Now, some might be wondering why I didn’t arc up at the cops who came to my door. There’s a couple of reasons for that. Firstly, I’m a law abiding citizen, for the most part. So I tried to do this the legal way before branching out on my own. Plus I was kinda rattled by HAVING MY HAND CUT OFF BY GOBLINS. But I’m not bitter. Noooo.
Secondly, those two were carrying pistols, tasers, batons and handcuffs. They were wearing stab vests. I was wearing my Deadpool jammies and not much else. I was not about to commit suicide by cop when Aimee was out there, possibly in dire trouble. I needed all the limbs I had left in working order.
I sat down in the lounge again, there being coffee and, I checked the bag left on the table, a double choc chip muffin. I was not opposed to free muffins no matter who brought them and engulfed it. The coffee went down just as easy.
On the way back up the stairs to put on some day clothes I eyed the bokken. This is Oz so your average Dave doesn’t have a house full of firearms. I know Yanks will have shower guns, bed guns, a gun in the kitchen in case the toaster becomes sentient, his and hers matching AR-15s by the front door - blue for him, pink for her - because reasons. And sure, I was brought up with firearms, but when Dad passed my brother in law inherited them because he had the property and I lived in the city. So my armoury is entirely and 100% Nerf. Nerf or Nothing, as they say.
I trusted Officer Delenthor when he said there were no bodies upstairs, which really only raised more questions. Where did little mister nom-noms and his mate come from? I peered into the wrecked bedroom cautiously. And where the hell did they go?
The room was trashed, just how I remembered it. The torn sheet at the foot of the bed had soaked both my blood and that of the mysteriously vanished goblins. There were pools of both red and green across the carpet. That’s going to be an arse to get out.There were no footprints through those pools except my own. There was a smooshed pool where something had lain in one, but no streaks to indicate that which had been in said puddle had moved. Did they just… despawn? Does that mean they spawn? Magic is weird man, miss me with that crap.
I grabbed a towel and water and dabbed at the bloodstains in the wife-approved mode. Which had the expected effect so I scrubbed in a circular motion. To be fair, it didn’t work much better but I’m pretty certain I extracted more blood that way than by dabbing delicately. After a while I realised I was just procrastinating because I have no idea how to proceed. I was low key afraid to walk out my front door.
Gathering myself and the towel I wandered into the bathroom and threw myself in the shower. The hot water burned away some of the doubts and bolstered my courage. Stepping out and vigorously towelling off I made an inventory in my head of everything I was going to need for the day. Skins, cos those compression clothes are great at wicking away sweat. Draggin jeans and motorbike jacket, cos they’re the closest I can get to armour at the moment. Oooh, my Alpine Star shoes too, nothing like motorbike shoes - comfier than boots for walking, better than runners for protecting your toes when “explaining”. Helmet, or not? No, I’ll just go with my tinted safety glasses.
I dressed slowly, making sure to put on thick socks as well. Whatever the hell had happened to the world, it was just another level of bullcrap to deal with, not a whole new world. I hadn’t been isekai’d, I still had to pay the mortgage and put fuel in my bike. Or do I? If I can get lightning magic and a Tesla I could probably… well, probably blow myself up. But it would be nice if I could charge the car with magic. The point was that I still had to deal with the realities as they had been yesterday as well. With that in mind, I grabbed my phone, wallet and keys and strapped the bokken to my hip. No point taking an obvious weapon, but as a local out and proud paragon of nerd culture it was not unheard of for me to wander about in cosplay. I briefly considered my Assassin’s Creed jacket but since I didn’t have a hidden blade to go with it would likely draw the wrong kind of attention. I snagged my backpack from the cupboard on the way out of the bedroom, making sure I had a charge bank and laptop in it. In a fit of inspiration I tossed my quadcopter in my backpack as well.
Ready to stalk the neighborhood for clues, I opened my front door and stepped out. The instant my foot hit the path I felt a weird sensation. I could only describe it as a ripple of golden warmth that scanned from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet, then back again. When it dissipated I was left with an urge. You know the feeling like you need to pee? Like that, but I needed to open my menu.
MENU.
There was a now tabs at the top of the menu. The first now read ATTRIBUTES, the second called it JOURNAL and it was gently pulsing gold. I gave it a mental nudge and the tab opened to reveal two options MAIN and OPTIONAL. OHHHKAAAY, I thought, I could have done with this much sooner.
