746 YEARS LATER
“Hm– Ow!”
Mark covered his face, anticipating another slap. Horan, meanwhile, pulled his hand back. “C’mon, up you come. Omet sent me to wake up the people who haven’t come down for breakfast yet.”
Mark slowly opened his eyes. “...People? Plural?”
“Yup. You, Quet, a few Greeks.” Horan flicked his hand and Mark’s blanket flew off of the twin-size bed. “So I’ve got a few more people who need the same treatment.” He hovered back to the doorway of Mark’s sparse bedroom. “Honor system, dude.”
While his friend went down the corridor, Mark wondered how they were supposed to have breakfast sans Quet. Nevertheless, he slid out of bed and grabbed a set of clothes from their pile on top of the dresser. The same set he had been wearing for what was now years, the hoodie and thoroughly ripped T-shirt were the sole clothes in the entire pyramid that both fit and looked good on him, a high bar that Horan had set for him.
He traipsed dow
n the spiral staircase in the middle of the pyramid’s foyer, waving lazily at the Primoi assembled in the general vicinity of the dining room table. He nodded at the Primoi around him as he pulled out a seat on one edge of the table. “Yup, I’m not seeing Quet. Seems like we missed a step here.”
One of the Aztecs sitting across from Mark shrugged. “Not like this is some big surprise.” She groaned. “I know this is a bad look, since you aren’t really familiar with Quet’s normal rhythm, but I swear she usually gets up earlier. She needs to stop binge-carving glyphs, it’s not like we’re on a deadline.”
“Eh,” mumbled Mark, absent-mindedly staring down at the wood grain on the table. “Can’t really speak for her, but she seems the type to get stressed when she’s got a giant hole in her, uh, collection.”
The Aztec rubbed her chin and nodded. “Occam’s razor, I suppose. You’ve learned her habits well.”
“Plenty of exposure.”
The Aztec on Mark’s left cackled. “Yeah, she totally gave you the talk when you were in the Down Below, didn’t she?”
“Don’t ever phrase it like that again.”
-
Omet scurried into Hurat’s room and closed the door behind them. They looked around at the pristine bedroom and sighed. “Sorry I’m late. A lot of us slept in, last night’s board game session lasted way longer than anyone planned.”
They split in two and began to comb the room. The yellow-eyed version continued the one-sided conversation. “Turns out, we had a whole stash of old editions in the basement. Testing every single one out against the newest versions was not a good idea.”
The purple-eyed Omet shrugged as they opened up a glass case full of Hurat’s old mini-figurines. “That’s kind of simplifying, isn’t it? It was a bad idea timewise, sure, but it was still fun.”
“Spending an hour rooting around the whole house just to have enough game pieces to play isn’t really my definition of fun.”
The second Omet carefully placed half a dozen resin figurines back into the case. “Point made. Sorry, Hurat, by the way. Had to bust into your stash. I made sure not to lose any… By which I mean I duplicated the whole set and ended up losing half of the ones we used.”
The first Omet nodded in assent while they flipped through a manual and made sure Hurat’s guitar was tuned properly. “Turns out, there’s a reason why you put some time between dinner and family events. Most of the old games we played are covered in stains. I’m sure we could wash it off, but water plus painted cardboard isn’t a world-renowned combination. We ended up just throwing away most of the boards.”
“Which is a shame, it turns out a lot of the old game designers knew what they were doing a lot better than the ones who made the latest iterations. Maybe we can recreate the better versions from memory.”
The first Omet shot their doppelgänger an unimpressed glance. “A statement like that implies that anyone here could or would ever actually get around to doing something like that.”
The second Omet shut the case and extended their hand towards their counterpart. “Worth throwing the idea out there, at least. No harm done.”
“Yeah, like I wouldn’t say the same thing.” The first Omet hung the guitar back up on the wall and shook hands with the other Omet, fusing the two back into a single Primus.
Omet took one last look around Hurat’s room before making a tally mark on a dry-erase board next to the door. “Apparently, managing a Domain and a half without messing up is a pretty tough job. Guess there was more going on with you under the hood, huh?”
They slowly closed the door. “Okay, Horan probably woke up everyone else, I should head downstairs. See you tomorrow morning.”
