Alexander looked at the table in front of him carefully, and then at his hand which was full of cards, and then back at the table.
“Are you sure this is a fair game?” He asked apprehensively. “You didn’t just give me a worse deck?”
His cousin, an older boy named Lucan just looked back at him and grinned, “What, you're losing at a game that you're only just trying for the first time and you immediately assume that I’m cheating?”
“I didn’t say that,” Alexander mumbled.
“Well, you should,” Lucan said. “Because I am.”
At that Alexander glared towards him, “You know, most people wouldn’t outright tell me they were cheating. It kinda kills the whole point of it.”
Lucan chuckled to himself and waved dismissively, “I just wanted to see if you’d catch on or not. I’ll say you scored half points.”
“What do you mean half points?” Alexander grinned. “I called you out, didn’t I?”
Lucan shook his head, “Yeah, and then you backpedaled like you were going to fall over yourself when I showed a little bit of resistance. You’re a Coalin, Alexander. You should be more confident in your own intuition.”
At that a small fox white fox emerged from a puff of fog, appearing draped around Lucan’s neck where it was lounged lazily. It looked towards Alexander and smiled in a very human way and spoke in a pristine female voice.
“Lucan’s right, Alex. You should be more confident in yourself. You’ll be chosen within the year; I just know it. You’ll need to make a good first impression on your god.”
The fox glanced to the side for a moment and then returned her attention towards Alexander, “Or second impression I suppose. The fact your part of this family means you already made that good first impression. In your past life of course.”
“That’s enough Vivian,” Lucan said, petting the fox as she pushed her head into his hand. “You’re going to make him nervous.”
Alexander chuckled at that, “I don’t think there’s anything she could say to me about this that I don’t already know. It’s fine, really. She can’t possibly make me any more nervous.”
At that the fox looked toward him with raised eyebrows, “You want to bet?”
“Yes actually, I do. That’s why I’m playing a card game with my third favorite cousin Lucan here and not out talking to the family's resident god’s.”
Vivian snorted, “Noted, though just let me give you a piece of advice before I leave you two boys be. Not every god is good, just like not every person is good. Just keep that in mind when you meet them. All that being born into this family means is that you heavily peaked the interest of a god in your past life, that god's goals and motives are anyone's guess.”
“I know, I know. Just stop pestering me so we can get back to our game,” Alexander said, rolling his eyes playfully.
“I’m just worrying about you sweety,” Vivan said before turning back towards Lucan. “Now Lucan, don’t forget that we’re needed out in the deadlands in a few hours. You two have fun until then.”
With that the fox nuzzled the side of Lucan’s head before disappearing into a puff of fog.
“Sorry about that,” Lucan said with a soft chuckle. “You know how she is.”
“Yeah, Aunt Vivian is a bit of a handful.”
“And I wouldn’t trade her for any other god out there,” Lucan said with a bright, warm smile.
“Speaking of which,” Lucan said, shuffling the two decks of cards. “Have you had any dreams or visions of your god yet? You should be getting something new around now. Nobody in our family gets past their fifteenth birthday without their god meeting them face to face, no matter how late they decide to show themselves. You’re getting really close to that deadline.”
Alexander just shook his head while drawing cards from his now shuffled deck, “Just the same dream of the moon I’ve been having for years. Nothing’s changed.”
“Oh, cheer up buddy. When you get your god, I’ll take you out with me to the deadlands. It’ll be a whole event, we can get your costume sorted once we know what powers you have going on, and then we can go fight some monsters and defend the city. Maybe you’ll even get some fans,” Lucan said with a wink.
Alexander laughed at that, “Keep trying to cheer me up and you may get upgraded to second favorite cousin,” he said with a smirk.
“And what an honor that would be,” Lucan said while placing a card down on the table.
Alexander narrowed his eyes at the card, and then glared towards Lucan.
“You’re back down to spot number three, you’re clearly cheating.”
“What, pray tell, would make you think I would ever do something like that?” Lucan said with a grin and exaggerated outrage.
===
Alexander woke up later that night in a cold sweat, but didn’t find himself laying on his bed. Instead, he was lying on a harsh cobblestone street, with wide two- and three-story buildings stretching far down the road on either side of him. They looked decrepit and long abandoned, but he was quickly distracted from them as noise echoed down the street, drawing his attention and sharpening his tired mind. They were sounds that he couldn’t quite identify.
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It was dark out, and as he looked around aided by nothing but the moonlight Alexander took note that the moon shone a beautiful crimson red. He stood slowly, letting his eyes adjust before moving in a crouched position towards the nearest building.
It wasn’t unknown for a god to pluck a Coalin and drag them back to their domain or whichever world they resided over, and while that was likely what had happened here that didn’t necessarily mean he was safe. Most gods had a skewed sense of what was dangerous and what wasn’t, and while he had been trained by his family from a very young age to deal with a situation exactly like this the range of creatures that a god didn’t find dangerous was a very large list filled with things that could kill him with a simple look.
Alexander stepped through the shattered window of the closest building and the interior looked to have once been some kind of government building, with rotten desks, seating areas and dividers scattered throughout the large room. Several ornate wooden pillars stretched up towards the ceiling, and Alexander frowned at the state they were in. The building wouldn’t be safe to stay in, that much was obvious.
