The fact that Reverie Schneider may have been without a presence was not a lie.
According to those who grew up alongside him, he was almost like a ghost.
Lucas was there when his elder brother first met Reverie Schneider on the first day of college. He was only six.
He accompanied his elder brother, Justin Fleming, since their parents were off on a business trip.
Reverie Schneider just happened to be there, staring straight to a laptop screen, writing in the cafeteria, alone.
Justin must have felt bad for him and he had always been an extrovert, so he said to Lucas if it'd be okay for him to approach this lonesome young man.
He couldn't help but say yes.
Justin, his eyes aglow, walked quiet from behind him, taking a glance at whatever he was working on.
"Aha," said Justin, his voice startling Reverie. "Let me guess; creative writing major?"
Reverie, with a confused expression, said: "No. Linguistics."
It was not long when Justin became a fan of Reverie's writing, which happened to a web novel called Imperfections of a Knight. ("Far too long a title!" Lucas heard his brother say. "Shall calling it Imperfect Knight suffice?")
To the point that Reverie made him a character with the same name.
He became, in fiction, a comrade to Benedict Ian Leyendecker, the protagonist of Imperfect Knight.
Justin became what he always wanted to be.
Their parents had forced him to take civil engineering in college.
But Justin had always wanted to become an astronaut.
Lucas bit his fingernails as he stared right at Reverie who was surrounded by two middle-aged men.
Though, because of his novel, he became a popular topic at college.
People flocked to him.
But, looking at him now, he was kind of ugly.
The kind of ugly that girls would've thought he was hot
A large, sharp nose. A mole on his collarbones, obvious from his usual oversized clothing. Dark, wavy hair that defied gravity that contrasted with his golden hazel eyes.
What made girls attracted to him and boys regard him highly, Lucas wasn't sure.
Maybe it was because he had good body proportions?
But he was debuffed by having no presence at all.
He would appear out of the blue then say he's been there the whole time.
Though, thought Lucas as he stared at Reverie who was sitting cross-legged among old men, that seemed to have lessened by adulthood.
Indeed, he was popular but Lucas never heard of him having friends.
But Reverie often came to their house to discuss the novel he was working on so Lucas was sure that he knew Reverie more than the average person.
It was a few months after their first interaction that Reverie's visits became less frequent.
I think, thought Lucas, that was when he first met Archer Monroe.
The incident conjured up a buzz throughout the school like a trumpet's blaring, and Justin fell into depression.
The reason for his depression was that Reverie had stopped writing for once and for all, leaving the unfinished Imperfect Knight to rot.
He had shifted courses and went to the big city to study nursing.
Lucas and his brother never met with Reverie ever again, even if Justin thought that he was innocent.
His brother had always had a strange addiction to Reverie, as though he had fallen in love.
He wasn't sure if it was the same love in the way of dating and marrying.
Maybe it was simply because of the story he had written.
But, then again, it was common knowledge that while Imperfect Knight was written by Reverie, his brother had made the outline.
Even if Reverie had written most of the story, Lucas was sure he diverted from the outline at some point. That was a fact to be considered, since he made his own friend a character.
Was the story Reverie's then?
In the grant scheme of things, who owned the story?
The planner and creator or the one who made it alive?
It was a difficult question.
But what if we add another variable to the equation?
The planner, the writer, and…
The reader.
While Justin may have wished to be, he wasn't the sole reader of Imperfect Knight.
Lucas continued to stare at Reverie, considering approaching him and introducing himself.
After years of his brother's death plaguing him, he was finally determined to live.
You really don't realize how much my brother worships you.
It irritated him, the way Reverie did not care about Justin as much as he cared about Archer "Archie" Monroe.
Reverie and Justin's friendship lasted for seven months. His brother had counted.
A few weeks of no interaction destroyed their friendship.
But Reverie and Archer Monroe's friendship only lasted two months in total if you don't count the months they didn't interact.
So when Lucas was contacted by Archie to join him, to become his henceman, he couldn't resist.
He could finally avenge his brother and find out more about the story of Imperfect Knight.
It wasn't a lie to say that Lucas regretted not reading Imperfect Knight any further than the first few chapters.
But, even then, his regrets vanished. How could he have known that this amateurish web novel was going to turn into reality?
So after the death of his brother who suffered from a heart disease, he accepted Archie's request.
This was months before the rounds began in Earth-73.
Archie, being the person he is, did not elaborate on what he meant at the time.
Just yesterday, the world ended.
The trumpet blown by the angel, Israfil, reverberated throughout the land.
Some lands, like the artificially-made country East America, could not handle the vibrations.
Then, Archie appeared at last.
"You knew this would happen," said Lucas to Archie, the both of them standing on debris. Lucas ran immediately to Justin's tomb when the rounds began in hopes that, by some miracle, it would be spared. "How?"
"Are you challenging my authority?"
Lucas had thought this world was familiar, so, from what little knowledge he had, he killed a centipede.
"No, I'm denying it completely. If this relationship continues, I want us to be equals."
Archie laughed. It vibrated like a trumpet in a sinister fashion.
"I'll tell you this. The 0th round will cause death to many. The world's population will lessen
"The angels are cleansing the land."
As he said so, he clutched a snake's head in his hands.
He crushed its head, pus, blood, and juice splattering in his hand and face.
The screen that was familiar to those who still lived appeared before him.
[You have joined the rounds]
His expression was grim, and yet he smiled.
"How would you know?"
Lucas was ignored. He went on:
"So, don't get cocky. You're only canon fodder in the story I want to tell."
Archie coughed, ruminating on the query Lucas had raised.
"How would I know?"
He chuckled.
Lucas was about to retaliate when a broken television droned on to a news channel.
A familiar dirty-blond man nearing thirty.
His brother was meant to have died.
So, why was he on that moon with Benedict Leyendecker?
"I'm a Harbinger of the Apocalypse."