Earth Dies

Two hours later, the trio arrived at Bridgette's house. The walk had been fairly boring, uneventful really. For the impending destruction of the world, it sure was starting off slow. Then again, maybe that was a good thing, Alice thought to herself. The house looked untouched as well, which was promising.

"Alice, you get the food from the pantry and cellar. Colin, you loot the garage. I've got to get some more stuff from my bedroom and then other household odds and ends."

Alice slowly walked through Bridgette's house. She'd been there hundreds of times over the years, had dinner with the Meyer family at this very table, laughed and cheered and cried with them. And now it was so empty, except for Bridgette who was quickly looting anything of sentimental value. The hidden cost of the apocalypse, under the fun of exciting powers and new love, really fucking sucked. They were all going to need therapy after this, if there even was an after this. And what was going to happen to the missing people? Would they come back, as if no time had passed for them? Were they living out an alternate version of the five years? Or were they gone? She didn't know and might never, and that was what really sucked - the not knowing.

She picked up a picture sitting on a bookshelf. She and Bridgette, arm in arm, on their first day of high school, dressed in what they thought were the coolest outfits, but now looked ridiculous four years later. She set it down and picked up another. Bridgette and her dad, standing in the middle of a river somewhere, fly-fishing. Another, Bridgette and her parents, smiling in front of their house. Alice said a silent prayer to anyone who might be listening that Bridgette's parents, and her own, were fine wherever they were. "I'll take care of your daughter, no matter what," she promised the photo. "I swear on my life, nobody will hurt her."

She set the photos down and walked into the pantry, sweeping canned goods off the shelves and into her magic storage ring. This was just too easy to loot - grocery stores would be going out of business in a heartbeat with magic like this around. Too bad there were no more grocery stores, let alone cities to put them in or the industry required to process and ship food. As Alice was finishing up in the pantry, Bridgette walked in with a grin on her face.

"You look like you're in a good mood? Got all your stuff?" Alice asked.

"Yep! Packed up a few of my favorite outfits, some other trinkets, and even a surprise or two. I think you'll like the surprise." She leered at Alice, who gulped nervously.

"What kind of surprise?"

Bridgette reached over and grabbed Alice's healing staff, licking up the wooden shaft toward the phallic shaped tip, then winked at Alice. "Oh, you know. Just some toys I happened to leave in my closet where my mom couldn't find them. I'll show you later, if you're good."

Alice blushed at the implication, clearing her throat. "Ahem, yes. Well, we'll see about that. Let's go check on Colin and get back to my place."

The two girls walked out and found Colin waiting for them out front. "I've got a few hundred feet of ropes, some swords - why did your dad even have swords? - and other melee weapons, climbing harnesses, tents, sleeping bags, and so on. He could have gone on a safari anywhere in the world with this gear."

"Oh, he never liked to talk about it much, but he used to be in the Army. It was before I was born, he spent several years running around the world doing special forces stuff, then he met my mom a little later in life, left the Army, and they moved out here and had me. About the only time I ever hear them talk about what he actually did is when they think I'm not around. He sometimes would wake up screaming from his memories and my mom would calm him down. He always downplayed whatever he did, talking about how most of his time was just sitting around and talking to new people in new languages and eating spicy food, but I think it was pretty rough. He had a bunch of interesting scars he refused to talk about, mostly calling them reminders of when he should have ducked. About the only thing I ever got out of it was a love for camping, self-defense training, and a lot of random lessons on small unit tactics and fire-and-maneuver drills. It's too bad the guns don't work anymore, they would have been useful."

"Huh ... after all these years, I don't think I ever knew that. He really did keep it private. Well, good for him - and glad he had this stuff. I'll have to tell him thank you, if we see him again."

Bridgette nodded sadly at that comment, Colin realizing he probably said too much. Alice stepped in to the gap, clearing her throat. "Okay, we all good to head back? Bridgette, you want to lock everything up?"

"Yea, good call. You think I should leave the keys hidden here, or bring them?"

"I'd say bring them. With the storage ring, it's not like you'll lose them, and burying them on the property would be iffy - too much risk of an animal digging them up or someone else looting them."

"Sounds good, be right back while I run around and lock it all up."

As the three walked out the driveway, back to the main road, Bridgette looked over her shoulder at the house she'd grown up in. Alice caught the look and a haunted expression on her friend's face. She hip checked Bridgette and leaned in, "Hey - you okay?"

"Yep, never better!" Bridgette grinned and playfully hip checked Alice back.

"You can be honest, you know. You're allowed to be sad."

