Cole dragged the Eclipsed Vindicator, a greatsword black as night and as tall as a man, through the coarse sands of Odaiba beach. There were no children running around, no couples strolling by the calm waves, no windsurfers gliding across the water.
Everyone was dead.
Tokyo was engulfed in flames. He could feel the scorching heat from across the bay. He had tried to cross Rainbow Bridge and make it to Minato City, but Nythraki had swarmed it. Thousands of them; he had never seen so many in one place.
He tried to stop them, slicing through their thick skin with his blade, but with each one he killed, another came to push him back. They sliced the bridge’s cables and gnawed through the steel pillars, and in a matter of minutes, the bridge collapsed, sending everyone trapped to their deaths in the water below.
Cole dug his sword into the sand and fell to one knee on the beach. He grabbed his side. He was turning paler by the minute. A Nythraki had bitten into him and tore at his flesh like a wild animal. He couldn’t stop his hands from shaking, even when he tightened his grip around the hilt of his greatsword. He was cold.
He knew he would die soon.
“Elana,” he said.
A translucent golden interface appeared before him.
[SYSTEM ONLINE]
[USER: COLE CALLOWAY]
[CLASSIFICATION: WEAPONS MASTER]
[RANK: A]
Cole, what happened? You’re covered in blood. The voice was feminine and in his thoughts.
“Nythraki. They coordinated an attack.” He groaned, clutching his side. “Didn’t think they were smart enough to do that. I need you to call Sakura.”
He stared at the interface, waiting for a screen to appear to see Sakura and make sure she didn’t leave the Nexus district, where their headquarters was located. Waiting...
“Elana.”
Cole… I’m not finding a connection.
He closed his eyes. Thoughts swirled through his mind, random thoughts that had nothing to do with his current situation. He remembered when he and his little brother, Ethan, were roughhousing on Christmas day, and they sent the TV crashing down off the credenza.
Mom stormed into the living room like a bat out of hell, and Ethan pointed at me.
There was his first kiss: Sydney Thatcher, eighth grade. They were sitting on the bleachers at the track and field. The middle school was throwing a graduation party, serving pizza, soda, and ice cream — a reward for surviving in classrooms full of kids going through the height of puberty, always screaming and ready to throw punches.
So, there he was, leaning in too close, causing her glasses to droop down, and his lips met hers. It was quick. He did it again, longer, not knowing when to stop, but he did when he felt the burning in his face get too intense. He pulled back; she smiled, and he chuckled. He thought he’d feel older after the fact. He didn’t.
Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
A Nythraki screeched in the distance. Cole used what little strength remained to pull himself up. The shaking was getting worse. He stared at the screen, looking at different branching timelines that weaved around each other like webs made of gold.
“Elana, if we traveled right now, how much strain would it put on my body?”
Perhaps a hospital is still intact; we may be able to make it to—
“Just tell me: would it kill me if I traveled right now.”
Yes.
“Elana, deactivate the system, leave my body, and travel to the Prime timeline without me.”
The Nythraki were running across the water straight for him, their crimson eyes filled with bloodlust.
Cole… There has to be something —
“I command it!”
[SYSTEM DEACTIVATED]
A blue orb of erratic energy — Elana — appeared before him, hovering above the ground.
“Please, don’t make me do this,” Elana said.
“This timeline is lost. They already got Sakura, and I’m assuming her System, too. If you stay here with me, then you’ll be captured. You know that…”
He looked past Elana; more Nythraki were falling through the ash clouds in the sky, and more gathered in a herd on the water coming for him — for Elana.
Cole lifted his blade with shaking arms.
“Then… This is goodbye,” Elana said.
He smiled. “It is.”
“I’m sorry for getting you involved in this mess, for it having to end like this.”
“Don’t be. The past five years have been fun. I wouldn’t trade it for anything else.” His vision grew blurry. The Nythraki were almost here. “Elana, if you ever see my brother, Ethan, and my parents, can you tell them I love them and that I’m sorry for leaving.”
“I will.”
“Thank you.”
Elana did not move for a movement, but as soon as the paw of the first Nythraki touched the sands of the shoreline, a flash of yellow light blinded him, and when he looked again, Elana was gone.
He locked eyes with the hairless pale beast as it leaped at him. Its jaw was open, and its teeth were jagged and thin, with razor-sharp ends.
Cole pivoted on one foot and, in a fluid motion, swung his immense blade in a wide arc; it connected with the Nythraki’s neck, slicing through the creature’s flesh and throwing it against the ground. A low guttural whine escaped its throat, and it thrashed across the sand, rising and falling until it succumbed to death.
Two more came for him, their claws tearing at the ground as they charged. One leaped at his chest while the other went low, aiming for his legs. With another broad arc, he sent the one in the air sprawling to the side, but before he could react, the other sunk its razor teeth into his thigh, tearing through the fabric of his pants and pulling out the flesh.
Cole screamed; his grip faltered, and he dropped his greatsword. With a surge of adrenaline, he clenched his fist and hammered down on the beast’s head. Again and again. Not stopping until the Nythraki let go. He swung again, causing the creature’s head to snap to the side as it was thrown off balance.
He growled, falling to the ground. More were charging — a dozen or so — but he had no strength left. Blood pooled out around him, soaking the sand.
I’m gonna die at 23.
He had always thought when he was younger that with the advancement of technology and medicine, he would be part of the first generation where it would be normal to make it to 100 or even past that, but fate had other plans for him.
He took one more glance at the burning skyscrapers of Tokyo, at the ash-filled sky, at the bodies of the people he failed to protect, and on this silent artificial island, he could hear the screams of those fighting for their lives on the mainland. He failed them.
Cole closed his eyes. A warmth overtook his body, and all the sounds around him were drowned out. In his final moments, he thought of the past five years of all the people — good and bad — he had met across different timelines; those he laughed with, cried with, and fought with. And then he saw his brother and his parents. He missed them.
His breaths were raspy. After inhaling, he let out a final exhale. He went limp. Cole Calloway, a young adult chosen by a System to stop a great evil, was dead.