“Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception.”

Carl Sagan

“Switch up!” Bethany called as she vaulted off the creature’s rusted iron claw. As the claw struck in pavement, Bethany leapt over the eight-foot-tall scrap metal humanoid’s shoulders and dropped down behind its back. She spun and slammed her hammer of light into the center of its back, causing it to collapse to its knees.

Rocky swung his great stone axe, light as a feather yet strong as the earth itself, into the chest of the orb’s metal shell. Shards of scrap fractured away where the axe struck, scattering across their residential road battlefield. The orb roared in anger and reached for the mammoth of a man, but Rocky easily tumbled out of its way, as agile as a gymnast.

“Emily, now!” Rocky shouted as the fragile pilot beneath the armor was exposed, its protection carved away by Rocky and Bethany’s twin blows.

Emily dashed in from the side and clenched her fist. Bronze metal cascaded over her skin from wrist to fingertip, forming a protective shell over her hands. Razor-sharp claws formed out six inches from her top four knuckles. With three quick jabs, Emily struck the orb in its unprotected center.

The orb shattered into countless pieces. Its rusted metal armor gave a final screeching lurch and collapsed into a heap, lifeless once more.

“Yes!” shouted Emily, thrusting her metal claws into the air in victory.

“You were wonderful, honey,” Rocky exclaimed as he embraced Emily tightly. “Right on target.”

“As always,” Emily replied smugly, as she gave him a quick celebratory peck on his chubby cheek.

Bethany gagged playfully. Emily and Rocky had only been a couple for the past week, but they were two pieces of a puzzle perfectly fit together. The two friends had been inseparable for years and helped each other heal from the scars of their past. But it had taken an insistent runaway girl and a game of life and death for them to finally overcome the barriers they had erected between them and take the next step in their relationship.

Despite their growing propensity for public displays of affection, Bethany couldn’t be happier for her newfound friends.

“Now, let’s see if it fight was worth the risk,” said Bethany as she shifted through the creature’s debris.

She found what she was looking for resting face down on the pavement.

“Yes!” she exclaimed, as she picked up the silver coin – the currency of Mr. Mercury’s Emporium and the key to their survival in the God Contest.

“About time,” said Rocky with relief. “That was the fourth orb we took down this afternoon, and all the others came up empty. Why are those coins so damn rare?”

“Whose coin is it this time?” asked Emily, leaning up against an abandoned car to catch her breath.

Bethany gingerly picked up the flat, featureless silver coin and flipped it over.

“Rocky MacMillian. Attribute token. Redeemable at Mr. Mercury’s Emporium,” Bethany said, reading the gold lettering engraved on its surface. “Looks like you’re the winner today, Rocky.”

Bethany flipped the coin to Rocky, who deftly snatched it in mid-air.

“Nice,” Rocky exclaimed excitedly. “Magic or strength this time?”

“Magic,” Emily answered decisively. “We need all the healing we can get. Priyanka can barely keep up with our injuries.”

“She’d keep up if she left the refinery and started fighting with the rest of us,” Bethany said, with more irritation than intended. “And she’s keeping Harmony and Brandon sheltered behind the refinery walls as well. They all need to get out there and fight.”

“I know how you feel, Bethany,” Rocky said sympathetically. “But she’s a grandmother, and Harmony and Brandon are just kids. They should be in school, not out fighting monsters and trying to survive God Arenas.”

“Besides, those kids are already a handful,” Emily added. “Harmony with her drawings and Brandon with his telekinesis. They’d be little menaces if they had enhanced strength, speed, toughness, and magic. I swear, if Brandon throws one more pepper shaker at me during breakfast…”

“I know,” Bethany interrupted. “But that’s not the world we live in now. There are no schools, and they do have those powers. If they don’t fight – if they don’t get stronger – they won’t survive. Fighting is the only hope they have.”

