“Did you see what was left of that guy?” Patrick said to the small hunched figure he pushed in the wheelchair.

The man sitting in the chair said nothing. He was 98 years old Eduardo Hernandez and had arrived at the UW hospital with chest pains. Patrick, wearing his green scrubs and beige fleece pullover and black non-skid tennis shoes had been escorting the man from his son’s car to the Emergency Room entrance. The building had been under construction and so they were forced to walk through the parking lot. The sky had been dark and cloudy when a neon green laser shot down from the sky and the building dissolved into bubbles. Suddenly everything was meteors and foam. And the world ended. Patrick Tsun; 54, 4th year med student, recently divorced with no kids, wandered the streets in a daze talking to the man all night.

He only just realized the man was long dead, having passed quietly some time ago. Probably amidst the chaos and calamity his heart just stopped. They had just come to the dead jogger that had met his ill fated end. He only saw a mostly naked man, covered in crows, so many crows. It was like every crow in Seattle was taking turns on the corpse. He met the black beady gaze of the largest crow.

“You Know,” Patrick continued his endless prattle, “ In Tibet and some parts of Mongolia they practice Sky Burials and give their dead to the massive vultures there. These guys aren’t vultures but they will do you better than anything else I could do.”

He gently pushed him out of the chair beside the other dead man and then fled, with the wheelchair. He was using it like a cart now, carrying anything he finds that might be useful. Then he ran almost directly into the massive quadrupede alien with the bubble machine. The creature blinked its round, dark eyes and then nodded. It reached into a pocket on its gray uniform and then handed him a tiny something. Robotically without thought, Patrick reached up to grab the item and pulled back a sticky tar like gummy worm. It was black and squidgy. As he pulled it closer to look at the worm shot into his face and started to force itself up his nose. He tried to pull it off and away but moved unbelievably fast and soon he was laid out on the ground.

Patrick was telling this story to me and Harry as we sat on the beach of the Puget Sound, Discovery Park I think. I realized with the sea breeze the green fog was almost gone here. We met Patrick down here at the shore. There were a few tense moments where I had the chef knife out threateningly and he approached slowly pushing the wheelchair, loaded with a plastic box of supplies. I was relieved to not have to fight him so I let my guard down. I did not put on the customer service face though. I mostly stayed on task. I had managed to make a fire using paper and some dry plant fibers. I was nursing my sore left index finger that I had struck with the flat stone before getting a real spark. Soon enough, the three of us sat around a small campfire eating fish and drinking Monster Energy drinks that Patrick had found at an empty homeless encampment. Harry had been the primary fisher, standing in the ice cold water to his knees and patiently waited for the prey to come close. Then he expertly swiped the fish into the dry air. I had no idea where he learned these skills. He usually fought me when I gave him his weekly bath, but I was so grateful. I was freezing just looking at him. I wished I had a beanie, as I keep my hair shaved into a mohawk so usually my head gets cold in the wind.

“All seaweed is edible, though some are more nutritional and palatable than others, and some can cause stomach upset. Brown seaweeds consist of carbohydrates that cannot be digested.” Patrick was still babbling about the “Natural foraging of the native Salish people.” while foraging seaweed.

It’s super interesting but I was not really listening when I heard Harry growling. Patrick and I both turned to see Harry had crept towards the treeline and was standing sideways, back arched in the classic Halloween cat pose. His growls had turned into a feral snarl and from the thinning mist a giant mutant rat monster appeared! It was about double the size of Harry and moving quickly towards us. I jumped up, grabbing the handy chef knife. I ran towards the rat and landed a kick to its head. I noticed the teacup sized black eyes were focused on Harry, even though I was much larger than the mutant rat. Harry pounced on to the rat clawing at its face fiercely then launching himself away. Patrick suddenly charged past me, whacked the beast with a baseball bat sized piece of wood. It splintered on contact and knocked the rat back. It squealed then lunged at Patrick. With the rat’s focus on him and it's back towards me, I plunged the knife down aiming for the base of its neck and hitting lower than I wanted. The knife plunged mercilessly into its spine. It shook violently then went limp suddenly and then I stomped on its head as a double tap. Then a notification appeared in my vision.

“Rat Monstrosity level 2 slain! +35 XP! Plus $50 credits!” The little worm squirmed and said happily. I groaned in disgust. “XP was split among party members based on contribution” It explained. “It will turn into a treasure drop.”

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Suddenly the rat’s back melted into a furry box. I looked at the magical chest in open mouth wonder. Patrick reached in and pulled out a real baseball bat, heavy and new. It was weirdly long for such a short box.

