Damian gripped the steering wheel tightly, his knuckles white as he tried to navigate the chaos around him. The back roads, usually quiet and uneventful, were now packed with vehicles, all attempting to escape the madness erupting in Dallas. He could see the fear etched into the faces of other drivers, their cars filled with belongings hastily packed.

He sighed, trying to calm the swirling anxiety in his chest. “This is unreal,” he muttered to himself. Reaching for the radio, he turned it on, hoping for some sort of distraction.

“Hello everyone, this is your local station, 99.5 The Farm to Farm,” the announcer’s voice came through, steady but somber. “With everything going on, we want to remind everyone to stay safe and keep an eye out for any strange sightings.”

Damian’s fingers tapped nervously on the wheel as he listened.

“We’ve got a lot of outsiders right now trying to move through our roads. If you can lend them a hand, remember, they’ve just lost their homes and are probably more worried than you are, with no place to go.”

The words struck a chord in Damian. He glanced out the window at the families sitting in their cars, some with kids crying in the backseat. For a moment, he thought about his own family—his parents in Austin, safe for now, but how long would it last?

“Damn it,” he muttered, his thoughts spiraling.

Suddenly, the sound of distant screams ripped through his reverie. Damian’s heart jumped as he scanned the rows of stalled vehicles, trying to locate the source of the commotion.

He rolled down his window, craning his neck to see, but the screams were quickly drowned out by the rumbling of engines and the blaring of car horns. That’s when he saw them—people sprinting down the road, abandoning their cars and running in sheer terror.

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Damian’s pulse quickened. “What’s going on?” he whispered to himself. He slammed the gear into park, grabbed his newly forged sword from the passenger seat, and leapt out of the truck.

As he pushed his way through the crowd of panicked evacuees, his thoughts raced. He could feel his heart pounding in his ears, his senses heightened. Without hesitation, he called up his status window and quickly allocated his remaining stat points.

+5 Strength

+5 Mana

The familiar warmth of the system surged through him, and he felt a fraction of his exhaustion ebb away. “I hope I don’t need to use my healing ability on myself or anyone else,” he muttered under his breath as he jogged toward the source of the screams.

Damian moved swiftly between cars, shouting at people to keep moving. “Don’t stop! Head the other way!” He helped a woman lift her child over a guardrail and urged them to run.

Then came the explosion.

The blast rocked the ground beneath him, sending a shockwave through the air. Damian shielded his face as a plume of fire erupted in the distance. The screams grew louder, more frantic.

And then he saw them.

Small, hunched figures darted out from between the cars, their grotesque, green faces twisted into snarls. Their glowing red eyes burned with malevolence. Damian’s mouth went dry.

“Goblins,” he whispered, the word catching in his throat.

There were at least a dozen of them, their crude weapons glinting in the sunlight. One of them leapt onto the hood of a car, shrieking and slamming a rusted axe into the windshield. Another dragged a struggling man out of his car, cackling with glee.

Damian’s grip on his sword tightened. His heart pounded in his chest, but he forced himself to step forward