The OPTIONAL list was currently empty, but the MAIN had two entries of its own.
WHISKEY. TANGO. FOXTROT:
What the hell is going on? The world has gone mad and it’s up to you to find out what happened. Or don’t and live with your failure.
Hey, that’s unnecessarily snarky. Who writes these things?
SEEKING AIMEE:
You awoke to find your wife gone. Better than waking up to a horse head beside you, but not by much. Search the local area for information.
The letters of “local area” were highlighted so I concentrated on them for a moment. Another tab popped up at the top of the menu titled MAP, then switched to said tab. Looking like the maps app on my phone, but this had five areas circled which I recognised as the addresses of the people we were friends with. There were a few more icons on the map, but I ignored them for the moment.
The closest was right next door, so I popped around and rang the doorbell. Our neighbor opened the door slowly and I was thankful for that because his name took me a moment to remember. Aimee was the social one, I’m the one who smiles and nods until I can make a move reference. “G’day Alan. How’s it going?” I asked with a nonchalance I didn't really feel.
“Up the creek without a paddle, Ace,” Alan cracked the door the length of the chain but opened it wider once he saw it was just me. “You seen the news yet?” Alan was a full head taller than me, shaved head and biker tatts. And right now he looked as nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. He was sweating like my mother in church.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“I have, actually. That’s why I’m here. Aimee stepped out for a walk this morning before brekkie, before I turned on the TV even, and she hasn’t come home yet.” I looked behind me, trying to maintain a bit of situational awareness. “She didn’t drop in here did she?”
“Not here mate. We haven’t seen her since the weekend.” He turned and called into the house. “Mai, have you seen Aimee today?”
“No dear, not for days. Hurry up, your eggs are getting cold.” Mai’s voice drifted out from deeper in the house.
“There you go, not for days. That said, you ok?” he looked pointedly at my bokken. “We heard noises early this morning and saw the coppers leaving. You don’t think something drastic’s happened?”
“Just a big-ass dog managed to get in the house. I called the cops cos I had to put it down and I don’t want the owner suing me. This thing,” I put my hand on the pommel, “well, it’s like you said. Anyway, I’ll let you get back to your food. Catch you later.”
“Yeah, catch you.” The door swung shut and I heard Alan flick the lock.
Fair cop, I thought. Where next? I wonder if I can pull up the map directly? MAP.
The menu overlay popped straight up on the map screen, bringing a smile to my face. The blue circle that had laid over Alan’s house was gone, leaving only four more scattered around the local area. I decided to head to the furthest circle and work my way back.
With that in mind I marched my butt across the park, normally packed with children but today it was deserted and spookier than midnight on October 31. It was a good thing I was alone, because I was finally alone with my thoughts, no distractions.
I wish I’d thought to grab some kneeguards before I left the house. I ended up smashing them on the cement walkway before pitching face first off the path and into the grass as the enormity of what was going on crashed down on me. Up to now I’d been reacting to one thing or another.
It’s not unusual, I get very task-focused and forget to eat sometimes. Aimee gets freaked out when I suddenly take a massive deep breath because I forgot to breathe properly.
Well, I wasn’t forgetting to breathe right now. I was getting nice big lungfuls of grass and dirt. My heart was hammering against my ribs and the hamster wheel in my brain had spooled up so hard the bearings were glowing. My guts lurched like the day after a vindaloo and I rolled on my back and clenched. This had the effect of sending my stomach somersaulting instead and I rolled back over, pushed myself up onto my hands and knees and threw up the coffee and muffin.
I looked at the wasted caffeine sadly. Such a shame, hurk! A fresh stream of mocha exited my mouth to join the mess. I drew my bokken and used it to haul myself to my feet. I felt both better and worse, but definitely emptier. I unzipped my jacket and wiped my mouth on my shirt, wishing I’d thought to bring a water bottle as well. I wiped the dirt off the wooden sword and sheathed it again, stepping off down the path once more. Yay. Panic attack. Haven’t had one of those in a while. I was starting to think I was overdue.
It wasn’t like I’d never killed anything before. I learned to field strip a kangaroo as a kid. In fact, I’d thrown up in a very similar manner the first time I’d done that when I poked a roo heart sitting on the ground and it had beat one last time, splashing my shoes with blood.
