An errant sunbeam found a way through the curtain and landed on Joe's face. He tried to roll over, but the narrow couch didn't have the width of his former bed. Fortunately, it was a short drop to the floor. Unfortunately, Joe somehow managed to land face down. It didn't do any real damage, but it still hurt and wasn't a fun way to wake up. Waking up in a strange place was not helping his brain fog.

"What the hell? Where am I?"

Joe shook his head and slowly pieced together his last day. It was a lot to process, and he decided to get up and look around. The room was dimly lit because all the curtains had been drawn shut. Still, the bright noon sun shone through enough cracks to make seeing everything easy. It was what Joe would think of as a basic old person home. There were many pictures on the wall and a cabinet of curiosities.

The open kitchen was right off the living room, and Joe noticed a stack of goods on the table next to a piece of paper. There wasn't much, but some canned and dry goods sat next to a jar of adult multivitamins. The paper drew his attention, and Joe pulled it into a sunbeam to read it.

To Whoever found my body,

You are welcome to anything in the house. I no longer need it, and I put the most useful items on the table to save you some time and effort. Please put my body in the hole out back and cover it with dirt. I would greatly appreciate it.

Jacob

Emotions welled up again while Joe thought about the previous night. It seemed almost surreal after the crazy day preceding it. He hadn't known Jacob for more than a few hours, but it still hurt. He'd never watched a person die before. It was so much less than he had thought it would be. Jacob had been a good man, and he was reduced to a decaying piece of flesh in a blink. The Systems tone from the very beginning had shown that human life was considered cheap, and the events of the last day had downgraded that to almost worthless.

Joe looked over and grabbed two protein bars and a can of purified water. He sat down on the couch and ignored the nagging in his mind that you never eat on a couch as a guest. He sighed at the absurdly normal thought before pulling up his System interface. It was time to stop procrastinating and see what his dearly purchased information had in store.

Joseph Lemuel Wanderun

Level : 1

Class: Feral

Attributes:

Strength 6

Alacrity 7

Fortitude 6

Vigor 4

Reflex 6

Connection 2

Glamour 2

Skills: 1/7

Bite (Common) - Level 1

It wasn't precisely point and click, so Joe tried to focus on the concept of his New Planet Information. After a minute of mentally banging his head against the wall, a new screen popped up.

New Planet Info Pack

Rifts

Classes

Attributes

Skills

Hegemon

Miscellaneous

Joe didn't want to spend all day just staring at the hologram in front of him, so he skimmed down the list. He'd have more time to read all the information as he hiked the rest of the way to his destination. The information wasn't particularly comprehensive, and Joe would have thought he'd been ripped off, but all of it was still new to him. He didn't know how long it would have taken to figure all of this out, but the short answer was a long while.

Rifts were graded by color, but not in the Roy G Biv way Americans usually used. It went green, yellow, orange, red, purple, blue, copper, silver, gold, white, black, and prismatic. A system store at the end of each rift allowed you to upgrade your class and skills using your accumulated essence. The power level of the rift determined what features were available in said store and the size of the rift. Lastly, there were three types of rift, resource, challenge, and labyrinth in that rough order of rarity.

Joe read back over that again and paused. Hidden in the text was the implied statement that the only way to get stronger was by going through rifts, and he'd had some vague hope that he could meditate or work out and get stronger that way.

Joe jumped back to Attributes in the hope of finding something to prove him wrong. He already knew the basics of what they did and how he received them as he leveled his class. They were set in tiers, with the tier going up every ten. All of Joe's attributes were still in tier 0, also known as the child's tier. Finally, a glimmer of hope appeared. You could raise your attributes without the System. It could happen a maximum of three times per level, and the guide said anyone who had any choice did so. He didn't know what would raise each one, but he assumed pushing his limits of that stat was the right idea.

The System window closed as Joe got up to stretch. He wandered to the bathroom and saw a filled toilet with actual toilet paper next to it. Quality bathroom time wasn't going to fix Joe's life, but it certainly didn't make it any worse. He wanted to stay and read, but it felt wrong somehow. He knew Jacob was dead, but he still felt like he was trespassing.

Joe cleaned up his mess and packed up most of the food and water. The vitamins were a great score, with spotty nutrition leaving holes in his diet that were unthinkable even a few years ago. He bowed his head and said goodbye to Jacob before locking the doorknob and shutting the door behind him as he left.

It looked to be some time in the early afternoon. There was a nice breeze blowing, and it should only be four to five more miles to town. He started walking and experimented to see if he could read the System display while he walked. The short answer was yes, but it was the walking equivalent of drunk driving. With his attention focused on the screen, he hit every rock and uneven spot on the road. Finally, Joe gave it up for a lost cause and decided he'd read through it at nights when the sundown and lack of lights gave him free time.

