Whenever I found out that there was a total of 10,000 wolves that needed to be killed, I did exactly what any sane person should do. I got on my moped and headed towards downtown. Before I left, I attempted to find my rifle. Of course, like anything else that had broken before it, the rifle had apparently dissolved into the ground. Luckily I checked my inventory and found out that the laser rifle was inside it. I pulled it out, just to make sure it wasn't broken. A smoking hole in the ground proved that it was, indeed, working.

Maybe I hadn't come that close to dying when I fought three wolves at once. Still, I had felt as though I was going to die. My number one priority, as of this instant, was to find another person to fight off the apocalypse with, or a deep enough hole that the wolves couldn't get to me.

I very much doubted finding a hole, so another person it was. Besides, ff the counter was any indicator, there were more people out there that were fighting off the wolves. That meant they were having some measure of success.

It had been eleven in the morning on a Tuesday when everything went down. That meant, in busy California, that a vast majority of the houses seemed empty. There were a handful that had cars parked in their driveway, but I wasn't going to stop until I saw some signs of life. Friendly life that is, I already had my share of face biting, thank you very much.

I was driving down the road at the max-speed of my moped, 25 mph, when I saw the fight. Bright laser beams were firing from backyard of a nearby house. I could faintly hear yelps and growls, so there were some wolves as well. I headed right for the house, my laser rifle forming in my hand. That made steering a little difficult, but I wasn't going to go into a potential fight unarmed.

I parked the moped and headed towards the door when I hesitated. I didn't hear anything anymore and I wasn't seeing any laser beams either. I didn't want to break into someones house and I didn't want to barge into their backyard either. Shrugging, I did the only thing I could do.

I rang the doorbell.

Whoever owned the house had a very nice doorbell. It sounded like windchimes tinkling in the wind. I waited for a few seconds, but nothing happened. I left the porch and went to the fence of the backyard. It looked like a warzone. Matter of fact, it probably was a warzone.

Smoldering line of molten metal criss-crossed the backyard. It was weird seeing dirt turn into glowing red slag, but I guess it made sense when the entire world was nanites. There were no dead bodies, but they would have melted into the ground anyways. What I did see was a kid, fifteen years old at most, laying at the bottom of small crater. I recognized the shapes held in both his hands. He had two laser pistols.

This wasn't the time to be worried about manners. I busted through the gate and ran over to the kid. "Hey kid, are you alright?" I asked him.

The kid in question acted as though he was hit by a taser. He jerked and scrambled away from me, screaming "aaahhhh!" the whole time. One of the laser pistols went off and sliced a nice line in the wooden fence. Or at least, what looked like a wooden fence. The drips of metal showed that it was a wooden fence only in appearance.

"Whoa! Kid, stop firing that gun before someone gets hurt!" I yelled. I know that managed to get through the kid's panic, since the laser cut-off.

The kid stared at me before suddenly bursting into tears. He started babbling out how sorry he was and that he thought he was all alone. His parents went into work and then the grey goo came and then the blue screens and then the wolves and how he fought off the wolves the first time but died and how he woke up a minute ago only to have to fight off some more wolves again and then all of a sudden I was here and how sorry he was that he almost killed me and...

Yeah, the kid was rambling. Stress does that to you. Plus, he did mention how he had just died for the first time, so I decided to give him a break.

"Don't worry kid, I forgive you. Now, this is your house right?" I asked him. The kid nodded, tears still streaming down his face. I checked the monster count. 505/10,000. That was a pretty big jump. "Good. Now, how about you go inside and get something to drink? Eat a cookie or something, it'll help you with your nerves."

The kid nodded and went inside. I followed him. It was a nice house, marble countertops with stainless steel appliances. There were some photos of the kid and his family hanging on the walls. He must be an only child, since there wasn't any other children in the pictures.

The kid got out a glass of milk, chugging the whole thing in a couple of seconds. He'd finally stopped crying and was now calmed down. Good. "So kid, what's your name."

He set the glass down with a clank sound on the counter. "My name is Gregory."

I nodded. "Good, good. Well, Gregory, would you mind if I got some milk?" He shook his head. Getting out a glass myself, I took a sip of the milk. Mmm. I really did love the taste of cold milk. I sighed as I realized something. This wasn't really milk, was it. It was just some sort of illusion, a program that gave me the sense that I was drinking milk.

I shook my head to get rid of those thoughts. I couldn't go down that road, too many dark things were waiting for me there. I turned to Gregory and just watched him. I wasn't sure what to do. I couldn't leave this kid alone, but there wasn't a car here that I could take. I could bring him on my moped, but it wouldn't be comfortable. Still, it was the best I could do.

I decided to ask Gregory about his purchases so far from the shop. Maybe he would be able to help me out somehow.

"Gregory, do you remember the blue screens that appeared in front of you?" I asked him.

