“Are you sure you seen it go this way?” My older brother wasn’t the smartest person in the world. He had gotten accepted into college through his football scholarship.

“Look Karen, I swear it was a big green dog.” Duke called out as he looked around a corner.

My phone buzzed and I tapped on the notification. New humanoid arrived through the rifts. This is the seventh one today.

“What’s the race this time?” Evelyn stood to my right with her back against the same wall that I was leaning on. In her hand was a large oak branch that she was slowly carving when ever we stopped for the night.

"Kobald, I think this might be what Duke saw." The description of the race was a very dog like humanoid with a keen sense of hearing and smell and what Duke had said he had seen was a large dog. "If it is dangerous make sure you hide, We have lost enough people already."

"Karen." Evelyn rolled her eyes at me. we had been on the road already for three weeks since the power went out.

I pushed her lightly and turned to follow behind our great hunters. We made small talk as we walked. It was our first real time in a city so we pictured it as a big bustling town. Busy with cars everywhere not just parked randomly in the middle of the road where they ran out of gas. We sang lyrics of our favourite songs even tho the radio and our phones no longer played music. The guys ahead of us kept giving us dirty looks like we were ruining their grand hunt.

The sound of a rifle went off echoing off the the buildings causing our whole group to stop moving. I ran forward towards the seven rifles we had. Three more shots ran out as I arrived. I followed our hunters sights and saw a guy standing near an intersection. The man moved slowly and bent down to pick something up.

“Oh hell no, that’s our kill!” Duke shouted and ran towards the guy. The rest of the hunters went with him.

From my view behind them something felt off. There was too much blood and the legs and feet of what ever was in the guys arms was a pale white colour. The guy stood up with the bundle and started walking away from us.

“Stop you fucking poacher! That’s our kill!” One of Duke’s buddies had made it to the guy first as Duke called out at the guy. I was almost up to them when Duke had tried to grab the bundle from the guys arms.

“SHUT THE FUCK UP! I COULD'T SAVE HER. I WAS RIGHT THERE I TRIED TO SAVE HER But...” his words cut short tears rolling down his cheeks.

I adjusted the dead girls head to rest on his shoulder and tucked her lifeless arm up into the bundle so that it looked like the girl was just sleeping.

“Oh god, what happened to her?” I whispered but he didn’t even look at me as he pushed me out of the way.

The guy stumbled as he walked slowly away. He was still within reach so I caught him. I placed one arm under the dead girls back and my other was gently placed on his shoulder as I supported him. The cut in the girls throat bothered me. I had a clear view of it and the remainder of the blood was sticking to my chest.

Our group quickly caught up with us. I told the hunters to spread out one block away each in pairs of two to watch for the creature that Duke had seen before. Two were a block a head with two more being behind us. The group wasn’t used to moving this slowly. Everyone behind us started looking scared.

“Evelyn, sing something to calm everyone down,” the silence was slowly filled with humming as Evelyn started to plan out her song. It was one we all knew. It was a perfect death march song that Evelyn often was asked to sing at church.

She sang it once by her self. Then she started singing it again and others joined in. The guy I was helping walk looked down at me while I was singing. He had lifeless sad eyes. It looked like he had given up on everything in life. I tried to smile at him but it was hard to muster up a smile while holding a dead girl.

Finally we stopped in front of a hardware store. I sent off a few people to get the item that he wanted and started doing first aid on the guy.

My one skill was useless no matter how hard I tried to use it. My faith had never gone up since I got the skill so I had felt like I had wasted five skill point on it. I had gotten a free skill while I was looking through the list and had obtained leadership. Since my first one was useless I had decided to hold off on getting any new skills until I had seen somebody else using them.

I cleaned off blood from were a cut was on the side of his head but there was no wound there. He had fresh pink skin like a wound was there a long time ago and he had just removed the scab recently. I had sworn I had seen a hole in his ear too but washing away the blood revealed nothing of the sort.

“This can’t be.” I drew my phone from my back pocket and pressed it against his bare skin. Another race had arrived but I quickly closed the notification and brought up his damage log.

There were a few things I had noticed. One he had a total of five skills, the other he hadn’t used any of the systems functions at all since he got his skills.

I may have cursed at his uselessness at that time but it was for a good cause.

My last three months had been mostly me getting used to the system and teaching others what I had found out for experience points. In school I taught a class for a week about what I had learned and had earned my self three levels.

“Duke,” I turned to face my brother. We had one rule for our group and that was to never harm another human. “I thought you said you shot the creature!” My voice boiled with rage. I grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him towards me with all my strength forcing him to look at what I was looking at on my phone. He was muttering something when I released the phone on the guys arm and started to smack the back of his head.

The phone landed on the exposed skin of the girl.

