Congratulations on joining the Gxivrainian Universe!

You have been joined by 6 compatible species!

World size adjusted.

Landmass adjusted.

Star Systems adjusted.

Orbiting bodies adjusted.

The droning voice continued on, the information battering against his fragile mind, overwhelming him. He closed his metaphorical eyes and tried to take a deep breath, forgetting that he didn't seem to have a body at the moment. He tried to focus back on the words, finding the voice had changed slightly, now sounding a bit British?

Adjustments completed.

Finalizing.

Merge Completed.

Returning species to randomized locations based on previous coordinates.

Good luck!

And just like that, Michael was standing in front of the Bagel Torture Machine™ once again. He had trouble making it out in the darkness of the room however, since the lights were off. Something must have blown a breaker, which was a pretty easy fix, since he knew where the fuse box was. Yeah, it's totally just a mundane problem, nothing out of the ordinary here.

"D-did you guys see that too?"

Fuck. That meant it wasn't just some weird, absurdly detailed hallucination. If the others had seen it too that meant, well, actually he wasn't sure what that meant. Probably nothing good. Michael took a deep breath, centering himself.

"Okay, let's just try and keep our heads and get our bearings. What did everyone see?"

After comparing notes they figured out they had all seen the same thing, but hadn't understood it the same. Shiv, for instance, couldn't wrap his head around what the voice had said, and came out of it with a splitting headache. Steph on the other hand had managed to pay attention the entire time.

"From what it said I think our planet got merged with some others? It said 6 compatible species but I'm not really sure what that means."

"I'm gonna look out the door, try to see if anything's visibly changed."

Michael took off his apron, walked out to the front and froze. He still saw the street outside, but it was broken up into chunks and fragments, with wide swaths of dirt and plant life between them. There were a few cars that seemed to have crashed, but the people inside looked fine. Some were standing next to their vehicles and looking around. The biggest thing that drew his gaze however was the flower.

It was a beautiful purple color, the edges of the petals tipped in pink and the green leaves had blue veins running through them. The stem had the same blue veins spiraling down to the base. Also it was around 20 feet tall. That should probably have been said first, but he was still wrapping his head around it.

"Guys, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."

"Fuck you mean Kansas? Man, we're in Chicago!"

"It's a Wizard of Oz reference, you would know that if… you…"

Steph's voice trailed off as they stepped into the lobby. She and Shiv were staring wide eyed out the door, which Michael chose to judge as a perfectly valid reaction. He moved over to the sink, intending to splash some cold water on his face, but when he turned the faucet, the water came out in a sputter, then stopped altogether.

Of course. If the world suddenly changed, the pipes would break, or stop lining up or whatever.

"Okay, we need to gather some supplies."

Steph's voice cut into his thoughts and he turned to her in surprise.

Her face had shifted from an expression of awe, to one of businesslike determination.

"We need water, food, anything nonperishable. Shiv, go grab your backpack. Michael, check if any of the bread is done baking."

Shiv opened his mouth to argue but Michael was more than happy to have someone else make the decisions. He headed into the back room and checked on his early morning babies, smiling at the burnished brown crust. He pulled the steaming loaves out of the still hot oven, sliding the baking tray into the cooling rack. His thoughts were in a chaotic jumble, but going through the familiar motions of baking helped calm him down.

He returned to the front to find Steph and Shiv in the middle of what some people might call ‘heated debate’, but what Michael called ‘about to start throwing hands’. He put himself between his feuding coworkers, attempting to settle whatever was happening.

“Man, tell this bitch that I don’t have to take orders from her bitch ass!”

“Excuse me?! If you want to have even a fragment of a chance of surviving whatever the hell is happening, you need to listen to my bitch ass!”

Oh, for fucks’ sake.

“Shiv, shut it for a second. Steph, maybe explain your reasoning so we don’t waste all of our energy on pointless arguing?”

Neither one looked happy that he didn’t immediately take their side, but Shiv clamped his mouth into what definitely wasn’t a pout. Steph tried to flash a smug grin at the grumpy teenager, but a quick warning look from Michael seemed to convince her otherwise. Instead she started talking, saying words that Michael honestly wasn’t expecting.

“Ok, the truth is… I’ve been preparing for this for years now.”

“Wait, what? Like the merge and giant plants and shit?”

“No, not exactly. It’s always been something I’m kind of embarrassed about, but I’m a doomsday prepper.”

What?

“What?”

“Listen I used to have really bad anxiety, but my therapist said making plans can help alleviate worry about the future. So I started thinking about the future and, honestly, can you blame me for thinking Armageddon was on its way? Look at the people running the world! A bunch of entitled assholes who are more interested in lining their pockets than making things better!”

“I figured the end of the world would happen, probably from nukes, but that’s not happening. At least not yet… and I made quite a few plans to try and survive as best I can. Since I can’t really find my way home to get my supplies, grabbing stuff from here is my next best choice.”

