Ava was the first to get up and move. It was nearly pitch black but she crawled over to where she remembered she last saw Jason. Her probing fingers found a prone figure which she set to shaking to try and rouse. She was glad to find it was Jason and that he was alive when he groaned after a moment. He got himself up and sitting before Ava asked him if he knew how much longer the forcefield would hold. It cast a very dim light on the room they were in.

Jason scrabbled to the control box and took some time to interface with it. He got back to Ava without taking too long. “I don’t know. There’s a bunch of meters and gauges and symbols. One of the meters is pretty big and it was full when I turned the thing on but now it's almost empty, less than a tenth left. My gut says that's the power and it’s almost out.” He shrugged and Ava could make out the movement from his faint outline limned against the forcefield.

Ava was worried that they would be crushed when the barrier came down. She was pretty certain from the earlier commotion and what had happened out in the hall that White Hall had collapsed. Hundreds or thousands of tons of dirt and building material was weighing down on the thin soap bubble of esoteric alien technology and they didn’t even have a proper read on how much longer it would last. They were in a bind and needed to find a way to get out before they were crushed.

Edwin stirred and ended up joining Ava and Jason in brainstorming a solution. The laundry room they were in only had one door out. It led to the hallway which connected a staircase up into White Hall’s lobby and ran all the way over to Washaki in the other direction. The doorway was partially ruined, the frame bent and smushed down.

Their only real option was to try and force their way out into the hall. From there they would check which way was less blocked and continue forcing a path until they got out from the wreckage. First they needed to find if Zoey, Roy, and LJ were alright. They spread out, feeling around. LJ was near the shield generator and woke up after some effort. In the eerie light cast by the forcefield Ava found Zoey curled up on top of one of the washing machines. Roy got up on his own when he heard them moving around.

With everyone accounted for they gathered around the doorway. An argument broke out when Jason refused to abandon the shield generator. Ava convinced everyone else that it was too dangerous to risk turning it off.

“Guys, its a fucking shield generator!” Jason reiterated for the fifth time. He was being stubborn and wasting everyone's time. “We can’t just leave it. I mean c’mon.”

“Alright, enough,” Ava cut Jason off before he could repeat his reasoning a sixth time. “If you want it so much, wait for all of us to leave then try turning it off. If you’re buried then good riddance. The rest of us will be leaving first.”

Edwin ended up going first on account that his concrete manipulation might let him force a better path. On his hands and knees he crawled through the doorway. He stuck a hand out through the forcefield and immediately came into contact with a blockage. Feeling around he found half a foot of dirt pressed up against the barrier. He pushed on it to see if he could move it and the loose dirt crumbled before his hand. Edwin whipped his hand back a moment later when his hand came into contact with another person. He swore harshly and everyone started shouting behind him trying to find out what the problem was. Disgusted, Edwin retreated from the doorframe.

“There’s a fucking corpse right in the way,” Edwin spat when everyone quieted down. “I bet the whole hall is filled with dead people. We’re going to be crawling through a goddamned graveyard.” Zoey inhaled sharply while everyone else processed the news silently.

“This changes nothing,” Ava declared. “Either we crawl over the dead or we stay here and join them.” Without pause she pushed past Edwin and crawled through the door. “There’s a path, follow me,” Ava announced as she left the forcefield. Everyone else followed in single file without speaking. Jason gave up the shield generator. He was spooked by the discovery and now his fear outweighed the potential benefits.

“The stairs are blocked,”Ava called from ahead in the darkness. The hall was cramped. It was filled with all manner of dirt, debris, and collapsed supplies. Edwin ended up back in the lead when they decided to try going further down the tunnel to check the other exit. He grimaced and held in a shudder as he found yet another corpse. Zoey gagged behind him and whimpered. LJ was swearing under his breath. Cursing every second he spent in the hall. Edwin didn’t delay and blazed them a trail.

It was dark, cramped, and haunting to escape from under the dorms. It took them much longer but they found the path under White Hall that led over to the cafeteria passable. Edwin had been expecting a lot more corpses on the journey but when he found the passage to be clear of debris and bodies he decided that most of the residents must have fled, preferring to try their luck above ground instead of hunkering down in the face of the looming explosions. If he had not been safely behind the shield generator he thought he would have been among them.

Pale light filtered into the basement they emerged into. It was wrecked. The floor above had collapsed and filled the basement with splintered tables and chairs. Shattered glass littered the floor and crunched underneath his feet as Edwin tread softly through. The gaping hole in the ceiling revealed the clear sky above. In the dawning sunlight the blue sky seemed pale. Dark smoke drifted lazily across the view high above.