We’ve had this argument every day since the Arena of Ares. The others… they don’t see what I see in the dreams. They don’t know of the coming war. With every day that passes, Brandon and Harmony’s chances – and Priyanka’s chances – grow slimmer. At least Elias and Anjali are getting out there.

“It’s not fair, is it?” Rocky sighed, signaling the usual end of the argument.

“The God Contest is not fair. It is not kind. It will stretch each participant until they break, and only the strongest will be able to pull themselves back together,” Bethany recited without thought.

“Where’d you hear that?” Emily asked curiously.

Bethany caught herself. She’d heard it from her guide – from the imprint of Oracle’s memory contained in her Oracle Eye – on the eve of the God Contest, but she’d had to kept that knowledge to herself, lest she attract the curiosity of the wrong gods.

“It’s just… something I heard once,” Bethany said vaguely. “We should get moving. We don’t want to be out here after dark.”

They walked down the abandoned street in silence, weapons ready. The residential area was a kilometer from the refinery. With nine mouths to feed, their supplies were quickly dwindling, and they had been forced to explore out further each day.

A light snow fell from the mountains to the north, lending a chill to the air that had not been there two weeks ago. A few kilometers to the east, a warm tropical wind carried over the city, the demarcation between the two terrains stark in the sky overhead. If they crossed that line that separated the terrains, they’d be instantly sweating in their coats as the tropical heat bombarded them. This was the way in a city equally split between mountain, ocean, forest, and plains environments.

“Tomorrow, we go scavenging in the ocean side of the city,” Rocky muttered as he followed Bethany’s gaze. “Change it up a bit. If I’d known northern Regina was to be locked in perpetual winter, I’d have picked a different base of operations.”

“Wimps,” Emily chuckled, the experienced skier at home in cool temperatures. “Although, I wouldn’t mind breaking out my bikini and getting a tan.”

“I think your boyfriend would like that too,” Bethany laughed, as Rocky turned beet red.

Emily smacked Rocky’s shoulder. “Why’re you blushing, babe? It’s nothing you haven’t seen every night this week.”

Rocky’s blush grew. “It’s not the same thing,” he muttered, and Bethany and Emily laughed mischievously until they turned into a residential bay.

Scavenging from abandoned homes wasn’t as efficient as going to a supermarket, but after the Arena of Ares, they had decided to forgo convenience for safety.

Too many desperate people in one place. Too big a risk that it might turn into another Arena. We can’t avoid arenas if we want to survive, but we can try to engage them on our terms.

“Let’s start with 2301,” Rocky said, pointing towards the older two-story home with the blue curtains. “There aren’t any footprints in the snow, and the tire tracks from the garage have a couple of days snow layered on top of them. Probably abandoned.”

“You said the same thing about that rundown bungalow four days ago,” Emily teased. “Priyanka spent the night picking buckshot out of your shoulder, remember?”

Rocky rotated his shoulder. Priyanka had mended his injuries, but he remembered the pain that had accompanied the sight of the old man clutching the shotgun, with nothing but his socks and a scowl to keep him warm. It had taken every bit of Rocky’s enhanced agility to avoid the shot, though he’d still been clipped. They hadn’t stopped running until they were a block away, and Emily made a note to avoid that neighbourhood.

“That’s why we knock first now,” Rocky said with conviction. He led the way up to the front door of 2301 and knocked as Emily and Bethany kept watch on the street and the windows. They waited a full two minutes, listening intently for any movement – human or monster – before deciding it was empty.

Rocky tried to open the door.

Locked.

“Ok, my turn,” Emily said, ushering Rocky off the porch so she could get to work.

Forming her metal claws, she slipped one between the door and the frame and slashed down. Her claws sliced clean through the deadbolt.

Emily looked back at her companions, who gave a silent nod. She gently pulled open the door.

Bethany caught the smell of death in the air before they ever crossed the threshold. She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and held it to her mouth.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Damn, another one,” said Emily as she slid her backpack off her shoulders for quick access. “Let’s make this a quick trip.”

