Then

Cal sat in front of his laptop studying his lineup options for the upcoming Sunday NFL slate. The yellow-orange tint of the screen in night time mode mingled with the flickering flame of the small candle on the desk. Nila, his longtime love had already gone to bed, so he was alone with only his thoughts, scoring projections, and a finger or two of Laphroaig scotch, neat of course, in a glass.

“Mmmm, sooo peat-y,” Cal said with satisfaction after taking a small sip.

Admittedly it was weird that he was doing this by candle light, however he had an easy answer. He simply found it relaxing and being in such a state of mind helped him think and plot. Now all he needed to do was settle on a quarterback and a pair of pass catchers, receivers or maybe one receiver and one tight end from one team and one other player from the opposing team to stack for all the monies.

“Man, looks like I’ll need to stack the Falcons and the Cardinals,” Cal mused. “DVOA against the pass are both terrible. Plus they play at a high pace.” He hemmed and hawed for a few minutes before finally letting out a sigh as he locked in his choices and put his laptop into sleep mode. Nothing to do now but wait till Sunday. He made a mental promise to not tinker with his lineups tomorrow. That never turned out great.

Now that he was done with that he could get in some fun reading, while finishing his scotch before he needed to go to bed. Saturday was spending time with the girlfriend day and they had a long hike planned. Cal figured he could relax for the next hour or so and be in bed by one-ish. He needed to be up by eight in the morning and that’d give him a good seven hours.

He had only gotten a few pages into his novel when the light in the kitchen suddenly shut off.

“Huh?” Cal “That’s weird.” He placed his tablet on his desk and went over to the spare bedroom’s light switch. He flicked it up and down a few times. “Power’s out. Whatever.” He returned to his desk and his novel. Reading by candle light was kind of fun anyways and his tablet had plenty of battery power left. He’d use his phone to check the electric company’s outage map later.

It was getting close to lights out time when the most terrifying sound that he had ever heard jolted him out of his chair. It was his girlfriend’s screams.

Cal grabbed a flashlight from his desk and rushed to the bedroom. His heart was pounding in his chest and he could feel the heat rising to his face as adrenaline flooded his body. Mingled in with Nila’s screams of fear and pain were the sounds of high-pitched chittering and growling.

He shined the light on the thrashing forms on the bed and the sight was unlike anything he had seen before. There entangled among the blanket was Nila being attacked by small monstrosities, gremlin-like things. Their needle-like teeth and tiny, clawed fingertips were tinged with red. Cal felt like he was going to be sick.

The creatures’ pale, pinkish flesh, like a worm’s, suddenly sizzled in the flashlight’s beam. They retreated into the shadows of the bedroom with pained shrieks.

Cal rushed to Nila’s side making sure to keep her within the light.

“Cal! Something was biting me?!” Her words were hurried, frantic. Her breaths came in ragged gasps. Shock and pain mingled in her face as she squinted against the light.

“You’re going to be okay,” Cal said as his eyes darted about the room, seeking, but not finding anything in the shadows. “Just stay in the li—”

Cal let out a hiss as a weight dropped on his shoulders. He felt the sting of sharp claws as they pierced through his shirt. A pain soon forgotten as it was eclipsed by the feeling of a dozen needles digging into his trapezius.

He stifled a cry and frantically thrust the flashlight into Nila’s hands. “Keep the light on you,” he said through grit teeth.

There was a monster gremlin on his back and it had just bit into him. Cal felt anger bloom within him. They attacked his love and now this one thought it was going to make a meal out of him. Well, he wasn’t about to let that happen.

With as much force as he could muster he slammed backward into the wall. The gremlin sandwiched between his muscular back and the hard surface. The pressure on his trapezius released immediately as the gremlin let out a shriek and dropped down to the floor. Cal turned and stomped down hard. He felt the small creature’s rib cage give way and a glob of blood from its mouth splashed up against his leg.

“Stupid tiny mons—”

“Watch out!”

Nila’s warning was all Cal needed and he spun around with his elbow. The second gremlin was looking to duplicate its departed brethren’s sneak attack, but was brutally rebuffed. Cal caught it across the face the crack was loud and the gremlin fell into an unmoving heap. Not taking any chances, he punted it across the room.

Now

“Designation: Honor.” Interrogator Ebbing Tides 2337 held up an armored hand to interrupt Cal. “How big were these gremlins?”

“I’d estimate they were roughly the size of a six month old baby. Not cute and pudgy though, kind of wiry and disgusting. Light, pinkish skin, but rough almost like sandpaper.”

“I seek an accurate measurement.”

“Well, taking out a tape measure wasn’t high on the list of priorities at the time,” Cal said with a huff for effect. “Not to mention their bodies kind of, dissolved, once daylight came.”

