John stood in the courtyard of his old sixth form—Eastbrook, the goddamn shithole—he'd attended for two years before finally escaping into the relative anonymity of post-graduation life. The sky overhead burned the same hellish red as the waking world, but somehow that felt appropriate. School had always been its own kind of hell.

  "Well, well, well," came a voice from behind him, dripping with familiar contempt. "If it isn't Woody the Woodpecker."

  John's stomach dropped even before he turned around. He knew that voice.

  Luke Farnell stood there in his full school uniform glory, that stupid black blazer with the ugly checkered tie, his blond hair still styled in that ridiculous broccoli cut that had somehow been fashionable back then. He looked exactly the same as John remembered, down to the smirk that promised nothing good.

  "Luke," John said, trying to inject some authority into his voice. "I don't have time for this."

  "Don't have time?" Luke barked a harsh laugh that echoed strangely in the empty courtyard. "That's rich, coming from the guy who's been pretending to be some kind of badass for, what, a week now? Two weeks?"

  John opened his mouth to tell Luke to fuck off, then summon one of his Spells and vaporise the smug prick where he stood. But when he reached for his power, there was nothing there. His mana sphere sat dead and cold in his chest, utterly unresponsive.

  "Looking for something?" Luke stepped closer, his smirk widening. "Come on, Woody. You didn't actually think you could keep up the act forever, did you?"

  "I'm not—" John started, but Luke cut him off.

  "You're a fake. A fraud. A pathetic loser playing dress-up in his mum's basement, except the basement is the apocalypse and the dress-up is 'edgy badass protagonist.'" Luke circled him slowly, predatory. "Everyone sees through it, you know. They're just too polite to say anything. Or too scared you'll throw a tantrum."

  John tried to activate Soul Vision to see what colour Luke's soul was, but the Spell wouldn't respond. And that's when he noticed something else wrong with the dream: he wasn't wearing any trousers. Just his black boxer shorts and his Shadow Coat, which suddenly felt like a ridiculous affectation.

  "Oh, this is perfect," Luke said, noticing at the same time. "The great John Woods, saviour of Watford, standing around in his pants like a right bellend."

  "Shut up," John managed, his face burning. "This isn't real. You're not real."

  "Real enough." Luke's soul flared into view without John activating any Spell, a deep, burning red that marked him as impossibly dangerous. "Real enough to point out what a complete waste of space you are. All that power, and what have you actually accomplished? Killed a few monsters? Saved a few people who'll probably die anyway? Your family's still out there in Dagenham, wondering if you're even alive, and here you are playing resistance leader because you're too scared to actually go find them."

  "That's not—I'm planning to—"

  "Planning," Luke scoffed. "Always planning, never doing. That's always been your problem, Woody. All talk, no action. Well, talk and awkward silences. Mostly awkward silences, actually."

  John lunged at him, but Luke caught his fist effortlessly, twisted it behind his back, and before John knew what was happening, he found himself being lifted off the ground in the most humiliating way possible.

  "Remember this?" Luke asked cheerfully as he grabbed the waistband of John's boxers. "Classic atomic wedgie. Figured you'd forgotten what it felt like to be properly put in your place."

  The pain was excruciating and deeply undignified, and then Luke was spinning, using the wedgie as a grip to swing John around like a shot put before slamming him into the ground hard enough to leave a crater.

  John lay there, stunned, every part of his body screaming in protest. His pride hurt worse than his ribs.

  "Pathetic," Luke said, standing over him. "You know what the funny part is? You're actually kind of powerful now. You've got all these abilities, all this Aura. You could probably kill me if you wanted to. But you can't even muster the will to properly commit to being the arsehole your System wants you to be. You're half-arsing being a badass the same way you half-arsed everything else in your life."

  "I'm not half-arsing anything," John wheezed, forcing himself to sit up despite the pain. "I've survived the apocalypse. I've cleared portal worlds. I've saved hundreds of people. I've faced down monsters that would have killed you in seconds. I'm stronger than I've ever been, and I'm only getting stronger."

  "Cool origin story, bro," Luke said with exaggerated boredom. "Doesn't change the fact that you're still the same scared little loser you always were. You're just better at hiding it now. Better at lying to yourself."

  "I'm over it," John said, climbing to his feet. The pain was fading now, dream-logic asserting itself. "I'm over school, I'm over you, I'm over all that bullshit. It doesn't matter anymore."

  "We both know that's not true," Luke said quietly.

  And then he wasn't Luke anymore.

  The transformation happened in a blink, the blond hair darkening and lengthening, the features softening, the cruel smirk becoming a look of concern. Sophia stood there instead, his little sister, wearing the same grey hoodie she'd been wearing the last time he'd seen her, the day before the apocalypse.

