Apocalypse: Regression

Five emails, fourteen missed calls, and twenty-two texts awaited Nick on his phone’s notification system when he finally gave up and decided to check the muted electronic device.

“Do you have to?” Seo-ah grumbled beside him on the couch as she paused the TV. They had just spent the entire morning cuddled up together, watching anime and eating the most American-Korean attempt at a snack Seo-ah had ever made: her signature fried rice paper rolls.

Nick took a moment to consider whether he “had to” or not before putting the phone back down and reaching for a roll instead.

“That’s my cutie,” Seo-ah said, grinning in victory as she unpaused the show and grabbed one of the rolls too before adding, with her mouth full of food, “and I told you you’d love these.”

“I never said I wouldn’t . . .” Nick protested as he bit into it. It was such a simple food that he didn’t know how anyone could dislike it. It was just seaweed topped with avocado, rice, and salmon, wrapped in rice paper that was then covered in sesame seeds before being quickly pan-fried until the rice paper had that perfect, delectable crunch. Then it was dipped in gochujang sauce for the final touch: spiciness.

There really wasn’t a lot that could go wrong with it. Chili, salmon, and avocado was a well-proven combination, but he still thought it was adorable how proud Seo-ah was of her “invention.”

“It’s the crunch from the rice paper, isn’t it? The crunchiness really gives it the perfect mouthfeel, you know? People ignore that too often, and . . .” Seo-ah took on a food blogger persona as she started talking about the dish she had made, but Nick found himself unable to focus on what she was saying as he slowly chewed the food. The only thing he could think of, despite her best efforts to distract him from the subject, was the dream he had the night before.

If, as he believed, it wasn’t just a dream but the Black Witch showing him another vision, then he had seen her reality, her struggles, and her fight with the demons and dragons. And they mirrored his own. To make matters even worse, if her visions were true, then the goalpost he had to overcome was astronomically higher than anything he’d imagined based on his past life experiences, where he’d never faced a world-ending army of dragons powerful enough to destroy humanity’s greatest champions with ease.

As thoughts of the dream continued to swirl in his head, he was reminded of the smell of burnt flesh that had filled the air in an instant as one of the dragons unleashed a single breath attack strong enough to kill her seasoned soldiers, roasting them alive in their armor, their screams filling his mind as he did his best to shake off the vision.

Unfortunately, like an earworm that couldn’t be extracted as it played on repeat, the moment one part of the vision began, the second followed. The wailing turned to silence the moment the Black Witch escaped back through the rift, barely salvaging her own life as the smell of human barbecue clung to her hair and clothes, crawling into her nose and gnawing at her senses as she, in full panic, rushed to perform a ritual.

He could hear the crack of the rift in his head, louder than all the screams combined, and feel the cold air on her skin as she walked back through the portal. The hellfire that had been the rift’s first landing destination, the world of dragons, had changed to an arctic wasteland, like the kind of frozen winterland where vulpes, the monsters that had popped out of Nick’s own rift, might come from.

Those events and the sight of that frozen world the Black Witch had seen still lingered in his mind, stopping him from even getting close to feeling drowsy as he had lay there, replaying the scene over and over in his head.

So, feeling anxious and just wanting to do something, he was wide awake at 9:04 a.m., counting the minutes until the 10:00 a.m. meeting as he did his best to try and enjoy the show with Seo-ah. The guild, collectively, had decided that after spending an entire night fighting, pushing themselves to the limit, and saving the city, they needed to get out of the emergency workers’ way before joining the search and clean-up efforts in the morning.

Yeah . . . yeah . . . I can wait . . . 55 minutes, Nick thought, watching the phone change from 9:04 to 9:05. “Any word on if Jennifer ever found her Uncle Girard?” Nick asked, blurting out the question as he suddenly remembered his unnerving conversation with the man.

“What?” Seo-ah paused her show again, looking over at Nick as if he had just stepped on the dog’s tail. “What happened to not working until the meeting?”

“I just . . . I’m just worried, and . . .”

