An endless staccato of bullets pinged off of the JLTV’s armor. With practiced grace, I performed a functions check on my M4A1 and loaded a fresh magazine, lowered my window just enough to stick my rifle out, and returned fire. I sighted a hostile loading an RPG through my ACOG and eliminated him at full-auto. Insurgents scrambled to retrieve the RPG, and I used it as a makeshift trap to gather more into a kill zone. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.
But an explosion in front of us stole my attention.
“Sergeant! That was the commander’s vehicle! Oh, fuck! Oh, fuck!” One of my soldiers in the passenger’s seat flailed, but I pulled on his seatbelt before his panic could twist into hysteria. He fell back into his chair, gasping for breath.
“We’re going to get through this, you hear me, Private? Now radio for air support! You remember how to do that?”
He shot me a blank look. I exhaled through my nose. This was Private First Class Davis’ first deployment. His first firefight. The adrenaline inoculation paralyzed him into panic and inaction. It was a common enough reaction. We all went through it at least once. I released the seatbelt, allowing him to breathe, and switched my attention back to the desert to reassess. The enemy was closing in to pin us. The RPG I was using as bait was now gone. I should have just shot it instead of playing cowboy.
“Davis, you good?” I asked again after a few seconds. He was hyperventilating, but at least he wasn’t catatonic.
“Y-Yes Sergeant!” He managed but flinched when a bullet cracked the passenger-side window. I reached into my arm pocket and handed him a laminated card with the basic procedures for calling in support. I grinned as he fiddled with all the SINCGARS bells and whistles then read off the card in a high-pitched squeal once he finally got through to the base. Davis had the makings of a good soldier. When he finally cut off the transmission, he gathered enough sense of self to lower the window and return fire from the passenger seat. The other two members of my fireteam left through the opposite side and used the entire JLTV as cover while engaging the enemy from a different angle.
“Sergeant, bombs gonna drop in 3 minutes!” Davis was giddy. “Got another one! Eat shit and die! We gon' live Sergeant!"
This was good. We were poised to survive the ambush. With our backs to a cliff, a single-vehicle road blocked by the flaming wreckage of our two leading JLTVs, and the enemy firing across from a nearby mountain, our chances were slim. But an A-10 bombing run would send our attackers fleeing for the caves.
My mind froze when I spotted where the RPG went a few moments before it struck.
“Davis, get out!”
My eyes snapped open. I felt the familiar, burning phantom pain assault my mind and twisted my head to stare into a side-ways vanity mirror mounted right next to my bed. When my PTSD punched as hard as it did just now, seeing the reality of my situation helped me cope and mitigated the pain. It dragged my soul, kicking and screaming, out of that JLTV and into the present. With my left arm, I shoved my whole body up by pulling on a bar that served as my headrest. My eyes were milky thanks to my nightmares, but I fumbled for my smartphone and inhaled deeply at the time.
0300. Well, at least there’d be a full moon tonight. I’d have something nice to stare at instead of the ghosts that haunted the corners of my vision.
I cracked my neck and stretched to shake off the early-morning lethargy and slipped on my myoelectric legs and arms like an old pair of socks and gloves. I slowly meandered my way to the kitchen, made a quick BLT, slipped an orange wedge into a Blue Moon, and hobbled over to my backyard. The entire process took longer than I’d like; even with all my practice, I would never grow truly accustomed to my prosthetic limbs. Even so, I persevered through my lack of kinesthetic awareness. It just made the sandwich and beer taste all the better.
The night was clear and bright. The big city’s light and noise pollution didn’t reach this far south, so I could enjoy the Moon in all her beautiful glory. I reclined deeply into my lawn chair and toasted the sky.
“Davis. Shepard. Philips. Wish you were here.”
I didn’t know how many times I repeated this phrase. It was like a mantra or a prayer. I refused to give up, even when the depression and pain slugged me with their worst. But I didn’t do it for myself. Nor did I have any family to fall back on. No, I lived four lives for the three that couldn’t. Even with my limbs blown off and my face horrifically scarred, I made it my personal mission to get up and live. Maybe one day, I’d give up. Maybe one day, I’d be crushed. But it wasn’t tonight. And tomorrow held all the possibilities I could dream of, if I just reached out and took it - prosthetic hand or not.
