Chicago did little for the housing market, and the houses worth buying on the market were often little. That was the case of our house. Three bedrooms, with one of them being little more than a full sized closet with a even smaller bathroom attached, with an all brick exterior and too much ivy growing up the sides. It was a cozy little home, but not any place to raise a family. The neighborhood was cramped, but the house sat inlaid into a lot that was too large for it, meaning we got the functional parts of an side path and a back yard but not so much for a front.

Half of a finished fence sat trying to give privacy to that little patch of dead grass we called our yard, a project my dad never got to finish. When him and my mother found out they were pregnant with me, he allegedly sold everything to buy this place, and marry my mother the same week he heard the news.

He hadn’t wanted me to be a bastard. That much I respected him for.

Now the house looked down right awful next to the ruins of the city. Smoky sky as a backdrop, ruined buildings all around. There was a small truck that looked like it nearly rammed into the house, crashed through part of the half-fence and into the neighbors building to the right. It was fortunate that the house was made of brick, because the truck had burned.

I didn’t check if someone had burned with it.

Instead my gaze was on the shattered glass of the front door, the wood frame around it having been slightly caved in to whatever kicked it open. I gulped. I wasn’t ready to see my mother and brother dead, but every part of my heart felt like I would. It was a guarantee at this point, they wouldn’t have survived.

My shoes crunched glass, and I felt the sole wobble from being detached, likely in my earlier run or fight. I drew my empty gun, and moved up the accessibility ramp, and in through the front door.

Home. Safety. Words I’d usually associated with the place. The entrance hallway had a place for keys, but our car hadn’t been driven in some time - saved for Noah, when he got his license in a few years, not for me, who couldn’t have ever driven, or a mother who couldn’t remember her own name, much less her driving tests. The entrance hall was a mess.

Something large had moved through. Wood panel was cracked along the walls, and the floor had indents, and where the entrance hall opened up, there was blood. Lots of blood. I felt my knee’s wobble, and my heart fall hard, at how much scarlet there was, splattered not just on the floor in great big blotches, but also on the ceiling, or on the walls. I could’ve counted places it was, rather than it wasn’t.

I didn’t dare call out my brother’s name, or for my mother.

Walking further in was my only option. I stepped through the puddle of blood, and into the dividing section. The hallway carried the trail of blood all the way down, past the small family bathroom, my mother’s bedroom door, my door, and my brothers which sat on the farthest left of the hall. The other two splits were to the living room, and kitchen, on my right and left.

I took a peak into the living room. My mother wasn’t there. Her spot, which quite literally had an indent in the cushions from her sitting there, was empty. No corpse, and I nearly gagged from the relief. I didn’t bother checking the kitchen.

I carried on.

To my mother’s bedroom, first door on the right. I opened it, and peeked in, and she wasn’t there either. Just her medical bed, old television for day’s she couldn’t get up, and her closet open. All of her clothes were scattered. On closer inspection, the sheets on the bed were removed as well.

The bathroom to my left was checked next. It took was in disarray, the tiny cabinets open, toilet paper missing, essentials gone. Someone had ransacked the place I was realizing. I checked my room too, but surprisingly it was untouched.

The blood trail’s path was my brothers room, and I felt my body begin to quiver. I shook, and felt pain in my heart, and felt my eyes flood with tears. I stopped halfway down the remainder of the hallway, and glanced at one of the family pictures that littered the area.

My dad. The large man, a brick shit-house as my uncle called him, portly in the stomach with thick shoulders and a thicker beard. He was shirtless in this picture, and was the hairiest thing I’d ever seen. Next to him was my brother, Noah, much smaller back then with a shit-eating grin and too many freckles, my mother, the pale beauty she was, with straight black hair and big hazel eyes, and me, the future mess. I was happy in that picture. My curly hair was long, and I was missing my front teeth, but I was smiling big and happy.

The thought that only one person in that picture may have been alive made me choke back a tearful sob, as I glanced to my brothers room. I simply didn’t want to look, but I needed the finality. I’d find him in there, trying to shield my mother, both dead, maybe in his tiny bathroom.

I gulped back another choke, and took my steps through the puddles of blood. The remainder of the hallway, maybe only a few feet, felt like it was the longest walk I’d ever taken, and it took too long to step into the open door.

