Well that is terrifying.

  And not something I can think about now. The mutant animals all start moving again, and I get back in fighting stance, but they barely see us. A few lift their noses and sniff in the strangers’ direction, the man still holding his gun out in front of him and his other arm to the side, the rest of the group behind him.

  But then they just… wander off. Not in straight lines, but scattered, staggered. Drunk on the magic, I think. Unable to fight.

  Good thing to know, that the monsters aren’t aggressive after a magic surge.

  The strangers seem to realize they aren’t in any more danger, because they all speak at once. And the one woman tears off from the group, throwing herself on the asphalt beside the kid.

  “Why did you even let her—”

  “I didn’t let her, she followed—”

  “Isn’t it your kid who was babysitting?”

  “Don’t talk about me like I’m not—”

  “Wait, you’re here? Then who the hell is watching the rest of the children?”

  The woman’s sob rips out of her and the group falls silent.

  I push away the notification from the Game but it keeps bouncing back. Finally, I seethe, “No!” out loud and it dematerializes from my view. Ryder’s gaze snaps up, understanding, and another presence, one that smells like strawberries, slides up beside me. I know it’s Nancy without looking over. I make a quick gesture with my fingers, and Ryder understands. He scrambles back from the girl’s body and comes to stand with me and Nancy. I curl my arm around his shoulders and hold him in front of me, my whole arm enclosed around his bony chest. I’ve known this kid for three days and yet I would be crying like the woman was now if anything happened to him.

  And yet I let him throw himself into dangerous battles.

  Another internal debate for another moment.

  “Who are you guys?” I finally say.

  “And we’re sorry for your loss,” Nancy adds, her voice softer than mine. Ryder drops his chin in a sort of agreement.

  One teen pulls away from the group and points behind her. “We’ve been holed up in the church there. A few of us were in the park when we saw you drive up.”

  Church. I glance in the direction she points—though it’s hard to spot, from this vantage point. But yeah, I guess I remember there being a church up that side street.

  And I guess humans congregating in places of worship during the apocalypse makes a lot of sense, too.

  “Why are you killing animals?” another person in the clump asks, though I can’t make out which one.

  “They’re not animals anymore,” Ryder answer. “They’re mutated by the magic and now they’re monsters.” I press him closer to my chest, a silent urge to not say more than that.

  “I guess we all got some magic,” the teen girl says. “It makes sense that the animals did, too.”

  Two other people break away from the clump: one senior man, who walks with a bit of a limp, and one middle-aged woman. They approach the crying woman, rubbing circles on her back and helping her to her feet, pulling her away from the girl’s body. Nancy and I exchange quick looks.

  “Be careful,” I instruct the group. “Don’t just wander around. The animals—the monsters—are attracted to the magic surges. That’s why you’ll see them gather like this.” I jerk my finger over my shoulder at the Tim Horton’s. “They get rabid and dangerous and a little drunk on the magic.”

  “And yet you two ran right into the fray,” a guy says. A boy, really. Can’t be too much older than Ryder.

  Ryder lifts a hand and produces a fireball.

  The teen boy blanches and scurries backward, whispering animatedly with the other teenage girl.

  “Look, we want no trouble,” Nancy says. “I’m sorry we couldn’t help… Elisa.” The name sounds foreign on Nancy’s lips. The woman keens again with the sound of the name. “Keep the children close,” she chides.

  The man with the gun steps toward us, keeping the rest of his team behind him. “You could…” He hesitates. I’m not sure he actually wants to say this. “You could come back with us. To the church.”

  “Since you seem to understand this whole… magic surging thing,” another woman pipes up, closer to my age.

  “And you can fight,” the teenage girl says. The man with the gun twists behind him to glare at her. She shrugs. “What, I’m right.”

  “More importantly, they have magic too!” The teenage boy pipes up from the clump.

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  I’m almost tempted. I want to know what sort of magic capabilities they have, how the initial surge distributed powers when there wasn’t a video game in hand. The world ended so they went to a church, which gives me reason to believe they’re not inherently evil people, but…

  They’re not our people.

  They have their own Party.

  “We have food, and shelter, and the protection of God and our community,” the middle-aged woman says, speaking for the first time. I can hear the capital-G in her inflection.

  Nancy bites down on her lip.

  “Yeah, we’re good,” I say. “God has us on a different path.”

  The middle-aged woman nods emphatically, understanding.

  The religious type are kinda… intense.

  I tug back on Ryder and then slide my arm away, and we silently head back to the car. A call stops us. “Stay vigilant, children.”

  We turn back to see the senior man, all white hair and intense cataracts that I can see from here. And yet, he stares right at us with an intensity that gives me chills. “What?” Nancy asks, clearly not sure if she heard him right.

  “We’re in the end of days,” the old man says. “With the Rapture taking those purest souls, those that are left can’t be trusted.”

  Of course, they think this was genuinely a rapture.

  “Not this again,” the man with the gun mutters, turning back to his people.

  “Oh, hush,” one of the women scolds, whacking him lightly on the arm. They all start to head back towards their church.

