It felt real. Everything: the pain, the end of the world, the fear. It took him a while to recover. An entire shower and time to think.
"That had to rank in the top-most realistic dreams I've ever had." He dropped his head in the spray of ice-cold water. All the better to wake him up. "Thank god it was just a dream, though. What even was that thing?"
He stepped out of the shower, cleaning himself up a bit. He elected not to go to sleep in his day clothes again. He stepped into the bedroom. "Chosa. I had the wildest dre—" She wasn't there. "Huh... I guess I knew that. Maybe I should just go to bed early tonight." The time was twenty past midnight. "Well, relatively early."
He awoke feeling somehow less refreshed than he did in his dream. "Maybe it was one of those waking dreams or something." He stepped into the kitchen for a drink.
"Late night again, Tibby?" He stared at Chosa, calmly typing on the laptop, not looking up to notice the confusion on his face.
"Déjà vu."
"What is?"
"Nothing…" He poured his orange juice into a glass. "When'd you get in last night. I didn't hear you come in."
"Late enough. But I doubt you'd notice anything as intensely as you stare into those games all night."
"Don't act like they're all bad. They teach me to be perceptive. Think on my toes. Besides, I went to bed early last night."
"Early is what? 4am?"
"Shut up," he teased.
She hopped up, teasing him back with a kiss on the cheek.
"What was that for?" T'balt asked.
"Because you look especially clean today. You're not planning to go out and see another lady, are you?"
"Are you kidding? I'd die for you, apparently."
"Don't be dramatic. I think those video games are getting to your head."
"Yeah, maybe."
"By the way, don't forget the electric is due this week. I don't want to come back to a cold, dark house again."
T'balt paused a moment, wanting to try something that just stuck out in his memory.
"Why not? That we have to cuddle for warmth."
"Uh huh. What use are you if you can't even keep the lights on?"
"...Right."
"Are you doing alright?" She cupped his cheek. "You look a little lost. I didn't think I used any big journalist words this time."
"No, it's fine. I'll make a few deliveries and take care of it."
"Oh. Are you short this month?"
"Yes. I am?" He raised an eyebrow.
"Was that a question or a statement?"
"No, I am. So I'll make some deliveries… as soon as you… go."
Chosa tilted her head, eyes squinted in utter mind dysfunction. "Oo… kay. Well, my friend is here. So I guess I will go then. Be back in a couple hours."
T'balt quietly watched her go, trying to piece his head around the intense amount of déjà vu happening. "I must be going a little crazy," he said, driving to the All One Burger. He tuned the radio on. Nighthawks over the hammerheads four to zip.
"Everything can't be the exact same, can it?"
He pulled into the drive-through, kindly regarding the worker at the window. He stared intently at the bag that was handed to him.
"Is there something wrong, sir?" the young boy asked.
"Umm... you didn't by chance forget the fries, did you?"
There was a moment where the boy seemed to forget his brain, and real-life ellipses appeared over his head.
"Please god. Please," T'balt sang in his head.
"Oh, right. I guess I did. Sorry about that, sir. I'll have that out for you in a moment."
T'balt didn't bother delivering the food. He immediately went straight home, nearly crashing into his mailbox. He rushed to the basement of his home and searched for the handgun his grandparents had locked down there. "This is crazy, right. I'm crazy. There's no way I suddenly have the power to see the future."
He sat on his balcony, hand twitching, revolver in his lap. "There's no way this really happens. I've got to be insane."
The skyline was as still as could be, not a bird or leaf disturbed. Not a mile of anything unordinary. But that excruciating feeling in his stomach wouldn't stop churning.
He heard a car door shut. "Chosa!" he yelled sharply. He sprinted down the stairs. Stumbling once he hit the last step, letting the gun bobble in his hands.
Chosa jumped back in instinctual fear. "What the hell is happening? Since when did you have a gun?" She pocketed a hand in her handbag just in case she needed to use her pepper spray. T'balt waved his hands in the air too late to realize his look of insanity.
"Sorry. My granddad kept it for emergencies. But that's not the point. We have to go."
"Go where?"
"Far away. I don't know."
"Can you sit down for a moment, please?"
"No. Look, this is gonna sound crazy, but I think I got a vision of the future."
"A vision of the future?"
"Right. In like two minutes, the whole world's gonna end, and I'm gonna get killed by a giant deer monster if we don't leave right now." Chosa squinted, and T'Balt stood absolutely still, waiting for her to realize the severity of the situation.
Chosa was unrelenting in her stare, almost like she would've punched him in the throat if he wasn't holding a pistol. She started rummaging through her purse.
"What are you doing?" T'balt said.
"I'm calling the police."
"Right. No. You need bigger. You need the army."
"You need an ambulance."
"No. What? Wait."
