Jacob peeked out the window of his cabin, rifle held at the ready.

He’d felt so smart at first, one of the first to leave town when it hit the fan. He’d spent a few years serving in war-torn third-world countries, and knew well enough that when political leaders told everyone that ‘it’s fine’ and ‘not to panic,’ it was past time to GTFO. A cabin he owned in the mountains sounded like the perfect place to wait out the disaster.

And at first, he was right. A small radio let him listen to the world fall apart while surviving in relative comfort. A few other buddies had similar cabins along the shore of the same lake as his, and while it was distressing how few of the buddies made it up, he at least wasn’t alone.

Of course, they weren’t too close together. What was the purpose of a remote cabin in the mountains if there were five other cabins within a half-mile? That was fine though, a short hike was nothing for someone in as good of shape as he was, even after losing all his hard-earned Numbers.

But then things started going wrong. Five days ago he visited Stan’s cabin to find it empty. Nothing unusual by any means, but it was still empty when he visited three days ago, as well as yesterday. And then today, Paul’s cabin was also empty, no sign of where the man may have gone.

Hunts were getting more dangerous, the strange creatures that Jacob occasionally saw roaming the trees increasing both in number and in strength. Not to mention, the meat from the last monster he killed was almost gone, the gamey but edible flesh sparse for such a large frame. And he was still hesitant to eat the monster he killed yesterday, its strange and unfamiliar body tasting rancid even after cooking it to a crisp.

He’d thought he’d be set for ages with a lake well stocked with fish and a water filter that would work for thousands more gallons. But the monsters that dwelled in the deep were even worse than those on the shore, and Jacob was terrified to make even the quick runs to the edge of the water to fill his bucket.

But Jacob had been in worse situations than this before and survived. Sure, in those occasions he at least understood who and what he was facing, but this couldn’t be any worse than those missions with eighty percent casualties.

He steeled his nerves, clutched his gun tighter in his fist, and stepped outside.

- Jacob, Inclusion +12 days 13:11 hours

Blood. Death. Tears.

It’s just like behind the shed, only hours after the inclusion, but this time it is oh so much worse. Because among the viscera and decomposing flesh are body parts I recognize, body parts that I’ve known my entire life.

I don’t know how long I was inside. Images of what I saw flash through my head, magnified into such visions of terror there’s no way for them to be realistic. But I can’t separate the visions from reality, tears clouding my eyes.

Styx and Sam stand over my curled body in an adjacent yard while Melete and Pallas are missing. Some part of me deep inside wants to question where they’ve gone, to insist that we stick together in this dangerous town, but the effort to say the words just seems like too much, my lips too heavy for my meager will to move.

I blink and Melete and Pallas are back, the sun setting below the horizon as they whisper around me. I don’t hear their words. I don’t bother to hear their words. I blink again and it is completely dark, and someone has draped a blanket over my shivering body.

My eyes stay open as I stare at the stars, brighter than I’ve ever seen them before within the city limits of Clayton. Slowly I come back to myself, processing.

My parents are dead. Have been dead for a while. At some point over the last few weeks while I traveled hundreds of miles to get home, my parents were killed in that very same home by a monster.

I expect anger at the monster that killed them, a burning vengeance and desire to hunt them down, but I struggle to feel anything but numb. Did my parents even have a chance to allocate their free Numbers, to learn about the new society they’d been placed into? Did they consider evacuating with Pallas’ and other families, or did they choose to stay home to wait for me?

There’s no way to know. And even if I did know, it wouldn’t matter. Knowing when they died won’t bring them back. Knowing how they died won’t change what happened. Sure, it might give me a chance for vengeance against whatever creature took their lives -- but what then?

At the end of the day, they’ll still be dead. My parents, my family who has loved and supported me through all of my apathy...gone forever.

Was it just two days ago that I was talking to Pallas? Enjoying the life and power that comes with the inclusion? Had I truly been unwilling to give up my new ‘skills’ for all the lives that have since been lost?

What arrogance. Selfishness. Hubris.

In a burst of movement, I lift my fist into the air and punch the ground. I lift it again and punch. Again. And again. And again. My eyes are clenched shut and tears leak from the corners as I choke back an animalistic scream of rage.

Dimly I can feel blood dripping from my knuckles, but the faint pain feels deserved, a welcome tax. I raise my hand to punch the ground again, only to feel a warmth against my wrist, gently holding me back.

I punch down anyway, and the warmth lets me. But when I raise my hand up for another swing it moves, so quickly that I can’t follow it. And suddenly, the warmth is pressed up against me under my cover, cradling me in a tight hug under my still upraised arm.

“Shh,” Styx whispers in my ear, holding me tight against her, arms wrapped around me. “Shhh.”