Bridgette's smile vanished for a minute as she glanced at Alice. "I ... thank you. I don't like being sad, so I try to avoid thinking about it and overcompensate in the other direction. It'll be okay. We don't know what the next five years will hold, but I have to believe they're coming back. Anything else is too much, and so it's easier to ignore it." Alice hugged her friend tightly as they walked the next few paces together.

The walk back to Alice's house, which they were now getting familiar with, was going to take another two hours. As they walked past neighboring farms, idly chatting, Bridgette suddenly froze, holding her hand up. Something felt wrong, dangerous, but she wasn't sure what. She opened her mouth to warn her friends, but before she could say a word, a rock came flying out of the corn field to the trio's left, whistling past Bridgette's head and missing taking her in the temple by an inch.

"SHIT!" Bridgette screamed, as the other two bumped into her, knocking her off balance, stumbling forward. She clumsily reached across her back, trying to draw her greataxe from an over the shoulder sling. However, the axe fouled on the sling as she bumped into Colin, knocking him sprawling in the dust on the side of the road. Alice stepped backwards in horror, her hands raising to her mouth in horror as several misshapen creatures stepped from the field, two whirling slings above their heads again while the other three drew daggers.

Another rock flew from one of the creature's slings, this one slamming into Bridgette's chest as she was unable to react fast enough to get out of the way. "Ugh," she gasped, as the fist-sized rock knocked the wind out of her. Alice saw a small interface pop into the corner of her vision, with what appeared to be three health bars labeled with their names. Bridgette's was only partially full, and she focused and saw "18 of 23" overlaid on it.

The creatures snarled and seemed to yap back and forth as they spread out, with the sling-wielding creatures taking to the sides while the three with daggers slowly advanced.

Alice tried to creep forward to place a hand on Bridgette's back to cast a healing spell, but before she could reach her friend, Bridgette let out a roar and rushed toward the three creatures, taking her out of Alice's reach. Alice yelped as another rock came flying in toward her friend, this one missing wide again.

Colin picked himself up from the ground, looking around at the creatures. "I think I recognize these..." he muttered.

Bridgette yelled, "Think later, nerd boy. SMASH NOW!" and tried to punch the lead creature, giving up on untangling her axe. Her punch glanced off one of the creature's horns, not seeming to do any damage except skinning her knuckles. Bridgette yelped in pain, "Ow, fuck! That hurt my hand!" The two creatures alongside the one she attacked lunged in, coordinating their attacks to both stab at her with daggers. Bridgette managed to get most of her body out of the way, but took a nasty gash along the outside of her left arm.

Alice gasped as she saw the health bar tick down again, "13 of 23". She yelled "Colin, do something!"

Colin's hands and eyes began to glow as he turned toward the creatures, shouting "PEW PEW" and three darts flew from his hands at one of the creatures standing next to Bridgette. The creature was struck by all three darts, a spray of blood covering Bridgette as it crumpled to the road. "Fuck yea!" he yelled while pumping his arm, turning to look at Alice in triumph. "I just did magic in combat!"

"DO MORE!" Alice screamed at him, in a panic. Her mind was racing, trying to figure out how to help, why were these things trying to kill them, how to keep her friends alive.

Bridgette swung her fists again, aiming for the same creature in front of her. This time, she hit it solidly in the face, snapping its neck back and knocking it to the road where it lay still. At the same time, Colin unleashed another trio of darts, striking the third creature next to Bridgette, slaying it as well.

However, the two on the sides with slings both unleashed at the same time, one targeting Colin and the other Alice. Both rocks struck true, with Colin taking a nasty knock in the head that left him sprawled on the road again while Alice was struck in the arm, yelling in surprise and a little pain. She glanced at the tracker again.

<< Alice: 15 of 17 >>

<< Colin: 6 of 12 >>

Alice turned and ran over to Colin, who started trying to sit back up, blood streaming down his face. As she pressed her hand to the side of his head, she whispered "Heal" and watched the cut on his forehead seal back up.

<< Colin: 12 of 12 >>

She breathed a sigh of relief and turned to see Bridgette running at full speed toward the creature that had attacked Alice, screaming profanity as she went. "You nutless overgrown lizard, I'm going to rip those horns off and fuck your eye sockets with them for daring to touch her!" Alice blushed, then winced as Bridgette's attack failed dramatically as she tripped and landed at the creature's feet.

Alice pulled Colin to his feet, while the two creatures attacked again. The one standing over Bridgette reached into its belt for a dagger, which it fumbled and dropped at her feet in its hurry. The other launched yet another rock, this one impacting Alice on the side of the head. She felt a hard impact against her skull, at which point the world went blurry and the road punched her in the face as it came up to meet her.

