He didn't wake up all at once.

  First came scent. That particular smell of rain in the air just before the storm breaks.

  Then came taste. That taste of his own blood in his mouth and the echo of goblin blood lingering.

  After came touch. Sharp stones from the driveway were clawing into the bare flesh of his back.

  Followed by sight. Leaden clouds with the tips of spruce stabbing upward, scudding past in the storm's wind.

  Lastly hearing. "Uncle Brom, wake up...please..." TJ's voice ragged from somewhere nearby, the crunch of gravel.

  Everything in him engaged all at once, hearing his nephew's panic-strained voice. His hips went up, forcing weight onto his shoulders and dragging his feet into position, arms moving downward, and then he was up in one smooth motion. Cold eyes raked his surroundings to try to figure out where the danger was. A second later, a smaller body impacted against him as TJ hurled himself across the few feet between them, clinging limpet tight.

  "I thought you were dead. I thought you were dead. You were bloody and still. I thought you were dead." An onslaught of words stumbled out of the teen like drunks out of a closing bar. He was only sixteen, and despite trying hard to hang tough, it didn't take much to revert him to childishness.

  It was only now that Brom realized...he was taller. TJ had only been half a head shorter, now it was easily a foot. He towered over his nephew, which only helped reinforce that need to protect the kid who'd cared so much about him when few other people had. He seemed more fragile somehow, despite being physically unchanged. It was all on Brom's end, that Enhanced Physique giving a funhouse mirror effect and distorting perception.

  "Hey. Hey. C'mon, let's go inside, let's sit down. It's okay. I'm okay. You're okay. We're okay." He didn't know what to say in this situation, just holding the other in a bear hug and patting his back gently. TJ was okay, though. He was fine. He was right here without a scratch on him. Brom didn't give a flying damn about anything else in this moment in time. Not the System. Not the world at large. Everything he cared about was right here, on this plot of land.

  His coaxing finally got TJ to step back, scrubbing an arm across suspiciously red eyes.

  "Yeah. You smell like shit. You should probably get a shower..."

  Brom slowly nodded, gesturing. "And maybe those eggs I promised earlier?" He ruffled TJ's hair, a smile in his voice.

  The teen looked up, features hopeful. "...yeah. Those sound really good right about now..."

  A first tentative step on the porch stairs produced a pop of protest but nothing past that. He didn't bother wearing his goblin-stained sneakers in the house, discarding them beside the door as he shuffled in. Alice once again bolted forward, seeking her freedom in the greater world, but the stench of him stopped her cold with a fit of feline sneezes. She lost motivation after that, trotting back into the house with her tail fluffed in irritation.

  "Told ya, it's awful."

  "Yeah, it didn't taste great either. I got it in my mouth."

  TJ made a horrified expression as he pulled the door closed behind them. "What even is it?"

  "You're better off not knowing, kiddo." He paused, allowing himself to blow out a long stream of air in hopes it would take some stress with it. The stairs creaked as he stepped on them, instinctively reaching toward the light switch.

  "Oh, that probably won't-"

  Click. Warm light flooded the dim stairway, and he glanced back toward TJ.

  The kid shrugged. "It usually doesn't work in the books when shit like this happens. Technology breaks down. Monsters spawn. Everyone relies on class levels and dungeon drops."

  Brom shook his head. "Yeah. Well. I guess this is just more proof that real life is never like it is in the books. Feed the cats, will ya, this is going to be a long shower. This shit's everywhere." Right now, he just wanted to scrub till the first layer of skin came off, and maybe then he'd feel clean again.

  A quiet calm descended over the house. Rain came softly, tapping at first and then drumming against the roof and the windows, driven in a horizontal sheet by a tenacious wind, dulling all other noises outside. Heroically, the roof remained resolute in keeping the inside dry, the patches holding tightly in its weakest spots. The cats migrated to their favorite rainy day perches, unbothered by the world not ending, more bothered by the fact that their food was late. The wall clock ticked, the baseboards hummed, and the subtle sound of the shower filled the upstairs.

  It all seemed so normal. As if the sky clock hadn't counted down and the System hadn't dragged them all into its bullshit.

  Only when the hot water ran out did Brom re-emerge from the depths of the master bathroom. The first sign of abnormality in the world? His clothing fit. Considering the overwhelming structural changes to his figure and frame, they really shouldn't have. Had the System thrown him a bone or had his possessions subtly altered when reality did? Was that why the house didn't seem claustrophobic to him? Why the creaky porch steps hadn't minded his increased mass? It was an insidious implication, if so, because Brom wouldn't have noticed it if the changes to him hadn't been drastic. What else was he missing because his mind was glossing over it?

  He already knew the System was working on his brain at some level. The emotional debt for his slaughter wasn't coming due. The abnormal muscle memory was instinctive. He was just... taking it. A smoothing and blurring at the edges to help him transition. Was he the only one aware of it? Was it because he and the System hadn't gotten along that maybe it hadn't taken away his awareness of the difference? What a bitch.

  Marble tried to murder him on the stairs.

  Such was the peril of cat ownership, they had the tendency to turn up underfoot at the worst moments. One hand was sufficient to scoop up the grey butterball, expertly plopping him over a forearm and letting him hang like a sloth on a branch. "One of these days you're going to break my neck, you know that, you monster?" Clearly, from the satisfied purrs massaging his skin, Brom's passenger was extremely pleased.

  He dropped Marble by the food dish and returned to the kitchen. "Did you see where I put my apron earlier?"