-
Horan found Quet lying face-down on a wooden desk scored with burn marks in her room, her folded arms being used as a makeshift pillow. Several carved stones lay strewn about on the unoccupied surface of the desk, and a book lay open and propped up against the wall. There also seemed to be a copious number of miscellaneous crumbs strewn across the burnt spruce.
Other than that, the room was shockingly clean, given what Quet did in it. The lower half featured smooth, clean walls, with the furniture keeping a respectful distance. In the corner, a spiral staircase led up ten feet to an obviously DIY wooden platform that almost completely blocked a ground-level view of the ceiling. That high up, the walls were indeed covered with colorful posters and framed photographs, more in line with what one would expect of Quet’s sleeping spot.
Horan was surprised by how long it took him to notice the laptop on the side of the desk playing some kind of radio broadcast. It appeared to be three men discussing the viability of microwaving grapes, but the audio was sped up just barely too fast to be easily followed.
Horan attempted to stop the broadcast, only to recall that he had no idea how these portable computers functioned. And where in the world would the radio broadcast even be coming from? He ineffectually pressed several buttons on the keyboard that he thought would do the trick, then opted to just shut the laptop. The disembodied voices stopped a moment later.
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
The laptop seemed to have been left running overnight, leading Horan to question the battery power of the laptop. Then again, he had only been dimly aware that portable computers were even a thing, let alone being familiar with their typical longevity. He turned back to the unconscious Quet and sighed. “Okay, this is just depressing.” He leaned over Quet and flicked his hand, creating a gust of wind that brushed past her ear.
“Wha–?!” Quet bolted upright, and the force of her weight hitting the back of her set made the chair begin to topple backwards. Horan held his hand palm-up and created a cushion of air under the nigh-horizontal chair, stopping it from hitting the ground.
Quet pulled herself upright and looked up at Horan. “Good evening.”
Horan looked over at the clock on the wall. 7:38 AM. “Maybe you should get a clock for your desk.”
Quet followed Horan’s one-eyed gaze to the time, then wheezed in shock and clambered off of her chair. “Wha– did I fall asleep at my workbench? How?!” She tasted her mouth. “Ugh, I didn’t even brush my teeth?”
Horan followed Quet out of her room. “I keep saying, this is what happens if you don’t call it a night. I don’t think there’s a time limit for glyphs.”
Quet wiped crumbs from her shirt and skirt. “Maybe not on a day-to-day basis, no. But I did the math, you know. If I keep doing five stones a day – that’s only three-ish hours out of my day – my full kit will have been replaced by November ninth. It can be like a birthday gift to myself!” She groaned and struggled to shake the last remnants off of her shirt. “Now I’ll have to do double-time tonight.”
Horan waved his hand again and the more tenacious crumbs were blown off of Quet. “Wasn’t, like, half of your collection just food storage?”
“Correct.” Quet took the stairs down two at a time, Horan casually floating straight down next to her. “That’s why I intend to do that last. Leftovers from now to November that naturally arise should cut down on workload at that point. You think I didn’t plan this out? You insult me. You wound me.”
She arrived at the bottom of the stairs and jogged over to the table, hands behind her back so as to not show everyone that her fingers were searching for something to tap. “What’s up, nerds? Sorry for coming down late, that’s on me.”
One of the other Aztecs waved her off. “Eh, happens. At least food’s coming now.”
Quet froze mid-stride, waited for a moment, spun on her heel and went back up the stairs. “I– I’ll go get the right matrices. Ugh, it always hits all at once…”
Horan watched her pass him by. “You should really just set an alarm, otherwise things like this happen.”
“Loud noises that close to my head aren’t a good start to the day, okay?” A few feet up the steps, Quet turned around and pointed at the door at the back of the kitchen, elsewhere in the foyer. “You guys can go root around in the pantry, if you’re somehow desperate.” She continued hurrying up the stairs. “Just put everything back where you found it when you’re done!”
Mark sighed and got up. He seemed to be the only one at the table to do so. “Well, that’s definitely a start to the morning.” He stopped by Horan on his way to the pantry. “By the way, are you doing anything today?”
Horan shrugged. “Same amount of nothing as always. Still going through the Aztecs’ full collection of VHS movies.”
“That’s not a pressing thing for you, though, right?”
“Yup. Why’re you asking?”
