As soon as Richie left the room, Sam made sure to get his legs moving as quickly as he could.

A few hours was what it had taken him at most—no more than three to be precise—but even that had been too long for him. Initially, he’d wanted it not to exceed the span of minutes, however, his body had had other ideas, and bending to his will was not one of them.

Well, all that had long passed now. The feeling that originated from that was bittersweet though, because Sam had been of the mind to cure his curiosity as fast as possible, but since it had not happened the way he’d wanted it made his skin tingle.

Alright, truthfully, that was not all that made him annoyed. He’d also wanted to cut short that alcoholic’s drinking session. And he’d failed—woefully. Maybe this was what incited his anger the most.

“Tsk!” Sam’s expression worsened as he recalled the look on Jim’s face when he’d finally made it to the parlor. The burly man had been on his second bottle of whiskey with a one-sided smile. It had felt like he was being mocked for being too slow.

Maybe I don’t like not having my way? Sam sighed, choosing to come up with a deduction on why he was so annoyed. He then turned his hazel eyes to the side mirror of the passenger’s seat of the truck he was within. There, in its broken convex mirror, was a face perfectly similar to the teenage boy in the torn picture he had been shown.

He’d already seen himself while he was changing from his patient’s gown into the brown sweatshirt and black varsity trouser Richie had offered him, but looking into this mirror made it feel new all over again. There was no doubting it; he really was Sam. And… He put his gaze back onto the roadside and the utter destruction that painted its scenery… Earth had turned to shit.

After Sam’s whole struggle to get his muscles functioning the way he’d wanted them to, Jim had lectured him as much as his alcohol induced state could allow on the state of the world, as well as what the pulsing blue and purple hued light—which was known as a Plexus—to his lateral vision and the information it contained was.

Apparently, five years ago, every human on earth fell into a deep slumber at the same moment, each one sucked into a flesh-like thing called a pod. But it was not just the humans, even the animals and birds and fishes too—the insects as well. Only the plants were seemingly left out. And then, at different moments, the beings sucked into the pods were released, wildlife and humans alike, some far away from where they knew as home. As for the insects, the consensus arrived at was that they had not survived, and this was because despite being the most numerous species on earth, any was yet to be seen.

Sam believed he belonged to the category of those who had been thrown far away from home. He had been in a patient’s gown, but instead of a hospital, Jim claimed to have picked him up at a thrift store in Belfast, Northern Ireland. In other words, information about where his home was located was long gone too.

Was it even possible to get back his memories at this rate?

That aside, the species that weren’t humans were mutated to dangerous heights, some mentally and most physically, while the humans were granted a system of power similar to that found in role playing games. They were able to increase the values of their Attributes by hunting and killing the mutated beasts. Put differently, power was dependent on the hunt.

More still remained, though.

There were the mysterious higher entities known as Benefactors, who were able to grant unfathomable powers to those who had the Protagonist and Deuteragonist Roles. And, furthermore, the Entertainment Level subsection that showed how much a person was entertaining in this world.

This part irked Sam, but at the same time interested him.

The possibility of your Role changing for good or bad depending on how fun you were was a sickening though fascinating thing. After all, when a person fell down to the lowest Role, which was the Background Character Role, that person would not only lose their Division and Skills but also die. However, that also meant that someone who started out as a Background Character could become a Protagonist and stand atop of this world with the greatest powers attainable.

Sam could not stop a soft smile from forming on his face. It seemed he enjoyed thrills.

Then there were the Glades humans were tasked with clearing at all costs. Jim said that those were basically portals leading to other fantastical worlds that looked to be out of a fictional exploration series. They were of three types: Low Class, Intermediate Class, and Supreme Class, each one filled with uncanny and chimerical monsters that despite how strong a person was were almost impossible to hunt alone. And of course the higher the Glade, the stronger the monsters they housed.

Venturing into them was basically a suicide mission, but the Plexus had made it a must for them to be journeyed into, unless the beasts within would make their way onto earth through a process referred to as ‘Melding’.

That statement coming from Jim was funny, though, since he had also said only Protagonists could activate a Glade; and this faction that had taken him in—the Hunters Faction by name—was comically filled with just Deuteragonists and the rest.

Sam snorted self deprecatingly. He was also one.

All in all, from all I’ve heard, this seems like a game being played by those Benefactors, and we’re the characters. The truck went up a bump and down, and Sam finally glimpsed a few children playing in an alley. Nothing less than seventy percent of humanity was gone, they were amongst the few that remained.

“No monsters or Glades here, huh?”

“No,” Richie answered with that flat tone of his, prompting Sam to turn to him.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“You don’t talk much, do you?” Sam asked, his voice as well without excitement.

“I don’t like talking.”

“Then why are you while driving?”

The problem was not that Richie was talking while driving, it was just that Sam had come to realize that he was probably not someone who enjoyed conversing with others that much. He’d rather avoid it if nothing beneficial would come out of it.

Steering the wheel in his hands to his left to avoid the stump of a tree as he drove the truck onto a free road where buildings didn’t exist, Richie said, “Because Old man Hunter told me to answer all your questions.”

Sam narrowed his brows. “You don’t seem like someone who enjoys taking orders. Are you scared of him?”

Richie spared him a glance. “He’s second only to the faction leader.”

Sam was visibly surprised; his eyes widened indistinctly. He had not expected an alcoholic to hold such a high standard in the faction. It was not only that, though. That second-in-command was living on a farm, looking after subdued mutated chickens and cattles and goats when the faction had the whole Isle of Man to themselves. This was enough to surprise anyone.

