Ulrich stared at himself in the mirror, his brown eyes looking back. But the important part was his wiry black hair staying down, especially the two clumps at each end that looked like devil horns. It took several bottles of shampoo and enough hair products to drown a man, but it seemed to be working.

"Mina, this is the one. I'm feeling it…"

Before he could finish his sentence, the devil hair sprang back to life.

"Dammit." Ulrich yelled. "What else you got?"

"Let's see…nope, that's all I was able to snag from my mom's place. And before you ask, that includes the expensive stuff she's gonna kill me for using on you. I'm pretty sure you're destined to look like a demon forever. Sorry, dude."

Ulrich looked at Mina, with her bleached blonde hair and midnight blue shirt with a spider-web pattern on it, glancing into her small bag of styling products a second time. “Nope. Still nothing.”

But just then, the TV suddenly switched from the Feel Good Inc music video to a serious looking old man.

"Well folks, it's as we feared, demonic attacks have reached the shores of the United States. An hour ago in Alabama, several demonic creatures came from the sky, and roughly ten thousand people from near the Montgomery area are confirmed to be missing. It's another case with no bodies left, compared to the recent attacks in Ireland that left two thousand confirmed dead. If anyone has any loved ones in the area, contacting them as soon as possible and making preparations for a potential attack is heavily advised.

“Damn, they’re getting pretty close.” Mina muttered under her breath.

“The what? Demons?” Ulrich asked.

“What, you don’t know?” Mina asked. “How out of it are you? Basically, portals started opening up in the sky in a bunch of places, and these purple monsters start coming out and start either killing or kidnapping people. It’s been about two weeks since the first one in India, and since then they’ve hit Ireland, Uruguay, Taiwan, Libya, and Spain.”

“So what, they just happen?”

“Seems like it.” Mina nodded. From what I know, nobodies been able to contain them yet.”

"And when did they start?"

"About a week after graduation, give or take."

Just as she finished her explanation, a knock was heard at the door.

Mina answered it and standing at the door was a woman she had never seen before. Long blonde hair that went down to her waist, and a dark blue shirt with two gold spirals not quite meeting, along with some simple jeans. Honestly, the strangest part of her outfit were the regal white gloves she was wearing, with a black stripe in the middle.

“Hello, is this the residence of Ulrich Hart?” She asked in a strange accent. Sounded somewhat Scandinavian, but he couldn’t be certain.

“It is, yeah.” Mina nodded. “Why, you need him?”

“Yes please. It will only be for a moment.”

Ulrich went up to the door, and the girl took a small picture out of her leather purse. A picture of Gene Bennet, because of course it was. Should some attractive foreign lady roll into town and ask for anyone, it'd be his seemingly flawless ass.

“Excuse me, I’ve been told you know this man. Could you tell me where he lives?”

“Yeah. He lives about six doors down to the right.”

“I’ll take ya.” Mina said calmly. “Laters, Ulrich.”

“Laters.” Ulrich replied.

“Oh, and by the way, your mother wishes to speak with you.”

Ulrich sighed, looking out at the blazing July Florida heat. As awful as the idea of heading out in it sounded, it was probably important. He changed out of the shirt with hair products on it, and changed into a purple shirt with a design that was just a triangle and circle intersecting.

He took a step outside, almost slipping on something just outside his house. He looked down, and on the ground was another pair of gloves. They looked identical to what the girl was wearing. He picked it up, and they looked like something royalty would wear. All soft, thin, and elegant. He tried calling out to Mina and the girl, but they were already in Gene’s house.

Just what were these? Was this girl involved with some weird cult or something? He considered going over himself, but figured Gene and Mina were smart enough to figure out any weird shit if they could.

Probably.

Regardless, these gloves looked and felt pretty damn expensive. So she’d probably come back if she really wanted them. But the gloves looked nice, so it wouldn’t hurt to try them on.

And just as he slipped them on, it felt like the entire universe punched him in the head.

His brain started throbbing like it was trying to escape his skull. The world turned black for a few seconds, and his hands became deathly cold, as if they were about to fall off.

Ulrich went back into his house, running inside his room and flinging the gloves on his bed. Something shady was definitely happening, but the two of them were smart enough to figure it out. He took out his flip phone, sending a quick text to Mina.

‘Hey, what’s up with the girl?’

A few seconds later, the reply came.

‘Messenger from Iceland. College scout or smthn.’

‘Anything weird about her? Because she dropped some gloves and they’re really cold on the inside.’

‘Probably a culture thing, don’t worry about it.’

