In the middle of the uninhabited countryside, there were roads piled high with forgotten cars. Some of them had run out of fuel and abandoned, while others were still fresh with the bodies of victims. Not one of the vehicles remained untouched by the outside, or what roamed through it these days.
A single Beetle car manoeuvred around the others parked on the road, determined to reach its destination. The moon was still high in the air and Victor looked out into the countryside to distract himself. In the distance were more of those pillars of lights that Victor had seen on the news. He fiddled with the pistol in his hand when he thought upon it.
Couldn’t be a coincidence. They’re coming out of there, aren’t they? He wondered. He felt a bump as Amadeus took the Beetle off-road. He hit several more rocks and Victor pulled his head inside.
“Your car can’t handle the terrain, Amadeus!” he criticized.
“We don’t have any other choice,” Amadeus replied.
Victor tried to take his mind off the annoyance. He thought of his status screen and it appeared in the air in front of him. Neither of the other two passengers seemed to care, except when Amadeus did a quick turn of his head towards Victor.
And in his eyes Victor couldn’t find the reflection of the status screen. He ignored it and instead turned back to the screen. That was when he found out what his new ability even did.
[ RECOVERY: 25 ]
Victor stretched his arms but they didn’t feel any different. But then again, he didn’t feel tired either. He observed the Recovery stat closer and it unfolded into a number of different statistics. From what he could gather from a glance, it was how fast he recovered from exertion.
And that included exertion with his powers.
“Isabelle, did you take that thing off of the bug’s body?” Victor asked, dismissing the screens.
“Y-yeah?” she replied as they crossed over another bump.
“Did you… absorb it?”
“Do you mean like, eat it? No? it looks gross.”
“Like how I did it, Izzy!”
“You ate that?”
“Kind of?” Amadeus replied with a shrug.
“No one is eating anything!” Victor shouted to stop them. “Just take it out,” he asked her, exasperated.
She did as he commanded and picked it out of her pockets. The light from the Seed immediately brightened the inside of the car even before it was fully uncovered. And when it was, It revealed itself to be a glowing strip of cloth that changed patterns every second.
“It’s… calling to me,” Isabelle said as if in a trance. The other two were transfixed with the sight as well, but Victor made sure to turn Amadeus’ head ahead instead.
“Let it in,” Victor urged her.
She closed her eyes and the cloth seemed to submerge itself into her skin.
“Do you see a screen in front of you?” Victor asked.
Isabelle shook her head.
“No, but I feel different,” she said, flexing her fingers and looking at her hands.
“Really? Nothing in your vision at all?” That confused him to no end. Why wasn’t it appearing? Had she done it wrong somehow?
“Victor, what are you talking about?” Amadeus asked him.
“Didn’t you get a screen when you took one of those Seeds?”
“No? And how do you know what they’re called?”
“It said so! On the menu! And how did you figure out what you could do, then?” Victor asked, ignoring her question.
“I just… knew,” Amadeus shrugged.
“You too, Isabelle?” Victor asked her.
Instead of replying, she held her hand up and snapped her fingers. The buttons on Victor’s shirt undid themselves, and he grabbed it with both his hands.
“Huh, neat,” Isabelle muttered to herself.
The next few moments consisted of the woman fiddling around with all three of their clothes. Folding collars and sleeves and moving them with just a simple gesture. The clothes obeyed her command until she grew lethargic from the use of her powers. But no matter how much he pried, neither her nor Amadeus could see a status screen.
“Maybe you got a Seed that gave you videogame powers?” Amadeus suggested, but Victor disagreed.
“No, it’s all about weapons for me. I can enhance them. I wonder why neither of you got one,” Victor said.
“Maybe you got lucky. Hey, can you see what my stats are? I bet charisma’s up in the hundreds!”
“Can’t. If I could, All I’d find is an intelligence stat in the negatives,” Victor replied.
“Prick,” Amadeus chuckled.
“What about my Seed, could you see that?” Isabelle asked him. that would’ve been a great idea! Victor cursed himself for not taking the opportunity before the girl had absorbed it.
“I… didn’t think of it.”
“Looks like I’m not the only one with a negative stat,” Amadeus sniped back.
“Shut it and drive the car,” Victor said. They laughed a while afterwards, immersed in their own little conversations about the screens and poking fun at Victor for them.
In the lull of it all, he finally let his hand off of the pistol he’d been holding onto. He placed it down on the dashboard and looked outside.
“This far out at night, you could almost believe it was a dream,” Victor spoke idly.
“Do you think it only happened in California?” Amadeus asked.
“Maybe the bugs weren’t huge fans of the new Fast and the Furious movie,” Victor joked. Amadeus let out a chuckle that turned into a sigh.
“Where are you driving us, Amadeus?” Victor asked him. When he looked down at the wheel, he could see that Amadeus had a white-knuckled grip on it.
“I need to go back to Washington.”
“You have family there?” Victor asked.
“Yeah, family. I need to make sure they’re okay,” Amadeus told him.
