*Dae-Ho*

Ten years ago, the world ended. Incursions started showing up. They started attacking people, eating people. As more time passed the Incursions grew larger, stronger, more numerous. Then there was a glimmer of hope. A way out. Not everything wanted to destroy us. Help had arrived. Full of promises of power and salvation. The gods of the universe had arrived to save us in our moment of deepest despair. We welcomed them. We agreed to their offers. Pledged ourselves to them, and they gave us power. They gave us a way to fight back.

The gods ate us alive. They pitted us against each other more often than against the Incursions. They kept us divided. They kept us weak. We did not need the gods. We would have become more powerful the longer we fought against the Incursions that invaded us. We were blind. We did not consider the horrible truth. The gods that came to save us, sent the Incursions to invade us in the first place. They control the Incursions. They control us. Whenever one of us becomes too powerful they would always die a tragic mysterious death. It was never explicit. It was barely even subdued. Yet whenever someone became powerful enough to actually have a hope to unite humanity and drive back the Incursions invading our world, they would end up dead.

The ones that survived were the ones who barely scrapped by. The selfish and the cold. Those of good character were some of the first to die. The gods could not have people anyone would willfully follow around. They kept the charismatic crazy. They only divided us further. Drove us as insane as they were. How could someone live in an insane world without going insane? We just tended to forget that our old world was just as insane, just in different ways. Back then though, we had people that could show us a different way. A better world, a better future. They drove us to be better than what we were. They were paragons, we wanted to be like them. We wanted to help people then. We wanted to be good. We cared about other people then. Without them, all that was gone. Those of us left are either selfish, cold, maniacal, calculative, or simply cowards like me.

Not even the charismatic crazies have survived until the end. They were taken down as soon as it would no longer be possible for humanity to band together. At that point, it would not have mattered if we could have. We had grown too weak. We grew stronger as we fought, but the Incursions grew faster, grew more. We may have been able to keep up. We may have been able to fight back. If not for our saviors, the gods, from holding us back. There is no way to be sure now. There are no more humans that refused the gods’ grace. The gods made sure they died first. Back then we didn’t even know what was happening. We truly thought the gods had come to recue us.

We realized the truth far too late. One of the mad scientists that was trying to use the Incursions as an army to become the ruler found out the truth. The ruler, a goal set by the gods. How could we have believed such a thing? A war amongst ourselves. One where allegiances and relationships meant nothing. A war where only one person could win. Where one person would become the absolute ruler of mankind. They would lead us to victory against the Incursions. Because, for some reason, our leader had to be the most vicious and callous mass murder of all of humanity. A ruler tailor made to cause as much suffering as possible to their subjects. The type of ruler that goes directly against what all our collective history tells us would be a good ruler, would be a strong ruler, would be a reliable leader, would be the leader we needed. Yet, that was the kind of leader our gods told us we needed, and we just believed them.

That mad scientist found something when they were researching the Incursions. As they ripped them open on a smaller are smaller scale, a more fundamental level, they found power. They found the power of the gods. The same power that was coursing through our veins. Not only did they find the same power in the Incursions. They found something else within the humans, that they broke down like the Incursions. A taint. A restriction on how much power we could use, could gather. A taint that became known to be the core of the system the gods used to communicate with us. The taint was the grace the gods had given us.

The gods did not give us power. They took it from us. Prevented us from gathering more. The gods were not here to help us. We no longer listened to the gods. We disregarded them in anger. It was then that the Incursions became more aggressive. Actively trying to hunt us. The Incursions began to behave the way they did in the very beginning. Before the gods arrived. We thought maybe we were mistaken. Have the gods been subduing the Incursions? When we despised the gods, did they leave, and the Incursions revert to be more violent like before the gods arrived? No. The gods did not leave us. It was so late now that humanity had no hope of overcoming this disaster. Humanity was doomed for extinction. The gods started to mock us for it. Their few remaining zealous devotees magically gained the ability to control all Incursions. The Incursions not only ignored their remaining believers, they helped them.

