I selected yes, and then subsequently blacked out.

I woke up the following morning to Rachel shaking me awake.

I groaned, “Wha- What?” as I opened my eyes, I was greeted with a flare of light, and could only blink as I attempted to adjust to the sudden influx of illumination. As the colors began to separate from the pervasive yellow-white glow of the wide-open bedroom window, I was rewarded with the sight of a cascade of strawberry blonde hair falling across my face. In the middle of the halo of hair, I saw the most beautiful face in the world. Then I twitched, and scrunched my face slightly, as the hair that fell, continued to tickle against my face.

‘She was always so stunning…’ I couldn’t help but think.

As my mind slowly adjusted to the present, my thoughts began to wander outside of the cocoon of Rachel’s attempt to rouse me awake. ‘How long had I been out?’ I subconsciously questioned.

“Thomas!” Rachel exclaimed, ripping me away from my meandering thoughts. She was clearly relieved that I had woken up.

Then, suddenly, I was confused. A shred of a memory of a dark and quiet room slithered its way into my conscious mind.

‘That’s right…’ I thought. ‘I was selecting my Tier 2 class… However, I can’t remember anything after that’. Apparently, I had lost consciousness.

This had never happened before. Granted; it was impossible to ‘black out’ in a game, and I was also probably one of the first people in the world to have advanced to Tier 2. That meant there was nothing else to compare the situation to. So perhaps it was a normal occurrence?

That led rise to another thought. There likely might have been more people who had achieved Tier 2 before even I had. After all, while I had been distracted by trying to manage a Community, others could have been fighting tooth and nail the entire time.

Perhaps an even more striking reality also soon became apparent. ‘There were other players of the game.’ As such, in every likelihood, there were other powerful actors out there.

We had met Noah after all, and he had been rather familiar with the game. In all likelihood, there were at least thousands of others, if not tens of thousands. Even if the game had fallen in popularity in the past several years because of its difficulty, it still had its cult following, and it wasn’t very small by any means.

Now, I was the first member of the Community to reach Tier 2. All in only two weeks since the start of the Apocalypse. It was still quite the achievement to say the least. Especially during a period of time that people were still struggling to adjust to the realities of the apocalypse.

It was a thought I hadn’t given much attention to, and likely wouldn’t be able to as of right now.

After all, Rachel was clearly hanging over me, waiting for some measure of response. I looked at Rachel as my eyes finished adjusting, and she just stared.

“Uh… Morning Rachel?” I had no idea what else to say.

Her eager face shifted into a pout, “That’s it? Just a ‘Morning Rachel’?” she mocked. First, you practically ignored me yesterday, then you kept spasming while you were asleep, and when I tried waking you up, you wouldn’t wake up! And now I find out that you dyed your hair!”

I stared silently, processing what she just said. I knew that every other thing she had said probably merited a lot more attention, but I’ll be honest. Out of all of that, my hair apparently having been dyed a different color, is what concerned me the most.

What the hell did she mean that my hair was dyed? I jumped up and ran into the bathroom adjacent to my room, with Rachel following close behind me.

Sure enough, as I ran up to the mirror that filled the entire length of the wall, my hair had changed colors.

Or maybe that was exaggerating the situation a bit. My hair was a bit longer, but still its same dark brown color. However, several ‘steel blue’ streaks had suddenly offended the once uniform hue. As I stared at my reflection, I caught sight of a sudden shimmer along one of the bluish streaks now decorating my hair.

‘What the?’ and as I fixated on my hair, a whole new perspective on the world unfurled in front of me. Unintentionally, I had just activated one of my new skills, [Mana Sight]. Whereas before I could ‘sense’ the magical energy in the air, now I could literally see it.

The steel blue streaks were encompassed glittering sparks in the air. Apparently, the color change was the result of some type of manifestation of mana.

My gaze slowly transitioned to the rest of my body though as I noticed that it wasn’t just my hair that acquired the steel blue sparks of magic. In fact, my entire body had. All of it was centered on where I had sensed my mana core to be, in the middle of my chest.

I was astonished, ‘so this was [Mana Sight]?’ I turned and looked back towards Rachel.

She stared at me with a raised brow. “Are you going to explain what’s going on?” She glanced me up and down, then paused for a moment with slight concern in her eyes as she focused at the spot on my arm where I had suffered a burn yesterday.

Apparently satisfied with my wellbeing, that concern then morphed into puzzlement, and she looked at me expectantly.

So, I answered. “I’ve got no idea what the hair thing is all about, truthfully,” I placated, while at the same time running a hand through my lengthening hair that was likely overdue for a trim. I then explained my only assumption, “but I probably didn’t wake up because I had undergone the Tier 2 class change.”

She was vexed, and demonstrated that by punching me in the chest, “You did all of that, and you didn’t even tell me? How was I supposed to know you weren’t seriously hurt!?” She fumed, as I feigned pain at the strike.

Of course, her punch didn’t actually hurt. Unfortunately, my Constitution was high enough where I couldn’t feel pain from something like that even if I wanted to. I still could have used a hit or two though.

The rational part of my brain was glad that she was focusing on a mage class though. The sight of her punch throwing me through the wall would have been slightly amusing, albeit painful.

She saw through my ruse though, and even though dismayed, she continued, “I was worried! I thought something had happened!” She yelled tearfully, before suddenly rushing in and hugging me.

I just stood there, mouth agape. In a matter of a minute, my girlfriend had just gone through a myriad of different emotions and reactions.

