“The geography changed,” Jane whispered to the people who had come out with her. They were mostly young or middle-aged ones. She had no elders, thankfully. Taking them with her had been a gamble. If somehow a Demonic Beast spotted them, they were all dead.

People around her looked at Jane uncomprehending.

How could geography change like this?

She could read on their faces the need to ask such questions for which not even she had an answer. But she had thumped a few of their heads together to get into their mind that there would be no more talking and, God forbid, shouting. She had summoned Fire to illuminate the darkest parts of the subway.

Jane Dobrowski remembered her chance encounter with the Ancient Ruins as if it had been yesterday.

She had waited on the train for close to twenty minutes before understanding that something had to be really wrong. When she had gone out, her first thought was simply reaching the nearest station and climbing up to get out of the subway system. She would simply take a bus or something to get to the university.

But what happened, instead, was that she had spotted a terrible monster happily chewing on humans as if they were little snacks. The monster had had more than one head, and it had been the size of a truck.

No, not a small truck. A real truck to transport goods from one place in the country to another.

And she knew that most of the people behind her were in denial, hoping that the NYPD would somehow show up soon and save them. She had had a quick and close-to-dying wake-up call in her first life, and she was not going anywhere close to any Hydra just to have one of these people scream their lungs out.

If any of them tried to scream in front of a monster, Jane was more than ready to run for it and leave them to their stupidity.

…

She entered a tunnel that had not been in the subway system before the apocalypse. Suddenly, the temperature started rising, and the air got very dry.

“How we got here safely is truly beyond me,” Jane said while lying against a wall and sighing loudly.

Everyone looked around without understanding. The place was warmer compared to the chillier subway, but it didn’t look that different from the rest.

“That’s not concrete,” a woman with golden glasses observed.

Following that comment, everyone turned to the ceiling of the tunnel they had just entered, and they noticed that, indeed, there was no concrete where they were standing.

“This leads to Ancient Ruins, very safe ones. And the monsters outside hate dry air. So, they won’t follow under here. Mind you, they could. So, smart up and don’t let anyone get killed.”

The woman with golden glasses approached Jane with a frown.

“Excuse me, miss, but how do you know about these ‘monsters’?

Jane swore she was this close to punching the woman who had just done air quotes right up in her face. But, at the same time, the woman looked young and cute enough for Jane to overlook the bitchy move she had just pulled on her.

She had a thing for those types.

“I have knowledge of the future because somehow I reincarnated. You just saw Magic, and you will soon feel the Qi in your bodies,” Jane shrugged, “you are free to believe me or not. The people we left behind should be all dead by now, reached by some monster or simply started to kill each other in a frenzy. Again, if you want to come with me, I’ll be answering questions in succession only once we are out of New York and somewhere safe.”

“What do you mean out of New York? My family is in the city, I have to get them if monsters are coming,” the woman with golden glasses said.

“Oh, well, I’m sorry. Everyone, the monsters are razing New York to the ground. They are so strong that it will probably take humanity decades to even think about fighting back in the bigger cities. Everyone above ground is dead or is going to be dead soon,” Jane said, almost pained by having to give such news.

She gave a slightly longer explanation of what was happening, and there were two general responses. Either people started bawling their eyes out and/or vomiting, or they would just freeze on the spot, refusing to accept what she had just said.

Jacob would have done a great work here.

Jane wasn’t good at handling grief or overly emotional people. Even Jacob would have struggled, probably, but he would have been much better than her with the people she had just rescued.

Jane knew she was a very individualistic person. She loved her family to death, but that was the extent of her strong bonds. These people were all strangers, and she felt no huge obligation toward humanity as her friend Jacob had.

She loved having a good time with other people, don’t misunderstand, but she also didn’t like to meddle too deep in other people's affairs.

Telling them that their whole family, if they had one, was dead, including friends and whatnot? Well, that was out of her comfort zone. Way out of it.

She saw the youngest girl of the group start spasming on the spot, choking on her own tears.

“I—I left my boyfriend on the train,” she whispered among sobs, “we fought, and I didn’t want to see him because he had been an asshole with me this morning—if I had known…”

A guy approached the girl with a strange glint in his eyes, and Jane sighed.

“What are you doing?!”

Jane had grabbed the man’s arm and started squeezing.

“Show me those eyes again, and you die.”

The arm cracked, and she slammed his mouth shut with her other hand to prevent the scream.

She was feeling weirdly satisfied by that.