Reidar gripped the steering wheel and watched the highway stretch ahead through the windshield. He finally had a free day after a week of endless work.
Hearing his phone buzz, he turned and saw the caller's name. It was Martha, his wife.
"Hey, honey. Just wanted to check in," she said. "Where are you?"
"I'm about halfway to Creamont. Traffic's been light, luckily."
"Good. Your parents will be happy to see you. It's been what, three months?"
"Something like that." He changed lanes to pass a slow-moving truck. "The meetings went better than expected. Figured I might as well use the day off to visit them."
"How did it go?"
"They accepted the proposal, and we closed the deal."
"Yay! I'm happy for you, honey! You worked hard for this! Hold on, someone wants to talk to you."
Reidar heard shuffling sounds, then his eight-year-old son's voice came through the speakers.
"Dad! When are you coming home?"
"Tomorrow evening, buddy. Are you being good to Mom?"
"Yeah! I helped her make cookies today. We saved you some!"
Reidar smiled. "That sounds great! Make sure you listen to your mother while I'm gone, okay?"
"I will. Love you, Dad."
"Love you too, buddy. See you soon."
Martha's voice returned. "He's been asking about you all week. I think he misses having you around for—" She paused.
"What?"
"I… I suddenly feel… weird? As if… I just got hit with this wave of tiredness. Like I could fall asleep standing up."
Reidar blinked hard, because as she was saying those words, he started feeling that too.
His eyelids felt heavy, as if someone had attached weights to them. The white lines on the road seemed to blur.
"I—I feel it…too," he said.
"M—mom?" Their son's voice sounded distant over the phone. "I think I'm not…"
Then there was the sound of someone tumbling down.
"Marcus?" Martha's voice was filled with worry.
She clearly went to her son.
"Martha?! What is going on?"
She then returned to the phone.
"Reidar… there is something… wrong with M—arcus…"
Reidar fought to keep his eyes open. His hands felt loose on the steering wheel. "Honey… I… I need to pull over. What about Marcus?"
"He looks like… like he is sleeping… I… I need to sit down…"
The exit ramp appeared ahead. Reidar guided the car off the highway. His vision wavered. The simple act of turning the wheel required massive effort.
"Martha? You still there?"
The line turned silent except for the sound of Martha's breathing, which grew slow and deep.
"Martha?"
No response. The woman fell asleep, but while he too was feeling sleepy, Reidar was trying to resist. That had probably been for good, because what Reidar saw then made his blood chill.
[CRITICAL SYSTEM ALERT: Failsafe Mechanism containment failure detected. Mana overflow imminent.]
[EMERGENCY PROTOCOL ACTIVATED: Last Will Framework started.]
[WARNING: All residents must seek immediate shelter. Terraforming mechanisms will begin in T-minus 60 seconds. Find a safe location immediately. Environmental restructuring will begin momentarily.]
Reidar tried to process the words, but they made no sense. His mind felt wrapped in cotton. Yet the voice remained clear, distinct from his thoughts.
It was all too ominous. What the fuck did all that mean? He was unable to think clearly in that situation. His thoughts were slow, despite his efforts to stay awake and pay attention to what was going on. His process of thought grew increasingly simple and slow.
There was just one thing he understood. If he could see notifications and hear a voice talking, as if he were in a video game, then whatever was happening had to be something serious.
One doesn't immediately start hearing voices without reason. At best he was mentally ill; at worst, what that thing was saying was real.
However, his weariness made him believe he was unconscious, or worse, hallucinating. He couldn't believe his own thoughts, eyes, and ears, and he was too fatigued to even think about the matter properly.
He forced his eyes open and gripped the steering wheel. The countdown continued in his head. Two minutes. That was how long he was going to last.
Reidar was going at full speed, hoping to find a place to safely hide, as the—whatever that thing was—suggested.
The ground beneath his car rumbled. The sixty seconds the thing mentioned were over.
Reidar gripped the steering wheel tighter as the asphalt started to buckle and shift. The road surface rippled, sending vibrations through his seat and shaking his car with rattling force.
He pushed the accelerator, but the car lurched as the asphalt rose and fell in impossible waves.
The grass along the roadside erupted upward. Blades shot upward in seconds, turning from lawn height to waist-high stalks. Trees that had been sprouting moments before stretched toward the sky, their trunks growing longer and thicker.
The road itself began to stretch and grow. What had been a straight section now curved and twisted. The lanes widened, then narrowed, then split into multiple paths that hadn't existed before, with dirt and plants of various types growing in between.
If earlier Reidar was not sure about what was happening or if what the message said was true or simply a hallucination, but there was no doubt now that what was happening was real. It was having effects that his body could feel all too clearly for that to be a hallucination.
Reidar steered left to avoid a crack that opened in the asphalt, but the crack followed his movement, spreading like a snake.
A massive oak tree burst from the ground directly ahead. Its roots tore through the concrete, sending chunks of debris flying. Reidar swerved hard to the right, his tires screeching on the asphalt. The car tilted as the road beneath him rose at a steep angle.
He was driving uphill now, though the highway had been flat moments before. The engine strained against the slope. Behind him, the road he had just traveled crumbled into a huge ravine that formed in seconds. There was no going back.
Vines erupted from the shoulders of the road, thick as his arm and growing fast enough to see their movement.
They reached across the pavement like grasping fingers. One wrapped around his side mirror and tore it clean off. Another scraped against his passenger window, leaving green streaks on the glass.
The steering wheel fought against his grip as the road surface continued to change.
"Where the fuck is that Gas station?"
What had been smooth asphalt became rough stone, then soft earth, then back to some kind of crystalline material that sparkled in the passing lights. His tires struggled for traction on each new surface.
Then the wind started getting chaotic. Lightning flashed, and thunder roared. It started to rain, while the forest now surrounded him on both sides. It wasn't there earlier.
The alterations showed no sign of stopping. Every surface, every plant, and every structure changed, grew, and shifted.
The world remade itself around him while he drove through the chaos, fighting to maintain control of his vehicle in an environment that no longer followed natural laws.
Not even 10 seconds later, he saw it in the distance. The gas station appeared in the distance. Reidar pushed the accelerator and pulled into the parking lot.
He was barely able to get out, but he managed to reach the glass doors as the ground trembled beneath him.
Reidar didn't know if going inside while earthquakes ravaged everything was a good idea; it was just that it suddenly started to hail.
The chunks of ice were as big as watermelons, meaning that if he got hit, his head would blow up. Reidar decided to risk it and dashed inside anyway.
Inside, fluorescent lights hummed over rows of snacks and drinks. A clerk stood behind the counter, swaying on his feet with drooping eyelids. Two customers were lost in a daze as they wandered the aisles. They were still conscious, but not for long.
Reidar barely went to the back of the store, away from the large front windows. Behind the counter, there was a small storage room. He guessed that would keep him the safest.
Twenty seconds.
The drowsiness intensified. His knees buckled, and he slumped against a stack of cardboard boxes.
Reidar's vision blurred. His eyelids fluttered closed despite every effort to resist.
Five seconds.
[Last Will Framework Operational: Guardian System activated. Additional support is on the way. The Allied Worlds wish you good luck.]
Darkness claimed him, along with everyone else at the gas station. The last thing he heard was a deep rumbling that seemed to come from the earth itself.