6 – MAN, WOMAN, AND THE RAPTURE

  Chosa and T’balt decided they should leave the house before more beasts arrived. They took T’balt’s car, driving through the neighborhood. It was a hellscape. Houses destroyed. Bodies in the street and monsters roaming. T’balt couldn’t help but stare. Chosa was ranting and raving about the fun she had killing those hellcats until she got annoyed that T’balt wasn’t paying her any attention.

  “Do you know where we’re going?” she asked.

  “I’ve always died before I made it to this part of town,” he said without thinking. He realized he hadn’t yet explained his time-traveling powers to her. It showed on her face.

  In fact, he hadn’t explained his ability to her in a few iterations. He’d decided it wasn’t worth the effort when the act proved more tedious than helpful. Especially when she would just forget the next time he died.

  “Nothing. Never mind,” he said, staring out the window.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Looking for survivors. Maybe there’s someone here we can help.”

  “Who are we going to help? We don’t even know where we’re going. How are we going to help ourselves?”

  “I don’t know. Even still. There might be someone getting attacked or something. And we can fight these creatures now.”

  Chosa was unamused.

  He slowed the car to a crawl when a man ran into his front bumper. The man screamed and kept running. He wasn’t alone. Hundreds of civilians were rushing past them for their lives. Up ahead, it looked like the bridge out of town had collapsed, leaving the cars stranded on this side of a river. T’balt wondered what had destroyed it. Then he saw it.

  It was the angel, the giant angel, like he had seen several lives ago. He wondered if it was the same one that was being beaten up by that man. Back then, T’balt couldn’t understand how the man was fighting it, but now with the power he had, it made sense. There’s a coin out there that could make him fly through the air and give him the strength to topple giants. But that man was nowhere to be found now. He wasn’t here to help these people as the angel creature went on a rampage at the bridge.

  Cars were flung like building blocks, and the pillars of the bridge were eroded like sandcastles at the touch of a strange light coming from the thing's hands. But the people weren’t running from just it. Humanoid bugs with hard turtle shells on their backs sprang from the water. They toppled over cars, ripping people from them, tearing families apart.

  As the horde of people careened past them, T’balt noticed one boy standing all on his own. No parents around, no older than 13. He was staring around, clueless as to what was happening before him. The bridge was crumbling; only a few more cracks and he would plummet down to the ice-cold water below. Then there was the bug creature eyeing him at the spine, just out of his eyesight.

  “Stay in the car. I’ll be back,” T’balt told Chosa.

  He was out of the car, sprinting at the boy, gauntlets sparking to his sides. He leapt forward, flying through the air, surprised at his own athleticism. No, this was the power emanating from the coin in his neck. In a matter of seconds, he was right next to the boy and thrown off balance.

  The bug crawled back. Even though it had four dark, grimy limbs, it still used them like a bug would. Its antenna was twitching at T’balt. But before it could make its next move, the claws of T’balt’s gauntlets tore right through it in a single motion. It didn’t even make a noise. Almost pathetic.

  “You okay, kid?” T’balt knelt.

  “Mister… Those gauntlets are pretty cool.” The kid was blonde with a pudgy face that probably was used to getting pinches from weird aunties. He had big green eyes and twig arms. The kid was staring at T’balt’s smoking gauntlets. There was blood on them, so T’balt’s first response was to make them disappear.

  “Where are your parents?”

  “I don’t know where my dad is,” the kid said. “I doubt it really matters. This is all so epic.”

  He hardly looked perturbed by all of this. Only referring to it in a strange matter-of-fact way, unbefitting of a kid in the apocalypse.

  The angel’s sight beamed right at them. Its silent, stone-like face rose from underneath the broken bridge. Its stone wings spread open, showing off the eyeballs embedded in them. It looked like an ancient god. The image of it felt familiar.

  “We need to go.” T’balt grabbed the kid's hand and started hurrying back to the car. Even with what he had, there wasn’t a single part of him that wanted to fight that monster. People were still jumping from their cars, running, calling for help, or awestruck at the sight above them.

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  “The end is here. The rapture is upon us,” a man cried out, falling to his knees. T’balt just kept running. He couldn’t deny the man, but that didn’t mean it was time to give up and die, even if this was ordained by god.

  More bug creatures stood in the way. T’balt moved the kid behind him, preparing his gauntlets for another fight. But without warning, a spike of lightning flew right past his ear and into the monster's chest. Its limbs ejected from its body due to the heat and force.

  T’balt turned, realizing it came from behind him. “Was that you, kid?” But he already knew the answer. The young boy’s eyes were sparked with lightning and black smoke. His hands, aimed in front of him, were still sparking with blue light.

  “Pretty cool, huh?” the boy said.