I looked through my smartphone and smiled dimly. Life wasn’t so bad. I joined a cycling and shooting club for veterans. We met at least twice a month to cycle up and down the countryside with our weapons and gear packed on our backs until we arrived at an uninhabited part of the desert where we set up a makeshift and probably illegal tactical shooting range. I’d watch the boys perform familiar battle drills among the rocks while I plinked at steel targets with my good arm. I didn’t ask for pity. In fact, I was the one who carried most of the ammunition. I couldn’t train with them; my prosthetics would just slow them down, but I could support them. After we shot the day away, we’d pack the targets and any other heavy range equipment in a dug-out fox hole, cover it with bush and camo netting, bicycle back to town in the night, share a drink or two at a cheap, local bar, then split off and go home.
Those were the best nights of my month.
The deliciously sweet froth of an orange-loaded Blue Moon drew me back into the present. The chilled beverage staved away the summer heat and brought a refreshing sigh to my lips.
“Yeah. Not bad. Not bad at all.” This was good. Life was good. A little lonely and a little painful, but good.
Then, the Moon exploded.
I wasn’t sure what I was seeing at first. Another hallucination brought on by sleep deprivation, the heat, and the alcohol. But I forced myself to my feet when the lights all around my neighborhood started to flare up and panicked screams killed the silence.
“Get inside! Find cover!” I shouted, and my commanding tone echoed over the chaos. I inhaled my sandwich and drained my beer while I hobbled as fast I could across my house, filling every empty container I could find with water while the plumbing still worked. I even fished through my recycle bin for old bottles and spared enough time to shit, shower, and shave. I had no idea when I was going to have running hot water again so I had to savor this last night of creature comfort. I made sure to eat my entire tub of Rocky Road ice cream.
Ultimately, my one-story house was too big for me and most of it was dedicated to workout equipment for muscle strengthening and rehabilitation. I refused to let my disability define the rest of my life, so I forced what was left of my body to compensate for the loss. Never was I more grateful for my stubborn dedication to fitness than I was now. Against the wall, right by the television, was a gear locker. Without looking, I thumbed the code out of sheer instinct and turned on the television with my prosthetic.
All I got was static. The Moon just shattered into a billion pieces, so that meant any satellites orbiting Earth were destroyed. I switched to a local emergency channel. A man in a suit sat in front of a camera, hands steepled tightly over a folding table. He looked ashen. The background had a simple news logo, but what attracted my attention was the unadorned and dark concrete walls surrounding him. He was broadcasting from a bunker.
“All citizens are advised to remain indoors and take shelter in a basement or some other underground facility. Do not go outdoors, I repeat, do not go outdoors-”
I threw open my storage locker as adrenaline surged through my body. I pulled on my survival gear. Even before I joined the military, I was a firm believer in disaster preparedness. My military training augmented my knowledge and skill sets. I wore a dry-fit operational camouflage pattern combat shirt and my special issue desert pants. Unlike the standard-issue military uniform, they were lightweight and perfect for the season and local environment.
I slipped on my plate carrier, preloaded with all of my magazines and miscellaneous gear such as an offline map display with a fully downloaded map of the planet Earth. I clipped on my war belt that had my M18, hauled my 3-day bug-out bag, and slung my M4A1 across my body. Finally, I strapped on my ballistic raid helmet. I grunted at the sudden increase in weight. I specifically requested my prosthetics be made strong enough to endure an Approach March Load, but the pressure on my stumps was almost unbearable.
I slapped myself with my good hand. No time for pain.
Steeled, I brought anything consumable down into my basement, two loaded duffle bags filled to the brim with gear, my bike, and all 12 prosthetic limb variations. There was enough here to survive for a few weeks if I rationed properly and enough ammunition to make a US Army Supply Sergeant weep with envy. The smell of gasoline drew me over to the portable fuel tanks safely packed in a metal box. I checked for any leaks and tightened the covers just in case. Then I performed some PMCS on the power generator and my two-hand radios, one for secure communications, and another one for intel gathering off of unsecured frequencies. I plugged anything and everything that needed charging into a surge-protected extension outlet to ensure they were topped off and locked the triple-layer door system to my basement. Through my phone, I accessed my outdoor camera system and pointed one of them toward the sky to watch the fireworks.