We knew then. The gods had always controlled the Incursions. They played with us like some character in a game. This was a game to them. A game to exterminate humanity. To wipe us from existence. Even after finishing off the remaining believers, we knew. The gods had won. Incursions still came after us. Still killed us. With so few of us left, even if we wiped out all the Incursions, humanity would die out. The gods had won, and we knew it.

*Dae-Ho*

Despite knowing that we were doomed, after everything we had done, after everything we had been through, we finally, begrudgingly, were able to band together as one. We would not go down quietly. We would fight. We would take as many down with us as we could. This was our world. We would not let these Incursions have it.

So, we fought. We fought and fought. Until there was only a single calamity Incursion left. This was the last true champion of the gods. Without them, the gods would only have the weakest of mobs left on our world. We all came together for the final battle. There were less than twenty of us left. Less than twenty from billions. With this final victory, we will have won. We will have reconquered our world. We could die knowing we drove off the Incursions. Thwarted whatever plans the gods had. They would not have our world.

The final calamity was not some city stomping monstrosity, none of them were. They were embodiments of the power coursing through us. They took on shapes similar to our own, but featureless, with smoking veils and translucent bodies. They appeared fragile, and weak. They were anything but. The calamities earned their names. They could wield their power beyond anything that we or even the other Incursions could. It was debatable if they were incursions at all. Yet they were powerful, dangerous, and killed everything. Humans and incursions alike.

We spent months preparing. This was the last one. We didn’t have the forces to take it on, but it was the last truly threatening incursion left. After this fight we will win. After ten long years of pain and brutality. Ten years of manipulation and suffering. Ten years of being forced to kill our loved ones and friends. We will have our revenge. We will stop the gods. We will drive them off our world. After ten years we will win.

The time has finally come. The eighteen of us advance take our positions. Swords, spears, bows, shields in hand. We no longer had any of our once great technology. That was too much of a threat to the gods’ game. All we have left are what we could scrounge up from rotting incursions. We no longer even have the knowledge to try and replicate our old technology.

We creep up on all sides as close as we can. There is no life in the area, we made sure of that. Without life to attack, the calamity will remain inert. As we creep closer to the incursion, it twitches. It has detected one of us. That is the signal. We all jump forward. The reserves in the back reveal themselves and draw their bows. We begin the pincer attack.

The calamity launches its first attack, always the same attack. A ring of pure super-heated energy pulses out. We all knew it was coming, it hit no one. Now the real fight will begin. The first volley of power wrot arrows impact the calamity. They do next to no damage, yet they disrupt its actions and halt large charge attacks. As long as the arrows persist the melee fighters can close in and do substantial damage.

The incursion looks at us and then to the archers. It blinks in front of an archer and the archer explodes in blood and bile. The primary attackers reveal themselves. The blink skill of the calamity has a ten second cooldown between each use. This has remained constant between all the calamities. The plan is to bait the calamity to attacking the ranged units just inside its detection range and then attack it in the ten second interval with the fighters hiding just behind the archers. Five archers, ten fighters, three initiators make up the attack force. All of the remaining eighteen humans. I am a member of the initiators that charged in the beginning.

The two fighters strike deep into the calamity and rip their blades through the flesh of the incursion. It makes no noise. It does not scream in pain. It just stands there with two massive gashes in either of its sides. The gashes knit themselves back together. The two fighters implant as much rocks and dirt as they can into the wounds before jumping back. The impurities will weaken the incursion slightly. This is the only way to kill a calamity. Stuff as much crap into its body to absorb its power as possible, and eventually the thing no longer has enough power to sustain itself, and it collapses. The bonus is that the material shoved inside becomes doused in power and make great materials to forge with, if we still had someone who knew how to.

