Content warning:

Traumatic nightmare.

“Just a bit longer,” Heather said to Marama.

The mushroom woman had a pained expression but nodded. Sorting out her legal situation would take a bit more time.

“Yeah, we’ll get you out of there soon,” Lauren promised.

“Mhmm, Sean is on it,” Lucia added.

“Thank you,” Marama said. She sighed wearily, then trudged back to the meeting room.

They watched until the door shut.

“Well, time to go. I’ve got to see my own family.” Heather said. “Savannah, can you give Lauren my number once she gets a phone?”

“Of course,” the brown-haired wolf-girl said. “It was nice seeing you again.”

Heather waved goodbye and left, looking slightly embarrassed.

The family then finally left the Explorer’s Associate building. The ground outside was covered in a thick layer of snow, and was even falling from the sky. Lauren scooped some into her hands and simply stared at it. As it started to melt, she noticed she wasn’t feeling particularly cold, and saw plenty of people walking around dressed lightly.

She paused to sniff the air.

It smells like people and rot.

Near the entrance of the Explorer’s Association was a large, solid black stone, with one side cut and polished to a reflective finish. It had hundreds of names etched into it, and a plaque beneath the stone revealed it to be a monument. It was dedicated to everyone who had died here twenty-three years ago. Scanning through the names, Lauren found her own, and some familiar ones.

A hand grabbed hers, and she looked over to see her aunt, Lucia. “I’m glad you’re back, Lauren.”

Her aunt had white hair, and had apparently gone even farther with her transition in the past couple decades.

Lauren nodded solemnly. “I’m glad to be back, too.”

Savannah, Lauren’s younger sister, pulled Lauren into a side hug. “I’m excited to live with you again. And do Explorer stuff with you, too! I can’t wait to see what you can do.”

She chuckled. “I’m sure there’s plenty I don’t know yet.”

“So, that bee girl,” Lucia started. “You befriended her?”

“I think so,” Lauren said, smiling. “It’ll be awhile before we can meet again, though.”

Rockford wasn’t at all the city from Lauren’s memory. Her old apartment building had been replaced with the massive Explorer’s Association building directly in its place. It was made of brick and had a simple design, making all the non-humans stand out by contrast to its boring appearance.

Everywhere she could see, the buildings were either completely new, or had been repurposed for Explorers. Several of them were apartments or hotels. There were shops selling weapons and armor, shops for buying or selling Dungeon materials, and even a training facility. She spotted only a single car, and it had been modified so Explorers could fit into it.

Lauren nearly retched when a little black blob seeped out of the ground. They were relatively far away from it, but the stench was powerful. The blob quivered and slowly started rolling toward someone when a nearby Explorer dropped down from the roof of a building and cast a fire spell to burn it away, then jumped to the roof of another building. Other than brief glances from nearby people, they all carried on as normal.

“Was that one of the undead blobs I heard about?” Lauren asked. “And was just burning it like that the best way to handle it?”

Emma answered, “They ruin food and make people sick, and as far as we’re currently aware, not actually alive. Burning it is the best way to quickly get rid of it and clean the area.”

So this is what passes for normal now…

They arrived at the train station, where a group of people were carrying signs and protesting. Some were human, but most were also transformed into people with animal features. The signs mostly read things like, ‘DEBT SENTENCE OR DEATH SENTENCE?’ and ‘EXPLORERS ARE NOT EXPENDABLE’. At least two dozen cops, all of them transformed as well, stood around the protesters, making sure they couldn’t get in people’s way.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

As the Parks walked past, several protesters waved at them. The family waved back and boarded the train, the exterior of which was covered in dents, scratches, and scorch marks. A schedule on a nearby wall indicated that it ran twenty-four hours a day.

The train was new, with thick metal walls and small windows. Instructions on the wall showed how the seats could be used as shields in case of emergency, and where the first aid supplies were located. While the exterior was made of strong metal, the interior was mostly plastic. The windows were thick, but quite narrow, and had metal shutters above them that could be pulled down to block them.

As the train finally got moving and they went outside the city’s walls, the scenery outside was parched land and the occasional disused building. The plants that weren’t completely buried by snow appeared unnaturally withered.

“Any way I can help with the debt problem?” Lauren asked.

Emma answered, “What we do is get valuable resources from the Dungeon, and then use the money to get people out of their problems like we did with Heather. A lot of people stuck as Federal Explorers die because they’re sent to Floors they can’t handle, and are forced to work long hours.

“So if you helped us in the jungle, that would work best with our current system. Don’t feel obligated to do that, though. Take as much time as you need to figure out what you want to do.”

Lucia added, “We also personally train people when we have time for it so they don’t have to rely on the government or a corporation for training, because those always require signing a contract. And we help pay for training facilities unrelated to those and supplying decent equipment to other Explorers.

“And besides that, we help fund and organize protests, but not many people can make it so deep into the dungeon, so we’re more useful there.”

“Alright.” Lauren nodded. “I quite like the jungle these days, so I have no problem with going back there. I can’t imagine going back to a normal life, honestly.”

“’These days’?” Maeve repeated.

“It was terrifying and exhausting for a long time, but the more I learned about it and the more capable I became, the more I was able to relax.”

No one said anything for a while, so Lauren pointed out the small window. “Why are all the plants drying up like that? Even the ones that should be okay in the winter don’t look so good.”

Savannah shrugged. “No one’s figured it out yet. Most people pin the blame on dungeons, but the only piece of evidence we have for that is the fact that it started happening after the Advent, the day Dungeons appeared.

