He blew out the candle. The little smoky wisp-trail didn’t smell bad. Sam grinned and cut a slice for everyone, one for herself, one for George, and one for Kreig. There was a fork beside his plate and he took it in his hand. Thoughtlessly, he barely noticed how the metal whined and twisted in his grip, eventually becoming so disfigured he couldn’t possibly use it for anything. Sam commented on it, suggesting she bring out a new one, but Kreig denied her.

It would be fine if it was for them.

Mend (V)

A warm glow enveloped the twisted fork, making it straighten out and shine up as if it was brand new again, which it by all means was. Neither George nor Sam could pull their gazes from it.

Until Kreig stabbed the fork into the cake, took a small piece, and brought it to his mouth.

He smiled softly. “It’s too sweet.” But that didn’t stop him from continuing. One bite turned into two and then into three. By that point, both George and Sam had accepted the soft, dune-like silence, enjoying their own cake in the process. Kreig didn’t like sweet things. Not cookies or cake or pudding or sweet liquor after a long day’s work.

But he’d eat this cake. With his family.

Even though his throat was burning and his eyes were watering, he’d eat it.

Only one slice though, any more and he’d pass out or something.

“Say, Kreig…” Sam jerked her fork at Kreig’s own, “what’s up with that skill? What you did with the fork. I’ve never seen it before.” There was a strange glint in her eye, and George just seemed tired as he noticed it. Somehow, she had also pulled a notebook and pencil out of nowhere.

“It’s Mend.” Going by the way Sam nodded for him to continue, his measly description wasn’t enough. “It allows you to repair items and things, though nothing that still does or had once lived.” A simple skill. He’d learnt it when a blacksmith from the Empire was brought to his lord’s castle explicitly to teach Kreig and his soldiers how to repair and fix armour and weapons in case they were damaged in battle. It granted him the Skill. That was the story behind almost each and every one of his skills.

Do a thing many times. Get skill. Keep doing the thing. Skill ranks up.

Despite how mundane the process was, Sam seemed really interested in scribbling it down. Then, when that was done, she looked back up, a sly smirk crowning her face. “You wouldn’t have any other unusual ski-,”

George lightly punched her arm. “Hey. Don’t interrogate him on his first day. You and your skill-wiki can wait.”

“Grr. Okay, fine. But you’ve gotta give me a list, Kreig! It’s for science!”

Kreig didn’t want to promise her anything strange like that, but he gave her a nod, just to appease her for the moment. His complicit reply seemed to slightly upset George, who shook his head.

As Sam pouted and cut herself a third slice, George apparently decided that the time was right. He retrieved the book he’d brought from where he’d put it. Placed it on the table. And slid it over to Kreig. It had a simple title: Precious Memories. Kreig let his hand touch the cover. It was almost square, with the cover being a red, leathery sort of material. Thick. Sturdy. Dusty and old.

“It’s a photo-album,” George said. “Open it up.”

He did, as hesitantly as it was. The first page he saw featured a picture, framed in the very middle. Five people. Two adults, three children. Two boys and one girl. A mother and a father. The sky was dark but their faces were bright, lit by a light you couldn’t see and the fireworks in the sky. Just like the ones they’d had back in the kingdom. Fireflowers. The mother and father both had a glass of some bright liquid, but that wasn’t what Kreig noticed the most about it.

The older brother was the most similar to how he was now. George. And the younger sister, whose cheeks still held those childish dimples that they did now. And between them… It must have been him.

Then, these two people, smiling so brightly… The man must have been his father. And the woman; his mother. So young, yet so old. He was much older than them now, but that didn’t matter. He glanced up and looked at his siblings, both smiling solemnly. “What were their names?” he asked, and even though his voice was soft and mellow, they heard him perfectly.

“Angelita and Paul Wiedemann.”

That was it. Yes, yes, he could recall that-,

There was a pang of pain that lit up in the back of his head and suddenly any thoughts of their names and faces were murky again. Gone. Not that he could remember them. It had been many years, of course he didn’t remember them in the least. Not the warmth of their smiles, not the closeness of their hugs. Then why did it feel as if he almost recognized their names? And why-,

A flash of white-hot pain blossomed in his head again and he briefly buckled over, grasping at his head. Quick breaths. He was fine. He was okay.

You’re fine. You’re okay. Don’t worry about it.