  "John?" she asked, her voice small. "Where are you?"

  "Sophie." His throat closed up. "I'm trying to get to you. I'm going to find you, I promise, I just need a little more time."

  "Why haven't you come yet?" She asked it simply, without accusation, which somehow made it worse. "We're waiting for you. Mum and Dad and Nana are all waiting. We've been waiting for so long."

  "I know," John said desperately. "I know, I'm sorry, I just had to help these people first, and then there was Watford, and now there's the resistance…"

  "We're waiting," Sophia repeated. She took a step to the side, pivoting slightly, and John saw what had been standing behind her.

  The body was in an advanced state of decay, the flesh grey-green and bloated, the eyes sunken and filmed over. Maggots writhed in the exposed wounds, and the smell attacked his nostrils with venom, the sweet-rotten stench of death making him gag.

  "Nana," he whisphered. "No."

  But the worst part was that the corpse was still standing, its head tilted at an unnatural angle as it stared at him with those dead eyes.

  "We're all waiting," Sophia said again, her voice was coming from the corpse's mouth, its jaw working in a grotesque pantomime of speech. "But we can't wait forever."

  And then the corpse lunged at him, its rotting hands reaching for his throat.

  ~~~

  Finally, John's eyes snapped open, his heart hammering against his ribs like it was trying to escape his chest. He lay perfectly still for several seconds, staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling, trying to orient himself.

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  Micklefield Hall, he remembered after a moment. The siege. I… guess I managed to actually fall asleep.

  He was back in the same bedroom he'd claimed earlier, before the night had fallen and the waves of monsters had started their assault on the manor. The ceiling had a crack running through it that he didn't remember seeing before. Probably from the structural damage the building had taken during the fighting.

  Wracking his brain, he found he didn’t even remember coming up here. The realisation caused a moment of alarm, but he told himself there was nothing nefarious going on here, he’d probably just moved on autopilot in his exhaustion.

  Slowly, he sat up. His heart was still racing, his breathing uneven, and he could feel a faint sheen of sweat cooling on his forehead. The nightmare lingered in his mind like an oil slick, leaving everything it touched feeling contaminated.

  It was just a dream, he told himself firmly. Just your subconscious processing stress. Luke Farnell doesn't matter anymore. Sophia is fine. They're all fine.

  But even as he thought it, he couldn't quite shake the image of his grandmother's rotting corpse, or the sound of Sophia's voice coming from its dead mouth.

  John took a deep breath, held it for a count of five, then let it out slowly. Then he did it again. And again. After the fourth repetition, his heart rate had started to slow, the panic receding to manageable levels. Only then did he remember Biomancy, and, with a roll of his eyes, set to work on restoring his body to calm.

  Get it together, he thought irritably. You're twenty years old. You shouldn't be having nightmares like a fucking child.

  The embarrassment of it helped, actually. Gave him something concrete to focus on other than the lingering horror. He was a man who'd faced down genuine monsters, who'd killed psychopaths and destroyed portal worlds, and here he was getting freaked out by a dream about his old bully and some comically grotesque corpse that was not actually his grandmother.

  He swung his legs off the bed and stood, his body responding smoothly. No aches, no pains. The benefits of high stats.

  The sky outside the window was still burning. According to the ornate clock built into the wall above the ruined fireplace—miraculously still functioning—it was 11:36AM. The false night caused by the black hole typically lifted at about 6:30AM, which meant he’d actually got a decent nap in, if he’d nodded off right after. A thought that should have been comforting but only made him grimace; five-ish hours wasted.

  Time to face the day.

  The bedroom had an en suite bathroom, another luxury of the old manor house. John made his way over and twisted the tap, wincing slightly when the water came out ice-cold. He'd been half-hoping that maybe there'd still be hot water, but that was apparently too much to ask.

  Could be worse, he thought. Could be no water at all.

  He stripped off his Enchanted gear, laying each piece carefully on the closed toilet lid. The Shadow Coat, his skull-emblazoned shirt, the black jeans with artfully torn knees, the combat boots, the fingerless gloves. All of it representing his commitment to the aesthetic his System demanded.

  Then he stepped under the freezing spray and immediately regretted every life choice that had led to this moment.

  The water was glacial. It felt like needles of ice stabbing into his skin, and his body's immediate instinct was to leap back out of the shower and never go near it again. But his, his enhanced Vitality allowing him to acclimate to the temperature far faster than a normal human could manage.

  Within seconds, the cold was merely uncomfortable rather than agonising. Within a minute, it was barely noticeable. The human body could adapt to a lot, and his body was decidedly post-human at this point.

