“Declan, let’s hop in the car and go check on Nanny. We need to make sure she’s okay,” Ethan said coming up from the basement.

  Declan ran out of his room, “Let’s go!” and pushed him back toward the door.

  “You just want to stop cleaning, huh?” Ethan said with a knowing smile.

  “Yes,” Declan answered without hesitation.

  Ethan had everything he needed. Keys, wallet, phone though the latter was pointless for now. They headed down to the car. A white Toyota Camry. Getting in, Ethan prayed that it still worked. He didn’t know why it wouldn’t but just hearing it turn on would make him feel better. Holding his breath, Ethan pushed the ignition button.

  The car started up with no issue.

  Ethan let out the breath he was holding, an unknown weight was lifted off of his shoulders. He shifted the car into reverse to back out then to drive to get out of his drive way. He only saw a couple cars out on the road which he could understand if everyone got the same messages that he and Declan received. Also, could there be more monsters other than just goblins lurking about.

  He didn’t have to wait long to find out. Ethan turned down Oak Drive and saw a giant pack of wolves chasing a group of five men. The men wielded a variety of weapons. One had a bat and was swinging at the wolves whenever one got in range and another had a 30-06 hunting rifle and was trying to take shots at the wolves whenever an opportunity presented itself. The wolves stopped and turned when they heard Ethan’s car approach. A couple peeled off and tried to attack the vehicle. They didn’t seem to understand that metal going 40 miles per hour hurt and Ethan wasn’t about to stop with Declan in the car. He sped up.

  When the car collided with wolf there was a brief crunch. The first wolf didn’t jump and instead ended up under the tires. The second wolf did jump but the speed of the car prevented it from being about to do anything other than tumble over the hood, roof, and trunk and end up laying on the street with broken legs.

  [You have killed a Level 3 dire wolf - 75 experience gained]

  [You have made progress on Kill or be killed - 4/10]

  Urgency sparked in Ethan’s stomach and he feared the worst. If monsters and creatures were killing people then he feared for not just Ruth’s safety but his family’s safety as well. He had parents, sisters, nieces, and nephews that all needed to be protected. He forced himself to take a deep breath. One thing at a time. Declan was safe, now he was checking on Ruth, then he would check on his parents. The others would have to wait.

  Ruth only lived a few streets over. Less than a mile total distance but the journey to her house was difficult. Chaos was everywhere. Some people were actively fighting each other, some where fighting animals or other creatures, some houses were just piles of debris where the earthquake had collapsed them. More than one person had tried to get him to stop. He kept his pistol in his lap.

  His heart sank when he turned the street where Ruth lived. She lived in the first house on the right and even Declan made a sound when he saw it. In the lot where her house was was nothing but a pile of rubble. From the road, Ethan could see goblins rummaging through the debris.

  “Declan, stay in the car. I’m going to find Nanny,” Ethan said in a stone that left no room for debate. He slammed the car in park and jumped out of the car.

  Running behind Ruth’s parked car in the driveway and using it as cover, Ethan aimed and fired at the goblins. He missed a couple shots before he got the adrenaline under control. He took aim and changed to squeezing the trigger instead of jerking it. Two goblins took shots before they located him behind the SUV. One of those shots was a head shot and it put the goblin down, immediately. The second, was a body shot and the goblin crumpled, in pain, but still alive. The other four goblins started to rush him. He only had two shots left before he needed to reload. He was in a bad situation. He leaded out and put two into the lead goblin charging him. The goblin fell causing the ones behind it to stumble for a moment, buying his a few extra seconds.

  Ethan released the empty magazine and pulled another from his belt. He let the empty magazine clatter to the concrete and reached to pull back the slide as the first goblin arrived in front of him. The goblin slammed its fist into Ethan’s chest. The blow sent him reeling back and taking the air from his lungs. The gun he had once held in his hand skipped across the concrete and onto the asphalt of the road behind him.

  The three goblins didn’t pause to talk and were immediately on him. He had barely enough time to draw his hunting knife from its sheath and slash the foot of the goblin that had punched him as it kicked for his torso. The blade met flesh and tore through it to the bone. The goblin screamed in pain. Ethan managed to keep a hold of his knife but before he could get up the second goblin fell on top of him. Ethan was shocked by the strength of the tiny creature. It tried to overpower and pin him to the ground so the others could move in a finish the fight.

  Ethan brought his arms from above his head to his sides, shifting the goblins balance. He used his knee to push the goblin up and threw the disgusting green creature off of him. The rolled to his feet in time to meet the third goblin in the neck with his knife. Green blood sprayed everywhere as he ripped the knife free. Ethan caught the movement of the first goblin and turned in time to once again take a swipe from it. This time the punch connected with his cheek and the force spun him on his feet only to make him face the second goblin as it was tackling him to the ground.