So much blood. It was everywhere, dripping from the ceiling even.

In the middle of the room I found myself staring.

It was a large mass of flesh. Green, muscled, with patchwork pants and no head, but I was noticing the splatter of it everywhere. Larger than my father by far, the monster lay defeated, its head blown completely off, with nobody else in sight. No Noah, no Mom. Only after checking the bathroom did I finally let myself sag with relief. My knee’s splashed in the puddle of the creatures blood, but I didn’t much care, I found myself simply staring at it, knowing that it hadn’t killed my family.

I cried for too long, I think. It was hard to gauge the time, but it was enough time that I heard the car outside shut off, and the door open then slam, carrying through the hallway from the open front door. I sobbed mightily, and thought I’d break something in my chest with each hiccuping gasp for air, and ever violent shudder that went through my body. I’d held it in all day, I’d been so strong, I’d fought monsters, and finally the dam had broken.

I hadn’t noticed when mister Alvin came into the room, and swept me up, I only started bawling more again him. He’d taken the time to pick me up, and carry me into the living room, and dropped me down onto the couch. Eleanor had come into the home as well, though he made her wait at the front door as he grabbed old blankets from the closet. My mom would’ve reamed him with a stare for even considering using her fancy sheets, but the old man dutifully cleaned the blood from the floor before letting his daughter walk through.

He scrubbed for what must’ve been too long a time, because the light from outside started dwindling, and it got darker in a way that wasn’t just because of the perpetually overcast sky.

After a while, I managed to calm down. I hadn’t cried like that in a long time, and I still wanted to scream, to fight and throw something, to see Aifleial again and really give him a wallop. That was a little part of me, partially suicidal and partially insane, that was talking. The warmth in my chest liked that idea though, and had been steadily growing as I cried.

I guess a good was what I’d needed for a long, long time.

“I made us some coffee. You had some old instant stuff in the back of the cabinet, probably still good.” Alvin broke the silence, setting down a cup of coffee for me, and a plate of cookies. He’d helped himself to the kitchen, and I was thankful.

The coffee was old, probably stale, something my mom used to drink, but I couldn’t focus on the taste as I sipped it. Eleanor was watching me as I did so, and I gave her a little smile despite myself, and she looked away when I do so.

“They must’ve gotten away.” I said, breaking the silence. Alvin nodded.

“It seems so. They must’ve gotten the same tools we did, when all this happened. Mighty strong to kill that beast like that.” Alvin spoke, and he sat on a wicker chair across the small living room, next to Eleanor who had opted to sit on the floor.

“Yeah- maybe. My mom was uh, mental problems, y’know? She had early onset Alzheimer’s, on top of a lot of other stuff. BPD, Anxiety, Depression, issues with her motor skills, even before her brain got foggy. Bad stuff.” I said.

Alvin was a good listener, and didn’t take his attention from me as I spoke.

“She mostly sat where I am, and didn’t move around much. We did the best we could, and my uncle kept us from being carted off to CPS, but really we were alone in this whole thing. My leg’s didn’t work before today, so my brother took care of us.” I was just talking to talk, and gingerly touched my legs as if I’d break them again. I noticed Alvin shift as he followed my gaze to my legs, the elderly man leaning forward in his seat.

“Well, if that’s the case then, maybe she’s…. Better now? Not trying to be insensitive, or nothing.” Alvin spoke, gesturing to my legs, and I waved him off. “I’m an old man, I’ve not been in the best of health myself, and it’s only been getting worse. Today though, I move like a young man. You’ve gotten your legs back. Maybe your mother is better too.”

He smiled, big and wide, and I was stunned. I hadn’t considered that much. Whatever happened during the onset of the apocalypse, it’d returned faculties that people hadn’t had before. Alvin was a modern day Hercules, despite his age, and I’d been able to walk again. I nodded, and smiled to him, he was giving me hope.

“Thank you, mister Hofmann.”

“Nonsense, call me Alvin. You don’t mind if I raid your home, do you? We should get supplies. You go take a bath if we still have running water, and change your clothes.” He said, and gave a glance to my outfit.