So this is it then. The End of Days.
I twisted open another bottle of chilled Blue Moon, shoved an orange wedge into it, and watched the apocalypse happen in real-time. Countless red dots filled the air. Debris burning up in the atmosphere. I watched enough online doomsday videos to know what happens next: a horrific increase in temperature would scorch the planet at nearly 250C and kill most life on the surface. I could only hope my cheap little bunker was deep and thick enough to withstand the heat, otherwise, I was about to be baked in an oven of my own making.
I fell into a soft, leather armchair, and raised my bottle to the screen. “Cheers to the fucking apocalypse.”
After my tenth beer and my fifth snifter of Legendary Eight, I started to see white dust gently fall from the ceiling like snowflakes. Either it was ash or my entire house was about to collapse over my head. I watched, fascinated, with my emotions dulled by the liquor. I fully expected to die within the first two or three hours of the Moon exploding, so I blunted my panic by self-medicating on alcohol. My senses were so dull, the sweltering heat didn’t even phase me nor did the near-constant ache of my prosthetics grinding against my stubs.
If I awoke within the next 24 hours with a massive hangover, I’d chalk it up to a win.
“You are quite composed for someone about to die,” spoke a feminine voice that oozed liquid sex. I tore my gaze away from the ceiling to my workbench, where a naked woman sat, her legs elegantly crossed and her ethereal silver hair trailed down across her back down to her knees. What attracted me most was her eyes, which were red and slit like a snake’s. Her luscious curves were something out of an erotic fairy tale. But her presence was too real to be another hallucination.
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My lust consumed me for only a second. I wasn't some teenage virgin. I snapped my rifle at her and flipped the safety to semi-automatic. My aim with my off-hand was dogshit, but at this range, there was no way I’d miss even if I fired left-handed. My prosthetic weakly grabbed the vertical foregrip to stabilize my weapon as best it could.
“Now, now, there’s no need for that. I’m here to save you, William Fletcher.”
“Talk.”
She smiled to attempt to disarm me. I only raised my rifle from center-mass to her skull. “My name is Seras, and I’ve come to offer you a chance to survive.” She tried to stand but I straightened my back from my reclining position in response. She wisely chose to remain seated. “You see, your world is about to end in a flaming blaze of horror and death.”
“Yeah. I’m watching it happen.”
Seras craned her head toward my smartphone. The sky turned red from all the superheated debris falling from the broken Moon.
“Most life on Earth will not survive. The ones that do will either be forever changed. The small fraction that remains unblemished will be hunted down by what follows after.”
“So we’re all going to die.”
“I didn’t say that. From what I've seen, humanity is extraordinarily resilient. I estimate 50% of humanity will survive for some time.”
"What do you want?"
"Evolution. I wish to see what emerges from the ashes of this dustball. Perhaps it will be something extraordinary."
"And what does that have to do with me? I'm not exactly poised to live very long."
Her gaze drifted to my prosthetics and her smile widened until her teeth peeked between her lips. She could've given the Joker a run for his money.
"I can change that for you, William. I can give you the means to survive and thrive in your brave new world."
She flickered out of existence and then stood right in front of me, leaning forward so deeply I could taste her lips. They were sweet; almost as sweet as her promise.
"My arm and legs?!" The words came out in choked desperation as if giving voice to my desires would tempt her to take her offer back. She pushed my rifle barrel away and it fell to the floor. The mere hope of being able to walk again made me weak.
"All that and more," Seras slid into my lap, wrapped her legs around my waist, and laced her fingers around the back of my neck. Her weight, heat, and touch were real even if her appearance seemed ephemeral.
I swallowed. Not out of lust, but out of fear this dream might end if I spoke another word.
"Yes," she leaned into my chest and tucked her nose into my neck, just under my chin. "That's it. Submit."
Her fingers trailed up through my scalp. She massaged my temples with her thumbs, her eyes searching for something in mine. Hunger flashed across her face and she licked her lips in anticipation after a few moments.
Then came the soul-crushing pain when her fingers dug knuckle-deep into my skull. I screamed and tried to push her off but couldn't move my arms or lower body. I squirmed with my torso but her legs were wrapped around me tight like a bull rider in a rodeo.
