Chapter 7: Untimely Demise

For as long as he lived, Sin lived on borrowed time. Nothing he ever held was his. The day his mother left him, the debt started to chew away at him, and the day his father died, it ate him whole.

It was time to pay.

Which in his case meant death.

The minute he received the notification, he knew his fate was sealed.

[You’ve been selected as an Echo]

The awareness commercials said the same thing: once someone was selected as an Echo, they’d become a beacon and attract a monster. Usually an E and on very rare occasions a D Rank monster. Like an imp of the demon class. Usually, it also took days or hours for the monster to find the new Echo.

There was nothing usual that day.

Bare and rotten gray with underlayers of a sickening green flesh. Lumps of fat spotty skin. His one eye was black, Sin knew that it was merely ornamental, the monster was blind, tracking by smell and sound. 

An Ogre. The first monster Sin attracted was a C Rank. Between the purple-boxed notification popping up in front of him, along with a sinister jolly melody and a female voice announcing his end and the bat-wielding monster arriving at his location, it took 10 minutes.

Four minutes earlier, he was on his fourth cup of water. In a fruitless attempt to ease his nerves. Not even Tamara’s hand which was rubbing circles on his back did that. 

“You’re one, aren’t you?” 

He gulped the last bit of water. Then he nodded. 

She forced a gentle smile on her face. “Have you looked at your profile?” 

He raised his head to look at her. “Do I have to?” 

“You only have a couple of days—if you’re lucky—to prepare for your first monster.” 

Sin paled. No one in the world could honestly describe him as lucky. 

Seeing his panic, Tamara turned him around and put her hands on his shoulders. “Hey, don’t worry. You are lucky, you have me. I will help.” 

Maybe she was right. He wanted to believe her. He might not know how things worked in The Arena but down on earth, there were mainly two types of Echoes. Those who ran from the law and those who became the law. And those who ran ended up like Tamara, alone, frightened, left to fend for themselves which led to mistrust and a lack of solidarity. He didn’t know about what being an Echo was like but he knew about being different and alone. 

Sin followed Tamara’s instructions and opened his profile. A large purple rectangular box appeared along with a ding. 

Name: Sinclair 

Age: 15

Role: -

Rank: E

Song Title: [Unknown] 

Lyrics: 0 

Song Skills:

Intro[0/4]: [Locked] 0/30

Verse [0/3]: [Locked] 0/200

Chorus [0/2]: [Locked] 0/70

Bridge [0/1]: [Locked] 0/300

Items: - 

Weapons: - 

‘Great. So I have nothing. And an E Rank? That’s so in brand, I can’t even be shocked. What was the point of this?’

[You’ve gained 10 lyrics] 

“Huh?”

“What?” Tamara asked, an edge in her voice. 

“I just gained 10 lyrics.”

“It’s because you completed an achievement. You opened your profile for the first time.”

Nothing changed except for the number of lyrics. 

“What’s your Rank?”

Sin winced. “E.” 

Tamara was better at disguising her emotions than her friend. She took a beat, breathing in. 

“How many lyrics until your [Chorus Skill] is unlocked?” she asked, looking intently at him. 

Despite his initial claim, he was glad she was there, her calm demeanor rubbed off on him. If she managed to sufficiently prepare him for his first encounter with a monster, then he could figure out what he’d do. 

One thing was for certain. He couldn’t go back to the mansion. Not if he planned to stay in the one place he had ever called home. 

“Uh… 70.”

She winced at the number. 

“I had 40. But that’s okay. I have 50 lyrics. I can just give you and we’ll complete another achievement.” 

Sin stepped back, wanting some distance from the whole situation. He wanted to return to the previous day which was foolish and pointless. There was no getting him out of this. 

“Slow down. Can’t I have five minutes to take this in?”

Tamara frowned, she sighed. “You can’t even have one. Don’t forget who your best friend is, his parents capture Echoes for a living.”

He hadn’t forgotten about it. That was precisely why he needed five minutes to compose himself but Tamara had a point. That was why he couldn’t waste a second. Koa would be back any time soon, and while Sin was sure he could trust him to keep his secret, there’d be very little way to explain his absence for the next few days. And just because Koa was good at lying to his parents, it didn’t mean Sin ever wanted to be the reason. 

“Okay… but wait, how do you have 50 lyrics? I thought Echoes got them when they killed monsters.”

She shook her head. “That’s one way, yes. Achievements are another and there’s also trade. Since you can transfer lyrics.” 

He was still hesitant. “But don’t you need them?” 

“Not more than you. You can always pay me back later.” 

‘If there was a later…’

Call him pessimistic but the odds were in whoever hated Sin enough to wish this upon him. 

“Give me your hand,” she said.

He extended his palm over to her. 

Tamara placed her hand on top of his. A warm lilac glow emitted from the gaps of their joined hands. 

[Echo Tamara transferred 50 lyrics to you] 

You ask anyone about Koa and people would say he was a rich bastard who knew how to make people love him. You ask them about Tamara and they’d say she was one of the prettiest and nicest girls in the year. And if you asked about Sin, they’d say ‘Who’s that?’ and at best someone could say ‘Koa’s weird friend?’

