Chapter 1 – Don’t fear the dark
William stopped abruptly, staring down the seedy alleyway.
Something definitely moved at the end of the alley. He saw it—the outline of a shadow flashed by quickly, with a strange silhouette, perhaps a tail, or even a gaping jaw with jagged teeth. It was hard to tell, and fear vividly filled in the gaps.
Was it a monster? Did he miss the emergency notification?
If it really was a monster, then perhaps it had already seen him. In that case, worrying was a pointless affair that could neither prevent nor delay his impending death. He glanced at his phone. Still no civilian alert, thankfully.
The government was fast and precise with alerts. Last time, the notification came early, less than a minute after a break formed, giving him plenty fo time to duck under the counter at Kicken Chicken until the military resolved the situation, making sure to stay far out of sight of the glass paned walls that had somehow still not gone out of fashion despite their obvious design flaw. His mood soured remembering that manager Kim had locked himself into the back office and refused to let him in.
He digressed.
Over the last twelve years, the government had boiled down the tracking system to an exact science. There was little to no chance for a break to occur without an alert being promptly issued.
Since there wasn’t an alert, it was probably safe.
Squinting into the darkness, he wondered if the moonlight reflecting off those broken glass shards cast the shadow that played tricks on his eyes. Yes, that had to be it. There was absolutely nothing to worry about.
This anxious state always settled in when he didn’t get enough sleep, a reminder to pick up the pace. Mental clarity were important the initiation ceremony tomorrow. It would be devastating if he performed poorly due to something as entirely preventable as lack of sleep, one of few things he could control in this world, unlike family background—he was made an orphan at three due to his parents’ untimely death—or finances.
To ease his nerves, William turned on his phone’s flashlight despite the low battery. Since the phone was an older model, it lacked a built-in flashlight and instead relied on turning the entire screen white. He had grown attached to the old piece of junk over the years, and at this point he doubted if he would be willing to trade it in for a newer model even with money to spare.
The screen’s white light filled the alleyway at once with its reassuring brightness, illuminating the dumpster and all the discarded litter and broken furniture that lined the inner alleyway. It was burning hot, but he paid no attention to that.
From a ragged sofa with its coils hanging loose to a rusting bike rack, there was nothing visibly out of the ordinary in the alley, although that did little to calm his hyperactive imagination. Images of the mangled bodies from the last attack flashed through his mind. They rarely showed the monsters on the official broadcasts, only the aftermath.
He had half a mind to just turn back, but Manager Kim, that fat bastard, wouldn’t pay if he missed two deliveries in one night regardless of if he had good reason or not, and rent was already late.
It was just paranoia, he told himself, although it was proving difficult to suppress the nagging feeling.
Taking a tentative step forward, he pointed the phone screen to the left, illuminating the garbage bags, then to the right, illuminating the dumpster, before quickly swinging the beam of light back left. His movements were jerky and paranoid, scanning with a practiced eye until he noticed the slight wiggle of an old shoe that was previously stationary, peeking out from behind the dumpster.
“Eughhh….. who’s there?” mumbled the owner of the shoe in an intoxicated voice.
It was just a homeless man. The first drops of rain fell from the sky. Damn, the bags could get wet if he didn’t hurry.
He sprinted past the man, who mumbled incoherently while slumped with his back against the wall, missing both his front teeth. The homeless were a common sight in the abandoned and avoided inner alleys of the city, but they didn’t bother William too much. He’d seen worse, and they were a reminder of how he could end up—or more accurately end up again—if he got evicted.
He kept running, turning two corners as he heard the homeless man now hollered wildly, the sound harsh yet getting more distant as he turned more corners. It was the drugs, he thought. He had little sympathy for the homeless, as his situation was just as bad, if not worse, and yet he always strove to improve his station. Now he was in college, a well-read student with decent future prospects. Those who gave themselves up and turned to substances did not elicit his already limited sympathy.
William had run too far, too fast, to notice that the homeless man’s hollering eventually turned into frantic yelling, and then screams of pain, before fading into muffled silence as he was dragged away by the leg.
Something was out there.
———
Willliam lifted the first red and white paper bag, noting that its precious contents were intact despite the slightly damp exterior. He squinted at the receipt.
“Four piece meal with two sides for apartment 626.” He then checked the second bag. “And this one’s the nugget combo and lemon soda.”
