Prologue – Merger

Sam woke up to find all his family up way too early. Apparently, some news had just broken, and they were all seated around the big flat screen in the living room – he didn’t care what it was right now; a twelve-hour shift was on the horizon today at the grocery store, and he needed all the shut-eye he could get.

Blearily, he tried to go back to sleep, but his sister came in and ruined it.

“You’ve gotta see this, Sam! The president is on. It’s a national emergency, but they’re not calling it that…it’s a merger, yeah. Anyway, get up!” shrieked Sarah beckoning crazily in his doorway.

“Are, you for reals. Ok. But I hope you at least saved me some coffee.” he said, not believing this day one bit. A merger, even in his befuddled mind, spelled - takeover.

Ok. She was right. According to the president, it had finally happened – Aliens had arrived or soon would.

That seemed to be the general gist. As with all these things, there were very few actual facts known about what was going on. And over the next few days, the same infinitesimal amount of information did the rounds 24/7 on all the major news outlets. The spin was that they hadn’t come to blow up the planet but quite the opposite. They were informed it would be a chance for our universe to expand, finding endless opportunities, yarda, yarda , yards. Sam wasn’t sure whether he was too cynical for his age – he just felt pragmatic.

Clearly, many of the general population felt the same way as his store was inundated with shoppers clearing the isles of all essentials; some people also stocked up, not least of all on booze, as some were treating the whole thing like it was going to be a 4th of July celebration, complete with fireworks.

We were to be merged with another universe as the first phase before joining a whole multiverse.

And there would be some kind of transition period – no kidding!

Already there were talks of a selection of people from the population being used to trial this transition to ensure everything went smoothly when the real merger came about. This was the first sensible thing he had heard on the news – actually, the only sensible thing.

He hadn’t the luxury of even considering being a new recruit and needed to get back to work pronto, so he could at least help out with the rent and potentially save up a bit for his college fees and not feel like a total freeloader.

The days rolled by with nothing much occurring until the day came when we all found out exactly what transition meant. And it just so happened it was his day off, and he’d enjoyed a few beverages the night before and was nursing a slight hangover.

***

In a shopping precinct in a small town, Greg looked down at the remains of the creature he’d just downed; body parts and red sinew littered the tiled floor, a thick patina of blood hanging in the air – he knew it must be there, a dark orb filled with potential.

This was always the messy part trying to find the orb among all the body parts before time ran out and everything vanished into nothingness. Also, this was when many people fell prey to attacks – really there should be two of them in a group but recently things had got weird and nobody really trusted anyone else that much.

He breathed a sigh of relief as he found the orb, and scooped it up, then smashed it against his chest. Where It exploded into a plume of dark smoke that was immediately sucked into his body; no items or skills had dropped, but he’d, at last, got another level up, not bad, twenty cores in about an hour of grinding.

Even though he had some fifteen minutes remaining, he thought it best to head back. Giving his gear a final check and counting his remaining amo, he radioed a call signal to the other members of his team. Then made his way to their rendez vous point – the only location that had stood out when they had originally arrived, a church to the south side of the town where he remembered attending a wedding when he was a kid.

It was truly sad how the mirror realm really messed with your head, and I was just glad it hadn’t been his wedding in that church – now, that really would have sucked.

***

Back in a more mundane world, Sam was nursing what he has found out is more than just a hangover, struck down with some bug – he thinks, there goes my overtime bonus.

It was a really bad dose having him up all night coughing his guts out. Then hours of sickness turned into days and nights, all becoming a painful blur for him as whatever he had got seriously to work – which he should have been at. He was not the sort to take days off sick, especially as he needed the money, but this virus was the real deal. Sam felt as weak as a day-old piece of pizza.

On the fourth or fifth day, things became a bit blurry, so he wasn’t actually sure; he did notice everyone else in the family seemed to have caught it, too though – and felt really bad about this, but then consoled himself that he had tried to avoid contact and just stayed away, from others, zonked out in his room, for the past few days.