  The goblin started to pound Ethan with it’s fists and forearms. All he could do was cover his head to block the barrage of blows. Once the stars from getting his dome rocked cleared, he managed to slip a stab into the goblins ribs. This stopped the blows from the one on top of him but by this time the other goblin had knelt and started to assist in raining punches down. More than one blow landed and bounced Ethan’s head off the pavement.

  He was pretty sure he was going to have a concussion after this if he survived. He didn’t want to see what his HP was at because he knew that it had to be plummeting at an alarming rate. He kept plunging his knife into the ribs of the goblin on top of him and twisting the blade when he could. After about the fifth time the green bloody mess slumped on top of Ethan. Ethan used the body as a shield and pushed it in teh way of the goblin still pummeling him.

  This gave Ethan the time to stand up. He backed up and a loud bang sounded from behind him. The goblin flinched. Two more shots rang out and the goblin fell. One of teh shots taking it through the eye socket. Ethan turned to see a dirty woman wearing a blue navy t-shirt and a pair of jeans that were ripped in one of the legs. Ruth stood there holding a small revolver. She began to reload as she spoke.

  “Damn, Carter, you look like hell,” the woman said raising an eyebrow.

  “You should see the other guy,” he quipped back. He knew he had a black eye as he could only see out of one and he probably had a concussion with how bad his head hurt at the moment.

  “Where is D?” Ruth asked.

  “In the car. With everything going on we needed to make sure you were safe,” Ethan responded.

  Ruth’s expression softened, “Thanks. I was hiding in the rubble. They were digging trying to get to me. I’m glad you arrived when you did or I may not have made it.”

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Ethan heard the car door slam and a little voice ring out, “Nanny!” Soon after, Ruth was a tangle of arms and legs as Declan jumped into her arms. She dropped the pistol rather than risk it going off with him in her arms. Ethan kept a look out.

  “Hey, buddy, I’d love to hold you right now but it’s not safe out here, right now. Let’s get somewhere safer,” Ruth said setting Declan down on the ground. She picked up her revolver and turned to Ethan.

  “Hate to ask but if your house still stands do you mind if I crash on the couch?” Ruth asked.

  “That is fine. I’m sure Declan would prefer it anyway. Its been a rough couple of weeks for him,” Ethan said, “Do you have anything we need to take with us? Anything we can scavenge? I am nervous about the rest of the world and have a feeling things are going to get worse before they get better.”

  “I managed to get to where my bedroom used to be so I managed to pull out some clothes. I didn’t much in the way of food here,” Ruth replied.

  “It’s fine. Let’s get what we can loaded and head to the house. We have an extra bed and we can put it in the storm shelter in the basement. We may actually all sleep in the basement if the beasts and monsters that I’ve seen are any indicator of what is lurking out here,” Ethan said and headed to the pile of clothes that Ruth pointed to.

  It took them about thirty minutes to get everything they could scavenge in both Ruth’s and Ethan’s vehicles. In the end they had clothes for Ruth, some more camping supplies, a few more pistols and ammunition, and whatever food that could be found digging through the debris of the house. It was fortunate that Ruth kept most of it in her bedroom closet.

  The chaos was just as bad on the way home. Ethan could now see swarms of goblins trying to break in houses and some were even fighting the wolves that became more numerous as well. There were also more people grouping up to form a defense as well. He had to drive around the bodies of the wolves he had hit earlier. The one he had left alive was how dead. Something had come by and ripped its throat out.

  They pulled in his drive way and parked the cars along the side of the house so they would be out of the way if anything attacked.

  “One reason I’m glad you’re here. So I can go take care of whatever that is but first I need to rest. That goblin beat me up pretty bad.”

  They unloaded everything and, while Ruth prepared the storm shelter to be the new bedroom for them all, Ethan cleaned the goblin blood off himself. He took advantage of the water still functioning and showered. He didn’t bother salvaging the clothes that were covered in the green blood and just tossed them in the pile with the goblin corpses from earlier. He was going to have to burn them if they were going to stay here long term. After his shower, he took stock of their food situation. They hadn’t eaten all day, Declan had to be hungry. He would cook the food that was thawed in the freezer tonight and after if they were frugal they could probably stretch what they have for a couple weeks.

  He went outside and moved the grill to an open area far from the house. If there was one thing he learned from survival shows on television. You never cooked where you slept. The smell would attract predators. He turned on the propane tank under the grill and lit the flame. Grilling was something he knew how to do well. He settled back to let the grilled warm up before he put the thawed chicken on the grill plate. He used the time to check his notifications that had been building up. He took one look and had them group themselves to be more easily read.