“I see,” Sam said as if unbothered. “Then I have a few questions to ask you.” Richie said nothing, but Sam continued either way. “The world is ruined but you guys seem to be doing fairly well. For one, how do you get the gas to power this truck?”

“Monster cores,” Richie answered cryptically.

Sam scoffed. “Monster cores? Of the monsters in the Glades you guys can’t enter?” He couldn’t believe it. How could they get their hands on cores when they couldn’t enter the places that had them?

“We have our ways,” Richie answered—again, cryptically. It annoyed Sam. If the boy was to answer his questions, then he should answer them well.

Regardless of his thoughts, Sam stayed quiet for the rest of their drive. He was being taken to somewhere called the Point of Ayre to see the faction leader. He would ask that person all the questions he had instead. They should be able to give him better answers than a mere lackey could.

###

“Oh, it’s Richie-boy!” A wiry man with sunburnt skin and an absence of hair on his head approached the truck from a shed to the side of the gate. “Whatcha doing here? Oho. Is that the coma-boy?” He had a sharp tongue. Sam decided. He didn’t like him.

“The faction leader. Is he in?” Richie asked.

“What’s ya name, coma-boy?” The man acted as though he had not heard Richie’s words and leaned on the driver’s door. His back was strapped with a rifle of some sort, so he was obviously a dangerous person to ignore—at least at this moment. Sam chose not to do that then.

“Sam.”

“Sam, huh? Eh. Coma-boy’s better. I’m gonna be calling ya that from now on. Make sure ya reply me, eh?” Sam nodded reluctantly, then the man turned his gaze back to Richie. “Gotta learn how to greet ya elders, Richie-boy. Don’t make me take out a day to teach ya.” Richie didn’t reply, instead he looked forward stiffly, like he was preventing something from erupting within himself. “Faction leader’s at the winkie. Ya know ya way. Now be off with it.”

The sunburnt man hit the car as he turned and walked back to his shed, and of course Richie’s face shivered with emotions leaning closer to insanity than lucidity.

He’s a crazy one, alright. Sam analyzed Richie. But he was beginning to feel like that was everyone in this faction.

It took a second before the emotion oozing out of Richie calmed down, after which he exhaled, seemingly to relax himself. Then he ignited the truck once again, turning the red machinery away from the wire-meshed gate and fences surrounding the lighthouse serving as the faction leader’s main base of operations, and onto the pebbled shore line beside it.

A few moments later, the sight of a miniature lighthouse with a red tower and a black domed top came into view, and with it a couple of people, three kneeling with their hands behind their heads, while two stood, one of those a man with a great height and width that made him seem enormously large. He was wearing a paper bag mask on his head and holding a slim sword which seemed more like a scythe that did not complement his form.

Sam wondered what was going on at first, but his curiosity was put at ease soon later.

“Good afternoon, faction leader,” Richie greeted with a bow as soon as they alighted the truck and came up before the one who was in control of the Hunters Faction. Sam did the same. This person was the first in command, it was only normal that he showed his respects, right?

Wrong. It wasn’t something as simple as that.

He was yet to see the faction leader’s features completely, but that did not stop the overwhelming pressure oozing out of the man from weighing down on him, causing his eyes to shiver as sweat trickled down his spine.

This person was definitely a monster, incomparable to anyone Sam was yet to see… besides…

Sam’s brows squished together.

Was it because of that alcoholic’s outgoing nature that he had not noticed it until now?

Yes. This was not the first time his heart had palpitated crazily at the sight of someone. He’d felt this exact same way when he saw Jim—he had not just noticed it.

Richie wasn’t joking…

Now that Sam had met the first-in-command, he knew… Jim was truly second only to him.

“Ah, hello, Richie.” The faction leader turned to them amidst the pleas of the people kneeling, whom consisted of two men and a woman. “And you are?”

“Sam. As for my last name, I do not know,” Sam replied as he raised his head creakily—almost like a broken toy—and took a closer look at the faction leader.

The man was quite young, no older than twenty-five, probably. He had sharp features, tacked on with brown glossy hair, and was dressed in a vest and suspenders, making him look quite classy and refined. His thin lips were pushed slightly to the sides to reveal a wry smile. And behind his round glasses lay a pair of keen eyes which solidified the ambience he had of someone who was fit to be a leader.

Of course, Sam had no argument there. The most powerful was who should lead. And that sort of power was basically leaking out of this young man, after all.

“Ah. The one Jimmy brought, huh?” He also had an accent of some sort, causing his words to seem somewhat unbearable to listen to. “Then, shall we head to the Ayre to talk better? This is not a good place for having a discussion.”

Sam knew why the faction leader had said that, and that was confirmed as soon as they joined him to leave. The cries of the ones kneeling faded away in an instant.

Needless to say his deduction was not based purely on his intuition, since he had turned back slightly to glimpse the giant of a man wielding a sword cleanly taking off three heads with a single swing.

Despite that, though, Sam’s thoughts weren’t one of what had caused the death of those three or how sickening it was to see people die. Instead, he wondered why his expression was one of subdued delight? Why he had an indistinct smile on his face? And most of all, if Richie’s words were true.

He had been thinking about it ever since. Did they both really share the same type of eyes? Did he truly share the same deranged characteristics as the lot who made up this faction?

Sam heaved out an exhale, silently.

I wonder… Who is the real me?