“Surely you were more diligent in subsequent encounters?”

“Sorry, Loaming, but after that first night we made sure to always have a bunch of lights burning all the time. Didn’t have any surprise encounters again. Plus after about a month, err that’s roughly thirty days, the darkness over the west coast lifted.”

“Then give us your best estimate.”

“Well, they moved around in a crouch so… I’d estimate they were probably a little over two feet tall.” Cal took in the blank look on the aliens’ faces. “Right, translation,” he sighed. He looked at Tides’ power armored form. “I’d say they were about as tall as your armor’s lower leg, give or take a bit.”

“Note similarities to classification: Intruder 1-004 of Region 63.”

Cal didn’t say anything, but it was good to get confirmation that the Threnosh had a similar experience.

“Continue,” Interrogator Ebbing Tides 2337 said.

Then

“Ow, ow, ow, ow!”

“Jeez!” Nila frowned. “You smash those things like you’re the Hulk, but get a bit of alcohol on little cuts and you squirm like a big baby.”

“Okay, first of all I don’t think the size of them matters much, when we remember that actual, real monsters did them,” Cal said with a wince as Nila cleaned the small slashes on his back. “And secondly, how are you not freaking out right now?”

“Oh, I’m definitely freaking out, I’m just holding it in.” Nila swabbed at the wounds with copious amounts of alcohol before drenching them with iodine. “These look more like punctures than the ones I got. I don’t think it’s enough to just use the gauze.”

“Let me grab the superglue,” Cal sighed. “I’ll be right back.”

“Nope, no way you’re leaving me in here alone.” Nila followed Cal as he got up from where he was seated on the bed and headed to the other room.

The dozens of candles the pair had scattered throughout the apartment threw garish, flickering lights and shadows on the walls and ceiling. Their eyes darted to where the shadows were deepest. For brief moments they thought they could see movement. A quick flash of pinkish skin, a whispered chitter that they weren’t sure wasn’t just the product of their fears.

Cal dug into their crafts supply case and came out with the superglue. “I guess just put a little bit into the wound and hold it together for a minute.” He handed the small plastic container to Nila with a shrug. “Try not to get any on your fingers, otherwise you’ll be stuck to me… like glue.” He tried to smile, but it turned into a grimace. “Damn it, that stings.”

They fell into an uneasy silence as Nila worked on Cal’s back before doing the same to the bite on his trapezius, which hurt the worst. For his part, Cal kept his head on a swivel, making sure to keep scanning the darkest parts of the room.

“Cal?”

“Yeah, love?”

“I’m worried about my, our families.”

They sat back to back in the middle of the living room, surround by candles, Both had changed out of their bloodied sleeping attire into more robust clothing, jeans and their thickest canvas jackets. Thankfully it was December and it was quite cold. Cal had his camping ax in hand, along with a ka-bar style knife in a sheath at his side. Nila had a small baseball bat clutched tightly in her grip.

“I know, me too. Try to relax, you’ll tire yourself out if you keep tensed up,” Cal said. “Besides we can’t do much right now. Our phones are dead and the power’s out.”

“But how is that possible? My phone was plugged into the charger.”

“Mine was at about sixty percent. Laptop was close to full too, but it’s dead.” Cal hesitated. “I’m thinking whatever this is… it’s magical in nature.”

“You can’t be seri—”

A series of loud pops outside in the distance made the two flinch. They hadn’t noticed it immediately, but sporadic gunfire had been going on throughout the night. Tellingly, however, they couldn’t remember hearing a single siren.

“Or it could be like, super high-tech science,” Cal continued when the gunfire stopped, “an EMP kills electronics, but those gremlin things definitely gave off more of a magic feel.”

“Those things didn’t like the light. It hurt them,” Nila said. “I guess that means we’ll just have to wait till morning to figure out what to do. I just hope our families are okay.”

Cal felt Nila’s back press closer to his own.

“I think they’ll be okay. I mean, those things were definitely scary and dangerous, but they couldn’t really take a hit, you know?”

“That’s true, you killed all six by basically flailing around like a bee was buzzing your ear,” Nila snorted.

“Hey! Bees are like on of my top three most feared animals… suppose I’ll have to add gremlins to the list,” Cal mused.

The joke fell flat as Nila fell silent. Cal did the same, his thoughts going to his family. He had two younger brothers, each roughly fifteen to twenty miles away. One lived alone and one had a wife and two young girls. Both would’ve been asleep at the time of the gremlins’ attack. He tried to tell himself that an able-bodied adult should be able to handle at least half a dozen gremlins like he did. The girls’ fate, however, worried him.