“Killed by Goblin Scout.” The guys voice silenced me and my beating of my brother.

The seven hunters and my self slowly gathered by the guy and looked down at my phone. I tried to bring up other pages of info on the girl but they ass just said the same thing in big red letters. Slowly the screen started to fade to black and I picked it up off her arm.

Silently I said a prayer for her. She was the first person we had come across that had not been killed by a human or starved but by a creature not of this world.

The group started to mutter silently while Duke was wondering how a bullet did no damage to the Goblin. I sat their in silence until the people sent into the hardware store returned. They weren’t carrying anything but they had all been using the systems inventory storage for a while. When the guy holding the dead girl saw the group return he started walking down the road again.

I followed a few steps behind him taking in the scenery of the town. Their were flower gardens everywhere in town, but most of them had been neglected for too long so all of the flowers were dead.

“It would of been a sight to see before everything went to shit.” Tommy whispered out beside me.

“Nah, it would of been blocked by cars moving and people walking. You probably wouldn’t even notice the area as you passed though.” I had to agree with Evelyn. As pretty as it is now it is just a ghost of what could of been.

The guy lead us on a long twisted route. Most of the route was beautiful to take in. We passed over a large bridge with a road hidden in a forest beneath it. We crossed a river where the shore was lined with sand like a beach. We passed through a large park that had statues on every corner of it.

While the rest of us were taking in the scenery the guy just kept his steady pace. Up hill and down. The rest of the group were getting tired from all the walking when he finally entered a grave yard. He laid the girl down at the foot of a statue of an angel and asked for a shovel. Duke handed him one from the group behind him and the rest of us sat down and rested.

The guy working solo started to make a few of the other guys feel bad so they brought out more shovels and worked through their weariness switching out between them when they could no longer lift the shovel any more.

Dusk was falling by the time the guy finally stopped digging. He placed his shovel up over his head and onto the ground across the hole. Duke got up from his break and grabbed the body of the girl that some of the girls had cleaned up a bit. The body was passed gently into the grave.

A dagger was placed out of the hole. It was emitting a black smoke as it left the guys hand. Duke tried to pick it up but almost fell into the hole. I brought out a white towel from my inventory and placed it over the knife. When I went to pick it up and wrap it up in the towel I felt like the knife still just wanted to hurt me. Having it wrapped and out of sight helped but not by much.

The guy climbed out of the hole and picked up the shovel and started filling it in.

I thought it wrong to send someone off to their grave with out at least saying something so I started to speak. Words that I don’t know where they were coming from started to flow from my mouth. Tears rolled down my cheeks but still the words flowed. I tried to hide my face from the group but when I turned around the guy was there looking at me. He stopped burying the girl when he saw my tears. I grabbed a small handful of dirt and sprinkled it over the body leaving her face in tact laying there like she was just sleeping. Words still flowed and everyone was following my actions. All thirty of us sprinkled a little dirt on her body before my words stopped.

Evelyn hugged me hiding my face in her shoulder. Tommy patted my back and Duke and his hunters helped fill the hole back in. When it was full their wasn’t even a mound of dirt showing where the girl lay.

The guy started walking again with out saying anything. It was getting late now and we were all tired and stressed out.

“Should we just bring out our tents and go back to the park?” Evelyn was almost asleep on her feet as we left the graveyard. Tommy’s suggestion sounded lovely, but this guy intrigued me for some reason. I thought that if I lost sight of him now I would never see him again.

Luckily for us he pulled out a set of keys as he went down the road. I nodded to Duke and he started talking with his hunter buddies about the night watch. Torches were brought out and lit by someone’s fire skill.

The guy walked to a centre unit of a condo complex and fiddled with the lock until it opened. Duke and tommy were trying doors down the line to see if any were unlocked. Most were.

I followed the guy into the house. The soft glow of the last of the sun illuminated an old map at the top of his entry way. He stepped out of his shoes and proceeded up a small flight of stairs. On the railing of the entry way stood seven posable large action figures. They were each dressed in armour or robes. I inspected one that looked like it was jumping over a guy holding a large shield. The statues foot was pressed against the back of the shield holder and the other looked as if it was about to press onto the shoulder. I couldn’t see a face under the guys hood but it felt very fantasy like. I would of called him a nerd if I had seen this collection before and not even given him the time of day.

His walls were filled with more fantasy artwork and other smaller statues decorated shelves and his table.

He moved up the stairs beside his tv stand and entered the first door on the left hand side. I followed him in and saw something I thought I would never see again.

His computer screen lit up basking the room in a soft glow. He browsed through a few links before getting up. I took his seat as soon as he got up and went to check my email.

The screen went blank as I got to the login window. I looked around the room but the guy was no where to be seen.

