Not long after walking away from his companions, many vehicles blaring loud alarms rushed towards John. Many men surrounded and informed him they were under orders to protect him. He didn’t need or want guards, but the men said they had to stay and weren’t allowed to leave.

It was surprising to John how so many people knew of him and still had absolutely no fear of him. Long ago, before he hid his power, the common people that knew how strong he was tended to avoid him. Now, the youngest children still left on Earth fearlessly ran up to him. Nearly everyone wanted pictures.

What bothered John the most was modern people’s fanaticism with smiling and telling him to smile for their photos. He wouldn’t. He believed no one should ever pretend to smile like a goofy idiot for a picture. He had no issue baring his fangs and making a frightening face for the cameras. The people and children seemed to enjoy that even more.

After some time, more people surrounded John screaming out questions, identifying themselves as news reporters. He thought they were very annoying and rude. After a while, he tried to ignore them completely.

Minutes later, after making little progress exploring the city or advancing down the road, John saw a colorful cook’s shop named McDonalds. He entered into it, causing a large commotion. He ordered a meal of bread and meat that came with fried potatoes and a drink called soda. It was one of the most delicious meals he’d ever eaten. Once he had eaten enough and was full, he still continued to eat until he was far too stuffed, and not a scrap remained of his meal.

Paying was an issue. John tried to pay with a clear crystal. One of his guards stopped him from doing so and told him the crystal was worth far more than the meal. He ended up paying with a low tier and low-quality sword with a bad rune. He also gave the clear crystal to the shop and told them it was to feed peasants for free up to the value of the crystal.

The guards informed John lodging had been acquired for him to spend the night in. He had not yet explored much of the city in the way he wanted, so he blurred away from his guards and all the people and reporters. In an alleyway, he infused essence into his belt of hiding.

Exploring the city while not being seen was much easier for John. Unlike New York City, DC had no buildings of great heights, but still had a tremendous amount of people. He was amazed by how little the city smelled and how clean it was with so many people living so closely together.

After visiting some wonderful shops selling very strange things, John entered a tavern to listen in on gossip. Most people seemed to think the invasions were over. John knew the demons would reappear. It was only a matter of time.

Most confusing of all was the people’s belief life would go back to how it was before the Tree of Life. DC had not been invaded. Very few demons made it to the outskirts of DC, and as far as John knew, no demon made it into the city. The people in the tavern saw the invasions and the Tree of Life as events happening in other places, clinging to their past lives and denying the permanency of their new reality.

On the many large screens of the tavern John knew to be televisions, all the different scenes all changed to the same image. All the many customers stopped talking to watch. President Williams appeared on an outdoor stage in front of a podium. Lilly, Amber, Hubaba, and many other people were seated behind him.

The president confirmed the g’athu threat was no more. He hoped that the demon threat as well, but it would be safer to assume it wasn’t. He thanked Amber, John, and Stretch for their role in the elimination of the g’athu, congratulated Amber on attaining Bronze tier, and apologized that there was no footage of the victory over the g’athu since their bases were blocked from satellites, drones, and all other technologies.

The president went on to describe how the demon and g’athu technologies they had access to were being studied by Terra’s best scientists. He made no mention of the g’athu portals that were still intact.

What the president next talked about made many tears run freely from the eyes of the tavern’s patrons. He spoke of world unity, and how the leaders replacing those killed by the g’athu would work together to ensure the safety of Terra. Gone were the days of petty squabbles and war between nations. The universe was large and terrans would find their place in it together, united. He promised the full might of the United States military would be dedicated to fighting the demons if and when they reemerged, as too did most other nations.

The president spent the next part of his speech as a memorial reviewing all the places the dark ones, g’athu, and demons ravaged, and the amount of people lost. John was disheartened to find out the great extent to which the g’athu slaughtered humans while he was caged.

The speech ended with hope. The president promised all would be rebuilt. Terrans would emerge from their struggle stronger and with a better and far more unified world.

John thought it was a good speech, and from the reaction of the patrons, they did as well.

It did bother John how many people called Earth Terra. Terra was the Roman goddess of earth like the Greek Gaia. Named Tellus Mata then Terra Mata. Earth Mother. Both words meant earth as in dirt or land or soil. He thought people using the Latin word just because the NCS did was silly and made them seem too mindless. It only made sense for the languages that came from Latin to call the world Terra, or some form close to that, and that no one else should.