Alas, a nobody like him ended up becoming an Echo and people like that died fast and violently, but the universe granted him a fighting chance by placing him in front of Tamara. 

Or rather, the Orchestra had.

[You’ve gained 10 lyrics] 

The voice was distinctively feminine and a bit shrill, and sounded as if someone was speaking in his head. It’d take some getting used to. 

“Did you gain 10 more lyrics?”

He nodded. 

“Good. Go to your profile. At the bottom there’s three more pages. Inventory, store and achievements. Click on achievements.” 

Sin did as she said. It felt like touching a cold screen. To her, it probably looked like he was poking air. 

Achievements: 

[First Time Opening Profile] 

[First Transfer with an Echo] 

The rest of the list was blurred. So he couldn’t see the achievement until he completed it. Figures. Nothing was ever that easy. 

“You can’t see it but there’s also a first kill achievement. I’ll help you with the monster and you’ll deal the finishing blow. That’s how you’ll pay me.” 

Those seemed like reasonable terms. In the end, he was the one who would most benefit from the arrangement. 

“You have 70 lyrics now. We’ll use them to unlock a [Chorus Skill].” 

Sin glanced at the screen once more. “But an [Intro Skill] is much cheaper.” 

“An [Intro Skill] is one ordinary people can have like battle prowess or photographic memory. Your [Verse Skill] has to do with your identity. It’s the one skill you can’t gift and you also go through a trial to unlock it. [Bridge Skill] is high reward, high cost—it’s also at great cost if you gift them. I can heal but I feel the pain in the place of the person I heal. The [Chorus Skill] is your most reliable one. Something that helps you survive the monsters.”

All the information she had would help him a great deal when the time came but something else was bothering him. 

‘Besides the imminent death?’ 

He could’ve laughed at himself. His mind was going through a transaction of ownership. A takeover, essentially. Sin had a rough idea of how his life would go. Whether he slept on the floor, on a couch, or on a bed akin to a king’s throne, he craved an uncomplicated life. Nothing flashy—though being rich was nice, he had to admit as much. Koa had bigger dreams, and Sin was destined to stand behind and watch his best friend grow beyond him.

“Can I ask you something?”

Something gleamed in her eyes. “Anything.”

“Why are you helping me?”

The corner of her lips curled up. “Do I need a reason?”

“I guess not.” 

Nice as she was, he didn’t buy it. 

Tamara seemed to get that too. “Well, let’s just say it has something to do with what I was going to tell you earlier.” 

“And what’s that?” Then he asked, “Are you going to ask me to close my eyes again?” 

She giggled, “No. We’ll have time for that later. For now. Let’s focus on your training. Do you feel any different?” 

Now that she asked, he became aware of a subtle changes in his own body. His muscles felt less limp and more… formed. Sin clenched his fists, feeling a newfound sensation of vigor coursing through his entire body.

It was as if he had tapped into a wellspring of inner strength he never knew existed. And yet he felt unable to access any of it. 

“Yeah.”

“Your physical training is up to you. The Orchestra doesn’t make you strong overnight but gives you the tools for you to do it. Every human has a limit to how strong they get. Echoes don’t. Your body already started the process.” 

Sin looked at Tamara. He really looked at her, in the three months he hadn’t seen her, she had undergone a subtle yet remarkable transformation. Not only did she grow a few more inches to her stature and hair. But the changes didn’t stop at her appearance. The way she carried herself and the general air around her too. It was a manifestation of all she survived or all she did to survive. 

Tamara’s cheeks turned pink under his gaze. She pushed Sin away, probably forgetting her monstrous strength and sending him sailing across the room, ultimately finding a rather soft landing on her bed. Only slightly banging his head. The pain was surprisingly milder than he had anticipated. 

‘Did my Echo durability already kick in?’ 

“I’m so sorry! Are you okay?” Tamara took one step towards him and then froze. 

Tamara’s head leaned slightly to the side as they both felt the vibrations echoing through the walls. Mere seconds later, the wall erupted with a thunderous crash, sending splinters flying, and there, framed in the shattered doorway, was the monstrosity he had only seen in a monster booklet. An ugly cluster of bumps in the form of an ogre stormed in drenching the air with a grotesque stench of death and rot that clung to him.

Sin cowered in the shadowy corner of the room, perched on the edge of the bed, paralyzed in a state of abject terror.

In a swoop, the giant monster’s hand wrapped around Tamara’s torso, he lifted her up at the same time his other arm went up punching a hole in the roof. 

A long straight silver sword materialized in Tamara’s hand. Specks of lilac lights turning solid. Her eyes met the ogre’s sightless gaze. Raising her hand as high as she could, and bringing it down on his chest. 

The battle was over before it began. Tamara’s sword shattered like glass, its fragments scattering like stardust. 

“Sin, you have to run!” she urged him, ensnared in the ogre’s menacing grasp. She trashed, kicked and struck with what remained of her broken weapon, but it was an exercise in futility. 

Unfazed by the feeble resistance, he roared in her face. The sound stirred Sin’s mind to a jolt. Ridding himself of the paralytic fear, he leapt to his feet. 

He wouldn’t survive a physical confrontation against that monster. But he did have one thing the ogre did not. 

A brain.