Neither Millie nor Junior spoke much for the next hour.
In that time, the condo was filled with the murmurs of Athena reading news alerts, the tones from Millie's phone as she bounced between forums and the staccato rhythm of Junior's fingers tapping against the couch in a thoughtless rhythm.
The world outside remained deceptively peaceful. But the headlines Athena read to Junior told a different story:
Emergency Measures Implemented on Galatea Island!
'Reclaimed' Survivor Tells How He Fought His Monstrous Attacker with Improvised Weapon.
Security Patrols Expanded. Confirmed 'Reclaimed' Now Totalling 22 Across Galatea!
Public Transit Temporarily Suspended. Citizens Advised to Remain Indoors Unless Conditions Are Unsafe.
Then Athena chimed softly. "Incoming call from contact: Esther Mallory."
Millie looked at Junior questioningly, but he, by contrast, sat upright immediately.
"Answer," he stated without hesitation.
There was a pause, then a subtle click as the call connected.
"Junior?" The voice on the other end was older, calm, and warm in a way that made his shoulders drop an inch. "It's Esther."
"Hi," he said quietly. "I'm glad you called. I . . ." he trailed off, throat suddenly tight.
"Oh, thank the gods," Esther breathed. "I should have called earlier, I know, but everything's been . . . it's been chaos here. I've barely had time to breathe. Classes were just starting when it happened, and the kids . . ."
Junior winced. He could only imagine. Just another school day with blue screens and mass hallucinations.
"It's okay," he said sympathetically, "I figured you'd be busy."
"Are you alright?" she asked, her voice tightening. "Truly alright?"
Junior hesitated. Esther's voice had always made him feel safer than he had any right to be. But there was a lot at stake right now.
"I'm alive," he said truthfully. "A little shaken, but I'll recover." He deliberately ignored his throbbing arm. He couldn't bring it up without explaining how he was wounded, and if those monsters only came for the Reclaimed . . . It would create too many questions he didn't want to answer over a phone call.
There was a moment of silence.
"I saw the news," Esther said finally. It was almost as if she could read between the lines of his silence. Which only made sense, given their history. "About the Reclaimed. About the . . . monsters. The government just enacted emergency protocols. There are police at the school and surrounding area. Police and Coast Guard, oddly enough, and heavily armed at that. They're doing door checks, sweeping every block. We can't let the kids leave, and they're not letting parents in. It's . . . tense."
Millie made a small, repressed noise from across the room. Junior could imagine what she was thinking. The advice she was eager to repeat.
Don't tell her.
He was already leaning in that direction. Not because he thought Esther would betray him, but because she wouldn't.
And because who knows who could be listening in right now. Why was he being so paranoid?
"Sounds even crazier than I thought," he said lightly. "I've been keeping a low profile, avoiding any excitement. I'm with a neighbour. We're keeping each other safe."
"I'm glad to hear it," Esther replied, but her tone suggested she didn't believe him entirely. "Junior . . . you know I'm here for you. Always."
Junior swallowed. His relationship with Esther was complicated, to say the least. This was their way of telling each other how much they cared, without so many words.
"I know. I'm here for you, too. Always," he replied, his throat tightening.
"There's something going on, and I don't think we're hearing the whole truth," Esther said. "Be careful who you talk to. Especially if . . . if something strange happened to you."
Junior's mouth was suddenly dry.
She didn't know. But she suspected. Was it just a parent's natural tendency to worry?
Or something more?
But he couldn't ask Esther what, if anything, she knew, for the same reason he couldn't tell her the truth about his experience.
Was he being too paranoid? Or not paranoid enough?
"I'll be careful," he said instead. Then added with what he hoped was a natural amount of concern given the circumstances: "When things calm down, let's meet and talk, okay? Let me know when you can get away."
Esther chuckled, but Junior's ears picked up the strain in her voice
"Unfortunately, I'm not sure we'll be seeing calm anytime soon. From what I'm hearing, the lockdown at the school is just the beginning."
An indrawn breath from Millie indicated she was just as concerned as he was by Esther's revelation.
"What does that mean, exactly?" Junior asked.
"I don't have any official details. Some of the staff overheard some chatter amongst the police. Others have contacts with inside information of their own. All I know is there's likely more to come, at least from the government. Gods know what this so-called System has in store for us."
Junior remembered that several of the alumni and parents at Saint Genevieve were wealthy or influential members of Galatean society. Technically, he supposed he should fit into the 'wealthy alumnus' category, but his situation was more legally murky than most.