It was true, I needed it. My clothes were still shredded in places from being attacked by those little creatures, I had all sorts of blood on me, some now that wasn’t mine, my sneakers were in a state of ruin, and I was only just drying from a mixture of rainwater and too much sweat. The wounds on my stomach and arms had healed only a fraction, and had scabbed over, and I knew they needed a little more medical attention.

I smiled gratefully at him, and walked off, while he stood to go check the kitchen. I heard the television come on not long after I started running a bath, and was grateful that electricity and water were still running in this area, and knew it wouldn’t be long before those things were gone.

The bath was something that I’d been more grateful for than before. Sure, the club had showers that I’d used a few hours back, but it wasn’t a comfort zone and everything was clinical with its white and blue tiling meant to not offend the senses. Here was my domain. I poured special bubble bath liquid my friend Chelsey had gotten me for my last birthday, I lit candles with some matches that were left in the medical cabinet, and even turned off the lights to enjoy the ambient dark. The color of the water almost immediately changed as I sat down in the bath, but I’d shower off again a second time alter, and enjoyed the bath for what it was.

It warmed my chest again too. The nourishment of the soul I was finding. Resting had refilled that cavity, as had the water in the car and sips of coffee just prior, the cry had done wonders, and now the bath was finalizing the job, and it made the linger ache’s or stiffness in my body fade as I supplied those spots with that warmth.

Mana.

Magic.

I remembered Eleanor controlling the rain, and hovered my hand over a bubble. I tried flooding warmth into my palm, then I tried ejecting it from my hand, then I tried dipping the hand and that warmth in the water entirely, and nothing happened. It was the same as when I flooded my muscles with warmth prior, I didn’t muscle out like Alvin, despite becoming obviously stronger.

Are the rules different for everyone? Eleanor can turn water into a weapon. Alvin can muscle up. I can make myself kind of athletic, I guess. Maybe there’s more I can do, too.

The rules of magic were entirely unknown to me, and I started to wonder if there were any rules. Was there an underlying system in place, or was magic simply magic, meant to be strange and uncertain? I didn’t quite know. I hoped it had some sense of logic and reason in place. I didn’t want to muscle up like Alvin did, but being able to kill things with jets of water sounded pretty useful.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

As I thought of water, I noticed how filthy the bath had gotten. I quickly drained it, stood, and showered off instead, and once done I wrapped myself in a towel, both my hair and body, and peeked out into the hallway. Alvin was nowhere to be seen. I didn’t quite care much, but I still liked to be decent, so I took the opportunity to quickly sneak to my room. The blood was mostly cleaned, fortunately, so I didn’t risk slipping or dirtying my feet.

I darted into my bedroom and closed the door.

To be back in my room was surreal, after what felt like a lifetime of stress that crammed into a single day. With night setting in, I turned on my light, once again thankful that power was still on. I doubted it’d be for long. We’d be staying here for the night, I assumed, so I decided to wear my pajama’s to bad. Pink, fluffy pants with little blue bears plastered on them, and an overlarge top that was once my dad’s, with some obscure old cartoon I didn’t have a name for.

It was an armor of sorts for me. The comfort of familiarity was nestled into my heart as I stopped in front of a vanity mirror, and took a brush to my short hair. Too short. I wrinkled my nose, cursing myself for what I’d done to it.

Through the brushing, I heard rustling in the living room, and felt a twinge of annoyance. I didn’t like strangers ransacking my house, no matter how friendly they were. At least it offered me some safety. I turned and dug under my bed for one of my storage cube’s, dragging out too many and making a mess across my room. I was looking for an old bookbag, found it, and dumped all of that years notes and books onto the floor. While my pajama’s were comfy, I wanted to have a change of clothes ready, and back up clothes that were actually mine, for when shit inevitably hit the fan.

I chided myself at the thought. The irritation and continued lingering trauma of the days events were making me more comfortable with cursing, something I’d tried not to do. My dad didn’t like it. He never swore once that I could remember.

I swerved my bed and walked over to the closet to open it up, and dig for my clothes. I was thankful my room hadn’t been ransacked. At first I’d thought looters had hit the place after the fact, but now I was coming to the conclusion that my brother had left in a hurry. Maybe my uncle had picked them up, after hearing word of the apocalypse.

