As Sebastian made his way from Central Station to the Royal Palace, he was far from the only person on the streets, but the scene wasn’t as apocalyptic as he’d come to expect from movies. Yes, some people were acting reckless, running around or ignoring traffic laws on their bikes or in their cars. But for the most part, people just huddled together, talking, or simply stared up at the sky in dumbfounded bewilderment. Having now grown used to the shapes’ presence, their sudden disappearance was almost as shocking as their arrival had been.

He passed a few groups where one person was clearly taking charge, directing the group to perform tasks in preparation of coming disaster.

One group had someone speaking English, and for some strange reason he was directing everyone to get as much toilet paper as they could find. Something about business opportunities.

Sebastian paid little attention, as he had a destination to reach before his time ran out.

He glanced at the countdown timer to see how much time he had remaining.

241 seconds. What was that, five minutes? No, four. Still enough time if he hurried. Barely.

Maybe he should steal a bike.

He was just heading for what looked like an abandoned rental bike in the middle of the road, when a car came speeding through the intersection, ran over the bike, then skidded as it tried to make the turn, failed, and crashed into a man on another bike.

The man’s bike went flying away as the car continued forward, the man gripping the hood for all he was worth.

Which turned out to be a mistake when the vehicle slammed to a halt against a storefront.

There was a piercing shatter as several of the windows exploded and rained down on the now-disabled vehicle.

The man who had been hit was silent, head resting on the hood as though asleep.

Sebastian was pretty sure he wasn’t sleeping.

“This is bad,” Anubis said.

“Yeah, I think he’s dead.”

“Yes. Which means he will turn if the transfiguration has progressed far enough.”

“Turn? Into what? Please don’t say a zombie.”

“Far worse. Once an entity dies in the System, it becomes property of the System.”

“Okay… So, a Scion?”

“No. Scions are chosen. Alive. They possess agency, however distorted.”

The man who’d been hit jerked once, causing one of the people in the crowd who’d gathered around him to cry out in surprise.

“What are they then?” Sebastian asked, watching the scene uneasily.

“You would call them monsters. But they’re simply pawns for Osiris to use, a way for it to directly intervene. It will change the body, adapt it to its needs. Which tends to include being frightening—monstrous—to members of the same species, as it has no regard for the original body plan.”

As Sebastian watched, the man extricated himself from between the building and hood, the hood crumpling under the strain, demonstrating the man possessed inhuman strength.

There came a series of sickening pops and the man’s lower body ripped off as he pulled himself free, further demonstrating this strength.

Dangling organs shifted, turning into something like the limbs of an octopus, replacing his lost legs.

Several more people screamed now; a few ran off. All at least backed away.

“You should leave,” Anubis told him. “There’s a bike thirty feet to your left. Its owner won’t be needing it any longer.”

Sebastian spotted the bike, saw it was the one the now-monster had been riding. It appeared undamaged.

“What about the people? I should warn them.”

“If you wish. But I think they already know.”

Indeed, as the monster used its tentacles to balance on the hood of the car, most of those who’d only backed away now began vacating the area.

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But not all, which was very stupid in Sebastian’s opinion. Even the driver of the car had limp-run away.

Then again, Sebastian was just standing here, watching like an idiot as though viewing a movie.

“Are you okay?” one of the foolhardy souls who remained asked the monster.

The monster looked at him. Then reached out one of its tentacles slowly in the man’s direction.

The man just stared at it approaching.

It wasn’t until it wrapped around his neck that he realized something was wrong and tried to get away.

It was too late. The tentacle flexed, and the neck snapped with sickening ease.

Sebastian was just thinking it would be like zombies after all, when the two bodies began to merge together, forming something even more hideous, and now giant, the gained mass more than making up for the lost legs.

Sebastian, realizing he was still standing around like a fool, and not wanting to be a hypocrite even in thought, ran for the bike and hopped on. The handlebars were a little tweaked, but it otherwise indeed appeared undamaged.

He was about to take off when a little girl ran past him.

For some insane reason, she was headed straight for the monster.

“Ubba!” she called out.

Sebastian wasn’t sure if that was Dutch for something, or just a nickname, but she appeared to know the former human. How she recognized him in his current combined state was a mystery. Even his face was barely recognizable as human, distorted and bloated.

After seeing the monster snap the man’s neck, the stragglers had vacated the area. Which meant the little girl now had the monster’s full attention.