John hadn’t explored the city much, but he felt he explored it enough for the day. He had no idea where he was being lodged. Thankfully, not too long after John entered the tavern, his guards also entered. He assumed they were tracking him somehow, such as with his phone.

After the speech ended and he made himself known, John’s guards took him to his lodgings. It was a beautiful place and his room had fine furnishings, an extremely large bed, and a television. He had slept not that long ago while in the pocket plane, but he still tried to sleep again. He couldn’t, so he meditated instead.

A knock on the door took John by surprise. He told his guards he would not see his former wife or Amber and would only accept Hubaba as a guest. The person knocking was female. The scent was somewhat familiar, but he couldn’t place the lady it belonged to. The woman had a strong stench of wine about her as well.

After opening the door, John was shocked to see Alice Cooper, the Press Secretary. He disliked her a tremendous amount. He was certain the feeling was reciprocated. Without even saying a word, the drunk woman gave him an angry look and entered the room.

“I hate you so much,” said Alice. She set her phone and purse on the small table next to the bed she flopped down on top of. “You’re a monster. A fucking monster.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

John checked his anger as best he could. “Why are you here? I didn’t invite you in.”

“I know how it works. I’ve seen all the movies. And shows. My favorite is Vampire Diaries. What’s-his-name is so hot. And the other guy. All of them. We gotta invite you in. Not vice versa. So…”

John wanted the drunk woman out of his room. He thought about asking his guards to remove her.

Alice started sobbing. “Oh, God! I hate this. I hate how the world is now. They just killed her. She just fell down dead. And then all those heads exploded. I was supposed to be there but after…after you killed Bill…I just couldn’t. We used to date when I was a journalist. Long time ago. You didn’t even get in trouble.”

Alice rolled onto her back and sat up. She wore a skirt, so she was very exposed after she kicked her shoes off and sat cross-legged on the bed. “That’s just how it is now. You murdered Bill. And people cheer for you. They love you. You murdered Bill for no reason and they love you. You threatened to kill me just for doing my job. Trying to help. For trying to help and do my job. I fucking hate you. I hate this world now.”

Falling onto her back dramatically, covering her eyes with her arm, Alice, in a whiny voice, snapped out, “Why is it so dark in here? Turn on a fucking light! The room’s spinning. No, leave it off.”

There was a lamp turned on and the room was plenty bright, so John had no idea what the drunk woman was talking about. Alice continued, “Know what would’ve happened if you did kill me?” She laughed. “Nothing. Probably nothing. More cheering. Yay, murderer! Yay, monster! This…everything sucks so much now.”

Alice began to sob and cry again. John felt it would be wrong to force a crying woman out of his room, so he sat in a chair and waited.

After the sobs quieted down some, while still crying, Alice began to violently remove her hose with one hand. It took her some time and great effort, but she managed to remove them. Next, her underwear was pulled off. With one arm still covering her eyes, she lifted her skirt to her belly. “Go ahead. Do it.”

“No. I’d like for you to leave my lodging.”

“Lodging? You’re so…ugh! Just…come on. Do it before I change my mind.”

“No.”

“You piece of shit! You’re married to a seven-year-old, you sick fuck. Adult women just don’t do it for you anymore?”

John stood up to walk to the door. Alice screamed, “Wait!’ She pulled her skirt down and said, “Fine. Just do the other thing then. Turn me into a vampire.”

“Please, just leave.” John sighed. “You’re making a fool of yourself.”

Alice began to sob again. “I told you to turn the fucking lights on!”

John turned and started to walk towards the door. Alice started to plead. “Please! Please! Just make me a vampire. Do I have to be the thing first? The…what’s it called? Servant? No. Familiar. Do I have to be a familiar first? I will. You can fuck me too. Whenever you want.”

John stopped and turned to Alice. “It doesn’t work that way. If I tried giving you the power, you’d just become mindless and hop around trying to drink the blood of anything that lives.”

Alice said, “Yeah. A vampire. That’s what I want. To be a vampire. Before I get too old. I don’t got much time. Tonight. I’m ready.”

John wiped his face with his hand. He decided he would grant the awful woman’s wish. “Fine. Stand here.”

Alice sat up quickly. Smiling, wiping the tears from her face and smearing her makeup further, she excitedly said, “You’ll do it? Yay!”

Alice stood up and moved to where John indicated. With a fang, John opened both his wrists and did the same to Alice. He held both her hands and pressed their wrists together. She closed her eyes. A few minutes later, she started to make sudden and jerky movements as if she was in great pain.