I pressed the power button on the tower but there was nothing happening. I checked the cords but everything looked like it was in the right place.

I heard heaven.

The ring of a shower flowing into a tub.

My clothing couldn’t unequip fast enough. I wanted to feel the warm water running against my skin.

The door at the end of the hallway was closed. Not locked tho, so it opened with ease. I turned past a closet and saw the steam leaving the door.

“Cover your eyes and don’t move!” A bath is nice but not much beats a nice hot shower.

The guy stood at the back of the tub just in the gift from heaven it’s self.

I climbed in and was overcome with bliss.

I washed my hair, there had never been such an orgasmic feeling before.

I looked at the guy before me. His dark hair was still a mess. He was a whole head taller then me. He didn’t look much older then me, maybe eight teen to twenty. When his blue eyes were filled with sadness I just wanted to hug him and tell him everything was going to be alright.

I reached out to touch him begotten stopping my self.

I grabbed the wash cloth from his hands. The blood was thick on him. The washcloth felt sticky after one swipe of dis chest, it felt like I was washing honey off of the kids I used to babysit.

Tears rolled down my cheek.

“Turn around, I’ll wash the blood from your back too.”

He listened to me. The washcloth left dark streaks against his pale skin. I rung out the cloth and watched the blood flow between my legs.

I dropped the cloth. The sight was too much for me. I climbed out of the tub. My stomach flipped. It was too soon for me to use the system to get dressed so I grabbed the towel off the rack and ran down the stairs and out to the patio.

I rested on the railing. My throat burned after emptying my stomach. A person carrying a torch passes below me almost stepping in my vile before looking up and seeing me leaning there. They smiled and waved. I nodded ba m at them and they left looking happier then before.

I went back inside to avoid anymore slip-ups. I sat at the counter and grabbed the nearest action figure. This one was incomplete, it didn’t ha e a face painted on it and most of the clothing was done with just paper. The figures left hand was in a position to hold onto something while the right hand had its fingers spread wide apart.

Everything was in the details. From the looks of it he cared more for these action figures then he did the rest of his place. Dishes were piled up in his sink and empty boxes covered the area around his stove.

I heard him coming down the stairs so I placed the doll back down where I had found it. Their was a small flash in the sky behind me. I went back to the patio door and looked up at the green rift in the sky. Something came through early again.

I pulled out my phone and sent a message through the friend network that we set up with every group that we had passed since the rifts appeared. The army had tried to fire things into the rifts but nothing had gone through from our side.

The first race that came from the rift ran away and was not seen again. The system named this race an elf but nobody got a clear picture of it. Soon after the power died and the news broadcasts stopped.

“Hungry?” The guy was standing behind me wearing nothing but shorts and a towel over his shoulders.

I shrugged in response, there was a deer being cooked down the row that one of the guys had manage to shoot earlier this week.

Food didn’t spoil in our inventory so we stocked up on everything when ever we had a chance.

A bowl of instant ramen was placed in front of me.

“You need to learn how to use the system.” The steam from the noodles wafted out of the bowl and I used my preset mental outfit change that I had set to be my every day wear.

My skin tingled for a second while the towel was instantly replaced by the set of clothing, undergarments included. This had to be the easiest way ever to put on a bra.

The sensation faded and I gave him a brief rundown of how the inventory worked. I smiled when I pulled out my phone and saw that my experience points had gone up again.

I then asked him to teach me how he had power in his place. He walked past a light switch and flicked it on illuminating the room in a soft light. He proceeded to head back towards the entry way flicking light switches on as he passed by. We headed down into his garage where he had boxes of smart phones and TVs all taken apart leaving the place a mess with only a single pathway to his fuse box.

He opened the box and inside were pulsating pink crystals where the fuses should be. He told me that he found these crystals inside the devices and that we are now batteries. He called them mana crystals and said that anyone who knows how to feel for the mana could run this.

I felt like the crystals were calling for me. I looked over at him and saw him starting to sweat. He looked over at his phone then took a deep breath and the lights went out. The only light in the room now came from the crystals.

Soft tendrils reached out from the crystals. They wrapped around my hand. The touch tickled playfully calling out like hungry children slowly dragging me to the kitchen. I was the food.

I felt the panic rising as I tried to pull my hand away from the tendrils. I was too close to them.

It’s pull was too strong.

My finger pressed against one crystal.