The battle continues as casualties pile up. We attempt to trick the calamity with decoys or substitutions, this only works half the time. Although we have weakened the incursion to less than half of its original power none of the archers remain alive and only a third of the fighters remain. I am the only one of the initiators left. The calamity doesn’t just sit still and let us attack it after a blink. It strikes out with blades of super-heated energy. These blades can come from any part of its body, and they move close to the speed of light. Although they dissipate within meters of the calamity, they are nigh impossible to dodge. Our only hope is to block the attacks with power wrot shields. A small grace is that we can predict the activation and direction of the attacks, by observing the minute fluctuations of the calamity’s energy flows. It does not always help. Then there is the burst attack that it used at the beginning. There is no dodging, no blocking, no surviving that attack, its only restriction is that it can only be used every thirty or so seconds. The battle has lasted four minutes so far. There are only five of us left.

The battle continues. We will either kill the thing or we will all die trying, that is our final resolve for this final battle.

*Dae-Ho*

I stab the calamity through the chest from behind. I can see the flows forming into a strike, but I do not have the energy to block it. I do not have to. My strike was too much. A prick too far. The calamity collapses in front of me. I did it. I killed it. I killed the last calamity. The world is ours again.

I smile triumphantly. For the first time in years, I feel genuinely happy. We have won. I was alive. I had survived the end of the world. I prop myself up to revel in my glory, “I did it, guys I did . . .”

No one congratulates me. There is no one left to. My final seventeen other humans all lie in pieces across the battlefield. We swore to one another, to the world, and to those who lost their lives, we would kill the last calamity or die trying. That we did. We died. All but me. I am the only one left. The last of my species. The last of my kind. The last human. I won guys. I beat it. I killed it. It is quiet. I am alone. Please, someone say something.

In front of me a glowing box appears. One none of us have seen for the last few years. The box that the gods used to use to talk with us. Give us quests. Restrict us. Bind us. Control us.

[Congratulations!!!!]

More and more boxes appear. A plethora of screens of different colors and shapes. Each from dirrent god.

[Congrats!]

[You did it.]

[You beat the last calamity]

[Are you ready for what is next?]

[This is not right]

[You are the last human]

[The pinnacle of your species]

[good work]

What do they want now? What is all of this?

[all that is left is the final quest]

[the final challenge]

[you should be a god]

[just survive for three more days]

[are you ready]

[let us begin]

[the final challenge]

[the final game]

All around me incursion cracks begin to appear. Snaking through the sky, both large and small. More incursions are arriving. This can’t be happening. I won. I killed the last calamity. The only incursions left are nothing more than rodents. More can’t come. No more incursions have appeared since . . .

Since the gods appeared. Of course. The gods sent the incursions. Of course, they could send more any time they wanted. We accomplished nothing. Killing the last calamity was meaningless. I achieved nothing. Now I would die. I would die and the humans would go extinct.

[you made it farther than anyone else]

[you are the best]

[keep going]

[entertain us more]

[this ends now]

[how many can you kill]

[kill kill kill]

The incursions started to appear. All over again. All of them. Right on top of me. From the weakest to the strongest. The only ones missing were the calamities. I guess they weren’t incursions after all.

[This is it]

[die die die]

[one final hurrah]

[I can stand by no longer]

[I can’t wait]

[how long will he last]

I grab my sword barely able to stand. What now, what do I do? I wait for the first strike. I wait for the first incursion to step forward. I wait. I continue to wait. Nothing is attacking. Nothing is moving. The incursions are frozen. The windows have stopped appearing. They flicker and vanish. Only one window remains.

[You have completed the game. You won against impossible odds. Yet your reward was cheated from you. Instead of this end, how about another round. Instead of a reward, how about a New Game +]

Upon reading the window, new incursion fractures appear in the air. I ready my sword. Whatever comes out of these fractures I will face. The other incursions are frozen. Time seems to have stopped for all but me. The god of this window has stopped time. So that I can face its champion. A god I have not heard of before. Its window is plain. No flourish, no color, no fancy shape, or embellishment. Whatever is coming out of those incursion cracks will be completely unknown, and undoubtably powerful.

The cracks fluctuate. They are coming.

