“Twenty.”

The car hummed soothingly as the roads rolled away quickly beneath its wheels. Her’s wasn’t the only vehicle heading in or out of London, but Jamie couldn’t help marvelling at how clear the roads had been until now. As the signs began to say she was entering the city, the beginnings of what was to come were already showing. Sirens and smoke. Screams. Despite the growing crescendo of chaos, Jamie hadn’t put the radio on. She knew all she would hear was panic on the airwaves. Either that or some crackpot trying to explain this impossible thing. Better to stay focused.

That’s why I had to leave Grant.

Every time she tried to rein her thoughts in, they shot back to the moment she tore her arm away from his. When Grant had grabbed her wrist and dragged them away, it had been fear which caused her to say something hurtful, anything, to get him to leave her alone and focus on himself. She was scared of Grant’s attention, which would keep her safe at the cost of himself. He would protect anyone with his own life. It was just the kind of person he was. Grant just thought he needed Jamie around to do it, while Jamie knew the truth.

They both held each other back.

As she continued into the city, that certainty became a heavy weight. As surely as she would survive, Grant would die in that tiny university village trying to protect someone or something which was none of his business. She had known that in her heart but the minutes of quiet driving through an increasingly hopeless landscape leant itself towards articulating her morbid thoughts.

She felt devastated at leaving Grant behind when the reality of the situation became clear. The platitude that he would be better off without her did nothing to soothe the wound she had created, which solidified into a frozen scar on her heart. She couldn’t have known. As she blasted down the motorway into London, there was no way to tell how bad things would get.

A few crashed cars with injured occupants here and there. People waving for help and being ignored. “As long as people just look after themselves, they’ll be fine,” Jamie told herself even as the voice tormenting the world reached its halfway point.

“Fifteen. Integration Initiated.”

The explosion of the airbags and a ripping pain across her collarbone was the first sign something had gone wrong. Miraculously, Jamie found herself in pain but unharmed. Her car had come to a dead stop, though there was nothing in the way. It was like she had crashed without the offending oppositional force. She was checking herself for injuries when the blonde woman ran up to her car.

Jamie was just barely into the city, some of the houses still carrying signs of suburbia despite the urbs all around them. A few small boutiques were dotted amongst the residential buildings. “Let me in!” The woman repeated, hitting the window of Jamie’s Ford Focus with a slap.

That woke Jamie up at least. She was already shouting at the woman to get away from her car before she opened the door. Which she promptly slammed into as it did not open. Jamie and the stranger looked at each other with accusatory confusion, which was met with more attempts to open the door. “I can’t get out!” Jamie shouted as the woman repeatedly screamed to be let in.

Jamie followed the woman’s increasingly frantic glances over her shoulder and saw a shadow lumber out from an alleyway. The woman’s screaming was getting louder, but Jamie’s throat closed as the black mass approached slowly. “Let me in! Let me IN!” When it finally clicked that there was no way Jamie was opening the door, even if she could, the woman began to run. Jamie’s horror reached peak levels as the dark shape made a whooping noise before chasing after the lady with a loping gait.

“Was that… a fucking badger?” It had been larger than the car she now huddled in. For the next four minutes, Jamie hid, low and silent. No one else passed her, though there were sounds of muffled screaming from all around. It was horrible. Yet, as the tormenting voice intoned “Ten,” she knew she had to move. Shaking as she did so, Jamie tried to start her car. She was forced to bite her sleeve to muffle the scream of fear and rage that she allowed herself. Although she hadn’t crashed into anything, the car was dead.

She almost cried in relief when the door didn’t work, but she forced the weak emotion down. There was something terrible happening, and even though she had seen only one instance of the nightmare, her mind was racing at the possibility this was not a contained event. How could it be? The continued lack of other people became an omen Jamie wished to ignore. “Nine,” the voice of death spoke.

By the time the voice said “Five,” Jamie was feverish with claustrophobia and escaping the confines of her vehicle were of utmost importance. Still, there was no one on the streets. Perhaps that would change, as the voice didn’t stop at just the number. “Spawning complete. World unlocked.”

She basically fell out of the car, wincing at the loud noise while looking all around. She was on a dual carriageway, with metal barriers in the middle to separate the cars. To either side of the road were nicely spaced houses and a few small shops but nothing noteworthy except the people. Jamie was relieved to see movement from within the buildings, even a few people stepping outside. They must have been trapped like she was.

The comfort of company and freedom wore off quickly, and Jamie was running. A part of her was demanding she stop and explain things to these people but she didn’t have answers herself. There was a decent chance she truly had lost her mind, though the trail of blood in the direction the blonde woman had run suggested otherwise. Maybe it's a very convincing hallucination.

“Four.”

She kept running, a few people following her at an increasing distance. They hadn’t seen what she had, and didn’t know they were running for their lives yet. Whatever looting had been going on was over, replaced by something worse. As the lanes split into a crossroad, Jamie glanced around before turning right and continuing. Her house was close by. The supermarket they used for groceries was on her left and had a crowd milling around.

She saw it coming, but the screams had already started. A bird had been hovering, and as it began to swoop down its size became apparent. What had seemed like a small bird nearby was a massive thing biding its time in the distance. Jamie could do nothing but consider herself incredibly lucky as it chose to divebomb the people in the large store’s car park. Sounds Jamie had never imagined humans could make bombarded her as she sprinted unceasingly towards home.

Eventually, the wailing was out of range, and the familiar streets and the houses on them were haunting in the aftermath. More than one had visible damage to the fronts of the building or the once pristine gardens. The tears in her eyes burned like the fires raging all over the city. Was this really the end of the world? Was she going to be too late?

