Oxford, Oxfordshire
United Kingdom, Earth
15th December 2026
07:55 Hours
Alex Crosswood had never been an exemplar of human life. He’d been raised by upper middle-class parents, achieved above average grades, and gone to an above average university for a comfortable if boring life in finance. Everything he’d done had been in pursuit of what he believed he needed to be. He had never griped, never complained, and certainly never rebelled against the curated life his birth had given him.
Even while frustrated, lying on his couch, and eating yesterday’s cold pizza, he wouldn’t necessarily say he was dissatisfied. It was more than he simply had… regrets.
“Yeah mum, I heard you,” Alex said into the phone perched between his ear and shoulder, his grease-covered right hand idly holding his second to last piece of pizza. “I’ll be there, just like I promised.”
He listened to the reply while stuffing the last piece into his mouth, unremarkable brown eyes watching the weather report blaring on his television. Another stormy winter day.
“Yup, I know. I’ll make sure I bring the… Yeah, I know, I…” He sighed as he was interrupted again. “Mum. Seriously. I got it. Relax.”
Another wave of response, and then Alex reached up with his left hand to grip the phone. “Yeah okay. Love you, too. Bye.”
The phone was pulled away and clicked off, and he tossed it onto the couch with a grunt. Parents were, in many ways, the inevitable reflection of one’s own future—whether someone liked it or not—and could often leave a significant feeling of dread at the idea of what the future might hold.
For Alex, it was more akin to resigned acceptance.
His eyes drifted back to the TV and then hesitated. A flicker across the screen caught his attention, and static replaced the weather report. A loud whine came from the flatscreen, and he stared at it in confusion before jumping at the sound of a strange crackle-pop and blinking when the programming seemed to change abruptly.
A pair of scarlet eyes stared at him.
“Re… clai… mer…”
Alex raised his eyebrows and, with a heart racing faster than he wanted to admit, clicked off the TV. The weird image seemed to almost burn itself into the dying pixels for a moment, before the screen went black.
“Must be the weather,” he assured himself while putting it firmly out of his mind.
He quickly cleaned up any crumbs or wayward toppings from his disposable plate and stood with a grunt, wincing at his own movement. I really need to work out. He chided himself, glancing down at the slight protrusion of his belly and shaking his head. He’d been relatively fit, years ago. Now he was less so. Not obese, but certainly not ‘in shape’ either.
“Right then,” he muttered to the empty, one bedroom apartment. “Time to get ready.”
Twenty minutes, a quick shower and a fast shave later, Alex looked at himself in the mirror.
Dirty blond hair, brown eyes, and a face that might have been handsome if not for the encroaching fat stared back at him. He looked every single one of his twenty-five years.
“Time to be a good son,” he muttered to himself, before going through the process of putting on his clothes. A simple white tee, dark blue blazer, and a pair of nice jeans on top of some white canvas shoes. A blend of formal and casual, perfect for a family event.
Another five minutes and he checked his phone, noting the time and going over to the small kitchen nearby his living area to grab the wrapped gift his mother had asked him to buy. A smoothie maker of all things. Perfect for his baby sister and her dopamine-fuelled addiction to Instagram modelling and fitness.
Alex left his apartment a moment later, locking the door behind him and turning to take the steps two at a time down towards the building’s gated garage. He traversed them quickly, still mulling over the thoughts of the party surprise for his sister. Cassandra was turning twenty-one. It was a big day for her.
“Can’t forget the flowers…” he muttered to himself absently while he opened the door to the garage and stepped out into the brisk morning air. His eyes scanned the lot for his car, and he beelined to it the moment he spotted it. Of the few things Alex owned that he truly treasured, his car was among them: A sleek 2020 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, painted black with a double-parted red racing stripe down the centre.
It had cost him an immense amount of money but importing it had been one of the greatest moments of his life. Others might not have seen the value or worth in the car, but he’d loved American Muscle for years. Ever since the first Transformers movie.
Finance might not be glamorous, but damned if it didn’t pay well.
Alex reached into his pocket and thumbed the remote start, bringing the engine roaring to life and opening the passenger door with another click. Inside he deposited the gift, and then jogged around to enter the driver’s side door quickly.
“Flowers, flowers…” he muttered as he opened his phone, typing a quick search and locating the nearest and best rated flower shop. A quick attachment of the car’s USB-C cable later and he buckled on his seatbelt, shifting into drive and pulling out of his chosen parking space.
Five minutes and a short wait later, he was cruising down Woodstock Road towards Oxford proper, and the blinking dot of Clarendon Centre almost forty minutes away. Green grass and open views flew past at his sides, but he had no time for any of it. Knowing his sister, there would be ample amounts of atrociously healthy food at her party, and he was definitely not in the mood for another vegan burger.
“Wendy’s, maybe?” he asked, eyes glancing up at the sky.
