Shrewsbury, twenty minutes before the rifts opened.

"Okay... But what the hell do you mean get ourselves killed?" I yelled out through the phone. "What's going to kill us!?"

After a slight pause on the other line, I heard my younger brother, Thomas responded, "Think of War of the Worlds, Alex." he curtly replied. "As of right now, there is going to be a war, and those rifts up there are going to be the catalyst of it. You have to just trust me on this and don't ask me any questions right now. We don't have the time. I will explain more when we meet up. Just tell mom and Ariel to start moving food, bedding, or whatever supplies you're going to need into the basement. Even better, try and get some sort of radio, or tv down there so you can stay connected. When things get started, they're going to go downhill fast. And please Alex, for the love of God. Get Dad and your wife down there. Do whatever it takes." he finished.

I remained quiet for a few moments before saying, "I've got it. Stay safe, and I better be seeing you guys in the next few days."

"I love you man," Thomas responded as he quickly hung up the phone.

"What in the hell was that all about?" I could help but stammer out. "Thomas wasn't a lunatic, so when did he get so... deranged," I trailed off as I looked back up at the large dark wormhole-looking thing that was hovering over the Worcester downtown. It was several miles away, however, the monstrosity appeared clear as day.

"Damnit!" I yelled out. Before I could come to any concrete decision, my body was already moving. I suddenly found myself standing outside the backdoor, and as I opened it to head into the house, I couldn't help but smile as little Ariel came running up to me. She was going to be turning nine soon, but she still acted like my little princess. She was my little ball of sunshine, and I lived for her. As I picked her up, a certain resolve that I didn't realize had been struggling to take shape, formed. I will protect my family no matter what. I promised myself.

As I smiled at Ariel, I asked "How are you doing sweetie?"

"Good Daddy!" She responded with her goofy little smile. Her curls bouncing up and down as she nodded her head vigorously. She was a bit small for an eight-year-old girl, but that did nothing to gain her overflowing energy. "Grammy was showing me how to tie my shoes! See!" She yelled out to me as she propped her little foot up towards my face attempting to show me the disarray her shoelaces were currently in. Compared to a week ago when I had been trying to teach her the same thing, she had certainly made quite a bit of progress.

"Wow! Good job baby! You did great!" I smiled, forgetting myself for a second.

She pouted in response, and her fits quickly pressed against her hips, and she struggled slightly to get out of my grasp. "Daddy. I told you not to call me baby anymore!"

I frowned. "Oh, I'm sorry princess, It slipped my mind for a second there!"

Ariel practically beamed at being called a Princess. It was while she was thus distracted that I noticed my mother standing off to my side pressed up against the glass screen that adorned the exit leading into the yard. Her eyes caught sight of the dark mass currently above Worcester. "Alex..." My mom quietly stated. "What is that?"

I hesitated for a second. Ariel had nearly completely caught me off guard, and I had momentarily forgotten what I had been doing. "I don't know Mom. Thomas just called me though."

At the mention of my younger brother, my mother turned and looked at me. "Thomas called? What does he have to do with what's out there?" She appeared to be deathly nervous.

Collecting myself, I set Ariel down and turned to Mom. "He didn't say much... But, he said that thing out there means something bad is about to happen. I've been trying to reach Dad and Kara, but all of the lines are down, I'm lucky I was even able to connect with Thomas!"

Mom looked worried, and she silently continued to look at me. "Look, mom, I don't really know what is going to happen, or what Thomas knows, but he said to grab whatever supplies we can and to move into the basement and start boarding things up. So, until we know anything else, I think it's best to just trust Thomas rather than take any chances. So, if you could please grab whatever you can, food, water, bedding, and get it into the basement."

She nodded. "Alright, Alex." My mother then began to move into the kitchen, grabbing several boxes we kept in our storage closet and began to pile in whatever food and other supplies she could.

As she continued doing that, I then turned back to Ariel, who had a curious look on her face as I sent her grandma away. "Ariel" I smiled, "We are going to have a little sleepover in the basement, isn't that exciting?" I asked her.

Ariel pouted, "Why do we have to sleep in the basement?"

I frowned, in a moment of hesitation I debated on whether or not to tell her the truth or to try and downplay the situation. However, I knew that she was old enough to at least partially understand what I want her to do, and if I sugarcoated everything then it's likely that more damage would be done than anything else.

"Ariel, we need to go to the basement because there were some tornado warnings. We don't know how bad it might be, but I need you to grab your clothes and whatever else you want to bring and go down into the basement while I go ahead and grab your Mother and Grandpa." I told her. It sounded pretty dumb now that I thought about it, but I'm sure the sense of danger was likely no different, right?

Ariel stared at me for a moment before responding, "Okay Daddy!" she yelled out as she began climbing up the stair heading to her room to grab her things.

I sighed in relief.

"Mom! I'm going to head out and see if I can grab Dad and Kaitlyn! I need you to make sure you and Ariel are down in the basement within the next twenty minutes!" I yelled out.

In understanding my mom simply yelled back, "You better be quick about it then!"

I nodded in resolve. I quickly made my way into my office, and while pulling my key chain from my side picket I knelt down. At the bottom corner of my desk was a locked drawer. I inserted the key into the lock, turned, and as soon as I heard a click I pulled open the drawer to reveal the keypad and safe inside.

9, 4, 8, 1, 3, 2

I keyed in the numbers and as the safe made its own indication of opening with a silent pop, I opened it and revealed the contents. Within the container was a 9mm Glock 19, as well as a few loaded magazines. It was an emergency home defense weapon I had stored away in the house; though, I luckily never had to use it. Shrewsbury was a rather quiet neighborhood after all. I still felt a little silly with everything I was doing, but, something inside of me kept urging me on, telling me to trust Thomas. I was never one to ignore my instincts, and so nodding to myself once again, I holstered the sidearm and pocketed the extra magazines. Hopefully, it doesn't come down to using it.