“There’s a lot of things we haven’t figured out yet. Why animals are so much more hostile now, why there’s undead, why tectonic plates are moving so fast, why the weather is so abnormal and intense everywhere… Pretty much everything post-Advent is still a mystery.”

“Hmm…” She changed the subject again. “Heather said you trained her a long time ago?”

Savannah laughed. “Yeah, we did.”

“Why is that funny?”

Her little sister continued laughing. “She’s a cutie, I’ll just say that. But yeah, we did. She got the basics down, and then became a Federal Explorer to deal with her debt situation, which was because of… well, I guess she should be the one to tell you about it.”

“Aww, she’s my first friend in twenty-three years, but I don’t know much about her yet.”

“What about your lemur friend?” Emma asked.

“Him? Are you kidding me? That brat is probably getting himself sick again as we speak. The giant crocodile is pretty cool, though. I think of her as my friend.”

“Most animals down there would be giant, right?”

“Yeah, but she’s like, mega giant.”

“Maybe she’s a Guardian?”

“Which is…?”

“Oh. Um, so Floors with crystals on them have one animal that’s usually bigger and stronger than the rest. Technically, they aren’t actually guarding anything, but if you go to a Floor with crystals on it, then you have to be aware of the potential greater threat that might be around.”

“Huh. So like, they get bigger because of crystals or something?”

“They supposedly absorb mana from them, yeah. And it only works with animals specifically from that Floor.”

“Well, sounds like Tyche might be a Guardian, then.”

A loud bang resounded from the opposite side of the train, but other than a brief moment of mild surprise, everyone aboard went back to whatever they’d been doing. The bangs and rattles happened occasionally as the train ride continued, but people quickly adjusted to the noises and behaved as if they weren’t even happening.

Lauren peeked outside and glimpsed a rabbit firing a rock at the train. The spell collided with the window, but the glass was undamaged.

The train made a brief stop in Marengo, where they got off. Other than the walls surrounding the city, the buildings were mostly unchanged. Most of the people they passed were also transformed, though there were more regular humans mixed in than in Rockford.

After exiting Marengo’s walls, they ran for about fifteen minutes, and arrived at a small grouping of houses surrounded by a simple fence. Only around one hundred people lived here, but with how late it was, only a few were still out, patrolling around for animals. One of them gave a quick wave as they walked past.

They arrived at a small house made of stone and wood, looking somewhat similar to a cabin.

“Looks cozy,” Lauren observed. Other than the homes, there were several greenhouses set up, plus some tables, chairs, and outdoor cooking equipment.

“It is,” Savannah replied. “We don’t have a spare bed for you, but you wouldn’t fit in one anyway. You’ll have to make do with sleeping on the floor tonight, I guess.”

“Not a big deal.” She shrugged. “I slept in a lot of unusual places in the jungle.”

Maeve chimed in, “You slept in a lot of unusual places as a child, too. The sheer number of times I tripped over you in the morning or had to pull you out of some strange nook…” she finished, shaking her head.

Lauren laughed as she remembered. “I remember Savannah was the same. I sleep in a hammock now. …Wait, all of you live here?”

“Mhmm.” Emma nodded. “After… you went missing, we stuck together.”

Lauren ducked under the door frame as she entered the house, then habitually gave it a quick scan for immediate danger. The only danger she found was to her emotions, in the form of old pictures of her on the wall; some were of her alone, and others with family or friends.

And then twenty-three year’s worth of memories made without her.

“F-Fuck…” she whispered.

There were pictures of her family becoming Explorers, pictures of them with friends, pictures of several people they’d trained over the years.

Old memories hit her, too; things that had been pushed to the back of her mind a long time ago. Going camping with everyone, drawing pictures with her sisters, participating in track in school.

The family had another emotional moment in the living room, but after a long silence and several yawns, they called it for the night. With a pile of soft things laid out on the floor, she went to sleep.

“See ya tomorrow!” Kayla called out to her.

“Mhmm, see you tomorrow,” Lauren responded.

Lauren got into her car, and as she turned the key in the ignition, she noticed that she had somehow gotten ink on her pant legs, creating a bright red stain on the seat. She shrugged—the whole car interior had plenty of ink stains already. Most of them weren’t even from her job.

She entered her apartment fifteen minutes later, idly noticing that neither of her roommates were home. She immediately headed for the kitchen sink so she could wash some of the ink off.

But the building suddenly shook.

The contents of her shelves rattled and crashed to the floor, and the shelves themselves teetered precariously before also succumbing to gravity. The walls cracked. A pipe burst. Floorboards splintered. People screamed. Car alarms blared.

The floor split apart and she fell into the apartment beneath hers. As she struggled for safety, she saw the old man who lived here pinned beneath a fallen shelf and a mountain of car books.

She reached for his hand, but the floor tilted, and she fell again. She violently collided with stone and dirt, knocking the air out of her lungs, and as she continued tumbling even deeper into the darkness, she could see the ruined apartment building far above her; debris, cars, and a few other unlucky people falling down after her.

Her mom, aunt, sisters, and even her grandparents, were standing at the edge of the hole, reaching for her in the darkness, calling her name. She reached for them too, but only descended yet even further into the void; her family’s faces moving farther and farther away, the light of the surface vanishing.

Trees of lush green replaced the darkness. Something nearby roared.

Lauren bolted upright, panting heavily and drenched in sweat.

Fuck, I haven’t had that dream in years…

She took several deep breaths to calm down, then removed the blanket to let the cold winter air cool her down. She cried, and eventually fell back asleep.