I turned off the highway and onto the gravel back roads leading to my family’s place outside Tribbey. It was October in Oklahoma; the trees shifting into their fall colors, the kind of season all those pumpkin?spice?drinking assholes can’t get enough of.
I smiled at the thought as I looked at the drink in my hands. I just happened to be one of those assholes. I had tried the drink once at my sister's urging, and I secretly thought it was delicious, although I'd never admit that to her or anyone for that matter.
It was now my seasonal drink of choice, provided I was alone, of course. My secret favorite treat unfortunately did give me an unhealthy amount of anxiety. I lived in fear of one of the guys catching me. If they ever did, it would mean death by roasting.
When it came to giving shit to their buddies, my platoon was in a league of their own. If they found out I had a soft spot for seasonal lattes, I might as well just forget my dignity right then and there.
My body gave an involuntary shiver. "They can never know," I vowed, slurping the last of my shameful delight.
I slowed down a little as I threw the now empty container into a spare plastic bag I kept for trash. I stashed it under the back seat, like contraband.
I was heading to see my sister for an excellent reason: she was supposed to be induced to give birth the next day. I had taken a few weeks of leave to be there for her and help her recover. Of course, she had no idea. I was going to surprise the shit out of her; I mused with a playful smirk.
A few minutes of driving later, there it was, my childhood home. My father had left me and Alice the farmhouse and all his possessions to split when he passed. The only exception was the gun safe. I often hunted alongside my father growing up; Alice, however, held no interest in joining us.
So, Dad had left the safe and its contents to me alone. I hadn’t opened the safe since he passed or gone hunting; I just didn’t have the heart after the funeral to open what Dad had closed for the last time.
I had told Alice that she was free to sell the property and use all the money to buy a home in town if she wanted to. Alice was stubborn and decided to break the lease on her apartment and move in instead. That was three years ago now, and I hoped that whatever she was working through was done.
I hoped Alice’s reason for being there was her own wish, not a sense of responsibility to Dad to preserve our childhood home.
The farmhouse still held the warmth of childhood memories, wraparound porch, black pipe fence, and wildflowers blooming in the wild grass in front of the fence.
Keeping the place up was a huge responsibility, but Alice insisted. We were both handling grief our own way.
She had gone to nursing school and kept up the property mostly herself, with me coming in and out throughout the years to help, as well as our neighbors that had known us since we were kids.
I had not tried to change her mind about staying here; after all, I had enlisted in the Army after college. She supported me through my enlistment and Ranger School, and now I aimed to support her in return.
I pulled into the gravel drive, scanning the property by habit. “Jesus," I muttered, catching myself. “You’re home. Not on patrol.” My stomach fluttered, excitement, not nerves, as I grabbed some mouthwash, rinsed quickly, and checked my teeth in the side mirror. A soldier’s inspection, even for a family reunion.
A six-foot frame stared back. Broad shoulders, a Ranger’s build, a favorite old T-shirt stretched thin from years of wear. My faded jeans had seen better days. Good enough.
I reached up to knock, but the front door opened inward, and my disheveled, very pregnant sister appeared. Alice's hair was darker than mine, though she shared the same green eyes. She wore a green maternity dress and maintained a constant, pleasant smile. "Riven," she said. "What brings you here?"
I smiled back. "Thought you could use some help and a driver tomorrow,” I said, smiling as she hugged me.
"That's wonderful, thanks. I sure can! And next time, warn me, you ass," she said as she playfully pushed me away. "The house is a mess right now.”
“Like I care about that,” I laughed as I followed her inside. The scent of a Yankee vanilla candle and fresh laundry greeted me as I stepped into the house. I observed that my and her definitions of mess differed considerably as I glanced around a nearly spotless home.
The living room was situated immediately to the right, still featuring our father's old recliner accompanied by a television tray holding a fresh Dr. Pepper, his favorite drink. Aside from this familiar detail, the home had undergone noticeable changes: new grey-colored carpeting covered the floors, the walls were freshly painted white, and the kitchen tiles appeared to have been recently updated.