The day was sunny, and it was a pleasant walk, even with the weight of his backpack. After a mile, he passed the funeral home that sat by itself on this stretch of the road. There were boards over the windows, and he felt no urge to explore. If anything good was in there, chances are it had already been looted.

In the distance, a droning sound caught his attention. Without ever-present traffic and wireless communication, it was amazing how you could pick up far away sounds. Joe paused with a frown for a moment before realization struck him. He sprinted towards some trees by the side of the road. The backpack was stripped off as quickly as he could, and he threw it under a nearby mulberry bush. Joe dove to the ground and took a moment to angle his body at an angle, placing the tree between him and the road before he ducked his head beneath the short grass.

The drone reached a growling pitch, and the sound of an old and poorly tuned motorcycle broke the air passing down the road he had just walked. It continued to the town that he knew was only a few miles away before Joe lost track of it. Despite the commotion he had caused, Joe didn't think that the bike was about him. He still didn't want to risk any interactions with the council if he could help it, and only the council had the vehicles and fuel for motorized transport around Dublin.

After a few minutes, Joe stood up and brushed himself off. He bent and retrieved the backpack before taking a moment to stretch out the kinks. He was geared back up and walking down the road a minute later. Joe wouldn't be surprised if messengers were flying between all the council headquarters. Yesterday had changed the world, and anyone who had power would be rushing to consolidate it in the face of their new reality.

_____________________________________________________________________________

A thankfully boring hour later saw Joe wandering into the small park at the edge of town. Fortunately, the bridge crossing the creek was still in good repair, the main road into town. The creek wasn't deep or particularly wide, but no one likes walking around in wet clothes. The park was overgrown with tall grass and a mix of random saplings reclaiming the land that humanity didn't care to maintain.

The road continued towards the small downtown. The two restaurants were long since closed. Several of the buildings had boarded-up windows, though one of those seemed to still be in use. A large spray-painted, TRADE ONLY, sign on a piece of plywood was the biggest clue it was some sort of shop when it was open. Joe picked up his pace slightly, the feeling of being watched making his back itch. He never saw faces, but the upper windows of the buildings had curtains that moved slightly, betraying their occupants and their curiosity. No one hailed him directly, and Joe took it as a blessing. Yesterday had been traumatic for everyone, and those that survived were probably not looking to befriend a lone stranger backpacking through town.

It had been years, but Joe remembered a bunch of duplexes near a pretty popular restaurant on the country highway heading south out of town. He took a left and tried to head in roughly the right direction. Joe felt like an asshole for even thinking it, but there were probably a few empty apartments in the area with yesterday's events. There was no way that everyone had survived the calibration with its insistence on forcing combat. People had toughened up in the last few years, but America still wasn't at a place where everyone was combat-ready.

The neighborhoods had some loops and cul de sacs that frustrated Joe for the next hour. He stayed patient and continued to work his way towards his goal. After a long day and night without enough sleep, he was starting to get desperate to find somewhere safe to crash. Joe wasn't familiar enough with the area to start cutting through backyards and didn't want to risk confrontation with any homeowners that thought he was looking to poach their garden.

Another hour of slower and slower walking brought him the correct westward street. At this point, Joe was willing to admit that he should have spent the day at Jacob's house. It would have made much more sense to stock up and rest in a house he knew was safe and unoccupied. The meeting with the old man had been a brief point of camaraderie that had pierced the armor of indifference Joe had cultivated over the last couple of years. When he was admitting that to himself, he spotted the duplexes and froze.

The restaurant should have been hidden behind the small neighborhood in the unlikely event it was still open. Joe considered that a possibility because it was run and staffed by the local Mennonites. They had fared better than most in the last few years, with their community's access to local food and innate support. Joe suddenly was very sure that the restaurant had been destroyed yesterday. A light green glow lit the sky on the far side of the small neighborhood.

The strength left him, and Joe sat down on the cracked sidewalk and stared. It was one thing to know that rifts were a part of their new reality and another to have that reality smack you in the face. While he'd left Dublin to try and distance himself from the council, a part of him had been running from his past. The rift had been awful, and he hadn't wanted to live that close to the place he'd almost died.

Ten minutes later, Joe heaved himself to his feet. He didn't know if it was dangerous to live this close to a rift, but he did know that there wasn't much energy left in his body. His legs felt like lead, and he walked into the neighborhood. A line of small duplexes greeted him, and Joe saw that he would have his pick. The area was empty. The residents that survived had packed up and left quickly after their calibration, from the look of it.