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  TJ popped out of the pantry, dusting the kibble dust off his hands. "Nope, I was kinda distracted. End of the world and all." The teen had recovered admirably. Then again, such was the way of the Jones family. A survival instinct ingrained at a cellular level kicked in when the bullshit surrounding them got too high. Just pretend everything was fine and keep going. "Oh, and I did find the first things that aren't working. Phones are shot. So's the TV. Then again, with the notification and messaging systems, I figured as much. The internet's going to be a big loss, though. I was kinda expecting it, but man, it smarts."

  "Crap, I guess that means I'm going to have to hire someone to fix the roof after all." Brom's voice was muffled, head in the fridge as he eyed the bowl of eggs to make sure it was still good.

  "Yeah, no YouTube means no tutorials. Oh, speaking of, how did you get so beat up?"

  He thumped the bowl down on the counter and sighed. "I cannot even begin to explain the shit I went through. You tell me how yours went first so I can get a baseline of the difference."

  The teen's tale was vastly different from his own. In his version, the System had been mechanically helpful, like one of those phone trees that was a little frustrating to navigate but ultimately got you where you needed to go. TJ's class was Archer (Epic), apparently gained from a vivid violet spark, and the System had very carefully walked him through a detailed description of his Skills, his Stats, and how his Class allocated its growth points. How he'd been led through all of the various features of the menu, like the Inventory and the Communications feature. Most importantly, the Knowledge Base. Then he'd been plopped down in a sunny glade, tasked with using his Precise Shot skill to kill ten skeletons from range, ultimately levelling up to two in the process.

  The more he listened, the more Brom's expression darkened like the weather. He'd gotten screwed! Maybe part of it had been his fault, he had been just a little bit belligerent after all. TJ had probably gone into the conversation starry-eyed and filled with terrified wonder at seeing a fantasy come to life. Maybe that, coupled with his age, had made the System take better care of him.

  "What class did you get, Uncle?"

  "Barbarian." Fluffy, cheesy, perfectly scrambled eggs hit two plates, and he slid TJ's in front of him. Holding out a fork a moment later, he saw TJ's confused stare. "What? I thought it would be obvious?"

  "No. It's not that. It's just that Barbarian isn't one of the class options. There are only five Classes: Fighter, Mage, Healer, Rogue, and Archer. Hang on, show me your screen. Just pull up your menu like you're going to look at it, and then like will it to display to me."

  Brom shoved a forkful of eggs in his mouth and grunted. Easy enough to do, just pull it up and treat it like he was showing a phone screen. He wasn't expecting TJ's face to go white.

  "...the actual fuck?" Fork clattered onto the plate, the teen leaning across the bar like proximity was the answer to the shit he was seeing. "...this is unreal... you're a monster..."

  "What? Like, I'm some sort of mob or something? Is it a glitch?"

  TJ was quick to shake his head. "No. I mean your stats... I don't even know how to begin to explain."

  "Yeah, well, the System didn't even try. Just said the only stat I needed to know was my HP and left it at that."

  The stool creaked as TJ leaned back again, tapping his thumbs on the counter, the old nervous habit cropping up. "Um, well... There are five of them: Body, Mind, Soul, Health, and Mana. Each class progresses them a little differently, like it wouldn't make sense for a Mage to have a boatload of health and no mana."

  "I've played games, TJ, I get it." Maybe not as many RPGs as his nephew, but Brom knew the basics.

  "Yeah, well let me put it this way. I'm an Archer. I'm a physical class, so I have decent Health and decent Body so I can take a couple of hits and do good physical damage. My HP is sixty. My Body is thirteen because I get ten Health and three Body every time I level, and I'm level two."

  At the words 'sixty HP', Brom understood. Slowly, he lowered his fork, staring into his nephew's wide eyes. "In my defense... I'm level six?"

  TJ's head dropped straight into his palms, and he let out a groan that sounded like something was tearing. "You have six-hundred health. Your body is one-hundred. That isn't just monster territory. You're a damn world boss! And wait, level six?!" His head popped up again, squinting at the sheet. "How?"

  Brom gave him the sanitized cliff notes version. The goblins. The skeletons. Earl. All of it. All the while, TJ just looked green and kept reading those insane stat lines over and over again. Slowly, between TJ's questions and Brom's answers, things began to take shape, and theories were crafted.

  Legendary classes were just built different. They started with vastly stronger stats, had wildly improved stat progression, and the abilities they came with were beyond anything TJ could have dreamed of. They were also hidden in the Knowledge Base, Barbarian only popping up now that TJ had encountered one, even then, the entry seemed incredibly sparse compared to those on the other classes. It was sobering.

  TJ nudged his eggs around his plate, eating bites mechanically now and again. "You can't tell anyone about this. You just can't."

  "Who am I going to tell besides you and the cats? I'm not a hero, TJ, I'm not cut out for solving my own problems, so fuck solving anyone else's. I don't care what the System and the Viewers want, the only people that matter to me are physically in this house right now. Creepy voyeurs from higher dimensions or alternate planes of existence are excluded." Still... it wasn't like he could ignore that they were probably there. Probably watching.

  "You've got a notification by the way. That little red sparkle. Just concentrate on it and open it up." An eggy fork was pointed toward the indicator in Brom's window.

  Brom knew. He'd been ignoring it. That wouldn't make it go away, though, and that wouldn't change anything. With grim reluctance, he willed his notifications open.