Janco sat brooding in the bed of his assigned room. The room itself was nothing to complain about— enough space to move about, a bed that didn’t stick uncomfortably to you, and a shower with warm water.
Ever since he’d decided to aggressively save for college a few years back, he’d decided to share a ridiculously run-down apartment because the rent was cheap.
The bed was grimy, the washing machines were often broken, the water was ice cold during winter and scalding hot in the summer, and the list went on. Although he’d learn to hand wash his clothes, there were many times he’d go to class embarrassed and be afraid that the others might be able to smell him.
But living in such a place came with unexpected positives. Whereas before he’d scream and scatter at the sight of a cockroach, now he would only be mildly annoyed at one crawling on his face.
Where before, he would retch at the sight of the disgusting kitchen sink, now he simply learned to cook in his room. He ate cup noodles everyday with a few carrots. He never missed the carrots. They were essential for a balanced diet after all. Meat was too expensive so sometimes he would buy tofu which was only 2 euros per kilogram.
On days he’d scored particularly well on a project or an exam, he would reward himself with slices of bread, peanut butter and mashed bananas.
For years he’d plowed through this period in his life like this with the belief that it would one day end.
And today, it ended.
He’d secured a good job. The pay was decent, but the benefits were so much that anyone would fight for it.
He didn’t have to live in that disgusting place anymore. And he didn’t have to live that lifestyle anymore. He could finally have a clean house of his own, any kind of food he wanted, and even a car!
But he wasn’t happy.
In fact, he dreaded the next day.
Even in his darkest times, he never dreaded waking up to a new day and now for the first time in his life, he was afraid.
He doubted the ambitions he’d had in life— To mint a lot of money, to have a nice house, to be able to travel anywhere in the world at his own leisure and to have a loving family. Because what was the point?
By the time he’d had a loving family in 20 years, him, his family, and the rest of the world would go crazy and die.
They would all die of this slow, silent, unavoidable disease.
The images they’d shown him flashed through his mind again.
He ran to the bathroom— throwing open the door— and retched again. He’d already vomited a few times before, so this time, nothing came out.
Dejected, and having no hope whatsoever, he walked out of his room and into the glittering shopping complex— the ‘European Training Center’ as they called it.
The old man— or ‘Captain’, as they called him— told them that they would be spending two weeks inside this place to train and prepare for the outside world, and that they were free to go back to Earth every few days.
But Janco wasn’t in the mood to think about that. The only thing that could improve his mood somewhat was good food, and so he headed to the cafeteria.
As he stood in line, staring at the mouth-watering array of food, his throat was as parched as ever. The dazzling food barely made an impression on his mind.
But the loud slap on his back definitely did.
“What the—?”
A dark face with a mischievous grin came into view and walked in front of him. The well-built man pointed to one of the many trays of food.
“Don’t try out the mozzarella sticks with that truffle sauce. The combination is so good you’ll go to heaven.”
And then the dark-skinned man chuckled at his own joke,
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“Oh wait, we are in heaven! Ha ha ha ha.” He burst out laughing from the bottom of his heart. No doubt he was internally praising himself for his amazing sense of humour.
Hearing his childhood friend’s boisterous laughter and seeing his happy-go-lucky face made Janco very, very irritated. No doubt, he was thinking that the man in front of him was the greatest fool in two worlds.
“Idris are you insane?? How can you even laugh in this situation?”
The man, Idris, merely walked to his side and slung an arm over Janco’s shoulder.
“My friend! Be happy! We’re in another world! A world with magic! Isn’t that crazy?”
Janco looked away with a click of his tongue,
“So? We’re getting enlisted in a war that we have no hope of winning. A war! Do you even understand what war is?”
Idris shook his head with a chuckle, “And you have lived through multiple wars.”
Janco stammered, “Uh, no… But I’ve read about the horrors of war.”
“Then why bother? It’s not happening now is it? We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”
Janco couldn’t believe his ears, “Are you— What? Are you serious? ‘We’ll cross that bridge when we get there’? You may not have any plans for the future but I do!
I can’t afford to be all willy-nilly about something as serious as this. Idris for fuck’s sake, all of humanity is going to die and here you are laughing and giggling!”
The mirth had vanished from Idris’ face, replaced instead by a solemn stare.
“So? Does that mean you just lay there and rot?”
“Janco” Idris gripped him by the shoulders, “Janco look at me.”
Reluctantly, he faced Idris.
“What’s done is done. This is the reality we’re living in. Jesus man, it’s been a few days already and all I’ve seen you do is eat. How’re you going to survive outside?”
Janco looked away, murmuring
“I don’t need to.”
“For fuck’s sake man…” Idris’ was defeated. His friend had always been the downer type and he’d done his best to help where he could. But the present circumstances left him stumped.
He himself was doing all he could to push reality to the back of his mind, but with Janco’s silence, reality slowly pushed its way to the forefront.
Idris clicked his tongue and grabbed a plate of mozzarella sticks, making sure to heap a lot.
“Regardless, try freshening up in a few hours. We’re going to check out the mission board.”
Before Janco could reject, Idris interjected,
“It’s for your own good… Don’t…” he looked embarrassed as he found his words, “Don’t give up man… don’t you want to explore this world? Fly? Shoot bolts of fire from your eyes?”
Janco chuckled, “Nobody shoots bolts of fire from their eyes.”
“You really believe that?” Idris pulled out his gleaming bronze token, “These things can literally join together perfectly when broken and look like cardboard to anyone else but me. If this is possible then what isn’t?”
“Yeah well, quantum superposition probably.”
Idris laughed, “Man shut the fuck up.”
A single pat landed on Janco’s back.
“I’ll meet you at the mission board?”
“Sure.”
And with that, the two parted ways.
As he dug his fork into the various juicy meats on his plate, his mind wandered to his present situation. The situation of humanity in general. Nobody back home knew of this. Not a single media outlet was reporting on this, though even if they did, nobody would listen.
Maybe some signs of the apocalypse were already there for a decade or two.
Janco wanted to be fearless— to embrace life even though he knew it to be guarded by a very short time limit. He wanted to embrace his coming death, but he couldn’t. He would’ve thought it was impossible to be completely fearless, and to completely embrace one’s death.
But he knew it to be possible.
He’d seen it in that fearless man who’d sacrificed himself to end the test— Enzo Amaris.
Janco thought about Enzo more often than he’d like to admit. Purely because he was curious how that fearless and enigmatic personality would’ve reacted to this reality they were now facing.
His imagination conjured a strong, resolute image— one where that man simply smirked and said,
“So what?” Brushing aside the concerns of reality as if swatting away a fly with pinpoint precision. As much as Idris tried, he couldn’t be that person. He put on a strong front, but that’s all it was: a front.
He was just as scared as Janco was. Everyone was these days, even if they didn’t show it.
Elsewhere, somewhere far far away from where Janco sat and fantasized about the strong, courageous and fearless idea of Enzo, the real Enzo meanwhile, hid behind the base of an incredibly massive statue.
With fearful eyes, he watched hordes and hordes of humanoid creatures pour into the darkness from somewhere. He cursed his stars, and was afraid that the wild beating of his heart would give away his position.
There wasn’t even a shred of time to look at the system he’d received, let alone think of a way to escape.
Once again he was staring death down the barrel of its rifle, and with no way to escape and the ominous feeling these creatures gave him, he was starting to think that dying to that tentacle monster was infinitely better.