-----------------------------
Welcome To The Collapsing Multiverse System Lottery.
Congratulations, Sapient James Jäger.
You have been selected to influence the fate of your planet in this universe.
Just like your breathing organs, the multiverse is constantly expanding and collapsing generating tremendous amount of energy.
Energy used to create the ultimate being.
Will it be you or will you be forgotten just like so many others.
In order to assist you in your own evolution a system will be given to you amongst a myriad of selection. But beware! Power always comes at a cost. Are you ready to pay the ultimate price to be the final one?
Your world has been given a grace period of one year starting from this message date for its sapient to grow as strong as possible before facing incursions.
To start your personal system selection think aloud "Initiate System Selection."
Choose wiselly, you will only have one chance.
-----------------------------
With a loud and resounding Ding in his mind James woke up startled and confused, his eyes unfocused with a blue blur kind of stain obstructiong his views. He blearilly groped in the dark to get his glasses finding them and putting them on, finally seeing what this blur trully was. Taking a moment to realize the implication of this message. Was he finally going crazy?
“What is it honey?” Asked Samantha his fiancé with a worried look on her face.
James looked at Samantha, the nicest woman he has ever met and most of all the one that didn't gave up on him. Her honey colored hair draped over her shoulder for a little bit with a bad case of bed hair. She always was, to him, such a loveable mess everytime she woke up. She looked at him with her hazelnut eyes with the same worry and pale face that he had seen so many time before and always made him feel a little bit guilty.
“Did you have another nightmare?” Samantha thought of all the time his trauma showed up its ugly head again. “Was it your father again?”.
“No, no Sam. Can't you see this ? This box floating in the air? This message?”
“What are you talking about?” She was starting to get really worried now. Samantha looked at the digital clock nearby, noticing it was just past midnight and wondered if she should bring him to the hospital or not.
James phone started vibrating followed by a familiar ringtone. He picked it up and verified the caller ID.
“Its Idris.” James answered. And put him on speaker phone for Sam's sake.
“James!! Do you see this shit. Can you believe that ?! If this is true the world will turn to shit real fast!”
Idris Johnson was the brother he never had. He and his family were his refuge when they were kids.
His father Louis Johnson was the biggest and wisest man he had ever known, a no-nonsense veteran soldier always pushing the kids to be their best. James always wished he was his real father. Idris' mother on the other hand gifted him her love of baking, constantly trying new and weird recipe that she inflicted upon everyone in her line of sight. Often with disastrous results.
“What are you talking about Idris?” Asked Sam now more confused than worried.
“Shit! Put on the news, man. This is actually happening!”
James picked up the remote and turned on the TV to a news channel. The blue box started to disappear from his eyes.
“...The white house has asked the people receiving the message to stay calm and to not heed its call. I repeat, breaking news, a message has appeared to some people around the world, portraying some kind of alternate reality attack in a year from now. And to combat it people will have to obtain a system of sort. It seems a quite significant portion of the population have had this message and the white house has asked to....” James tuned out the TV suddenly realising something.
“You didn't get it ?” He asked Samantha with dread in the pit of his stomach. 'No, not her.' he thought.
“No” She answered with the same sudden dread as James.
“Damnit !”Cursed Idris.”I'm coming to get you, pack bags of food, clothes and hygiene stuff. We are getting out of the city before it become crazy. We'll go to the cabin. Don't make your choice yet, we'll do it when we're out of here.”
“I'll pack soaps, shampoo and stuff and finish with the clothes. What about Jannelle.” Asked Sam while getting out of the bed heading toward the bathroom.
“She's not here. She is at a work retreat with her colleagues. I'll call her when we are on the road. I'll be here in 15 minutes, be ready.” Idris ended the call. And James looked in the eyes of Sam.
“James, I'm scared.” She said looking back at him. “So do I, honey.” He gave her a long look before going on a raid in the pantry.
Stolen novel; please report.
Fifteen minutes later a large pick up truck pulled in their driveways. Idris looked at the couple and saw the five suitcase, the plethora of shopping bags full of all sorts of food and nodded to himself. Unlike him and his barely stocked bachelor pad, the couple always had everything you needed.