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

More and more Jamie saw people running in panic from creatures dead set on killing them. People weren’t ready for this. How could they be?

“Three.”

Jamie rounded a corner and nearly ran headfirst into a group heading the other way. A man and woman, with three teenage boys that all looked terrified. One of them couldn’t be older than thirteen. “There’s a monster bird,” she panted, forced to slow down to not collide with them. The other group shared worried looks before asking her what to do. She stifled a groan. This was why she didn’t want to talk to people. It was why she had abandoned-

“I don’t know,” Jamie shook her head, “but you can come with me.” The mental image of her redheaded friend forced her to care when she didn’t want to. The family all shared looks, both appearance and glances. The five of them were trending towards overweight, which made them look even more similar. The assumed father wore glasses, as did two of the boys. The eldest son had a wispy beard that mirrored the father's more clean goatee. They looked Mediterranean, with dark curly hair on them all.

“Two.”

The portly woman screamed at the voice and before Jamie could hiss to shut her up, the hedges to her right exploded. The blindspot hadn’t even crossed her mind, and the woman’s screech reached a fever pitch. Everyone scattered, except the mother who fell to the floor. The middle son tried to help her up alongside the father but the monster slithered forth and attacked them. A snake had smashed through the leaves, but Jamie had never seen one with such vibrancy before.

Each scale was a different hue or shade. If bright colours meant danger, then this thing was the nuclear bomb of snakes. It was around as long as Jamie was tall, and it sped across the ground towards the panicking brood. As it slithered quickly, the stone beneath it seemed to melt. Like a whip, it shot forward to constrict the father. His glasses fell and smashed on the floor. Fears of the thing being acidic were confirmed as audible sizzling could be heard. Jamie was already at what she thought was a safe distance when she realised she had a choice to make. This family, or her’s?

Every life which died around her seemed to pile onto her soul, but she turned all the same. Ignoring the pleas for help, Jamie ran. Every step was one further into a mire of disgust and self-hatred. Any pity which her mind cast forth to soothe her instead became more black tar on her psyche. Those boys were younger than Fred.

Desperation forced her family’s faces to the forefront of her mind as she turned onto Holloway Road.

“One.”

It was all too much. She could see the home in which she was raised as soon as she turned onto the street, and her sprint became an inexorable march. Jamie had always kept herself fit since being pushed to do gymnastics at a young age. She hadn’t kept up the sport, opting to enter the psychiatric field where she met Grant, but she had always been an athlete at heart. He had tried to join her on a few jogs and been left in the dust.

So it wasn’t tiredness which slowed her pace. No, Jamie couldn’t run anymore for the simple fact her hopes had been shattered along with the front door of Seventeen Holloway Road. The ghosts of the people she had abandoned were clawing at her back in askance even as she put one slow foot in front of the other. “Why didn’t you help us?” The family demanded. “How could you just leave?” Grant wept. In unison, a dozen strangled voices began to cackle with laughter.

“You’re too late,” the spectres said. She knew what she would find beyond the destroyed front of the house, but after the devastation ripped her strength from her momentarily, a far-off-but-not-far-enough howl had her moving again. Maybe it wasn’t too late, maybe she could-

“Zero. System Online. Good Luck.”

Jamie didn’t hear the words, nor did she pay much attention to the changes which her body underwent in that moment. The sharpening of her senses as the System’s attributes gave her strength served only to make the moment more devastating. The familiar walls were painted now with blood, and after calling out feebly, she stumbled further inside. No one replied, as she called out louder and louder. There’s so much blood.

It was in the garden. Both the scene Jamie couldn’t handle, and the culprits. Three bodies, which even now she told herself might be a trio of strangers, were strewn about the well-manicured grass. Some white flowers her mother had always loved, but that Jamie had never learned the name of, were marked with crimson flecks. Standing over the bodies were a group of four, squat grey-green humanoids. One of them pointed a bloody knife at her and the rage which had been festering at the centre of her being exploded.

The world turned red.

When she came back to herself, all of her muscles were throbbing painfully. There were four more bodies added to the garden. The hole from which the rage had erupted was now an empty space, one which Jamie let herself tumble into gladly. She couldn’t accept what had happened here yet, so her mind locked the moment away as she wiped the blood on her hands into the grass.

Ding! Level up! +5 Attribute Points.

Ding! Level up! +5 Attribute Points.

Would you like to loot Goblin Marauder?

Jamie looked instead to the messages she had received from the System. Positioned in the middle of her vision, they were like censorship bars on the worst sight she could have seen. She focused on the words instead of the scene around her. The System had come to Earth. It had brought monstrous animals, goblins and more. Now, it was giving her strength. Jamie didn’t bother questioning anything anymore. There was no point.

Everything had already ended.

She smiled, the expression unwanted but widening all the same. She vowed to come back even as she denied the truth. She wasn’t strong enough for this. She wasn’t resilient enough. Thankfully, that could be changed. Jamie told herself she would return when she was strong. Then she could face this. The System could make her strong. Holding a pair of wicked knives, clutched tightly from the moment Jamie returned to her body, she left the house.

Placing the Attribute points as she saw fit, Jamie began retaliating against the falling world.

Character Window

Name

Jamie Baker

Race

Earth Human

Title

None

Level

3

Health

32/40

Mana

0

Attribute Window

FP:0

Strength

8

Recovery

4

Resilience

5

Dexterity

4

Agility

5

Perception

4

Power

0

Regeneration

0

Command

0