweeping changes that have reshaped our world.

Foremost, the underground fights that once held the city's dark underbelly in its grip have ceased to exist. It's a surreal shift, one that no one saw coming. Whether it's due to an internal collapse, a power shift, or the vigilance of unseen forces, the rings have gone silent. Viper, the fighter who once dominated those rings, has vanished, becoming more of a myth than a memory.

To fathom the cessation of the underground fights, it's imperative we cast our minds back to that singular, surreal night—a night when the very essence of the battles changed forever.

The atmosphere was charged as always. The thrum of excitement, the anticipation of bloodshed, resonated through the crowd. They were there to witness the indomitable Viper dominate the arena as she always did. And for a time, it seemed like business as usual. With her unmatched agility and prowess, Viper left her opponents defeated, but alive, as per her silent creed.

But as she prepared to leave the arena, a figure stepped into the ring—an unassuming man, starkly contrasting the usual theatricality of the fighters. Yet, his constant, unnerving smile and the unmistakable symbol of a reaper's scythe tattooed on his neck made him impossible to ignore.

The crowd fell into a hushed murmur. Viper, seemingly caught off-guard, assessed her new challenger. She launched into her usual swift attacks, but to everyone's shock, the man dodged with an ease and grace that made Viper appear sluggish, almost amateurish. His smile never wavered, even when he chose to stand still, allowing Viper's strikes to land on him. To the astonishment of all, the blows seemed to have no effect; it was as if he was made of air.

Then, in a blink, the tables turned. With a speed no one could comprehend, he had Viper pinned to the ground. The arena, once alive with shouts, fell into a stunned silence. This man, with his constant grin, had done what no one else could: he had bested Viper.

He leaned down, whispering something into her ear—a secret that remains locked between them. Releasing her, he rose, casting a final, enigmatic smile at the dumbfounded audience before departing as mysteriously as he had entered.

Viper, for the first time, looked truly defeated, her usual air of confidence shattered. Without uttering a word, she left the ring, never to return.

The fights soon came to a halt, but the legend of that night, of the smiling challenger and his confrontation with Viper, became the stuff of whispers and rumors, forever altering the course of the City of Tomorrow's underground realm.

I often wondered if the enigmatic smiling man was a figment of the collective unconscious, a symbol representing an inscrutable force that occasionally stirred the undercurrents of the City of Tomorrow. That was, until our paths crossed again.

You may remember my series on the peculiar and troubling accounts of an "angel" linked to a series of disappearances. It was a narrative I'd been pursuing with keen interest; multiple reports of an angelic being kidnapping individuals had the potential to be one of my most riveting stories.

Late one evening, as I ventured into one of the city's dimly-lit, less-traveled alleyways, following a lead from a distraught mother claiming to have witnessed such an abduction, I spotted him—the smiling man.

He was engaged in a hushed conversation with a young woman. Keeping to the shadows, I managed to inch closer, just enough to catch snippets of their dialogue. The man's smile, eerily constant, seemed out of place given the gravity of their topic.