For a long time, Xavier sat cross-legged on the bathroom floor, trying to digest the fact that something about the world had changed. No, not just changed but… turned upside down.
He could still feel the goosebumps on his skin as he recalled the events he had witnessed through the bathroom window. His body gave an involuntary shudder and he tried to forget the scene that seemed to have imprinted itself in his brain. The water trickling down the shower didn’t do anything to help either. He slowly raised his hand holding the leather box to bring it to eye-level. Though he held it at an arm’s length, afraid that something might pop out and lunge at him.
Did aliens invade our planet?
The leather box looked like a foreign object. For all he knew it definitely was. The water was trickling down the shower head, flowing down his hair and body in rivulets, making him shiver.
Suddenly he felt something strange. An unfamiliar sensation spread through his body. He narrowed his eyes. For a moment, he thought that the cold water coupled with his nervousness made him feel funny. But then he realized the source of the sensation did not originate from inside him. No, it was the box.
Xavier stared at the box intently, trying to understand what was going on. All of this was beyond his wildest imagination. It made him feel both nervous, excited…and frightened.
Where did this box come from?
He wondered as he felt the unfamiliar sensation traveling towards his body through his open palm in which the box was resting. The curtain of water flowing down his head made it a little hard for him to see but he dared not move, fixated on the odd feeling that he could only describe as a light caress.
With the tick of time, it slowly grew heavier and more pronounced but something told him that it wasn’t trying to harm him. Xavier was not sure how he felt so sure about it, but he decided to trust the feeling.
Seconds turned to minutes as the feeling slowly intensified. He could feel something coursing through his arm, traveling towards his chest. He let it take its time before it finally reached his chest and he waited breathlessly.
And continued to wait. Nothing happened at first and then-
“Aah!”
Xavier let out a scream that was muffled by the water flowing down his head as he felt his bones and muscles suddenly grow stiff. Unable to sit straight even for a second more, he took the support of the wall, got up from the floor, and turned the shower off. Clutching the leather box tightly, he stepped out of the bathroom, or tried to.
But his body didn’t seem to pay heed to his commands. He barely managed to take a step forward but the world swayed dangerously in front of him. His vision was reduced to a blur and only the hazy outlines of the familiar space told him that he was still in his home.
Come on, you know how to walk!
He mentally chided himself and took another step but the heel of his foot never landed on the floor firmly. Instead, the unknown pressure weighing down on him increased significantly and he almost crashed into the wall.
Holding the wash basin’s edge for support, he tried to steady himself and blinked rapidly but he soon felt a slow warmth spreading through his chest. At first, it made him feel nice as he had been sitting in the cold water but soon the warmth intensified.
“Fuck!”
He swore as he clutched his chest in a futile attempt to contain the heat. He broke into a sweat as the heat cranked up and his legs caved in. Xavier fell down on all fours and winced as if the heat had turned into raw, liquid fire.
His insides felt as if he had been mercilessly shoved into a blast furnace, the pain becoming impossible to bear.
Xavier’s knees wobbled and he slumped on the floor, his breathing labored and raspy. Wincing, he pulled himself up, barely. One hand was pushing against the bathroom floor so as to not collapse on the spot again, while his other hand was still clutching at his chest.
His heart was racing wildly, almost like it was about to jump out of his chest. Not even the worst workout session in his life had made his heart beat as ferociously as it was beating right now. It was scary. Now he was not sure if touching the box had been a good idea.
Just what is going on? Is that what a heart attack feels like? Ain’t I too young for a heart attack?
Gritting his teeth, Xavier was about to push himself up when he sensed a sharp bolt of pain pierce him. It felt as if he had been stabbed. He looked down at his chest, his fingers caressing the spot where he felt a sting. It nearly made his eyes water. But the painful sting was not like the fire that had raged through his body, wracking every nerve. It was cooling. Confused, he stared intently and his eyes widened in surprise. Without realizing it, Xavier had pressed the leather deck against his chest – exactly the spot from where the painful sting had originated.
And he could have sworn that there hadn’t been a long and sinuous appendage, like the one that was slowly emerging out of the leather box’s underside, before. It reminded him of a jellyfish’s tentacle that he had seen when he went swimming in the sea with his university friends, the brackish water almost making him gag.
Shaking his head to dismiss that memory, he focused on the soft and gelatinous, stretchy tissue that elongated until it reached his chest and slowly inserted its tip inside his flesh. The tentacle was doing something. As for what that was, Xavier had no idea.
But isn’t that a little bit odd…Well, it’s definitely a lot more than just a ‘little’ odd. A leather box drops in the shower, multiple natural disasters happen simultaneously, and now that leather box shoots out a weird tentacle to suck my blood…which in turn cools my burning chest…Totally normal…
Xavier felt weird. That was the only way to describe it. He should be panicking right now, but he was staring calmly at the leather box and the white tendril.