“Just wanted to know what my options are.” Mark opened the thick steel door to the pantry and started examining the somewhat sparse shelves.
Omet passed Quet by on their way down the stairs. They waved at the Primoi around the table as they took their seat. “Morning, everyone. Got a bit of a late start to the morning, I see.” They took their seat between Horan and Saralai around the head of the table.
The other Primoi did little to acknowledge Omet’s presence, listlessly awaiting any actual sign of breakfast. Several were talking with those next to them, a few more were eyeing the pantry, from which the sounds of Mark’s rummaging emanated. A few Greeks ended up deciding that the wait wasn’t worth it and got up to leave.
Horan read the room. “Hey, uh, you guys think that this is all we’ll be doing for the next few years? At least, um, until our pantry runs out and we have to start thinking about how the resident human doesn’t starve?”
Omet raised their eyebrows at him. “That’s still a year or two off, isn’t it? Did something happen?.”
“No, no, just…” Horan leaned back. “Maybe I’ve grown a little used to the nomadic lifestyle out there with Mark or something, but I think I’m starting to get a little antsy by now. I guess I’m more comfortable with daily monotony when the world outside is changing fast enough to be entertaining to watch.”
Saralai glanced at the empty kitchen. “...Your point being?”
Horan shrugged. “I dunno, really. I’ve just been feeling more on-edge recently. Do you think we can start thinking about heading out there and checking out how the world’s going? I feel like it’s been long enough since Hura...” He decided to clamp his mouth shut rather than continue along that subject.
Before anyone had the chance to change the subject to something less uncomfortable, an abrupt and loud knocking came from the front door. It sounded like whoever was on the other side had battering rams for hands. The entire room instinctively shifted into their human forms, the table now coming up to their collarbones. Even the sounds of Mark rifling through the pantry stopped.
Omet stood up and walked to the door. They turned around and looked at the other Primoi while walking backwards to maintain direction. When the knocking began again, now even louder, Omet struggled to speak over the noise. “Okay, no problem. Worst-case scenario, they’re just looters. Unless push comes to shove, we’re just squatting in some Nabbed millionaire’s holiday estate, is all. No need to w–”
A red-hot, rocky hand punched through the door and turned the interior handle, which made Omet recoil away from the entrance. The door was pulled open a crack and the hand retracted, leaving a jagged hole in the dark wood. While the door was pulled open, Omet heard a familiar voice pipe up.
“Hey, um, anyone still in… here…?”
Waia stood in the doorway, staring blankly at Omet. It took Omet a moment to recognize her, and another few to fully take in just how much of a mess she looked like. Still shifted into her human form, her clothes were mud-stained, torn and filthy, her hair was in disarray, and the bags under her eyes would be better described as lumps. Clumps of lava were dripping off of one hand and onto the ground.
Omet recoiled slightly. “Wha– Waia? What happened t–?”
They were cut off as Waia lunged forward, wrapping her arms around them and burying her face in their shoulder. After a long and uncomfortable silence, she pulled her head up slightly and whispered into Omet’s ear. “What day is it?”
Literally nothing about this morning was going in the direction Omet had expected it to. “Uh… May. Ninth.”
Waia did some quick math in her head. “I haven’t spoken to another person in… I dunno, I’m too tired for numbers. Just let me in.”
Omet extricated themself from Waia’s bear hug. “Okay, can you please explain why you’re just showing up? This is kind of a lot! Wha– I– what happened to you?!”
While Omet was trying to calm Waia down, Saralai leaned over to Horan. “Is this just an Aztec thing, or are we supposed to know who the human hobo is?”
Horan shook his head. “Nah, she’s a friend. She’s that Hawaiian we told you about, the one that helped us with that business with the Norse.”
The Greek next to Saralai choked on his glass of water. “When did you meet a Hawaiian?!”
Horan sighed. “I’m not telling the whole story again for each one of you, you’ll have to trust me.”
Meanwhile, Omet was getting nowhere with Waia. “Okay, let’s just slow things down, start from the beginning. We’re having breakfast, and you can tell us why you’re here and all that at the table.”
Quet hurried back down the stairs, stuffing stones into her pocket. “Okay, sorry about that, again, but I’ve finally got–” She noticed Waia standing next to Omet, then gestured fruitlessly at her sibling. “I was gone for three minutes.”