“Are we sure this is necessary, nothing seems to be happening out there” Sam wondered. They looked around seeing a few of their neighbours looking outside. One of them opened his windows and yelled at the trio.
“Hey what are you guys doing with all this?”
“We're getting out of the city while we still can. You should too.” Answered Idris while Sam and James packed the truck with their stuff.
“Seriously dude? Aren't you freaking out a bit too much?” Screamed Matt. James never liked Matt. He was always a bit of a condescending prick, and leered a bit too much at Sam's... assets.
As if summoned by those flaggish words, a big blast occured further downtown with a bold bright fireball erupting into the sky.
“Holy shit, I retract that. Say, can I come with you guys?” Spoke a surprised and a quite now afraid Matt. Idris looked at the two and shrugged his shoulder, “It's your call Jay we've got the space for one more.”
James looked at Sam and he already knew what her response would be.
“Matt's always been there when we needed a hand, I won't turn him down.”
“Fine,” James turn to Matt and yelled, ”You've got ten minutes to pack up as much food and cloths as you can or we leave without you!”
“Sweet, I'm on the way.” responded Matt.
Ten min later a breathless Matt stumbled to the truck with four more bags full of stuff. He stashed it all in the truck's bed and got on the passenger seat with a hurriedly schooled tiny frown, leaving the two lovebirds in the back.
“OK, Let's go!” said Idris, not hesitating for one second to go as fast as he could.
“We'll first need to make a pitstop to the shop, grab a few camping gear and that sweet new water filter I received a couple week ago.”
Idris worked at an outdoors/prepper/gold coin exchange shop. Your one stop shop when the apocalypse comes, as people kept claiming was coming. James guessed they weren't that wrong anymore. Idris got extremely influenced by his father and his constant needs to have an off the grid haven where no one can get to him or his familly. Even though they lived in a nice neighborhood and it wasn't the sixties anymore, racism was still quite alive. And not that many people were accepting of an interracial couple. Case in point Mr Jager across the street was very vocal about it, especially because James lived more in Idris's house than his own home.
It didn't take a while to arrive at The End Of Times. But the moment they got there they saw the glass door of the shop broken into from the outside and some lights flashing around. Idris turned around and parked behind the shop. Reached to the passenger's glove box and took what looked like a small caliber handheld weapon. Everyone in the car freaked out about that.
“A Gun?” James asked tensely behind Idris.
“Relax it's a fake replica, one of those that you can barely tell the difference, here look,” There was a red plastic band around the barrel to supposedly distinguishes a fake from a real. Idris removed it.
“ This is a product we sell usually on demand at our website, I took one to show Janelle how cool they looked, you know she's a gun nut.” Idris rolled his eyes, but then refocused when he remembered the situation not a few meters from here.
“Yeah, she's more like a ranged weapon of all kind nut.” James replied.
“Anyway, we going?!” chimed in Matt.
“Yeah let's go, Sam please stay.” replied Idris, he needed the help to move filter.
“Ok, be careful alright. If they got weapons give them what they want, please.” Sam got tense once again, this wasn't a good night for her poor heart.
The boys nodded and unlocked the back door of the shop quietly. Idris was on point, followed by James and Matt. Idris was the only one with gun and combat experience. Although he only took a seminar by a retired cop, to better advise client on his merchandises. Anyway, a little bit of experience is better than nothing.
They rounded a corner towards the front end of the shop and heard voices in the dark.
“Damn where's the light in this place!” loudly whispered a teenagy voice, not quite mature yet but definitely male.
“Ah ah, found the gold coins cases. You were right little bro, there is gold to be made here.” Jovially answered what seemed to be the big brother.
“The light's here. Freeze! Don't make a move!” Fumbled Idris, turning on the light, and holding the gun to the teenager, young adult brother combo.
He immediately recognized one of the boys, the youngest. 'His name is Tim, or was it Tom.' Idris thought.