She doesn’t say anything else. No meaningless platitudes or other fake words, just the same whispered “shhh.” After a minute of her holding me, I lower my arm around her body and hold her back, clinging to her warmth like a man adrift at sea. I bury my face into her shoulder, tears still squeezing out of the corners of my eyes.

My parents are still dead. My heart still sits like a stone in my chest. My guilt still drags me down like a chain around my neck.

But as I cry and eventually drift off to sleep, I realize I am not alone.

I struggle awake the next morning, still holding tight to Styx. For a moment I forget the events of yesterday and relish the confusion-filled joy of her proximity, before reality comes crashing down. She stirs awake as I disentagle myself from her, breathing deep as I prepare to face the day.

The sky is dark with ominous-looking clouds, as if to reflect my mood. Our camp is on the front porch of a house across the street from my own, sheltered from the sky by an overhang, but I can still see my home with just a glance.

“How are you doing?” Melete asks in a remarkably tender voice when she sees I’ve risen.

I just shrug in response. How am I supposed to answer that? I can function, which I guess is better than yesterday, but my parents are dead and in hundreds of rotting pieces only a few dozen yards away. Simply remembering takes me to the verge of both crying and puking.

“Breakfast,” Pallas says as he hands me a full bowl of cold oatmeal. They must have raided a house last night, because we definitely didn’t have any oatmeal in our remaining supplies before getting to my home, but I don’t have the energy to ask any questions. I manage to choke down a few bites of the oatmeal before pushing around the rest while my companions finish their own meals.

After breakfast, my friends clean up camp while I numbly grab my own bag and wait. We stand together when camp’s clean, and Melete and Pallas each turn to Styx.

Styx takes a deep breath in preparation before speaking, walking close and putting a hand on my back. “...before we move on, there’s something I think you should see.”

I nod and let her guide me gently across the street and around the side of my house to the small backyard. We’d only lived here for a few months, but even that short time is enough to bring back painful memories.

The small garden against the house, where my mom grew some of the herbs she used in family dinners. The sapling apple tree in the middle of the backyard that my parents managed to transplant from our old house. The grill that my dad used to burn our Christmas dinner.

But just in front of the small apple tree I notice something different, something that isn’t in any of my memories: two mounds of dirt, topped with two small wooden crosses.

“We wanted to give you a chance to say goodbye,” Styx whispers.

I step forward and fall to my knees, Styx and my friends giving me distance while I just stare at the two graves. Tears form in my eyes until they overflow, spilling unchecked down my cheeks. Millions of thoughts whirl through my brain, but I can’t seem to vocalize any of them. Behind me Melete is humming quietly, and I recognize the tune as a hymn from my Easter trips to church. Her voice and the occasional distant booms of thunder are the only interruptions to my tears. Finally, after what feels like an hour kneeling in the dirt, I speak.

“Mom, dad,” I whisper, my voice hoarse. “I’m sorry.”

I’m not sure exactly what I’m apologizing for. Not being there for them when they died, not appreciating them when they lived, or my constant apathy. Maybe none of it, maybe all of it.

I have no other words to say. I pull myself to my feet, staring down at the two graves, all that’s left of my family.

I feel a hand on my shoulder, and turn to see Styx standing behind me. In her hands she holds a small bag, filled to the brim with photos and knick-knacks of my family.

“We weren’t sure exactly what you might want,” she says as she hands me the bag, “and if you feel up for it you can go back inside to look for anything else to keep. But we salvaged anything that looked significant.”

I flip through the first few photos, all pictures of my parents and me in happy poses at different stages in life, before gently placing the full bag into my larger bag over my shoulder. I can look through the rest later, when my emotions aren’t quite as raw.

I glance around at my friends, truly seeing them for the first time today. At the dark circles under their eyes, at the still dirt-and-bloodstained hands of Pallas and Melete. At Styx’s lovely, sad, sympathetic eyes.

“Thanks,” I say, my voice hoarse. “I think I’m ready.”

Then I turn and walk away from my home with my family.

I welcome the distraction that reactivating my bonds and monitoring our surroundings as we travel brings. But without anything to actually monitor in the abandoned city, it’s difficult to keep my focus from shifting back to the empty house behind us.

Still, I struggle to maintain vigilance, intentionally shifting my gaze from house to house, broken window to dark doorway, and always checking the sky in between. A light drizzle peppers us from the dark sky, and I contain a shiver as the chill water slowly soaks my jacket. We don’t stop though -- as annoying as the weather is, we hope that any monsters still roaming Clayton find it just as annoying and will choose to shelter today rather than hunt.

“And how often does this happen?” Sam asks regarding the rain.

None of my friends have been reacting to his questions, so I assume its illusionary voice is being projected to only my mind. It’s a wise precaution, seeing as I’m the only one who can answer its questions while maintaining our silence, and it keeps my friends from being distracted as we walk. Personally, I welcome the distraction.