I was standing in a field my white shirt was speckled in blood. Evelyn was kneeling beside me. My right hand on her head glowed a soft blue light. A mage in a blue tunic and leather armour oozed cold energy as he maintained a wall of ice around the field. Behind me two guys held swords at the ready, one twice the size of the man holding it the other half covering him self with a large shield. A thin girl came into view as I looked ahead of me. Her hood blew off her head and her white hair flowed over long pointed ears. She pulled an arrow from her quiver and said something to the man standing next to her. I recognized the man when he came to talk to me. No words left his mouth. I couldn’t hear anything. The man put his hands on my shoulders. He looked scared as he said something else. He pressed his lips against mine. A sense of despair filled the air as if this would be the last kiss. Evelyn stood up and hugged us. The blue mage pulled the white haired girl towards us and was caught in his embrace between us. A cold metal clad hand was pressed against my shoulder. Another metal clad hand ruffled my hair. I looked back at the one who did it but he just smiled under his helmet and started patting my head instead.

The ice wall started cracking. The man who kissed me eyes hardened, his clothing glowed changing from a simple white tunic and brown pants with leather boots to a black tunic covered with black leather armour. A black wolf appeared seemingly from my shadow as the group separated. I closed my eyes and felt the failure tickle of my clothing changing. A weight formed in my right hand. I opened my eyes to see my cloths were an exact opposite of the man who kissed me. My tunic and armour were white as fresh snow. Evelyn had changed the same time as me. Her armour matching the blue mage beside me. Neither of them held staffs but power oozed from the gloves they were wearing. The two smirked at each other and said something. The white haired girl shook her head and pointed the back of her arrow at the man in black who was still holding onto my shoulder. Everyone laughed. I could feel the laughter leaving h me but still no sound.

A shadow blocked out the sun.

My right ha d extended out towards the shadow fingers spread wide.

A blue light separated the shadow from us.

The shadow rained down hell fire. The black and red flames licked at blue object between us.

The wall fell. The man before me disappeared into a puff of black smoke. A white wolf stood in his place. The barrier above us started to form cracks. I could feel no voice screaming out.

The hellfire stopped just as my barrier failed.

The creature glared down at me. I bluffed a smile. I pretended that I wasn’t spent already and I was hoping it couldn’t tell that I was out of mana.

The creature landed. I kept my eyes on it the whole time with my right hand extended towards it trembling.

A man got off the back of the creature. His cape looked like it was cut from the wing membrane of the same kind of creature that he came in on. He removed his horned helmet and walked towards us. His black hair was covering his face. The white haired girl had her bow dawn pointing at the man.

The wolves stood between the man and me with their fur standing on end. I glanced around, Evelyn was now on my left controlling a massive firestorm. Spears of ice rained down from the blue mage on my right. The shield user and big sword guy were behind me again fighting a smaller version of the creature that was in front of me.

The guy in the cape said something. My hand lowered. My left hand dropped the object in my left hand. I stepped past the wolves.

My feet dragged me forward.

“Karen!” Evelyn’s voice rang out stopping me from moving forward any more.

I looked back at her. She was running towards me. The man in black appeared behind her and two red streaks of blood shot out making Evelyn look like she had wings before she fell to the ground.

“No!”

The words escaped my mouth.

The man in black disappeared before she hit the ground.

The black shadow was flickering all over the battle field I fell to my knees. Both of the wolves heads rolled to a stop beside me. The white haired girl was screaming and backing up arrows flying from her bow.

A hand wrapped around my neck lifting my chin, forcing me to see everything.

The blue mage was smacked across the face with a mace. The shadow disappeared behind him.

Half of the big sword went flying in the air. The shield guy was behind his shield as the creature before him bathed him with hellfire. I reached my hand out to protect him but the glow faded from my hand.

“No!”

The man in black heard my cry and ran towards me. His face was pale. He was running out of mana.

“This is all your fault Karen,” the man whispered in my ear. “You alone could of changed this.”

Black arrows pierced the man in black as the guy holding my throat chuckled.

I forced my way forward.

I fell onto the floor of a bedroom. I was dizzy and couldn’t think straight.

What world was real. Tears rolled down my cheeks. I couldn’t name anyone but Evelyn but I knew they were all my friends. We fought together and they all died.

I needed to clear my head. I had a vague idea as to where my phone was so I slithered through the room to the door. The hallway looked a mile long and the sunlight from the window burnt my eyes.

I hurled in a basket near me and whipped the bike off with something soft before proceeding to the stairs.

My hand found the railing and I pulled my feet in front of me. A thud rang out every time my bum hit the next stairs.

A guy was standing at the base of the stairs holding a cup of blue liquid.

Words came out of each of our mouths but I didn’t understand either of us. He moved to be behind me. The cup gently pressed against my lips. The liquid was poured into my mouth. I refused to swallow it.

My nose was plugged and I swallowed it down.

He took the cup away from my lips and started to pull my hair back gently into a pony. When his fingers brushed my cheek it reminded me on a feeling from the other world.

My head was clearing up. The blue liquid was helping. I grabbed the cup and emptied it.

I hurled.