I held the weapon that felt like a toy in my hands to my temple and flipped down the sun visor to see myself in the mirror held within. The area around my left eye was still completely black and featureless, but I could see it move slightly as if trembling. A sound emanated from the parasite clamped to my skull that sounded like the worried growl of a dog. The skin of my eye flashed several different colors - neon green, bright yellow, dark red - before settling on pure white. Huh. Epsilon could change colors, apparently.
Epsilon was trying to communicate with me, but I was having difficulty understanding what it was trying to say. After a moment, I realized the star child’s intention behind its shifted color. It had turned white: the color of peace and the cessation of hostilities.
It was strange that I didn’t immediately understand Epsilon’s intention. If it was burrowing into my brain, our minds would be connected like before. Yet, this time, I could not feel the connection. Epsilon should have been bombarding me with strange images from its “childhood,” but I didn’t see anything.
What, then, caused my thoughts to take such a strange turn? Without realizing it, I had formed a hostile opinion of that albino humanoid race. That thought could only have been the result of malign and unacceptable influence from Epsilon.
Could those thoughts have been remnants of the memories I received? Perhaps Epsilon’s influence on me was deeper than a mere sharing of memories. Our brains were physically connected, after all, and the brain is more than just a memory receptacle.
In fact, I had probably influenced Epsilon just as much as it had influenced me. Its knowledge that white was the color of peace could only have originated from my mind.
With a sigh, I returned the pistol to my holster and kept looking at the discolored splotch that had replaced my eye. Now that our minds were no longer connected, I was at an advantage in our little game of Mutually Assured Destruction. An element of uncertainty would make Epsilon less likely to push the envelope.
“Hey, Epsilon,” I said, completely unsure if the creature would be able to understand me. “It will make it easier for both of us if you could blend in to the rest of my face. Can you do that?”
To my shock, the area of pure white around my eye morphed and changed color. The skin changed color to match the rest, and the black orb took on the approximate look of a normal eye. The pupil and iris were an empty black, but I was progressing back toward normalcy. When I blinked, Epsilon mimicked the motion in my left eye. When I swiveled my right eye, however, the mimicked eye stayed in place. Evidently, Epsilon didn’t have sufficient fine motor control to mimic that movement.
Overall, the mimicry gave me the look of a man with a glass eye. Eh, Peter Falk made it work. I couldn’t complain much about the visual, though the lack of depth perception and peripheral vision on my left side made things slightly more difficult.
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I flipped my sun visor up and started accelerating the car from where I had pulled over to the side of the road. Around the time that I had pulled the gun out, I realized that I would crash if I didn’t pull over.
My thoughts wandered back to the continental spaceship as I fished my phone from the area between my seat and the center console. In an attempt to reach my gun as fast as possible, I dropped my phone on the floor. Factoring in the speed of sound, the shockwave from the crashing ship would take about two hours to reach Chapel Hill.
There was probably nothing I could do. At such a distance, the shockwave would be sufficient to destroy the city, the atmosphere, and most of the Earth’s crust below my feet. If there was any possible salvation, however, it would be found in the System.
I reached central Chapel Hill before I could follow that train of thought any further. I approached from the east, so I passed through a few commercial areas before I hit the campus. Almost everywhere I looked, fires raged and buildings that I had passed hundreds of times before were destroyed. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a group of monstrous bipedal creatures with the facial features of bats sprint toward a nearby CVS. I could hear the sound of terrified screaming coming from inside the store.
[NEW ENEMY DISCOVERED: DILUVIAN]
[NEW QUEST, ENDANGERED POPULACE: SAVE THE CIVILIANS, +50 EXP]
“Ignore.” I gave the command to the System, and the notification quickly disappeared. Last time I took on a Side Quest, I lost an eye. I couldn’t risk taking that kind of danger until I had formed my party.
With my phone once more in hand, I quickly opened Discord and navigated back to my conversation with Carlos and Liz.
[Vin98: Are you guys okay?] 11:18
[Elizabeth/Elstine: Yes. We met up by the Student Union.] 11:19
[Carlos/Slader: What about you, Vin? Half of the campus is already gone. We’d be dead already if not for this Revelation System, or whatever it’s called.] 11:21
[Carlos/Slader: @JFischer And, hey, John. If you see this, answer your damn phone! We haven’t been able to reach you.] 11:21
[Elizabeth/Elstine: John, Vincent. Please answer.] 11:26
[Vin98: I’ll be at the Student Store in a minute. Where are you guys?] 11:27
[Elizabeth/Elstine: The Student Union. Can you get here through the underpass?] 11:27
There was an underpass that ran underground from the area near the Student Store to the Student Union. That route would provide the most concealment if I had to get from South Road to Carolina Union.
[Vin98: Yeah. I’ll take that route.] 11:28
[Carlos/Slader: Make sure to not die, Vin.] 11:28
My car pulled up to South Road, and I parked illegally on the side of the road. As I exited the car, I tried not to stare at the clock tower, which had partially collapsed. None of the nearby buildings were untouched. Everywhere I looked, massive human-sized holes had been torn in the structures as if someone had smashed a wrecking ball through them. This attacking force, whoever they were, seemed intent on destroying all of civilization down to the bedrock.