Yes, he wouldn’t worry about it. Instead, he turned the page. It was a small collage of pictures, one page filled with pictures from (going by the name written at the top) George’s birth, the other side shared between Sam and Kreig himself, each getting a half. He turned the page again. His parents and him and George as children. Another page, and they were a little older, joined by Sam. Every page he turned, another year passed. Pictures taken on holidays he couldn’t recall existing, eating food foreign to him, becoming people he had only seen in hindsight.

“That was Christmas ‘98, I was ten, you were five, and Sam was only two,” George would explain as he pointed to a picture. Christmas. An unfamiliar holiday. It seemed to take place around Yuletide.

Then, were even holidays different on Earth? God Below, he would surely get in trouble trying to celebrate those… Not that he’d been allowed to celebrate them at all since the theocracy fell, apart from Yuletide. Though, again, was it really that important what he celebrated, as long as it was with his family?

A little voice in the back of his head told him yes. It’s important to praise the right God.

“And that was when we went to Silver Dollar City in 2009, and-,” George paused, his hand shaking as it held the corner of the page. He couldn’t turn it. Sam had frozen as well, though her eyes weren’t on the album, but on Kreig. She seemed afraid. Fearing his reaction even though he hadn’t given it yet. He could already tell what he’d find on the next page.

He turned it.

Two obituaries recounting the loss of two beloved restaurant-owners, dated November 6’th, 2010. A single article telling of the tragedy that befell a high school and five families as five teenage boys all disappeared one day without a trace. 2010, November 5’th. George spoke quietly about it.

At first, when those five kids disappeared, people just saw it as an isolated incident. Then, the very next day, the portals opened. It had been a Saturday, so both Sam and George had been at home, worrying about Kreig, hoping the police would find any leads. Although it was a Saturday, both Paul and Angelita had been at work, since they owned a boat restaurant that rested on the river. It had to be open on Saturdays and Sundays. That’s when the business was booming.

Neither Sam nor George knew what happened after that. In fact, nobody did. They went into a portal, oversized alligators came out-,

“Mud Drakes.” The way Kreig said it, with such absolute certainty, Sam and George could only accept it.

-Mud Drakes came out of it. They went into the river and weren’t completely exterminated for days. Back then, at the very start of it, nobody had awakened into Fighters yet. Nobody knew anything about these things. Soldiers and military flooded the city, but in parts of the world where the military was barely used or already in battle, the efforts to slay the monsters fell on the police.

Many lives were lost in the first few months. And then, the Fighters started appearing. Slowly, hesitantly, they showed their faces, created forums online, tried to talk to each other, tried to contact authorities…

In the end, what really brought the world back to a sense of normalcy was the appearance of IOCRO. They became protectors of the world, vanquishers of monsters, and researchers of the unknown. Every country that wanted the use of their military and supply of Fighters had to submit to them, give them funding and resources to keep them going. But it was never really enough.

Fighters appeared and grew stronger as they fought. If it hadn’t been for that, the militaries of the world would never have been enough.

PSA’s on what to do if you found a portal came out (main point: don’t go into them), websites and guides on what to do if you awaken as a Fighter were made, movies and books on the Noble Pursuit of Fighting were written… A lot happened. And in those ten years, those long ten years when Sam and George had thought they would forever only have each other, only five monsters with a level above 500 appeared.

This was most notable since any creature below level 300 could reasonably be destroyed without the use of overwhelming nuclear force. Of course, they still required several tanks and bombing of a different kind, but it wouldn’t lay complete waste to the surrounding area, and once a few Fighters with a level around there appeared, they could be destroyed without levelling cities as well.

And then, a winged bull with a level of 552 appeared. Most Fighters who saw it first reported seeing a ??? instead of the level, and that was when they knew something was very off.

It seemed mythical, with a golden mane and three crown-like horns and giant wings. Almost divine. Beautiful.

Three Fighters who personally saw it were recovered alive, and only because they decided to run. For three days and nights, the bull was fought with every measure possible, IOCRO denying the use of nuclear warfare under the belief that if they opened the door to that possibility, it could open the door to wide-spread destruction beyond just clearing out monsters. It was killed with a single nuke, but most of the city was brought to the ground as well.

The second was Famine of the East. When the Fighters saw its level, saw that horrible giant maggot swallowing and eating like gluttony personified, they knew they were dead. It took two nukes.

And then, the third one appeared in 2016. But by then, they had a total of three Fighters with a level of at least 450, so they could handle it. Only barely.

And the fourth one…

They both turned troubled eyes on Kreig.