He pushed the thought aside and went to his parents and younger sister, roughly five hundred miles to the south. His sister was the only other night owl among his family, she would’ve likely been awake. He decided that was a good thing. She would’ve been able to wake their parents and the three of them together would’ve handled the gremlins okay.

“We’ll check on them in the morning,” Cal whispered.

He didn’t realize it in the moment, but their entire world, everything they knew to be reality had already been irreparably altered that night.

The darkness slowly gave way to the dawn. Cal watched through the blinds of his living room window as it brightened bit by bit. Except he realized that it wasn’t getting that bright.

“Looks like it’s going to be a gloomy day. Sorry, I think I fell asleep,” Nila yawned. “What time is it?”

“I think it’s probably somewhere around six. No clocks,” Cal said. “I guess we’ll have to use the sun. Although, that’ll be hard if it’s cloudy.”

“The gremlins!” Nila sat up suddenly from where she had been heavily leaning against Cal’s back.

“Huh?”

“Remember? We wanted to see what would happen to their bodies in sunlight.” Nila stood up and hurried to the bedroom.

Cal groaned as he stood up, stretching his tight hips and lower back for a moment before following.

“Oh my god! I was right!” Nila slapped Cal, hard, on his arm. “Told you.”

“I didn’t say you were wrong,” Cal said.

“Ah, but you didn’t agree.”

They had stacked, or rather Cal had stacked the gremlin bodies, since Nila refused to touch them, near the window. The sunlight did in fact work just as Nila had theorized. Even with the thick clouds outside that made the dawning morning seem closer to the gloom of dusk, the bodies sizzled as they slowly disintegrated. It didn’t take long until all that remained was a pile of fine dust on the carpet.

“So, sunlight is extremely lethal,” Cal mused. “Artificial light hurts them, but won’t kill them?”

“I don’t know about that,” Nila said. “Their skin sizzled when we used the flashlight, same with the candle light.”

“It’s too bad all the batteries died or we could’ve tested the flashlight for a longer period of time,” Cal said as he took out his knife and carefully prodded at the pile of dust. “Nothing left at all.”

“But we kept the candles on all night and all it did was blister the skin,” Nila said as she edged just close enough to look over Cal’s shoulder.

Cal suddenly fell to his butt.

“What’s wrong?!”

Cal didn’t hear Nila, there was another voice in his head and worse, there was also a scrolling block of text right in the middle of his vision or not. It kept shifting between the two, voice and text, one or the other, both at the same time in a confusing tableau. Cal couldn’t tell the difference on whether he was seeing or hearing it. It made him want to scream.

Congratulations!

You have earned your first Universal Points.

The first steps on your road to eternity are behind you.

Will you overcome the challenges in your way? Or will you fall to the wayside?

Beware, for time is not on your side. Others will soon seek to plunder the treasures of your world.

Will you be strong enough when the time comes to seize what is yours?

To learn more please enter the nearest access location.

Welcome to your True Existence!

“Cal! Cal!”

“Huh? Sorry, Nila… um, remember when I said this was either magic or super science?”

“Yeah…” Nila looked at Cal like he had grown a second head.

“Well, I think I was right on both counts.” Before Nila could call him a moron, Cal forged ahead. “I just got a welcome prompt like you get when you first start a game,” he raised a hand, “let me finish, please. So, there’s this floating text in my vision and a voice in my head, except it keeps blending together.”

“Did I miss you getting hit in the head? Cause you’re talking like you did after you did that boxing fight.”

“Match, boxing match and no, I didn’t get hit in the head.” Cal leaned back against the wall, still floored. “So, you didn’t get the same message?”

“No!”

Cal remained silent in thought for a few minutes as Nila came to sit next to him, arm and leg held tight against Cal’s. A comfort for both.

“Just a theory, but I think I got the welcome message,” Cal threw up air quotes with his fingers, “because I killed the gremlins.”

“What? But I helped.”

“Maybe I did most of the damage,” Cal shrugged. “We need to find some gremlins for you to kill.”

“Nope, no way, not happening,” Nila narrowed her eyes at Cal.

“I’m sorry, but once you see the message…”

“Uh huh. Well, I’m not doing anything until we check on our families.” Nila stood up abruptly. “You start getting our go bags ready. I’ll check the electricity and see if our phones can be charged.”

“I don’t think it’ll be back,” Cal said.

Nila shook her head. “You said this was some kind of magic. It sounds ridiculous, but I can’t deny those gremlin things suddenly appeared inside our bedroom or the fact that they dissolved into fairy dust with the morning. Maybe now that it isn’t night time the power is back.”

Cal had nothing to say to that, so he got up and complied with Nila’s order.