It wasn’t that I’d never been in fights before. Years of martial arts tournaments where I’d consistently come second mean I’d both won and lost to some vicious opponents. I was also an out and proud geek with a smart mouth and a messed up sense of humour so it wsn’t like I hadn’t gotten into bar fights, the “no rules” kind that left me with scars.
Killing something humanoid was new though. That was going to take time to process.
I reached Jaycin’s house with no further incidents with the assistance of an earbud and a Calming Moods playlist on Spotify. I initially had been leery of putting in earbuds in case of the unexpected but having a slightly reduced situational awareness was better than curing up in the foetal position and chanting ‘Game over, man”. I stepped over the bikes, scooters, plastic bows, and a stuffed unicorn on wheels on the way up the driveway. Jaycin had a blended family, both he and his new wife had three kids already and they had a two year old together which meant they needed a big house. Every room in their two story house was packed to the metaphorical rafters. Good folks, salt of the earth and Jaycin was one of the few people I knew who could out-geek me. He had separate Nerf armouries for him and the kids. His library dwarfed mine. Not that you’d know it to look at him. Much like Alan, Jacyin resembled the sort who’d kick puppies for fun. Fewer tatts than Alan, tall and broad enough that he needed to be careful not to knock himself out on doorways and a shoulder length ponytail and gauge zero undercut.
I seem to have a type when it comes to friends.
I rang the doorbell and stepped back so they could see me clearly through the fisheye lens set into the door. “Jayce! You home?”
I heard the upstairs window slide open so I stepped back and looked up. “Rimmer, that you?” Jayce called me Rimmer after Ace Rimmer, the Red Dwarf character.
“Yeah, Jayce, it’s me.”
“You still human?”
“No sir, I am a meat popsicle. You?”
“Could go either way. Hold on, I’m coming down.” The window slid shut.
The sound of furniture moving preceded the door opening and Jaycin stood there with a buster sword in both hands. Honestly, he was one of the few people I knew that could pull that off too. I held up my hands in surrender, slowly. “Chill Winston. It’s me.”
Jaycin lowered the sword, carefully putting the tip on the mat instead of the tile so he didn’t crack any. “Ok Ace, next question. Do you support the Xavier or the Friends of Humanity?”
“Xavier’s School for Gifted Children, all the way. Why do you ask?” I frowned at the weird question. “You still look as close to human as you did yesterday.”
“Not me, mate. One of the squids, he’s a bit freaked out cos he woke up a Hobbit.” Jayce waved me in and locked the door when I passed. I squeezed past the lounge in the hall that was piled with books. Once we were both past it, Jaycin pushed it up against the door with a screech then led the way into the kitchen.
“Have you tried giving him Sting and offering to take him to Isengard?” I dropped into a seat at their massive dining table and accepted the silently proffered glass of Pepsi Max.
Jaycin poured himself a glass and sat too. “Sting, yes, Isengard, no. I did offer to take him to Marvel Stadium on the weekend to see the game though. Should be good now - like a game of Blood Bowl.”
I sipped the cold drink, enjoying how it soothed my raw throat, and thought. “Nah, Blood Bowl is more like gridiron, you know, Yank ‘footy’,” I responded after a minute. “Still, that’s a footy game I’d actually watch. Might even be able to convince Aimee to watch it.” I sipped the drink again. “Speaking of Aimee, from the effort it took to open your door I’m guessing you haven’t seen her?”
“Can’t say I have, mate. You tried calling her?” Jaycin made the universal hand gesture of telephoning someone, the thumb to ear / pinkie to mouth one.
I pulled Aimee’s phone out of my jacket pocket. “Already thought of that one. I’m thinking she went for her morning walk before she found out about the weirdness.” I lied through my teeth because I didn’t really want to admit to having lost my wife at this point.
“Ah, then I can’t really help you there. She hasn’t dropped in for a cuppa, my wife’s at her mother’s at the moment - just me and the boys in the house right now. You want another?” He stood and pointed at my cup. When I shook my head and held it out he took it, rinsed them and popped them on the drainer.
“I’d better get moving. I want to be home when she gets there.” I stood and began making my way to the front door. “But I’ll give you a heads up. I’m pretty sure there’s some monsters out there spawning and despawning. I don’t know how it works, but I’d keep a night light on and maybe post a watch at night.”
Jayce opened the door and ushered me out. “Thanks for the tip, I’ll do that.”