He lived too far away to have made it before the monsters touched down, so I knew it wasn’t that. Maybe they were just outside, in a ditch somewhere face down.

I flinched, and opened the closet door.

“Shiriyah!” A voice cried from it, and I was outright startled. From the closet, in a blur of movement, came something too large in too wrong ways. Thin arms and a frame too tall folded out in a war-cry of a scream and tackled me, causing me to scream in return. It was large, or maybe it was long, with a torso that was half of mine in width, and arm’s that were longer than mine by half in length. It clawed for me, and I fumbled back against my bed as it hefted its minuscule weight my way.

I immediately punched once my startle turned to a different kind of fear. My elbow pivoted back, fist closed, warmth filled the arm, and I hit the creature in the closest approximation of a stomach, and it flew. Right back into the closet it was thrown from my punch, and it slammed into the wall in a mess of limbs, hitting hard enough to knock down the above shelf and send items tumbling onto its head. It was mostly limp, and I heard it sob.

“Please don’t kill me, I’m sorry, please.” It whined, and I realized it was a female now. Sitting on my floor, huffing, I glared at it, seeing the heavy braid of hair that obscured its face. The creature didn’t have a nose, and it’s eyes were too large, though its skin was roughly the same color as mine, pale and without freckles or texture. It’s limbs were long, and as thin as its torso, and it would’ve been tall if it had room to stand, but the ceilings of my house had been low.

It was almost human. Almost.

“Don’t move!” I rose to my feet with support from my bed, and it flinched and covered its face. I had instinctively drawn my gun, and was using it as an intimidation factor. Fear of the unknown I was finding was extremely effective, these monsters had no clue what a gun was.

Seconds after I had stood, the door burst open, and Alvin was in the room as an expanding mass of muscle and confusion. I saw Eleanor peak around the corner, holding a cup of water in her hand with dangerous intent. Somehow, between the muscled super human, and the weird stick person, I felt she was the monster dangerous thing in the house at the time.

“What happened?!” Alvin yelled, staring at me, then staring at the stick-girl. He went to step forward, and she flinched again, which made him stop as well. His face looked as confused now as I felt, and I finally lowered my empty gun.

“She was in my closet.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean too I swear.” It muttered, and sunk down into itself more, covered in my clothes, and miscellaneous junk that had been stored on my over-head closet shelf.

For not the first time today, I was at a loss for what to do, and so was Alvin.

Eleanor however, was not. She peeked into the room, stared at the stick-girl, holding her glass of water like a veiled threat, and then the little girl walked in and past both me and Alvin. She crouched in the doorway of the closet, in front of the stick-girl, and stared.

The stick-girl peeked between her fingers, and stared back.

“I’m Eleanor.” The little girl spoke first. She still held her glass of water, in a non-threatening manner, though I doubted the creature could register the glass as a threat.

“H-Hi Eleanor.” The stick girl whispered, and Eleanor smiled at her. It was a tiny smile, but it was the first emotion that wasn’t pain or apathy that I’d seen on the face of the child.

“Why were you hiding in the closet?” Eleanor asked.

“I heard people come inside, and I was scared.” Stick-girl replied, still a whisper, and she looked to me with those wide too-circular eyes.

Eleanor nodded and stood up, offering the stick-girl her hand.

I glanced the way of Alvin, and he glanced at me with a shrug. For a moment he was a kindred spirit, as we both knew that Eleanor was not in danger. She was the danger. That cup of water was better than my empty gun and his muscle mass by large, and for that reason neither of us had stepped in to stop her.

It also may have been because we both started feeling bad for the creature.

The stick-girl stared, big wide black eyes seeming to be stuck on Eleanor’s hand, before she cautiously took it, and climbed out of the closet.

I stepped back, as did Alvin, just in case she tried to lash out at one of us.

“Oh. You weren’t stealing?” Eleanor asked.

“N-No! Not- kind of. I didn’t know anyone lived here, I swear! I thought everyone was rounded up.” The stick-girl asked, and it was only now that I was noticing that she was wearing my clothes. Too tall, too lean, but she’d put on one of my school shorts and made it look like a crop top, and a pair of shorts that couldn’t hug her legs properly. Her thickly braided hair was filled with my hair bows, hair clips, glitter and other miscellaneous things that were mine.

