Sean watched his breath mist in the unseasonable April cold, standing outside O'Reilly's while studying the peculiar way the streetlights bent through the evening haze. Above him, old brick buildings loomed against the pewter sky, their shadows stretching longer than they should in the fading light.
"Are you coming in or what?" Katie called from the pub door, violin case strapped across her back. The weekly music session was starting, and normally, he'd already be inside, losing himself in the traditional tunes that reminded him of simpler days.
"Yeah, just... give me a minute."
She lingered, concern creasing her forehead. "You've been odd lately. Odder than usual, I mean. And that's saying something for someone who spends their weekends stalking deer instead of watching football like a normal person."
Sean smiled weakly, but it didn't reach his eyes. He had spent his days in the mountains, hunting. It was something he had picked up recently, inheriting his grandfather’s great passion for it. When his grandfather died, Sean was left with nothing but some hunting gear. His hateful aunts and uncles had pounced on the chance to inherit his house, land and anything else that looked like it had any value at all, leaving him with nothing but this pittance. The hunting had started as a way to connect with his grandfather's memory, but lately, it had become something else. A preparation, though for what, he couldn't say. He had felt a stirring within him recently and…felt like it was something that he should be doing. The old man had filled his childhood with stories told by firelight, tales of ancient warriors and impossible deeds. His grandfather would sit in his worn leather armchair, pipe smoke curling around him like mist, and speak of heroes who could leap over mountains and warriors who could hear the grass grow.
"Your great-grandmother told these stories from all over Ireland," he'd say, tamping down fresh tobacco. "And her grandmother before her, and hers before that, all the way back to when the world was young and wild things still roamed the hills."
Sean had always noticed how his grandfather spoke of the old tales – not as fiction or folklore, but as history. As truth. He'd lean forward in his chair, eyes bright with something that looked like recognition, as if he were remembering rather than storytelling.
"The old heroes," he'd say, "they weren't born knowing their destiny. They lived normal lives until the moment they were needed. Until the world called them."
He followed Katie into the pub, the warmth and familiar smell of hops and wood hitting him like a wall. The session was just starting, musicians tucking themselves into the corner, tuning instruments and sharing knowing looks. In another life, Sean might have joined them – he'd played percussion since he was a kid – but his hands had been too restless lately for anything but his compound bow or his grandfather's old hunting knife.
The knife itself was an oddity. Not the standard hunting blade you'd find in outdoor shops, but something older, with strange patterns etched into the steel that seemed to shift when you weren't looking directly at them. His grandfather had given it to him on his deathbed, pressing it into Sean's hands with unusual urgency.
"Keep it close," he'd whispered, his voice stronger than it had been in months. "It's been in our family longer than anyone remembers. It'll know when it's needed. The knife will know. When the old things wake up, when the worlds start bleeding together again, the knife will remember what we forgot.”"
Sean's breath came out in little dragon puffs against the April chill. He was doing that thing again - you know, where you stand outside the pub like a complete weirdo, staring at nothing in particular. Except the streetlights were doing something funky tonight, bending through the fog in ways that made his head hurt. The old buildings downtown seemed to loom over him like disappointed parents, their shadows stretching way longer than they had any right to.
"Earth to Sean!" Katie's voice cut through his daze. She was standing in the doorway of O'Reilly's, violin case slung across her back like always. "The session's starting, and you're out here communing with the lampposts."
"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming." But he didn't move.
Katie gave him that look - the one that said she was trying to figure out if he'd finally lost it. "You've been weird lately. And I mean weird even for you, Mr. I'd-Rather-Chase-Deer-Through-The-Woods-Than-Watch-The-Match."
He managed a smile, but it was about as convincing as a chocolate teapot. The hunting thing... that was new. Well, sort of. His grandfather had been obsessed with it, and when the old man kicked the bucket, Sean had inherited exactly two things: a pile of hunting gear and a middle finger from his vulture relatives who'd swooped in to claim everything else. At first, hunting was just his way of keeping his grandfather's memory alive. But lately? It felt more like preparing for something. Don't ask him what - he couldn't tell you if his life depended on it.
The old man had been a storyteller, the kind who could make a grocery list sound like an epic saga. He'd park himself in that ancient leather chair of his, pipe smoke dancing around his head like he was summoning spirits, and spin tales about heroes who could jump over mountains and warriors who could hear grass growing. Real subtle stuff.
"Your great-grandmother collected these stories from all over Ireland," he'd say, jamming fresh tobacco into his pipe like he was trying to murder it. "And her grandmother before her, right back to when the world still had some magic left in its bones."