The two boys were frozen in place, they didn't have any weapon and one of them even had some cut on his arm, probably from the glass door.
“I know you. Tim, right?”
“It's Tom, sir.” replied the frightened youth.
“Doesn't matter. An explosion goes off and you decide to loot my shop, now?” Said Idris, feeling a bit hypocritical, because he was doing the same thing. The shop is a branch, not even a franchise, Idris is just the regional manager.
Realising he was kind of in the same situation, and it didn't even really matter now. He looked at the two boys and sighed.
“Take whatever gold you want it's not even that valuable, here” Idris looked under the counter where there was an item on his list to take. “You are gonna need this more than gold seeing the state of your arm.” Idris tossed them the only first aid kit bag left in the shop.
“Now take your gold and fuck off.”
He didn't have to say it twice, the older one took his flashlight, smashed the glass cases, and took his booty. The younger one took the bag and they left in a hurry without saying a word.
Idris looked back at James and Matt who were just popping their heads in the front.
“Ok let's go, here Matt, a list of the things we might need, stash it in those camping bags over there. Jay comes with me, we'll take the filter and the water pump. There is already one of each in the cabin but they are quite old.”
They took everything they could, MRE's, a few two persons tent, bags, portable propane stove, a few cookware, climbing gear and ropes, and more. Even a bag of coins in the end, you never know.
Matt as usual made a stink at the idea of eating camping rations, and as usual the other two ignored him. It wasn't the first time when James and Idris went for a boys night out and Matt delicate and refined palate kept complaining at the food and drinks. The guy liked his beer expensive and artisanal, let's not even talk about fried onion's rings. They had peasant tastes according to Matt.
It didn't take long to finally fill the entire truck, even a part of the backseat had a few things on it.
“Come on, let's go!” Samantha hurried the boys. “While you ladies were out there shopping I saw some really freaky stuff. There was a guy throwing fireballs at a gigantic crow who responded with a water ball and sent its murder after the pyro. We need to go away from this madness.”
She didn't have to tell it to them twice. Idris once again burned some rubber on the asphalt trying to speed as fast as possible. It was a good thing he was pretty adept at the wheel, because they weren't alone on the road anymore. There was fullblown panic in the town now, and even the deepest of sleepers woke up and took the wheels.
They had near misses not just once or twice. All of a sudden everyone on the road turned into Vin Diesel with the mouth of a sailor swearing left and right to every ear that would listen while tearing up the road as if they were driving a Lamborghini. The drive to get out of here was tense and fast. Everyone held on dearly to their seatbelt. James holding Sam even more dearly.
Still they made it near the highway junction when a massive cat twice as big as their truck casually passed them to their right. Followed by a few more smaller cats, even normal ones following it.
“Holy fucking hell!!” Screamed Idris.
“What the hell!!” Reciprocated Matt.
Idris regained control of the vehicle after quite the shock, sped onto the highway and finally fled the town. He could see many fires burning in town on his back mirror. That reassured him that he had made the right choice. But he wondered, after the giant animals they had spotted, will a forested area with a big lake be really the right place to go? Maybe it's not, and maybe the answer lies in this system. It looked capable of creating some pretty wonderful, amazing and terrifying things.
“I wonder who's the monster. The massive cat or the grandma that was casually knitting something on it's back. And how the hell was she so stable?!” Samantha finally lost it and couldn't stop giggling at the absurdity of this night. 'I hope I'm still sleeping' she thought.
The apparent safety of their situation on the road loosened the tension in everyone and sam's porcine giggling was enough to send a laugh chain reaction to the other and they started laughing at her mental breakdown.
Matt regained control of himself after a while, looked at the back and saw James embracing Sam and decided to confide in the others. He was jealous of James, extremely so. He didn't hate the guy though, but he had more than a crush toward Sam, it was almost an obsession. He rigged an infrared camera with motion sensor toward their bedroom, that's how he knew they were awake after the blue box appeared
“Ok I'm gonna see what this whole system thing is about.” To the surprise of the others, it looked like Matt too was a chosen one.