Junior and Esther exchanged a few more pleasantries before Esther had to go and they ended the call.
A short time later, Achilles' head perked up and ears oriented to the doorway. Millie glanced over at his movement curiously, just as a knock came at the door.
Millie stood, alert. "Company."
Junior tilted his head. "I wasn't expecting anyone."
"Let's keep it that way." Millie moved quietly to stand beside the entrance.
The knock came again, more hesitant this time.
"Hello?" a voice called through the door. Male, uncertain. "Sorry to bother, just . . . checking in. They said we should check on our neighbours. Especially the vulnerable."
Millie glanced behind her at Millie. As if feeling her gaze, the man shrugged.
"I guess that's me," he said evenly.
"You know him?" she whispered.
Junior shook his head. "Only vaguely. Lives two doors down. We've exchanged hellos."
Millie frowned. "I'll handle it."
She cracked the door open, just enough to peer out. "Yeah?"
The man on the other side looked to be in his early thirties. Tall, slim, with tired eyes behind rectangular glasses. He flinched slightly at Millie's blunt tone.
"Sorry. Uh, just wanted to make sure Mr. Stoneberg was okay. I'm—uh—Reynard. From 802."
Millie glanced back at Junior, who nodded.
"He's fine," Millie said, then added with forced friendliness, "We're fine."
Reynard tried to peer past her into the condo. "Is there a reason you're keeping the door mostly shut?"
Millie didn't flinch. "You know, biohazard protocols and all that. Trying to limit exposure. We're being very responsible citizens."
Reynard sniffed. Then his nose wrinkled.
"What's that smell?" he asked. "It's kind of . . . fishy?"
Millie blinked. "Oh. Uh."
There was a pause. Then she grinned widely.
"It's the smell of our hot, sweaty, bedsheet marathon, my dude."
There was a beat of complete silence.
"Bedsheet marathon . . ?" Reynard frowned, perplexed at first. Then his expression quickly changed, and his cheeks burned scarlet. "Ah! Well . . . Sorry. I'll, uh . . . Glad you're okay. Have a good . . . yeah."
His retreating footsteps were fast and loud.
Millie shut the door with exaggerated slowness and leaned back against it, triumphant.
Junior groaned.
"I can't believe you said that."
"He was going to ask to come in!" she said, still grinning. "I panicked. And it worked!"
Achilles licked Junior's hand in sympathy as the man sighed. He got up to crack open the balcony window to help air the condo unit out.
The unit returned to uneasy silence.
Millie resumed her seat, still smirking.
"You think he'll report us?" Junior asked worriedly.
Millie snorted. "Not unless he wants to be known as the guy who knocked on a door mid-orgy. Pretty sure he'd rather die."
Junior chuckled weakly. Then his tone took a more serious turn as he switched topics to address the literal dead body in the room.
"I had Athena give me some advice on the disposal of a dead 'pet'. Everything should apply, except for the part about calling Animal Services." He added a bit more playfully: "You have any clue where we can dispose of a rotting carcass? Actually, will monsters rot? It smells bad enough now, I dread to be around if it gets worse."
Millie's mischievous smirk faded as well. Her face took a serious cast as well, and her voice matched Junior's mostly serious, but somewhat playful tone when she spoke.
"I might have a temporary solution. I bought one or two of the storage units in the basement and may or may not have filled them with . . . supplies. We can swap some out and bring some up to your place. Now that you're my follower, I have to make sure your place is properly stocked, too. Never know when the next real apocalypse could hit. The System Apocalypse may be a dud so far, but there's always the next Zombie Apocalypse." Millie shrugged with only one shoulder and chuckled darkly.
"You never know," Junior agreed with a wry grin. Then his voice softened. "Thanks, Millie. You've been a real lifesaver. Literally."
Millie smiled back and they exchanged a little more dark humour. Then the two of them got to work wrapping and bagging the monster's body. The experience was just as unpleasant as Junior had feared, but it was made more bearable with his new friend's help.
After nervously carting the body down the emergency stairwell - mercifully without encountering anyone - Millie unlocked one of the basement storage units. These units, accessed through the underground parking garage, were technically separate from the condos above and sold as optional add-ons. Junior hadn't bought one, like many residents who preferred to avoid the legal entanglements they could cause. Ownership rules meant they couldn't be sold to outsiders, and buyers unwilling to bundle them with a unit often triggered messy resales or predatory buybacks from the condo board. Junior had opted out. Thankfully, Millie hadn't.
