Ray still hadn't looked at him yet—he seemed like he was waiting until they were all together—but he did take a deep breath when Lance stopped a few feet away from him: That much came through loud and clear as soon as Lance focused on what the man had been thinking.

"What's your story?" Lance asked. "What happened to you?"

"I was working late in my office," Ray said softly; like he was trying not to draw any attention to himself than absolutely necessary. "When the power went out, I heard explosions outside. A friend of mine called me on my phone to warn me about the danger."

the voice in Ray's head said with a sigh.

Lance waited for more, but then something else distracted him. The way Grace was staring at her rifle, or how Sophie kept looking between Ray, Jacob, and him—like she didn't trust either of them—made it obvious that there was some tension here, but neither Jacob nor Sophie were saying anything yet.

If this guy really had just been hiding for who knew how long, he might be lying about whatever had happened to his parents and friends. Then again, maybe he had gone into hiding because he was too scared to fight, to understand and utilize the System.

No matter what had happened to him though, Lance could tell he wouldn't have been able to do that: his thoughts weren't clear enough to give away what he'd done to get himself off the streets like this. If he had been in hiding from the System's apocalypse--or anyone else with the power to help people like him--he had to have still known that if things got bad and he left, the best thing he could hope to achieve would be a bullet through the back of the head or a monster's ability through his torso while running away.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Perhaps that was why he was out here like this right now.

"Keep going," Sophie ordered coldly. "Surely that can't be it."

Lance looked up at her; she didn't seem so hostile anymore—not even angry—but she clearly wasn't going to let Ray just walk away either.

Ray slowly lowered the gun, then put it on top of one of the beds before saying anything.

"They're all dead," He said sadly. "All my friends are dead, they just disappeared from their homes—from me. I'm afraid of what happened to them as well, but not half as much as you'll probably think I am after seeing what they've done."

"They became like... them?" Jacob asked, indicating a grey corpse.

"Yes, they did," Ray said. His eyes flickered over toward Grace and Sophie for only an instant: he was thinking about what had happened to him. Then he turned back towards Lance and continued with his story. "The streets had already become dangerous by then. We couldn't stay in our houses any longer than necessary." The man's voice sounded strained and hollow, like he was remembering something terrible that he wanted desperately to forget. "We tried to drive home through the night, hoping the roads would be safer with fewer people and monsters out on them, and then they turned."

That was new.

Lance glanced at the rest of his group. He could tell that they were all thinking the same thing.

What if that happened to them?