“I’ll search the rooms upstairs. You guys do the main floor. Stay out of the basement,” Bethany reminded them, as the trio split up in practiced fashion. They’d made the basement mistake on their first day scavenging – now they only went into rooms with more than one exit point.

The smell of death grew stronger as Bethany climbed the stairs. She pushed her fear down into her stomach, tightened her handkerchief around her nose, and continued on.

The walls along the staircase were lined with family pictures. A husband and wife on their wedding day. A new baby, and a second one. Year after year they grew, until the children were the same age as Brandon and Harmony. The husband grew bald and fat, and the wife was in a wheelchair in the last three pictures. Their faces were filled with love and delight, and Bethany couldn’t help but contrast them with those of her father that she’d seen in her nightmare.

Bethany reached the top of the stairs, and, even with the handkerchief held tight, the pungent smell made her gag.

I wish I hadn’t seen those family pictures. It makes this all so real.

Steeling her nerves, she started with the medicine cabinet in the washroom. Without reading the labels, she gentle placed each bottle into a pillowcase in her backpack, which would help muffle the sound as they walked. Priyanka, who had worked as a nurse in India, insisted they stockpile every medication they could get their hands on. They didn’t know the limits of healing magic, and medicine would soon be scarce.

Bethany plucked six bars of soap, an unopened bag of cotton swabs, and a tube of toothpaste from beneath the sink and shoved it all in her backpack. She made a mental note of what she left behind so Emily could add it to her list. Emily’s Infinite Recall talent made it easy to return if they found themselves in need of something more specialized.

She made quick work of the children’s bedrooms, taking only a pack of construction paper and colored pencils for Harmony, a bag of marbles for Brandon, and a few clothes she thought might fit them. It felt wrong to scavenge from children, which Bethany decided was a sign her empathy was still intact.

The moment she cracked the door to the master bedroom, an intense smell of death flooded into the hall.

Be brave, little bee.

Bethany stepped inside.

The mother’s body lay on the bed, empty eyes staring at the ceiling and her shirt covered in vomit. A yellow prescription bottle was upended on the nightstand next to her, its few remaining pills scattered across the beige carpet. Her wheelchair was beside the bed, and a neatly folded note had been left on its seat.

Bethany walked respectfully over to the woman and whispered a prayer.

“May one of these gods be kind enough to watch over you in whatever world lay beyond this one,” she whispered, her head bowed.

She’d come up with the prayer after their first night scavenging. They’d come across a family torn apart in the street, only a few feet from their car. Bethany could only stare helplessly at the bodies, and when they finally moved on, she felt empty inside.

The prayer wasn’t profound. Bethany didn’t even think it was good but it made her feel like she had done something to help those who hadn’t survived the horrors that infested the city. Unfortunately, she’d had too many opportunities to use it over the past week.

She picked up the note and read it to give voice to the woman’s final words.

My dearest Jeffrey,

When you return from your search for food, I will be dead. Do not grieve for me, my love. This is a harsh world we have found ourselves in, and we both know it was not one I could endure. Better to go out my own way rather than how the Johnson’s died last week. I can’t get their screams out of my head, and I don’t want mine in yours.

Take care of Susie and Sarah. This final act is the gift I give them. They are growing girls, and what little food remains should be theirs, not wasted on me. I wish I could see them grow up. I wish I could give them the life they deserve.

Survive, my love. Survive for them. Raise them to be strong, courageous, and bold. Help them thrive in this world.

You made me the happiest woman in the world, even during the toughest of times. You were the sun in my sky (there’s your sappy metaphor, you hopeless romantic – a last one to make you smile.)

I’ll see you on the other side.

Your loving wife,

Mary

Bethany wiped away a tear and placed the note gently back on Mary’s wheelchair.

“It’s better this way,” Bethany whispered. “Your husband and children never came back from their search. You didn’t need to experience that heartache.”

She reached over and gently shut Mary’s eyes.

“Rest well, Mary. I hope you’ve found your family on the other side.”