"Look at yourself. Waving a handgun, screaming about an apocalypse, and claiming that you can see the future. I'd think this was a prank, but you were never that funny. So sit down!" she commanded with a fierceness he'd never seen in her before. The stiffness of the command made him rethink himself.
"Maybe I have gone a little too far. Right, I think I do need to sit down."
Chosa put the phone away. For now, the danger had sat down on the couch and put the revolver down. Chosa swiped it to get it far away from him.
"Good," she said, still weary. " Now, where did you get all these crazy ideas… is that a tattoo? Did you go on a bender last night or something?"
"I don't have any tattoos."
"Then what's this black mark on the back of your neck?"
Feeling the back of his neck, there was a strange lump in the shape of a circle. It didn't feel like a tattoo. More like a burn scar. "What the heck is that?"
And that's when the rumbling came. The house shook with the same intensity as before. And the two of them tried to hold their balance. But Chosa, now with a revolver in her hand, went straight to the floor, and the sound of a shot cracked off, ringing their ears. Then the shaking stopped.
"Are you okay?" T'balt yelled.
"What was that!?" Chosa yelled.
It was the end of the world, T'balt thought to himself. That was the earthquake. The same one from the dream. The exact same one, which meant everything else was the same, too. He rushed to his front door. A man in running gear was crawling on the cracked street as fire started to bloom like red flowers.
Then there was the deer creature, stalking and searching for prey.
"Where are you going?" Chosa's voice didn't reach him.
He sprinted to help the man, trying to pick him up before the worst happened. But it was already too late for him. "Please… help me…" Blood was spilling from both of his legs. Or what was left of the sick, tangled mess. "Pleeeese."
As horrified as he was, T'balt tried to lift the man to his shoulders, but as he tried, the last breath left the human being in his arms.
"Damn it. No." But the time for mourning was short. The beast had already found its new target. T'balt took off running back towards the house.
No. He remembered how that ended—Him relieved of the weight on his shoulders. The beast with its flaming sword brought down its blade like an executioner's axe. T'balt narrowly dodged as a blanket of orange light exploded from the impact. It burned his clothes. But not enough to slow him down. But where to run?
Then he heard Chosa yelling, "IN THE CAR!" The passenger door of his car flung open, stopped in his excavated front yard—Chosa at the wheel. He dove in without a second thought, and she curb stomped the gas pedal. The monster chased, but not even with its giant frame could it reach 80 mph.
Chosa drove like an expert getaway driver, eyes focused and foot never letting up.
"The gun... do you have the gun?" T'balt said, frantic.
"No. I dropped it during the earthquake. T'balt, what the hell is going on?"
"I'm supposed to know?"
"You're the one who can see the damn future."
He tried to think, but this was the end of his memory. Not memory. This was very different than what he experienced in his dream. Simply because this time he was at least partially aware of what was going to happen. But he had no clue how that was possible.
"Well…" Chosa's eyes were fixed with impatience.
"I don't know, Chosa."
She took her eyes off the road to get a measure of him. There wasn't an ounce of warmth there, but suspicion and turmoil. He couldn't blame her. Everything they had just seen was the most outlandish event that had probably ever occurred in human history.
"Aliens… maybe," T'balt finally said.
Her initial reaction was to blow the comment off, but she realized they were no longer in a position to dismiss crazy notions. They were running from a ten-foot-tall deer monster with a fire sword after all. "And what do we do about aliens?"
"We get to safety. We find help." It was what he would do in any other emergency.
The car brakes screeched, and T'balt was thrust forward into the dashboard.
They were stopped.
As it turned out, it didn't seem like anywhere was safe. The monster they left behind seemed to have a family of a hundred, haunting the highways in front of them. Traffic was at a standstill because people were getting snatched from their cars and eaten alive.
Deer, Wolves, creatures on two legs, to four, to ten were on a rampage. A sea of devils, grumpkins, monsters… nightmares. T'balt's eyes widened in disbelief at what they were seeing.
Out of seemingly nowhere, a creature a hundred feet tall exploded through a skyscraper, crumbling it into a pile of rubble and flame. It looked like a heavenly angel with black eyes and a trident of the gods. It was in the middle of a fight. The impact of its fall shattered the window of his car, slashing his arms with frenzied glass.
T'balt hardly felt the pain, his adrenaline still high. And he was too focused on the laughter. It was a strong course and distant laughter. It came from a spec soaring across the sky. No bigger than a human. The giant angel regained itself only to go down again, crumbling the earth where it fell. The laugh came again, and T'balt couldn't believe his eyes.
It was a man. He was fighting that thing.
"Look out!" Chosa yelled.
Without realizing it, T'balt stuck his head out the window, gawking at the sight in the sky. And also without realizing a six-armed wilderbeast took a bite of his head, leaving Chosa to scream next to a corpse.
Then he was back in his room again, shrieking at the phantom pain in his head.
"You died," his game said. And everything was calm again.
The time was 12am.
"I've got to warn people."