From the first crack appears what looks like a hooked blade. Attached to the pommel of the blade is a long sinuous chain. The chain reaches back into the crack. While the blade exits the incursion lines at blistering speeds, right at me. I do not have time to react. By the time I even register something has appeared, the blade is already biting into my shoulder. It hurts. More than it should. Something is wrong. I do not feel the blade in my shoulder, but I feel the pain. What is . . .

Another blade appears and lodges itself into my leg. Then another into my gut. Another in my chest. More in my arms and other leg. Another window flickers in front of my face.

[A parting gift for your next run. Use them wisely

if you can hold on to them]

A final blade slides through the window and into my face, through my face. It lodges itself into my skull. I am dead. I have died. A god killed me. A god descended to kill me. It mocked me and then killed me.

I can feel the life flowing from my body. Feel my heartbeat slowing. My body does not feel the blades lodged inside of it. The areas where the blades are feels empty, not numb, empty. My heart stops. My blood ceases to flow. My eyesight dims. The world grows faint. My body feels no pain, yet something else does. I can feel the snaking sharp stabbing pain from where the blades have stabbed my, something. Something important, something that should not be able to feel pain.

The world grows black. I no longer feel my body. I no longer see, hear, taste, smell, feel. I can recognize my death. I am dead. Yet, I can still feel the blades. I have died.

*Dae-Ho*

When I died, I saw the tunnel, I saw the light, I went to the light. I would see my friends again. I would burn for all I did. I would hear their voices. I would scream in torment. I would be able to hold them in my arms. I would suffer for an eternity.

I step towards the light and whatever may come. I am jerked. The blades. They are still there. They are still stabbed into me. The light grows farther away. No. No, don’t go. I try to run. I try to move. The blades hold me fast. The chains flicker in and out, leading to beyond the blackness, to a place beyond death. A window flickers in front of me, plain and unadorned.

[do you know what happens to a soul once it leaves the body after death]

Not you. Not another god to torment me.

[It moves on to the next plane]

What do you want? What more can you take from me?

[but first it must pass through the river of time]

You took my future. You took my life. Now you will take my death as well?

[normally the soul does not experience this transit]

Leave me be. Please. Just leave me be.

[as the soul travels at the speed of light it does not experience time]

You have already won. You have wiped out humanity. You got what you wanted.

[that is where these anchors come in]

Go away. Let me die at least.

[they slow down the soul by only a fraction]

What does it matter? Why must you torment me?

[it is small, but the soul no longer travels at light speed]

The tunnel starts to alight in color.

[this allows the soul to experience time]

What is happening?

[a soul can do something very interesting when traveling through the river of time, while experiencing time]

What are you doing to me?

[it can travel against the flow of time]

What have you done?!

[It can redeposit itself at an earlier time]

More lights trickle through the tunnel.

[it will not be an easy, or comfortable process]

The light brushes against my arm.

[there is too much information in the river of time]

PAIN. Pain shatters, rips, tears, erupts through my arm, through my body.

[the soul has no way to interpret this amount of information]

More lights bleed through the tunnel.

[not even the souls of gods can interpret the information]

Waves of light strike my body.

[so, the soul interprets the information as pain]

PAIN. PAIN. PAIN.

[you will last for as long as your soul remains whole]

PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN.

[you have no control over this. It is dependent on the power of your soul]

PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN.

[I must warn you though]

PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN.

[when you go back you will make changes]

PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN.

[the system I created will compensate]

PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN.

[it will be harder]

PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN.

[yet I hope you will succeed anyway]

PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN.

There is no more tunnel. Just the light.

PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN.

[show me what kind of god you would have become]

PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. . .

A year? A month? An eternity? A minute? All I can feel, all I can recognize is PAIN. An anchor detaches. My soul is shredded, ripped, and torn to pieces. Another anchor is ripped from my soul. My shell, my identity as a human being, gone. Rent from the core of who I am. An Anchor detaches. The pain never subsides. Anchor, gone. Never dulls or becomes bearable. An anchor shreds through me before disappearing. Who am I? What am I? Another anchor rips free. I am Pain. Pain is I. Another Anchor gone to the river. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN.