Bethany left the remainder of the room undisturbed, save for cracking open the window to let in the fresh mountain air. Jitters – the winged eye that broadcast her actions to the watching gods – spotted her at the window and flew in close. Bethany gave Jitters a wave, and her companion bounced happily in the air.

It’s just a tool of these maniac gods, but I can’t help but get attached to the little guy. For all I know, it’s as much a slave to their whims as I am.

Bethany headed downstairs, and she stared at the photos as she descended. Their argument about Harmony and Brandon was still fresh in her mind.

They’re all dead now. Mother, father, children – the same age as Harmony and Brandon. Mary and her husband tried to keep their children safe in their home, but they failed. They ran out of food, and the world outside killed them. I won’t let the same fate befall Harmony and Brandon, or Priyanka, for that matter. The stubborn old woman.

“What did you find, Bethany?” Emily called from the laundry room. “Anything I need to add to my mental list?”

“Raise them to be strong, courageous, and bold,” muttered Bethany, reciting the words in Mary’s letter.

“You okay, Bethany?” Rocky asked.

“This family had children Harmony and Brandon’s age,” Bethany said. “Their parents kept them in their home to shelter them from the horrors outside. But they were forced out, and they never returned.”

Bethany stomped down the last two stairs to emphasize her words.

Rocky frowned. “Bethany…”

“No,” Bethany interrupted. “I don’t want to argue about this anymore. We don’t have time. Harmony and Brandon don’t have time. If we let fear for their safety hold them back, they’ll die just like their mother did.”

It’s more than just that though, isn’t it? If there is a war coming, we need allies. Strong allies. Harmony and Brandon could be powerful, but only if we let them. It’s unfair, but it is what it is.

Bethany marched past them towards the front door.

“I’m going to start training them,” she declared. “Will you help me?”

Emily and Rocky looked at each other, a silent conversation flowing through their eyes. Rocky threw up her hands in surrender.

“Fine, you win,” he said. “Of course we’ll help. But we’ll start tomorrow, okay? I want us to clear out this bay before nightfall.

Bethany smiled as she let her anger fade. “Tomorrow,” she agreed, as she went outside and left the stench of death behind her.

“She’s scary when she’s mad,” Rocky whispered to Emily with a chuckle.

“Yah,” Emily said, nudging Rocky with her elbow. “So don’t piss her off. I’d hate to see what happens to someone who gets on her bad side.”

* * *

Zachary Choi, the Illustrious Mr. Zee, watched his companion tear through the pack of beasts with her usual fervor. The creatures – an unholy hybrid of hyena and household recycling – had chosen the wrong players to ambush outside the abandoned downtown hotel.

Abigail shouted in pain as one of the beasts clamped down on her ankle with plastic teeth. She kicked it off and crushed its head into the pavement without breaking her momentum. Her massive sword, fueled by her own lifeblood, swept in an arch and severed the heads of two more members of the pack.

Zee yawned and, with a flick of his wrist, materialized and hurled a shadow dagger between the eyes of another that tried to leap on Abigail from behind.

Abigail spun towards Zee with irritation.

“I don’t need your help,” she said angrily as she decapitated another beast. “This fucking contest has given you the last three Emporium coins, and I’ll be damned if you get this one.”

Zee threw up his hands in surrender, leaving The Bloodied Widow to her work. He leaned back, took a puff of the cigarette between his fingers, and stared up at the night sky.

“One hundred and fifty-two thousand of us left, give or take a few hundred,” Zee announced as he read the golden number in the sky. “Eighty thousand dead in two weeks.”

“I’ll be eighty thousand and one if you don’t stop distracting me, Zachary,” Abigail shouted, as she smashed in a creature’s face with her fist. She bled from half a dozen wounds, though Zachary knew that was worse news for the remaining beasts than it was for Abigail. The Wounded Berserker talent Abigail had received yesterday from the Arena of Algea – the Roman god of pain – paired well with her Bloodied Widow talent.