Sebastian swore and hopped off the bike.

He quickly caught up to the girl—she was running, but her stubby little legs didn’t move her fast—and swept her up in his arms then juked left as the monster leapt from the vehicle with enough force to crush it further.

“Ubba!” the girl wailed from his arms.

He both felt and heard the thud as the monster crashed down onto the pavement behind him.

Ahead, a woman was running toward him, tears flowing down her face. “Lotte!”

“Mammie!” the girl cried in response.

Even Sebastian could recognize that Dutch word.

He practically threw the girl into her mother’s arms, then turned and ran several paces away as mother and daughter took off in the opposite direction, heading for an overturned bike with a child carrier trailer.

He glanced behind himself, and, as he’d hoped, the monster was following him now.

Yeah, he thought, just what I needed.

Worse, he was now heading away from his bike.

Behind him, the monster screamed—actually screamed. Not roared, not yelled, but screamed like it was in pain.

“That was likely unwise,” Anubis said in his ears. “He appears a match for you in speed.”

“Then guide me to another bike.”

∎ ∎ ∎

Sebastian was sweating profusely and breathing hard by the time he reached the Royal Palace.

Luckily, Amsterdam had lots of bikes, so once he’d grabbed one he was quickly able to outpace the monster. Not that he’d slowed his pace. He’d been racing against more than just the monster: he had just over a minute before the first phase—whatever that was—began.

He skidded to a halt in front of the Palace and took deep heaving breaths. His lungs burned and he felt nauseous.

“Duck,” Anubis warned.

Sebastian complied immediately, hopping off the bike and throwing himself to the ground just as something buzzed over his head.

His heart sank. Magnus. He’d found him again somehow.

“It can’t hurt you much yet, but will be annoying.”

Sebastian was about to ask what Anubis meant, but then saw it. The thing that had buzzed overhead wasn’t an invisible projectile from Magnus, but an insect. A very large insect the size—and oddly, shape—of a golf ball.

[https://i.imgur.com/4PwtECH.jpg]

“What the…” He stared after it as it flew away.

“It is not only humans which the System gains dominion over after death.”

“Great, monster bugs.” He brushed the gravel embedded in his palms away. It stung. “Was it attacking me? Why’d it leave? Not that I’m complaining.”

“Perhaps there are easier prey nearby.”

Sebastian was grateful it was gone, but felt bad for whoever it was going after.

Nothing he could do about it at the moment.

He turned his attention to the vast Royal Palace. It was the most transformed place he had yet seen. It was barely recognizable, now a kind of cave complex with giant trees growing around it.

“Is the world that merged with ours the same size?”

“No, it isn’t. There’s an entrance to your right in the trunk of the black tree. Go there.”

Sebastian frowned as he jogged—jogging was the best he could manage at the moment—for the tree, thinking. “So are there like huge stretches of land from that other world, or is it all jumbled together like this?”

“Explaining the exact procedure would take too much time, and you wouldn’t be able to comprehend it in any case. A simplified version is that an amount of mass from the other world equal to Earth’s mass merged, this city being a prime example due to being the epicenter. But as the other world is much larger, much mass remains. It will be distributed according to complex allocation methods, greatly expanding the total size of your planet. The final stage will perform gravitational adjustments and solidify the fusion.”

“That does sound complicated. Is it done merging?”

“No. It will finish when the countdown does.”

“Got it down to an exact science, huh?” He reached the hole in the tree. It looked carved, the edges polished smooth.

“Seconds are imprecise to beings such as us. Head inside. There will be light after several yards.”

Sebastian entered and found himself inside a wooden tunnel. “And just what kind of being are you?” he asked as he slowly felt his way in, hands running over the smooth walls. “You’re not really Anubis, Egyptian god of the Underworld.”

“It is an accurate enough moniker. You need to move faster.”

“I can hardly see anything.” There was indeed light a little ways in, emanating from lichen growing on the tunnel’s ceiling, but it was only barely enough to see by. Maybe if he gave his vision a minute to adjust…

He looked at the countdown, which he could see fine even in the dim light. Forty-eight seconds.

He literally didn’t have a minute.

“Run. You will be fine. Do you not trust me yet?”

Sebastian sighed. At least in this regard, he did.

He was beginning to flag after ten seconds of running full tilt, when he came to a sudden halt, then flipped upside down as he once more fell upward.

When he landed, he found himself somewhere else entirely, and face to face with a monster.