“Have you called?” Victor asked him.
“I…. they didn’t pick up.”
Victor paused for a moment.
“Neither are my mom and dad,” he told Amadeus.
“Where do they live?”
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Charleston.”
“You’re from Charleston of all places?” Amadeus asked.
“Oh yeah,” Victor said annoyedly.
“You ever went to one of those Spoleto festivals?”
“Every single one since I was 6. Mom and dad didn’t want to miss them,” Victor said with some mirth, “I’m just… praying they’re still alive.”
And then it was his turn to sigh. Recovery be damned, he still felt tired.
“Why don’t we play some music?” Amadeus said suddenly. He turned on the radio and tuned to a random station that he could find. To Victor’s surprise, someone had been playing Smash Mouth.
“They’re one of my favourites,” Victor said. Amadeus only nodded, biting his lip and keeping his eyes on the road.
Isabelle had fallen asleep in the back of the car. The both of them rode in silence as Victor took another look outside. He could see the shadow of mountains far away in the horizon. The peaks were illuminated by another of those light beams. He only hoped it was far enough not to cause him any more trouble.
But then something moved around in the mountains, startling Victor. He rubbed his eyes and thought it a trick of his tired mind. Only it wasn’t, as something moved in the distance again. There was a creature there.
A shadow of a many-legged beast rose out of the horizon and trampled onto the hill in front of it.
“Amadeus…” Victor said in a defeated tone.
The size of the beast stole the breath from his mouth. It looked like a mountain that was moving randomly. Each step of the monster felt like an hour. Even Amadeus, who had been so focused on the road, gaped in awe at the sheer size of the eldritch creature.
Eyes opened on the beast’s face, red and glowing with an inner light. Those beady bleeding eyes were massive on their own, but were accentuated by the many tendrils and folds of the monster. Victor could feel a deep fear welling up in his body. Something like this shouldn’t exist in the world, and yet it did.
“We might as well be walkin’ on the sun, huh?” Amadeus said in a defeated tone. How was he not utterly terrified?
“D-drive. Don’t stop,” Victor ordered Amadeus. The other man sped up the car as fast as he could.
Isabelle was knocked awake from her slumber and rubbed her eyes as the Beetle continued to gain speed.
“What’s going on?” she asked confusedly but neither of the men were willing to give a reply.
The creature atop the mountains screamed a scream that kicked up dirt in the desert all around it. The Beetle was far enough that it didn’t shatter their ears, but the sound did seem to quiet Isabelle’s questions.
The car sped away from the sight of the eldritch beast as fast as it could. Neither Victor nor the others cared for the bumpy ride ahead of them as long as they could get clear of the monster. Victor looked down at his hands and found them shaking as they grasped the handle of his pistol.
How…How the hell are we supposed to beat that? He asked himself as sweat ran down his face. Fear and Excitement didn’t leave the three of them until hours had passed, and the sun had risen above them to coat the desert.
None of them dared a look back at the monster, for fear of finding it on the horizon or leaping at the stars itself to consume them. Something that impossibly big shouldn’t have been allowed to live, and yet it did without care for the world around it.
****
A journey of five hours took them five days instead. Amadeus had to drive around the numerous abandoned cars, blockades and monsters that came out to get them. They stopped a few times, for target practice or to stretch their legs, but the journey would always continue south.
In the process, Victor discovered that his Bestiary had actually been updated. He clicked on the tab and found the first of the entries detailed in front of him.
[[Vintaric Adolescent]: SIZE: M THREAT: LOW ABILITIES: NONE
The simplest of the Vintarics, these are young members eager to prove themselves or those with stunted growth that have achieved the most they could possibly do. Vintaric Hives detest the members of their tribe unproven. These adolescents venture out on their own to amend that, and their scars are the price of entry as true members of the hive.]
He shared the information with the others, but it didn’t prove immediately useful for the group. What little they saw of the bug-like Vintarics on their journey only made them want to avoid the creatures further.
Who’s filling out these notes for me? That was the single thought that plagued Victor’s mind. Had someone written these out beforehand, and they were playing an elaborate game in the real world?
“We’re running out of fuel,” Amadeus said without taking his eyes off of the road, knocking Victor out of his train of thought.
“I know… Couldn’t have grabbed an electric car instead, could you?” Victor replied.
“If I knew what I’d be getting, sure. But hindsight is twenty-twenty, isn’t it?”
“Where are we going to find more then?” Isabelle asked them. Her shirt had changed to a bright orange, a different exploration of her abilities.
“We’re almost at Los Angelas, hopefully we’ll find a station there,” Amadeus replied.
“Those Hollywood types always have Teslas, don’t they? Why not just grab one of those instead?” Victor asked.
“Best I can do is charge a phone, Vic, but sure. I’ll try and see if we can find an electric car,” Amadeus said, “else, we’ll have to leg it to the other side of the country.”
If he had to, Victor would’ve taken the option, but he’d rather not be condemned to something like that.