  “You mark my words!” the old guy says, suddenly intense. “Give the people magic and it will be abused.” He focuses in on the three of us. “Don’t you be abusing, kids. Never turn your back.”

  Then he ignores his own advice and turns his back on us, hobbling after the rest of his group.

  ***

  We go home. There’s nothing else we can do, since Ryder is quiet in the back and Nancy’s trailing some blood on the leather. I didn’t even realize she had been bleeding. We pull into the garage and everyone slides out and disappears into the house in silence.

  It was a strange day, and I suppose the ennui is understandable. A kid died. But we also just kicked ass in a huge fight and all three of us probably ranked up. Why are we not celebrating with some of that ice cream in my inventory? And how am I the only one of us who doesn’t seem totally bummed?

  I mean, I’m bummed. Of course I’m bummed. A kid died. And this sort of death feels different than the apocalypse event itself, where everyone vanished. They’re all dead, too, but at least we didn’t have to see it first hand. Or look into its parent’s eyes.

  Maybe I just reached the depression stage of grief before my team did.

  I think about my Party Leader status, which means something, so I go check on my team.

  I start with Nancy. It’s still a little weird to step into my parents’ room and see… not my parents’ room. Nancy has a queen-sized bed where my parents had a king. Her dresser is tall and skinny, distressed white-washed with little brass knobs. My parents’ dresser was long and squat, all dark oak, and every surface of it was covered in family photos, handmade gifts from when I was a kid, and knick-knacks collected on holidays.

  Nancy has a set of four identical but different coloured Build-A-Bear bears on top of hers.

  She’s sitting at a small vanity when I come in, the stool and desk matching the dresser in the same distressed white, a tri-fold mirror atop it, the stool with an upholstered cushion the same floral pink as her bedspread. It’s a beautiful bedroom set—for someone who is very much not me, and maybe someone closer to Ryder’s age. But it seems to work for her. She’s brushing her blonde hair gently, working out the knots from the fight, and she locks eyes with me through the mirror.

  “You wanna talk about it?” is all I offer her.

  She places the brush down with an audible click, drops her hands into her lap, and lets out a sigh that uses her whole body. She whirls around on her stool so I take that as a yes and perch on the only item in the room left from my parents’ room: a cream-coloured wingback chair. It still kind of smells like my mom and I try not to throw up from the emotions.

  “I never really had a lot of friends,” Nancy starts.

  I nod, encouraging her to go on.

  “It was always just us. My sister. My dad. Me. The Three Musketeers. The Three Caballeros. The Powerpuff Girls. We always joked that things were better in threes.” She smiles to herself, her gaze going a little vacant as she reminisces. She’s got a pink band-aid covered in stars on her upper arm. “When her diagnosis came, we—”

  “Diagnosis?” I interrupt, and cringe a second later at the fact that I interrupted. “Sorry, I didn’t mean—”

  Nancy throws a hand up, stopping my apology. She nods, one sharp bob of her head. “Leukemia. Stage three. Anyways. It doesn’t matter anymore. It wasn’t the cancer that got her in the end.” She lets out a rough, self-deprecating laugh. I don’t like the sound of it on her. “And I could probably heal her now, which just seems unfair. But point is. Three of us against the world. Somehow I ended up in another group of three.”

  “Do you regret it?”

  “Not at all,” Nancy says, emphatic. She leans forward, her eyes bright with intention. “Not even a little bit. I am so honoured and grateful that you opened your lives to me, your home, the Game.” She seems to deflate and looks down at her hands. Her hair slips in front of her face and shoulder, and she meekly tucks it up behind her ear.

  “Would you have wanted to join them? That group from the church?”

  There’s a pause as she thinks about it. “No. Especially after not being able to heal that girl.”

  “You’re a healer,” I fight back. “Not a… necromancer. There wasn’t really anything you could do.”

  She nods, pauses, and finally looks back up at me. “It still sucks. What we’re doing… what the world has to do… It takes a toll.”

  I nod. “I know. And I don’t like it. Hell, that’s an understatement. I fucking hate it. Kids getting hurt aside, I feel a part of my soul getting ripped off every time I have to bash in some cute little critter’s skull.” I collapse back into the armchair and let my legs splay out in front of me. “But I guess this is the world we live in now.”

  Nancy nods. “I’ll manage,” she says, turning back around and grabbing a small jar of cream. “I just need some time.”

  I’m touched that she shared something from the Before with me, something so personal. I can’t imagine how she feels, knowing that she has the power now to save her sister’s life but the sister isn’t here. She said her sister had been in the hospital when the Event happened. That sort of knowledge, that sort of power and no way to use it on the one person who means the most… it would eat me up inside. How old was her sister, compared to the girl, and how close did Nancy come today to reliving her sister’s disappearance? I can appreciate Nancy’s inner strength more than ever. All I can do is support her in whatever way I can, give her the space she needs. I head toward the door and pause for a moment at the threshold. “You told Ryder that we’re family now,” I tell her. “That means us, too. Take whatever time you need. But you can always lean on us. On me.”

  I hear the unmistakable gasp of someone trying to hold in a sob and let myself out of the room without another word.