The weird thing was how he told those stories - not like fairy tales or myths, but like he was reading from a history book. Like he was remembering something that happened last Tuesday. His eyes would get this look, like someone who'd seen too much and couldn't quite keep it all bottled up.
"The heroes," he'd say, leaning in close enough that Sean could smell the cherry tobacco, "they weren't born with capes and superpowers. They were just regular folks until the universe decided to throw them a cosmic curveball."
Sean followed Katie into O'Reilly's, where the wall of warm air hit him like a friendly slap in the face. The usual suspects were setting up in their corner, tuning instruments and trading those mysterious musician nods. Once upon a time, Sean might've joined them - he'd been decent with a bodhrán - but these days his hands only seemed happy when they were holding his bow or that weird knife his grandfather had left him.
And boy, was that knife a conversation starter. Not your standard Bass Pro Shops special - this thing looked ancient, with these crazy patterns etched into the blade that seemed to play hide-and-seek with your eyeballs. His grandfather had practically thrown it at him on his deathbed, suddenly strong as an ox after weeks of being weak as water.
"Keep it close," he'd rasped, gripping Sean's wrist like a vice. "It's older than old in our family. When things get weird - and trust me, they will - the knife will remember what we forgot."
"Fancy a pint?" Katie was already waving at Mike behind the bar.
"Just a Coke for me." Sean couldn't help himself - his eyes were doing that thing again, mapping escape routes like he was Jason Bourne or something. Front door (obvious), beer garden (doable), kitchen (if you're desperate). He'd even cataloged which tables would make decent cover and which bottles could double as weapons in a pinch. God, he was turning into such a paranoid freak.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
Katie's eye-roll could've powered a small city. "Jesus H. Christ. First you go all straight-edge on us, then you start carrying around that sketchy knife—"
"It was Granddad's," he muttered, but she steamrolled right over him.
"—and now you're acting like the CIA's about to burst through the door. What gives?"
If she only knew about the shadows. They weren't... right. When you weren't looking straight at them, they moved like hungry dogs circling a campfire. Sometimes they'd reach for people, all long fingers and bad intentions, then snap back to normal the second you tried to catch them at it.
It had started three months back, up in the mountains. He'd been tracking this deer - nothing special, just another Sunday morning hunt - when reality decided to have a stroke. The tracks just... glitched. One second, deer prints in fresh snow. Next second, something else. Something that made his grandfather's knife turn ice-cold against his hip. The new tracks looked human-ish at first, but then they went all Salvador Dalí, like whatever made them was playing Mr. Potato Head with its own body. They led him to this ancient chain-link fence with those cliché "KEEP OUT" signs, where the snow looked like someone had scattered broken diamonds across it. Then even that vanished while he watched, like his brain was backspacing reality.
Since then, everything felt... paper-thin. Like the world was just a cheap backdrop you could punch right through if you hit it hard enough. And the knife? It had developed opinions. Not that it was chatting his ear off or anything, but it had this way of going cold whenever something wasn't quite kosher - wrong shadows, doors that definitely weren't there yesterday, that sort of thing.
His grandfather's old stories hit different now. All that talk about "thin places" where the old magic leaked through, about ancient powers taking power naps. "The old ways didn't die out," he used to say, tobacco smoke making a halo around his head. "They just hit the snooze button. But someday, boy, they're gonna wake up cranky."
Katie was still staring at him, waiting for some kind of explanation. "Been having these weird dreams," he said lamely. Which wasn't exactly a lie - unless you counted running around with ancient warriors through forests that hadn't existed for millennia as normal dream stuff. Sometimes his grandfather showed up in them, young and built like a tank, wearing armor that looked like it belonged in a museum and speaking some language Sean definitely never learned but somehow understood perfectly.
"Right. Dreams. Sure." Katie's tone could've stripped paint. "Well, I'm here if you need to talk. You know, about these totally normal dreams you're having."
Sean made a noise that might've been agreement and tried to focus on the music. The session was in full swing now, some slow tune that made the old timber beams vibrate like tuning forks. But even that felt wrong - the shadows from the instruments were dancing to a different tune than the one being played.
His head started swimming. For a second, he wondered if someone had spiked his Coke, but then these weird symbols started flashing in front of his eyes - like someone had thrown ancient runes into a blender with Python code. They looked weirdly similar to the marks on his grandfather's knife, unless his brain was just making connections that weren't there. The music went all underwater, like someone had stuffed his ears with cotton.
Then everything just... stopped. Not slowed down - stopped. Katie frozen mid-hair-flip, the fiddler's bow hanging in the air like someone had hit pause on reality, cigarette smoke doing its best statue impression. Even the dust motes hung suspended like tiny Christmas ornaments.