Joe started at the end of the neighborhood and did his best goldilocks impression. The one on end was locked up tight and looked long abandoned, peering through the windows. The one next to it had held a smoker in the last few years. Lord knows where they'd even found the cigarettes, but Joe didn't want to live there if he had other options. The next one's door was open but had signs of habitation as early as last night. He didn't want to be squatting if they decided to come back.

The wave of tiredness hit him again, more insistent this time. Joe shuffled back to the first duplex and tried to find a way inside. He knew he'd be alone if nothing else, and the locals probably wouldn't even notice him at first if he kept a low profile. The doors were all locked, so Joe went to the garage door. He lifted and was pleasantly surprised to have the door slide up relatively easy. They had left it disengaged from the drive after the power went out, like many people.

Joe went into the garage and looked around. It was completely bare, which was just fine with him. He moved to the house and was happy to see a layer of undisturbed dust on the mat in front of the door. The door was locked, but it didn't look too heavy. He put down his pack and, after a moment to psyche himself up, put his shoulder into it as hard as possible. It gave with a crash as the bolt ripped out of the frame. Joe fell through and cursed at the pain. It always looked too easy in movies, but he could already feel a deep tissue bruise forming.

The noise was precisely what he didn't want, and Joe hopped over to pull down the garage door. He lowered it as gently as possible to prevent another crash in the quiet area. As he was moving to grab his pack, he slapped himself on the forehead and reconnected the door to the garage opener drive. It wouldn't work, but it would keep other people from getting in the same way he had.

The apartment was empty and had been for some time based on the dust. Whoever had lived here before had taken everything with them. The cabinets were open and starkly empty. The interior doors were all open, and the appliances were gone. The last wasn't an issue as they wouldn't work without power anyway. Joe trudged upstairs and was relieved to see that the windows were all intact. He checked every room to be sure he was alone before entering what must have been a child's room.

Jackpot. There was a flimsy old bunk bed that the owner must have considered more trouble than it was worth and a battered and sticker-covered dresser sitting next to it. Joe resisted the urge to throw himself on it immediately. Instead, he checked the room just like the others and then moved the dresser in front of the door. As Joe's garage antics had proven, interior locks did not impede someone remotely serious about entry. He took off his gear and stowed it next to the bed. Finally, he laid out his knife and his knuckles right next to the bed, where he could get them in as quickly as possible. Joe crawled into the bottom bunk and was asleep no more than a minute later.

_____________________________________________________________________________

A tense meeting took place in an old bowling alley a half-mile away from where Joe slept. Candles and crank hand lamps lit an old poker table that had been repurposed for the impromptu meeting. Frank was shaken after yesterday's events, and he did not like that feeling. He was used to being in charge, being the leader of the Plain City branch of the Columbus Council.

Frank was a man in his late forties, with salt and pepper showing in his hair. He was clean-shaven even with the shortage of razors, an old-fashioned straight razor, and plenty of practice having made that possible. Most men grew short beards now, as the trouble of shaving every day wasn't worth the effort. Frank liked to let people know that he was better than them just by how he looked. The fact that he still had something of a beer belly finished the look in an era of food scarcity. His voice was raised, and it was angry as he continued to take out his frustrations on the bike messenger.

"Where the fuck have you been. We waited all day for some message from Dublin and nothing. Our people died because we had no idea what the fuck was going on with that thing." Frank's arm gestured angrily towards the south wall. A ghostly glowing green could be seen through the small windows placed there. "We lost over half of our people before some survivors managed to make it though and warn us."

Frank left out that they had forced the work crews and low-level people through first. He wasn't going to send anyone important into that hole in the air until he knew what was happening. The loss of the crews stung, though. The messenger seemed utterly unaffected by Frank's outburst and just stared at him a moment before answering.

"We had the same problems you did on a much bigger scale. The rift appeared in the hospital, and our headquarters was gone. On top of that, none of the vehicles that don't use a carburetor and a lead/acid battery work, as I'm sure you noticed." The man reached into his backpack and threw a manilla folder on the table. "That's what we know and your new directives. We've all got problems. It's the end of the world."

The messenger sneered openly and then exited the room. A minute later, a choking roar sounded as he got his bike running and headed back to Dublin. Frank didn't say anything for a long while, and no one wanted to be the first to speak. Finally, he picked up the folder and started to read through the handwritten reports inside. After he found the directives, his brow furrowed even further. Frank threw the folder down in disgust before stalking towards the door. He yelled at the rest of the room as he went.

"Get your asses in gear. Grab everything important from here, and don't forget that folder. Grab anyone capable and meet me at the store. We've got work to do and no workers to do it." No one moved at first, stunned by the constant see-sawing of emotion.

"Now, ladies, or I swear to god I will curb stomp every one of you."