Previously...

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Maria

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Maria rolled off her husband and then pulled him as gently as possible off of her new neighbor to a clear patch of carpet. "Idiot!" she snapped when he struggled to sit up. "Lie still and let me look at you."

He settled down. "Yes, my love."

She held a tight grip on her emotions. "Focus now. Worry later." The smell of blood was thick in the air and her hands were wet with it as she carefully pulled his shirt up and away from the stab wound in his gut. The image of the sword sinking into him flashed in her mind and she forced it away. "Focus on the patient."

Her gaze jumped to her children as Gabriel, still clutching his little sister, moved closer in the dark room.

"Mama?" She could hear the tears in his voice but he was holding it in. "My brave boy. Just like his father. His idiot father. Getting stabbed!" She reined it in. "Look around for a first aid kit," she told him even as a bit of her worry and fear faded at the sight of her children unharmed.

Something struck the door and her eyes jumped to it. The neighbor boy was crawling that way and she hoped he had a plan. He was a strange one. Her eyes tracked to the wall, the smooth unbroken wall that used to have a hole through it and then down at the severed monster's hand on the floor. A night of many new and strange things.

She had the shirt out of the way now and laid her hand over the wound. One of the many new things of this night was all this new knowledge in her head. She did not like that. Something got in her head and changed it! She didn't like that at all!

But she would use it.

[Patient Diagnosis]

She felt the blue energy that had appeared inside her, run down, out of her hand and into her husband Alejandro, below. In her mind an image formed and she saw a clear picture of the wound in his stomach. She could see where the blade had cut and where it had not. She held in the sigh of relief when she saw that nothing too serious had been damaged, a few scratches here and there but no organs punctured.

A light flashed from the front door and she glanced up in time to see a strange shape drawn on the door that was slowly fading. Another blow landed against the door but sounded muted. “Good.”

She refocused on the wound. It needed to be cleaned but she had nothing to rinse it with. Luckily a bit of the new knowledge in her head popped up then. She ignored the strangeness and the violation.

[Cleanse Wound]

When she focused on the words with the intent behind them more of the blue energy flowed from her hand and into the body beneath it. The energy flowed into the blood, in and around the wound. The blood began to glow softly and then swirled around inside and outside the wounded flesh collecting any dirt or impurities. Following the directions in her head she drew her hand back from the wound and the faintly glowing blood moved along with her hand, flowing out of the injury and splashing to the floor next to her.

“Now to stitch.” She couldn’t see the skin well in the dark and muttered something about needing more light while she looked up to check on her children. Gabriel was looking through the haphazard boxes strewn about while keeping one hand tightly clenched on his sister's. "They’re okay.”

She didn’t have needle and thread but once again the new knowledge in her head had a solution. She was just trying to blindly pinch the wounded flesh together when light flared up in the room. Maria glanced up to see a bright symbol glowing on the wall next to her neighbor.

“Perfect.” A quick glance to the children saw them both staring wide eyed at the glow.

She bent back to her task now with light to see the wound clearly. And activated another bit of new knowledge.

[Stitch]

A blue glow appeared on the tip of her finger and she began running it in a crisscross pattern over the torn flesh, leaving behind faintly glowing lines. She was halfway through when the neighbor started screaming.

She jumped at the sound and her hand twitched, interrupting her stitching. She looked up and saw a terrifying sight. The neighbor boy was on his knees, both hands outstretched in front of him clawing at the air. And his eyes. Oh his eyes! “My God!”

In his eyes she saw a pinprick of blinding, searing white light.

Maria tore her gaze away from the burning light and spots danced in her vision as her eyes sought out her children. They both stood transfixed and staring at the screaming, glowing young man.

“Gabriel!” she yelled and stretched her hand towards her babies. The boy dragged his gaze away from the light and ran to her while pulling his sister with him. Maria wrapped one arm around them both and held them close while their father reached one arm up from where he was laying to wrap around them and lifted his other arm in a warding gesture towards the screaming man. Blue light, barely visible in the blinding white glare, appeared in a small dome covering his family.

Maria could see the strain on her husband's face as he held his arm up and sweat beaded on his brow. She glanced briefly at the neighbor but had to avert her eyes as he was glowing even brighter now, the light in his eyes had spread and covered most of his body in the blinding radiance and he was now floating up into the air, hovering above the floor. That light stirred up something inside her, a deep primal fear, and it was growing.

“One problem at a time,” she told herself.

[Stitch]

Her fingertip started glowing again and she quickly finished closing up the wound on her husband's stomach, the process made more difficult by the quivering in his muscles as he strained to hold up his glowing blue shield. When she finished the last stitch, the glow on her fingertip as well as the glowing stitches crisscrossing the wound slowly faded and dimmed. “One problem solved,” she thought with a flash of relief, followed quickly by a new worry. “Now for the next one.”

The screams had changed somewhat, it almost sounded like words now. As she looked up through squinting eyes she saw the neighbor settle back onto the floor. It definitely sounded like he was saying something now but she couldn’t understand his screams.

All of a sudden he went quiet. The blinding light still shone out his eyes but his hands shot to the floor next to him and his fingers started moving, drawing out strange patterns in the carpet. Maria could feel something emanating from those patterns. Just looking at them filled her with a dread that she couldn’t explain.

Then the lines and patterns exploded away from his hands and across the floor. Her husband's glowing, blue, shield dome shattered and he cried out as the glow spread beneath them. She ducked her head and hugged her family close, even as the brilliant lines and patterns spread up the walls and over the ceiling. She squeezed her eyes shut from the glare, something flashed against her closed eyelids, and everything went quiet.

