We’re trapped was the thought at the front of Jake’s mind. There was a good chance they were dead too, but death wasn’t something he was interested in resigning himself to. He closed the door slowly and got to thinking quickly. They had to get to the roof, that was still the goal. Getting there through six of those things with a cane and a couple of kitchen knives though? That wasn’t happening.

“What’s wrong?” Evelynn asked as she watched him standing by the now locked front door. Before he could say anything, one of the monsters’ groans could be heard through the wall.

“There’s half a dozen of them out there,” Jake told her.

She looked stunned. “Half a dozen?” she repeated. It appeared that her mind was rapidly going somewhere very dark. They had barely managed to handle two. Separately. If the monsters out in the hall got in there…

One of the monsters’ screams echoed out.

“Do you have any ideas?” she asked.

“I’m trying to come up with some,” he replied as he stepped away from the door. He gave a quick glance to his metal cane. It hadn’t been there in the other version of the apartment. Maybe there was something a bit more deadly that hadn't been there in the other version either.

With that in mind, he started towards Mr. Singleton’s room. Stepping into the room, his eyes locked onto the gun safe as the monsters began banging on the front door. This time, the safe’s door was closed and locked. He tipped the safe just a bit. Sure enough, he heard its contents shift inside. It was loaded with weapons.

If we can get a gun… he thought. The only problem was figuring out how to get into the safe before the monsters got into the apartment.

A note fell out from between the safe’s door and its frame as he set it back down. He picked it up. ‘Hope for the right affinity,’ it read. “What’s an affinity?” he asked his wristband.

A gift granted thanks to The System’s favor for the Awakened.

Jake thought as much. He didn’t have what it took to crack the safe, at least not before the monsters busted in. He’d have to settle for the next best thing.

Right beside the gun safe was Mr. Singleton’s weapons drawer. Once he had given up on the safe, he immediately got to rummaging through it. Jackpot, he thought. Combat knives, brass knuckles, a machete, and an axe were all there for the taking. They wouldn’t be enough to make him confident in their chances of dealing with what was about to come running through the front door, but they were definitely a start.

Jake hung the axe from his hip by the belt that had come along with it. He also strapped on a twelve-inch combat knife and pocketed a couple brass knuckles. “Evelynn,” he called her down the hall. “Come over here real quick.”

“I’ll be there in a second,” she replied.

He briefly wondered what she was doing before an even better idea than the first came to him. Coming back into the hall, he came to stop in front of the storage closet and threw open the door. “Yes!” He couldn’t help but get excited. Earlier when they were looking through the other version of the apartment with Ernie, they had found the storage closet mostly filled with survival supplies. The rope ladder he had taken particular notice of was about to save their lives.

“Evelynn, come help me get this out of the closet,” he said, running back into the living room. She didn’t respond. Upon seeing her he knew something was wrong. He found her knelt down where she had been before he had left for the master bedroom. She wasn’t moving. “Evelynn?”

He’d thought she might have been barricading the door or something important, but there she was staring down at the ground. The monsters outside were pounding at the door, but she wasn’t reacting in the slightest. “Evelynn.” He waved his hand in front of her eyes. She didn’t even blink. He grabbed her shoulders and shook her.

“I’m still here,” she finally said.

“Yeah, that’s the problem,” he replied, paying glances to the front door. “We need to get going.”

Evelynn remained kneeling. “I can’t see anything. There’s only darkness.”

“Wha—”

Jake whipped his neck towards the front door. One of the monsters had hit it so hard that Jake almost thought that it had torn one of the hinges from the wall. He turned back to Evelynn. “You’re really telling me you can’t see right now?”

“It’s dark,” she said.

He couldn’t believe how unlucky he was to have to be dealing with this right now. “Listen, I know this tough situation, but you can either get up right now or I’m going to have to pick you up and throw you out the window.”

Evelynn looked up. Not at him, but towards the ceiling. Her eyes remained unfocused. “I can see a light.”

“Don’t go towards it.”

She started squinting. “No, I’m not, it's… coming towards me.” For a few more seconds, she stared off into the distance before blinking. All at once, her awareness returned to her. “Sorry.” She took Jake’s hand as she hurried to stand back up. “What do you want me to do?”

“Help me set this ladder up in Mr. Singleton’s room,” he said, leading her back to the storage closet. Together, they pulled out the rope ladder Jake had spotted in there earlier. Entering the master bedroom, they locked the door behind them. While monsters continued hammering away at the apartment’s front door, the duo opened the master bedroom’s window and lowered the ladder.

“Hey, you okay?” Jake asked once they had finished setting it. Evelynn had been present enough to lower the ladder with him but it was clear her eyes were focused on something else.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“I’m fine,” she said. Her eyes were still looking somewhere else.

Jake wasn’t having it. “You sure didn’t look fine back in the living room. I’m not going to watch you fall off this ladder trying to climb down so I’m going to need you to tell me why you’re looking out into space.”

“I’m reading instructions,” she said, promptly swiping at something unseen in the air.

“Instructions?”

“Yeah.”

“For what?” he asked.

“I decided that I wanted to use this thing.” She held up the black band on her wrist.

Jake paused. “You took what it was offering?”

She nodded.

So that's why she was dead-eyed in the living room earlier.

Jake started towards the weapons drawer and signaled for her to follow. “You think you jumped the gun a bit?” he asked. A little part of him couldn’t believe she’d made the choice so fast.

“I didn’t want the chance to regret not taking it,” she said.

He handed her a combat knife in its sheath. “You don’t think you’re going to regret it once you get out of here?” He was sure the hooded woman was being genuine when she said there was no going back to a normal life after accepting the black band’s power.