Ulrich sighed, putting his phone back inside his pocket. Time to head to his mom’s place, stepping out once again to the town of Greenmetal. Not much to it outside of the suburbs, and the end of the street which housed the hair salon Mina's mom ran, a local sports bar, the abandoned building that used to house a small movie theatre, and four different gas stations. Ulrich always assumed it was a weird amount for what seemed like such a small town, but truckers needing to either rest or refuel between actually relevant towns were this place's main source of income. And his mother ran the second most popular one there. But the most popular had a slushie machine with nine different flavours and played Deftones songs, so it made complete sense to him why it more popular, even if he wasn't telling his mom that.

As he walked down the street, a woman who looked to be in her fifties was parading up and down the street with a sign just saying 'REPENT' on the front, and on the back was a list of people who he guessed needed to repent a little harder. Stuff like homosexuals, metalheads, adulterers, and 'excessive gamers.' which seemed weird, seeing as he was pretty certain Jesus never talked shit about guys with three hundred hours in Fatal Fantasy. She glanced at him and was about to open her mouth, but one look at his demon hair and she walked away for her next preaching victim.

He entered the Green Metal motor shop, enthusiastically being met with an “Ulrich! How ya doin?” By the owner, his mother, wearing a Scooby-Doo t-shirt. Her hair was still the same shade of dirty blonde.

“Doing pretty good,” Ulrich nodded.

“Nice. You get started on packing for college?”

“It's three weeks, relax.”

“Yeah.” She nodded with her eyes closed. “Anyway, that Swedish girl find you?”

“Yeah, Mina’s taking care of her. Anyway, what you need me for?” Looking around, there was only one guy by the magazines he’d get berated for looking at.

“Hm? Oh yeah, I got something for you.”

She shot the register open, and inside it was a black credit card. She casually tossed it towards him.

“Consider that your severance package! Should be about five grand in there.”

Ulrich stared at the card for a few seconds. “It’s all mine?” He asked, his voice shaking.

“Yeah, for whatever you wanna get in Colorado. A nice date, seeing your dad, whatever.”

“Oh yeah, dad.” Ulrich whispered under his breath. “He doing okay?”

“Last time I talked to him, anyway. He’s teaching at that university you’re going to, and doesn’t seem to be doing much besides that. But he’s excited to see you after…”

“Twelve years?” Ulrich asked.

“Twelve? Damn” She muttered. Well he managed to pick some stuff up for you. The new Fatal Fantasy game, some enhanced bundle.”

“Wait, really?”

The conversation was ready to continue, but an awkward cough was heard behind them, with the man behind him holding some air fresheners and dirty magazines, which Ulrich took as a sign to leave.

When he took a step through the door, he texted Mina again.

‘Any updates on that girl?’

‘Yeah, she’ll come for the gloves later. I’m home rn, wasn’t allowed to listen to the talks.’

With nothing left to do, Ulrich lay on the couch and turned on the TV. Most of the channels were just talking about the attacks, so he just flicked through until he finally found something unrelated. The only channels that seemed to not be showing anything demon related was the kids channels, so he just watched some rerun of Fairly Odd Parents until he drifted off to sleep.

He woke up to some kind of crashing noise. He checked outside, and it was dark. Really dark. He looked at the clock. 4PM. In July. His mind raced to the worst case scenario as he ran towards the window.

Outside was a dark indigo portal blocking out the sky, getting bigger by the second. This had to be the demonic attacks Mina was talking about, right? There wasn’t any other explanation.

Against all better judgement, he stepped outside, joining roughly fifty other people, all fixated on the portal in the sky.

Then a series of small purple orbs started raining onto the road. As soon as they hit the ground, they started forming together. The particles quickly turned into small impish creatures, about two thirds the size of a human. All hunched back with claws for hands, coloured the same deep purple as the portal and eyes the colour of toxic waste.

Ulrich tried moving, but his legs were frozen solid as the demons approached the crowd. Nobody else seemed to be able to move, so Ulrich watched as they approached the sign holding preacher.

And with a single flash of a demons claw, she was impaled.

This sent a shockwave through Ulrich, allowing his feet to move again. This seemed to hit the rest of the town, too. Ulrich watched as they all ran in different directions.

The demons quickly started taking victims. They had mouths but didn’t eat. Any reason they had to be doing this seemed to be unknown, and unimportant to figure out anyway.

Ulrich just ran to the store. His mom had a shotgun in the back of the shop, so she had the best chance of surviving this out of anyone.

He was almost at the store, turning around the corner when he ran right into a demon. It felt gooey as he bumped into it, springing him back as he fell to the ground. The demon stood for a second, as if it was regaining it’s senses. But it was only a few seconds before it pounced on Ulrich.

And then it froze. The ice-covered claw was barely brushing against his chest. One second longer, and he’d be impaled. He looked up, and the Icelandic girl was behind him, ice vapour seeping from her gloved hand.

“You. The gloves. You have them, don’t you?”