“Golems? Uhhh…” Tilting my head, I paused and searched my memory for information about golems.

“Hm. All I know is that they are usually made of rocks and are not really alive? More like nature's robots or something right?”

There wasn’t anything in particular I could think of, yet, now I was extremely curious, and my first thought was that Steve was going to say he had made lifelike golems of himself, Sylvie and Catara.

“Ah well yes, that’s the more common understanding. A more official description would be ‘An animated anthropomorphic being consisting entirely from inanimate matter.’”

Nodding, I took a swig and waited patiently for him to continue.

“But! The original word was also used as a term for amorphous, unformed material. Essentially, think of glass in its liquid form or plastics. ”

“Uh okay…soooo, amorphous probably means something like you can change its shape right?”

He chuckled.

“Sorry mate, no. It essentially means ‘shapeless’. But the reason I’m explaining this is because of an interesting hidden feature, or exploit, if you will, that I discovered during my moment of desperation. Much like your shields don’t just defend, but you can use them to attack, I too can do some crazy…stuff, with my majiglyph skill [Golemic IV].”

“Let me start from when we formed the circle…”

Steve gave a recollection of his version of the events, and I stayed quiet.

He started from when we were in the circle..

“So I knew I’d made a mistake when I saw the mobs just keep pouring out. The circle strategy would have been fine if we were against similar numbers, but we were fully outnumbered and we had little energy left..we should have gone to the building first but something told me it was a bad idea..” He sighed.

“Anyways. After Tanner, yourself and the others made it to the door, I was protecting Sylvie and got tripped up. I was dragged down to the ground and I really thought that was it and that I was going to die heh..” He scratched his head awkwardly.

“So as I’m struggling on the ground, I had an epiphany moment where I thought ‘damn I wish I could make a golem out of the tarmac’..then I thought, why not try?”

“Of course, I’m redacting the screaming, crying and swearing parts but..”

He turned his hands over, slightly lifting them, and tilted his head in a ‘conceding’ expression.

“Overall I’d never really thought to activate a patch of matter rather than an object entirely. The results were astounding to say the least!”

He placed a finger onto the table and a thin line of neon brown Majik traced around the surface in a coaster-sized circle, before he proceeded to push his finger smoothly into the table as if it was clay, the area melting like putty as he pushed his hand through.

“W-Holy shit!” If I was a cartoon character, my eyes would have jumped out and my jaw would have slammed into the ground with an anvil clang.

He pulled his hand out and the neat circle popped out and he placed it onto the table as the neon brown Majik returned to his hand and the mass solidified.

I picked it up and stared at it in awe; it had returned to a solid state, but you could see where the wood had impossibly been moulded, giving the fibres a plasticine-smeared look.

“Crazy right? With whole objects, the process seems to be much faster, but with surfaces or large mass objects where I’m only using a small portion, there seems to be a longer...cast time shall we say. And this is where the exploit shines! If I pull back the Majik, I only lose a fraction of it. It is hard to say how much and the only reason I do notice it, is because when I return a formed golem, the ‘weight’ of the Majik returning is considerably less.”

Dammit Steve! More game references?! I’ll let this one slide since it could also mean ‘casting’ like in a forging process.

A disturbing thought came across my mind.

“Steve, does this...work on organic matter?”

He frowned, deep in thought, before pulling a yikes face.

“Uhh..yeesh, uh I don’t think so and I’m guessing you mean flesh..not sure I want to try that. But a tree or a plant might be a safer trial case.”

I nodded approvingly.

“Sorry, please continue mate.”

No flesh amalgamations were probably a good thing.

“No worries my friend. So, going back, I was being scratched bitten and smacked..it was simply brutal and I really thought I was going to die..so I tried to make something like a suit of golem armour to protect me-”

Yup. I can definitely see Steve storming around in an Earth-Mecha at some point..

“-but it didn’t quite work. I sunk down into the ground and became buried as the top reformed, so I panicked and pulled the Majik back to try and reverse what I’d done but ended up going even further down. Here, I got..lucky, as I found myself in a drainage pipe. It wasn’t a huge pipe, but it was enough for me to catch my breath. So I used the previous process and tunnelled, following it until I reached a vertical drainage space. It was big enough to move around and drink the last bits of my healing pot-”

Pot! POT!

“-whilst I sent a little marble golem up to head over to the building and find people. I feel a sort of magnetic ‘pull’ towards their direction you see, so I used that to guide me. Once I knew where to go, I carried on tunnelling until I was underneath, spending nearly all my energy stabilising the tunnel as I went.”

He picked up the table mass he had previously extracted and placed it in the hole in the table. It glowed neon brown again, spread out flat, and filled the hole, merging with the severed edges.

Once he was done, you could see it looked modified, but the surface was smooth.

Steve let out a big yawn and a sigh, which prompted me to yawn.

“Ugh man I’m exhausted and you are probably as well. I’ll spare you any more silly details and wrap up. Basically, I made it to the pumphouse and found Sylvie unconscious with Catara guarding her. She was terrified, telling me about people going insane and that Tanner had been killed...so I took them out via the tunnel and closed it up behind us.”

