"Omigod. We have to get out of here," Natsuki looked horrified. The monster that had attacked them was still twitching on the ground, a hole in its chest. Taki had trouble looking past the text that had popped up in his vision. Level one. What the hell? There were several squiggly letters and numbers he didn't recognize below it. He blinked and it was gone.

He could see a bright violet text box in front of Natsuki. He could make out the number 001. How had they both leveled up? What did that even mean?

"Did you kill that thing, Natsuki?"

Huh? Yeah, I guess I did. I just punched it and it exploded like that." She seemed like she was still in shock

"Why did you do that?" The last he had seen, she was laying on the ground.

"I thought you were dead." There were tears in her eyes.

There was an awkward silence, but finally Taki patted her on the shoulder. "Thank you," he said. "I thought I was dead too." He looked around. There were still screams occasionally in the distance. "Alright, we've got to keep moving. there are probably more of those things around."

They walked up the hill to the high school. from the road, they could now see what the bang had been.

In the center of town, there was a crater the size of a city block. the strangest part was that a huge half-shell of crimson crystalline material had been thrown up around the crater. Probably molten debris from the impact. It made an imposing, looming wall of blood-red crystal like a vampire's cape, but all the way around. Taki shuddered.

inside the school, everyone was abuzz. "Did you see that shit?" Benzo, Taki's best friend came loping up. Natsuki made herself scarce, probably to clean up and get changed - she was, after all, covered in blood.

"I didn't see whatever that was? we just heard it. And then there was a monster and I got hit in the head..."

"Whoa, monsters? what the hell is going on? Is your head okay?"

Taki felt his head. it was actually perfectly fine. now that he thought about it, it didn't hurt at all. He touched the spot where his wound from the monster backhanding him had been. No blood, no swelling, nothing. weird, he thought to himself.

"Taki, did you see the meteor crash?" It was Sakura, Natsuki's best friend. She smiled cheerfully and sat down backwards in the chair in front of Taki.

"Don't sit like that," Benzo quipped. "It's unladylike."

"Shut up dummy, no one cares. besides, I've got my cute panties on anyway. " She shook out her long red hair, laughing.

Benzo's face turned red. Taki knew it was a joke, but he could feel his eyes creeping down to rest on Sakura's thighs. She was on the track team and was extremely athletic. He never really thought about her that way, but her flirtations had recently started to mess with his head.

"How do you know it was a meteor?" Benzo was in an argumentative mood, apparently, shaking Taki out of his reverie.

"It totally was a meteor - I saw it crash right when I reached homeroom. And then all that blood-looking stuff shot up and froze there. It was creepy."

"Do you think it had anything to do with the monster you saw, Taki?"

"Monster!?" Sakura sounded scared.

"That's what he said, idiot." Natsuki was back, a sour look on her face even though she had just escaped death. She was now in one of the red track-suits they wore for gym now that it was into the colder months. "A monster attacked us and this dummy tried to fight it."

"He did!? So brave!" Sakura's eyes were shining.

"Horaaay. So brave that he got backhanded into a wall and passed out." Natsuki rolled her eyes.

That was true. So what had happened? He had no visible trauma and it had felt a lot like dying. Had Taki been reborn? Was that what leveling up was?

"So how did you escape then?" Their classmates were entranced by the story.

"She -" Taki started before Natsuki stepped on his foot, silencing him.

"Some cop shot it. Blood got all over my nice uniform, so now I have to wear this." She spread her arms to show how bad the suit looked, but honestly Taki thought it looked good on her - a little snug, maybe.

Before they could get another word in, their homeroom teacher came into the room.

"Everyone, I've been told we need to hold tight here while the authorities develop a plan and next steps. In the meantime, we are to tune in to the news for further instruction. Please do not try to go home at this time."

After the news about monsters and meteors, no one seemed ready to rush home just yet.