A line of text appeared in front of him, floating there like the world's weirdest PowerPoint:
[Candidate #447,913 - Selection Process Initiated]
The world went sideways. Sean grabbed for the bar but his hand passed right through it like it was made of cigarette smoke. The pub melted away around him, all those warm woods and amber lights bleeding into straight-up nothingness.
When everything stopped spinning, he found himself standing in what looked like an Apple Store designed by someone who'd gone way overboard with the minimalist thing. Just white. White everywhere. White walls, white floor, white ceiling - the kind of place that'd give your mom decorating ideas for the guest bathroom.
His clothes had done a quick-change act too. Gone was his ratty sweater and jeans combo, replaced by his hunting gear - the fancy Gore-Tex stuff, that tactical vest he'd modified for bow hunting (and gotten way too excited about), and those boots he'd spent forever breaking in. His grandfather's knife was riding his hip like it belonged there, and his compound bow - which should've been collecting dust above his fireplace - felt perfectly natural in his left hand. The knife's weird etchings were doing their best Christmas lights impression, pulsing in time with his heartbeat.
Then, because this day wasn't weird enough already, more floating text popped up:
[Welcome, Candidate #447,913]
[System Initialization Commencing...]
[Tutorial Mode: Activated]
[Warning: Once Tutorial Mode begins, progression cannot be halted]
[Do you wish to proceed? Y/N]
Sean's mind wandered back to all those weekends with his grandfather, realizing now they'd been more than just some old dude teaching his grandson how to shoot Bambi. The old man had shown him everything - how to move through the woods like a ghost, how to read the wind like a paperback, how to spot things most people would walk right past. "These aren't just hunting tricks," he'd say, with that look that meant he knew way more than he was letting on. "These are survival skills, from back when being the hunter didn't always mean you weren't also the hunted."
The lessons went beyond tracking deer. Stars you could navigate by when your phone died, plants that could fix you up or knock you out, all that Ray Mears stuff that seemed kind of pointless in a world with GPS and WebMD. "This is old knowledge," his grandfather would say, tapping his temple. "The kind that sticks in your blood."
Standing there, staring at this Matrix-meets-medieval text floating in the air, Sean finally got it. All those stories, all those "just in case" lessons - his grandfather hadn't been teaching him about the past.
He'd been preparing him for the future.
The knife at his hip suddenly felt like a hot water bottle, and he could've sworn he heard his grandfather's voice, clear as day: "The old stories aren't dead, kiddo. They're just waiting for their cue to jump back on stage."
He looked at the floating text and said, trying to sound more confident than he felt, "Yes."
[Tutorial Sequence Initiating...]
[Calibrating to Host Parameters...]
[Detecting Primary Attributes...]
[Anomalous Bloodline Detected]
[Recalibrating for Heritage Integration...]
The white room started shifting like someone was redecorating reality. Sean felt something wake up in his blood, something ancient and powerful that remembered when the world was young and wild, when heroes didn't just exist in Marvel movies and epic deeds weren't just stories you told over pints.
[Tutorial Stage 1: Survival Basics]
[Objective: Survive the next 24 hours]
[Reward: Basic System Access]
[Note: Death during tutorial will result in permanent termination]
[Loading environment...]
[Initiating Galactic Reintegration]
[Tutorial difficulty: hard mode]
The Apple Store from hell dissolved, replaced by what looked like the world's most intimidating clearing. About a hundred other people materialized out of thin air, kitted out like they'd raided every sporting goods store and Renaissance faire in a fifty-mile radius. Some had guns, others were holding spears like they'd watched "300" too many times, and a few honest-to-God swords that definitely weren't from Party City.
The trees around them were something else - massive things that looked like they'd been designed by someone who'd only had normal trees described to them. They punched straight through the low-hanging clouds, which were lit up by this weird red light that definitely wasn't standard-issue sunlight.
A notification dinged in front of everyone's faces - judging by the collective jump of surprise, he wasn't the only one seeing it:
[All participants have been reallocated.]
[Brave pioneers of Planet #C158, we wish you luck in the challenges to come!]
Then came the howl. Not your average wolf-who-spotted-a-rabbit howl, but something that made every hair on Sean's body stand at attention. More joined in, like the world's creepiest choir practice. The sound of something big - multiple somethings - moving through the trees sent birds shooting into the sky like feathered rockets.
Sean nocked an arrow, double-checked his knife, and felt a grin spread across his face that probably made him look slightly unhinged. His grandfather's words echoed in his head: "The old ways aren't gone, boy, they're just sleeping. And someday, they will wake up."
Well, looks like someday was today. And somehow, that felt exactly right.
Tutorial mode was live, and Sean was ready to play.