**
The Goblin King quietly sat on his throne made from the bones of fallen kings. He sighed then after a few seconds later, he spoke three words.
"Bring them In."
While the Goblin King sat on his throne of conquered kings, several Hobgoblins marched towards him. Once the two rows of nine Hobgoblins approached Goblin King's throne, they knelled before their master.
"Are the portals ready?"
The Goblin King spoke with a deep hoarse voice as he gazed down on the Hobgoblins with his blood shot eyes.
"They are sire."
"Does the other side seem profitable?"
The moment the Goblin King asked the question, a purple skinned female Hobgoblin appeared besides the throne. The moment this creature appeared, she bowed down and proceeded to answer the Goblin King's question.
"Sire! Our Seers seems to agree to that. This world that we found are filled with humans. Plump ones at that. Some are even bigger than any of the hogs that we have in our farms."
The Goblin King licked his lips after his adviser described the plunder on the other side of the portal.
"Excellent. Proceed with the harvest."
**
[San Pablo, California]
Enzo Zatara is a Minimalist and as well as a self proclaimed Prepper. But unlike the hardcore Preppers, Enzo's stratagems mostly consist of skills that he taught himself.
With the end of the semester nearing, Enzo a college student, frantically typed away on his laptop as he tries to complete all of the homework that he needs to submit in order to pass all his class. Enzo busily typed and switched from one browser to another to collect, connect and modify all the information that he has to finally complete his essay. As he types his final paragraph, his phone begins to buzz.
*BUZZZ BUZZZZ*
Enzo's cellphone vibrated the moment a notification popped up.
After typing his final sentence on his final paragraph, Enzo quickly peaked at his cellphone. For some reason, he hoped that the text message that he had just received came from someone from school. Some of the people he befriended maybe. But truthfully he knows in his mind that the message is probably a notification from school. Since after all, Enzo decided to focus on his studies because this is his last chance to get his life together.
Enzo isn't a normal college student. He's actually a thirty year old military veteran, who after detaching from the military had a phase of personal problems. The problems that Enzo had undergone changed him. It made him understand more of life but at the same time, It made him more anti-social and pretty much a shut it. As a final life line, in order to get his life back together, Enzo decided to use his benefits as a veteran to go to back school.
Enzo grabbed his cellphone. As he stared at the cracked black screen of his phone, he pressed the button to show the message that he had received.
[EMERGENCY ALERT]
[MONSTER THREAT IMMINENT THROUGHOUT CALIFORNIA. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER, THIS IS NOT A DRILL]
The moment Enzo read the entire message, he couldn't help but chuckle. The reason why Enzo found this humorous is because he knows that who ever made the mistake of broadcasting this message to the entire state of California, they're going to be in deep shit. Enzo put his cellphone on airplane mode and turned off his modem. Afterwards he set up his alarm clock and decided to sleep.
**
It was just another Monday morning and I had to get ready for class. I shoved my blanket and pillow aside, then got up from the ground. While I stretched my arms, I slowly walked like a zombie to the bathroom to do what I need to do and take a shower. Afterwards, I put on my usual clothes; my black sweatpants, a shirt and a green hoodie. I always wore the same comfortable clothes to school because, I can't be bother with being stylish to impress people. I would rather wear comfortable clothes for my own benefits rather than pleasing the eyes of people whom I give zero fucks about. I grabbed my backpack, put on my sunglasses to block the glaring morning sun and started walking down the street on Shane drive.
Just recently I have been living with my sister and her dog. Both of us have recently been out of the military. The moment that I was detached from the military, I felt lost and embarrassed. Lost because I didn't know what to do. Being in the military was the profession that I thought was something I wanted to do for life but after spending most of my twenties drunkenly traveling around the world in a ship or some foreign place, I realized how toxic it was to live the life of a military personnel. Most of the time it was fun. Traveling around the world, drinking copious amount of beverages from one bar to another, having a different woman every other night and then after that you go back to work. Being in the military at peace times like an unending frat party. It got really boring and depressing. That was when I decided that I couldn't stand it any more. So I left.
Now that I had all that fun, It is now time for me to focus on my future. Most of the people that I was in Transient Unit with decided to immediately find a job right away, because since many of us had a large sum of debts from having too much fun. I myself worked myself like crazy till I realized that there was no way in this economy, that I would be able to survive with a minimum wage in California.
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To obtain a proper high paying job, one needed a college degree. So I decided to use my G.I bill to go to school. The way that I see it, is that going to school is a good investment. It'll only take two years and besides, thanks to my G.I Bill I'm literally being paid to go to school.
The bright Californian sun rose as I walked down the street. Thanks to my sunglasses, I was able to see another beautiful sunrise on my way to class. While I was appreciating the beautiful scenery, I noticed something peculiar going on. I found it odd that there were no cars on the street. Usually at this time and this day, cars would swarm the streets for parents to drop off their children so that they could go to school and I don't recall that today is some sort of holiday.
After noticing this odd occurrence, I shrugged my shoulders, then I put my earbuds on. I opened my cellphone to play my morning playlist.
In the morning, whenever I prefer listening to music from the legendary band called Queen, whenever I would walk to school. Luckily for me, I live near the college so it would only take two songs until I arrived in the room of my first class. But today is different. Today, only one song played for my walk to school. My morning playlist had to be paused because I heard something that really concerned me.