He looked down at his hands and gritted his teeth.

“She...said it was impossible that you were alive...damn I should’ve come check, but I could hear the insanity screaming in the darkness and I panicked...I’m so sorry Godu…I left you guys again..”

There was a faint flare of ‘why the fuck did you guys just assume I was dead’ but the feeling didn't last long.

From his point of view, he could risk his own life and the other two's searching for survivors in the pitch black, or cut their losses and head back.

Besides, didn’t Tanner and I run to the building the first chance we got?

“Hey, I suppose that makes two of us right? I mean, me and Tanner ran for the building. Look, if you had just ran off I might have been upset, but you saved two souls, one of them being the lady who pretty much saved my family's life so I think you have no reason to feel guilty.” I cleared my throat and nodded with a smile.

“Besides, this fucked up world is to blame, not us. Life is too short to worry about doing things right, as long as we do the right things, I think that’s okay.”

Steve chuckled.

“Man you should write that on a plaque or something. Very wise. But thank you, truly. You would have every right to be angry at me for not trying to save you..I just hope the others can forgive me for not trying to save their loved ones…”

“Yeah...shit situation all round.”

It felt like a bitter end to the conversation, and we sat there in silence, contemplating everything that had happened.

I remembered there was more good news I hadn't shared in that Triya was alive too.

“Oh Steve! Shit I almost forgot! I wasn’t the only one that survived! Triya’s home is safe and sound as well!”

He gave the biggest grin I'd ever seen.

“Man! That is bloody good to hear! Well and truly! You know, I feel like she is going to be one of those legendary hero's, spoken about throughout the ages haha! The great [Ryngyr] Triya!"

He pronounced a word I’d not heard before. It sounded like Rain-jeer.

Noticing my confused expression, he spoke.

“Oh you don't know? that’s her label in her garden. I've spoken to her about some of her choices and what she should go for ecetera.”

The garden! I haven’t mentioned to Steve about my… well, her.

A bad feeling rose in the pit of my stomach when I thought about mentioning her... like it was not a good idea. So I decided to not say anything.

I was also really tired and needed to let Marri know I was okay.

Slapping my knees, the universal sign for closing a conversation, and heading off, I got up and started making my way to the stairs.

“Right mate, best be off to the other half and all that.”

He chuckled “Good talk man, I’m glad you’re alright..I think Marri would go on a crusade if anything ever happened to you.”

Chuckling, I waved goodnight and headed up.

As I tiptoed in, Marri was awake and looked up at me; Erza and Lyra were asleep on the double bed and Marri had a corner setup with a mattress on the floor, looking extremely comfortable with Lone in a small travel bed.

She had been so chuffed when Sylvie gave it to her and she had told me all about how safe it was for co-sleeping and how she could feed Lone to sleep whilst he was in there and still snuggle next to him.

When she saw me, she smiled beautifully as she started to silently cry.

I rushed over for a cuddle and I held on tightly as I treasured her warmth.

In the ensuing silence, all the hellish memories of the day plagued my mind, and it was my turn to silently sob.

After some time, Lone started stirring and chomping, so I wiped my snotty face and scooped him up. I gave him a gentle kiss on the forehead and passed him over to Marri so she could breastfeed him.

When she lifted her top up, I dramatically gawked at her boob and covered my eyes jokingly.

She responded with a snort and I'm sure she rolled her eyes.

She patted on the mattress next to her.

I smiled sleepily and lay down beside her as she stroked my head, comforting me, softly, humming contentedly.

She was too good to me and I marvelled at how much of an amazing mother she had become.

I can't keep making her worry about me.

I need to give her more support..

Tomorrow, we'll talk and figure out what we should do next.

...Tomorrow we’ll have to talk with everyone and figure out what to do next...

It didn't take long for me to fall into blissful sleep.

***

3 months had passed.

“Here, catch.” I threw a pack of strawberry laces over to Triya, who frowned as she caught it with one hand, gasping when she realised what they were.

“OO-HOo-HOo-HOo-oOO! YES!” She squealed with delight and clutched them close to her chest.

“Thankyou thankyou thankyou!” She spoke in a hushed voice as she carefully placed them into her rucksack and gave me a thumbs up, grinning.

It was the middle of the day and we were out on the usual supply run in one of the abandoned houses outside the walls.

The house itself felt hollow and lifeless. Dust everywhere with signs of a struggle or a family in a rush to get out.

If I had to guess, a family of 4 or 5 lived here; drawings on the fridge, certainly not going to open it.

The cupboards were sufficiently stocked which meant we would fill our last bag in the next house.

We avoided venturing into the rest of the house unless we were looking for something in particular, mainly out of respect… But also because upstairs usually was the last stand for most families.

We learnt that fairly quickly.

For the past 3 months or so, we had routinely ventured out for a couple of hours, knocking on doors, going inside, and basically looting the place clean.

The looting part felt a bit scummy, but we had little choice, and we agreed that if we found anyone looking for help, we would take them in.

It’s easy to say that now, but when we start running out of food or room..what then?

We had actually taken in around 40 or 50 people in total, and there was probably space for 400-500 to live in the safe zones houses and flats. If we started building tents or gazebos in empty places, we could probably fit in an additional 800 before it started to become unsanitary.