“Rachel,” I cautiously began, as though I was approaching an enraged beast capable of ripping my throat out.

While holding me tightly, and embracing me like a vise, she declared, “I’m not letting you leave.” Then, in a bizarre reaction, she pouted.

I laughed, and I could see the beginning of a smile from her too.

Now I realized what the core of the issue was. She had been wanting attention, and I had been failing to give it to her.

I mean, in my defense, I had been consumed with a whole host of other tasks and issues. Her current reaction though? It was awfully familiar.

In fact, I recognized it as a common ploy of hers. One she utilized if I ignored her for an extended period of time – like I had, unfortunately, been doing.

I have always been bad at maintaining relationships, not in the sense of a girlfriend or anything, but with friends. It was why I only really had Kevin as one of my close friends growing up. I never felt the need, or desire, for more.

Anyways, even if Rachel wouldn’t be the type to admit feeling needy every now and again, that didn’t excuse my ignoring her. Not that I had done it intentionally. I think she inherently understood that, but love can be… Irrational at times.

And I did in fact, love her. I just sucked at expressing it.

“Rachel, I’m sorry,” I said.

She looked up into my eyes, penetratingly, “For what?” she queried.

“For not paying attention to you.” I pressed in turn.

She kept a straight face, “What makes you think I even want attention from you?” she remarked, but I could see in her eyes that I had hit the mark.

“Because you love me?” I ventured, with a grin on my face.

She laughed, “you’re an idiot.” She said as she let go of me and turned around.

I kept looking at her, amused.

“Well…” she glanced back, “what are you going to do about it?”

I walked towards her, and as she turned to fully face me once again, I placed my hands on both sides of her face and planted a kiss on her lips.

She quickly gave in to it, and for a moment of time, we forgot both of our worries, fully enjoying each other’s embrace. The world slipped into the background, as for just a moment it was just Rachel and me.

Memories of our first date together, awkwardly eating ice cream outside of an outdoor dessert parlor. Or the time we shared our first kiss, under the brilliant light of thousands of stars.

It was a moment in time where a rush of memories came back to me.

Once we parted, I could only look into her eyes. “I love you, Rachel.” I pronounced.

“I know,” she responded playfully.

I stared at her for several seconds.

She averted my gaze for a moment, and then, looking back returned my confession with a smile, “I love you too, but uh…”

She began, then paused, and frowned slightly.

“What?” I asked.

“’ What’, he says.” She mockingly stated, then put her hands over her hips, and while posing she said, “Is that it? Just some kisses? You don’t want to do anything else?” She said with a mischievous smirk.

I smiled. Then I trudged forward and pushed myself past her. As she looked after me in slight confusion, I responded with a voice full of mirth, “Yep!”

She gasped, in disbelief, but then, with some slight amusement said, “Good luck out there then leader boy, but you won’t get away that easily tonight. Not after what you just pulled,” she winked.

Blood quickly rushed to my cheeks, and I quickly turned around and left.

⤜⤚⤙⤛

Of course, I wasn’t trying to get away because I didn’t want to do anything. In fact, I wanted with all my heart to just lay in bed all day with Rachel. It’s just… There really were some things that needed to be taken care of. I was already anxious because I had clearly woken up extremely late in the morning.

Granted, some light banter wasn’t anything to feel guilty about, and as such, I didn’t. In the back of my mind though, there was a pressing issue that continued to irk me and depress my mood.

Liam was still here. And we needed to take care of him.

As I walked outside, I noticed that the pleasant temperature had continued well into today. In fact, everybody was, for the most part, enjoying themselves. It looked as though the military had brought with them a heck of a lot of resources. Resources, which they were willing to share.

Evidently, they expected to encounter survivor groups and as such had packed a large number of extra supplies. We were currently taking advantage of that fact.

Several tables had been set up in various locations in front of Alex’s house, mostly near the tents set up by the military. Members of the community were currently socializing, eating, and playing games with dozens of the soldiers, and I was happy to see everyone bonding. Even if they were going to have to leave fairly soon.

In a way though, it brought a sense of normalcy to our now chaotic world. I could tell that it wasn’t just our group that appreciated it either. The soldiers themselves seemed to be having a good time.

As I looked around, I noticed a few people were missing. Namely Alejandro, my Mom, and of course, Liam.

Liam was likely still in hiding. His brother was here though, chomping away at what looked like some sort of dried jerky. Alejandro and my Mom were probably with Antonio though.

Alex and the ‘Doc’ had both come to the conclusion that they didn’t know when he would wake from his coma, but that currently, it might be for the best. He was undoubtedly still in an extreme amount of pain. After all, even if we had stopped the blood flow, and the skin had begun to stitch back together, Antonio still had lost a lot of blood. On top of that, he also had a large chunk of flesh still missing from his side.

I would not have wanted to wish that fate on any member of our community. Except maybe Liam of course.

But clearly, Antonio was a fighter, and hopefully, the worst of it was behind us.

I found Kevin, Alex, and my Father at one of the further tables. They were currently sitting down with Rick and two other soldiers I didn’t recognize.

When I saw the colored tokens being shoved into the middle, and some light banter happening over a table of cards, I could immediately tell that they were playing some variation of Poker.

As I approached, Alex noticed me first, “Ah, so the brother finally wakes up from his beauty sleep!” he laughed. “We’re playing a game of Blackjack if you’d care to join us!”

While that sounded fun, there was something I wanted to take care of as quickly as possible.

“We should go take care of Liam,” I announced.

Sure enough, that dampened the celebratory mood at the table.