"Looks like you’ve been busy,” I said. Alice just nodded her head. We both proceeded to the living room couch, and both of us exhaled with contentment as we sat down. "Missed you, sis." "Missed you too, bub."
I asked, “So, are you nervous or excited?” Alice replied, “Honestly, it’s a bit of both.
“Don’t worry, I’ll come by as often as possible to help,” I assured her. She smiled in response. I continued, "is my room still the same, or did you turn it into a nursery?”
Alice shook her head. “No, it’s the same, still looks and smells like a dummy lived there.”
“So, my Sword Art Online and DBZ posters are still up?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Oh yeah, they’re up. I keep hoping you’ll bring a girlfriend here someday, so we can tease you about them.” I grinned, “if she doesn’t like Super Saiyans, she’s not girlfriend material, anyway.”
The conversation continued into the night, and it was getting late when Alice, all smiles, said, “Do you remember when Dad let you drive his truck to go fishing and you sideswiped the gate?" "Remember, my ass still hurts remembering it."
"Dad was so mad that every time he looked at that truck and the scraped paint, he would chase me down and whoop my butt all over again. I wasn’t safe anywhere for months."
Alice was laughing so hard I thought she would dislodge that baby then and there. I jokingly rubbed my butt cheek for emphasis.
"I recall the truck’s entire passenger side being cratered in, but that’s me," said Alice. "Whatever, sis, I think you've got that pregnancy brain I heard about, memory is going on you."
"Uh huh sure, let’s go with that," Alice laughed.
I had a shit-eating grin on my face when I said, “Dad wanted a new truck anyway; if anything, I was doing him a favor. Besides, we used that old Chevy as a hunting rig for years after that."
Her smile faded a little as she asked, "have you hunted since Dad passed?"
"No, I haven't," I replied with a melancholy look on my face.
We talked for a while longer before it got dark and both of us needed to sleep. I knew we had to be at the hospital early in the morning.
I hugged her and encouraged her about tomorrow. Alice said she was going to go check her overnight bag for the hospital before going to sleep and hugged me one last time goodnight.
I headed to my room for the night, but I stopped as I was about to go up the stairs to my old room. It looked like there was a light coming from the pool room.
The pool room door was slightly open, and I approached it. The room was named after the old billiards table in it that had belonged to my dad.
I opened the door to reveal a room that had three vast windows that stretched from the floor to the ceiling. Old life jackets from lake trips were piled on a chair and the catchall dresser.
Dad’s safe stood in the corner. A lamp sat on top, casting a glow. Subtle, Alice.
I hesitated, staring at the safe before muttering, “Screw it.” I finally spun the dial, confronting what I’d put off for years.
"Click."
The door opened with a creak, revealing rifles, old hunting gear, and a leather object on the top shelf where ammo was stored. I picked up what looked like an archery bracer, but thicker.
My fingers lingered on the leather. It was light, flexible, and yet sturdy. Strange markings curled across the leather, faint until the lamplight caught them, then they seemed to shift under my touch.
A part of me seemed to stir looking at the odd patterns. Someone spent a lot of time on this thing.
I moved to put the bracer back where I found it. Wondering if Dad intended to take up archery or something.
When I noticed a sealed envelope with the name “Riven” where the bracer initially lay. I must be getting tired. I could have sworn nothing else was there when I looked earlier.
I saw Dad’s handwriting. It had been waiting here all this time. My hands trembled while opening it.
Riven, I cannot say too much, but try on the bracer. You are an Outlier.
I know it will suit you. Protect your sister.
-Dad
"Outlier." The word stuck in my head like a burr. I didn’t know what it meant, but it didn’t feel like Dad just being poetic, it felt like a warning of some kind.
I examined the item and sighed, not wanting to refuse my father’s last request of me. The bracer slid onto my left wrist easily, and then it abruptly tightened.
I swung my arm around wildly in surprise. Seconds passed and nothing else happened, so I calmed down. I felt damn foolish, and it made a nervous laugh come out of me.
A damn piece of leather nearly gave me a heart attack.