<< Alice: 3 of 17 >>

Alice lay, staring at the road and watching a puddle of blood form in front of her face, as she heard Colin yell "PEW PEW" another time and Bridgette grunting and yelling profanity. Alice blinked a few times, then rolled over and stared at the sky. In a few seconds, Bridgette walked over and leaned down over her, concern etched on her face.

"You know I can see up your skirt, babe?" Alice remarked to Bridgette, the world feeling like it had fuzzy edges as her vision spun lazily.

"Oh, hah - I totally forgot about how short it was in the excitement of the fight ... and I skipped underwear this morning. Are you okay? That looked like quite the hit."

"I think so. Everything hurts and is spinny. Just give me a minute."

Alice could hear Colin walking around, poking each of the creatures to make sure they were dead. After another minute had passed, Alice felt slightly better and accepted Bridgette's hand as the girl pulled her up to standing.

Alice glanced at her status display.

<< Alice: 3 of 17 >>

<< Bridgette: 13 of 23 >>

<< Colin: 12 of 12 >>

Bridgette leaned in, "A, how hurt are you, really? I was ... am ... worried about you. That was a bad hit."

Alice poked herself in the side of the head, "Heal"

<< Alice: 11 of 17 >>

Alice then reached over and gently touched the side of Bridgette's face, "Heal."

<< Bridgette: 23 of 23 >>

"I'm ... okay. That was really close, but I'm a little better than half right now."

"HALF! After healing?"

"You know, if you stopped trying to beat things with your fists, you know you could view my status in the party interface."

"Oh, huh ... look at that. Hey, don't change the subject. How low did you get?"

Alice glanced to the side. "Three."

Colin blurted out, "You were down to three hitpoints? Shit."

"Yea, what the fuck, A! That's almost dead!"

"Don't blame me. You're the one who couldn't pull her axe and decided to try to punch things to death."

"That's only because you guys ran into me! I couldn't untangle it in time and figured punching was better than standing around like an idiot. And don't even get me started on you both standing there stunned with jaws wide open staring at those things like you were trying to eat the rocks they threw."

"Well, it all worked out in the end. We're alive."

"Okay, so heal yourself up and let's get going."

"I, uh ... can't. I only get three healing spells, and I used them all. One on each of us."

"You what?" Bridgette blanched, "That's not good. What happens if we get attacked again on the way home?"

Colin volunteered, "And I'm out of spells, too. I can shoot little fire bolts all day, but I'm out of missiles."

Bridgette looked between the two of them, dismay on her face. "We have no heals and no spells, and we still have at least another two miles until we get to Alice's house. If we get attacked like this again, we will fucking die."

Alice shrugged, starting to panic. "I don't know what to tell you. I had to heal the three of us. The only one I might have been able to avoid healing was you. Colin was at half, I was even less, and you were nearly half but generally have more health than either of us."

Colin glanced around at the corpses again. "I don't like the idea of staying here, though. Something could smell the dead bodies and come looking for more."

"Oh, hey, Colin - you were saying something about how you recognized them?" Alice asked, trying to distract the group from their spiraling panic with a change of topic.

"Yea!" Colin's face lit up. "These look like classic fantasy kobolds. They're small reptilian creatures, distantly related to dragons, typically ambush predators, individually weak but tend to stick in packs. They also like making traps and digging tunnels, although we didn't see either of those here. They also see great at night and generally don't like sunlight, so it is a little odd to see them out like this, but I guess the numbers made up for it."

Bridgette looked like she'd just tried to swallow a lemon whole. "Ambush predators who travel in packs, digging tunnels. We're in the middle of fucking corn country with eight foot tall stalks of corn bordering the road for the entire way home, and there could be tunnels everywhere. And if we stand around waiting too much longer, it'll be dark before we get home."

Alice sighed. "I think we need to try to make it home. There's no other good option."

"If we get ambushed again, they'll rip us to shreds with the slings before we can get out of range. We will die. I'm pretty sure there are no second chances in the fantasy apocalypse."

"If we stay here, we're going to die. I don't like this either, but we need to go."

Bridgette sighed, finally untangling her axe and holding it awkwardly in her hands. "Okay, we'll go. Say a prayer to Fi or anyone else listening that these are the only kobolds around today. And let's keep a few extra feet of separation between each of us, so we don't run into each other again. Maybe we can jog this and get it over faster."

With that, the three friends spread out across the road and started jogging at a comfortable pace back toward Alice's house.

 A few steps later, Colin's staff dragged on the ground, tangled with his feet, and he tumbled head first into the irrigation ditch on the side of the road with a painful thump. "What the fuck? How do people in fantasy stories run with a staff? This is so unrealistic."