“Which did you prefer?” Zee mused as he grew bored. “The Arena of Ares or the Arena of Algea? Ares had a certain brutality to it, but The Algea had a way with pain that made me just…”

Zee ducked as Abigail hurled one of the half-dead beasts directly at him. He dodged and it crashed into the side of the hotel. With an enthusiastic laugh, he drew a dagger to finish it off.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Abigail warned him, as she cleaved through the remaining two beasts in the pack. They shattered into mounds of recycling and meat and spilled out across the pavement.

Zee stashed his dagger and stepped aside. Abigail gave him a side-long glance and impaled her blade through the beast’s head.

A silver coin flashed in its remains.

“Well?” Zee asked.

Abigail bent down and inspected the coin.

“You’re lucky,” she said, slipping the coin into the pocket of her ripped and bloody jeans. She felt the rage within her fade, and her wounds began to ache. “Let’s hope there’s an Emporium in this hotel like the last one. And I need a bath and another round of your healing.”

“You know my price,” Zee said with an exaggerated wink. His hands glowed blue with healing energy as he wiggled his fingers.

Healer’s Touch had been a disappointing award from the Algea – it was as common as arena rewards could get – but Zee had to admit that it had its practicalities.

“Yah, I don’t stab you in your sleep,” Abigail declared, as she marched into the hotel lobby.

“Abby, you’re a spicy lady. I’ll work my way into your heart yet,” Zee answered back with confidence. “I’ll treat you better than your prat of a dead husband ever did.”

Zee thought he caught a sly smile at the edge of Abigail’s lips as they entered the hotel.

They were not alone. There was a woman in the lobby, palming a coin into a Mr. Mercury’s Emporium machine that sat between two overpriced snack dispensers.

A woman with shoulder-length blond hair with a strip of black, and a black dagger at her side.

A woman Zee had met before.

“Well, if it isn’t my sweet plum blossom,” Zee whistled. “Where have you been this past week, my dear?”

The woman did not acknowledge Zee. She made her selection on the Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, swallowed the potion that emerged, and hurled the empty vial straight at Zee’s head.

Abigail caught the vial an inch from Zee’s nose.

“I like her,” Abigail said as she tossed the vial gently back to the woman. “She’s obviously a good judge of character.”

“Yes, and you’ve both hurled dangerous objects at my face in the past minute. You have much in common,” Zee laughed, unphased.

The woman deftly caught the vial and regarded the woman with caution and a hint of curiousity.

“How do you put up with him?” the woman asked simply.

“Though threats of violence, mostly,” Abigail replied. “I’m Abigail. You seem to know Zachary, and for that you have my sympathy. Who’re you?”

The woman did not speak for a long moment. She muttered to herself, as if arguing with someone they could not see. Eventually, she gave a defeated sigh.

“I’m… Becka…,” Becka answered reluctantly, as if her name had been torn from her lips.

Zee beamed, and Becka groaned at his elation.

“Well, Becka, we’re about to raid this hotel’s kitchen for supper. Care to join us?” Abigail asked kindly, slamming her fist into Zee’s shoulder before he could say whatever inappropriate comment was about to pass his lips.

“Threats of violence?” Becka asked slyly.

“Actual violence works too. You joining us or not?”

“Apparently I am,” Becka answered, as if she had no choice in the matter.

“Good. Now, get out of my way. I need to use the Emporium,” Abigail said, clutching the hard-earned silver coin between her fingers as she bled on the hotel carpet.

Becka obliged.

* * *

“How long must I say with this… fool?” Becka muttered in the darkness as her companions’ snores filled the hotel room.

“Until I say otherwise,” Ah Puch’s malevolent voice resounded in her head. “Now, play nice, and survive. I need my weapon nice and sharp. If you die before it is time, you shall suffer for an eternity in my domain.”

Ah Puch’s voice faded, and Becka was left alone.

A pawn in the schemes of Gods.