So quiet... And in that silence she heard a faint whisper.

"Good boy."

Then the quiet ended with distant shouts and booms.

Maria drew in a great lungful of air and realized she had been holding her breath. Her husband's own gasping began while her children both started crying with wailing, choking sobs.

She gathered them up in her arms along with their father, muttering soothing nothings about how everything would be okay and they were safe now even while she doubted her own words. "No one was safe. Not anymore."

She looked to the source of her most recent fear, her neighbor. He was crumpled on the floor, still but for the rise and fall of his chest, illuminated by the light of the glowing symbol on the wall next to him.

"Still alive," she thought.

That dread he had inspired with that blinding light, she knew deep down inside, where the new knowledge and the new magical blue energy resided, why it scared her. It was power. Pure power that no one person should have. The world had changed so much tonight and she feared what was still to come. What worse nightmares were still beyond the horizon?

The children slowly calmed as they cried and clutched at their parents. Their energy had been drained by the events of a night of fear and violence, so when their father murmured [Calming Aura], they almost immediately drifted into sleep under the soothing glow that emerged from him.

Maria glared at him for a moment for using one of these new 'magic' abilities on her babies but her face softened as she looked at the children and their now peaceful faces as they slept. She would do whatever it took to keep them safe.

"Whatever it takes," she thought as she looked over at the unconscious neighbor.

Memories flashed through her mind. Strangers in her home. Hiding under the bed. The shouting. The screams. The blood. Her older brother unmoving on the floor. The knife in her hands. More blood. More screams. Waking up in a hospital. Alone."Never again."

She wouldn't lose her family again. No matter what."I could kill him."

She thought of that power he had wielded being directed towards her family. "He's unconscious. This is my chance." She started to stand up and a hand grabbed her arm. She looked down at her husband.

He must have seen something on her face in that moment. He had his other arm around the children and was looking into her eyes as he gave a small shake of his head.

She tugged against his grasp. She knew he had felt it too, she could see the fear in his eyes and feel the tremor in his hand. But he just shook his head again and looked past her.

She followed his gaze and found herself looking at the wall they had climbed through to get in here, now pristine again. The only visible indication of what happened, a pale, alien looking, dismembered hand on the floor.

"That's right," she thought begrudgingly. "He did help us… maybe even saved our lives." She thought about the door. He had done something to keep them out. "Those marks he was drawing… he maybe would have been safe if he just hunkered down in here."

A sudden noise brought her attention to the porch. "It's open!" Her heartbeat jumped and then she stared, wide eyed at the sight of the broken glass doors slowly but visibly growing back together. "Was that what he did?" She thought.

Alejandro tugged on her hand and she allowed herself to be pulled back down where he wrapped his arms around her. "We're okay my love," he whispered in her ear. "We're going to be okay."

She finally lost it and broke down in his arms. "I was so frightened, my love." She fought against the tears that threatened to spill out. "I don't know what is happening!" She lost the fight and tears poured down her cheeks. "Those monsters attacked us and… and you got stabbed. And our children… the children, they…"

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Alejandro

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Alejandro squeezed her tight and whispered comforting nothings while the post fight adrenaline faded and she finally started to relax.

Meanwhile he looked down at his children sleeping and at least for the moment he hoped, blissfully oblivious to the changes that their world had undergone and dreaming of better days.

He would keep his family safe. Just like when the voice and the screens had appeared and he had chosen a Class, he had picked Guardian specifically to guard the ones he loved and to protect them from danger. His dear wife, his heart, had been sure it was a trick or a government experiment but his gut feeling had told him that it was real and that he needed to be ready. And he had been right.

Maria had gained a Class as well, despite her protests and fears of it being a trap. He wasn't complaining, not as his finger cautiously traced the line where the sword had punched a hole into him. Even now it barely hurt and he could feel scabs already formed on the wound.

The two hours spent sitting in the dark waiting for something to happen after the messages stopped, and then Maria telling him that it 'was' a trick after all. Alejandro had been so worried that he'd made a mistake, and then the new message appeared, telling them that 'they' were coming, telling him that he was right to prepare. All that and he still failed.

As he touched the wound on his gut, Alejandro's mind flashed back to the moment that sword had sank into him, the anger and fear. Anger that these creatures would attack his home, his family. And fear that he had let his family down, that he had failed to protect them. He had barely felt the physical pain over the fear of what his failure would cost.

Then a flash of light and he had been pulled through the wall, leaving his wife behind with the monsters. The rush of horror had dimmed when she jumped through after him and then flared up again when those things tried to pull her back.

He glared at the severed hand next to the wall. "I'll never be that helpless again!" He swore silently as he gazed at his family in his arms.

His eyes slid to his new, young neighbor.

Yes, that one was terrifying. "That white light…"

He had felt like an ant about to be stepped on. It had popped his shield like it wasn’t even there and it hadn't even been an attack. Out of all the new abilities he had gained tonight, that shield had been his ultimate last stand. That could only be used once every twenty four hours and left him with a Weakened debuff.

"Yes, very terrifying." He thought, but when monsters start appearing in the world, who better to have on your side than the most terrifying one.

He stared at the young man sleeping on the floor. He had saved them tonight and Alejandro would thank him profusely when he woke up and buy him a beer, if such a thing was still possible.

He squinted at the sleeping form. "Maybe not a young man?"