Finally, after about a week, his symptoms started to subside. He had had some kind of high fever, and his ribs hurt to move from all the coughing. Sam struggled lamely out of his room, feeling like he’d been used as a punching bag by some malevolent god, and got into the shower – it was freezing! Something was definitely up with the heating. But still, once he got used to it, he found it felt like heaven on earth, the cold water envigorating – like skinny dipping in the fall.

Apart from choking, like he’d been a long-time smoker – which he wasn’t cigarettes were a luxury he couldn’t afford. He rifled in the dark of the bathroom, searching the cabinet for painkillers but came up with nothing – a trip to the nearest drugstore was required.

He was completely washed out, but he needed to get up. If the rest of the family were as ill as he’d been, Sam would be the one who needed to get groceries as well as more meds. So he dragged on some clothes, his favorite green hoody, and, in the early hours of a Sunday morning, made it to the kitchen to have his first meal in a week to prepare for the day – some cereal washed down with souring milk.

He had noticed that the electricity was off. So that explained the shower. He got his phone to check the fuse box, only to find it out of charge. Instead, he found an emergency torch under the kitchen sink. It was a dinky one that he remembered getting at a bargain store when he was ten - you had to hand crank to generate a little bit of kinetic energy to make the light work. Sam smiled, remembering something his dad always said – You never can be too prepared, that was for sure; he hadn’t used it in ten years. Angling the light into the cupboard under the stairs, he saw it was, indeed, an outage – as no fuse tripped.

It was at this point that his addled brain started to wake up a little. Walking over to a window, Sam looked out at the city he’d grown up in –living on the 5th floor; his family had a pretty ok view across the south side of Theta city – though as he looked out, he could see not one building with lights on, across this part of the city. A power outage was not unusual, but the whole south side of the city – that had never happened before, to his knowledge. Too many parties to celebrate the merger? He wondered, no, that was a bit far-fetched. Something else must be happening, he thought.

Then it clicked city-wide power outage, everyone falling sick with a really bad virus – Sam really hoped he was wrong, but this felt like it was all connected to the merger. It made sense that they’d get a virus, coming into contact with people – scratch that, lifeforms from another universe with viruses their bodies had never even come across before. So did that mean these lifeforms were here? He wondered.

As Sam continued to look down, he could make out patches of illumination at ground level now, between the high tower blocks – Was that partying or maybe rioting? He couldn’t tell.

There was a clear sky, and the moon was out, so he would be able to see easily enough, which Sam was grateful for. He was tempted to go out onto our balcony to see if he could hear anything – police sirens, that type of thing, but he thought he better check on the rest of my family first to see just how bad they were.

Sam hoped they had faired better than him and felt guilty for not checking earlier, but he really had been out cold most of the time, so he tried not to blame himself too much.

Sam knocked on the nearest door – his sister’s; there was no reply, so he propped the door open slightly. She looked to be sleeping peacefully enough, though coughing intermittently, so he moved onto his parent’s room. Again there was no answer, but he could hear much louder coughing this time – so he went on in and was glad he had.

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They had clearly had it worse than him. Their bedroom was a real mess, and they looked pale as hell. He dumbly checked their temperatures, not knowing what else to do. And it was no real surprise to find that they both had super high temperatures. Again, not knowing what else to do as they were out of drugs, He made his way out of the apartment building after leaving a hastily written note for both his parents and sister.

Reaching the street level with a large bag of supplies flung over his shoulder, wearing sneakers and the cleanest t-shirt he could find, Sam pulled his hoodie down and searched for anything and anybody that might be able to give him information about what was happening or more importantly medication for his parents.

The street was absent of any people or traffic as Sam now made his way in the direction of the nearest lights he could see. There had been no sound of rioting; in fact, it was eerily quiet. Sam’s emotions were kept on pause for the time being, hoping that the local authorities had got everything under control – It is always best to try and think rationally in these situations, he told himself, and go with the facts he had and best not jump to conclusions.

As he got closer, he saw medics walking, people in plastic protective clothing going about their business, heading no doubt for what was clearly a medical checkpoint up ahead. At least he’d got to the right place, luckily. Sam approached them to ask what was going on.

He couldn’t really make out their expressions, but they seemed not at all thrilled to see him as they waved their hands frantically in the universal signal to stay back and pointed him in the direction of the medical checkpoint, which he assumed was up ahead.

