Em, Bali, and Tasha ended up playing a simple game of Snakes and Ladders. Sen watched it happen from across the board game café, a can of iced coffee in his hand. Not that it was cold anymore. With the lack of electricity in the area, all the drinks in Dubai had been rendered sad and lukewarm. It was only the lack of the desert’s usual sunlight that saved them from turning hot inside their containers.

He took a sullen sip from his coffee, which he’d bought from Amir for a ridiculous amount. The man treated their stay like a transaction—as if money still mattered, or had any value. Sen supposed it was a way of retaining normalcy, in a way. A method to make the impact of the apocalypse seem less overwhelming.

As he’d discovered over the last week, everyone had their way of coping. His was humor and narcissism. Em’s was pointless chatter and teasing. Amir’s?

Amir treated his store as if it were separate from the world outside.

The man in question sat in front of him now, reading the same page of Lord of the Flies for the past half an hour. He hadn’t budged since he’d gotten Sen his drink—he simply sat there, mindlessly petting his dog and staring at the group of people play Snakes and Ladders in silence. There wasn’t any cheering. Just the silent roll of the dice and the brief sound of game pieces clacking against the board.

But still, the air in the room felt lighter in a way that wasn’t present when they’d first entered. Sen took another sip as Em landed on a long snake, sliding her piece back down to the bottom. She groaned. Tasha gave a little smile.

Sen turned his eyes away from them as he returned his gaze to Amir. He’d been keeping watch on the man in case he tried anything, but Sen found relief in the way the Emirati’s shoulders stooped without tension. It didn’t look like the man would be trying anything soon. Instead, he even seemed relieved—a kind of conflicted joy at finding another group of people for the first time in a week.

“Is this where you were holed up when the sun exploded?” Sen asked, his voice soft as he looked around the store. There were no windows—just concrete walls and a solid, front door. Perfect for keeping the sunlight out. “I’m surprised you realized the world ended at all, being so holed up like this.”

Amir glanced away from the game, then back to him. He sighed and shook his head. “It wasn’t hard to notice after the lights went out,” Amir replied. “I was playing with my regulars when suddenly—tchk! Pitch darkness, just as I was about to win.” He shook his head in frustration. “Ya rab.”

Sen blinked. “…You weren’t alone?”

“I had customers when it happened. Now they are gone.”

“Did the vampires attack this place?”

“No. My regulars stayed for a day, then left to look for their own. Families, friends. I don’t know where they are now.”

“Maybe they found shelter—Maladh. You know where it is?”

“Akeed, my friend. Of course. I heard the radio, but I don’t buy it,” Amir replied, frowning. He shook his head. “The world is full of predators, and now there are people gathering together? In a shelter? I’ve seen the things outside, flying when the moon is away. What can a gun do to that? A missile? A swarm of people in the same place is just a barrel full of fish. Wallah, one scary monster is all it would take.”

Sen pursed his lips. “You aren’t wrong, but… isn’t it lonely out here? You’ve been alone for the past week. Hell, you almost look glad that we forced ourselves in here.”

“It’s lonely. But it’s safe. And I have Misha. If the world ends, it ends with us together.”

“And when you run out of food? Water?”

“I’ll go out and steal. No one will care. And if my trips outside gets me killed by the monsters in the mist, then that is that. Humans will die regardless. This interface, whatever it is, is not made for us. It’s made for them. The things outside. And when worst comes to worst, I have a gun and two bullets. Swift and painless.”

Sen shifted uncomfortably in his seat. What Amir was saying felt more than familiar. It was a sentiment that he could understand—one that he had even shared, for however brief of an instant. If he’d been alone this whole time, without Em…

He shook his head.

It was already hard not to go crazy with two people. Being alone from the beginning like Amir? Waiting in the darkness for something to change while the world went insane all around him? It would have been preferable to die to the sun on the first day. It was the easy scenario. The one that started with him dead; no worries, no problems. He wouldn’t even know that the world had ended.