“You can’t get it out of your head?” Seo-ah sighed, closing her eyes for a moment before opening them, looking into his as she took his hand, and gave him a tight-lipped smile. She looked like she was holding back a few words. “Okay, this is going to keep eating at you, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I mean, how is it not eating at you?”

“Well, it’s been on my mind all morning too,” she admitted, “but I’ve also seen first hand, watching my dad obsess over work even when he got home, how bad it is if you can’t train yourself to separate work and home life. Do you know how stressful it was not just for him but for everyone else in the family when he came home and obsessed over work every night? And it’s not like it helped him get a single step closer to the promotion he wanted. He just ate years off his life for nothing. No one wants to see you go through that, Nick.”

“But this isn’t just work, this is an emergency. This is the Apocalypse. This is . . .” Nick began to argue his case, why this day was different, but even as he spoke, he could tell from her stern face that the argument just wasn’t working on Seo-ah.

“Nick, it’s always going to be an apocalyptic event with us. That’s our thing: to stop the end of the world. Between portals breaking, rifts forming, heirship competitions threatening our way of life and my family’s safety, something is always happening. You need to take a deep breath, turn off your brain, and learn to unwind during the downtime. When 10:00 a.m. strikes, we’ll roll up our sleeves and get right to it, okay?” she told him, and whether it was the kind voice she spoke with, the words themselves, or just how cute he thought she was, he bought into it.

“Fine, fine. I won’t mention it until 10:00 a.m.,” he replied, giving up once more as he leaned back on the couch and tried his best to follow her advice.

When the clock struck ten, or rather when his phone alarm told him it was finally ten, he couldn’t have been more relieved as he instantly popped out of his seat and rushed to his bedroom to throw on his fancy Monstrous Warder's Suit and Sandals of Hermes. He hesitated between the two pieces of headgear in his inventory, the Crown of the Mountaintop and the Crown of the Gallows. He finally equipped the Crown of the Mountaintop, not wanting to deal with the baggage of heirship and his grandfather’s death associated with the other—for now.

“Fine, fine, I’ll get moving too,” Seo-ah said with a laugh, shaking her head as she hit a few buttons on her stat screen to instantly transform into her own gear, having used the inventory slots she’d received every 10 levels for her equipment rather than the weapons that Nick often stored in his. She picked up her spear and shield, which had been resting by the door, and threw them into her inventory where her gear had been a moment ago. “You ready, slow poke?”

Nick nodded an affirmative as he adjusted his Crown of the Mountaintop and opened the door for Seo-ah. “Shall we?”

When they reached the lobby, Nick found everyone waiting for them, dressed, prepped, and ready to go as they sat in the lobby of the guild building. Topaz, their resident alchemist, was twirling her blonde hair with one hand while scrolling through her phone with the other next to Maria who was doing roughly the same thing. Adele was chatting with her mentor, an old priest from the church, Father Pietro, who had taught her healing and been a major help during the rift break the night before. Christina, their rapier-wielding speed queen and Reggie, the resident forgemaster, were having a heated debate about StarCraft II and whether it was better than the latest game by roughly the same creators. It was such a loud argument that it was clearly bothering Allen, the guild’s artificer, who was working on his favorite drone: ViVi.

Allen was looking more engrossed in his work than usual, but that was probably because his mother was openly flirting with Mr. Walters as the old gym owner’s adult kids stuffed their faces with her delicious breakfast foods—at least, Lou and Arnold, the older and younger of the brothers, were. Elizabeth, Mr. Walters’ daughter, looked a little zoned out as her eyes were staring at the gym section on the other side of the guild’s first floor the same way a cat might stare at an unsuspecting mouse, ready to pounce, until she caught eye of Nick and Seo-ah.

“They’re here,” she told everyone.

“If you guys were all down here, ready to go, why’d you insist on me waiting until ten?” Nick asked, looking at his phone to make sure it was still ten, and he hadn’t gotten the time wrong. “Where are our two main mages, Spencer and Clarissa? For that matter, where are the other members? What about our Abyssal Knights?”

