With the voice’s echo, I stared up at the daemon as everything seemed to slow to a standstill. The daemon, frozen in place, bared its horrid teeth at me as it floated upon the air - mid-motion. Particles of bright blue light rose into the air, floating from the grey vinyl floor toward the ceiling like snow falling upward.

I looked back at Wayne and the old man, standing like paralyzed statues as Wayne guided the man toward the broken supermarket door: torn from its hinges by the daemon. They stood there, the world paused - frozen in time. As I stood there, looking over to the pair, a dialogue box appeared before me.

Do you wish to save them?

Yes No

“Seriously? Only now do you decide to pop up?” I muttered under my breath. "You son of a bitch."

The dialogue box remained there, unmoving and unchanging. The voice in my head didn't respond either, and as I muttered, my words rung hollow - like echoes into an infinite abyss.

"Seriously, what do you want with me!?" I yelled. "You left me powerless for the last twenty years of my life, and yet, now that I'm about to fucking die - you decide you'll grace me with you magnanimous presence!? Do you know what I could've done if I'd awakened before college! I could've done something, I could've been someone, I..."

As I trailed off, I started to tear up. Screaming into the void did little. As I wiped the saltwater from my eyes, I looked up at the dialogue box. There was no response, save for a streaking underline beneath the final word of the question.

Do you wish to save them?

Yes No

I wiped my eyes with my sleeve.

"Yeah, I know," I said. "This isn't about me. You don't have to remind me of that."

My finger hovered over the yes button. I stared at the dialogue box with teary eyes, liquid streaking down my face. It was an illusory choice. I couldn't exactly select no, lest I surrender myself to the possibility of being brutally mauled by a bear. There was only one real option.

There was no way I could let Wayne and the old man die.

As I extended my finger out, I pressed down the yes button. The floating particles of light began to glow a bright blue with my answer, and as one dialogue box faded, I heard the voice echo in my head again. Why? It asked. With that, another dialogue box appeared before me.

Why?

"What the fuck sort of question is that?" I said. "Do you want me to write you a goddamn essay on why I help my bloody friends?"

The dialogue box did not move, nor did it disappear. It refused to answer to me; my words did little to persuade it. It hovered listlessly before me, and after a moment, that merciless underline once again demanded its answer above all else.

Why?

"Why do you think?" I began, "I refuse to just fade into the background and save my own skin as I watch a friend die. That's not who I am... and that's not who I want to be."

As those words left my throat, they seemed to congeal in the air - a cumulus of rhetoric forming from the syllables of my voice into a spectral blue cloud. With those last utterances leaving my throat, the words coalesced together - before condensing themselves down into a point. A tiny bright singularity glowed in the centre, and slowly, the cumulus itself was absorbed by that bright singularity.

It hovered in the air for a moment, before shooting toward my sternum like a bullet.

I was thrown backward by the force of it. It felt like being shot in the chest while wearing a bulletproof vest, and I was nearly knocked to my feet. I took a deep breath in. Arcane energy traversed my body like a conduit, as it dispersed throughout my figure, I could feel a sparking sensation resonate from beneath my skin.

CLASS AWAKENED

Spectrotacher (Spirit Scout)

Abilities Learned: Fade Step

Fade Step

Level 0 Movement Ability, AGI

Take a stroll through the spirit world! Fade Step allows you to briefly become incorporeal, letting you to travel instantaneously through walls, objects, or people to a point up to 5.0 metres away. You can also move through enemies, dealing 11-12 psychic damage as you pass through them.

Cost: 8 MP

As I read through the ability's description, I sighed in disbelief. Great... I'm supposed to obstruct an enemy, and the only ability I've got makes me into less of an obstruction.

I fucking hate magic.

The floating blue particles in the air began to dissipate, and as I stared upward at the daemon, motion began to return to the world. The hanging lights continued their pendulous motions as the daemon knocked them aside, swinging amid the chaos, and the daemon once again began to fall toward me. I could feel its fetid breath as it started to expel air into my face, the distance now closing between me and the creature. Wayne's voice echoed from across the store.

"Get back, Oscar!" Wayne screamed.