Depends on location. Not a lot here this time of year. More during the Summer. Some places almost non-stop. Some almost never. In colder places, it snows instead, I answer Sam.

While Sam is no stranger to precipitation, this is the first time it’s rained since the inclusion -- which means it’s the first time Sam’s seen it on earth. According to Sam, the light drizzle is a completely new experience: on its previous world it either stormed like a hurricane or was dry as a bone, without anything in between.

This environment is definitely not one Sam is used to. Its hive would always huddle up in shelters whenever it rained, and I can understand why. Sam’s perspective through my bond, already difficult to understand with its movement-based vision, is even more muddled with the droplets of water dotting its eye, constantly wiped away by rapid blinks.

Never before have I felt so appreciative of eyebrows and eyelashes.

Hmm, that’s actually something I haven’t really considered. Are there monsters on earth that can’t survive? Ocean monsters on land? I ask, picturing a giant shark monster appearing in the middle of Clayton, flopping around for a few minutes, and then eventually dying, giving whoever was brave enough to chuck a rock at it hundreds of free Numbers.

“Not usually. Before joining a new inclusion, creatures have at least some control of where they’ll end up,” Sam explains. “For example, we Alatir desire to stay together as a colony in a more remote area. More competitive and aggressive creatures are often placed in more populous areas, and almost all creatures will end up in an environment they can flourish in. This is not always the case, of course, as on a new world that environment will sometimes not exist for all creatures. In those cases, they die.”

That’s a possibility and you still chose to come?? I’m not sure how much of my incredulity is transferred through the bond.

Sam’s eye flickers in my direction before it rapidly blinks away the latest accumulation of water droplets. “Risks are a part of life. Playing it safe often leads to death just as much as the risky option, just down a different path. Always, the universe advances.”

We continue our slow walk as I take a moment to scan our surroundings, thinking on Sam’s words. I know my judgement likely isn’t as on point as usual, but something about its statement doesn’t sit right with me. By that logic, all paths, risky and safe, end in death. Some just with higher Numbers at the end.

“Is that wrong? Did not all paths end in death even before the inclusion? Why not chase Numbers while we have the chance?” Sam says. “But that is not entirely true. In the same way that the inclusion started, the exclusion can occur.”

Exclusion? I send, confused.

“When humanity became dominant and conquered your world, the inclusion occurred, changing the way the world functioned on a fundamental level and including hundreds of new species as competition, each one of the new species the victor in their own world’s battle prior to their own inclusions. In the same way, after the inclusion, once one species once again conquers the world, they gain a degree of power over that world and the way it functions, something that Numbers alone cannot grant.” I forget my vigilance, focusing only on Sam as it continues to explain. “That is the goal of all creatures, the reason risks are taken: not just for Numbers, for the power Numbers bring, but to bring about the exclusion. Power over Numbers, power Numbers cannot ever grant.”

My head whirls. And you’re only now telling us? I send angrily over the bond. Out loud, I whisper for my friends to find a place for us to break.

“I did not think it was relevant. Conquering the world post inclusion is extremely difficult, taking at the minimum years of growth and calculated risks. Often worlds will not reach the exclusion for decades after the inclusion,” Sam explains as we make our way to the patio of a nearby house, but I disregard its excuses. This feels too important to wait even a second longer without sharing.

Once we’ve settled down in an at least somewhat secure location, I make Sam tell my friends what it had just told me.

“What do you mean, ‘power over Numbers’?” Styx asks after Sam finishes its explanation. Neither Pallas nor Melete look terribly shaken up by the revelation, both unconcernedly keeping watch on the surroundings, Melete humming lightly. But at least Styx is intrigued by the new information.

“I do not know completely,” Sam replies. “When I hatched the world I was on was over a hundred years past the exclusion. The dominant species on that planet was significantly stronger than any other creatures, their base Numbers much higher than any others and certain skills common to all members of their species. But from our records I know the exclusion can offer other powers -- I just do not know exactly what those may be.”

For the next few minutes, Styx and I question Sam further on what mysterious ‘powers’ it is so vaguely describing, along with more questions of what it would mean to conquer the earth to bring about the exclusion. Exterminating all the other monsters? A giant tournament deathmatch?

Unfortunately, Sam doesn’t have much in the way of answers. It just reiterates that this is all secondhand knowledge, and only the oldest Alatir might know more. Sam at least is able to provide a few hints on the topic of bringing about the exclusion -- it occurs in the same way as the inclusion.

But what was the trigger that brought the inclusion, anyway? Will the exclusion happen similarly, with the universe deciding that some random dragon monster halfway around the world has ‘conquered’ earth? Without warning, and without giving humans any say?

It seems like the more I learn, the more questions I have. And despite my growing Numbers and skills...the more powerless I feel.

S: 153

D: 144

W: 389

I: 362

C: 100

0

Skills: Adjust:Self, Bond:Mental