Storm clouds covered the sky as far as he could see, and his wipers were already in full gear to account for the downpour of rain and sleet. Thankfully his car had a ‘Snow’ setting for better control, but the entire atmosphere was depressing.
His hand went to the radio to turn it on, and the moment he did, he was hit by the sound of static and distorted voices. He frowned at the interface screen and prodded it a few more times, without success.
“Re… clai… mer…” the same weird repeating noises. “Ne… phi… lim…”
Alex stared at the radio and then promptly shut it off with a whine of static. He swallowed to ease his racing heart. Definitely a weird amount of storm static, but nothing horribly out of the ordinary. Probably just a weird radio drama or something.
He didn’t dwell on how hollow that sounded to his own mind.
Instead, Alexander’s eyes flicked to his central dash screen at the advent of a blinking ‘incoming call’ notification and he sighed in relief when he recognised his sister’s number. Bracing himself, Alex hit the green icon and put on as cheerful a voice as he could muster.
“Good morning, birthday girl.”
“Lex you jerk!” His sister shot back over the line, drawing a wince while he drove. “You were meant to be here an hour ago!”
He suppressed a sigh at the aggrieved nature of her tone. “Yeah... sorry. I overslept and—”
“Really Lex? On my birthday?”
“I know, Cass, I know. Sorry.”
A long-suffering sigh came through the other end, and his sister’s voice turned rueful. “It’s alright. I honestly expected you to show up at like midday anyway.”
He paused for a minute, and then snorted while his fermenting guilt melted away. “I’m guessing you enjoyed that.”
“Enjoyed what?” she asked innocuously, as if she hadn’t taken the chance to needle him.
“Alright, Cece,” he said shrewdly while using her childhood name. “What do you want?”
“Your company!”
He snorted. “Sure, and what else? Answer quickly or I will assume you don’t want anything else.”
A pause followed, and then she laughed. “Okay fine. I really need some new blush. If I send you the picture and stuff, can you get it for me?”
He groaned. “Why didn’t you do this yesterday?”
“I was busy!” she insisted. “Besides you’re my big brother, and it’s my birthday. Sooo…”
“Alright, alright,” he grumbled. “Just send me the bloody photo and I’ll grab it when I’m at Clarendon.”
“Awesome! Thanks so mu—Why are you going to Clarendon?” The shift from glee to suspicion was so fast he absently wondered if he could get whiplash from emotional changes.
“Wendy’s,” he admitted idly.
“Gross!” she shot back. “Lex, you know that stuff is, like, absolutely awful for you!”
“Uh huh,” he said with a suppressed grin.
“It is!” She insisted. “It’s greasy and fatty and absolutely gross.”
He raised an eyebrow and glanced at the screen, despite the lack of video. She was very transparent. “So, what do you want?”
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
A few seconds of silence followed his request, during which Alex could quite vividly picture her face scrunched up in annoyance, before she spoke again. This time her tone was quieter, like she was acknowledging and mourning her sudden defeat.
“Burger. Large meal. Extra sauce.”
He snorted. “What happened to ‘mushroom meat is the future’?”
“Listen, that’s true! Just, you know, for girls without my metabolism. God Lex, I am, like, craving something gross.”
He laughed. “You got it, little sister. Anything else?”
“Choccy shake.”
“Cassandra!”
“Shut up! Don’t judge me! It’s my birthday! Choccy shake, burger, and lots of chips!”
He laughed again at her demanding tone. “Is that all?”
“You’re a jerk!” she said with a stereotypical younger sibling's whine.
“I’ll see you soon,” he snorted.
“Okay,” she said happily. “Love you, Lex.”
“Love you, too, Cece.”
The call disconnected and Alex chuckled to himself, accelerating slightly to keep up with the local speed limit. He’d need to make it to the party sooner rather than later, or his sister would be too mortified to eat in front of her friends.
It wasn’t as if he and Cassandra had a bad relationship, after all; they were just very different people. She was a social butterfly, beautiful and confident like their mother. Alex, however, was an ambivert—with clear bias towards the ‘introvert’ side of the spectrum. He was most comfortable by himself with a book, grinding an MMO, or watching a movie.
“Bloody hell, it’s coming down a bit hard…” he muttered as the storm intensified, squinting at the road ahead. “Maybe I should slow—Ah!”
A flash of lightning lit the world white, and thunder shook him and the car.
England was known for its storms, but that had almost seemed targeted.
Alex barely managed to keep himself driving straight, his heart pounding in his chest like the sonorous beat of a war drum. “Holy shit!” he exclaimed. “The bloody hell was that about?!” Talking to himself, he’d found out, was not as strange as he’d first believed. It was supposedly common for most people to have an inner monologue. It was less common for it to be external as well, in the vocal sense, but not all that rare. It was a nice balm against feeling like a crazy person from a badly written book.