Ten minutes later I found myself driving in my 2019 Camry, it was a bit of an older car, but I was still very proud of it.

Just a few minutes ago, one of my texts had finally gotten through to my wife, even though calls were still not going through, at the very least I was able to get some sort of communication from her. As it turned out my wife and my father had made a trip over to the Stop & Shop and Staples. They had split up, which was rather unfortunate, but they were close by each other. Sending back a quick text, I told my wife to find my Dad and see if they could meet me outside of Staples. Luckily my house was situated adjacent to a collector type-road, and it would carry me straight to where my father and wife were.

The both of them had apparently walked over to the stores, instead of driving, which isn't too bad as the shopping mall isn't even two miles away, but for my sake, a two-mile walk for them would be far too late by the predictions Thomas made. I looked at the car's dashboard and glancing at the interior clock I noticed it read 3:04 pm.

Thomas had called me nearly twenty minutes ago? Which likely means that the rifts will open up any minute now. As I pulled into the parking lot in front of the shopping mall I noticed that the Turnpike was already getting severely congested. Not much of a surprise though considering it was rush hour, but the traffic load appeared to be slightly more than normal.

That's when I noticed that it wasn't just congested, but that all of the cars had come to a standstill. It appeared that hundreds of onlookers were distracted by the massive portal in the distance hanging over Worcester. I could just barely make out several helicopters orbiting the rift though, but they appeared to be owned by the media rather than any actual military operation.

I began to pull in as close to the entrance of the shopping mall as I could. I could hardly contain my relief as I noticed both my Dad and Kaitlyn standing in front of the Staples entrance, waiting for my arrival. As I made my way over there, I glanced back at the rift, and that's when I noticed a dramatic change had taken place.

Instead of the portals being stark black, they had begun to pulsate rapidly and started to transform until they looked like a literal window into another world. From my position, I could hardly see any details, but the reddish landscape that took its place was definitely quite conspicuous. Just as the blur, that had formed when the portal began to form into its red visage, disappeared, another phenomenon took place. The rift began to pulse and with a sudden rush, a massive bluish-hued shockwave erupted from the rift.

Immediately I noticed that the helicopters orbiting the rift completely lost power and began to stall mid-air and fall. Then, as the rapidly approaching shockwave neared, my car immediately shut down. I watched helplessly as the bluish wave overflowed all around me, first striking anybody standing out in the open, knocking them unconscious. I forlornly watched as the wave knocked into my wife and father, and they collapsed to the ground. It took mere moments for the shockwave to then penetrate the interior of my Camry, and I too found myself knocked unconscious, but not before I noticed a bright blue screen appear right before me.

Notice:

You have been mana-touched.

Skill [Basic Mana Manipulation] - Level 1 has been gained!

In what had been only a matter of minutes, I woke up, with a blaring headache. As I struggled to focus, the most immediate thing that became apparent was that the world had suddenly taken on a bluish-hue. I was perplexed.

That is, until I briefly remembered the 'notification' that had appeared prior to my losing consciousness.

I willed the notice to bring itself back to my attention.

[Basic Mana Manipulation]? Is this what Thomas was talking about?

The bright blue screen was reminiscent of the same blue screen that had appeared nearly half an hour ago, claiming an 'initialization of the system'.

Then it must all be connected somehow.

It was at that moment that I recalled my present situation. I was sprawled within my car, and shaking the soreness from my arms and legs, I attempted to turn my car back on to no avail. Was that some sort of EMP then? It didn't look like any time of EMP I've ever seen before.

Regardless, my car would not turn on, and so I slowly climbed out and brought my attention back to where both my wife and father had been just prior to the effects of the shockwave.

To my relief they were still there, however, they appeared to be at the very least somewhat injured, as they had fallen to the ground. It was only to my luck that I happened to be in my car, and sitting down when it hit. To them, though, falling onto the hard concrete would definitely not be pleasant.

I limped my way over there, as I slowly shook the fatigue out of my body. What the hell was that though? I doubt an EMP would cause that sort of effect? Does it have something to do with the 'skill' I gained? Was that some sort of... Mana EMP? I had certainly played my fair share of games when I was younger, but it had been years. Thomas was the one who never really stopped playing. Once I had a family to think and take care of, I no longer had that luxury. The memories of playing 'RPG' style games were definitely being laid bare though. Was magic actually real then?

Shaking the thoughts out of my mind, I promised to think more of those questions later, once I verified whatever condition my wife and father were in. I looked at my watch that I had luckily kept on my wrist today. 3:11 pm.

My watch still worked though. By pure fluke, the watch I had chosen to wear today was mechanical, so I doubted an EMP type of blast would've done much to it anyways. It was definitely pure luck that's for sure.

Arriving near Kaitlyn and my father, I knelt down, and to my relief, I saw that they had already begun to stir, despite the numerous bruises that appeared to be manifesting across their bodies.

Taking a second to glance back at the rift over Worcester, I was only surprised to see that some sort of massive, flying, dragon looking thing had suddenly appeared, and while it was fairly small from my vantage point, I knew the thing had to be absolutely monstrous in size. Already the beast was belting out pure white flames, and the city was already beginning to catch flame. Behind the monstrosity I could only witness as a multitude of other flying monsters poured from the rift and others fell down to the ground below.

Now that would explain the "War of the Worlds" reference Thomas had made. I could only scowl.