Cursed Earth Online (First Cycle)

2: End of the Beginning

No sooner had the sun turned an inky black and the blue sky into a crimson veil; the workers that were handing out gifts began convulsing in pain.

The moment the convulsing men went limp and stopped moving, the mall was gripped by an eerie calm as everyone looked at what were believed to be unconscious people.

This all changed when all of them suddenly stood up, one by one. For a moment, it was thought to be a Flash Mob attempt.

Or so it seemed.....

"B-bro, I'm scared!" the small brown-haired kid started to say as the worker who had just given his brother a chip started to shudder and shake like he was in pain, and while this occurred, the older sibling's bracer began to activate.

Both perplexed and shocked by the current series of event happening, he did not realize that a trio of gasmasked men had gone behind him and his brother. Except the men weren't convulsing, and only later did the younger sibling realize that he was grabbed by a pair of cold, ungloved hands along with a cloth that was then stuffed in his face while the older brother felt a powerfully painful blunt hit to the back of the head with a loud clunk as everything around him suddenly faded to black.

Slith, Joe, Vee and Lady began to realize something was definitely up as one of the gasmasked men inside the cafe suddenly stood up after convulsing for what seemed like five seconds, and then just suddenly stopped.

Just as the manager of the shop was about to call 911, the previously unconscious promodizer suddenly stood up with a bit of a slackness and then... it happened.

The gasmasked men began to change.

Some of them suddenly increased in size, others had only one arm undergo a sudden muscled growth spurt, still others had their joints bend in directions they were not supposed to and finally others started to sprout appendages like spider legs, wings and tentacles; making them look like they jumped straight out of a horror movie.

Still thinking it may have been a flash mob, one man in the cafe clapped at the sudden transformation and approached the man in gasmasked man in cafe with awe.

Everything was possible with holograms after all, so he thought.

The man in the cafe had his arms changed into crab claws, something you would only see in Cursed Earth Online with the Warped; a kind of enemy that were once human that were experimented on by a myriad of alien races, and then abandoned by their creators.

The impressed man approached the changed individual, hoping to get a picture with him but in the next moment, he suddenly felt completely cold and somehow he wasn't able to take any steps or move his arms as multiple screams began to follow around the shop.

Only did he realize in the next second that followed, he was looking at himself from the floor.

"The crab"... had severed his head from his body.

"CALL 91--!" one woman began to yell as she then suddenly fell to the floor, her body cleanly cut in half right down the middle, by another gasmasked man with blades for arms that had appeared out of seemingly out of nowhere; causing both sides of the cleaved woman's divided body to fall to either side.

Frozen for what felt like a minute, Slith, Joe, Vee and Lady immediately tried to run, only for both of the monster to block both ways.

"OH SHIT! OH SHIT! OH SHIT!OH SHIT!OH SHIT!OH SHIT!OH SHIT!" a teenage girl that had gotten stuck with them began to utter over and over again out of panic as the one with the bladed arms suddenly appeared right in front of her and stabbed her right through the mouth.