It probably had a self-tightening feature. I tried to remove it. The item would not budge, just my luck. This thing is broken after years of sitting here.
Out came my folding knife. I held the knife blade out toward the leather, but I hesitated before the knife touched it. I just couldn’t bring myself to do that to dad’s equipment.
I put the knife back in my pocket, too tired to bother further with it. I closed the safe, turned off the light, and proceeded upstairs to get some sleep. Exhaustion quickly pulled me under as I drifted off.
As sleep dragged me under, I could’ve sworn the bracer pulsed once, like a heartbeat.
My eyes opened to me standing barefoot over a starless void. My room had vanished. I looked down past my bare feet. Two moons stood in stark contrast to the darkness below, and I began to fall.
I blinked, and the message cleared from my vision. When I opened my eyes, I was still falling, but now an impossibly bright night sky was above me. Below me, a forest burned, trees curling into ash beneath the glow of two enormous moons, one cracked, bleeding starlight into the void of space.
The ground neared rapidly, and a screen showed up before me.
"What the shit are all these messages?!"
I focused, determined to make it through whatever was occurring in this dream that seemed real. A silver tree no bigger than my hand appeared above my left wrist.
The world changed again. I found myself on the ground, encircled by flames in an unburned circle, experiencing the heat of the fire all around me as I assessed my surroundings. I breathed out an adrenaline-filled, “holy shit!"
The silver tree pulsed on my wrist, cool against my skin. A prompt flickered in my vision:
"Uh… no, I’m good," I replied. I don’t know what the hell this is, but summoning a weapon for no reason seems like a bad idea. Did I eat something bad yesterday? Was that coffee spiked or something? What the hell was happening?
"I what?"
A towering, horned creature covered in bones, with red eyes and jagged teeth, emerged from the flames at that moment, radiating intense heat that made the fire outside the circle feel like a warm breeze as it came closer.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
I stared at the creature in wide-eyed disbelief. The same silver tree from earlier flashed before my eyes again.
I reached my hand back into the silver tree. "Hell with that no-weapon shit."
"YES!" My hand seemed to disappear through the translucent tree. I grasped a weapon's hilt, felt a surge of power, and began to pull, error! Outlier detected. Requirements not met.
Pressure from above hit me as the System Message hovered in my vision.
The silver tree shook, forcing my hand out
A 3-inch folding pocketknife and a whipped cream pumpkin spice latte materialized on the ground… "What the fuck is that? I yelled. You've got to be kidding me!"
I grabbed both, unfolded the knife and took the top off the coffee. It was hot at least, and smelled damn good too. I formed a fighting stance with my left leg out front as the clock ticked down.
The creature snarled, eyes glowing like coals, and its claws elongated with a sickening snap. It dropped to all fours and charged, a blur of bone, muscle, and rage.
My body was as molasses as the Ardent lunged, claws arcing toward my chest.
Heart hammering, I forced myself to move. I can't die here. Not now. Not when Alice needs me most.
The bracer on my wrist suddenly flared, tree limbs brightening. A flash of light, and a force shield materialized just inches from my heart. The claws struck, and clear silver energy rebounded from the strike.
I still felt the Ardent claws impact like a sledgehammer against my chest. Pain bloomed sharp and immediate as something in my ribs cracked. A red line appeared, moving down a little in the corner of my vision.
The Ardent staggered back, clearly surprised it hadn’t just cored me like a melon. I didn’t waste the opening. React now. Think later. Years of training kicked in.
With a grunt, I threw the hot latte in the monster’s face. The liquid hit its eyes dead-on. The Ardent reeled back, snarling, temporarily blind and now even more pissed.
"How do you like that, pumpkin spice, bitch?" I growled through gritted teeth.
The creature stepped back, swiping wildly at the air, but I lunged forward, ducking under the swipe. I slashed out with my folding knife, dragging the blade across the monster’s ribs in a clean, horizontal cut. The knife stopped abruptly, caught on the creature’s bone.
A small line of dark blood opened across its flank. But the monster turned its body, and its bone armor bent the knife back… I heard a SNAP!
