Looking at his dead Laptop battery after waking up in the tub, Nick wanted to charge it but stopped, remembering the motel's power was out after the storm.
On his laptop was the very rough draft, maps, and ideas for games like Among Us, Subnautica, Outlast, Lethal Company, and Five Nights at Freddy's. This world's entertainment was very different from his past, but these games should still be a hit.
Nick wouldn't invest all of the money he got off of Stark stock into game studios; he'd only invest a couple of million, and if his games actually worked out well, he'd take over more studios and have them create the games. He ultimately planned on selling these game studio stocks after the games hopefully go viral.
He'd still buy and sell regular stock. Nick, being from the future, allowed him to invest in companies that he knew would do well and it would be idiotic to stop using this knowledge. His future stock investments wouldn't be anywhere close to Stark Enterprise level, but he should still be able to make tens of millions of dollars.
Nick had to remind himself that at the end of the day, he was making money to fund research for tools to use in battle, or else he'd get too obsessed with the money-making process. He'd need to have enough money to fund his creations, and hopefully enough money to rocket himself into space and buy alien tech.
Currently Earth has had very little interaction with aliens, this means that he had thousands of untapped alien races that he could buy from and sell their technology to Earth! His eyes were set on the universal translation chip seen in Guardians of the Galaxy; this would be a world-shattering piece of tech here on Earth!
For Nick and the scientist he'd eventually hire, it'd probably take them months to developing a single inventions recreated on his memories. Why do that when he could simply buy the tech from Aliens or better yet, by tge schematics for the technology!
Nick still had some time before he made his company and was very far away from space travel, he could only make do with the scientists on Earth for now to recreate things. To hire the truly smart scientists, Nick needed funds, and video games were another one of his way to obtain money.
While Nick had very little experience with game creation, he was now incredibly rich which greased a lot if wheels!
It should be easy for him to buy up a failing public Game Studio's stock, force them to make his game as the majority shareholder. The game stock rises after the game hopefully become a success, then he could sell the stock at the peak!
With his rough drafts saved on the computer, Nick packed up and left his motel room and into the quiet town of Bridgton. Most of the power was out, trash and debri was litered everywhere from the storm, and people were scrambling for emergency supplies.
"The fridge broke, and my leftover food spoiled. I'll pick up some cans of food before going back to LA." The power outage threw a major wrench in Nick's month-long relaxation plan, he could only move on from this peaceful little town and quit his job a few weeks early.
The storm had swept through and wrecked everything, it'd take atleast a few days to a week for the power to turn on and Nick ain't gonna wait that long without power.
Grabbing his cane, Nick limped to his car which was now covered in dents, was missing its right mirror and had a crack windshield. He put the car in reverse and drove to the nearest grocery store, a place called Food House.
Without even using his hands, Nick managed to park the car perfectly. His handling with the Creepers Telekinesis had grown tremendously due to experience and due to him gaining a understanding of Chi, it allowed perfect control over his vehicle.
He had to pour some energy into the car every now and then to keep his telekinesis up, but that was only if he was using it; the energy would stay in whatever object he poured it into for months before fading away.
Getting out of the car, Nick saw many townsfolk rushing in and out of the store with non-perishable goods.
Grabbing his service pistol, Nick walked into the store and began loading up on food. He mostly bought canned canned fish, baked beans, and drinks.
These were the only foods that were ready to eat without electricity. Of course, Nick could create a fire somewhere to boil water and cook the food, but it'd be too much of a hassle for road food.
After getting all of his food, he pushed his shopping cart in the very long line, he just so happen to see that a father and son got behind him in line.
"Dad, are you and Mr. Norton friends now?" The kid asked curiously.
"...I don't know about friends, Billy, but we are certainly getting along better than before." The father couldn't bring himself to mention their neighbors, Mr. Norton, had sued them last year over a tree dispute.
Nick didn't think much of it, he simply pushed his cart forward when suddenly a loud tornado siren began blasting, causing all of those in the store to look around in fright.
"What the hell is that!" A husband and wife who'd just bought their groceries yelled out at the entrance of the store.
A man whose face was covered in blood ran towards the store, a large cloud of mist flowing behind him! As a middle-aged woman who was walking her dog got swallowed by the mist, a yelp of pain rang out before silence!
Nick let out a deep sigh seeing this obviously strang anomaly, knowing his curse definitely took effect. He'd been dragged into another terrible situation!
The man, a middle-aged man with greying hair, ran into the store out of breath and bleeding from his head.
