I use my baseball bat to hit Elsa the cat in the head. It’s an involuntary action, and I have only the briefest moment to wonder if that’s because of my Fighter class, or simply because I’ve run out of fucks to give.

  But the cat isn’t knocked out. She’s clearly not as delicate as the dude from Wal-Mart. She lunges again, this time with a hiss, trying to get her abnormally long teeth into my skin.

  “What the heck!” Ryder cries from the ground, scrambling to get away from where Elsa’s first movement knocked him over. But Elsa passes right by Ryder. She seems to only have eyes for me.

  “The magic!” I say, swatting at the cat with the baseball bat. “Her gift from the magic sucks!”

  Elsa dodges my next swing, learning quick, and she comes barrelling right at my face. I have barely a moment to throw a hand out in front of me and punch before the cat can get at me. I’ve never thrown a punch in my life, but some instinctive nature knows what to do to not break my own hand. Elsa goes down with a yowl, and Ryder takes the moment to get onto his knees, stick his palm out, and focus.

  Elsa twists and climbs back up to her feet, shakes her head, and notices the exact moment the little fire pops into existence on Ryder’s hand.

  She lets out a meow that sounds like a scream and leaps again, this time at Ryder, paw raised and claws unfurled to slice at Ryder’s little ball of fire. Ryder pushes his hand out, palm forward, as Elsa gets close, and the little bead of fire flares to life. It gets to be about the size of an apple—no, a baseball—and Elsa lets out another shriek as her whiskers and half the fur of her face gets scorched. She lands awkwardly, scrambles to get her legs underneath her, and she bolts off in the opposite direction. There’s a slight trail of smoke that follows her.

  Ryder and I are both heaving, panting in the suddenly quiet development. My ears ring from the echos of our fight. He turns to look at me, his face pale and his eyes wide.

  “That was…”

  “So freaky,” I finish.

  But Ryder’s shaking his head. “So COOL!” In a move not unlike the one Elsa did seconds ago, Ryder scrambles to get to his feet. “I used a fire spell against a monster cat! And we won! You were like, wah, whoa, hoo-ya,” he says, making swinging motions with each sound effect. “And Elsa was like, mraahhh!” He laughs at his own bad impression of the cat’s uncharacteristic sounds. He sobers, after a moment. “I wanted a magic pet that would talk to us, be on our side. Do you think every magicked animal is going to be a monster?”

  I wonder how to tell him that everyone, us included, are kind of like monsters now. “No, I’m sure we can find a talking animal somewhere,” I say instead, and he gives me a relieved smile. His eyes go distant. “Hey, I got a notification.”

  “Let me guess,” I say. “One for injuring your first enemy?”

  He lets out another laugh, one light and giddy and almost a giggle. “Yup! Oh, and we got some experience for fighting as a team.”

  I check the corner of my vision and sure enough, I have that one, too. “I have quite a few questions for our little Game,” I say. “Let’s get back to the house where we can be safe and exchange a few words.”

  ***

  The first thing I do when I get home is close every single set of blinds. I don’t want anyone from the street seeing that we’re in here. The power in the house is out, so I use my flashlight on my phone to find some candles and set them up in the den. Ryder is curled up on the couch with a blanket, staring at the small bead of fire on his palm. I let him use his flame to light the candles while I go get some extra pillows and blankets. I have a feeling we’re going to camping out down here for the night.

  We figure out how to check in with the Game together, where we both have the same dialogue box and can have a conversation between all three of us.

  “Okay, Game. Tell me everything you know.”

  That is not a question and thus I cannot answer it.

  “Helpful,” I mutter under my breath. But the Game said I; did it use a first-person pronoun before? Is it sentient? Or just a sort of AI?

  I think about how precise my prompts for ChatGPT have to be.

  “What can you tell us of our apocalypse event?” I try instead.

  The apocalypse event was initiated by an off-planet being with the ability to obtain souls.

  “That’s ominous. Is it God? Was this actually a Rapture?”

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “What’s a Rapture?” Ryder asks.

  “Shh.”

  After a comprehensive scan of your internet, I can determine that this was not a religious event.

  So not an actual Rapture. I guess there’s something nice in that.

  “What exactly—or who, I guess—is this off-planet being?

  He has no name and no known origin.

  “Wow, that’s helpful,” Ryder mutters. I’m clearly an amazing influence on him.

  “So what do you know about him?” I say, trying to not smile at Ryder.

  He obtains souls.

  “Yes, we know that already. What else?”

  He has a voracious appetite.

  That one gives me a moment’s pause. Dread pools in my stomach.

  “What does voracious mean?” Ryder asks.

  That snaps me out of my dread for a second and I turn to him. “Like three hours ago you couldn’t read the word redistribute but you have no problem with voracious?”

  Ryder bites at the inside of his cheek. “I think it’s the Game. Hey Game, did you teach me to read?”