He found himself facing an intimidatingly luxurious gray apartment building. A doorman stood at the entrance, dressed in a crisp uniform adorned with gold buttons and a matching white cap. He greeted William with a polite nod as he approached, then extended a hand to open the polished glass door.
“Delivery?”
“Yes,” William replied, entering the building.
As he stepped inside, the faint scent of expensive perfume filled his nostrils. Plush, velvet-covered sofas were arranged neatly around several glass coffee tables, each topped with intricate floral arrangements that were clearly done by hand every day. A concierge desk made of dark, polished wood stood to the center, where an attractive female attendant sat.
Several maids and butlers shuffled around the lobby holding clean towels, dusting the corners, and attending to all sorts of bits and ends.
He couldn’t tell if this was supposed to be a residential apartment or a seven star hotel.
He approached the desk, feeling out of place in his red and white striped delivery uniform and matching saucepan hat. The beautiful attendant glanced at him briefly before smiling. "Good evening. Are you here for a delivery?"
"Yep," William replied, holding up the bags of food. "Apartment 626."
“Oh?” the attendant replied in a surprised tone after hearing the apartment number, one of her eyebrows raised, as if she’d forgotten her professional attitude. However, her original demeanor quickly returned. “The elevator is to your left.”
He wondered what that reaction was, although it was none of his business. Heading towards the direction the attendant pointed, he walked past a maid scurrying around with a silver tray of carefully prepared food and tried his best to ignore the fact that they had servants doing everything for them and that even the elevator itself was plated in gold. Whoever lived here was used to being treated like royalty.
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Taking the elevator up to the sixth floor, he walked through a long hallway lined with portraits and fine porcelain vases dating back to the classical era. His classmates from elite families were classically trained in the history of the arts and would know the finer details of the paintings and porcelain, but that nuance was lost to him.
Down the hall, a maid with a ponytail stood in front of apartment 626 with a fancy hanger trolley of white towels.
Knock, knock.
“I told you to just leave the fucking towels outside!” a young man yelled out from inside the room. “Don’t make me repeat myself!”
The door burst open, and a muscular blond college student in a cashmere bathrobe gestured angrily at the maid, then at a nub to the side of the door.
“There’s a hanger here for a reason!”
The maid’s head hung low as she put the towels on the nub and quickly scurried away, passing by William without meeting his eyes.
The door slammed shut again with a bang, and William was left waiting in front of the door, not looking forward to knocking. The receptionist’s reaction earlier made a lot more sense now.
He exhaled. In the end, this was a job and he had to finish the delivery. He cleared his throat. “Kicken Chicken delivery,” he replied in as enthusiastic of a voice as he could muster up. “You ordered the four piece meal with two sides?”
Upon hearing that, there was a flurry of foot movement, and William swore he could’ve heard the customer mumble forgot I ordered. Then, the door swung open.
An intimidating muscular blond college student stood in a bathrobe at the other side of the door. Behind him was a finely worked grandfather clock and the portrait of an old industrialist with combed white hair, all glinting with gold. Now that William looked at the student directly, he realized who it was. Everything made sense now—the excessive wealth, the maids, the strong attitude.
The square jawed young man with an arrogant face was Luke Brightsteel, the darling son of one of the top elite families and heir to the Brightsteel conglomerate. By a strange twist of fate, he was also William’s college classmate.
The Brightsteels were industrialists hailing from the beginning of the common era. William had read all about them in history books back at the orphanage. Back then, they were known to be cruel to their factory workers and heavily involved in political affairs. The family fortune had only grown since then, and they were still involved with the government and the new post-break guilds.
Luke’s eyebrows raised in surprise, his eyes darting in disbelief between William’s red and white Kickin Chicken uniform and his face.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he started to laugh, his fist pounding the door frame. “You’re a delivery boy?”
William’s grip on the delivery bags tightened, but he didn’t say anything. He knew exactly why Luke was acting this way—he and Luke had a bit of a history from two semesters ago.
The elite families had always valued physical education, now even more so in the post-break era. Luke Brightsteel prided himself as one of the best athletes at Trinity Academy, undefeated in pole vaulting, javelin toss, and the dash.
That was, until William beat him in the dash. Luke was furious, unable to comprehend how an unknown student lacking any formal training had managed to beat him in a televised athletics event.
It was because he spent many of his early years at the orphanage sneaking into the library in the dead of the night to pick out books, which taught him to be light on his feet. Then in middle school, he began running deliveries through the alleys, which taught him to be fast and alert.