When Sam got there, he could finally see where everyone had got to – they all seemed to be there in the mother of all queues. He spoke to an old guy with glasses at the back of the line, who was holding up an elderly relative who was choking her lungs out – just like his parents, he thought.

When the coughing eased up enough, he asked the poor guy a question.

“What exactly is going on? And can is it possible to get some meds here? My parents and sister are really sick.”

“Sorry you’re out of luck about the meds; I heard they stopped giving those out days ago. Suppose your parents are really sick. Your best bet is to bring them here to be admitted. Then they can get all the medication they want.”

Sam thanked the man, then thought about how sick his parents had looked and decided to head back to get them as quickly as he could.

The queue had been the whole way down the main street, and if there were as many more of these centers as he’d seen, from the lights in the city he’d seen from his apartment, then that was a hell of a lot of sick people – now he was seriously thinking that it must have been caused by the merger they had talked of. His feelings were now just a seething mess, mostly of anger, but with nothing and no one to release them at, Sam pushed them down and just got on with what he needed to do.

Just then, he cursed himself for not having driven to the center; he must have been more distracted than he realized.

Arriving back home, Sam hit the stairs taking them at double time and getting into the apartment, first looking in on his sister again – she still hadn’t risen or even checked his note. Placing his hand on her clammy forehead, which was slick with sweat - she roused slowly.

“Get me some aspirin, will ya! My head is splitting,” she croaked out. Sam broke it to her that that was a no-go and that they had to get out and down to the medical center if his parents were to get the attention they needed. This caused his sister to wake up a bit, no doubt realizing the seriousness of the situation from his tone.

“Are Mom and Dad ok?” his sister asked plaintively, trying to focus on Sam’s face in the dimly lit bedroom.

“Last time I looked, I’m just going to check on them now, and I could really do with your help if you’re up to it,” Sam said, as, in all honesty, he was starting to feel out of his depth.

“Give me a minute,” his sister replied, with some effort, pulling herself up in the bed.

“Ok. Try and hurry, though,” Sam said. The next half hour was spent trying to carry both his parents one at a time down the five sets of stairs – at least he wasn’t going up the stairs; he told me – realizing how out of shape he was and how weak the illness had left him.

By the time he had got them both down, his sister Sarah had managed to put on some clothes and joined him near the exit.

Next, they needed to get them into the car – Sam clicked the fob, but it was not working, so he just unlocked the car with the key but then found the reason no one had gone by car – the ignition wasn’t working.

The medical center was six blocks away, so after thinking for a moment. He set off jogging to his place of work, four blocks away, letting himself in to snag a shopping trolley – granted, it was an undignified mode of transport and not very comfortable, but as Sarah seemed pretty weak still and neither parent could stand on their own, he had no choice.

They eventually made it back to the queue. He thanked his sister for having the sense to bring a duvet in case my parents got cold – He used it to prop them up, which would make the wait at least more comfortable.

Rays of morning light greeted them in a golden halo as they arrived at the end of the line, making the scene appear even more unreal – Sam could see at least thirty mobile tents there, set up in this area alone, not unlike a war zone, depicted on the tv he thought to himself.

They were all eventually checked over, received tags, and were directed over to a transparent plastic, tent near the back. In the tent, there was a surreal morning chorus, not birds but coughing people throughout.

Sam tried to say he did not need a bed or the oxygen mask when he was offered one. But the guy just gave him a puzzled expression. Everyone else was given a mask to wear as they all lay down on metal hospital beds. Looking around, Sam counted there must have been a couple of hundred people in there.

A single person was standing, clearly there with a relative. Otherwise, there were no visitors. Of the patients, a few were sitting up to drink water or being sick, but most were asleep or coughing raggedly - most had masks, and some were fitted with heavier-duty breathing equipment.

The morning had clearly taken a toll on his sister Sarah. She was slumped back on a bed, sucking in lung full after a lung full of air from an oxygen mask. And soon was out for the count. Leaving Sam as the only one awake apart from two others on this ward, whom he politely nodded to. As there were so many people sleeping, it seemed impolite to start up a conversation, even though he was keen to see if they had any useful information.