Within the river of time a single blade trembles. It shakes and begins to tumble. It shudders and falls. It slices an infinitesimally small hole in the river. The hole is brushed away. It was never there. Before the hole was wiped out though, the blade fell through, leaving the river of time. Taking with it a small, barely existing flicker of a soul.

High in the sky, away from all sight and attention, small lines form in space. They grow and spread. A slight fluctuation in them deposits a small, black, and scared hooked blade into the air. Fluttering on the edge of the blade is a single drop of energy. A single shard of a soul. There is a chain rattling on the pommel of the blade. The sword falls from the sky. As it falls it drags on the chain. More cracks appear in space along the chain. More blades emerge from the cracks. Each dragging a chain. Each fairing a tiny flickering fragment of a soul. Each time a blade appears, it is drag towards the first blade. The blades merge, growing bigger. The soul grows more defined, more sold. The blade falls and the soul grows.

Finally, the blade, now the size of a man, with a soul in the shape of one, reach their destination. A small child, standing on the roof of a middle school. The blade stabs straight through the child’s head. No blood is spilt. No one on the roof with the child even notices what happens. The soul with the blade settles into the child’s body. The child collapses.

*Dae-Ho*

I have finally worked up my courage after half a year and asked my crush to go out with me. I, Dae-Ho, will be someone great! This will be my first step. After this, I will attend high school with the most beautiful girl in the world as my girlfriend. I will conquer the world and my journey starts here.

I puff out my chest to look as big and many as I can be, “Seung! I have asked you here to be my girlfriend!”

I have known Seung most of my life. We are even childhood friends. We are destined to be together. We shall rule the world side by side.

Seung’s eyes widen, and she puts her hand to her mouth. She is so happy about my confession that I can see the smile she is hiding behind her fingers. She must have been waiting for me. Well, wait no longer my love.

I can hear some small snickering. Who would dare interrupt my glorious confession to my destined one?! Once I am powerful and wealthy, I shall have justice upon you, heathen!

The one snickering is Seung, she starts laughing out loud, “I can’t believe you actually think I would ever want to go out with you. I suspected, hell, I knew you liked me, but I never thought you would actually ask me out.”

What is this, “w-what are you saying Seung? W-we are childhood friends a-and I . . .”

Seung chokes, “childhood friends? And you think that makes us destined lovers or something. Dae, we live in an apartment building. There are five other kids that live in the same building as us. We barely did anything together outside the small playground outside our apartment. Even then, we played with the other kids around. We have never even been alone with each other. Besides, you are kind of a loser and a coward. It took you two whole years to ask me out when you have liked me for far longer than that. You can’t even talk to me on a regular basis. Why would I ever go out with you?”

No, this isn’t how it was supposed to go, “b-b-but I Lo . . .”

Seung slaps her forehead, “Love? Were you about to say that you love me?! Just because you love me, I have to go out with you? Go to hell Dae.”

But. But. But. This, this w-was s-s-supposed to be be be my first, first step. I was going to, going to be big. I was going to, going to rule the world world, with Seung Seung Seung by my side.

Seung sighs, “Dae, grow up. The world doesn’t owe you anything and neither do I. I am going to go back downstairs and forget this . . . Dae?”

I I I can can feel s s s something en en ent entering m me. Wha What i-is happppppppening t-t-t-o m-m- meeeeeeeee?

“Dae?! DAE!! Oh God Dae! There, there is blood coming out! Dae!”

PAin. I can feel the pain. The emotions. I I am on the the floooooor.

“Dae! W-what do I do?! No, no, no, no. T-teacher Teacher!”

N-no, d-d-don’t leave leave leave me me Se Seu Seung. I I am I am s-sc-scared.

H-help me.

The world goes black.

[Welcome back Dae-Ho]