“They’re already on site. Me, Kaylee, her sister Lindsey, and Lorenzo all drove them down there since Old Faithful wasn’t big enough to get everyone there in under a half dozen runs. You all are the only ones not yet there,” Will, the Daedalus Guild’s main driver, who had just been leaning against the door to the building, said. “Since Spencer and Clarissa are both good with earth magic, they worked an extra shift through the night with the rescue workers, using their magic to clear roadways and lift debris too heavy for people.

“He’s probably avoiding you to try and avoid the lecture,” Maria remarked with a laugh, reminding Nick that he still owed Spencer a good chewing out for the way he had engaged the enemy before orders were given, blowing their cover and causing them to fail to spring a proper trap on the dragonkin the night before.

“Yeah, he knows he messed up,” Elizabeth said, nodding, her famous medicine ball appearing in her hands as she did. “It’s important that we discipline him properly when he gets back.”

“Wait, seriously? Then we need to get rolling as quickly as possible!” Nick insisted, expecting them to all hop up and get moving immediately.

“Nick,” Mr. Walters began with a sigh, “you just lost your grandfather. I know you weren’t close to the man, but family is family. No one will fault you even if you want to stay here.”

“I may have just lost my grandfather, but other people lost family too.” Nick felt exasperated as he pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to collect his thoughts. “Look, let’s just get there, handle the clean up, and examine the rift after.”

“Are you sure?” Mr. Walters asked, everyone quietly watching Nick to gauge his response.

Allen’s mom gave Nick a warm smile. “Yeah, dear, I could just whip you up a big breakfast—”

Nick raised his hands, gesturing for everyone to stop.

“I appreciate it, Ms. Hughes, but no. I’d just like to get there as soon as possible and get as much work done as we can. I can’t imagine what the people who have lost loved ones, businesses, homes, or otherwise must be going through. We need to be there for them,” he said, firm in his resolve.

“Alright, then hop on in the Daedalus Mobile! I’ll get you all there in no time!” Will, seeming to be the only one excited about Nick’s decision, said as he opened the door. “Right this way, ladies and gents.”

“I’ll drive you down there if you want,” Ms. Hughes said to Mr. Walters, causing Allen’s eyebrow to twitch as she also put a hand on Mr. Walter’s back.

“Wait, wait, before everyone gets moving, there is one thing we need to talk about . . .” Nick hated doing it, but he had to stop them and tell them his plan. He wasn’t where he was because he was smart, and he wasn’t where he was because he was strong. They had gotten him every step of the way, so he owed it to them to tell them what he intended to do.

“What’s up, bro?” Reggie asked. “Why do you look just like you did when you came up with the crazy idea of just hammering that poison core into the steel?”

“Because I plan on doing something I shouldn’t,” Nick answered. “I want you all to know that the moment we’re certain we’ve done our part with the rescue efforts . . . I’m going to go through that rift. I need to see the other side.”

This caused everyone to hold their breath a moment as they stared at Nick like he’d just knocked over an expensive vase.

“Nick, are you sure you’re feeling alright? Do you really not need to take a day off and rest?” Mr. Walters said as he looked to Seo-ah as if she would be better able to confirm Nick’s soundness of mind and his commitment to walking into a rift.

Nick nodded. “Yeah. I’m sure I want to do this. I just wanted you all to know what was going to happen so that none of you would be caught unaware. Barring we find Steven somewhere or remnants of the Forebears of Ingenga, that rift is the only way we’re going to find out what’s happening, and what we can expect next.”

“But Nick . . . you said yourself that the giant vulpe we fought, the one that was able to take on two to three S-tier guilds on its own, wasn’t even the final and most powerful form of that monster type . . . What’s to say you won’t find a few of them or even a super version of it on the other side?” Allen asked as he looked down at his drone. “Why don’t we just start by sending ViVi through first.”

“That’s a good idea and a great place to start,” Nick agreed. “I’m only going to put my head through, and I can take ViVi so she can scout the area out. I’m not going to go wandering through the invading dimension on my own or even bring other people to their deaths. I just need to confirm the terrain.”

“Alright . . . as long as you’re taking precautions, we can help you with that,” Mr. Walters agreed.

“Good, then let’s go. We’ve got people to help and new dimensions to explore,” Nick said.