"It's too late now, Williams," she purred. Then the pain blinded all my senses.
"D-Davis! Where's Davis?! He was in the-"
"At ease, Staff Sergeant," Ordered a medical officer. Major. I obeyed out of respect and reflex. He nodded once. "Take a second to breathe. You're in Landstuhl Medical Center, Germany."
I leaned back in my hospital bed, strapped down tight. Why wouldn't they undo the damn straps?! My arm and legs burned like hell!
"The rest of your squad were KIA."
My blood ran cold. My legs and arms burned even hotter.
"H-how about their families?" I grit my teeth. "N-next of kin?"
"Already processed all that. You did your Soldiers good, Sergeant. Your men's paperwork was squared away. No issues. Benefits went to who they needed to go to. Their families will be taken care of."
He exhaled through his nose. "It's you we need to worry about now, Sergeant."
"I need you to remain calm."
The pain in my legs and my arm. The straps. The grave tone. My pupils dilated as adrenaline rushed into my brain.
"Sergeant, you were in a bad way-"
No.
"-We did our best, but-"
I didn't hear the rest. I didn't need to. I screamed. Screamed and cried. The straps held even as I squirmed against them like a worm in denial.
I gasped. My vision was hazy, as it always was after the nightmares. I reached out with my left hand to push myself out of bed only to recall the last few hours in sudden, vivid clarity.
"Seras?!" My own echo answered. I rubbed my temples, wondering if it was all a fever dream from the extreme heat stress. I ran a hand through my hair to mat out the sweat.
“W-wait.”
I looked down at the beads of sweat covering my right hand. I could feel the moisture! It was dull, but I felt the lukewarm dampness as it dripped from my fingertips! I turned my wrist over and over then performed a finger drum roll across the chair's armrest. The rim of my eyes grew hot. Sensation. Movement. Control. I had it all.
I pulled up my sleeve and my pants legs. My legs and arm were an alien cross between dark steel and supple, pliable flesh. I used my left hand to stretch and test my new skin; it wasn’t nearly as elastic as human skin and felt like a combination of meat and plastic. The skin only reached up to just above my knees and elbow, but it was enough to cover my prosthetics and my stumps. I could hide my strange appearance beneath a long-sleeved shirt and a pair of pants.
I curled my lips into a giddy smile, and my grin broke into laughter when I slid my toes across the thin, basement rug, tracing every ornate thread and relishing the slightest bump. Sure, it wasn't perfect. But it was better than the blistering phantom pain. It was better than the numb, empty void it replaced.
Carefully, I rose to my feet and bent my knees. Then, I took a cautious step forward and fell onto my new elbow when my balance and gait misaligned. I braced myself for a spike of pain or even a broken bone, but all I had to endure was a bit of tingly discomfort. I rolled onto my back and inspected my arm, but there wasn't the slightest hint of a scratch or a bruise on my gray skin.
I retrieved my rifle from the floor and flicked the safety on. Even after all this commotion, Seras was nowhere to be found. I sighed in relief. Torn between anger, confusion, and immeasurable gratitude, I had no idea how to interact with her. Reading her intentions was impossible. She was too exotic, erotic, and enigmatic. Her unexpected absence gave me time to process my new limbs and the overall situation.
The radio was just full of white noise and the heat emanating from the ceiling told me it was still broiling on the surface. I did my best to recall all the science documentaries I'd watched about dinosaurs.
"The Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event stated that the Earth's atmosphere would hyper-heat after the debris from the asteroid impact fell back onto the planet. The Moon fragments should be producing a similar situation now. Theoretically, this plays out in one of two ways: the atmosphere heats up to 1,000s of degrees over a few minutes or 100s over a few hours."
I glanced at an old wind-up, grandfather clock next to my gun workbench.
"0700. So that meant it was the second scenario. I doubted my house would have survived the first extinction theory. I'd be baked alive by now; my basement wasn’t built to provide enough isolation against industrial furnace temperatures. Even with my portable AC, it’s still almost 100F."
I stole another glance at the clock. It may take a full day for the surface to cool to a survivable temperature. The moment I opened the basement doors, my insulation seal would break. I looked from one end of the room to the other and my grin returned. Time for a bit of physical therapy.