“Rounded up?” I asked now, and she visibly flinched, and bared her teeth at me. I almost expected them to all be sharp, but they were rounded and as weird looking as she was.

Eleanor tugged on her hand, and got the stick-girls attention again.

“Y-Yes, rounded up. Orders of the K-King. Children with magic, young women with a lesser degree, that kind of round up.” She spoke, and then quickly flinched as she glanced at my face. I must’ve been scowling. “I’m not part of the round up, though! I- I’m just here to uhm, set up?”

“Set up?” I asked. I was quickly following up with her words, giving the creature no room to speak.

“Yes! We’re told to gather valuables! Baubles! My people are treasure gatherer’s, so we were brought along with the others like us. This is your room? You have very pretty stuff- oh! I’m sorry.” She spoke, and then seemed to notice me looking at her hair, the stick-girl quickly trying to pull the many things she had stuck in her hair out.

I shook my head.

“Keep it.”

She looked up at me, wide eyed, as if she’d just discovered fire. The stick-girl nodded, and looked at one of the hair clips in her hands, seeming to admire it. It was a cheap little thing, a glittery byproduct of my youth that she must’ve dug from the closet. “It’s beautiful.”

I blinked twice in surprise.

“You don’t have those kind of things in your world?” I asked, and she shook her head again.

“N-No! Our kind are cave dwellers.” She said.

It was weird to talk to one of the invaders. Sure, I’d spoken with Aifleial, but it wasn’t friendly, and it certainly wasn’t what I’d call a chat. This girl was almost normal, ignoring how stretched she looked. I still didn’t trust her, and was glaring just a bit.

“Were there two other people in the home? What about big ugly back there?” Alvin asked now, and seemed to be trying to defuse the situation.

The stick-girl shook her head quickly, sending her brain slapping back and forth behind her.

“Nobody! He was dead when I got here. It was strange, Ogreckis don’t tend to like confined spaces, so something must’ve antagonized it.” She said.

That didn’t sound good. It meant that someone had been chased through the house. Noah, maybe? I thought that much, but was perturbed by the thought of him killing, both that he did, and had to in the first place, something that large and dangerous looking. If his magic worked like Eleanor’s, maybe. It was hard to decide if I felt relieved, or not at all.

“What’s your name?” Eleanor asked, her big eyes staring back into the stick-girl’s even larger orbs.

“Mellaraskithvan.” She said.

“Mel.” Eleanor nodded sagely. “I’m Eleanor.”

The stick-girl, Mel, seemed to be terribly confused. She reminded me of a praying mantis, all wire and a perpetually dumb look on her face, and I wondered if that was my clouded judgment getting in my way, or if she really did just look that dumb in the face. I didn’t dislike her. I knew I was just firing off anger at the first thing I could reasonably blame.

I sighed.

Alvin took my sigh as a sign of defeat, and gestured to us all.

“Come, let’s sit in the living room. Mel, would you be ok answering some of our questions seeing as you did break into this young ladies house?” Alvin asked. Mel gaped at me, as if she hadn’t considered it a breaking and entering.

“Yes! So sorry, again, I’m very sorry, it’s just my job.” Mel bowed, and I shrugged. I didn’t want to say anything catty, so I left the room, and Alvin joined me, follow by Eleanor leading her new friend through the hallway.

It surprised me how much Alvin got done in such little time. The windows in the living room and kitchen were all covered in thick blankets to block vision from the outside, in the case of someone managing to see through the blinds. The front door was closed, and apparently the locking mechanism was broken, so Alvin had slid a shelf against it, and then the kitchen table in front of that as well to completely block us in. I doubted that it would hold against anything major, like the thing in my brothers room, and that door on a glance back was closed entirely. The room had been arranged with heavy blankets and pillows on the floor, for sleeping, and the coffee table had been covered with the kitchen tables sheet.

The smell of something cooking in the oven wafted to me, and my mouth salivated. I crossed the room to sit in my mothers usual seat, while noting that my bags had been brought in, both of which still soaked from having been thrown down during my fight.