Gregory nodded and said, "yeah, I do. I thought I was just dreaming about a game at first, one of those VRMMORPGs. I got some of all the stats, but I put a lot in shield, charge, and capacity. A little strength too. I like to play tanks and I figured that I could do it in my dream too. Bought that Shield Emitter ability as well. Then I got two laser pistols and a grenade. A pistol wielding tank, sounds cool right?"

He looked down at his hands before continuing on. "I went outside, to fire the laser pistols. A wolf jumped me when I did. My abilities didn't do squat. I killed it, but I knew it wasn't a game at that point. Two more wolves attacked me and I panicked. Started shooting at them halphazardly. I knew better. I knew that I should have aimed more carefully instead of just firing away at them."

By this point, he had tears streaming down his cheeks. I went over and hugged him. This kid needed a hug far more than anyone I could ever think of. He sobbed into my shoulders, managing to continue his story between sobs. "One of the wolves got hurt, *sob* but they both got me. *sob* They started biting and *sob* clawing me. I threw one off me a couple times, but the other one just kept biting me. My... My arm was ripped off. I managed to use the grenade with my other hand though. The explosion killed me. *sob* When I woke up, I was back in they yard, my two pistols still in my hand." He lifted his head, staring into my face as tears streamed down his cheeks. "Then you were there." He let out a chuckle. "You have no idea how much you scared me the first time I saw you."

I let out a chuckle myself. "I sure don't kid. You were practically peeing your pants." That started a chain reaction as we both started laughing. At the end of our giggling spree, I could feel some of the tension and stress just melt away. Laughter is the best medicine after all.

Once we were able to speak again, Gregory let out a sigh. He looked me in the eyes, saying "I, uh, I just realized, I don't know your name."

I smiled. "You were a bit preoccupied, so I'll let it slide." I waggled my eyebrows at him. "My name is Tony, pleasure to meet you Gregory." He nodded at that. "Anyway Gregory, I'm going to need to ask you a question. Do you want me to take you somewhere, or do you want to stay here."

Gregory started thinking, not quite sure what he wanted to do. After a while, he finallly nodded his head. "I don't know. My parents will try to get to me, but I don't know where they are. They were just going out for a drive. I could try and call them though?"

I face palmed. Yeah, I hadn't even checked my phone before I left the apartment. Then again, I hardly ever used it. Being an introvert combined with having no close family alive meant that I never used it except for work. "Yes, go ahead and call them. See if you can reach them."

I reached into my own pocket to try and contact my sister. I unlocked my phone, causing a blue screen to appear in front of me.

You have discovered Communication Device blueprint. Would you like to convert Communication Device into 20 shards? Yes/No

I selected no and went to my contacts. There was nothing there. I had already memorized her number, so I went ahead and dialed it. An error message appeared when I pressed the call button. It was a blue screen that was eerily similair to the same ones that kept popping up every few seconds.

You have not connected with that Communication Device. In the future, you may connect with Communication Devices by touching the two devices together.

Okay. That meant that phones would work in the future, but I needed to meet the person first. Of course I would have no such luck for contacting my sister. I wasn't really worried about her though. She had always been a tomboy. While I had been inside reading, she was climbing trees and shooting BB guns at squirrels.

I looked up from my gun and looked at Gregory. Based upon his confused look, he had the same message. I put a hand on his shoulder reassuringly. "Don't worry Gregory, I'm sure your parents will come looking for you. In the meantime, how about we stay here until they arrive? We can stay in one of the rooms. The doorway should provide a natural bottleneck so we won't be over run by wolves."

Gregory was at first relieved by me staying. Once I mentioned wolves though, he became scared. I recognized the fast breathing as the beginnings of a panic attack, so I slapped him on the shoulder again to get his attention. I needed to distract him from his thoughts. "Hey Gregory, how about you tell me your stats?"

He shook himself, as though attempting to get rid of his thoughts. "Well, I, uh... Give me a minute. Open status." Undoubtedly he had a blue screen in front of him. Still, I couldn't see it. Looking at his eyes, I could see a blue glow reflecting off his irises. So the blue screens weren't holograms like I first thought. It could possibly be a projection that was placed directly into the eyes. I'd heard of some tech that could do that, but it was always too expensive for me.

Gregory started to relay the information to me, which I used to build a mental image of his status screen.

Name: Gregory ??? Species: Nanite-Human Age: ??? Level:23 (221 Status Points) Gender: Male Agility:10 Charging:57 (EP Regen Rate: 114/second) Dexterity:10 Intelligence:10 (Percieved time: 1.1x normal) Shield:57 (Shield Points: 570. Costs 57EP/second) Storage:57 (Energy Points: 570) Strength:20

He still hadn't told me his full name or age yet. His nanite count, according to him, was 500 of the tiny things and 40 of the mid-sized things. That meant he had 495 shards and 35 chunks. Not a lot, but his stats were more impressive for sure. I'm sure that he could have easily taken down the wolves if he hadn't panicked. He had four more levels than me and thirteen levels on the wolves after all.

"So Gregory, would you like to stay here in you house?" I asked him.

Before Gregory could respond, I heard growling and crashing sounds behind me.