I stood there, waiting, eyes narrowed in indignation as Flaze would not stop laughing. My Trailblazer had become available again, before she was done, cooldowns just instinctively known.

I neighed and huffed and stomped my hooves after an entire minute had passed, and she still had not gotten it out of her system.

Her hands were on her stomach now, a wheezing laugh. I didn't even realize when her increasingly quiet giggles had turned into mournful sobs.

What?

I immediately rushed over to her as she squeezed out a single word in between her heaving breaths.

"Wait."

So I did. I stood there as she started to full-on cry, shouting loudly without regard as she fell to her knees.

Flaze, I'd known for a long while. She'd fallen on hard times before, real fucked up shit. I'd lent her my shoulder then, and she'd lent me hers. Even when my problems have a tendency to pale against hers in comparison.

This is the first time I've seen her so broken. She's more the type to only sniff, barely a whine.

It was really strange, to see Flaze like this. I felt so bad for her, yet I couldn't even say it.

Because I'm a fucking horse.

"I thought everyone was dead..." she eventually said, her sobs still present, but she'd calmed enough to speak. "Everything I've worked for, gone."

I neighed, sitting down beside her as a horse would.

She adjusted her position and crossed her legs.

She sniffed.

"I... I didn't even realize it happened. I thought I just had a really bad headache, or a sudden bout of dizziness. Then I noticed these system-like prompts, straight out of a video game just hovering over my vision."

I know I shouldn't be thinking this right now, but Wow keep bragging.

I was turned into a horse. Very painfully.

But well, all things considered I adjusted quickly. Way too quickly, probably.

It felt like the end was near anyway, for myself.

One last performance.

"I, uhh... thought I was going crazy. I'd been careful to manage my stress, I go to a therapist, I've been doing things right."

I nodded, allowing her to continue speaking.

"I tried to call people. My siblings. Friends. You. No one ever picked up. Until my phone just suddenly burned itself out."

I gestured at my body that had turned into a horse and she laughed. Though I really wish I could've been there for her. I didn't even know my phone rang.

And what did she mean by her phone burning itself out? Battery? I'm certain she has multiple power banks, and she's prepared enough to not leave them all uncharged...

She smiled, seeing my confusion. Flaze reached her hand out and took my phone out of the tiny little bag hanging from my neck.

She opened it and typed in the password. It was one of those connect the dots thing, and I'd long told her the combination. It hasn't changed since college. And that was years ago.

I had dropped out.

The phone unlocked and she said, "It still works. That's good. But this will short circuit shortly. Tell me what you want to do for your final taste of the old world."

I processed her words, I tried to understand what she means based only on context. I settled for a judgemental stare, and Flaze remembered that I couldn't speak.

"Uuuhhh..." she panicked, "Here."

She put on what she knew to be my favorite song. A haunting one with beautiful harp and violin. I listened to the lyrics about life and going into the void at the end of it all. We shared that one beautiful moment, in the ruins of a once bustling city, watching the way too large birds fly above overhead and the occasional orc or gremlin peeking out of the side streets.

For some reason, they ignored us. As if the world itself wished for us to have this moment.

The song was able to finish, and I gave a satisfied whinny. Just in time as the phone made a loud cracking sound, sparks of electricity before the screen went black.

We stared at each other for a moment after that, before leaning back in silence.

"Lavine, Trake," she finally spoke, those were the names of her siblings, "I wonder if they're alright. Probably not, realistically speaking. But you arriving here, looking for me even. That has, if nothing else given me hope. Thank you, Jackal."

That's right. She just had so much more to lose. Everyone does.

All I had was a stupid dream of making a living out of theatre. Having a grand old life, wealth if I'm being honest, and fame. It all seems so superficial, compared to her.

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

It's why I'm so fine right now, when the rest of the world is breaking down.

I couldn't help but feel just a little bit guilty for having thought any of this was fun.

"...If you of all people could survive, then I'm sure everyone else is fine too." She added that with such a kind smile on her face that I nodded without truly parsing what she meant.

And then my jaw dropped. I neighed, indignant. Huffs of air out of my nostrils.

She only laughed. A true and innocent laugh that hides nothing. One that almost made her earlier outburst feel fake, and forced. A simple joy that lasts but a single moment. Yet for a short time, that fleeting happiness was all that mattered.

I joined her and laughed as well, without care for how it could have possibly sounded or looked, coming from a horse. It felt like we had gone back to simpler times. Before I had become a horse, and when Flaze could still look to the future and feel inspired, driven.