The sound of claws scratching against stone drew Alexander from his thoughts and he instinctively dropped low and moved deeper into the building. The sound was coming from the street and he didn’t want to find out what was making them.
He quickly moved behind a rotten wooden divider, careful to step around the loose debri littering the floor as he heard the creature outside step through the broken window with purpose, dropping down to the stained wooden floor with a thud.
Alexander’s heart beat rapidly in his chest. His god still hadn’t contacted him, which meant they probably wouldn’t intervene before he ended up killed by whatever was in the room with him right at this moment. He didn't even have his weapons on him, but that didn’t necessarily mean he had no options.
Whatever the creature was, he dared no look, began to caw towards the ceiling. The noise similar to a dog barking, only higher pitched and somehow raspier.
Alexander took advantage of the sound and moved carefully across the room, mindful to keep obstacles in between himself and the creature. He moved quietly, until a board beneath his foot collapsed inwards, eliciting a sharp crack from the wood.
Alexander froze for a moment and then realized that the cawing had stopped. He didn’t wait any longer and broke into a sprint towards the nearest door. He didn’t make it more than a few yards before he heard the hasty sound of the creature approaching from behind him, heavy and rapid as they splintered the floor it ran across.
Alexander reached the door, barging through it and then swinging it shut behind himself and quickly scanning the room before cutting sharply to the left towards another door.
He’d noticed it while he’d been in the main room, there’d been two doors on this wall and that likely meant that this one here led back into the main room. Just as he reached it though the other door burst open as something barged into the room. Alexander didn’t wait to see it before he forced his door open as quickly and quietly as he could before breaking into a sprint.
He didn’t make it five steps before he heard the creature’s rapid footsteps once more, not from either of the doorways, but from the ceiling high above as it crawled along it like a lizard.
Alexander only wasted a moment to glance at the monster and immediately cursed his luck and redoubled his sprint.
It was at least twenty feet long, with a long thick neck that stretched another ten or so feet. Its head was a mix between a birds, a lizards and a dogs. With the majority of its body appearing like that of an oversized lizard while its head appeared like a scaled dog’s with a sharp beak with sparse feathers.
Alexander ran, but the sound of the creature dropping behind him echoed out far too close and he stumbled forward a moment.
By the time he’d recovered the creature was even closer behind him. He could smell its breath on his back, like carrion and sewage mixed into one. By instinct drilled into him by his family's training Alexander ducked and the creature's beak snapped sharply above his head as he darted to the right.
There was nothing in this place, no cover or routes of escape that the creature wouldn’t easily follow him to, so he made a gamble.
Alexander moved as fast as he could, pushing against the ground hard and bracing with his shoulders as he ran directly into one of the rotten wooden pillars holding up the roof.
The creature slowed before reaching the pillar, likely not wanting to run into it itself. That proved to be a mistake.
Alexander burst through the pillar in a spray of splinters and wood that almost surprised him with how easy it’d been as he continued to run. A few jagged pieces of wood stuck from his arms, and one concerning one was lodged deep in his stomach, but he wasn’t given any time to worry about that.
The roof was caving in. Stone and beams of wood began to fall to the floor, crashing with deafening sounds and filling the air with dust.
Alexander didn’t slow, didn’t glance behind to see if the creature was still there, he just ran for his life. Towards the shattered windows at the front of the building as stones fell and began to block his path. One nearly took his head off, but he swiftly dodged it and dove out the window in a single movement.
The building didn’t last any longer than the short time he’d made it out. It collapsed inward, the walls of it falling down as the roof fully collapsed in a spray of stone and wood that Alexander ducked low to avoid.
Then, moments later the wreckage settled and the dust became a haze obscuring the street.
Alexander looked back at it, breathing heavily, his eyes looking all around him for any more danger as he let out a sharp laugh of victory.
‘I’ll need to get the wood out of my gut,’ Alexander thought. ‘I’ll need to find something to stitch it with first, luckily it doesn’t look to deep and I-,
The creature's head surfaced from the rubble in that instant, intangible and semi-clear as its eyes locked onto Alexander and it shot through the wreckage, passing through it like it wasn’t even there before snapping its beak closed on his head, killing him instantly.
===
Anton recoiled back, the forced memory stabbing into his head like a rusty knife. He’d experienced it, lived it, and only now that he finally remembered who and what he was, was he able to watch as Alexander’s blade fell in an arc towards his head.
He was too disoriented to respond, the pain of his skull being split open still fresh in his mind when suddenly Alexander pulled his head back, causing the blade of his sword to miss Anton’s head by inches.
A projectile shot past Alexander’s face mere moments after he’d moved it back, a knife old and chipped rocketing across the room with little finesse. The weapon spun aggressively as it cut through the air, clearly thrown by someone with no training in doing so, but even still when it struck the far wall the stone there cracked and gave way as the knife shattered into a hundred pieces.
“That’s enough,” Anton heard Daniel say from across the room.
Alexander just looked towards the boy and smiled, “No, I don’t think it is.”
And then Anton’s world once again went white, the portal user still working his card as he was forced to hear the struggle of Daniel and Alexander begin as his consciousness became clouded.