Amadeus’ beetle crested the hill towards the city and they found themselves slack-jawed at the sight of it. The large Hollywood sign was in shambles, burning and missing letters. From their position, they could see tiny monsters atop the sign chewing on it that looked similar to the Vintarics.
There was ruin everywhere, cars blocked the streets and buildings lay ruin beside them. it was a dead city, nothing like what they’d all believed it to be. Private pools were overrun with scum or blood, smoke rose into the air and the smell of burnt flesh filled the nostrils of Victor and his allies. And to top it off, there was a large beacon reaching into the sky; not unlike the one Victor had seen dominating the news.
They’d walked right into a fresh hell waiting to swallow them up. Victor sighed, tired from the repeated sights he was seeing.
“Keep going, Amadeus. The sooner we leave, the sooner you can find those kids,” Victor told him.
Amadeus let his foot off the pedal and the car sped up down the hill. They entered the city of the dead to find some way to leave it.
Their search took them up and close to the cars and sights on the streets. The only people they could find were already gone from this world. Amadeus had to hike his car onto the sidewalk to keep it going since the streets themselves were so clogged.
Isabelle looked away from the window and focused instead on the threads of her clothes. She’d picked up a habit of winding and unwinding the individual threads to let them float in the air, and it looked to Victor like something out of a Spider-man comic.
She’d wind them back together the next instant, with a new pattern or a new design embroidered within effortlessly. Victor himself hadn’t been idle either. Both his pistols and the weapons the others had were strengthened. But that was all he had done.
It frustrated him. Even Amadeus was finding new ways to use his powers every day. But Victor himself was still stuck with the same powers he’d started with. For something called the Weaponsmith Heart, it was lacking in versatility.
Nevertheless, they made it to a gas station soon after. The only issue was that there was already a car in every spot and the hoses were strewn about the place.
Amadeus parked the Beetle and the three of them got out quickly. Victor examined the hose and pressed on it, only for a single drop of gasoline to come out.
“It’s dead,” Victor sighed.
“Maybe we can check the cars?” Some of them might still have fuel?” Amadeus asked.
“I can help with that!” Isabelle perked up.
They went to the nearest car they could find, a small white Toyota. Victor cracked the windows of the car and sent glass shards onto the driver side seat. He picked out the keys and tried to turn on the car, to no effect.
“Damn thing doesn’t even have enough to start,” Victor muttered. He found a crowbar in the back seat and took that. With it, they pried open the gas lid and unscrewed the cap. Isabelle places a hand in front of the tank and sent a thread reaching inside.
When it came out, it was as dry as it had been going in.
“Not even an inch of it left,” she said dejectedly.
“The store. Let’s check inside,” Victor said, moving quickly over to the automatic doors.
He had to pry them open and entered into a dusty convenience shop that was just as empty as the outside. The aisles were bereft of any groceries. The only things that were left were rotten or Mold-covered.
“Can’t even get a snack, huh?” Amadeus said. He and Isabelle spread out into the back parts of the shop while Victor checked the register. He was surprised to find cash in there and almost took a handful, before remembering just where he was.
Idiot, what’s the point of cash when you can’t use it? He put it back and instead looked under the table. And there, hidden in the back and covered in cobwebs, he found a single can of Coke. The red can was dusty and warm, but Victor brought it out of the back anyway.
He smiled a little smile and rubbed the dust off of the can before shouting for the others.
“Something here!” Victor told the rest of them.
It was the first thing they’d had in a long time. The only water and food they had was whatever Amadeus had left around the Beetle, which surprisingly was enough to last them the journey.
“A single warm can of soda that may or may not be expired?” Isabelle asked him.
“It’s something at least?” Victor replied.
Isabelle sighed and shook her head. “You and Amadeus enjoy it. I’ll go put the rest of the food we found in the car.”
She walked out of the convenience store with a small crinkling bag of chips, biscuits and cookies. It wasn’t the best of meals, but it would last the three of them for the next leg of the journey.
“So? Pop it open,” Amadeus told him impatiently.
“I’m on it,” Victor replied.
He flicked the tab onto the score and a hiss escaped from the can that they both revelled in. Amadeus took two glasses and cleaned them out with the edge of his shirt. Victor poured them both until the can ran empty. He raised his glass towards Amadeus and spoke.
“To getting home,” he said.
“To getting home,” Amadeus smiled back and clinked his glass with Victor’s. They drank the warm soda that would’ve been intolerable in any other circumstance. But after days of parched throats, it helped more than anything else.
They both set down their glasses and scrounged the rest of the store for anything else useful. Victor got a feeling for the structure of the building. It was… nothing special. Just a basic construction without any major weaknesses or hidden features. He wondered why he even looked at it that way, but chalked it up to his new Structural Sense.
Both Victor and Amadeus grabbed whatever they could find inside of the store and crept outside, only to hear the battering of wings that they’d grown all too familiar with. A dread came over him as Victor realized that he’d left his guns inside the car.