Chapter 2: Day One

Cody slept fitfully. As daylight broke he rose when the sunlight lit his bed. He went to the bathroom to pee, downed a couple of aspirin, then pulled his drapes closed tighter before he crawled back under the covers. When he finally forced his eyes open he saw the LED clock next to his bed. It read six minutes before noon. He stared as the seconds changed methodically toward midday, trying to remember the bizarre dream he had the previous night.

When the clock rolled over to noon he grunted as he hoisted himself out of bed. He briefly looked for clean clothes, then gave up, and walked naked to the kitchen in search of a cold bottle of water. He downed another couple of aspirin with the cold water. When he turned to the living room he saw his two sets of clothes scattered haphazardly across the floor. He collected all of his clothes and dropped them on the ever-growing pile of laundry in his bedroom and returned to his recliner. He wondered what he should do that afternoon. He was definitely not in the mood to job hunt after the previous day’s fiasco.

Cody reached for the TV remote but before he could turn on the television he felt a sudden burning on his bare thigh. He looked down and saw a coin sitting on his skin. It was glowing blue.

“Where did that come from?” he muttered.

He took the coin and hurled it across the room, watching it bounce off the wall before it rolled behind the television. He offered his middle finger in the general direction of the coin. He raised a finger to click the TV’s power button on the remote when the burning reappeared on his thigh. This time the burn was much more intense. He saw the coin again and he could make out the shape of tented fingers with the words, “Read me,” glowing underneath.

“Oh, fuck, was that not a dream?” he said as he stared at the coin.

The fingers started to animate and the burning on his leg got hotter.

He nervously tented his fingers. As soon as his forefingers touched the blue aura appeared with a tool tip that said, “Read me,” over his pinkies. He tapped his pinkies. The blue aura expanded like the previous night and a scroll appeared. Words shortly followed.

“Today is your first day with The Onyx. In order to avoid non-stop pain, you must kill someone by midnight. You have been granted the enablement invisibility.”

There was a small text over his pinkies with the word, “Close.” He tapped his pinkies and the scroll disappeared, but now the aura contained two other tool tips. One was over his forefingers that said, “Enablements.” Over his thumbs was the word, “Exit.” He tapped his forefingers and saw a new menu with the word, “Invisibility” over his forefingers. He tapped his fingers and felt a sudden rush of a needle-like sensation pass across his body as if each limb “fell asleep” at the same time. It quickly passed and a scroll again appeared in the aura.

“You are now invisible. Look at your body. Go to a mirror. Normally you would have sixty minutes of invisibility, but this is your first use so you will only have ten minutes. You will be able to use it for a full sixty minutes later today. Next time use it wisely. To return your body to visible before the time expires open The Onyx and choose Invisibility and then select ‘return to visible’. Once used, it cannot be used again until the next day even if you have time remaining.”

Cody started to stand, but it was difficult because The Onyx was still open, effectively binding his hands together. He tapped his thumbs to exit the help screen, then again to exit The Onyx. Before the blue cloud disappeared a final text briefly flashed, “Less than 12 hours remaining to register today’s kill.”

He ran to the bathroom and stared into the mirror. Nothing was reflected back. He looked down and he could not see his body.

“Holy shit,” he breathed. “I am invisible. What the hell is going on?”

Cody stood mesmerized in front of the mirror for several minutes. His reverie was broken when the needle-like pain started at his feet and quickly passed through his entire body. When he felt the last of the stinging leave his head he saw his naked form materialize in front of him in the mirror.

Cody took a step to his right and fell to his knees as he violently expelled anything that remained in his stomach. He continued to hug the toilet for some time as his mind raced, trying to make sense out of what had happened in the past twelve hours.

When he got up he paced the apartment. His hangover was gone, but his brain could not compute the recent events. He finally stopped pacing and looked at his hands. He tented them together and as expected, or maybe feared, a blue glow engulfed his hands. He saw the tool tips for enablements and exit. Not wanting to waste the invisibility power he clicked on exit. He didn’t remember if he slept, or if he just existed in a catatonic state, as he thought about The Onyx the rest of the afternoon.

Cody had not eaten since picking on an appetizer at Billie’s. He found another mostly-clean t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers to make the six block trek to Billie’s. He vowed he would do laundry over the weekend. When he arrived at the bar he found it more crowded than usual due to the baseball game. He found an empty chair in the corner and ordered a beer from the roving waitress. Billie saw him from behind the bar and gave him a friendly wave.

“Here you go, Cody,” said the waitress as she left his beer on his table. “Billie said this one is on the house. She said she hopes today is going better than yesterday.”