She took a deep breath, letting it out in a long, slow sigh before continuing.

“We need to meet up with other people as quickly as possible, preferably a group of around fifty, but honestly anything is better than just three. Our chances of surviving are better if we join a large population center, and our survival is further guaranteed if we bring along food and water. So, Michael, is any of the bread done?”

“Um. Yeah. Actually a whole tray looks done, I’m pretty sure the middles are done anyway.”

“Great! Shiv, if there’s no further objections, please get your backpack so we can start packing stuff away.”

To his credit, Shiv didn’t try to argue, he just turned and walked into the back. Michael followed after him a few seconds later. He walked into the locker room and saw Shiv digging through his bag. Michael opened his own locker and removed his backpack, switching out his non-slip shoes for his heavy duty work boots. Tossing the shoes on the ground he started sorting through his own possessions.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

He elected to keep the bike pump, slipped on his hoodie to make room, threw away his latest library book, and turned back to see Shiv with a sizable pile of garbage next to him. There were crumpled up chip bags, stacks of CDs, flattened cans, and what looked like a can of spray paint. In his hands however was something that didn't quite fit with the rest of the grungy teens aesthetic.

Shiv was holding an old metal flask, parts of it were quite scratched up and dull, but other spots looked polished. He had a strange look on his face, one that Michael's rusty social skills struggled to decipher. He looked troubled, like he needed someone to talk to, someone mature and traveled, with a wealth of life experience and advice to give.

Unfortunately, the only person available was Michael, who had none of that. But deciding to give it the old college try, he stepped up to counsel the troubled youngster.

"Bit early in the day for liquor."

"It's empty."

Well fuck, this was harder than it looked.

"Probably for the best, you're a little young to be day drinking."

"Yeah."

Michael stood there awkwardly as Shiv slid the flask into his pocket. He pushed himself off of the bench and started walking back toward the front. Michael followed after him, stopping when an idea struck him. He turned back around and grabbed his bike, walking it through the prep room to the front of the store with a smile.

"We can hang our bags on my bike and just walk it along, that way we aren't tiring out!"

"Great idea Michael!"

Steph seemed pretty happy, but he felt disappointed that his expert pun had been brushed aside so easily.

Steph took their respective bags and tugged on the shoulder straps, nodding as they passed whatever test she was giving them. She tightened the straps to their minimum, before walking over to the cooler and scooping out every bottle of water they had. She then started checking every label on their juices, setting some aside and bagging others.

Michael felt awkward just standing there and nudged Shiv with his elbow.

"Hey, you wanna go into the storage room and grab our refill cases? Just do 'em one at a time, no sense in overworking yourself so early."

Shiv didn't argue or bitch about the extra work, which was a clear indicator that something was horribly wrong. But Michael didn't have the skills or mental energy to try and help at the moment, so he embarked on his own task. He grabbed all of their plastic bags from the little rack on the counter, before heading into the back to begin the process of packaging and storing the freshly baked loaves.

15 minutes later, he had just finished slipping the last loaf into the food bags and had bagged all the bagels. He started to stack them in the store sacks when he registered a strange sound. It was a fast paced scratching noise, like you would hear if your dog needed to go out, but it sounded a good deal bigger. Michael started wandering toward the back door, where he could hear the noise coming from.

He pressed a hand to the smooth surface, feeling the vibrations through the metal, wondering what it was. Suddenly a thundering roar sent him stumbling back in fright and something slammed against the door. The heavy metal was bent inward quite a bit from the impact, the scratching sound now quieted. Michael was about to get up off of the ground when he heard another, slightly more concerning sound.

The handle began to jiggle, like someone was trying to get in and a rough, guttural murmur drifted through the door. It had the rhythm of speech but sounded like incomprehensible grunts. Michael slowly got up from the ground and as quietly as he was able he rushed to the table, frantically throwing bread into the bags before practically jumping into the lobby.

"We need to leave. Now. Something is outside the back door and trying to get in, we need to run before it circles around."

His coworkers seemed stunned at his statements, but Steph recovered a bit quicker.

"Shouldn't we just stay inside then? Wait for whatever it is to go away?"

"No. It dented the back door, no way glass is going to keep it out. We need to run fast. Start getting the bags on the bike."

He left them to do the task and grabbed his cleaned out travel bottle. He held the metal container under the spout of the coffee machine and filled it with the last of the steaming, fragrant liquid. Putting the cap on he slid the bottle into the holster on his bike, grabbing the handles and moving toward the door.

"Shiv, you open the door, me and Steph will walk the bike out, then you follow."

Shiv hurried to the door, nearly tripping over his untied laces.

"Tie your fucking shoes, right now!"

He didn't mean to snap at the kid, he probably had enough on his mind, but fuck! They had no idea what was out there, the last thing they needed was him tripping over his own feet and getting himself killed. Shiv stopped, crouched down and fumbled with his laces, thankfully before stepping outside. Which kept him out of the way of the large cat-like creature that dropped down off of the roof.

