Fragmented

Prologue

Ding!

The cashier glanced at the sliding doors. They had opened, but he didn't see anyone come in. Strange, the cashier thought, his mind flashing back to the ghost stories his friend had told him a few days ago. But he shook the thought from his mind and went back to counting the money in the cash register. Ghosts had nothing to do with malfunctioning doors. Maybe a stray cat had triggered the sensor or something, and he just hadn't seen it in the flickering light coming from the overhead lights outside.

The cashier shoved the leftover money into an envelope and left it in a drawer in the manager's desk. He made a final round of the store, checking the aisles for messes he would have to clean up before he left for the night. Everything was clean except for aisle eight, where bags of candy were scattered all over the floor. Probably a rowdy child. He had crouched down and started picking them up when there was a crash on the other side of the store. He dropped the bags and stood up quickly, peering over the rows of junk food, cards, and toys.

But nothing was there.

The cashier was getting nervous. When he came to work that night, he thought that it would be a quick shift; that afterwards he could go home, order a pizza, and binge watch Game of Thrones again. He didn't expect paranormal occurrences, or an intruder, or whatever was going on.

Every step he took towards where the noise had come from, his heart pounded faster and faster. He grabbed a broom from a shelf as an impromptu weapon against whatever was in the store with him. He turned the corner, brandishing the broom, and stopped.

A hand mirror that had previously been hanging on a hook on a shelf had fallen and shattered on the tiled floor, but that wasn't what grabbed his attention. He had seen someone's shadow as they escaped into the next aisle. He snuck carefully around the glass to the corner of the aisle and peeked around the shelf. A figure in a hooded dark rose shawl and a strange skirt, both edged with gold, stood before him, inspecting the rows of beauty products on the wall. It wore glittering teal bands around its wrists, and its skin was a pure, unnatural black, like the vacuum of space. The thing in front of him didn't seem human at all; rather, it had an otherworldly presence.

The cashier was extremely unnerved by what he saw. He didn't know what the thing was or what it could do, so instead of attacking whatever it was that was in front of him, he crept away silently to the manager's office to call the police. He was no hero eager to save the day, although that would give him something to brag about. No, he was just an underpaid employee saving up for college. Nothing special there.

However, before he even reached the counter, the thing suddenly appeared in front of him in a flash of magenta light and a soft rumbling sound like thunder.

The cashier fell backwards onto his behind and backed away from the figure in front of him as it stared him down. Its glowing eyes leaked a strange purple liquid that seemed to disappear before it reached the thing's chin, and there were dark violet scars all over its body that seemed to glow like its eyes in the harsh white lights of the store.

"Where do you think you're going?" the thing asked in a scratchy voice that seemed to multiply over itself.

"What in God's name are you?!" the cashier exclaimed, horrified.

The thing walked closer to him, and he kept scooting away until he bumped into the shelves behind him. The terrifying being leaned down close to his face and said menacingly, "I am the First Curse, the one who is about to drain the life from your pitiful body."

The cashier was frozen with fear, but managed to croak out, "Wh-what do you mean?"

The First Curse just chuckled darkly and stood above the man. The teal jewel that held together his shawl began glowing with a magical but ominous light, and the cashier started to choke on the air. The First Curse just pinned the man down with his foot and laughed as the cashier began screaming and flailing in pain. The agony of his soul being torn apart and pulled into the jewel was excruciating, and after a few moments, all that was left of him was an empty husk left limp on the ground.

The First Curse listened to the last of his screams echo through the night and smiled. The cashier was the first of many that would soon die at his hands. The very notion of stealing more people's life forces had the First Curse cackling with glee.

"Oh, Sabre," he said to himself, "I can't wait to add your soul to my collection."