The fire raging in his chest cooled down while the white tendril of the leather box retracted. It slunk back to the underside of the leather box, where seven small gemstones formed the corners of a heptagon. The gemstones glistened faintly, but they were overshadowed by the brightly shining crystal embedded in the center of the heptagon.
The shining crystal attracted his attention and curiosity. But Xavier was once again distracted as new words appeared in front of him.
[Congratulations! Classless Deck has been linked]
[Assessing…]
What is that?
[Assessment of the Class Holder’s power has been completed.]
[Foundation Orb has been adjusted.]
Xavier blinked several times while staring at the new notifications that popped up in front of him. He was at a loss for what to think. All he could do was glance at the leather box resting in his hand.
As his attention focused solely on the leather box, more information popped up in front of him.
Classless Deck
Stage-0 Card Holder
Connected Cards: 0
Card Limit: 10
Stored Soul Essences: 0
Classless Deck…The notification said that the Classless Deck has been linked to me. Was that the result of the tendril piercing into my chest?
Xavier looked down at his chest yet again, precisely where the leather box’s tendril had pierced into his flesh.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
There was only a faint mark left behind by the tendril’s sting, but the spot felt a little weird. Xavier was not sure how to describe the current sensation, but it was not a bad feeling. He felt that the Classless Deck was not something ordinary. It had a unique familiar sensation to it.
Almost like it was part of his body and existence.
Xavier had never felt like this before and it made him hesitate for a moment.
What does all of this mean? A Card Holder. Connected Cards. Card Limit. Why is this all about cards? Are we about to play poker or what? Xavier pulled at his hair, feeling utterly bewildered.
Despite being at a loss, his attention moved back to the seven gemstones that formed the heptagon, hoping to obtain some more information. All this talk about ‘cards’ couldn’t be everything. There should be more information to discover. There had to be!
[Foundation Orb]
[Star of Vitality – Inferior 5/10]
[Star of Strength– Inferior 5/10]
[Star of Agility – Inferior 5/10]
[Star of Dexterity – Inferior 3/10]
[Star of Perception – Inferior 3/10]
[Star of Energy – Inferior 1/10]
[Star of Wisdom– Inferior 4/10]
[The Foundation Orb determines the quality of the Card Holder’s Power. Strengthen the seven Foundation Stars to unleash your potential and transcend all barriers!!]
Xavier waited patiently, unsure if that was all or if there would be more information. Eyes furrowed, he glared intently at the gemstone heptagon on the back of the Deck almost as if commanding it to respond to him but nothing happened.
Is that all I’m getting? So you want to tell me that the world turned into a game? Is that it?
Even though Xavier grumbled a lot, the amount of information he obtained in the last minute couldn’t be underestimated. He learned a lot about the leather box – the Classless Deck – that was linked to him.
Given the information, the Foundation Orb is like a status sheet that shows my current status…my strength... Each Foundation Star represents one stat…If I ignore the word ‘Inferior’ for the time being, my stats should be quite…feasible? I was never bad at school and my physique is pretty good as well. But what about this ‘Inferior’ then? Is the prefix the main stat?
Before Xavier realized it, his mind had accepted the happenings of the past few minutes as his new reality. Until proven otherwise he would consider the Classless Deck, and the information that had popped up in front of him real. Why would Xavier do that? It was pretty simple.
The first few messages that emerged out of nowhere spoke about Gates and monster spawn points. If all of this was actually real and not just a hyper-realistic illusion, monsters were about to descend onto Earth. Xavier didn’t want to be delusional, and hold desperately onto his hopes that all of this was a bad dream. He wasn’t planning on dying an early, ignorant death. The knowledge gained from too many games and fantasy novels came to his rescue, whispering in his ear to be better.
First things first. I should stay calm, gather food, and prepare for the worst case. I have yet to find out what Soul Essences are, and how to procure them. The use of Cards is still questionable as well. The same goes for ways to obtain Cards.
For the time being everything sounded like a game. However, the pain and the rollercoaster of emotions he felt earlier were more than enough to tell that he was wide awake and not caught in a nightmare. The earthquake and torrential rain had been real as well. That was something Xavier reaffirmed with a glance out of the small window in the bathroom.
If the catastrophe in motion had been nature’s wrath at its peak, the scene greeting him now was one of utter desolation. The raging downpour had subsided and so had the earthquake, leaving him a clear view of the now quiet but utterly destroyed expanse. Various houses were razed to the ground and the once giant and lush green trees lay scattered around, uprooted and viciously torn.
Debris of the neat little houses dotted the landscape with crumbled walls and kitchen appliances floating in small muddy puddles. The sky was a meek gray, casting a blanket of despair and gloom all over the planet.
His eyes drifted to the garden he had painstakingly cleaned and worked upon. What he saw was a huge crack in place of the patch he had planted new seeds, hoping to see them germinate in a few days. But now cobweb-like cracks were branching out of the huge one and swallowing a huge chunk of their fence.