Moving up the stairs to the ground floor revealed that the main floor of Washaki was gone. A burnt out carcass remained in its place. Concrete and steel supports stuck out at odd angles. What drew his eyes though was the wreckage outside of Washaki. White Hall had collapsed, dropped like a tree from the base. From how it had thundered down on their heads earlier, Edwin had expected it to have crumbled on top itself. Instead rubble from the wreckage spilled out across the asphalt of Grand Ave. Next to it the top half of Downey Hall had been blown off and smoke billowed out from the exposed bottom half.

Stepping out of the ruins of Washaki onto the road, Edwin could do nothing but gape at the destruction surrounding him. Craters pockmarked every exposed surface. Some as small as a finger, others the size of his fist. There were also huge ones, filled with water from where they had blown out the pipes. It looked like the area had been bombarded by artillery. The others stepped out, equally silent, as they took in the aftermath of the battle that had raged over their heads.

Ava was the first to reconcile, the first to move past what was before her and take the next step. She clapped her hands once. The sound snapped everyone’s eyes to her. “We can’t stay here,” she said somberly. “Not anymore. We’re going to need to find a new place. But first we should salvage what we can from the supplies back in the tunnel.”

Silence greeted her proclamation. No one wanted to go back down there. The thought sent a shiver down Edwin’s back. Ava raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms. “Well,” she prompted. “All the food in five blocks is stuffed down there. If you expect to eat anything today we will have to get it from there.”

Grudgingly, with a grimace plain on his face, LJ was the first to step forward. From there Jason joined him. Roy hurried to Ava’s side, not wanting to be left out. Zoey caught Edwin’s eye. Edwin ran a hand down his face and sighed. “Fuck,” he swore. “Guess we have to, huh?”

They worked in somber silence. Most of the food was buried in dirt or splattered everywhere across the ground. Finding something with its packaging intact was dull work. More than once, Edwin or the others gagged when they found a body instead. What started with a box of crackers grew into a pile of enough food and water to keep the six of them going for a week or more. It was too bulky for them to take it all with them.

An unspoken signal had the group gather up around the pile. They needed to decide how to carry what they could, where they were going, and what to do with the leftover supplies. The last point was easily solved by agreeing to cache the supplies under some rubble in Washaki’s basement. They each ended up carrying boxes of food or water and stuffing their backpacks as much as they could. Edwin’s thoughts turned over everything he’d lost in his room when the dorm came down. He lamented the loss of guns and ammo. Specifically the rifle he had hidden away in his closet. A wasted trump card, gone without being used.

Besides the pistols they carried and the sparse spare ammo between them, they only had a couple spears and shields still. Ava said the laser gun was lost in the wreckage as well. Overall, despite their actions to save the prisoners they had suffered almost a total loss. Their base of operations was destroyed, their fellows killed or sent fleeing, and a huge blow to their morale and supplies. Without trucks they couldn’t travel as freely through the city. Without extra ammo they would hesitate to use their guns. Without a safe spot to sleep they would have to find a new spot or choose a temporary one. Without the rest of the dorm residents their safety was seriously impacted. A large group of people was a casual defence, being part of a group like that lent peace of mind.

Their first destination was the hospital. If the folks there let them join it would alleviate a lot of their most pressing issues. Hopefully the goodwill Dan had earned would extend to them. A larger concern that no one voiced when the hospital was brought up was if the building had been destroyed as well or not. They all thought about it though. Their options if the hospital didn’t work out looked bleak.

They trudged out with their arms loaded. The town was silent around them except for a light breeze pushing discarded trash along the road. At an average pace it would take them a little under thirty minutes to walk to the hospital. Tired from a night without sleep, burdened by their loads, and wary for danger, it took them closer to an hour than half an hour. Gradually the destruction faded away as they moved. Occasionally signs from errant shots were seen, a building bombed out on their left, or splinters and shrapnel piercing oddly out in the road or in one case, part of a road sign had been speared through the concrete sidewalk.

The hospital came into view and the group released a collective sigh of relief. The building was intact and looked to have avoided the fighting entirely. Their pace picked up as some enthusiasm crept into their stride. The sun had risen high enough that it was baking the asphalt streets. They were all stained with dirt and ash. Soot and sweat smeared their faces and blood caked Edwin’s clothes from where he’d worked on Dan. The group looked a mess as they were spotted by a lookout when they drew nearer the door.

Chuck arrived to greet them before they fully reached the door. He was accompanied by several other people Edwin vaguely recognized from their time spent at the hospital. They were all armed, mostly with guns, and their gazes were piercing as they scanned them intently. Edwin’s head lolled back as he breathed deeply, letting some stress from the past day dissipate.

“Yall look like hell,” Chuck called out with a bit of mirth in his voice.

“Quite right,” Ava said as she placed her supplies down and stepped forward. She wasted no time in cutting to the heart of the matter. “The dorm was destroyed. We have come seeking shelter, and we have brought food and water as payment. Will you take us?”

