Doomsayers are nothing new. In fact, you would be more hard-pressed finding someone who doesn’t believe in some sort of doomsday scenario awaiting humanity in the near(ish) future, than you’d be finding someone who does.
Of course, most doomsday scenarios, especially the religious, tend to have some sort of hopeful twist at the end.
Like, for example, the Christians will tell you that the world will end on Judgement Day. That, on that day, the armies of heaven and hell shall wage war across the earth and wipe out all life.
But, never fear, because as long as you went to whatever church the specific flavour of Christian preaching to you did, and served God in whatever way they believed was appropriate, you would get to chillax for eternity in paradise, while everyone else gets a lake of fire, or death, or whatever.
So, yeah, there’s nothing new about doomsayers. They’ve been around for millennia. They’re so common they’re practically a dime a dozen at this point, and many of them are even venerated members of society.
Now, while many doomsayers are respected, there are many who are looked upon as cuckoo psychos, and there is a three-part method to avoid being one of their number.
Number one; don’t look crazy.
Number two; never give a specific timeframe.
And the third and most vitally important; never ever ever mention aliens.
Kenneth failed at all three.
See, if he’d gotten into some crazy, appropriately dramatic accident, been rushed to the hospital, pronounced dead, and then four minutes later sat up and started prophesying about beings of great power descending from the sky to subjugate humanity at some nebulous point in the future, his family would have taken him more seriously right off the bat.
Instead, he had a seizure on his bed, frothed at the mouth a little bit, then started talking about aliens invading at 09:05.
So, instead of looking like some reborn Messiah, he simply looked brain damaged.
And that’s not something you want to look when you’re trying to convince people that Armageddon is coming.
Even his mother, who seemed willing enough to listen, was clearly only playing along because she thought that would be best.
She had some experience dealing with delusional people from her grandmother who’d died when she was a girl.
The poor woman had been sick with dementia in her final years, and Priscilla had come to realize then that, oftentimes, it was simply better to go along with her delusions (within reason) as the old woman tended to get aggressive when people contested her deluded beliefs.
After all, it wasn’t like her son was asking for much, simply for them to sit and listen to him talk. She could give him that much. And when his prophesied time came and went, she would take him to the hospital, and if he still wouldn’t let it go… well, she would let the doctor deal with that.
So, Priscilla and her daughter sat and listened to Kenneth talk about the future.
Jessica asked questions, of course, and though the answer to most of them (“Who are the aliens?” “Why’d they choose us?” “Where are they from?” “What do they look like?”) was an honest “I don’t know” on Kenneth’s part, there were some that he got them more information than they knew what to do with.
The more Kenneth talked though, the more uncomfortable both women got, because the more information he gave, the harder he became to write off as delusional.
They watched his face twist with wistfulness and amusement and sadness as he recounted events that never happened, with people that didn’t exist. They watched his eyes get lost in trips down memory lane, while his mouth told fantastical tales that he could not have lived.
Kenneth was not this good a liar, hell, hardly anybody was. Which meant that the boy was either very unwell, or somehow, someway, was telling the truth.
And as much as both women refused to let themselves believe the latter, both began to dread the clock’s inexorable march towards 09:05.
—❈—
Jane showed up at 06:02.
It was a bit earlier than the girl usually left home on a school day, but needs must.
Fortunately, she lived only a few minutes walk away, and her mother (the only family she lived with) had left before five that morning for a trip to Lagos to visit a close relative who’d lost a husband, so there had been no one at home to bat an eye at her leaving earlier than usual.
Jane’s arrival gave Jessica an excuse to take a break from the morning’s (hopefully temporary) weirdness, and the seventeen-year-old grabbed onto it with both hands.
Not that it mattered though, because it turned out that the morning’s weirdness, namely her brother and mother, could walk.
The Eze house was a four-bedroom affair nestled within a gated compound, and as Jessica went outside to open the gate for her friend, her family followed behind her, stopping at the verandah.