Seeing the destruction outside the house made his heart skip a beat. Somehow, their house, though cracked and their backyard a mess, hadn’t collapsed. Unknowingly he had held his breath for a whole minute wondering if it was pure luck or if the system had spared his family.
And as his lungs started to cry for oxygen, he took a deep breath, and tried to calm his nerves. After breathing in and out a few more times, Xavier put on his clothes. He looked at the Classless Deck and fastened it to his belt without a second thought.
I better not lose you.
He left the bathroom and rushed inside his room, where he picked up his large hiking backpack. Xavier felt that he should rush to his parents and ask if they were doing fine, but he could hear them quarrel from the other side of the house already. Their bickering made him feel like nothing had changed for a moment. Unfortunately, the topic of his parents’ quarrel was not the same as usual.
“I told you that something like this would happen now or later. My strategy to hoard weapons was extraordinary. I’m a genius!” Xavier could hear his father exclaim. Rather than being scared, his father was trying to make it sound like he had been purchasing and stockpiling his weapons for this very scenario.
“Dear…please don’t act like that now, okay? We both, and Xavier, know very well that you were blindly purchasing all these weapons. This nonsense of monsters emerging out of nowhere is nothing but that- pure nonsense. What even is this Classless Deck? I don’t understand anything except the fact that you wasted our savings to purchase the shimmering pieces of metal!!”
Xavier pressed his lips together and slowed down in the hallway. Even if hell was about to descend right now, Xavier wanted to avoid his mother’s wrath. Not even the cataclysmic event had distracted his mother from continuing to argue with his father. And he knew just the place to focus his attention and slip away from the heated argument.
He moved slowly to the door leading into the basement, keeping an eye on his mother. As long as he reached the cellar he could collect some stuff and put it into the backpack for the worst-case scenario. Literally anything could happen, and being prepared didn’t seem like a bad plan.
Mom is right though. Dad didn’t buy his weapons for this situation…but they might be useful. Xavier thought, opening the door to take the stairs to the basement hoping that the sole receiver of her ire would continue to be his father.
However, just as he took the first step, his heart skipped a beat. He heard a thunderous roar that reverberated through the surroundings, loud enough to shake the foundation of their house.
Another earthquake? Xavier wondered, goosebumps spreading all over his body, “Mom! Dad! Get downstairs, quick!!”
Fear crawling up his spine, Xavier half-dashed, and half-stumbled down the flight of stairs to reach the basement that was filled with cardboard boxes holding worn-out books, broken toys etc. Ignoring all of it, he headed towards the cellar and began stashing the backpack with items he thought would come in handy like a torch, gloves, and such.
The basement was bathed in a dim light but he was well aware of the place so he navigated through the space easily, throwing more stuff in his backpack until it was nearly full. He tried to reach for the pliers but they seemed to be stuck in the wooden drawer that had smashed into the wall, pushing it further away from his reach.
Getting down on his knees, he tried to reach for the pliers again and his fingers barely brushed the tip of their handle.
“Come on” Xavier groaned and strained his hand as far as he could. A thin sheen of sweat had appeared on his forehead and he was gritting his teeth hard.
But then something occurred to him. Why were his parents still not downstairs?
Involuntarily, his hand went to his heart as it tightened and he felt the vibrations like before. However, this time, they sounded much closer, advancing towards him and their home with a breakneck speed.
He felt a knot in his stomach as his heart began to race. But that was nothing compared to the scream that reached his ears soon after. That was his mother’s scream.
“Shit”
Without wasting a second, Xavier dashed through the cellar and jumped up the stairs to reach the living room. And what he saw next left him speechless for a second. With a mouth hanging wide open, he saw not one but three humongous boars forcing their way through the half-destroyed fence of their backyard. The boars were the size of a car. No, they were even larger. Each of them was at least three meters tall, stocky, and gigantic, with their yellowy-white tusks gleaming menacingly. But that was not even the scariest part. They were enveloped in blazing flames and running through their backyard, charging in the direction of their house, charging at him.
“What the–”
Clutching the backpack, he threw himself to the side blindly and landed on the rug as the boars charged into their home, tearing through the wall. Xavier lay on the ground, his hands thrown over his head as he watched them run through their room, unbothered by the bricks and his mother’s paintings falling on their heads. They simply burst through the opposite wall, running outside their home without sparing him a single glance.
Xavier blinked. Once. Twice.
I am alive! No. We are alive!
He told himself and craned his neck to see the retreating figures of the fire-engulfed boars through the gaping holes left in the wall as they trampled everything that stood in their way. He could not see much of their features as they were covered in flames but he had noticed that the flames didn’t seem to hurt the humongous monsters. In fact, the fire seemed to be a part of their body.
“This is even worse than the worst I could imagine…”
The apocalypse had truly descended.