I stand in shock, staring as the three individuals fly into action. The woman lying on the ground sits up while pushing herself into a corner. The shorter man hides behind a shelf full of bundles of paper. The third man becomes a blur to me.

  Silver flashes before me as the man disappears. The next second I feel cold metal press against my neck. Dark black eyes peer into mine looking for something. Looking down I see a sword pressed up against me.

  “Drop the weapon.” the man says

  Dropping the baton I leave my hand raised in the air. Even without the baton, I’m not completely weaponless. With that in mind, I try to keep my nerves under check.

  “What are you doing here?” The man asks

  “Clearing the building.” I answer

  Calling on the mana inside of me I get it ready to race through me. The familiar power instantly heeds my call. It buzzes inside of me ready for anything.

  “Were you the one that silenced the fire alarm?”

  “Yes sir.” I say

  “How?”

  His eyes leave mine for a second as they travel my body. Stopping for a second on the gun and then continuing to the floor and the baton.

  Unsure of how my answer would be taken I hesitate to answer. As the moment stretches I feel the blade dig deeper into my throat.

  “Answer now or I’ll take your head off.”

  “Magic.” I answer

  “Do you think you’re funny?”

  “No sir.” I answer as fear starts welling up in me.

  The blade pushes closer into me and I feel blood leaking down my neck. Wanting to prove myself I send the mana I’ve been keeping a mental hold of into and out of the hand raised in the air. The arctic blue orb’s light reflects off the silver blade and into the man’s face.

  His dark eyes leave mine and stare at the orb in astonishment. Then something behind his eyes seems to click into place.

  “That’s what the mage class gives you.” He says. “What can you do with it?”

  I feel myself gulp as I think about his question. What can I do with it? Is it just a weapon? Is it a tool? How do I describe it?

  "Seriously kid, right now is not the time to be playing the quite game.” He pushes the sword deeper into me causing pain. “What can you do with it?”

  “I can make projectiles and coat things in it. The projectiles do a lot of damage and when I coat stuff I can make it easier to cut easier.” I stammer out.

  I feel my heart racing in my chest as panic wraps me. If this man wants to kill me can I stop him? If I was further away then yes but he already has the blade against my throat.

  He seems to take a second to go over my words. He analyzes the orb still floating above my hand then returns his attention to me.

  “Alright so that’s how you managed to get up here and silence the alarm. I have one more question. Whoa are you?”

  “Joel Dylan, the night security guard.” I offer.

  Apparently satisfied, the man pulls the blade away from my neck and sheaths it in a shiny black scabbard. I call the mana back into myself and stare at the group, unsure what to do with myself.

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  I breathe a sigh of relief once the blade is put away. My heart still races but I can tell it’s already slowing down. However a strange burning sensation fizzles on my neck where the blade touched me. I ignore it figuring it’s probably just the cut skin itching.

  “My name is Mathew Decker, but please call me Decker. I’m one of the board members. The woman is Angila, my secretary. And the man over there is Andy, the night shift IT guy.”

  “Isn’t he one of those things?” Angila asks, still cowering in the corner.

  “No he doesn’t have the floating screen above his head.” Decker says.

  At that the tension in the air seems to dissipate. Angila picks herself up from the ground and Andy gets out from behind the shelf of paper.

  With the tension gone I take a good look at the three people. Angelia is a small thin person wearing khaki pants with a white blouse. Her bleach blond hair is let down coming to just above her shoulders. The remains of makeup attempts to hide the faint signs of age starting to appear on her face. Bags faintly apparent under her blue eyes.

  Decker stands tall above us, around six foot four. A form fitting black business suit shows that he is athletically built. His dark hair, streaked with occasional strands of gray, is held back by some kind of product, but either time or sweat has worn the product thin, as some strands seem to have broken free. In his left hand is a long sword that seems familiar to me.

  Thinking back to it, I've seen that sword in one of the offices on the tenth floor. It was on a wall above a desk with no picture frames, which I always thought was weird. Most of the board members had pictures on their desks but this one didn’t. Instead the only decoration was that sword hung up on the wall.

  The last man, Andy, stands just slightly taller than my five foot nine height. He is dressed in light blue jeans and a shirt with some sci-fi show’s art on it.

  Thinking back to Decker’s words, something that's been floating around in the back of my mind comes to the forefront.

  “Wait. The floating menus and screens. You all see them too? They aren’t some weird hallucinations?” I ask.

  “Not unless we’re all hallucinating.” Decker says.

  “So what are you guys doing up here? What have you guys been up to all night?” I ask

  Decker seems to hesitate for a second. As he does so he reaches into his jacket and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. He places one in his mouth leaving it unlit as he chews on the butt.

  “Where do I start?” He seems to ask no one in particular.

  “Well I was working late with Angila here when the earthquake happened. We passed out or something and when we awoke we could see a screen floating before us. Before I could process what was happening Margrett, another board member, attacked Angila.

  I took this sword and cut her head off and managed to level up. After that I took Angila and we tried to get out of this building. We got to the fifth floor where we met a group of zombies in the stairwell. We ran back up to the eight floor and ran to the panic room.

   There we found Andy hiding. Once the door was shut I completed this quest to find safety and was made to choose between Warrior and Mage.

   I tried to ignore it but it wouldn’t go away like the other menus. So I picked Warrior and after that the world slowed down and I realized I could move a lot faster. It’s like there’s a dial in my mind that I can turn slowing down or speeding time up.

  We tried to call for help but our phones aren’t connected to any kind of service. Deciding that the police or military would roll through to save us we stayed in the panic room. We fell asleep and were only awoken when the fire alarm was silenced.

  Figuring that help had shown up we decided to leave the room, but Andy and Angelia were worried about meeting more zombies. So we came up here to grab something that could work as weapons. That’s when you came in here.

  So why are you clearing the building and what have you been up to all night?” He says.

  I explain to them how I woke up on the first floor and all the fighting I had done. How I hoped to make the building safe and then work from there. They listen to my story and are shocked at how I managed to survive.

  “So then if help isn’t on it’s way I think we should secure the whole building. From there we can focus on what to do next. How many more floors are left to clear?” Decker asks.

  “Floors four and under are clear. So if this floor and the eighth are clear then only four more.”

  “Then we’ll come with you. Andy and Angelia still haven’t been able to choose a class and I think that’s because they are both level zero. So maybe if they find a zombie and kill it they can pick a class or something.” Decker says.

  After that he turns to an object on the counter behind him. He picks it up and I recognize it as those paper cutting things with the large blades. He picks up a screw driver on the counter and undoes a few screws freeing the blade.

  While Decker did that Andy searched through different boxes trying to find a weapon for himself. I retrieve my baton from the floor and leave the group to continue trying to arm themselves.

  I make my way to one of the board member offices. Inside I find plenty of baseball memorabilia. Among the objects is a wooden bat with some baseball players' names scribbled along it. I take it and return to the group.

  “Does anyone want this?” I ask.

  Decker turns to me while handing Angelia the blade. Andy looks up, his eyes lighting up at the sight of the bat.

  “Hell yeah, I’ll take that.” Andy says.

  I hand him the bat and look at Decker. He looks over the group.

  “Is everyone ready?” He asks.

  The group answers in the affirmative and we leave for the stairwell. Decker takes point leading us all while I follow behind the others. My eyes feel heavy and I feel drowsiness wash over me.

  I hope we can clear this building fast.