“Good morning, Ma,” Jane said to Priscilla as she approached the house, only for the woman to respond with a curious; “What are you doing here this early?”
Kenneth let out a quiet sigh. “Jessica must have called her,” he said. “Probably as backup in case I suddenly decide to wear my boxers on my head and start flinging poop at everybody.”
Despite herself, Jane smiled.
“Well, not for those specific reasons, but pretty much,” she said, ignoring the stink eye Jessica shot her way.
Kenneth smiled at her, a strange look in his eyes.
“I missed you,” he said.
All three women stared at that, surprised by the simple admission.
It was no secret to anybody there that Kenneth had a massive crush on Jane; it was why the boy always got tongue-tied whenever the girl showed him even the slightest attention.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
As much as they all wanted to brush off Kenneth’s words as those of an infatuated boy however, they clearly weren’t, and it became yet another of the growing list of irregularities about Kenneth today.
Almost like he couldn’t notice the attention on him, Kenneth said; “You should hang around today. Help look after the crazy guy.” He gestured at himself. “Besides, I’m sure you’d love an excuse to skip school. Cause, I’m pretty sure I remember Jessica being the nerd in your relationship.”
“True, she is,” Jane agreed immediately.
“Great. Come in,” he said, turning around and walking inside.
There was a moment right after where the three women exchanged confused glances. Then Jane shrugged, and like Kenneth said, they went in.
—❈—
The next couple hours passed without much mention of aliens and supernatural, future wars.
Part of it was because after the lull that Jane’s arrival caused, nobody really knew how to (or, more accurately, wanted to) kick start all the weirdness again.
As though if they pretended it wasn’t happening, then it wouldn’t be.
And almost like he could tell that was what was happening, Kenneth said nothing either. Instead he bathed, dressed in simple comfy clothes, and then sat still in his room with his legs folded and his eyes closed.
When Jessica first saw him through the open door of his bedroom, she had to stop and ask.
“Are you meditating?”
“Yes,” he answered without opening his eyes. “One must always go into battle with a focused mind and a calm spirit.”
“Uh-huh,” she intoned. “Okay, Yoda.” She walked away.
Jessica had expected Kenneth’s ‘meditation’ to last all of two minutes, if even that. The boy was chronically incapable of sitting still, after all.
As she should have expected on this unnatural morning though, Kenneth didn’t move.
He sat there on the floor, back straight and eyes closed, minute after minute, and hour after hour. Effectively creeping everyone out by doing nothing.
“What if it’s real?” Jane asked suddenly.
Jessica didn’t even dignify the question by asking the expected ‘what if what’s real?’ She simply shot the other girl an annoyed look.
“What?” Jane asked defensively. “We’re already treating it like it’s real. I mean, I don’t know if you noticed but we should be in school right now.”
“We’re not treating anything like it’s real,” Jessica argued. “We’re humouring my brother so that in—” she checked the time “—one hour, we can take him to the hospital without him having a leg to stand on.”
“Okay, fine,” Jane relented. “But just… hypothetically though, what if it was real?”
Jessica looked at her friend. “Then hypothetically a lot of people we care about are going to die,” she said.
The ‘like your mother’ didn’t need to be added. Jane got it.
“Right,” the other girl said.
Right indeed.
—❈—
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
The clock moved slowly and unstoppably towards 09:05, and the closer it got without Kenneth doing or saying anything, the more antsy everyone got.
Their mother had tried to distract him (and herself most likely) with breakfast earlier, but the boy had turned it down. Saying only that he would eat “after”.
Now it was 08:31, and Jessica just couldn’t take it anymore.
She near stormed over to her brother’s room, entering through the open door and—
“We need to talk strategy,” Kenneth said, opening his eyes.
They gathered in the living room for what, Jessica hoped, would be the final phase of this nonsense.