But now he did. And Sen, as a survivor, had things he had to do. Things he wouldn’t forgive himself for forgetting. He downed the last of his coffee and took out a cigarette.

“No smoking in the store,” Amir said, and his dog, Misha, growled.

Sen sighed and put it away.

“I think people can survive,” he said, after a long moment of silence. “You may think otherwise, but this system levels out the playing field. We aren’t handicapped. In this past week, I’ve… evolved, I think. My body’s as strong as an Olympic athlete’s, and my senses are inhuman. I can see in the dark and I can grow armor out of my skin. I can’t fight everything out there, but I can survive. And I’m not the only one.”

Sen stared at Em and the others from across the store. The game was getting rowdier, now. Mostly thanks to Em. She cursed and cheered, poking fun at Tasha whenever the little girl fumbled in the game.

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And then, when a stroke of bad luck pushed Em down to the bottom again, Sen heard Tasha laugh for the first time. It wasn’t a giggle or even a chuckle—just a small tremble in her shoulders and a sharp breath out of her nose. But it was enough. The look of relief in Bali’s face, the slight smile on Tasha’s, and the focused glare on Em’s painted the picture of a world with hope.

They had survived a week, and Sen and Em had come out stronger for it. Strong enough to fight when all they could do before that was run.

Now they just needed to survive for longer.

“I think I can place my bets on Maladh,” Sen muttered, his voice lower than before. There was a twinge of worry to it, in the crease of his brow and the hollow pit in his chest. But he forced the hope in him to overpower that. There was a place to go. There had to be. Sen stood up from his seat. “If some college students like Em and I can last this long, a shelter with police and military in it will last even longer. They’re what’ll save us. I swear it. And if you have even a bit of hope left in you, you’d join us there, too. You and Misha both.”

Amir looked up at him, doubtful. “Police and military are ordinary people, still.”

Sen shook his head. He raised a hand, and with a mental push, bony protrusions stabbed out of his forearm, melding perfectly onto his flesh. The bone armor shifted and churned, jutting out into spikes, then smoothening into thick, heavy plates. It was like putty under his control.

Sen flexed a clawed hand toward Amir’s direction. “I’m an ordinary person too,” he said. “But right now, ‘ordinary’ would have been superhuman a week ago. The world’s changed, yeah. But we can change with it. I’m the perfect example of what humans can become.”

“You’re being beyond optimistic with this, my man.”

“Optimism is for people without faith. What I have is confidence.”

“Or arrogance, maybe.”

“I always had a hard time telling those two apart.”

Sen flashed Amir a grin that contained all the bluster he had. He was being unrealistic and he knew it. But sometimes, all it took to keep going was an unhealthy amount of faith in himself. Sen clenched his fist, and the bone armor receded back into his flesh.

Amir eyed his arm with pursed lips, and Sen strode away without giving the man time to refute his baseless confidence.

He joined the others across the room. Sen took a seat beside Em.

“I heard what you said,” Em whispered, after a moment. She glanced at him. “Do you really believe all that?”

Sen blinked, thought for a moment, and then shook his head.

“God, no,” he said. “I just wanted to convince him to come with us.”

“Mr. Gloomdoom over there? Why?”

“So I could pet his dog more, of course.”

Em nodded, convinced. “That’s a good plan.”

Sen plucked a random board game off of the shelf and set it down. He smiled. “That’s what I’m for.”

----------------------------------------

It took them several hours of board games to finally feel tired. Sen and Tasha plucked random games from the shelves, and as a group, they spent hours badly explaining the instructions to each other. It was simple, mindless fun. Just a group of strangers, playing together for the first time in a café.

Outside the building, the embermoon burned. Dubai came to life in all its apocalyptic wrath. But in here, they were in another world. They were in the dice and the shelves, atop the boards and in the games they played. And it was in that time that they loosened up once again. Sen let himself laugh and forget.

