3/24/54

ALEXANDER GALDUR

Waking up can be a few things. It can be really nice with a deep rest leaving you refreshed. It can be shitty depending on if you wake up too early, you doze in and out of awareness, or if your sleep is too deep, leaving your mouth a desert in the morning. It can also be completely mundane with nothing of note being memorable.

Now, when you live on the streets, you usually get pretty awful sleep. It’s cold, the ground’s hard, noises come from everywhere, and you’re always on guard to make sure no one comes up to grab your stuff while you’re dozing off. The last mentioned thing shapes you to be a light sleeper, but when you’re a light sleeper, any uncomfortable environment wakes you up.

So in other words, when you sleep outside, you are forced to sleep in a way impossible to sleep in while outside. However, after many, many years of sleeping a certain way, it becomes hard to sleep in a different way. Sleeping outside not only ruins your sleep when outside, but—for me—it also ruins all sleep. Though, it’s still better than sleeping in dusty, musty alleyways, so I’d chalk this up to one of the really nice rests.

Groggily blinking the sleep crust away, I sluggishly slinked out of the overly warm embrace of the bed. Yawning, I walked into the living room, and Deimos and I shared good mornings. Heading over to dry the dishes I saw that had piled up in the dish rack, I started putting them away. Deimos finished making breakfast before I finished, so I took a quick break to eat some toast topped with guacamole.

Deimos stated between bites, “You did a good thing back at that ‘zoo’ incident.”

“What?” My mind blanked for a minute before catching up with what Deimos said.

“Back when I told you and Max to run away, you went to save that kid. Not everyone would’ve done that, but you did. It was a good thing you did.” Deimos elaborated, “I only have one question: why did you throw yourself into the fray like that?”

He looked me dead in the eyes, and I spoke without even thinking about my answer, “I couldn’t just leave that kid to die. All I did was what I felt was right. That kid needed help, so I helped.”

He seemed surprised by my instant answer before he smiled kindly and just nodded. After that, we finished our breakfast and moved on with our days, finishing the chores around the house. I was gonna relax on the couch and watch something with Deimos, but I remembered Anna’s invite from yesterday. Instead of sitting down, I went to my room, got dressed, and left for the door after telling Deimos where I was going. Glancing at the stove’s digital clock before leaving, I noted that it was 11:30 Am and assumed she was probably ready for the day.

Grabbing my cloak and shutting the door behind me, I walked over to her door and knocked. It took a couple minutes, but I eventually heard the clicking of the lock unlocking. The door swung open and Anna beamed a smile so warm that it felt like summer in the barely-Spring coolness.

She welcomed me inside, and I slunk through the door, nervousness and anxiety just eating me up inside. Anna had a permanent smile plastered across her face, and that cozy expression just blended right in with her short, orange and red hair, shining, green eyes, green cargo pants, orange tee, and white socks with red stripes at the ankles.

“I’m glad you came! I feel like I only really see you whenever you get hurt, so it’s nice to see you in a setting where you aren’t bleeding out.”

“Well, it’s nice not bleeding out,” I joked, “Now, well, uh, what are we going to do?”

“Well, we have Digimon, I have some games, or we could head out?” She listed the options.

Taking a moment to think about what sounded best, I decided staying inside would be best—nice and distanced from others. I also decided that without Deimos here, watching Digimon feels off the table. I questioned, “What games are there?”

She walked away to her room and brought out a PS28. Then, after settling it on the ground next to the tv, she walked over and presented two full shelves of video games. I gawked at the numerous things lining the bookcase, and I scanned over all of them.

Mhm, mhm, yep, yep, I don’t know any of these. Turning to her, I asked what she thought was best.

“Well, all of them are good, but it really depends on what your interests are. What kind of games do you like?” She inquired.

“I’ve, uh, never really played any video games before.”

“... What?”

“I’ve never played-”

“No, no, I just needed to process what you said,” She interrupted me, “You’ve never played any video games before?”

I stuttered in nervousness at her disbelief, “Uh, n-no, I don’t think so.”

She gaped at my lack of gamerness and silently grabbed a case from the shelf, turned the PS28 on, and fed the disc to the console. Glancing at the case, I could see it was titled Diablo VI: Remastered. She noticed my glance and gave me a little lesson on the game, “It’s a pretty old game from back in 2031, and it’s a sequel to the other Diablo games. It’s a top down fantasy role-playing game where you have to go through areas filled with monsters to progress through the story. There are a variety of classes you can pick from which will determine your abilities and how you play the game.

It came out after the world gained magic, so it’s not very well known as it was overshadowed by everything else that started happening. The same could be said for Diablo IV, Diablo V, and any other games that came out around that time. Still though, a lot of hard work was put into the game, and it returned to the gameplay of Diablo III that many the players enjoyed despite Diablo V deviating pretty hard from the original series.”

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

With that huge info dump, she proceeded to get the game up and running, and she passed me a controller.

It was fun.

After choosing the monk class, we fought through areas, leveled up, started creating our builds, and just had a ton of fun in general. Before we knew it, we had played seven hours away, completely forgetting about lunch or anything like that. The only thing that made me realize it had become so late was the complete darkness besides the tv.

“Wow, we really got invested, didn’t we?” Anna chuckled.