  T’balt would’ve laughed if this were any other setting. He tried to piece together how this kid had these powers already, remembering what he had to do to get his. But it was a thought that had to be put in the back of his mind. He had to get this boy somewhere safe.

  “Chosa!” He called to her, hoping she’d be ready with the car, but to his dismay, Chosa was no longer in the car. In fact, the car was completely crushed, and Chosa was fighting some of the humanoid bug creatures, not caring about the destruction of anyone else's property.

  “My car!” It was one of the few things he’d bought with his own money, and he watched it be crushed and burned into a pile of garbage.

  Chosa had the flaming sword on one arm and a black shield on the other. It resembled the same that was on the backs of the bugs. She had taken another coin. She used the shield to parry the bug’s attack and shoved her sword into its face, sending its threat level to zero.

  T’balt stopped to quickly process what he saw. So when someone defeated a monster, their coin fell off of them, and people could take it and use the monster’s powers as their own. It was almost like loot, except the loot was the source of the players' skill set. Both he and Chosa technically had two. If they could just add the power of a monster whenever they defeated one, he couldn’t imagine how strong they could become.

  “Uhh. Mister.” The kid pulled his shirt, snapping him from his thoughts. “I think it wants you.”

  Following the kid's pointed finger, T’balt realized they were under the shadow of the colossus. The angel in the sky. It was staring right down at him with a blankness in its face. Its long, stone finger was aimed directly at T’balt. Not understanding, T‘balt was suddenly struck frozen. “Why’s it pointing at me?”

  In an instant, a blinding light flashed from the tip of the fingernail. T’balt fell to the ground. Suddenly, his entire body ached in pain, and he could hardly move.

  “T’balt!” He heard his girlfriend shout, and then he felt her yank him by the shoulders. “Are you okay? You’ve gotta move.”

  The silhouette of her face was only a blur, and his eyes crossed, trying to put together visual patterns that didn’t exist. His body felt light, like it was slowly numbing. What just happened? He wanted to say, but suddenly found that he couldn’t move his mouth.

  Just then, the black shadow of a man walked past him. A shadow that felt familiar. He felt like he was dying. But he had to see. He was sure he recognized the man. “It's you?”

  The man heard the words “it's you,” and they made him pause. He smiled like someone who had finally figured out the solution to a massive problem. The man took a glance at the angel in the sky and seemed to debate for a moment. The angel prepared for another attack, and the man disappeared from T’balt’s sight in a blur.

  He felt the flash coming, and surely this would’ve been the end for him. At least he would die in Chosa’s arms. He closed his eyes, expecting to wake up in his room, clocking bleeding midnight.

  He opened them, but he wasn’t dead. He was lying on his back somewhere else entirely. They seemed to be in the middle of the woods, far away from the chaos in the city.

  “Where are we?” he heard Chosa’s voice say. “Did you do this?” But the question wasn’t aimed at him.

  “Step aside, bird.”

  “Don’t tell me to step aside.” Chosa’s defiance raged.

  “Unless you want him to stay catatonic, then make this easy,” a deep voice said.

  Then a jolt of electricity snapped T’balt right into reality. Suddenly, he could see everything, and the sense returned to his hands and body. Chosa was staring at him. So was the young kid. And standing above them both was the man from earlier.

  His hair was dark and flowing, coupled with a controlled black beard. His tanned skin was that of the islands, born in the sun and ocean with tattoos to match. His hanging shirt barely covered the tribal markings leading up his arm. His tattoos were capped off by a number on his neck: 11,665.

  His voice was deep but loud, and his mannerisms expanded him like a humpback whale, taking as much space as possible. He was a man who was untouchable and in his element. He stood above T’balt, smirking.

  “Thank you. For helping me,” T’balt said, eyes still readjusting.

  “I didn’t do it cuz you’re pretty.” The man knelt. “That angel seemed to take a liking to you, which means you might be the man I’m looking for.”

  T’balt’s voice caught in his throat. He didn’t know what to say. Obviously, this man knew something about what was happening that T’balt didn’t. Otherwise, how could he consistently get so powerful so quickly? But he was intimidating, almost hard to look at in the eye.

  “Why would you be looking for me?” he asked.

  The man’s smirk turned to a frown. “Turn your head.”

  “What?”

  “Turn… your head,” he repeated.

  “Hold on,” Chosa interrupted. “You can’t just start commanding people like they belong to you. I don’t know you, and I don’t trust you. If you want something from us, then you start by telling us what the hell is going on here.”

  The man rolled his neck before landing his squinted eyes on Chosa. “God, you’re annoying,” he said. “Shut up, and I’ll tell you what's going on. But listen close, cuz I don’t like repeating myself.”

  The three of them, T’balt, Chosa, and the kid whose name no one knew yet, stood at attention.

  “You’re back at square one of the rapture. Welcome to Zero Day. ”