And over the course of the next few hours, Bali relaxed. He was the first to fall asleep. Midway through a game, he leaned back and started snoring.

Em was the next to follow. She slumped over the table when it wasn’t her turn, her face buried in her arms and hidden under a veil of her platinum blonde hair. Behind them, Amir had dozed off in his seat, his dog lying peacefully under his chair.

All that left was Sen and Tasha, playing alone together in the lamp-lit interior of Amir’s café.

Sen yawned as he set a piece down onto the board.

“That’s another piece down. Nine points.”

Tasha pursed her lips.

“…You’re cheating.”

“Where’s your proof?”

“That’s a cheater thing to say.”

“That’s a sore loser thing to say.”

She stuck her tongue out at him, and Sen smiled. The girl had slowly opened up to them over the last few hours, as if forgetting about everything that had happened in the last week. She was still soft-spoken, still shy. But she was smiling a little now. And talking. As the two of them played, Sen tried his best to talk to her—to make things just a little more normal again.

“You’re a lot better at these than I thought you would be,” he said, watching her play card after card, placing down pieces in quiet focus. “You’re almost as good as I am when I’m holding back.”

“No, you aren’t,” she said, placing a piece down to screw him over. “And I’m not good. You just, erm… yeah.”

He raised an eyebrow and leaned forward. “Oh? What’s that? Say that louder for the room to hear.”

“…You kind of suck.”

“Wow.”

“You placed that piece down there. Why?”

“And tell you about my genius game plan? No way.”

“But you just lost a point.”

“Least points win.”

“I think you’re confused.”

“Maybe I am.”

Tasha giggled at that, her small laugh barely audible even in the dead-silent room. Sen finished his turn and watched her play again, overtaking his lead with the right set of cards. She barreled past him with another turn, taking the win with a miraculous turnaround. The little girl beamed at the table and set her cards down with a satisfied grin.

Sen leaned back on his seat, glad that he was able to make her smile. That pale, terrified look she had earlier was day and night compared to how she was now. And it was for the better.

Such a grim look didn’t belong to a girl as young as her.

But soon, the smile faded again. Tasha stared down at the table, her face turning thoughtful. The small girl sat in silence and Sen sat, slowly fixing the game pieces sprawled across the table. Tick, the sound went, as the plastic pieces fell into the box. Sen sealed it up and stood.

And that was when Tasha spoke again.

“I think I’m good at games,” she said. Sen gave her a look as she glanced towards the door. “But I don’t get the game happening outside. It’s scary. And hard. It’s nothing like the ones I used to play with Priya.”

“…You think what’s happening outside is a game?”

“I dunno,” she said. “But it looks like one, and I suck at it. I don’t know what to do with the floating words. Papa doesn’t, either. But you and Em are good. You guys killed the stuff chasing us.”

Sen shook his head. “You shouldn’t treat it like a game. That’s… bad. I don’t know how to explain it to you, but it’s dangerous to think like that.”

“I just want to be good at it. I want to help.”

“You don’t have to.”

“But can you teach me how?”

Sen gave her a weak smile. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But I don’t think I’d be able to even if I wanted to, and I don’t. It’s… I’m not comfortable with the idea of you doing the things Em and I do. You’re just a kid.”

She gave him the same look Sen used to give his elders, back when they used the same excuse on him. He was too young. Still just a kid. In the past, it made him want to grow up faster. To take responsibility for himself.

Now, he yearned to hear it from someone again.

Tasha look at him, then pursed her lips.

She reached for something in the air.

And then Sen felt it: a flash of essence like a supernova, sucking into itself and then bursting out to fill the small shape in front of him. He stared, eyes wide, as Tasha stared down at her hands in shock.

She sat down, amazed, as her eyes swept across golden text that Sen couldn’t see. Sen swallowed.

“Tasha,” he said, slowly. “…What did you just do?”

The little girl blinked, then looked up. Up at him.

She gave a smile. “I unlocked my Ability.”