“I really should finish Mother of Learn—shit!”
Another lightning bolt lit up the sky, and Alex found himself veering badly, struggling to control the car. Between the sleet on the roads, the high speeds, and the sudden violence of the weather it proved more of a challenge than he was remotely comfortable with. To make matters worse, he could have sworn he heard someone banging a massive gong in the middle of the thunder. It was… insane, really.
“Come on, damn it, come on!” He snarled as he managed to make the traction control properly find its ground, a shaky sigh of relief building in his lungs.
That’s when a third bolt of lightning, this one burning its strangely blade-like shape into his retinas, impacted the asphalt ahead like the fist of an enraged god.
Alex’s car hit the sudden pothole at almost 60 miles an hour, and the entire front of his car dipped. A sudden cessation in the vehicle’s forward motion combined with a drastic forward dip into an immovable divot, and inertia did the rest. Alex barely had time to scream before his car launched itself upward, flipping boot over bumper to smash into a high-speed roll along the open roadway and into the grass beside it.
Silence reigned for several moments when the car finally came to a stop on its roof, and Alex stopped screaming long enough to realise he wasn’t dead. He was, however, hanging upside down on his seatbelt.
That was… problematic.
A coppery tang filled his mouth, his head felt stuffed with cotton, and there was a ringing in his ears he couldn’t fully hear past… but he was alive. Brown eyes searching through the bleary lack of focus afflicting them, Alex reached out for his upside-down door and cried out when a lance of agony surged through his arm.
“Fuck,” he cursed angrily, realising he had very likely broken or at least badly fractured the limb. “I can’t… I can’t stay here. Insulation won’t matter if that lightning hits the fucking engine,” he growled partially just to motivate himself, while looking at the door and—with a burst of effort and snarl of desperation-fuelled pain—forcing his ragged arm to pull the handle and open it. Another curse left his lips at the pain of the action, and he curled his arm tightly against his chest.
“Motherfucking fucking shitfuck,” he swore with a mix of pain and fear, and while resisting the urge to curl his hand into a fist. He instead used his left arm to fumble for his seatbelt. “This is going to su—!” the belt unlatched, and he slammed down against the wheel and roof with a scream of pain, vision exploding with white spots as he snarled out a spittle-filled chain of agony-driven invectives.
“Just breathe, Alex, just breathe…” he muttered to himself, attempting to swallow the rising bile and panic that threatened to overwhelm his better sense. “Just fucking breathe.”
That was when the radio turned on again, seemingly of its own volition.
“You… are… Called… Re… clai… mer…”
Alex stared at the dash for a long moment and swallowed. No, he wasn’t going to think about that. He had bigger issues. He needed to move.
Taking his own adrenaline-and-fear-fuelled advice, he tried to steady his breathing while he examined his circumstances, noting the fact his door appeared to be on the raised side of the overturned car. That meant pushing it, which was… unfortunate.
“Alright, can’t leverage that easily, so I need to…” Another snarl of pain ripped from his lips, mixed with a plaintive cry as he forcibly shifted himself like a turtle on the roof, neck bent at an extremely awkward angle; and placed both feet against the car door. With a growl of effort he pushed, kicking open the door… only for it to come crashing back at him from the reflex of the hinge.
Another curse left his lips moments before he caught the door on his feet, howling in pain again at the shock of impact, the pain in his ankles, and the general agony of his disturbed right arm. “Fuckity fucking fuck fucking shit FUCK!” he bellowed, throwing more f-bombs out than his old private school nuns would have ever approved of.
Then again, he doubted the sisters would have done much better in his place.
“O—okay. Door is open. Now I just need to get out and… shit, my phone! I need my… where the hell did it…?” Alex shifted around to look for his voice, until realising he had a better option. “Assistant! Make noise!”
After only a moment’s hesitation, a blaring of digitised cymbals erupted somewhere behind him loud enough to pierce the ringing in his ears, and Alex forcefully ignored the static-laden sound of a voice within the noise.
Instead, he craned his neck to spy the phone on the roof of the passenger side of the car. “Thank god,” he muttered while he reached out and grabbed it awkwardly with his good arm. A cursory inspection showed a slightly broken screen and some aesthetic damage to the exterior, but an otherwise in-tact phone.
Alex sighed in relief before tucking it into his jeans pocket with a bit of awkward shuffling. A moment later he reached up to the bottom of the door—now the top, given its upside-down orientation—with his good arm and, hooking his left leg around the bottom of the frame while keeping the door open with his right foot, heaved himself up and toward the exit.
Almost as expected, he ended up falling out of the car more than climbing, dropping onto the rain and sleet-saturated grass with a thud and cry of pain. “God damn it!” He cursed, bracing his left hand against the icy surface and shoving himself up. He was immediately soaked, not to mention muddied, and appeared to have blood on several parts of his body.