When a set of doctors came around, Sam tried and failed to question them, as they clearly had no answers to give as they just looked flustered – one of the guys even looked younger than him and just gave them all a shot of something and left.

Sam spent most of the morning watching over his parents like a hawk. Now they had now been admitted; they had been issued with some painkillers, which he tried to get them to take every couple of hours. He looked down at their tired, gaunt faces, his heart in his mouth – he wasn’t a particularly religious person, but he started praying then and there to anyone who might be listening while, at the same time, cursing the politicians he blamed for this mess.

As the day wore on, Sam noticed that fewer and fewer doctors came into their tent – so, after about an hour, he went off to investigate – there was no one to be found. He shouted out, but no response came, apart from the partly delirious complaints of some nearby patients.

What the hell now!? He thought He didn’t at all like the way things seemed to be going.

He went hurriedly back to the tent where his parents were and stopped to think about what to do next.

It was then that Sam noticed that a few of the bed’s occupants were not stirring; as he looked closer around the tent, he counted five beds nearby where no one seemed to be stirring. He then went on to check the nearest. He felt weird looking for a pulse but, watching intently, could find none. Sam’s stomach dropped as he realized this was quite possibly worse than he’d feared.

Panicked, he thought about how he was going to get my family somewhere with doctors or at least drugs to give them a fighting chance. The metal beds were on wheels, but it was impossible to move the beds - as they were corralled in on all sides by other beds. But he would need beds and ventilators if they were going to get out of here.

So Sam tried to wake Sarah again - he didn’t feel too bad about this as she had actually stopped coughing….

His heart jumped as he looked at her, but then he let out a long breath as he saw her breathing had just paused and not stopped. As she had just scared the hell out of him, he didn’t feel too bad, shaking her gently awake.

“Sarah, we have to go, and I can’t do this without your help. We need to move Mom and Dad again,” he said in an emotionless voice.

“Again, but we only just got here…are you sure?” she said groggily.

“This is a cemetery,” Sam said quietly. Not sure how else to explain the state of the place.

“Oh, that’s a gross thing to say.” Said his sister, then added, “It’s not a very quiet cemetery, though, is it,” edging up on her haunches and looking around at the rows of thin pale, coughing creatures.

“I’ve counted about twenty dead that I can see from here, and all the doctors have left. So, yes,” he said in a low tone again, not wanting to panic the people whom he had no power to save.

He could see he had unwittingly freaked his sister out as her pupils had suddenly dilated, as she had taken in his words and the situation. But it couldn’t be helped, in fact – scared was good if it meant she was on board with whatever plan he would come up with to get them to safety.

Sam crossed to the end row of the tent, where the beds were closest to the exit, which was now flapping lazily in the wind, the mid-day sun beating down overhead. He watched for a second to determine who was alive and who was dead, then lifted two corpses onto the ground, tucking them under another person’s bed.

Sarah followed her brother over as he made three trips to deposit each of his parents and then the ventilators, which he managed to secure at the side of their new beds. Then they made their way out of the tent.

He could have gone for aid, but he didn’t want to be separated again from them - to leave them unattended was a risk he wasn’t going to take. So instead, he led the little procession, going slightly ahead while Sarah went at her top speed – walking or leaning speed, out of the tent city.

Eventually, they came across yet another, now abandoned, tent city. Where Sam pinched a couple of spare oxygen cylinders – as he could see by the gauge, his parent’s ones had depleted quite a bit.

There were a few people wandering back in their direction. A woman with a small child told them there was a checkpoint, but they hadn’t been allowed to exit from this area and were told to return to their home.

Sam wanted to see for himself. So when they came to the newly erected military checkpoint of concrete and haphazardly placed cars and vans. He squinted up seeing a guy who was not looking friendly at all, pointing his rifle straight at them.

He raised my hands in the air and shouted up at him, “How long before we can get through?” But was not surprised when the guy just shook his head. No doubt standard quarantine procedure.

Sam told Sarah, who swore bitterly. Then they started to make their way back to the only place they could think of – home.