So there Junior was. Hiding a dead body with a woman he'd just met and who'd already told his neighbour they'd been getting frisky together enough to fill his condo with a noticeable odour, while the government initiated an island-wide lockdown.
He supposed it was just that kind of day. Hopefully, things would calm down later.
/ - \ - / - \
While Junior and Millie spent the rest of the day listening to updates and speculating on the System, things did calm down enough for them to seem otherwise normal. They'd had a meal, shared a little bit more about themselves, and generally made the best of a bizarre situation, blue screens and lockdowns and all.
By the time evening came around, Millie returned to her condo after they promised to catch up on the happenings tomorrow. Junior then took Achilles for a walk and returned home to settle in for a night's rest.
An unknown time later, Junior's dreams took a dark turn. At first, he didn't even realize he was dreaming. He simply found himself on a beach with blood red sand next to an ocean with blood red water under a blood red sky.
Some people who are visually impaired still have dreams where they can see, especially those who lost their sight due to misfortune or disease at some point during the course of their lives. But even those born without sight sometimes reported dreams which incorporated visual senses, from one degree to another.
Junior wasn't normally one of those people. Until the intervention of the System, he'd never seen anything, dreaming or awake.
So the fact that he could now see the crimson beach and sky should have been strange, perhaps alarming, but at the very least interesting. Instead he just accepted it in the way of dreams, with only a vaguely niggling suspicion in the fuzzy background of his sleeping mind that things weren't quite right.
But Junior's dream self wasn't focused on marvelling at his ability to see. Instead, his eyes were drawn to the other occupants of the beach. Numberless red-toned monsters with shifting limbs and hazy features were swarming towards him. So he brandished his sword (because, of course he had a sword) and laid into them with a vengeance. He wasn't exactly sure what he was doing with the sword as he'd never seen, let alone wielded, one. But it didn't matter. The endless and ever-growing tide of monsters fell before him in droves. Sometimes more than one at a time, or even without any direct impact from his sword (or was it a spear?), despite how little sense that made.
Then a voice, distorted but filled with hurtful malevolence, shook the very sky.
"You are not my son!" the voice thundered.
And suddenly Junior's spear (or was it an axe?) disappeared as if it never existed, and the monster horde was abruptly replaced by a single, gigantic one.
The monster loomed over Junior, making him feel like a young child before a wrathful parent. Junior turned to run, but no matter how hard he tried, he never seemed to move further away.
Then the monstrosity (which was now abruptly even larger, absolutely titanic) lazily reached down with a malformed hand and picked the tiny, snack-sized Junior up. It unceremoniously dumped him into its cavernous mouth in a single gulp, with Junior screaming all the way as he fell into the bottomless depths
Junior woke from his nightmare, lurching upright in bed, gasping and flailing.
His pounding heart started to slow as his breathing returned to normal. He reflected on the nightmare, comparing it to hallucination, or vision, or whatever it was, from the System. Now that he was awake and clear of mind, the differences were obvious, both good and bad. Being able to move in the dream and not being chewed on by a real monster when he woke up were definite pluses. On the other hand, not being fully lucid had been even scarier in some ways, at least while in the throes of the nightmare itself.
That said, in the way of nightmares, he could already feel the fright seeping away along with details of what exactly had happened. Compared to the System's . . . visions, which remained as clear and immediate in his mind as any real memory.
A whine from beside Junior's bed roused him from his introspection. He oriented towards the sound and started to reach out his hand to his canine companion's familiar presence, when he froze. The final grogginess of sleep and the distraction of the nightmare were suddenly and abruptly pushed aside.
"What in the name of . . ." Junior mumbled, stunned.
The first thing Junior had belatedly noticed was that the omnipresent blue screen had gained a new line. Actually, it had gained an entirely new section.
A little box had appeared to the right of the usual blue screen of text. The box had the simple but baffling title: Aperosis. Beneath the title was a number: 2.37%.
The second thing Junior noticed was that he could see something other than the blue screen.
It was blurry, indistinct, and he couldn't really judge its form or colour very well. But to someone who had never seen anything in his life aside from the recent exposure to blue screens and horrible nightmares, it was definitely noteworthy.
Then the indistinct blur shifted on one end. And at the exact same moment, Junior heard Achilles whine again. He wasn't exactly sure, as he lacked experience in judging such things, but his instincts told him that the whine was coming fromtheblur.
Which seemed to imply that, Junior, who'd been born without the ability to see, was somehow seeing his faithful dog for the first time in his life.
"What the what?" he blurted rather intelligently.