Over the course of the next four hours, I repeated some basic coordination exercises to rebuild my crippled kinesthetic awareness. I lived almost 12 years with prosthetics, so my new limbs were like I suddenly grew three tails. My balance was off, and it wasn't until the 2nd hour I was finally able to properly walk without stumbling.
I jogged in a tight, boring circle around my armchair. I even spread my arms and made airplane noises to stave off the boredom and mind-crushing silence. The only thing to keep me company was my reflection on the wall and my footfalls echoing against the walls.
When the repetition grew too unbearable, I opted to retrain my marksmanship with dime-and-washer drills. I cleared my rifle of ammunition and removed the magazine, dropped into the prone-unsupported shooting position, stuck a thin cleaning rod into the barrel of my rifle, balanced a dime on it, steadied my aim, and gently squeezed the trigger with my right hand.
The dime slipped off, representing the steadiness of my shot if I actually fired.
I rolled my eyes. 12 years ago, I mastered this dry-fire drill standing up, which was magnitudes more challenging due to the body's natural, innate movements. I reset the coin onto the cleaning rod and repeated.
This was a true exercise in total control of your minute body movements. Part of me knew it was far too early to attempt this, but I couldn’t help but relish the feeling of practicing rifle marksmanship again. I had hours to kill, so this was one of the more productive things I could have done instead of sitting and waiting for the scorching weather to return to a survivable temperature.
“You’ve adapted quite well,” Seras said. I looked up from the floor and saw her lounging on my armchair. I didn’t bother aiming my rifle at her this time. If she wanted to kill me, she could have done it when I passed out for almost four hours straight. I did a burpee off the ground and grinned at how effortless it was. My limbs were strong, even if I couldn’t fully utilize them properly. Yet.
I gave her a once over. She uncrossed her legs to give me a better view. Instead of arousal, I was disturbed and confused. Now that the element of surprise was gone, she clearly wasn’t human and was giving me uncanny valley vibes.
“Do you know what a nudity taboo is?” I couldn’t help but ask. She shrugged.
“If you desire it so badly, I can materialize with clothing. I chose a body that was most attractive to your tastes. What you see is ultimately an avatar, a placeholder for my true appearance. I don’t care much for how you view it.”
“So what do you really look like, then?”
She leaned forward, gave me a great view of her cleavage, then disappeared. In her place was a pop-up window that rapidly cycled through several dropdown options or expanded into different windows before reverting back into the base menu.
“This is my true form, William.” Seras’ voice echoed through my mind. I could tell the difference because there wasn’t any vibration coming through my ears.
“What are you? A video game menu?” I tried touching the boxes, but my fingers just went straight through them, or rather, they weren’t physical in the first place. They were superimposed over my vision somehow.
“William, you and the rest of humanity are now involved in a cosmic game that spans countless other worlds. And soon, those other worlds will come here to invade yours and take whatever Experience there is to claim.”
I blinked once. She was being completely serious. I took a calming breath and tried to read into her words as much as possible.
“So it’s a game? What are the rules and what’s the prize?”
“Mm. You are very adaptable.”
“I’ve been trained to improvise, adapt, and overcome, so it fits the bill,” I sat in the now-empty armchair. Technically, it was a Marine catchphrase, but it spread through the rest of the Armed Forces like a plague.
“The window in your vision is known as the Breath of the Cosmos. Most call it the System. The rules are simple: survive by any means necessary. Accrue power by whatever means you see fit. The prize? Everything you can imagine.”
“You’re being vague and cryptic on purpose.”
“Yes. You are not ready for the truth. My point is, there are no rules, except for those you make and those you choose to follow. There are guidelines, however. Typically, the more dangerous or difficult the ordeal, the greater the reward. Fortune favors the bold and the brave, as you humans say. Knowing that, what will you do now? How will you play this game, William?”
I leaned back into my chair and stroked my rifle like a pet owner would their cat.
I…
1. A) …will go out and use my new limbs to seize what this new world has to offer! If rewards and danger are proportional, I'm in for a massive reward if I went out now and somehow survived the heat (Rangers lead the way!).
2. B) …need to familiarize myself with this strange System and wait out the changes in the atmosphere. I’m still not fully confident in my newfound kinesthetic awareness (Prudence, caution, and discretion are the better part of valor.).