Emily walked into the apartment's main office near the middle of the whole complex. She was immediately greeted by Corporal Watkins who was guarding the door.

“Is that everyone?” He asked with hope in his voice. Emily glanced down at the stump of a leg the soldier had. Getting to the System Pillar was his best chance at getting the leg back again. Ashlyn helped heal the wound, but she couldn’t regrow limbs with her abilities. At least not yet, she mused.

“Yep,” Emily said. “Well, kinda. There was one more guy that had an ability to control his wife even after she was turned into a monster.”

“Controlling a monster wife? Pretty typical isn’t that?” Watkins asked with a chuckle. His smile fell quickly when he saw Emily’s sidelong glance. “Sorry, ma’am.”

She rolled her eyes at the formality mixed with the mild sexism. She was a mom, but she didn’t feel like a “ma’am”, that was an honorific for a different generation in her opinion. “Don’t let it happen again,” she said with dripping sarcasm. That drew a smile from the young man before he turned his attention and rifle back to the monster infested world beyond the glass door.

Ashlyn and her husband had laid Jessica down on a couch in the office lobby. Emily’s ability would keep her sleeping for at least an hour or so. She was feeling incredibly tired herself. The day had been long and it started around 2 am that morning. Some people can go a long time without sleep and barely be phased. Jeff was one of those people. Emily, however, well let’s just say there was a good reason her first connection was sleep.

That made her wonder if sleeping would be a good way to improve her mastery. Being productive while she slept sounded like just the perfect excuse.

“That’s everyone!” She announced to the twenty other people in the building. “The sun will start setting in a few hours. I want to leave as soon as possible, but we’re going to have to wait till Jessica wakes up. Also, Ashlyn and I need to recover our spirits. So, we will rest for two hours and then make a B-line to the System Pillar with the whole group. Does that work for everyone?”

A couple people wanted to leave early, it was only a few blocks afterall, but anyone who had done the few excursions to save people knew it was not going to be easy. The world had calmed down a bit after the initial arrival of the Mysts. The number of monsters had definitely decreased, but the overall threat of the monsters they faced was still terrifying.

The insects weren’t too bad. Most of them theorized that the bugs would get much worse if they had a few years to soak in the Myst. They might grow larger naturally—or mystically—over time. People theorized that the Myst could only affect small bodies by so much. The threats Jeff had faced were on a world affected by Mysts for an untold amount of time.

Besides the bees that Emily had faced the only bugs anyone had a problem with was a poisonous mosquito. The true threat were the pets and humans who had turned into monsters around the complex. Emily had already had to kill her fair share of those since this morning.

She was the only one who gained a good long distance ability in the group. She also had the highest level. Not everyone was cut out for killing and she wouldn’t push anyone into it. Honestly, she was surprised she was still doing okay mentally. She had to fight a dozen or so monsters who had once been human over the last 16 hours. Thinking about it would probably make it harder. For now, she knew she had to fight and she knew it was the only option available that would let her see her kids again.

She plopped herself down right on the floor in an open area with a beam of sunlight streaming through. Sleep nearly claimed her instantly, but she forced herself to see what Strai’Ze had done with her stat points first. Trust but verify and all that nonsense. Although, for her it was more about appeasing the curiosity before allowing herself to fully give in to sleep.

“Here you go,” Strai’Ze said, reading her mind, and pulled up just the stats portion of her character screen.

Stats: Level 8

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Body: Tier 1

Strength: 5

Dexterity: 5

Vitality: 6

Mind Tier 1

Cognition: 4

Processing: 5

Imagination: 4

Spirit Tier 1

Might: 4

Sense: 5

*Depth: 5

Available Points: 0

That seemed like a nice spread. The OCD demon inside her wanted all of the numbers to be a clean 5 even if that didn’t really make sense. She knew that they would change with titles being added and everything else, so she would just have to deal with things being imperfect…ugh.

She missed Jeff.

He was only a little less OCD than her and he had a way of making their little quirks fun. They would laugh at each other's weird tendencies and even play games seeing how far they could push each other before breaking.

Her mind was flooded with memories of playing card games–like nertz–where she would purposefully place the cards in wonky piles just to make him frustrated. Or when he would purposefully open every drawer in the kitchen as he went about cooking just because he knew she would run in and close them. Then he’d purposefully place himself in front of the last drawer acting like he didn’t see her.

She really missed Jeff…and her kids.

They’re kids had inherited the same mild to medium OCD they had. Emily and Jeff would play the same fun tricks on their kids. They would purposefully miss numbers while counting for hide and seek. Then Ammon would inevitably call out trying to correct the person counting. It usually turned into a play fight, which was Ammon’s favorite thing to do anyway. Emily smiled at the thought of Jeff and Ammon–her two boys–wrestling in the front room.

A tear rolled down her cheek

Then there was Ember. The two year old–almost three year old–was almost too precious to mess with. Of course, they still did. Ember would always need every one of her three baby blankets for bed each night. Oh, and you couldn’t forget any part of her nighttime routine. Jeff was usually the one who was brave enough to tease the little firecracker. He would put one blanket in her crib and “accidentally” take another one out. Ember would laugh and play along for a while, but eventually she would devolve into tears. That was where Emily would swoop in and save her from the big meany. Those cuddles were some of her favorite.

Emily’s sob was stopped in her throat as she saw a screen pop up in her bleary vision.

New Control Ability:

Disrupt

You can disrupt any one ability.

The screen brought her back to reality. Right, she was still in a life and death situation, and dwelling on memories could give her magical powers. She hadn’t intended to do that at all. At least Strai’Ze was on top of their game.

“Thank you,” she muttered to the spore. Appreciation emotions flooded her system showing her companions feelings on the matter.

She should probably test the new ability out or something, but she honestly didn’t care. It seemed pretty straight forward. She could disrupt the abilities that someone or something was using. Its limitations would probably be based on her attributes like every other ability. Jeff would probably try testing the skill out a thousand different ways to truly be able to understand it and strategize with it. Emily just didn’t care as much about that. At least not with how sleepy she was.

Her vision began to go dark and she welcomed sleep as it overtoo–

A loud thump startled her from her first taste of sleep. She opened her eyes and looked around the room to see if anyone else had reacted to the noise. Everyone else was looking around too. Just great.

Another loud thud caused the ground she was laying on to vibrate.

Scrambling to her feet Emily cast out her senses in the direction of the newcomer.

Yep, just fan-freaking-tastic! She thought.

The huge tree she had sensed near her apartment had uprooted itself and was walking right toward them.