Annihilators

Beautiful Nightmare

It was 8:07 a.m exactly, and Greg was sitting in the cafe section of a bookstore, reading a manga novel that he had just purchased called 'Demon's Paradise'. It was a dark and gory type of manga, but Greg didn't mind a bit of gore.
Greg had been waiting an entire month to purchase this issue. It was such a popular novel that everyday a new issue was released, he waited in front of the store before it opened just so he could get his hands on it.
Now he was simply relaxing, enjoying the artwork of the book, and absorbing the information that each page relayed to him.
On the table he was sitting at sat a large cup of boba tea.
Periodically, he would grab the cup and take a sip from it.
Eventually he ran out of tea, so he got up to go order another cup. As he was walking back to the counter he still had his book in hand, reading it while walking.
Not paying attention, he accidentally crashed into a young lady who was also walking towards the counter as-well.
As the two collided, the young lady's cup of tea fell out of her hand and fell to the floor. Some of the beverage spilled onto her outfit- a black-lace dress.

"Oh... shoot, I'm so sorry", Greg stuttered, as he scrambled to grab napkins from the table behind him.

"It's fine", the lady said, in a shy voice.

The lady knelt down to pick up the pieces of the teacup from the floor. Greg laid down a few napkins over the spilled tea.
As she continued to pick up the shattered ceramic, Greg opened a napkin for her to dump the pieces in.

As they stood up, the lady said, "I like your book".

"Huh?", Greg said in a confused tone.

The girl pointed to the manga he had in his hand and said, "My brother used to read books like that all the time".

"It's called a manga", Greg stated. "It's what us weebs read on a day to day basis".

The girl chuckled at Greg's statement.
The girl was very beautiful; she was a Caucasian girl with dark brown eyes, straight, jet-black hair that fell passed her shoulders, and a septum on her nose. Her hand had a tattoo of a pentagram on the back of it, and she had on studded boots to go with her dress.
She looked very gothic, but at the same time her persona seemed kind and gentle.

"What's it about?", she asked.

"It's about this artificial body created from a primordial soup, it was meant to be the perfect human", Greg explained. "But the scientists that made the body couldn't replicate a soul to inhabit it, so a demon named Nefarious took control of it".

The girl nodded her head with a slight smile; she seemed impressed, "Science and religion combine to make a dark fantasy, I like it".

"I'd recommend it if you're into satire and drama", Greg said.

The girl smiled at him and said, "I live for satire and drama".

Greg found the young lady interesting; she had similar tastes as him. She could probably make a good friend.

"My name's Greg, by the way", he said, as held his hand out to her.

She took his hand and began to say, "My name's S-"

Once she began to state her name is when all of Greg's surroundings started to change.
The entire book store, the cafe, even the girl in-front of him seemed to be fading.
All of his surrounding reality seemed to be melting.
Greg looked down, and saw he was melting as well.
He tried to move, he struggled to reform his body, but he kept liquefying.
His body turned to mush until it blended with the rest of the fading reality.
From then on, Greg couldn't tell which part of him was separate with reality, or if he had been fully united with it.
That's when Greg discovered he was on an operating table.
He couldn't see around him, but he could feel himself lying down an icy-cold surface.
Above him was a bright light than shined down on him intensely.