Chapter 1

Lights blurred as Rob ran down the hall.

Someone—no, something—was after him.

He rushed towards the end of the floor and swung open the doorway to the stairwell. No way was he waiting for that rinky-dink elevator to take its sweet time to reach floor eleven. He’d be dead before the doors even slid open.

Rob hurried into the building’s stairwell. No seconds wasted looking over his shoulder. He didn’t need to. His ears rang with the strange slurping sounds of the thing crawling behind him.

Outside. That was where Rob needed to get to. Outside to the streets. To a police station. To somewhere far away from that thing.

The heavy clap of his sneakers on the stairs echoed all around him. He tumbled downward. His heart racing.

Ping!

System Initializing… Please Standby

What the—

The words floated in Rob’s vision. He had no time to question what the heck any of it meant as an explosive crack rang out from above. A cacophony of noise followed. Screeches of ripped hinges and handles. The grinding cracks of destroyed concrete.

Debris fell through the gap in the stairwell.

The thing was not giving up.

Panting, Rob landed on the fifth floor, continuing his descent.

The creature was slurping and sliding and dragging itself through the stairwell towards him. The sickly hot breath of the creature’s large misshapen mouth flowed through the stairwell and onto Rob’s skin.

He was almost on the ground floor. Escape was in reach.

A pack of ketchup—a littered remnant from a food delivery driver passing through—caught his foot. Rubber squished plastic, followed by a burst and spray of red paste onto a nearby wall. The whole thing sent Rob flying.

The ground floor swept away from view as Rob caught sight of the flickering lightbulbs of the stairwell and the inky black flesh of the thing chasing after him.

His back slammed on the concrete, and he tumbled down the remaining stairs, face planting on the floor.

Groaning, he quickly got back to his feet.

A door opened behind him.

Before he could turn around, a hand cupped Rob’s mouth and another hand gripped his shaggy brown hair and dragged him into the janitor’s closet.

“Shh,” said a familiar voice. “It’s safest in here.”

Everything happened quick.

The sharp scent of formaldehyde and other cleaning solutions assaulted Rob’s nostrils, right before he was pushed to a corner into a pile of mops.

“We can buy a few minutes in here,” said the figure, face hidden by the shadows of a cloaked hood.

The figure planted his hand on the floor. Blue light etched around his fingers. The light spread outward and began to form symbols across the ground. A dome of blue energy filled the janitor’s closet.

“My Shroud can protect us,” said the figure. “Those after you have the power to break it, but they won’t be expecting me to be here. That’s our one hope.”

Rob couldn’t take it anymore. He knew the voice the first time he heard it. Before he could say something though, the figure took off his hood, revealing himself once and for all.

The man was in his early thirties. He had a brown beard and long-hair tied in a bun.

It was his brother. Jonathan.

Seeing his older brother felt just as supernatural as the monster that was chasing him. Even though it had been over a year now, the horror of his brother’s sudden disappearance pierced straight into his heart once again. The cops. The news vans. The anguish that overtook their entire family.

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“Jonathan—what are you—”

“There isn’t a lot of time, Rob,” said Johnathan, cutting him off.

Outside the janitor’s closet, the creature chasing him slammed onto the ground. Its panting reverberated against the walls. It paused for a moment, only to then crawl into the front lobby to continue its hunt.

“Bro, what’s going on—”

A golden circle of light began to form inside the energy dome.

“Shit, they’re onto me more than I realized,” said his brother. “There’s no time, Rob. You need to listen to me closely.”

The golden light began to grow and then piercing the air was the sharpened tip of a bright blade of energy.

<<You are using illegal skills in a non-integrated universe [System Fugitive Jonathan Fischer]>>

The voice echoed with such overwhelming force it felt to Rob like he was both hearing it in and outside his ear drums.

Jonathan ran over to Rob and grabbed him by the shoulders.

“In just under three minutes, the apocalypse is about to happen,” said his brother. “Everything is going to change. None of this will make sense to you right now but listen to me. Be very careful what Vocation you choose. Do you understand me?”

Rob stared at his brother.

“Rob—do you understand me?”

Rob nodded.

“Okay good. They want to kill you before the Integration happens. You just need to survive the next three minutes—”

The golden energy blade slashed the air as if tearing through reality itself. A man with a grey goatee and a long ponytail and glasses stepped through the golden light. He wore a black suit with a black waistcoat and a black bowtie.

“Run!” Jonathan yelled, yanking open the closet door and pushing Rob forward. “And one last thing, don’t trust—”

A scream rang out.

Rob didn’t look back to see what happened.

There was no time.

All he knew was that he needed to run.

Outside the janitor’s closet, Rob immediately came face to face with a breadcrumb trail of destruction that led from the broken-down wall to the torn apart lobby to the shattered glass doors to the blood-drenched street where the giant monster was devouring a whole bus load of screaming people.

Back up the stairs, it is then.

Rob grabbed hold of the railing and pulled himself forward to gain momentum, leaping three steps at a time.

His heart pounded against his chest. His throat burned. His eyes stung with tears.

The stairwell stank—metal, dust, and the weird alien-stench of the black sludge left behind by the monster.