I'll take it as a compliment. To have given hope to a friend.

~~~

It had started raining. The droplets fell to the ground and onto our faces. Neither of us moved, uncaring.

It just all seems so trivial now. To get showered, soaked. Completely inconsequential.

Flaze spoke more about how she's been doing. Of a monstrous snail on spider-like legs that she saw when she opened the door to her apartment. She panicked, but made sure to close it softly, no sudden noises. She still thought she was only hallucinating, but of her devices that still worked, none could connect to the internet any longer.

That was when she started to consider that the things she's been experiencing might actually be real. She read her System notifications, the evolution menu.

"I still thought it to be likely fake, the entire thing just so unbelievable. But I considered it seriously regardless, the evolutions and everything else. Because on the single off chance that it was real, I wanted to be strongest I can be."

She did come up with a broken build for her two Classes, the second one unlocked by Systemizing so seamlessly.

With different forms and the ability to clone those forms of specific specializations, the resulting power was plain for me to see. It makes my reasoning seem stupid, an impulsive choice to mix holy and evil, diametrically opposed forces.

Not that I begrudge my choice, nor its results. I like my build. I can probably take her on and have a decent shot at winning, at least at the same levels. Or if nothing else, she'll never catch me if I actually wished to flee.

"And then I heard it. That... voice in my head. Not the System or whatever it is, but the one who's caused this all. Billions dead, and for what!?"

I was surprised, to hear her voice so laced with hatred. I haven't thought about that guy all that much, the person who caused all this, and then informed us all that he did it. But it makes total sense that everyone hates his fucking guts.

"It made me worried. It made me afraid. I didn't know what he meant, and I had to find out."

"So I fought. I fought through hordes of monsters, the elevator I surmised to likely not be working. And it wasn't. It seemed stuck on some floor. So I took the stairs. I investigated. The asshole that did this didn't even bother to actually explain what's going on. It's not your apologies I need, you fuck. I need answers. No one in the history of man has ever fucked up quite as much as you had. Entire monsters, in the corridors, in the stairs, not that many but they were there. I nearly died so many times. The pain of each failure I felt, through my clones. I control them just as much as I control myself. Like a hivemind perhaps. Only the clones are weaker."

Her breathing was frantic now, her eyes darting around as she explained. I purred, allowing her to let it all out.

"An imp bit my face. I can still feel its teeth. Like stone, like glass, it scrapes within my skin. That was when I decided to train. To get more used to my abilities. To level up."

"I shouldn't have been so hasty to leave, but I had already gone down a floor. So I hunkered down in some random person's condo. I broke down their doors that were locked. An easy stats with my stats and skills. I got drunk off my ass. They had way too much booze. And it was empty of anything. Any creature I mean. The owners were fucking loaded. And they were not there. So I took advantage of the accommodations. I started clearing out the nearby corridors of monsters, with a home base to return to. I took a more methodical approach. Really made use of my abilities. Took advantage of them. And then once the hallways were clear, I went for the surrounding condos. To raid them and find out how other people were faring."

She was shaking now, in sheer rage. Murder was in her eyes, teeth and nails biting into everything.

I wanted to pat her back and tell her it was okay, to just take it slow, but I wasn't quite sure how to do that as a horse. I settled for nuzzling my head against her, and it seemed to work.

"I entered their rooms. Monsters. Odd dinosaur-like things, something with tentacles that fly. Fire-breating birds, a rat that thought it could be a cute lightning mouse. It was only scary instead. But most terrifying of all was when I started to piece together what had truly happened."

She gulped, and I sensed her hesitation.

You can take your time. No need to force yourself. I neighed. And somehow, I think she got my meaning.

"There were humanoids too. Goblins, orcs, gremlins. I noticed that they had clothes on, which I thought a little weird. I saw it on most of them, albeit torn and shredded. More so on the larger ones like the orcs."

"I also met people. Actual living people that had also experienced the same thing, although with varying levels of headaches. We all had access to a similar system."

"They were sane, and afraid, and didn't know what to do. I had no clue either, but I knew I needed more information. I thought I needed more information. So I questioned them, and they answered. I heard them detail how their pets had transformed, or otherwise saw some critter do so."

"I began to think of a theory. Why the humanoids in specific may have clothes on their person, and other modern accessories."

She shuddered, and I gave a comforting whine. I know what she's talking about, I noticed it as well. It just... I should have been more disturbed, I shouldn't have dismissed it so easily, but I just... With all the chaos, it just seemed so natural. Like, of course the people turned into monsters. I turned into a monster horse, after all.

"The possibility scared me to no end, I dreaded the revelation. But still, I had to find out for certain. And I did."

"A man was running down the hallway, just as I descended some stairs. There was a gremlin chasing him, so I immediately went into battle without asking any questions and slew the creature. I got the man's story afterwards, and the gremlin was indeed a person."

Flaze took a deep breath, her gaze numb and broken.

"I was heartbroken at that. I knelt, defeated, as I heard the hammering cries of the man, desperately asking for forgiveness for having been cheating on his wife."

She laughed, but there was no humor in her voice.

"The gremlin was his mistress."

"Perhaps before, I would have had something to say. Adultery is certainly a very hurtful thing to do to a person that trusts you. But even that seemed so trivial, so mundane. Absolute nothing.'

"It didn't matter. Nothing did. So, I turned to the man, and I said, 'I forgive you'"

She was cackling now, making a show of it. "Can you believe that!? I'm not even the one he cheated on! He's like a decade my senior! But I told him I forgive him! Me! How is that my decision!? How is it my place to grant him forgiveness?!"

She heaved, and she breathed, before continuing on, "But I said it anyway, and I didn't take it back. Instead I walked away. Towards the stairs. Downwards. The ground floor. Outside. Wherever."

She looked around us, the rain pelting against ourselves as the ground was soaked in water. Blood washed away against the storm, we smelled the stench of the many felled corpses.

"And then I fought," she looked at me and leaned against my horse neck. "I fought."

That was all she said before we settled in to watch the storm.