“So, when you say strategy, what exactly do you mean?” Jane asked.
“As I’ve said before, The Arena matches the threat of the monster to the capabilities of the people facing it together,” Kenneth began. “It’s why I made sure we’re all here together; the people closest to you are sent with you as your group.”
“How many are in each group?” Jane asked.
“I don’t know,” Kenneth admitted. “There’s no fixed amount. But those who were alone went by themselves, and those who were within five, ten feet of people were sent with those people.”
“Sent to the arena?” Jane confirmed.
“Yes, and the monster scales to match the ability of the people in the group,” Kenneth said. “The first time I was alone; I was peeing when The Challenge started, and I had to fight some cat monster. Yet, even with all the Abilities I had it still almost killed me.
“I knew this guy, Magnus, he was at some sort of conference when The Challenge started. He went to The Arena with like a hundred other people and they had to fight a literal dragon.”
Jane’s eyes widened. “A dragon?” she asked. “In round one?”
“There were a hundred of them,” Kenneth reminded her.
“Even so…” the girl didn’t look too comfortable with the thought of having to fight a dragon, and Jessica wondered if letting her come over for this had been the best idea after all.
“That’s why we need to be ready,” Kenneth said seriously. “And it’s why we need to have a plan before we go in.”
Jessica paid attention to Kenneth’s plan, but, honestly, the whole thing was so strange and weird, and the tightening in her chest that worsened as 09:05 came ever closer so distracting, that she zoned out on much of what he said.
Jane paid attention though. The girl had always been into all that sci-fi, fantasy stuff, like really into it; she was even working on her own original story. So, Jessica suspected that all of this was low-key feeding her addiction.
It was kind of annoying, to be honest.
By nine o’clock everybody was watching the clock.
Kenneth had shared his plans with them, and he sat again now, back to his silent meditation.
No one spoke. Jessica wanted to try, to break the silence if nothing else, but it felt too fake even to her ears, so she gave it up.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
The seconds marched past, one by one, and the tenseness of the room thickened.
Everyone was nervous, everyone was on pins and needles. Everyone but the asshole who caused all of this.
He was as tranquil as a lake on a windless day.
“Okay, how are you so calm?” Jane asked finally.
“I spent six years in The Challenge,” Kenneth said. “I’ve fought and died more times than I care to count. This is a regular Tuesday for me.”
“It’s Monday,” Jessica pointed out, while Jane focused on something more important.
“Wait, ‘fought and died’?” she asked. “You’ve died before?”
“No, he obviously hasn’t,” Jessica snapped. “Can’t you see that? He’s never fought or died, because there’s no aliens and no challenge. This is either some elaborate prank he made up or he’s just delu—”
The ringing of an alarm cut Jessica off, and Jane picked up her phone.
“I set a timer,” she said. “It’s fifteen seconds to 09:05.”
And, because she was just that kind of person, she began to count down with the second timer she’d set for 09:05.
“Ten… Nine… Eight…”
Priscilla reached out and took both her children’s hands in hers, squeezing tightly.
They squeezed back.
And it was only upon seeing this that Jane came to a realization.
“I should have called my Mom,” she said.
The timer hit zero. The alarm rang. Hearts skipped beats and breaths were held as everyone waited for something to happen.
Nothing did.
A second passed. Then two. Three. Jane turned off the alarm and tsked.
“Well, that was disappointing,” she said.
Jessica looked at her brother, who looked as confused as everyone else, and with the unholy fury of pissed off women everywhere, she screamed; “Kenneth, you piece of—”
She was in a void. Formless. Sightless. Motionless.
And a Being said/thought/wrote/transmitted to her:
WELCOME TO THE CHALLENGE, JESSICA EZE.
PLEASE CHOOSE YOUR BOON:
PRECOCIOUS | PRODIGIOUS | TENACIOUS
Somehow, despite being formless, Jessica went cold.
“—shit,” she whispered.