  John scrubbed himself methodically, washing away the dried sweat and grime of combat. There was still blood under his fingernails from where he'd reflexively grabbed one green-souled monster that had snuck close—luckily, it had only been a blue, and he’d crushed its skull in his hand. He cleaned the gore out carefully, watching the diluted blood swirl down the drain.

  How many have I killed now? he wondered idly. Has it reached the tens of thousands yet? Hard to keep track.

  The thought should probably have bothered him more than it did. But the monsters weren't people, weren't even really alive in any meaningful sense. They were obstacles. Points on a scoreboard. Thinking of them as anything else would just make everything harder.

  He finished washing and stepped out, grabbing one of the towels that had been left on a rack. It was a bit musty, probably hadn't been washed since before the apocalypse, but it was dry and functional.

  John dried himself off, then began the process of getting dressed again. Each piece of Enchanted gear went on in the same order he'd removed it.

  The boxers first, plain black. Then the jeans, the Steel Skin enchantment making them darken to an obsidian sheen the moment they settled on his hips. The skull shirt, its Intimidate enchantment thrumming faintly against his chest. The combat boots with their Force Push enchantment, letting him jump heights that would make an Olympic athlete weep with envy.

  The fingerless gloves with Phantom Hand, extending his reach when needed. The silver chain with the ankh, his Flash Chain, ready to blind enemies with Light Burst. The Soul Specs, permanently enchanted with Soul Vision so he could see threat levels without wasting a Spell slot.

  And finally, the pièce de résistance: the Shadow Coat.

  John pulled it on, the familiar weight settle across his shoulders, the leather trailing down to just below his knees. The moment it was properly positioned, the Shadow Stream enchantment activated, darkness billowing out from the coat like smoke, making it look like he was wearing living shadow.

  He stepped over to the cracked mirror above the sink and examined his reflection.

  The man staring back at him looked nothing like the John Woods who couldn’t even get through a conversation with a fast food cashier without fucking it up. That John had been pale and skinny, with greasy hair and dark circles under his eyes, wearing a ratty hoodie and faded jeans.

  This John was a different creature entirely. His skin had a healthy glow to it, all his acne scars and imperfections erased by his Stat upgrades. His muscles were defined without being bulky, visible beneath the shirt in a way that suggested real strength rather than just gym aesthetics. His hair—styled into that edgy undercut with Biomancy—looked like something out of an edgy fashion magazine, especially still damp from his shower.

  And the outfit pulled it all together. The all-black ensemble, the Shadow Coat billowing darkness, the sunglasses hiding his eyes. He looked like a video game protagonist. Like someone who could walk into a room and immediately command attention.

  Like a badass.

  Luke Farnell doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about, John thought with satisfaction. I'm not the same person I was in school. I've changed. I've grown. I'm actually kind of a big deal now.

  He adjusted the coat slightly, making sure it hung properly, then nodded at his reflection.

  But even as he stood there, admiring his transformation, a small voice in the back of his mind whispered: It wasn't Luke Farnell. It was a dream. A nightmare born from your own insecurities.

  John's expression soured. "Doesn't change anything," he muttered to his reflection. "I'm still better than I was. Dream-Luke can fuck off."

  Though… does Luke Farnell even still exist?

  The thought came with it a wash of complicated emotions. Luke had been a dick in school, no question. Had made John's life miserable for years, and the psychological scars from that experience ran deep.

  But he'd also been a real person. Someone with a family, friends, a life outside of tormenting John. And when the apocalypse had hit, when the monsters had come and the sky had caught fire, there was a very real chance that Luke Farnell had died on the first day.

  Maybe he'd been torn apart by monsters. Maybe he'd been killed by other survivors. Maybe he'd just starved or died of thirst somewhere, too weak or too scared to survive.

  The idea should have made John feel… something. Satisfaction, maybe? Vindication? A sense of poetic justice?

  Instead, he just felt guilty. Not for Luke's potential death—John hadn't killed him, after all, hadn't done anything to cause it. But guilty for the small, petty part of himself that had immediately jumped to "he probably died on the first day" with an emotion that felt uncomfortably close to hope.

  Did he want Luke Farnell to be dead?

  "No," John said aloud, startling himself slightly with the firmness of the word. "No, I don't want him to be dead. I just want him to not be my problem anymore."

  Which was probably the healthiest attitude he could manage under the circumstances.

  He sighed, running a hand through his hair, careful not to mess up the styling too much. "Whatever. Doesn't matter. Luke Farnell is a loser, and if he's still alive, I'd probably wipe the floor with him if we ever crossed paths again. End of story."

  +200 Aura

  Saying it out loud helped, somehow. John took one last look at his reflection, nodded decisively, then turned away from the mirror and headed for the door.

  Time to find the others and figure out what came next.