I leave my neighborhood behind in a few minutes, going at a steady jog while keeping an eye on my stamina. The countryside between Stelver’s denser regions is sparse with houses, being mostly roads and expanses of hilly grasslands broken up by the occasional patch of forest.

A few others are outside as well, coming and going in their own quests for loved ones or safety. I see more dead, too, and those make my stomach churn. Anything from half-eaten corpses to skeletons picked clean of flesh, filling the night with the heavy scent of blood.

The occasional monster blocks my path every so often, but I only stop to fight when I absolutely need to. A few more types appear, all of them mutated fauna. Rats, squirrels, raccoons, opossums, all bigger, meaner, and with a newfound taste for humans.

Nothing over level 1 or 2, though, so the crowbar makes short work of them.

But while I don’t stop specifically to fight monsters, I do slow down every once in a while to help the people I come across. Can’t really avoid it. Pops signed up with the local police force years ago, and combined with the fact that I worked on many of the houses in town, pretty much everyone knows me.

Seeing a face they recognize, especially when that face belongs to the son of an officer, makes a lot of people flag me down to ask questions. What’s going on? Where’s the police? What’s being done about this?

I don’t even have any answers for myself, let alone for anyone else. But I can’t just brush them off, so I do my best to give advice and hope it’s enough.

Select your classes if you haven’t already. Start killing monsters to level up. Stick with other people for safety in numbers. By the looks of it this is a global crisis, so the police and military aren’t likely to come to our rescue. We need to keep ourselves and each other safe.

Other times, I jump in to assist with the monsters. Like right now, with this group.

It’s a ragtag bunch of over thirty people. About ten men and ten women, ranging in age from early twenties to late forties, and a few kids of all ages. I see them from afar, going towards downtown in a loose formation until a pack of monsters descends upon them.

Some of the men and women form a circle, herding the others in the middle as they face the monsters. A few of them have firearms, but those quickly prove ineffective against the small, fast moving monsters. The rest only have improvised weapons, like me.

It takes me a bit to reach them, and they’re already fighting by the time I do. A few are down, being dragged away by the monsters that tear into them. Others retreat into the circle for safety, sporting nasty wounds.

“Tighten the circle!” I yell. “Stop using firearms! Go with blunt weapons! Form pairs and lash out in turns! If someone falls, drag them back in!”

A few of them look over to me as I wade into the horde, readying the crowbar. They’re confused for a second, but they quickly do as I instructed. The monsters have grown bigger, more of them now being the size of dogs. Really large dogs.

I start swinging as some of the monsters turn on me. The first swing catches a burly cat in the side of the head and sends it spinning. The second meets a mutated dog in the jaw as it lunges for me, breaking bones and shattering teeth. It yelps and retreats, making room for the others to assault me. I swing again, catching a mutated rabbit in the air as it jumps for me, and I lash out with my boots to keep other critters away.

I don’t get to kill any of the monsters, but I’m not aiming for that anyway. I mainly try to injure and maim, just enough to make room for myself as I’m heading for the group. Some of the monsters manage to claw and bite me, taking out chunks of skin and flesh. Pain comes flooding in, and I have to focus on not tripping up.

I’m tempted to use some of the firecrackers to distract the monsters and ease my advance, but I don’t have time to light them.

The group, at least, seems to be doing better now. They do what I told them, and they’re dropping the monsters like flies. The circle gets progressively tighter as the sheer number of monster corpses forces them to step back every so often.

I’m down to thirty health by the time I reach them, covered in bruises, cuts, and bites. My body hurts from head to toe, pain assaulting every inch of me as it lights my nerve endings on fire. I’m drenched in blood, both my own and from the many monsters I fought.

But I’ll live.

I lash out one final time, squashing an oversized ant that’s trying to chew through the tip of my boot, and I jump into the group.

The circle of protectors parts to make room. One of the men, a guy around my age wearing a green shirt, steps out of line. I’ve seen him doing that before, to grab others and pull them back in or simply to help them out. He gets a hold of my arm and yanks me towards the group, trying to be helpful, but he uses a bit too much force and sends me sprawling to the ground.

I take a moment to breathe after my insanely stupid stunt, but it doesn’t last long. While the kids pull away from me, the women are on top of me moments later.

“Oh my God! Oh my God!”

“He’s bleeding out! He’ll die!”

“What do we do?!”

“I’ll be fine,” I grumble. “Just…give me a sec. I’ll heal right up.”

They look at me as if I’ve suddenly sprouted a second head on my shoulders, but I understand. Not everyone has so readily accepted our new reality, so in their minds, the wounds I have aren’t compatible with survival. Except they are now, and a quick check of my health bar tells me as much. Although the bleeding is slowing down my healing rate from 10% total health per minute to 6%, it’s not quite enough to kill me. I can feel my flesh bubbling, skin regrowing, and the pain receding ever so slowly.

The moment I can stand again, I do so. I push away the well meaning hands trying to keep me down for my own good, grab my crowbar off the ground next to me, and I join the line. Green shirt guy looks me up and down, worry etched on his face.

“I’m fine,” I assure him before he gets the chance to try and sideline me, giving the crowbar a twirl for good effect. It backfires and hits me in the hip, but does no damage. “Let’s get to it.”

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It takes us a good ten minutes to kill all of the monsters. I’m mostly healed by the end, as is everyone else that survived. But it’s not all good news. Out of the initial thirty or so people, only twenty remain.

We managed to secure a small victory, but it sure as hell doesn’t feel like it. The monsters are growing stronger by the minute, and the aftermath of this battle couldn’t feel more different from that of the last squirmish back in my neighborhood.