As I closed my music application, I heard a shrieking scream. Curious, confused and concerned, I took of my earbuds and wrapped it around my cellphone then stuffed it inside my hoody's pouch and listened carefully until the weird awkward silence, was broken with another scream.
"KYAAAAAAA!!!!"
The sound of someone screaming in distress, suddenly made gave me a surge of adrenaline and a sense of vigilance. When I heard the disturbing scream, the first thing I wanted to do is locate the source of the sound. I quickly ran to the direction of the scream and when I turned right to the corner of Mills Avenue, I heard the scream again. This time it followed with a plea.
"KYAAAAAH! HELP!!"
I crossed the street on Mills Avenue and ran towards the sidewalk overlooking the parking lot where the scream for help was coming from. As I stood there witnessing what was happening, my eyes widened the moment I saw the scene that took place. In the parking lot of the school, a young woman is being chased by this ugly small green creature wielding what looks like a butcher's knife. Before I could move to help, a police officer came running into the parking lot carrying a shot gun with him. The police officer stopped and pointed towards the green creature. Then right when the young woman was nearing the police officer, he shouted.
"Duck!"
The young woman quickly dropped to the ground.
*BOOM!*
The sound of the shot gun echoed everywhere. The creature was shredded to pieces and from the young woman's perspective, she could literally see through the shredded body of the creature. Immediately afterwards, the police officer kicked away cleaver that the creature had dropped and made sure that it was no longer living. Afterwards the police officer turned his attention on the young woman to check her well being.
"You alright? What's your name?"
The frantic young woman looked up at the police officer as she tried to catch her breath. Seconds later she shows the police officer a wound on her leg.
"My name is Ritz." Ritz patted her thigh and when she saw the blood all covering her hand, she exhaled deeply and calmly spoke out."I think . .I-It sliced me."
"That doesn't look so bad. Come on let's get that treated."
The police officer extended his hand towards the young woman and the moment the whole thing ended, I ran up to the Police officer and the young woman.
"Excuse me sir!" I yelled out as I ran towards them.
The moment the Police officer pointed his shotgun towards me, I held my hands up and screamed.
"Whoa! What's with the attempt of deadly force?"
The police officer's face turned red and quickly pointed the barrel of the shot gun away from me when he heard what I said.
"Oh! I'm so sorry. I thought you were one of those green creatures that attacked this young lady here." The police officer looked down on the ground and pointed by nodding towards the dead creature laying on the ground.
I look at the direction of where the police officer was pointing. At first, I thought it was a made up creature. So I took off my sunglasses and leaned in closer to observe the monster. As I stared at the bloodied carcass of the creature, Its blood gave off an awful smell. It smells like cat's blood. The creature looks human except it has distinct features that humans don't have.
This creature's skin entirely green. Its ears are long and pointy and its size is the same a child's except that it didn't look like like a child.
I also noticed something sticking out of it's chest. I reached back into my backpack to grab two random writing instruments. Using a pen and a broken pencil from one of the pockets in my backpack, I used the two academic utensils as chopsticks so that I could pick up what looks like a crystallized stone. The moment the stone detached from the creature, it disappeared from my make-shift chopsticks. Then afterwards a screen appeared in front of me.
[You've obtained a Talent stone! Would you like to use it?]
[Yes] or [No]?
When I saw the screen that looked a lot like a game dialog box, I freaked out. I screamed little and jumped back.
"Whoa!"
The moment the police officer saw me jump back, he quickly pointed his shot gun towards the carcass of the creature.
"What the heck?!"
I stood up and stepped back a little. Even though I had already moved a few feet back, the screen was still in front of me, waiting for me to promptly make a choice.
"What? What's wrong? Is it still alive?"
The Police officer looked frantic and kept the barrel of the shotgun pointed at the lifeless creature on the pavement. I looked at the Police Officer and the young woman. The two looked at me and what I just realized was neither of the young woman or Police Officer can see what's in front of me at this moment. Realizing this information, I didn't want to tell them or else they'll think I'm crazy. Immediately to close this weird situation, I decided to make up a lie on the spot.
"Ah. I just saw the body twitched and it freaked me out. It must have been some of it nerves still trying to send a signal through its body."
"Like Eels." The young woman commented.
"Yes. Like Eels. You're very knowledgeable with animals. What's your name?" Enzo asked.
"Oh thanks. But It's really the only thing I really know about animals. The only reason why I knew of that fact is because I'm a culinary student here and we were learning how to best serve Eels and that thing just reminded me of them." The young woman chuckled then introduced herself.
"My name is Ritz."
"My name is Enzo."
"And I'm officer Dan. Now let's take care of this young lady's wound."
"Alright, what can I do to help Officer Dan?" Enzo asked.
"Well I think it would be safer if we can take her inside to treat her wounds."
"Okay. How about I let her piggy back on me and you watch our six while I carry her inside?"
"That sounds like a logical decision. Let's do it."
While I started carrying Ritz on my back, I pressed the [Yes] button on the screen that only I, seem to be able to only see.
The moment I pressed [Yes], another screen appeared.
[Congratulation! You have just received a new talent]
[Goblin's Dexterity]
[This talent multiplies user's Dexterity by 1.5.]
As I continued to walk towards the campus police station, I observed the screens in front of me and told myself that this morning, I woke up into some sort of bizarre world. A world that is no longer what we recognize and remember.
**