"Don't you worry about me, Wayne! I can handle myself!" I exclaimed. "Just get the old man out of here!"

I didn't move. Instead, I muttered under my breath as I stared up at the creature. As it went to clutch me between its claws, I fade-stepped backwards out of its grasp.

My vision was engulfed in a blue tunnel of light for a second as I flashed backward. It was an odd sensation, like falling from the world for a brief moment before being popped straight back into it, and it made me feel rather queasy. I didn't have time to get ahold of my stomach though.

As the daemon landed with a thud on the ground, I had to seize the opportunity.

Chanting under my breath, I forced myself to slip from reality once more, and I wandered through the beast with the fade step - teleporting behind it. I gripped my bat as I jumped on the daemon's back, using all of my body weight to bring it down on the deamon's head.

"I. Just. Wanted. To. Buy. Some. Fucking. Milk!" I screamed. With each word, I struck, bringing the baseball bat down on top of the creature's head with as much strength as I could muster. Admittedly, I didn't have much strength left to muster. After the eighth strike, the creature began to regain its composure, throwing me off its back. It was wounded; severely so. As it roared, I could see the blood slowly pour from the wound on its head - the maroon substance also stained my bat and the sleeves of my jacket.

It let out a pained cry as it stood back up. Its red eyes went a dark crimson, and as it sniffed the air, it turned towards me - before letting out a guttural roar far louder than any it had before. Its expression was fuelled by blood red rage, and as it bared its fangs at me, I stared at it in fear. It was pissed, and I was the one who'd pissed it off.

It charged toward me once again, and as it did, I desperately whispered that little incantation once more as I readied my bat. Drifting up toward the beast, I rematerialised mere inches in front of its ferocious face, and as I screamed - I swung the bat directly into the daemon's teeth midair.

My bat impacted with the creature's face, tearing through its jaw as its sharp teeth shot in all directions.

It screamed, a visceral blood-curdling screech echoing from the pits of its stomach as it stumbled backwards. As I fell from the air, I closed my eyes as I chanted desperately once more - and with that sickly falling sensation overwhelming me once again, I fade-stepped through the beast once more as it let out its final cry. As I reappeared on the floor behind the creature, I landed on the solid ground, before tripping over my own footing and falling against the hard vinyl floor.

My body slammed against the tiling, sliding a few metres across the polished floor. Once I came to a stop, as I looked back toward the fallen beast, a quest notification assailed my vision.

Bonus Objectives for Quest "Terribly Afraid of Dying" Complete

Slay the Konglet (1/1)

Staring at the collapsed monster carcass in front of me, its horrific frame now motionless and still, I could barely bring myself to get off the ground. As I realised it was over, the shock overwhelmed me. I'd almost died, I'd almost died... it all hit me in that moment.

I could feel myself begin to weep as I stared at it, paralysed and motionless. Tears began to obscure my vision, and as I sat there, slowly curling up into a ball - I could see the figure of a person rushing toward me, the heavy, unevenly thudding footsteps of Wayne's gait.

"Oscar, are you okay?" He yelled.

I could barely manage a reply through my own tears as I broke down. I felt like I was suffocating, no breath was enough, and as I lay there - I felt the true terror of it all finally get to me.

"No, I'm not fucking okay!" I cried. "I nearly died, Wayne! So did you! Nobody... nobody could be okay after that..."

Wayne put his hand against my shoulder. "You'll be okay," he muttered. "It'll all be alright. They'll come for us soon, we're all safe now, you don't have to worry anymore..."

It didn't sound like he was trying to convince me; it sounded like he was trying to convince himself.

As I continued to weep, with barely the strength to stand, Wayne helped to prop me up against one of the supermarket shelves before sitting down by my side. I fell into his shoulder as I sat next to him, uncontrollably crying into his suit jacket as he sat there with his hand on my back. Everything felt cold; everything except for my tears. After a few seconds, I could feel the same warm droplets pelt the back of my own head. Wayne's despair had gotten the better of him.

We waited alone for the daemon dispatch, with our backs against the shelves, and as we wept in the aisles - we let the tears of our trauma flow like an ocean, washing over the vinyl floors.