It had dark brown fur, with mismatched spots of gray and green, a long fluffy tail slowly swept through the air behind it. It seemed to perk up a bit, ears twitching and sniffing the air as it looked off to the right. It was also roughly the size of a station wagon, but really, was that so impressive? None of them moved, keeping as still as humanly possible to not alert the predator. Michael briefly thought about going pspspsps in reverse, but couldn’t figure out how that would sound.

Thankfully, the big cat leapt away, leaving the line of sight afforded by the plate glass shop windows. After a few more minutes of watching, Steph stood up and grabbed hold of the handlebars of the bike.

“Okay, well that happened, let’s get the fuck out of here before something else shows up!”

The three of them hurried out the door, looking in every direction, keeping alert for danger. Michael walked into what was once an intersection, stood in the shadow of a giant flower and took a look down the road. The pavement was broken and scattered, creating small islands of stone among swaying plant life. Tall trees towered over the buildings that twisted their way down the fractured road and the purple tinged sky of the horizon outlined a large shadowy mass.

“Which way should we go?”

Shiv’s whispered question cut through the early dawn silence like a knife, bringing Michael’s attention back around. It was a damn good question too, if they wanted to find other people how were they supposed to start? With everything being jumbled up, there was no telling where anybody else would go.

“Well, there were other people out here earlier, did anybody see where they went?”

Shiv and Michael both shook their heads negative, they had been a touch preoccupied.

"How are we supposed to figure out which way to go with everything being all weird?"

Hello.

You have been integrated into the greater multiverse. I am your G.I.D.E. system. I provide Guidance, Information, Directions, and Explanations for the sapient life of the multiverse.

The smooth, refined, strangely British voice seemed to come out of nowhere. It almost felt as though it was being broadcast directly into his brain. Which while sounding completely unbelievable was just another facet of a really weird Tuesday. Michael turned towards his coworkers, seeing shocked expressions on their faces told him that he probably wasn't the only one hearing things.

"You guys hear the voice too?"

Steph looked at him and nodded, meanwhile Shiv just stared off into space with a goofy grin.

"She sounds kinda cute!"

"She?"

"Come on, you're gonna try an say she don't sound cute as fuck?"

"Mine sounds like a butler."

"What?"

Steph rolled her eyes.

"Obviously we have different versions in our heads, it's nothing to get excited about. And, by the way Shiv, your desperate is showing."

The teenager cupped his hands over his groin, checking his supposed exposure.

"Bitch you fuckin' lyin', I'm still tucked!"

"Hey!"

Michael needed them to be on the same page, mainly because he couldn't afford to get a migraine right now. But they needed to get moving if they were going to get anything done.

You are currently in an area graded at 'Intermediate' difficulty. For your safety it is recommended that you make your way to your designated Harbinger.

"What's a Harbinger?"

A Harbinger is an individual who assists a newly integrated species to access and navigate the workings of the Universe. Further information will be available from your local Harbinger.

"Okay, where is the Harbinger then?"

The nearest Harbinger is located approximately 23.67 kilometers away. Would you like me to mark down the fastest route available?

"Um, yes please."

Suddenly a glowing line stretched out from his feet, shifting through a rainbow of colors. It stretched off into the distance to what was hopefully still west.

"Hey guys, my voice told me to go this way to find some Harbinger? I think it's probably our best bet."

"It says it's called GIDE. And yeah mine was saying the same thing."

"But you didn't ask any questions?"

"Yeah, they said 'communication with them is just a thought away', so you don't have to talk out loud."

"Oh. Mine didn't say that."

He decided to think at the voice something simple.

How does a Harbinger help, exactly?

A Harbinger allows you to spend your accumulated Experience Points on various rewards, as well as allowing you to choose a Class.

Wait, Class? Like a video game?

"Guys, my uh, GIDE just said we can pick classes at the Harbinger."

"Oh shit, word? Fuck yeah bro, I'm gonna be a wizard!"

Michael ignored the overly excited kid, staring down the colorful path. He wondered what was waiting for them at the end of it. What would the world be like now? It certainly wouldn't be the same as it was, which in a few respects was a good thing, but at the same time…

"Well, I probably don't have to pay back the rest of my student loans."

Steph barked out a laugh, caught by surprise at his statement. She pressed her hand over her mouth, bent over with her back shaking. She collected herself quickly, turning to look at him with rosy cheeks and a look of amusement.

"That's what you focused on?"

"Well, yeah. Bills were the worst part of life before, fingers crossed no more taxes either."

Steph chuckled before taking a few steps down the path. Michael nudged Shiv, who was once again staring into space, before following after with the heavily laden bike. The three of them officially set off down the rainbow road that the disembodied butler voice told them would lead to magic powers.

That was definitely normal.