“Yeah, I guess we did.” I nodded and laughed, “Well, I’m gonna head back to Deimos’s. See you later?”

“Yep! You’re always welcome.” She smiled.

Taking a moment to bask in the soothing warmth of her expression, I put the controller down and got up to get my cloak and shoes. When I bent down to get my shoes, I noticed a picture on the table that stood over my shoes.

There were four people grouped up in the photo: a young woman with blonde hair and brown eyes in the top left, a young man with red hair and red eyes in the top right, a little girl with short, red hair that starts orange at the base of her roots who has shining, green eyes in the bottom right, and a little boy with short, red hair that starts crimson at the base who has dark, crimson, sunken in eyes in the bottom left. It’s a family portrait.

The little girl is obviously Anna. The young man and woman are most likely her parents, and the little boy is probably her brother. In the picture, the two kids are side by side, arms slung over each other’s shoulders. They look happy. They all look happy.

Breathing out slowly to calm down, I got up, said my goodbyes again, and walked back over to Deimos’s place. After knocking twice, he opened the door and I came inside. Great, now I’ll be stuck thinking about that for the rest of the day.

MIYASATO MASAKO

“God, what a day.” I grumbled to myself, annoyed at the trainees. This new generation is filled with lazy smartasses. Back when I was in training, we would follow instructions and work hard—no talking back or none of that shit.

There are a few diamonds in the rough here.

Deimos, now that kid can follow directions. Not a lot of snark towards superiors, strict with the rules, and he’s got a good moral compass. Plus, he’s quite the looker. If I was sixteen too, I would be pouncing at any opportunity with him. Shame that tall glass of water didn’t show up today.

Maximilian Wells can follow instructions too. Shy kid needs more practical experience, and he needs to get more confident. Otherwise, just like my previous review, he’s pretty unique in how his magic works, and he’ll do well. It could lead to a lot of possibilities for him in the future.

Lucas Greymore… I don’t know why I even thought about him. Sure, he’s a light magician, and we can always use more of those, but otherwise, he’s behind most everyone else. He does work hard though. Maybe too hard. He’s picking up boxing really quickly, and his magic is constantly evolving as he learns more about it. It’s odd; it’s like he’s never really used his magic before. It’s like he’s only now really giving it a shot and trying to figure out how it works. I’ll need to keep an eye on him. If he does actually show up for his training like he’s supposed to. Though, I already have a guess as to why he was missing.

Elizabeth Grant… Well, she's a Grant. It’s obvious she should be far beyond exceptional. Maybe I should give her the final? She seems ready, and her mastery of her magic has grown to the point where she could win a fight against a rank twenty with decent odds.

Ah, finally here.

Opening the door to the air conditioned medbay, I turned the corner to see Joseph.

“Hmm, who are– oh. You.” Joseph sneered as he saw me grinning and standing in between the two teal curtains.

“Hey there Joseph. Or, should I call ya Dadd-”

“Listen here, asshole! It’s been a decade since then, okay? Can’t you just let it go already?” He fumed at my teasing.

After laughing for a solid thirty seconds, I wiped the tears from my eyes and decided to begin moving back on track, “Okay, okay, no need to get your thong in a twist.”

He visibly reddened in anger as a vein appeared throbbing on his forehead, “You were the one who asked me to put it on.” After taking a large breath, his frown turned into a grin, “Plus, I wasn’t the only one who made mistakes back then. Or, do I need to remind you of the time you created an earthen golem and had it-”

“No!” I yelled, panicking at the memory. God, I was sore for a week, “Look, let’s just call it a truce, ‘kay?”

He let the steam billow out of him before agreeing, “Yeah, yeah, alright.”

“Okay, I came here because of ya-know-who.” I referenced by moving my hand to around the height of someone 5’8”.

“Hm, Lucas? Yeah, yeah, he was here yesterday.” Joseph recalled, “You know about the monster outbreak yesterday?”

“Of course, I was one of the folks who took down most of the beasties.” I bragged.

“Yeah, well, Lucas, Deimos, and another guy named Max were on the scene when it happened. They ended up helping people escape while taking on a few of the monsters.”

“WHAT!?!"

Joseph anticipated my outburst and had already plugged his ears with his fingers, the asshole. He then gestured for me to tone it down and told me to shut the fuck up.”

After explaining the situation, I understood why he had Lucas take a break from training. I critiqued Lucas, the idiot, “God, that kid’s an idiot.”

“Yep.” Joseph nodded along, “but at least I’m getting cash for it.”

“Yeah, yeah, ya greedy bastard.” I grumbled, “Still, He may be an idiot, but he actually managed to take down a monster? Plus, he saved two people? That’s pretty impressive.”

“True, but he exhausted all his magic, pushed his body too hard, and got numerous wounds while doing it. A lot of what he got would’ve been lethal, or at the very least, permanently debilitating if we hadn’t acted as quickly and as efficiently as we did.”

“A will capable of pushing that hard is a talent in and of itself.” I mumbled in thought, “Should I give him the final soon?”

“Already? He’s only been training for a few days.” Joseph exclaimed, shock written on his voice and face.

“Eh, it’s a group final. We don’t need to train him as much as he’ll technically be a separate party than the DME, and his teammates can keep him afloat.” I explained, “He’ll be fine.”