I reached into the fuzzy, gray-black box to find a purple beanie with little cat ears like the one I got from my sister last Christmas. Then I reached in for Harry and found a can of Sheba Cat Pate. He meowed loudly. “Open it!” Once we removed the loot from the rat box, it dissolved into ash.

“I was just hoping I had a better weapon.” Patrick said in a quiet voice, heading back to the campfire. Harry was meowing at the food. I popped the tin open and he dove right in. I pulled the beanie on and moved back to the fire with Patrick. He had taken a nasty bite on his forearm from the rat. I used my bottled water to clean his wound, rubbed some ointment on each tooth hole and then bandaged it.

I noticed my worm icon was blinking white. As soon as it had my full attention a notification popped up. “Skill upgrades! First Aid +1! Melee Fighting +2! New Skill variant upgraded via experience Knife Fighting +1!”

“Patrick, have you ever played an RPG video game?” I asked him.

“I played some Super Mario and Duck Hunter back in the day but I don’t think that's what you mean.” he shook his head no.

“I think that we have to find monsters to get loot and skills to survive. I have a quest to find a Safe Space, do you have something like that?”

He nodded, “Yeah I have a mission to find a safe space. Any ideas where, or what, that is?”

“No, but I think we are running out of time.” I said and pointed up at the faint lines of meteors just barely visible over thinning fog. “ I think those are aliens that have landed on Earth. I think they are who we are fighting, or maybe just monsters? I am not sure but it seems like we should hurry.”

Patrick nodded his understanding. We put out what was left of the mostly burnt away fire and I packed up my belongings. I kept the knife in my hoodie pocket not wanting it to be hard to get to. Soon the three of us were heading towards the dense evergreen trees of Discovery Park. We had to climb up a steep hill and soon ran into another rat monstrosity.

We made it out of the park without any injuries. Besides 2 more rat monstrosities, we fought a pine cone monster that reminded me of Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors except it was a hardwood, cone like exterior. It was about 4 feet tall and luckily was immobile except for the snapping cone attached to the tree base. It was called a “Diabolically-mutated Flora - level 1.” The 2 rat boxes contained paper wrapped, turkey and swiss cheese sub sandwiches for me and Patrick as well as sliced deli meat for Harry. The pine cone box contained something more exciting. Each of us got 2 golden tickets, one for “Upgrade any weapon” and “Upgrade any clothing to armor.”

We walked into the remains of a housing area, lots of little plots of missing houses instead of skyscrapers. It was definitely Day 2 now and the sun was overhead. The thick gray fog was greatly reduced but the clouds were not quite gray anymore. They looked mildewy. We were walking south and ran into a creature that was bear shaped but not a bear. It was in the distance so we approached cautiously, making Harry lead the way. He had much better eyesight than I did, not to mention his nose worked 14 times better than mine.

He was out of my line of sight but he meowed in my head. “It’s made of trash pandas!”

“It’s a giant raccoon? I asked him.

“No," he corrected me. "It's made of dozens of raccoons merged together.” He suddenly reappeared in front of me and said aloud “We can’t beat that thing. It was level 13 and it stood at least 15 feet high with dozens of clawed limbs.” He said with such confidence that I did not argue with the cat. I looked at Patrick who just shrugged. The multi headed behemoth was fighting with itself and so we agreed to creep around it without fighting. said It was covered in tiny raccoon limbs and black hands. It will definitely haunt my dreams forever.

I felt like we actually stood a chance of surviving today when we ran into the first giant hole full of giant spiders. Harry’s tail flicked side to side in excitement. My stomach dropped in terror. They were not just jumbo versions of regular PNW black house spiders, no no no. They were not even monster versions of any Earth spiders I knew and being from Florida I had seen some spiders. These were more like the drow driders from Dungeons and Dragons; you know black skin, white haired elf people from the waist up with huge spider butt and legs like a fucked up centaur. Except these were not beautiful elves. These creatures were gray aliens with massive orb eyes and two small arms near their mandibles and another longer set of arms on their torso. Then their lower half was split into at least 8 leg limbs. They were crawling around a massive web at the entrance of their home that once was a building basement. I estimated them to be human sized but luckily they were very far away and did not seem to notice us yet.

I was staring in unadulterated terror at the alien spider centaurs, I was too far to see their assigned names. Suddenly Patrick touched my arm and I almost stabbed him. “Ahh!”

He jumped back, bat in one hand and the other hand held up in defense. “Woah! I just had a thought. Let's take a step back and do a little planning.”

Harry jumped to my shoulder and rubbed his head on my head. “I’m okay. Just a little scared.”

Patrick’s idea was insane but ultimately it was a better plan than I had, so we agreed to do it. First we needed supplies.

We decided to try to lure the raccoon monster into the alien spider nest and see if we can take out two enemies at once.