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It is Wednesday. It is 3:13 PM, in the time zone the event occurs.
The event seems unremarkable, as far as these things go.
At the moment of his death, Stanley Brewer is two billion six hundred seventeen million four hundred eighty-eight thousand five hundred and nineteen seconds—or approximately 83 years—old.
An amount of time billions upon billions of times less than one astral moment.
Not even a blip to entities existing on that scale.
And yet, one in particular notices his death.
Stanley Brewer will be the final person ever to die in the old world, under the old rules. And his end will usher in a new, terrible beginning.
∎ ∎ ∎
Sitting at his desk in the small, poorly ventilated office of Anomaly Labs, where he had been interning for the past several months, three-hundred miles away from the shore of the beach on which Stanley Brewer would expire, Sebastian Finch knew none of this.
To him, it was another utterly normal day, the only oddity the mountainous shapes that had appeared in the sky a year before, accompanied by a constant, sourceless rumble which had long faded to the background of his awareness.
For the past year, Sebastian had been searching, looking for answers. Trying to discover the source of the shapes, and their purpose. It was why he’d travelled halfway around the world to take this intern position.
He wasn’t alone in his quest for knowledge, of course. The entire world was eager to learn anything it could about the mysterious shapes and the pervasive rumble. They dominated the news cycles. Every sliver of new information, every wild theory from someone even remotely reputable—and on several occasions not at all reputable—would have whole segments dedicated to them. YouTube channels that uploaded sketchy footage purported to be of the aliens responsible for the shapes racked up views in the billions, no matter how many times they were debunked.
No, he wasn’t alone at all. But he was more persistent than most. He may have gotten used to the sight of the shapes and tuned out the sound, but unlike most everyone else, he hadn’t gone back to his normal life. Instead, he’d upended everything and dedicated himself to discovering all he could about the phenomenon.
It was this dedication that led him to learn something that had, as far as he knew, never appeared on any news segment or been reported by any mainstream outlet: Rumors, whispers of someone, or something, called Anubis, or, alternately, Osiris, though in Sebastian’s opinion they referred to two different things. Whether people, or secret government projects, he didn’t know.
All he knew for sure was they were codenames, and didn’t refer to the ancient Egyptian gods of legend.
Mostly sure, anyway.
Sebastian stretched and rubbed his eyes.
The country was currently in the middle of a sweltering heatwave, uncharacteristic of this time of year—another thing people were trying to blame on the shapes—and with the dingy office’s lack of properly functioning climate control, today only Sebastian himself and his best friend Magnus—Anomaly Labs’ sole interns—had come in to work.
Magnus had gone out to get them a late lunch—drunken noodles, garlic naan, and vegetable samosas—from Mumbthai, a local Thai-Indian restaurant. They always ate after the lunch rush, because it was the most popular restaurant in the area and packed at lunch time.
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So Sebastian was alone for the moment.
He leaned back in his chair and sighed. He blinked rapidly and stared at the cork ceiling, giving his eyes a rest, letting his attention slip to the Stephen King audiobook he was listening to for about the tenth time.
It helped him get through long, boring days sifting mountains of useless information for the one gleaming gem.
A gem he’d not yet found, other than the two deity names and some really out-there theories written—or in one case filmed—by people who wouldn’t be out of place in a mental institution.
The audiobook suddenly paused and his phone vibrated quietly from where it rested on his oversized mousepad.
He leaned forward in his chair, which creaked and always felt on the verge of falling apart, and picked up his phone.
It was Wednesday. It was 3:12 PM.
He’d gotten a text message, but not from anyone he knew. The number listed was gibberish, even by European standards, and, stranger still, the text of the message itself was blue, and in a different font than normal.
The Apocalypse System is coming. You need to leave. Get to the roof.
Magnus? he texted back. How’d you change the text color?
Spoofing the number would be easy enough, but Sebastian didn’t know of a way to get the text to look different.
No. This is not Magnus.
It was definitely Magnus.
He was probably waiting for their food. Must have been a late lunch crowd.
The clock ticked over to 3:13 PM.
I’m bored and hangry. So if this is a joke about the shapes… keep it going.
Three-hundred miles away, now thirteen seconds after 3:13 PM, Stanley Brewer drew his last breath, then left this world forever.
Sebastian did not notice. Could not. But something else did. A threshold had been reached, and the world began to change.
Too late. It's here.
Sebastian smiled and began composing a reply, when something changed that he did notice.
At first, he couldn’t pinpoint what was different, only that something fundamental was.
Then finally, slowly, like waking up, he did: The constant low rumble, which had long faded to the background of his attention, had ceased.
It was as though the entire world was holding its breath. He could hear his pulse in his ears, throbbing against his wireless earbuds.
Then came a blaring voice so loud it made the old rumble feel like it was but a whisper, a prelude to this new, terrible sound.
Somewhere a window shattered, and something hot and wet leaked from Sebastian’s ears.
“Initiating the Apocalypse Protocol.”
Sebastian covered his ears, grimacing at the pain the earth-shattering voice caused, his earbuds’ noise cancellation unable to contend with the volume, and his hands doing little to reduce it.
“Cumulative death threshold reached. Apocalypse System requirements satisfied.
“Beginning transfiguration.
“Phase 1 initiation.
“Begin.”
Silence. Utter, and complete. The ringing in his ears he’d had ever since spending an entire day crowded at the front row of a concert was completely gone.
Had he been totally deafened?
“What the…” He could hear himself speak, but it sounded muffled. At least he wasn’t deaf.
Then the entire world shook and from outside came a tremendous crash.
The voice returned, quieter, but still loud, a vacuum cleaner rather than a space-rocket ignition, and this time, as it spoke, words appeared in front of Sebastian, like real-life closed-captioning.
Phase 1 status
Mode: Power Cards
Time Limit: 372 hours
Continuity Condition: Pinnacle Rank Upgraded
Failure Condition: Death
Success Condition: Survival
Exemplary Condition: Clear Forsaken, the first gate
Completion Reward: (1) E-Rank Gift
Phase Begins: 800 seconds
800 seconds turned to 799, and continued ticking down.