We had just managed to resolve a lot of the issues with sanitation, waste management and water flow by disconnecting some of the sewage and water piping systems and connecting them to some newly built systems.

The entire zone's sewage was connected to a waste compost system that filtered the water and allowed the waste to be broken down over a long period of time. Thanks to Steve’s Majik, a huge water tank was fairly easily constructed, by Steve moulding metal sheets and merging them.

This was then elevated and installed using the crane-

It took poor Anton several gruelling days to do it.

-which gave the site just enough water pressure to function, and we had dug a deep well with a wind-powered pump that would help keep the water tank topped up.

Water still had to be boiled just in case, Majik came in handy for that, but we were always keeping an eye out for chlorine tabs with perhaps some instructions on how to keep the water safe.

It was extremely fortunate that we had the people who built most of the site around; they still had the plans and knowledge of all the systems and how to modify them.

Food still had to be scavenged, which was what me and Triya were just doing as we headed to the next house, but it may have all been not as big a deal as we first thought.

Everyone had noticed a rather disturbing change in our bodies in that we no longer felt as hungry or ate as much. But the weirdest thing was, even if we ate more, we went to the toilet less, both number 1 and number 2.

At this current point in time, because it was a gradual process and it may continue, most adults only ate a large meal every 2 days and went to the loo once every, staggering, 7 days.

Children did seem to be exempt, however, continuing to be little black holes of endless devouring. Yet, their toilet habits matched adults..

7 days without having to pee or poop! I couldn’t imagine the productivity boost to office workers that would provide... if we still needed to work in offices.

The medical groups were going nuts over all this, talking about a bunch of science I didn’t quite understand but Steve explained it to me like I was five and gave an overview of our ATP processes and the possibility that Majik is an evolution of this, allowing us to interact with this strange new resource, EXP.

Yeah, it still doesn’t quite make sense, so I’ll just stick with Majik, being ‘spoooooky MaaAAaaAAaAajik!’.

Digressing was becoming a rather bad habit, but anything to keep the bad memories from surfacing is good with me!

On that note, let’s see what is in house number 2!

*Knock Knock*

Triya carefully opened the letterbox and loudly spoke into it.

“Hellooo, anyone home?”

We listened intently, having grown accustomed to waiting the extra 60 seconds longer than you think you should, saving our skin in a few situations.

Twice we had walked in on something we’d labelled 'Wailers' just standing in the dark. There were many of the other loot runners reporting sightings and a few fights with them as well.

They were humanoid and were usually grotesquely skinny with elongated fingers. Their appearances were bloody terrifying; the necks stretched up half a metre or more, and their jaws were excessively distended down the same length, leaving their mouths stretched wide open, ergo, screaming woman painting from picasso.

When they saw us they started wailing, hence the name, but their eyes were also tiny, black and beady-like birds, but they reflected a glowing yellow in the dark.

They try to engulf your head and suffocate you with their massively stretched mouths, but they were not too strong; you just had to watch out that they didn’t stun or daze you else you’d be in real trouble.

There still wasn’t any noise and I could sense Triya was getting impatient, mainly because she grabbed the door handle and tried to open it.

“Hmm..I bet you a snickers bar, there’s something in this one..I got a gut feeling.” My shield's metallic glass sound sang in the air as they deployed by themselves, clearly matching my concern.

The shields had become my lifeline and I'd dedicated time regularly over the past months to practising with them by myself, focusing on both offence and defence equally. Not only had it increased my confidence and improved my capabilities; it had also helped me reinforce my mental state.

Triya paused and half-side-eyed me from over her shoulder, keeping the rest of her focus on the door.

"Ooohoh, my good sir, you are about to lose your precious treasures. Daresay shall we take a gander?" She put on an overly well-spoken accent as she thumbed at the door.

I chuckled through my nose and shifted my left shield to the front left side, with the right raising over my right shoulder into the mantis position. It was my preferred stance, so to speak, and as all my previous fights using it had shown, it was most effective with my other combat moves.

I nodded.

Our fear was still real, but we were getting used to it, so we no longer froze with terror, we would simply run for our lives if we came upon anything we didn't think we could handle.

Triya stepped back and silently pointed to the door handle and made an explosion gesture with the same hand.

That was our agreed sign for breaching a locked door, or rather, Xno blowing up the lock.

Xno juddered and reconfigured itself into heavy attack mode, opening out all of its sides, exposing bizarre alien-like internal machinery that looked like a mixture of clockwork and the back of a refrigerator, before charging up a small but powerful yellow and green projectile at the centre.

The charging up always reminded me of electronic music building up to some epic bass drop.

Oh, how I miss that crappy but majestic music..

The projectile hit the lock and buzzed and crackled loudly as it inflated before shrinking then corkscrew-swirling and fizzling out like a firework.

The handle, lock and part of the frame were disintegrated, and the edges were glowing with embers.

Triya had a small crowbar with the tip sharpened into a very sharp blade. She used the claw end to push the door open and then jumped back.

What I saw as the door swung open was truly haunting and made my palms instantly sweat...

***