Luke didn’t know this, however, and even if he did he couldn’t care less beyond the fact that William had beaten him in one of the five core events, one where he held the title.
“I didn’t know that someone at Trinity was struggling this badly.” His tone was unmistakably mocking. “Tell you what, why don’t I arrange something for you at my father’s company. Maybe cleaning toilets or something.”
William did his best to ignore the provocation, lifting the bag containing Luke’s order. “Here’s your food.”
There was only one day left until the initiation, and he didn’t want to cause any new problems now.
“Thanks,” Luke laughed and roughly grabbed the bag from William, before looking down with a sour expression. “This bag is wet.”
“All deliveries are double wrapped. Your food is dry.”
“As my grandfather would say, a worker with no eye for detail will soon have no eye at all,” Luke sneered, pointing at the other bag in William’s hand. “Give me that one too to make up for this one being wet.”
William noticed a heat-like steam aura began to rise from Luke’s arm as if it was evaporating as Luke reached out to grab the bag.
But that was impossible. He couldn’t have awakened an ability before the initiation. His eyes were playing tricks on him again.
At that moment, years of reflexes kicked in and he pulled back the bag quickly, much to Luke’s and his own surprise.
“That’s someone else’s order,” he said defiantly. He wasn’t about to have a delivery go missing and risk being late on his rent again.
Luke paused for a moment as if he was contemplating something, before a smirk returned to his face.
“Suit yourself. See you tomorrow,” he said. “Maybe you’ll get a power that helps you deliver chicken even faster.”
With a derisive snicker, the bathrobed heir nudged the door shut with his foot.
William cursed under his breath as he turned back down the hallway towards the elevator.
Luke’s attitude angered him, but on a deeper level he envied Luke. William didn’t care as much about his modern chateau lifestyle or the countless orderlies attending to his every wish—another butler just passed by him—but what he truly envied was the formal education, the richness of history and culture, the strong sense of dignity that came with being a member of an old elite family.
Dignity of class was something beyond the superficiality of being a good or a bad person. Class was not something that could be emulated by simply reading books—it was inherited, nurtured, and it commanded a degree of respect that could never be emulated by an outsider.
For instance, no matter how bad of a person Nero from the imperial era was, his name still graced modern history books with a gravitas reserved only for truly great men.
The dungeon break twelve years ago may have introduced many new forces to the world, such as strange new materials that scientists were still learning to harness, but was this transformation all that different from the transformation wrought to the world by industrialization centuries ago? Or the agricultural revolution? Or the end of the imperial era and destruction of the natural world during the volcanic era?
Unchallenged recency bias led modern academics to arrogantly claim that they lived in the era of greatest change, the post-break era, the other world era, the dungeon era, but William disagreed. This era was no different from the last.
As things changed, so too things stayed the same. Old military traditions of the elite families fell easily in line with the new need for organized armed forces of ability users. Guilds that arose in the post-break era were simply corporations taking on an expansion of duties and a new name.
Even the other world itself was quickly falling into line—most breaks were resolved within hours. Yearly civilian casualties in the city had fallen to less than ten. Things were becoming assimilated into normal.
Just like before.
But he digressed yet again.
William fundamentally could not change the fact that he was nobody of significance, a footnote in the books, a side character in Luke’s recorded history, to be forgotten regardless of what he chose to eat or do, simply by right of his birth and upbringing.
He was deeply envious of those who had the means to become somebody. But to become somebody when he lacked both societal and familial means, he needed power.
The initiation ceremony tomorrow had to go well.
Lost in thought, he realized that he was back in the alleyway from before. Most people—even delivery workers—avoided the inner city alleys, but he was used to them. He’d grown up on the streets, and they were fine shortcuts that enabled him to spend less of his evenings delivering and more of his free time exploring and understanding the world.
The sight of a familiar shoe brought him back to his senses.
It was up ahead, abandoned, sitting upright in front of the dumpster with the lace untied. There was no sign of the owner.
Did the homeless man leave and forget his shoe?
William peeked cautiously around the other side of the dumpster with his phone flashlight in hand, and there was nothing there, but when he turned back he noticed a few torn scraps of clothing on the floor by the shoe that he hadn’t noticed earlier, and his mind and his imagination and his ears picking up the slow dripping sound from behind him all quickly converged to the same conclusion—run.
And so he ran.