When Alice’s completely bloodshot eyes opened, John released her hands. She collapsed, dead. She would awaken in a few days as a mindless hopper.

John left the room. He told the two guards, “The corpse in the room will need to be treated carefully. It is not fully dead and will soon try to eat the living. Thank you for the lodging. I’m leaving now and would appreciate being left alone.”

Voices came through the earpieces of the two guards at the door. One guard followed John while the other remained at his post. John took the stairs down. He disliked elevators. More guards were in the lobby. One said, “We need to talk, Mr. John.”

John had no desire to speak so blurred past the guards and out the door. It was late in the night and not many people were about. He ran for a distance, then he started looking for the tallest building. None were tall, but he found a large one that was very big and wide. He jumped up to the roof of it, startling a young boy.

The boy sat cross-legged on a runed-mat he scooted off of and away from John in fear. John thought the boy was far more sensible than the other kids he had met earlier. The boy was dark of skin, small of frame, had a shaved head, wore a very thick coat, and looked way too young to have not been taken by the Eternal along with the other children.

The boy stopped scooting backwards and said, “Holy…it’s you!”

“I’m sorry to disturb you. Were you meditating? I would join you. Where did you get that mat?”

The boy stood and smiled. “You gonna meditate with me for real? You wanna use the mat? I’m not sure it works. My mom’s gone and I ain’t got no money so I just painted on the other side of our doormat. I tried to do it exactly like how the real ones look.”

“Where do the real ones come from,” asked John.

The boy’s brows furrowed. “The…Meghan sells them. You know. The little girl. I seen you with her in videos. Hey, you know how the little kids are doing? My sister and brother? And my mom? She went with them.”

That surprised John. “She’s already started selling mats? I didn’t know. And I don’t know about your family. I’m sure they’re fine. Safer than us down here. Your father doesn’t mind you staying up this late?”

The boy said, “Man, I ain’t got no dad. You gonna check your phone? Someone really wants to talk to you. How come you don’t just turn it off or the sound down if you just gonna ignore it?”

Usually, John’s phone was quiet and made no sounds. It had started to make many strange noises. Words showed and were replaced too fast for him to read as the phone chimed. Then green and red circles he believed represented an incoming call showed and the phone started to make alarm noises.

“You gonna answer it?”

John looked at the phone and said, “Open! Open! Do as I command. Why do you not listen to me? What must I do to make you obey and work?”

The boy began to laugh hysterically. John became frustrated and shook the phone. The alarm finally ceased but the other noises persisted. His [Portable Computer Devices] classes hadn’t covered any of the noises of Earth phones. The standard devices used by most worlds were easy to operate by voice. When Avatar covered Earth phones, the class always started on a screen with the many symbols called apps, and she had claimed Earth phones could be talked to. He tried to access such a screen earlier with no luck. Touching the screen and talking to it was no help at all.

“Yo, just hand it to me. I’ll show you how to work it. You worse than my grandma. You hit this button on the side here first. This one, the bottom one of these three. Now put your thumb on that.”

Once John was in the phone, he was able to navigate himself. He had many missed texts. Only three had names associated with them. He knew how to add people to his contact list, but he never entered any himself on this phone. He ignored all the messages from sources that showed as only phone numbers.

Amber texted, “You can’t just be normal can you? This isn’t the olden times. Everyone knows that. Everyone but you. Oh I went on my first date tonight. My first real date ever and it was so much fun!” John didn’t reply.

A text from US GOV said, “URGENT! Call SD contact Melanie Rogers ASAP.” A number was provided. John knew how to enter phone numbers and he could make the call, but he had no desire to call a stranger or take orders from anyone, especially a text message.

Lilly had texted many times. She informed him that while in John’s room, Alice Cooper’s phone was doing something called live-streaming to Facebook. Lilly said she just wanted to give him a heads-up and see how he was doing. He replied by texting that he was fine and just wanted to be left alone, free of guards and other bothers.

While looking at his own phone, the boy said, “Yo, I can’t believe you didn’t tap that. She was begging you. You must got some fine honeys to turn that down. Yo, hook me up with some of them. Oh, snap, is she…you killed her? Damn, man, that’s cold. Is your wife really seven?”

“No. I have no wife. We never introduced ourselves. What’s your name?”

“Amonee.”

John’s hand went ignored as Amonee continued to watch his phone. John said, “John.” Amonee looked up and finally shook his hand.