I wake up with Gerard clinging on to my arm. I gently wiggle free, and slide out of the bed. I walk into the kitchen, Calvin eating a bowl of cereal and Sal eating a granola bar.

“Hey, do you want me to drive you to school or something?” I ask.

“No, we’re good.” Sal says.

“You sure? I don’t know how many of the bugs are still running around, but I don’t want you to run into one of them.”

“It’s safe now. There’s no bugs in cities anymore,” Calvin says.

“We like walking anyways.” Sal says.

I go back into the bedroom, to see if I can find my phone. Gerard is sweating and shaking from a nightmare.

“Hey, hey. It’s alright.” I shake him awake.

Gerard grabs my arm and holds it tight.

“Jessie. Jessie,” he whispers.

“I’m here, Gerard. It was just a nightmare.”

“It wasn’t. You were gone. Alisa died. It’s not just a dream.”

I sit with Gerard while he calms down and tells me about his dream. About seeing Alisa collapse to the ground in front of him, about waking up and I’m gone or a dead body next to him.

Once he’s finished we sit in silence for a while.

“Do you want some coffee?” I ask.

“Yeah. That sounds good.”

I put a pot of coffee on. The kids left while I was talking with Gerard. I walk around the house while waiting for the coffee to finish. It’s got a lot more clutter than I’ve ever seen in it before, with books, craft projects, and video game consoles lying around.

Gerard’s in the kitchen by the time the coffee finishes, and he pours us both a cup.

“Did you take today off as well?” I ask.

“No. Wednesdays I always have off. My coworkers insisted on it. They wanted me to start going to therapy then, but that probably won’t happen now.”

“Why not? It definitely seems like you’re still dealing with the affects–“

“We can’t afford it. We ran through our emergency savings quickly, I wasn’t working and even moving in with my parents was somewhat expensive because we needed to buy beds. My coworkers had found this support program for people who lost spouses to the bug attacks, and they had some group therapy I was going to try out, but I don’t qualify for that anymore.”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ll get my job back or get a new one, and we should be able to afford something for you. Who knows? I might end up scheduling some sessions for myself. I don’t think spending that long in that anthill could have been good for me.”

“I’ll look into it, once we’re financially stable again.” Gerard says. “And hopefully once there’s less of a shortage of therapists.”

“I’ll hold you to that. What’s your current job?”

“Construction. The bugs caused a lot of property damage in the first round, so there’s a lot of demand. And like every field, there’s a shortage of workers.”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

I nod, and drain the last of my coffee.

I take Gerards cup and put them in the sink adding, in with the kids’ bowls. I should wash those later.

“You mentioned you had my phone,” I say.

“I’ll go get it.”

Gerard returns, my phone in hand. The case is scratched up. The phone is dead. I plug it in, and leave it to charge while I wash the dishes.

The doorbell rings. “That should be Albert,” Gerard says. “He texted to say he was going to stop by around this time.”

I ask Gerard to get the door while I start putting away the dishes.

Gerard puts aside the laundry he was folding and welcomes Albert in.

“Hey Albert!” I say, “So I’ve been thinking since yesterday, two days ago? And I’ve come up with some questions to ask about how the video game has ported over.”

“I can’t answer why it happened. That’s for philosophers, theologians, and scientists to puzzle out.”

“Nothing like that. More mechanics.”

“Those I can answer, or can figure out.”

“Okay, so the bugs kill people. How does that work? Do you get injuries and die relative to your health or..?”

“If you’ve been through the tutorial, it engages through the video game system entirely, you just get the messages of the attacks, very few affects. If the health runs out, the bug hunter dies. For people who haven’t been through the tutorial, it attacks them like a giant bug. They get injured and then things progress normally from there.”

“Oh. Okay.” I stare at Albert’s feet. “We can go sit down in the living room.”

Once we’re seated, Albert asks “Do you have any more questions about mechanics?”

“If my health bar decreases, then do I just get random injuries if the bug doesn’t physically attack?”

Gerard enters the room, “No. You’re perfectly healthy from a health of ten, all the way down to a fraction above zero. At zero you drop down dead.”

“Right.” I remember Gerard’s nightmare. I turn towards Albert. “I think that’s all the questions I have for now. I’ll probably find more later. But you mentioned you had something to discuss with me.”

“I have a job offer for you,” Albert says. “You mentioned you maxed out the amount of skill. I had to look into that actually, I hadn’t realized that was still a thing. But because of that, you’re probably the most powerful Bug Hunter out there. And well, I do sort of manage the Bug Hunter’s Guild, and having someone on who could take care of any bug— you think you could handle a boss?”

“Probably. I have all the immunities but magic. I think I could get a really high damage output as well.”

“That would be really helpful. We haven’t had to fight a boss yet, but a Swamp Darner showed up in Cuba. It… we lost a lot of bug hunters. Having someone like you on call would be great for that. We don’t have a lot of strong hunters, and I don’t want people to be forced to push themselves further than is safe.”

“I could do that. I don’t know what fighting a bug is like, out in the real world. I should also have you help me figure out good combos sometime. But I think being on standby is something I could do.”

“I was also wondering if you would be willing to do some shifts just clearing some of the higher level bugs. The stronger hunters are overworked. I was thinking maybe one or two day shifts somewhere in the country.”

“I don’t travel for work,” I say.

“I’ll leave you the details– do you have your phone yet? Or email or something?”

“Yeah, my email address I have access to. At least the gmail one. My phone is charging I don’t know if it’ll work yet.” I say. “I’ll think about the job.”

“We’ll need to get the cell plan back on your phone, reactivate it or get a new one. I don’t know if they’ve reassigned your number,” Gerard says.

“I’m glad you’ve got your email; I had planned to print out the job offer that we got written up for you, but I forgot. I would have had to send it to Gerard. Sending a job offer to a woman’s husband seems kinda wrong.” Albert says.

I laugh.”Yeah, that would seem very old-fashioned misogyny.”

The door opens and Sal and Calvin enter.

“Oh, hi Albert! It’s Sal. Could you help me with my math homework?”

“I was just about to leave, you could ask your mom to help.”

“But you’re better at it!”

“Most of the problems you solve yourself when telling me what steps you took. You could try doing that with your mom,” Albert says.

“I could. But you can actually explain things.”

“Ask your mom for help. If you can’t figure it out, you can then call me, ok?”

Sal nods. “Ok, fine.”

“Well, if you don’t have any more questions Jessica, I should get going. I’ve got some meetings I’ve been putting off.”

“Have a good rest of the day then! Good luck at those meetings, I guess,” I say. I don’t know what meetings he has.

“Oh, I won’t need luck. Good day!” Albert leaves.