Many a times a man might imagine how he would act in times of crisis. About how heroic his actions would be, how much surer of himself, or how much more blasé he would be than the common rabble. The source of that confidence no doubt being the excessive stimuli offered by the net or the experiences accrued from full-dive games. Zevach was no exception, and just like most men coming from civility would find in his shoes, reality turned out to be nothing at all like the simulations.

Really, the sight before him was not even all that strange. Three half-naked men covered in tattoos – that seemed ritualistic in nature - hung frozen from the sky as though crucified in reverse. Were they dead? Were they alive? There was no way to tell, only that their eyes were stilled in white, and not so much as a sound eeked from them.

Were it merely the sight of that that was in question, then it was actually rather tame, yet Zevach stood petrified. Zevach who has spent his whole life – as far as he knew it – in the height of human civilization, where every form of knowledge could be learned from the galactic net, experienced firsthand through a simulation if he so wished, and yet, he stood there frozen.

When it came down to it, it was not heroism or composure that he acted with, but simply, nothing. His mind was a blank. No process of thoughts, no questions, none of the five w’s that he ought to have questioned as he once learned from an article, just a senseless staring game that he continued to play with a man that might as well have been dead.

But it was precisely because of that that the question eventually begged itself – why? Why was he frozen stiff? Why could he not move? Why was it that one moment he was so callously pondering the fate of a stranger woman to himself despite the worries of his companion, then in the next, he was a blank.

The answer couldn’t be simpler, couldn’t be more selfish. It was a realization – that he might just be next. The moment he realized that was a form of enlightenment. Suddenly, the colors were more vivid, the dim world blanketed by fog brighter, and the quietest sounds in this otherwise desolate world that much louder, such that the subdued yet panicked breaths of the girl beside him were deafening.

A wind blew. His head turned with a jolt. Leaves rustled. Again, he turned. Was someone there? Fear crept in. Fear beyond the threshold he knew. Something had to be done, something to relieve him of this great burden, so with his hands he reached out, and he reached out for the girl next to him.

“Vivian,” he called. “Vivian!”

It was a yell, the quietest yell he has ever made, as though he were afraid of someone, something hearing it. She turned to him with a jolt, a sharp exhale escaping her lips, fear written all over her, but Zevach had nothing to say. His call for her attention was motivated purely by selfishness - to remind himself that there was someone friendly next to him – that he was not alone. How selfish! How worthless!

‘Caw!’ The crows cried as though in accusation as they flew from above. In this world of white, of clouds of fog, the black birds that darted to and fro, to these pair of terrified acquaintances - not even friends - their caws sang in their ears, a death knell. And when a delicate, papery rustle resounded followed by a muffled crunch, their heads snapped to its direction, their faces, a pair of deer in headlights. Ears perked, they awaited confirmation, and when that muffled crunch resounded again, Zevach’s backpack dropped, and they bolted for it.

Muffled crunches resounded abound as their own gait crushed over the leaves littered on the soil below. Vivian reached for her pockets to take out her multitool, and with movements faster than any baseliner could, she nimbly transformed it into a drone, sending it flying into the air as she said, “Connect!”

The fog-blanketed world as seen through the eyes of the drone from up high appeared as a screen in her field of vision, but the fog was too thick, and the cameras of the drone could not penetrate it to any significant degree, leaving the screen covered in white.

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“Shit!” Vivian said. “I can’t see a thing!”

But while the drone was helpless before it, a shrill cry could penetrate the fog just fine.

“Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay!”

It was a high-pitched cry that was almost a yell sang in a rhythm like a song but with a ferocity and violence that suggested nothing of the sort. A panicked groan escaped Zevach and Vivian’s lips as they found their backs against a tree. With the world covered in white, their drones helpless, and Vivian’s upgrades ill-suited for battle, there was no other choice but to wait for the enemy to come with their multitools in energy saw form.

But then a sharp crack echoed, and the world seemed to slow. Something shot out of the fog. It had a long shaft made of wood, and at the end of it was a small metallic blade that cut through the fog. It was a spear, and it was headed straight for Zevach. A bead of sweat slid down his forehead, dripping down onto his eyelashes, as he watched the spear slowly push its way for him. When at last it made contact, it shuddered just an inch beside his head.

Time returned to pace, and all at once, cracks crawled on the tree from top and bottom everywhere as sounds of splinters shattered with the tree, then with a deep echoing thud, the halves of the trees collapsed into the ground. Zevach and Vivian covered themselves by reflex, but they soon froze as a silhouette appeared through the fog.

When the figure pushed through, a giant figure with skin of bluish gray appeared. He was mostly naked with only a loin cloth to cover his groin. He was bald, and most of his skin was covered in tattoos, even his face and head. They seemed ritualistic in nature, but what was most conspicuous of all was his stature. Vivian, who was tall for a woman, and Zevach, who was tall even for a man, he towered them both as though they were children with an armor of muscles. For a brief moment, Zevach met his eyes, the man’s gray eyes reflecting his black, but then they vanished to be replaced by white, and from the very depths of the man’s stomach came out a thunderous roar no lesser than a lion’s.

Zevach and Vivian jumped away as the man charged straight for them, clouds of dust erupting along his path and obscuring everything. When the clouds at last abated, the man had a spear in his hands, and an energy blade sticking out of his arms.

Zevach turned to Vivian to find that she’d transformed her multitool and thrown it at the man in that brief moment, but the wound afflicted by the blade was shallow at best. The wound on the man quickly regenerated and pushed out the blade. When a cloud of white exited the man’s lips much like steam from a steam engine, Zevach and Vivian looked at each other, then they turned around and ran.

Ragged breaths awash with fear and panic escaped from them as they ran. The leaves below crunched a desperate tone with every step taken. Really, they must’ve known that it was already over. Against a monster like that, what they needed were actual weapons, and even then, there was no telling if they could actually win. In this world of white, the crows flying up above sang them a tune. ‘Caw!’ ‘Caw!’ They cried. It was a requiem for the soon to be deceased, for the unfortunate pair that have been brought before the executioner. Though they ran with their feet and clung desperately to hope, already they have been knelt, and the blade of the executioner was upon them. When the berserked man kicked off against the ground to shoot for them like a bullet, the executioner’s blade fell, and at last, their story would come to an end, but then a voice echoed.

“Get down!”

Zevach and Vivian dropped to the ground on cue, and in the next moment, a powerful flash of light erupted in a single concentrated blast. It was a sound akin to a deep electronic bass as that thick ray of laser shot for the berserked man’s head, disintegrating his head entirely to leave nothing but glowing embers on the remaining connection to the neck. A moment after that giant body fell to the ground with a thud, Zevach turned to it in a daze, a breath of shock more so than relief escaping his lips. When a hooded man in a jumpsuit much like his and Vivian’s approached to lend him a hand, it took him a second or two before he could get his wits enough about him to grab it. After helping Vivian up too, the man pulled his hood to reveal a blond man, and with an elegant bow, he introduced himself.

“Richard H. Stormborn, at your service. Fancy meeting you here, eh, Bartender? Fairy.”

He winked at Vivian like he did back in the party, but while that would have gotten a rise out of her normally, both her and Zevach were too shocked to react. For a while, they just stood there in a daze.