[Teleport failed]
Blue lines disappeared around me as well as well as all of the students, except one. He stared back at me from across the cafeteria with an awkward smile.
“Hey! How the fuck do we get out of here?” I yell out after a few silent pauses. We both get up, he seems to be my age, dressed in muddied boots, worn jeans, and a generic tee. He combs his long hair off his forehead to the back of his skull. “Maybe we shoold try the front door?” He smiles with a lump of tobacco in his lower lip.
“It was locked before the dungeon ended.”
“Do ya have a better idear?” He asks sarcastically.
“I’m Mae.”
“Howdy, I’m Alex. Did ya fuck up the challenge like me?”
“Yeah I did.” Embarrassed, I flush my cheeks and look to my blood encrusted vans. “What difficulty did you challenge?” I ask.
“Advanced. Had to wrestle a goddamn talkin gator to submission. Flipped him on his stomach but the fucker had some tail muscles forsure. Wrangled me to the ground and choked me to death. Now here I am as a laughingstock because everyone else was too mucha pansy to challenge themselves. What about you?”
“Oh me?” I cough to buy myself a second to think. “Advanced. Mine was me just being stuck in a room. Couldn’t even find the escape in time even though I had 72 hours. Kinda sad to be honest.” I intentionally downplay my experience, hoping he doesn’t care enough to ask more questions. I, myself, am not sure why I don’t want to share, the question lingering indefinitely in my head.
“Well ya know I ain’t hear of that kinda test from nobody else. You must be special, I do dare say.” He winks back at me but flattery hasn’t gotten anyone, anywhere with me.
Silence descends as he realised his mistake while I couldn’t think of a goading reply.
“Ya know I heard Steven and Kaylee from theatre completed the expert challenge! Can ya believe that?”
“No wonder they already have strong like abilities.” I mutter softly. “Did you see Steven? It looked like he had metallic skin of some sort.”
“Yeeahh, I’ve been bored this entire time and asked around quite a bit. Apparently he got an ability “Iron Skin” that turns his skin into actual iron. I envy him, I really can’t wait to get my hands dirtied again. Just another month until it’s our turn.”
“Yep” I lie. “Another month indeed.” We both make it to the door and push it open. Surprisingly the door swings outward as our senses combust with emotion. Screams and lights, laughter and mourning, filled the front school steps following a salty copper scent numbing my tongue. The dark foreboding sky now a spring-midday sky with not a cloud in apocalyptic sight.
“I need to find my family.” He states slowly word by word, not looking at me but staring at the mass of bodies. A clusterfuck of people have swarmed the school. People seem to be floating mid-air waving and flying down below. Lights and images appeared above the students, even a comically giant red arrow appearing in front of a group of healers. What caught my attention the most was the basketball sized human eyeball levitating 20 feet above the center of the crowd, it’s eye a strange sea deep blue. The eye moved constantly in circles, its eye dilating and expanding in terse bursts, searching intensely.
I saw a movement in the corner of the eye and a brief glimpse in my direction. It immediately stopped, mechanically reversed it’s momentum and analysed me. I curiously hopped to my left and right, the eye moving with me. Uncomfortable, I look to Alex but realise he has already left, already on the search for his family. Not wanting to enter the still clusterfuck of people, I sit on the top step and listen for my parents. The eyeball nodded it’s head before it went back to searching.
I look across the street and see the Starbucks still running, yet the Subway next to it had its power out and windows smashed. A line formed in the street for coffee during the apocalypse, fuckin crazy, entitled people. I chuckle but at the same time but consider walking there myself, a warm coffee would totally cheer me up right now.
I see some cars still driving the road, but not but a couple every few minutes. Trash and litter filled the road as well as a red lumpy paint coating the sidewalks. An eternal green fire is seen on top of an abandoned pickup truck further down the road. Giant pits filled the street, one I couldn’t yet see the bottom of. Footprints bore into the cement, some even human-sized. Lost in thought, I daydream of these superpowers and new monster filling the world. A smile leaks across my face as I juggle the mana in my chest.
“Hey! Are you Mae?” I wake out my stupor and notice a cop approaching me from the dwindling crowd. I nod my head quietly as he approaches closer and takes a seat next to me. “I’m Uriah” He extends his hand. “You’re Mae Zenn, right?” I nod again. He relaxes his shoulders and waves at the eyeball, giving it a thumbs up.
“What the fuck is that?” I ask curiously.
“It’s my partner, William. Look, you probably have a lot of questions right now but let's get to the meat of the problem. We were looking for you. Your parents are at the hospital right now with your brother. You’re dads an old friend of mine and I’m here to take you to them. Will’s gonna keep an eye out here for others.
I look up to see him grinning a stupid looking grin and almost don’t roll my eye out of pure shock.
“Are my parents and brother okay? What happened? Which hospital? The one on Medical Center or 617?”
“The one on MC Boulevard is the only one running. I’ll explain everything else on the way there.”
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I tap all my pockets once and realise theres something I’m missing. “Forget something?” He asks. I hesitate for a brief moment, weighing my options.
“No, I got my phone, keys, and wallet. Don’t need anything else.” Before I walk down the steps, I look one more time into the school. “I don’t need any more games.”
We make it passed the group of people. A lot of kids and parents still stand there alone but I figure that’s why there's a lot of police officers still hanging out, helping them. I follow him, hoping he knows his way around the now carnage.
“So you lost the challenge, eh?” He asks me.
“How do you know?”
“It won’t let me friend request you. Also I have an analyse skill and it doesn’t work on you.”
“What does that skill do?”
“Ah, well it’s only level two, but it tells me the name of the person and their highest stat. Not real useful right now, but I plan on leveling it up as much as I can.”
“Does the information just appear in your brain or do you see it somewhere?”