The others took various spots around the room, with Mel sitting cautiously on the floor, her long legs crossing. Her posture was terribly, and her hair was constantly in her eyes, leaning her to look ghoulish to me. Eleanor didn’t seem to much mind, and sat next to her, finally putting down the cup of water that she wielded in the same way I held my gun.

“So, Mel, can you tell us about this…. Invasion? I’m afraid we’re running on little information here.” Alvin asked as he sat in a wicker chair, and had deflated back to his usual old and fragile looking self. Mel for the most part gave a sharp shrug, staring at him, and then flickering her gaze back to me.

“Iblis came to us not too long ago- he said he had jobs for our tribes. Treasures. The capital was in uproar, we were all celebrating. The God’s were dead, y’know? It was cause for celebration.” Mel spoke, and both myself and Alvin pitched our eyebrows up.

“God’s?” I asked.

“T-The Pantheon.” She said, and I noticed Mel stuttered more with me. I wondered if I really punched her that hard.

“Ah. Like…. Jesus?” I tried, and she stared at me blankly. I looked to Alvin, and he shrugged.

“Who is Iblis?” Alvin tried now. It was clear Mel wasn’t going to be our greatest source of information, or maybe she would be given that we had no other options.

“Iblis? The King. Ah- different names. He goes by lots of different names. Such is the seat of the King. Our kind call him Iblis. Other’s call him Mammon, Typhoeus, Mephistopheles-“

“Satan.” I interrupted her now. She nodded, and I felt my body go cold as I stared back at her. I nodded, or maybe I was rocking back and forth, at the news. To say I was stunned would be the understatement of the century. I was fine with goblins and dragons and all sorts of other stuff, but hearing such a grounded name made me cast doubts on the fate of humanity. The world.

“What does he want?” I asked.

“That’s- complicated. Our world is kind of messed up, you see? The Iblis before the current Iblis ruined things. He started lots of wars, and held too much powers. They say under his rule that jungles turned to deserts, and the rain to acid, that eroded the lands and spread the sands. He fought God’s and Demon’s alike, and ultimately was killed, but the damage was done.” Mel explained, and my frown deepened. “So, Iblis wants your world, I guess.”

“He’s strong?”

She looked at me and I remembered something my dad would say to my uncle. Does the pope shit in the woods? A malaphor, I’d learned from the Internet, a mixing of two terms. It still stuck in my head as Mel looked my way with those black pits that she called eyes.

“They say all of his generals combined could not take him out. Even the Pantheon struggled with him. When I was a child, we got to witness it. Titan’s in the sky. He fought eight God’s and eight Archangels alone, and the battle lasted for four days and nights.” Mel spoke in awe and reverence, and my stomach dropped more and more as I imagined the man.

“And why is he gathering Human’s?” Alvin asked, since I’d found a frog in my throat. I’d tried to speak, but my mouth wouldn’t make normal sounds.

Mel shrugged.

“Not sure. I guess Human’s are problematic. We have them back home, resistance groups, but mostly used as cattle for Vampire’s and stuff.” Mel said that, and it might as well have been a one-two punch. First the casual dropping of the devil, then the mention of Vampire’s.

I thought about Peyton. I thought more about her mother. Was that what she’d seen me as? Cattle?

“Where are they taking the captives?” Alvin asked, and he was now glancing towards me with his brows knit in worry. He was picking up the wrong details from my expression, making a conclusion. Sure, I was worried about my family. It would remain the focus of my mind. But the devil? Vampire cattle? It was more overwhelming. I could imagine my family safe. I could have hope. Those two details made hope feel worthless.

The Devil ruled the world. Peyton saw me as livestock.

I put my face in my hands, and leaned forward, elbows on my knee’s. I groaned.

“They’re being gathered near where the gate opened. North. Something’s happening tomorrow afternoon, Iblis is holding a large meeting, we’re all supposed to attend for our own safety apparently.” Mel spoke, and when I glanced up I noticed she was looking at me with worry on her features as well.

“Okay…. Thank you, Mel, for humoring us.” Alvin said, and sighed as he glanced towards me. When I heard there was a meeting, my back had straightened.

Me and Alvin were often on the same page. This was not the case here and now. I had to go to that gathering.

I had to see Peyton again. I had to know if my family was alive.