Metal cracked like brittle glass, and the broken hilt clattered from my hand. Hand bleeding now, and the red bar in my vision went a little further down.
"No shit!"
The Ardent emitted a deep growl, and instead of retreating, it produced a sound that I thought sounded like laughter.
"What are you laughing at? You know you have whipped cream on your horns, asshole!"
Dream or no dream, I would not go down without a fight. To no man or monster, "Lets fucking go!" I cried out as I reached instinctively for the silver tree on my wrist. I grasped at the one thing that might help; the tree pulsed, and power surged within me.
A luminescent ball formed over the palm of my hand. It had chaotic silver light that pulsed and moved. The Ardent was in my face. I tried to throw the energy ball into the creature’s eyes again, and it exploded instead. The blast knocked me and the beast back to the other side of the circle.
I felt the heat of the forest fire close to my body as I scrambled to my feet. My hand was burning with pain from the blast.
A number that appeared over what I knew from video games was my health bar read 70%.
The silver tree flashed in front of him again.
The monster was barely fazed as it stood up. That’s just unfair.
Then, to my surprise, the creature spoke. It was a deep, guttural, disturbing sound. "No more tricks, little man. When I finish with you, I'll find the girl too. I can smell her on you! You can't protect her from me; you might as well tell me where you have her hidden and I'll end you quickly."
It raised both of its clawed hands, and they started to glow. The monster lunged and swiped at my neck. I moved to the left and tried to bob and weave out of the way.
It was all I could do to keep moving, dodging the brunt of the monster’s assault. I tried to jump back to avoid a downward slash, but the claws tore my chest open, and I felt the blood flow down over my abdomen.
A follow-up attack narrowly missed my head as I rolled to my right, avoiding the monster's follow-up left claw strike. The Ardent stepped back and circled me before speaking. “You’re not enough, Outlier, to save anything; none of you ever are. When I slay you. It may take years for the woman to appear, but I have nothing but time. I will make her scream so sweetly that my ancestors will howl with joy!"
My mind flashed back, Alice laughing in the living room, with the new crib set up, waiting for her baby to be born. An unbridled rage came over me. “No"... I growled through clenched teeth. "No, you will not!" I will not fail when it comes to protecting them. Not them. Not ever.
The Ardent came at me again. I stood there unarmed, bleeding, ribs broken. My body covered in cuts. But in that moment, all I felt was rage.
Abandoning any strategy, I simply charged the beast, ready to fight until the end.
The bracer on my wrist ignited, the silver tree blazing brighter than ever before. The light burned down my forearm and into my bones. I felt on fire. My vision blurred. The silver tree pulsed rapidly, and I instinctively reached into it.
I pulled, and the world flashed silver for a moment. In my hand I held a blade that was long with a double-sided edge; it resembled the King Arthur sword from the fairy tales.
It was insanely heavy, but I managed to keep it aloft. The blade was colored silver, and the same-colored flames danced on the edge.
A silver Talent tree flashed briefly in my vision again. One branch now had a small shining sword on it.
All this happened before my first charging step landed on the ground. The Ardent halted mid-charge for once being the one that tried to move out of the way.
I roared and charged, swinging the sword overhead with all my strength. Words came unbidden to my mind, and I yelled out. “LIMIT BREAK SLASH!”
Silver flames erupted from the blade, cleaving through the creature’s chest. Its howl echoed as the flames tore it in two. The flames faded. Smoke rose from the corpse. I hit the ground, vision flashing with red, blue, and green bars.
The blade in my hands turned to silver smoke and returned to the tree on my wrist. The once bright silver tree was dull now. I looked over at the smoking corpse and just raised my middle finger, then collapsed.
My eyes began to close, then a bolt of energy hit me from the sky, like a lightning strike. I screamed, the pain feeling unreal as I convulsed on the ground.
A blinking message hit my vision.
Pain seared me, then healing warmth followed.
I gasped, laughing breathlessly. “Damn, that was kind of awesome…" Then everything went black.
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