“It appears next to the person, floating mid-air.”
“Jeez, you ask a lot of questions but I understand where your curiosity is coming from. If I didn’t have these screens constantly popping in front of me, I’d think I was insane too. How long till you gain access to the system?”
“A week.” I shrug my shoulders and casually say.
As we were walking across the parking lot, I notice something sticking out of a open sewer drain.
“What’s that?” I point and ask.
Uriah looks and holds out his palm towards the drain.
Before I know it, three giant cockroaches shoot out and leap towards us. Before I even get a chance to respond, five balls of energy shoot out of his palm, disintegrating the two closest. The third one leaps towards me as I flinch, covering my face with my hands helplessly. A loud crunch sounds as I open my eyes to see a fist stick through the ugly body of an cockroach. He uses his other hand to hold the body and wrenches his gut filled hand free of the carcass. My emotions process the event before my brain has time to analyse it, as I get down on my knees and throw up on his boot.
Before I even wipe the acidic taste from my lips, I ask. “What spell was that?”
“Mana bolt.”
My eyes widen and my stomach grunges hungrily.
“Did you say mana bolt?” I ask with nervous excitement. I cover my mouth and gasp in my head as the volume I spoke at was something I’ve never done before. I look to my mana and I perceptively notice that a fourth of it is now gone.
“Are you okay?” He asks shocked at my voice as well.
“Ye..Yea..” Coughing like a smoker, I try to gain my bearing. “Yeah, sorry I just got a little carried away.” My voice became noticeably hoarse and my throat, sore.
If only I could move mana at that speed out of my body. Maybe I can give it some momentum so that it exits at a high speed? If I shoot it out fast enough will it even come out like a mana bolt? Do I have to condense it before I shoot it? How do I keep the mana condensed? I decided to keep quiet and leave myself to my thoughts, the previous embarassing incident wiped from memory.
Rounding the block, in an alley between buildings, a cop car hid in plain sight. A average looking man sat in the passenger seat with his eyes closed. “That’s our ride.” Opening the door, I enter the safety of the car. Uriah taps WIlliam on the shoulder, the man waking out of his reverie. He glances towards me in the back and gently sticks his hand forwards. “Hi, the names William, glad for you to join us.” His eyes shoot towards me with the same perceptive blueness.
“Mae. Were you the one who found me?” “Sure was. Uriah, we better finish this up and head to the meeting happening soon.” “You’re right, lets go.” The two jabber on as old friends do, meanwhile I stay quiet in the back of the car.
Driving down suburban neighborhoods gave me the fucking scare. Nothing is the same anymore, my previous memories useless. Where buildings used to stand, giant footprints and torn houses stood. There used to be a Safeway to the right, but it seems to have been zapped out of existence, a now empty parking lot lead to nowhere. New paths were paved in dirt off the main roads and streets were covered with random concrete pieces flung from who-knows-where.
The smell had to be the worst though. There was a scent I’ve never smelled before but I immediately knew what it was. Death. The scent of death is something that all life forms can recognise, a scent of uncomfortable instinctual familiarity. A couple corpses littered the lawns of houses that also were covered in the same lumpy paint. My stomach decided to not forgive me as acidic buildup came to the back of my throat. It didn’t leave till we made it to the main road, Main Street. There, thousands of people were being treated, camps were set up, and the fire station was the center of activity. The hospital resided a mile further down the road as I participated in my favorite activity, people watching. I saw some people healing with their palm like Suzie. Others had beams of light or static shocks escape from their fingertips. A lot of people appeared to be interacting with an invisible interface in front of them. I became jealous but reminded myself by bouncing my mana again, spreading it my tense shoulders. We drove slowly by the the mass of people making it hard to navigate at a decent speed. I perceptively didn’t see any kids around my age, most of them being under the age of 13.
“Was my school the only one that turned into a dungeon?”
“No. Middle schools and above turned into dungeons.” He said grimly.
I don’t acknowledge his statement as I stare into the throng of people. Too many things stood out and grasped my attention. My comic book analytical brain took over as I saw new abilities be used. Someone had a couple dogs cuddling up to him, but when I looked closer, I saw shark like teeth sticking out of their cute little mouths. People levitated seamlessly and laser beams were not abnormal. Grief seemed the most common trope however, as many were torn from their homes, lying on the street with no sense of direction.
All attention broke out as a loud announcement rang out from a woman that was being held in the sky by a man with a tacky, dull-red cape. Uriah slowed the car to a stop.
“In one hour, we’ll all gather at the sewer entrance across from the Target. All people that can cast or create light come meet up right below me immediately to prepare. We will finally eradicate the beasts below our streets! No longer will we be afraid of sleeping in our homes or afraid to walk alone! Today is the day we strike back and what's rightfully ours! Fight with me to help bring peace back to our community! Fight for your loved ones safety! We will need all the help we can get! Fight back with me!”
The motor starts back up before I get a chance to see what happens next.
“Sorry kid, gotta hurry and take you to the hospital to make it back in time to mess those sewer rats up” Williams says, his visible excitement noticeable.
“What level are you?” I ask curiously.
“Well kid, there’s a hidden rule to not ask personal details now so be careful, but I’m proud to be level 14. Been fighting the last two days straight to get there and I’m starting to get pretty strong. Although you should be really careful about going out by yourself now. There’s a lot of stronger men out there besides us and they ain’t as nice.”
We drive on the sidewalk up to the hospital as the place is packed to the absolute brim. “Well here you are. Ask the lady at the front desk where your family is, and take care of yourself. If you need any help, don’t be a stranger.”
As soon as he drives off, a realisation dawns on me. He forgot to talk about my parents and I forgot to ask. That deserves a good ol' forehead palm slap. Whap!