Evelynn clipped the combat knife’s sheath to her skirt then she tied the machete’s belt sheath to her waist. “I can worry about that once I get out of here alive.”

Jake stopped her before she could head back to the window. “Wait. What kind of powers did you get?”

Evelynn held up two fingers and made their tips glow. The light was bright enough that the vanished tint of Jake’s sunglasses returned. “The notification said I have a light affinity.”

It wasn’t the ability to turn her fists hard like stone or the ghost-like abilities of the hooded woman’s projection, but… “What else did it tell you?” he asked.

“How to use it.”

He tapped the gun safe’s keypad. “Can you use it to shoot a laser?”

Evelynn placed her middle and index fingers together in the shape finger gun then pointed it at the keypad. Small beams of brilliant light converged at the tip of her finger and formed something greater. A low hum accompanied the process. The laser shot forth in an instant, taking the light she had generated with it. Smoke rose and the smell of burnt plastic began to emerge. A fresh scorch mark covered the keypad. Despite the visuals produced, however, the damage she had done was only surface level.

“It’s supposed to get better with practice,” she said, readying another laser. Unfortunately, they didn’t have much time for practice.

The duo turned towards the room’s doorway. The sound of one of the remnants breaking through the front door had echoed out through the apartment.

They still had time. The master bedroom’s door wouldn’t hold much longer than the front door, but monsters didn’t know which room they were hiding in yet.

“Get down the ladder,” Jake said, tossing his bloodied cane down the side of the building. Evelynn climbed down the ladder and he followed after she had finished her descent. He could hear the stone-skinned monsters twisting the locked door handle as he began his climb. It was a clean escape or at least as clean as they were going to get in this place.

As soon as he reached the ground Evelynn was in his ear. “They’re everywhere,” she said. Of course the monsters were out here too. In their cars, across the street, down the block, and even one from its apartment window, the monsters had their crimson eyes locked on them. All of them had stopped what they were doing prior.

“We need to get back inside,” Jake said, picking up his cane. They darted towards the building's entrance as the crimson-eyed watchers began their slow approach. “You have the keys for the lobby?”

“In my purse,” Evelynn said. Which again was in another dimension. Breaking and entering it was then.

Jake readied his cane for a swing as they neared the entrance, but didn’t get the chance. Through the glass entry doors, they spotted a monster in the lobby. It stopped short of the doors upon spotting them.

Perfect, Jake thought. He was sure he could get it to let them in. He started shaking the door handles like a madman and shouting at the monster like one too. Apparently, that was enough to do the trick. The stone-skinned man came charging through the doors like a raging bull.

“Grab the door!” Jake shouted, stepping out of the monster’s path. He slammed his cane into the monster's shin as Evelynn caught the door and it went tumbling onto the pavement. Instead of finishing it off, he charged for the entrance. Evelynn slammed the door shut behind him as he entered the lobby, leaving the approaching monsters locked outside.

“That should buy us a few—”

The monster he’d tripped charged straight through the glassdoor.

Crap.

It was hasty, but Jake managed a swing of his cane. The beast took it in its side and kept coming. He weaved out of the way as it tried to grab him. A wrestling contest wasn’t what he wanted. The situation was bad. They couldn’t afford for this one to be holding them up with the others still coming. He needed to finish this fast.

“Close your eyes!” Evelynn shouted.

Jake dodged one more swipe from the beast and listened. There was a flash of blinding light. Even with his eyes closed, Jake could tell.

The monster screamed out in pain. Jake opened his eyes and found it balled up on the ground clutching its face. It didn’t look like it would be getting up anytime soon. Covered in glass from the door it had run through, the monster was a poor sight. Jake pulled out his combat knife and put the thing out of its misery, receiving another notification..

[Favor Bestowed]

[Benefits Withheld]

You Must Awaken

He turned to Evelynn and found her already standing in front of the elevator. “How’d you know you could pull that off?” he asked, not even fully sure of what exactly she had done when blinding the monster.

She shrugged. “I just gave it a shot.”

It was a pretty powerful shot.

They watched the numbers light up above elevator doors as its car descended. “Did you press the button?” Jake felt the need to ask.

Evelynn didn’t answer. She held up her hand and palm began to glow. Jake could hear a faint hum coming from it as the tint of his sunglasses readjusted. The doors of the elevator opened. She threw her hand forward and flooded the metal box with light. Jake couldn’t tell if the monster had even seen her before the sudden burst of light. All he could tell was that it was now rolling on the elevator car’s floor and screaming in pain.

“Let’s go,” Evelynn said, walking into the elevator. She pressed the button for the fourth and highest floor then drew the machete Jake had given her from the weapons drawer. Once the doors closed, she ended the monster herself.

As the elevator ascended, they stood with the monster’s corpse between them. Evelynn was still holding her bloodied weapon in hand. “Didn’t think you’d be this ready for war when we stepped in here,” Jake said.

“I’ll do what it takes to survive,” Evelynn replied with a hardened determination. “I’m not letting anything get in the way of that.”

Jake felt much the same way. No matter what, he needed to make it out of here and find his grandmother.

From the corner of his eye, he noticed a light dancing upon the tips of Evelynn’s fingers. Without even looking, she made the tips of her fingers brighten and dim one-by-one. It was probably something she was doing to help her keep calm.

Jake had no plans to accept the black band’s power unless absolutely necessary. He hadn’t even found any concrete information on his grandmother yet. Why would he sign himself up to get involved with some secret invasion war when that was the case?

Still, looking at Evelynn illuminate her fingers as the elevator ascended, he couldn’t help but wonder what his ability would be if he did.