"Close it! Close the damn door! Don't let that mist in!" The people, not knowing what to do, instinctively followed the man's orders and closed the doors of the grocery store.
"What the hell's going on?!" A voice from the crowd of people spoke out, it was an African American man by the name of Brent Norton, the neighbor the kid spoke about.
"I don't know, but there's something in the mist, it took John Lee!" As the man spoke, the crowd went silent.
The realization of his words sent a chill through them, the silence was only broken when a faint screaming from outside the store rang out in the distance. The screaming was cut down to abrupt silence after just a few seconds of screaming, the terrified crowd all turned pale from fear.
"I-it's got to be a chemical attack, nothing else could explain this!" A 62-year-old man said as he looked out at the dense fog that hid everything outside.
Looking at the crowd of people peering out the windows, Nick felt his stomach gurgle in worry. He realize that not only was he in a movie scenario, he knew which movie it was... A Stephen King book had been adapted into a movie, a movie called The Mist!
Nick remembered that while there had been supernatural creatures, like giant mosquitos and acid spiders, the major conflict came from the people themselves.
This very same crowd of people would be swept into the doom preaching of a demented Catholic woman and begin killing each other, they'd even attempting to sacrifice the kid he heard speaking earlier!
Nick couldn't allow that, so he immediately got to work.
"Everyone, silence please! I am an NIA Agent, my name Nicholas Valentine, please may I have your attention." Nick flashed his badge.
While he was a Special Agent tasked with hunting anomalies, it was a very secretive government branch that couldn't be known to the public, and so he was issued a standard NIA agent badge.
Nick's voice was loud and authoritative, it cut through the anxious whispering of the crowd as Nick spotted a few military members in the crowd. He knew the reason thks mist rolled out is because of a government expirement gone wrong, but Nick had no reason to explain that and rile the crowd up.
"While I have no idea what is going on, it is best to take this as a chemical attack by an oppressive force. I ask all of you to remain calm as help is most certainly on its way." The man who first ran into the store with a bloody head looked at Nick with anger.
"This wasn't no chemical attack, I breathed that mist in just fine! Something attacked me in the mist, a physical being scratched my skull!" The man lifted his hand up to prove his point; two long scratches were on his scalp, and he bled profusely.
The crowd began to murmur, the panic began to rise, but Nick tried to dispel their worries.
"While I personally don't believe such a tale is true, it's best to take precautions. We'll lock the door and stack objects against the windows! Now!" After he finished speaking, an employee with a ring of keys quickly went to the front and locked the doors.
The entire front of the store was plate glass windows, and so all of the people began stacking objects like dog food and aisles against the door. Remembering a big part of the movie where insects saw into the store, Nick realized he had to cover the windows with something.
Taking a roll of packing tape and some newspaper, Nick and a few volunteers began covering the entire window in paper to prevent anything from looking into the store and seeing them.
As the group worked, cliques began to form within the people. Brent Norton was a part of a group of skeptics, they knew the mist wasn't poisonous, as it already would've seeped into the store and killed everyone if it was. As for the possibility that some strange animal resided in the mist that attacked people, the skeptics didn't even entertain that stupid idea.
"Stacking dog food? I didn't think that cooked food pellets were the kryptonite of monsters from Planet X," Brent joked, the people in his clique smiling trying to hide their nervousness.
"Dog food will do nothing. There's no defense against the will of God. There's no court of appeals in hell. The end times have come, not in flames but in mist..." the town religious nut, Ms. Carmody yell out! She was about to say more but Nick wuickly cut her off.
"This isn't the end times or the will of God; this is just another tribulation that life had thrown at us all. We will survive and grow stronger, like humans always do!" Nick's confident voice rang through the store, cutting through the womans rants.
Seeing that she was about to speak out again, Nick got in front of the woman face and stared deeply into her eyes. The height difference was over a foot and Nick's eyes bore into the womans, she felt like she was being stared down by a carnivorous predator.
"Please do not rile the crowd up, another outburst like that again and ill have no choice but to arrest you for public disturbance" the woman turned around in a huff and walk away, cursing Nick under her breath.
As the woman walked away, Nick looked out at the Mist pressing up against the glass through a tiny gap in the dog food. Taking a piece of newspaper, he shoved it into the gap and blocking out the last viewing spot in the barricade.
With these people survival guaranteed, his mind could finally focus on something else important.
'While I certainly didn't plan for this, this is most definitely an opportunity to absorb a mist monster and grow stronger! Thankfully, I still have telekinetic control over my car!'