The ones that lost family or friends in the fight are scouring the battlefield, trying to find the remains of their loved ones. The rest are crying, wailing, trying to comfort each other, or just staring blankly into space, the shock too much for them to handle.

I have to go, but I can’t just up and leave them. I’m afraid they won’t survive another attack like this one.

“Okay, listen up!” I say, raising my voice in an attempt to keep my own fear out of it. “You guys have to select your classes! You have to level up, and you have to find other people!”

A few of them look at me, but their hollow expressions don’t fill me with confidence. They’re broken, defeated, and scared, so it’s not a big surprise when they stop paying attention to me. I pinch the bridge of my nose and take a deep breath to calm down, figuring I’ll need another approach.

Looking over the group, I try to decide what tasks to give everyone. That’s something I learned a while back, people are more likely to do something if you call them out directly and give them clear instructions to follow. Humans just like it when things are simple and ordered like that. They like to offload their thinking to others, especially in times of crisis.

“You!” I call out to Green Shirt guy.

He’s by the women and children, checking up on them to make sure they’re okay.

“Me?” He says, pointing a finger at himself.

“Yeah. Name?”

“Brent.”

“Okay, Brent. You’re in charge of this group starting from now and until things calm down. Can I count on you for that?”

Brent shivers from head to toe and squeaks out, “why me?”

“Can I count on you or not?!”

He looks down at his feet, but one of the women comes up from behind and slaps the back of his head. I absently chalk her down as either his girlfriend or wife, and the baby in her arms as their kid. Everyone else is now looking as well, and I can tell they’re not exactly happy. After all, who am I to call the shots and put someone else in charge of them?

“Any of you got a problem with that?!” I yell. “If there are any volunteers, I’m all ears!”

Predictably enough, no one steps up. Brent looks up at me after a long moment, with a newfound fire in his eyes. He’s still scared, that’s plenty obvious, but at the very least he’s ready to try.

I give him a nod, then I continue dishing out instructions.

“Brent, you’ll make sure the group stays together and cooperates properly. Find a place you think is secure, then start boarding up windows and doors. You’ll have to make your stand there.”

“Okay,” Brent says, straightening up and looking around.

The area we’re in is sparse with buildings, but I have to trust that he has some idea of where to go and that he’ll make it work.

“You, you, and you! Names!” I say, pointing at three men.

They’re tall and lanky, probably freshly out of high school. But they seemed quick on their feet during the battle, so they’re perfect for what I need them to do.

They give me their names: Charlie, Nate, and Josh.

“You three split up! Go out there and find more people! Don’t fight, just find people and bring them back to your group!”

“No way in hell!” One of them pipes up, though I already forgot which name goes with his face.

“Yeah, fuck off!” Another one helpfully adds.

“You’ll need more help,” I bark back. “More people means more safety! You three guys seem like the fastest ones here, so finding those people is up to you!”

One of them flips me off, then they return to searching through the piles of corpses. I go to say something else, but Brent slides up next to me and stops me.

“Don’t worry, I’ll talk them into it,” he whispers. “They’re good guys, they’ll do it. They’re just a little freaked out right now.”

“Okay,” I say, deciding to defer to Brent’s judgment. Then I raise my voice again for the next part, loudly asking, “does anyone here have experience with video games?”

The world is quiet for a long, pressing moment, then a loud argument breaks out in the crowd.

“Come on, mom! I can help!”

“No, you’re just a kid!”

“But…”

I walk over to see what’s going on, with Brent on my heels. A boy that looks no older than fourteen is trying — and failing — to untangle himself from his mother’s arms. They’re going back and forth about danger and how adults should handle it. When the woman notices me walking up to them, she shoots me a venomous glare. If looks could kill, she’d have dropped me dead in an instant.

“No!” She screams, putting herself between me and her son. “I’m not letting my son fight! He’s only thirteen!”

“I don’t need him to fight,” I say, raising my hands in front of me. “But if he knows his way around video games, he’ll be able to help the others pick their classes and maybe figure out some of the system’s aspects.”

Focused as she is on me, the woman doesn’t notice her son giving her the slip. Before she can grab him again, he runs around her and up to me.

“I could totally do that!” He says, bobbing up and down on his toes.

I let out a small laugh. “Okay, buddy. What’s your name?”

“Sam.”

“Nice to meet you, Sam. I’m…”

“Jack,” he says. “I know. Everyone knows. Your dad gave my dad a speeding ticket a few months ago.”

I look around, and no one contradicts Sam’s words. They all really do know who I am, which was probably why they listened to me and why no one tried to kick my ass yet for bossing them around.

“Okay, Sam. Talk to Brent here and see what the two of you can come up with. Help everyone with their classes and skills, I trust you know what they’ll need.”

Sam’s eyes literally sparkle, and he nods his head so hard that he might snap his own neck. He’s on Brent’s case shortly after, but I pull the man away for now. We still have to figure some stuff out. As we turn to leave, the woman power walks towards me and grabs my arm.

I stop and turn to face her, but the anger in her eyes is gone, its place taken by a pleading look.

“Just…please don’t make my son fight. I’ll let him help with the classes or whatever, but he can’t fight. He’s just a kid.”

Brent takes the lead from me, using the moment to cement himself as the leader. He assures the woman it won’t get to that so long as everyone does their part, and that he’ll personally make sure that Sam is safe. She gives him a heartfelt thanks before returning to the group, but I can already see everyone mumbling to each other as the tension eases up.

“What’s next?” Brent asks as I lead him a little distance away, where we can talk in peace.

“I’ll help you iron out a few more details, and then I’ll be out of your hair. I have places to be, but I trust you’ll keep these people safe.”

Brent sighs, his eyes gliding over the group. His shoulders deflate for a moment, but he quickly composes himself.

“This’ll be a looooong night.”