  I suppose if the Game taught me how to throw a punch, it could teach the kid to read.

  I ensure you have the skills necessary to perform the tasks of your class.

  AKA, teaching me to throw a punch. But: “Wait, backtrack. So this being eats souls?”

  Yes.

  I can’t help it. My eyes well with tears. All those people, just… gone. Eaten, apparently. “What’s to say that he won’t come back and eat the rest of us?” I manage to ask, a single tear escaping. “Are we safe?”

  He only takes one serving per world. From him, at least, you are safe.

  My eyes flutter closed, and I feel the tears run down my cheeks. The day seems to have caught up to me, adding to the weight of the Game’s answers. A tentative hand wraps around mine and squeezes. This just makes me cry harder.

  “So what do we do now, Game?” Ryder asks, and the hopelessness in his voice breaks my heart.

  Whatever you would like. Play the Game.

  “And can we win?” I ask, sharper than intended.

  You can survive. That is winning enough.

  I highly disagree, but I don’t say that. Instead, I say, “Does everyone have this video game in their head?”

  “I don’t think so,” Ryder says, and the Game responds to both of us.

  It is unclear. If another survivor of the apocalypse event also was interacting with a video game during the initial magic surge, maybe they would have a similar Game.

  Initial surge, it says. We know that subsequent surges can still give magic—Ryder’s fire magic is proof—but that still leaves questions. “Only an initial surge could have created the Game, then?”

  Correct. The initial surge was created by magic awakening on your planet, with the intention of gifting you an ability to manage the fallout of your apocalypse event.

  There was so many questions I had about this being, this entity with the ability to steal billions of souls and eat them, disappearing them from where they were standing. But I guess it doesn’t matter now, since he’s no longer a concern. And now all we have to do… is live.

  “How do we play the Game?” Ryder asks. I’d have expected him to be excited about the prospect of the Game, but clearly the gravity of our situation wasn’t lost on him. He sounds resigned to it.

  I’m so glad you asked! Explore the world, build your skills, defeat monsters, and collect prizes!

  “Monsters aren’t real,” Ryder says.

  “You called Elsa a monster cat.”

  Correct. Monsters weren’t real, before your apocalypse event. With the return of magic to this world, everything you know has changed irrevocably. Including Party Members Jane and Ryder. The initial magic surge, and all subsequent magical eruptions, will continue to evolve and mutate all living things.

  “Including us,” I echo what the Game had said. “We’re going to start evolving and mutating too.”

  Correct. Your mutations have already begun. You have the ability to view, distribute, and edit the way your evolutions affect you, here in the Game.

  “Like assigning mana skill points and stuff?” Ryder says, his voice brightening.

  Correct.

  “Jane, I think we got way luckier than we realized,” Ryder says, leaning forward and grabbing me with his other hand. My one hand sits sandwiched between his slightly smaller ones. He might be a kid, but he’s easily going to outgrow me. “If no one else—or maybe no else—has the Game, they might get magical abilities but not be able to control it or, or… upgrade it. It gives us a lot of help!”

  An advantage is nice, and I smile at him. Because he’s excited. As sad and scary as today has been for him, it’s also probably cool and fun. Especially for a kid who loves video games.

  But what about me? What about money or livelihood? Does any of that even exist anymore, in this new world order? With the power already unreliable and my cell phone permanently bricked, are mundane things like jobs even relevant?

  “Help is good,” I say, because his eyes are wide and hopeful and boring into my skull.

  Party Member Ryder is correct.

  I jump a little at the flash of text. The Game had never volunteered information on its own before, only directly answering a question. This thing has to be sentient to some degree. That’s terrifying.

  The Game goes on:

  As the magic in the world continues to surge, the world will become increasingly more dangerous. Each new mutation will turn even the most docile of creatures into rabid monsters. The magic surges help the soul-deprived population adjust, but it will not continue to provide gifts if the population doesn’t work for it. All other species, however, will continue to mutate.

  So even the most passive of people will soon be overpowered. If they don’t work to harvest the magic, to upgrade their skills—they’ll end up the victims anyways.

  “This thing that ate the souls,” I say, the dread in me once again rising. “It might have left half of humanity behind, but it left us to die. We’re all doomed.”

  Not all.

  I rip my hand from Ryder’s to shove my fingers into my hairline, pressing my palms into my eyes. “And what, you expect me and a kid to protect the rest of humanity? That’s absurd!”

  The Game has nothing to say about that.

  “At least tell me we’re safe here,” I ask. “Every game has a safe space, right? That they can’t be attacked in? A Pokemon Centre or your house in Stardew Valley?”

  “You played Stardew Valley!?” Ryder exclaims.

  “Shh.”

  You can designate one place to be a safehouse, yes. Would you like to do so to this dwelling?

  “Yes, please.”

  I’m sorry, you cannot designate this dwelling to be a safehouse.

  “What!? Why not?

  There’s already a monster in the house.