He held her in the silent home as the distant sounds of the outside world bore down on them. Gunshots, sirens, and explosions echoed off in the distance. They were living in a war zone, a war for the survival of humanity.

“How are you doing?” He asked Marie when he noticed she was crying while staring blankly.

Her smile faded and tears welled up in her eyes, a sight that deeply affected him. The interface had promised a future of unity and progress. Yet, in that moment, he was acutely aware of the deep bond with Marie, as they both confronted the chaos of their new reality.

“Oh god... Derek, this is happening everywhere. So many people are dying.”

The gravity of her words pulled at him, a counterbalance to the surge of power he had just experienced. It wasn’t just about adapting and growing stronger; it was about the human cost, the lives upended by this cosmic upheaval. His excitement dimmed, replaced by a sober reality.

She shared several windows of her interface, and they popped up on his. It showed a world map dotted with red, each point a marker of crisis. Thousands of dots appeared all over the world. In every town and city in the world. Some places were completely absent of dots, but those were either places without humans or places that hadn’t reported them. Several TV channels streamed, showing videos of streets overrun with creatures not just the goblins they fought, but larger monsters. Trolls, giants, massive wyverns, and hundreds of other types of monsters. Their forms blurred but their intent lethally clear. There were snapshots of people, faces frozen in terror, pleas for help that went unanswered.

“Here,” Marie tapped on a dense cluster of red, zooming in on a city overrun. “It’s not just us. It’s global, Derek. Look at Paris... Moscow... Rio. It’s a massacre.”

He watched a video clip of the Statue of Liberty, now collapsed. Smoke billowing into a sky streaked. The sounds of sirens and screams were a cacophony that seemed almost surreal.

Marie’s hand trembled while she opened another report, this one from California. The video was unsteady, showing a neighborhood’s final struggle against something unexplainable.

Derek’s jaw tightened as he watched, the data before him cold and impersonal, yet each byte was a tragedy. “Turn it off,” he said finally, his voice firm. “We can’t get lost in this. It’s... it’s too much. I know, it’s bad.” He said, gently placed his hands on her shoulders and wrapped his arms around her from behind. “But we’ll get through this. Together.”

Marie nodded, though her eyes were still filled with worry. Outside, the sounds of screams and gunshots continued on. But inside their sanctuary, the two held onto hope.

Marie paused as her interface began to ring in her own mind, the cheerful pop song ringtone sounding oddly out of place. She glanced at the caller ID.

“It’s your brother, John,” she said, her voice laced with concern.

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Derek grimaced as she transferred the call to his interface. He accepted it, instantly regretting the decision not to end the call right there.

“John,” He said, his tone flat and laced with ice.

“Derek! Oh, God, Derek, you don’t understand—it’s like the gates of hell opened up right here on our doorstep. These things... they’re tearing people apart. I’ve never seen anything like it. Mom and Dad are in the basement, but I don’t know how long we can hold out,” John’s voice was a torrent of panic, the sounds of chaos bleeding through the connection—shouts, crashes, the unmistakable terror of a home under siege.

Derek’s response was a cold draft in the heat of John’s fear. “You’re in California, John. I’m in Alaska. There’s nothing I can do from here.”

Marie gave him a look of disapproval as even the coldness affected her.

“But you always know what to do, Derek! You’re the one who gets us through shit like this!” John’s plea was desperate, the facade of the superior older brother who had it all together crumbling away to reveal the scared child beneath.

“That was before,” Derek said, the words laced with a venom years in the making. “I left for a reason.”

“You’re seriously going to leave your own family to die?” John’s voice cracked.

“You’re no family of mine.” Derek’s voice hardened. “I’ve helped you plenty. Have a good fucking life.”

Derek’s voice was a blade of ice as he spoke, but as he severed the call, a faint tremor ran through his hand—the only traitor to the turmoil beneath his stoic facade. He stood rigid, the ghost of old battles fought within the confines of family lines flickering behind his eyes. There was a war in him, one where duty to blood wrestled with the scars of past betrayals. He had made his choice, yes, but the cost of it wasn’t lost on him. It was a cost counted in silent heartbeats and the quiet retreat of warmth from his chest.

Marie’s eyes were wide, her voice sharp. “Derek, they’re still your family.”

He met her gaze, unflinching. “After everything they have made me suffer through? Even if I could help those bastards, do you think I would? Fuck no, I’m not. They made their bed, they can lie in it.. They don’t matter and they can all go to hell.”

Marie’s interface fell silent, the abrupt end of the call hanging between them like a charged void. Her eyes, wide with disbelief, searched Derek’s face for a sign of the man she knew. He had always been a pillar in the storm. But the man who stood before her now was a fortress, his walls impenetrable, his moat filled with the acid of old resentments.

“You’re heartless,” she said, the words slipping out, edged with the hurt of witnessing such a raw and uncompromising side of him. Her voice, usually steady, wavered as if the ground beneath her had shifted.

Derek’s face was a mask of resolve, his eyes steel. “I’m realistic,” he countered, his voice a low rumble of finality. “I can’t save them from here.”

Marie’s hands clenched into fists, the nails biting into her palms. There was so much hate and resentment in him toward his family. Worse than that, his view on ‘family’ was so twisted that he couldn’t understand the concept of parents and siblings who supported him.

“But they’re your family,” she insisted, the words a lifeline she was throwing in the hope that the Derek she knew would grab hold.

He didn’t waver. “They stopped being that a long time ago,” he said, his tone devoid of warmth. “My family is here, with you.”

The sharpness of his dismissal stung a slap to her own values. She took a step back, her body recoiling before her mind could catch up. “they’re your family,” she whispered, the tremor in her voice betraying the storm inside her.

Derek turned away, a silent signal that the conversation was over. But the space between them had grown, filled with the ghosts of past grievances and the cold reality of the present. And Marie was left to wonder if the chasm could ever be bridged, or if the Derek she thought she knew had been an illusion all along.