Chuck worked his jaw and turned back to look at the growing crowd of people who had come at news of their arrival. “Not my call to make,” Chuck replied when he returned to facing Ava. “How about you folks come and sit down in the shade and give us a few minutes to talk it over.” Chuck gestured towards the curb along the wall. The brickwork facade was aged and shattered in places. It showed signs of damage from something recent, but Edwin couldn’t guess at what the cause had been. There were too many potential choices.

Edwin sank to the ground with his back against the wall and cracked open a plastic water bottle from the package of them he had been carrying. His lips were dry and cracked. His mouth felt gummy from dirt and dust he hadn’t been able to get out of it yet and his throat was parched. The warm water tasted great and felt soothing as it rejuvenated him and washed away a bit more of the grime.

Zoey, LJ, and Jason were splitting a bag of goldfish and Edwin couldn’t be bothered to get up and reach for some. Instead he let himself go limp against the wall and closed his eyes. A wave of exhaustion hit him and he felt like he hadn't slept in a week. Ava sat a bit away from them and sipped at her own water bottle. Roy sat awkwardly halfway between the other three and Ava.

Edwin drained the rest of his bottle then tossed it to the side. He opened his eyes and looked down at his blood stained forearms. Unbidden tears beaded at the corners of his eyes as he took a moment to think of everyone who had been killed by their zerg against the centaurs and the ensuing chaos that had followed. Which broke the dam of thoughts he had been ignoring since he had watched a fantastical aerial battle break out over the town only a week ago. He sniffled and rolled his eyes to stop the tears from dripping.

It felt almost like a lifetime ago, he had been more concerned about dealing with Ava and whatever petty social situations she would use as leverage against him, than with keeping one eye open while he slept with a hand on his pistol. The world was ending. The thought brought a chuckle forth from his throat, the thought absurd with how it clashed against the normal life he had lived until now. He had no idea if these invaders had struck across the globe or if Laramie had been special in it’s attention but he was certain something was going on on a much wider scale. They had gotten nothing from outside, no news helicopters, no military planes, the national guard never drove a relief caravan into the city and the only organized resistance had been obliterated when the police tried to stand against the giant mech.

It really did check all the boxes for an apocalypse. There was even some shitty game system that refused to be useful. Besides leveling up and the health restoration benefit he had almost no idea how to use it. It was nearly opaque in how it worked besides letting them use their skills without accessing it. He had gleaned that as long as he didn’t look away from the pop ups they would stay in place, but even a single glance away led to them disappearing. Zoey’s skill was the only real point of interaction. Tomorrow when they were better rested he would need to seriously work on spending their accumulated stat points. Zoey would be spending hers, there was no time for further theorizing on possibilities.

Edwin sighed for what felt like the hundredth time in the last hour. Thinking about all the events over the last week served no purpose. His idle mind had just gravitated that way. He needed to focus on what came next. Which kindled a spark of unease in his gut. Unfortunately, what came next was mostly out of his hands. He knew he would prefer to stick with the group. Having someone to watch his back and a place to sleep at night were two issues he really didn’t want to have to worry about when the streets were filled with murderous, aggressive mutant wildlife and otherworldly invaders.

He could only hope that Chuck and the hospital crowd let them join. Beyond that all he could do was focus on increasing his chance of survival. Going forward, it seemed like it would be a mixture of increasing his fighting strength through better equipment, and leveraging whatever advantages could be eked out from the system. Keeping the others around would help too. They’d been through a few fights with him now. Though their track record in most of them was awful at this point he thought they could work together well enough.

Ava was a big sticking point, Edwin was pretty sure Roy was nothing but her little puppy. While she could likely sway Jason and LJ to agree with anything if she opposed him on something. Zoey’s opinion wouldn’t hold much weight with the others, she was younger then them all by several years. Still a kid to their young adulthood. Though she would probably side with whoever she thought presented the better idea, she seemed to have a good head on her shoulders.

Ideally Ava would integrate herself into the hospital and take up some duties there while they would add Roy to their group and venture out to search for survivors and more supplies.

Edwin’s pondering was interrupted when Chuck approached them. A little smirk sat on his face as he tipped his cowboy hat in their direction. “Yall are good, come along and we can chat about what can be done around here by yourselves.” Edwin grinned in relief as Jason whooped and LJ smacked him on the back. They were in.

Without warning light flared around each of them, Chuck included and a small chime sounded in each of their heads. A system box swam in front of his face as Edwin’s eyes adjusted back from the flash. It looked like the future was racing towards him as he read the message hanging in the air. He would have to do the best he could to stay alive. Hopefully this message meant something good.

Congratulations!

You have earned the title: Frontrunner

You have taken the first step, how far can you go?

The End.