But most importantly, he was alive.
When he took a few shaky steps forward and turned to look at his car, he realised exactly how unlikely an event that truly was. His Camaro, his beast, was wrecked.
The windscreen and rear windows were both all but shattered, the frame was bent at impossible angles that seemed to have only avoided crushing him though a mix of providence and good design; and the wheels were warped beyond recognition. It didn’t even scratch the surface on the engine, which was leaking some mixture of fluids that, if not for the rain, might have proven extremely hazardous to Alex’s prospects for survival.
Thunder crackled overhead, and he looked upward with an expression of hatred.
“Will you FUCK OFF!” he shouted with a rage-venting snarl towards the sky.
If it hadn’t been for the storm, the lightning… It was ludicrous. How in the hell did lightning strike three times in close proximity? The entire situation was insane. The voices weren’t helping, and neither was that accursed gong. Who beat a gong in the middle of a fucking storm anyway? He shook his head when another wave of dizziness and nausea swept over him, and realised belatedly he was likely concussed. Badly concussed. That might have explained the weird sounds, at least.
At least that’s what he told himself.
“Need to call for help,” he mumbled while also realising, groggily, that he couldn’t very well just walk through the freezing rain and sleet. Whether he set off towards the city proper or back to his apartment, the most likely outcome was a quiet and futile death via hypothermia and exposure. He had nothing in the way of warm clothing, and English winters were not kind to the unprepared. Especially not in an open area like outer Oxford.
Alex’s left hand dove into his pocket while he held his right to his chest, and he gripped his jacket with his teeth, shielding his phone from the rain with the polyester fabric of his blazer and the flesh of his tortured body. It took nearly three inputs of his code, thanks to the rain and ruined screen, and one bloody cut on the ruined glass of the display before Alex managed to access his home screen.
“Right, 999 first…” he muttered to himself as he dialled, realising only afterward that he likely could have just swiped across to the emergency access screen in the first place, and cursing himself for his lack of awareness. Though in his defence, he begrudged his own internal monologue.
Another rumble of thunder drew his eye in annoyance as Alex put the phone to his ear, and he stepped closer to the car cautiously, aiming to use it for a bit of shelter from the rain without risking it falling atop him should it overbalance.
“999 Emergency. Which service?” the operator asked in a calm and feminine voice.
“A-Ambulance,” Alex said between chattering teeth.
“Connecting you now,” the operator responded smoothly, before transferring him.
“Come on…” Alex muttered, feeling his bones growing colder. “Answer the fucking—!”
“Ambulance, please state the location and nature of your emergency.”
“O-Oxfordshire. Car accident. I need help.”
“Of—Re—course—clai—sir. May—mer—I ask your name?”
“My…” he bit back a snarl of frustration and fear at the sound of the voice again. “S-sure. Alex Crosswood.”
“Thank you, Alex. Can you tell me what sort of cond—?”
The only warning Alex had was a sudden roaring, followed by blinding light, and then there was heat. So much heat. It was like fire and ice in his nerve endings. His vision went white, he felt something inside of him crack like a wishbone, and then suddenly he was on the grass, on his back, with his arms on the ground and his legs twisted… wrongly.
“What…?” He heard nothing save a low buzzing and saw only the storming sky above. The buzzing resolved itself slowly into a loud and rumbling note in his ear. A gong, perhaps? Again? Once more he was confused. Why a gong?
His eyes widened and his thoughts stilled at a sudden, almost slow-motion movement above him. Storm clouds rippled and roared, and lightning converged together into what almost appeared to be a prismatic multi-hued rainbow bolt of energy, dazzling him with more colours than he could conceive. It surged towards him, angled like the penetrating spear of a wrathful god, and before Alex could even muster the muscle movement to scream, he was struck.
The bolt smashed into his body just above his navel, piercing him with force and power and raging, obliterating energy. He felt his eyes turn to jelly, his blood boil, his hair burn away, and his nails bubble and melt. His existence, his life, his entire reality was sloughed into death by the vicious strike of the most colourful lightning bolt he’d ever seen.
His last thought was of Cassandra. Of her smile. That he wouldn’t get to see her on her birthday after all. That she would be hurt, thinking he’d forgotten her. That she’d have to remember her birthday as the day her brother died.
That he couldn’t give her the massive chocolate milkshake he knew she would love.
A sudden sound like a banging gong echoed across his soul.
NEPHILIM LOCATED
What…? he thought, fuelled by the last dregs of awareness. A voice…?
BEGINNING ASSIMILATION
A death rattle escaped his friction desiccated and cracked lips.
WELCOME TO THE SYSTEM, NEPHILIM
Alex Crosswood felt himself slipping into death.
THE RECLAMATION HAS BEGUN
Darkness claimed him.