  [You have killed 3 Level 1 goblins and 1 Level 2 goblin - 60 experience gained]

  [You have assisted in killing 1 Level 3 dire wolf, 1 Level 2 goblin, and 1 Level 1 goblin - 43 experience gained]

  [You have made progress on Kill or be killed - 5/10 to 10/10]

  [You have taken 12 points of bludgeoning damage]

  [You have learned the passive skills - Gun Proficiency and Knife Proficiency]

  [Congratulations! You have completed a quest. Go to your Quest Log to claim the reward - 360 experience gained]

  [Congratulations! You have achieved level 2. You have 5 free stat points to assign]

  Ethan’s eyes widened. There was so much death. The gravity of it didn’t hit him until seeing it written out in his logs. He had killed eight semi-intelligent things today. Killing the wolves didn’t bother him as they were preying on other people at the time. Ethan hoped those people were able to fend off the remaining wolves after he left. On a good note he managed to complete his first quest and leveled up in the process. Before he went to his quest log he reviewed his Status screen.

  Oh. Ethan stared at the sheet. He received more health when he leveled up. If he hadn’t leveled then he would have been at 6 HP when the fight ended. Seeing it in numbers had the strange ability to quantify his mortality to him. If he died then Ruth would obviously care for Declan but a son needed his father. He would set an example for him and he would protect him until the day he died.

  Ethan thought to the system ‘apply 2 points to Constitution’ and the system complied. His HP and EP recalculated in front of him and shot up to 40 maximum HP and 76 maximum EP. Ethan could feel the change. His black eye healed slightly more and now he couldn’t even tell he had one any longer.

  For the remaining 3 points, Ethan put one into Charisma to make it 10, the 9 really bothered him, and 2 into Intelligence bringing it up to 17. His mana recalculated up to 42. He needed to sit down and figure out mana at some point, as well. Not right now, however, it was time for his quest reward.

  Ethan opened his Quest Log and looked at the quest entry. There was nothing different other than showing a Complete next to the quest header and slightly changing the tent of the quest header. He thought claim to the quest entry and he felt energy enter him just like after a kill. A book with a intricate cover appeared in his hands. The cover was a light blue and was made from leather. The spine and each corner was covered in black leather and in the center of the front was a gold emblem that Ethan didn’t recognize.

  He opened the book and before he could read anything on the first page, a prompt appeared in his vision.

  [Do you want to learn the Skill - Identify? Yes / No]

  Ethan was slightly disappointed. He was hoping for something combat related to better help him defend against everything that wanted to kill them. Sighing he selected ‘Yes’. The book disappeared and morphed into a visible blue light that matched the color of the book cover. The stream of light swirled in the air and entered Ethan’s forehead catching him off guard. Information flooded into his head on what the skill was and how to use it. The knowledge barrage wasn’t painful. It was quite the opposite actually, it felt good.

  Once the knowledge of how to use the skill finished, he used the skill on the grill in front of him.

  [Item: Propane Grill]

  Type: Utility / Cooking Apparatus

  Rarity: Common

  Durability 85/100

  Description: A sturdy relic of pre-System suburbia, this grill boasts a scratched stainless steel frame and blackened cast iron grates, weathered from routine use. Fueled by a half-full propane tank (brass fittings intact), it heats up to cook meet or other food items.

  Attributes:

  Heat Output: Moderate (Sufficient for cooking, not forging)

  Fuel Remaining: ~50%

  Weight: 45 lbs.

  Ethan was impressed that was more information than he would ever want about a grill. The line about fuel remaining kicked him into cooking mode and he put the chicken on the grates. He seasoned the chicken with some spices that had no other use and opened a can of corn to heat up beside the chicken. By the time he finished cooking everything, he had unlocked another skill — [Basic Cooking - Level 1]

  They ate out by the grill where Ethan and Ruth could watch the surroundings. Ethan relayed to Ruth everything that he had learned about the quests and the system so far. She hadn’t even known how to open her status screen. She had had to dig herself out of her house collapsing around her. She practiced and discovered that she had also unlocked [Gun Proficiency] and was 3/10 kills on the quest [Kill or be killed]. The whole situation didn’t sit right with her.

  “God, how could this happen?” Ruth asked Ethan.

  “I’m not sure, but I know one thing, I intend for us to survive it,” Ethan responded.

  “This has to be a test,” Ruth replied and quieted down. Ethan could tell she was lost in her own thoughts. He let her be. Declan, however, did not. He was around the two people he felt the most comfortable around and seemed to be adjusting to the System well. He was talking so fast, Ethan wondered when he was going to stop for breath.

  …and when I am 14, I’ll unlock the system and I’m going to be an assassin,” Declan said matter-of-factly brandishing two short sticks as if they were daggers.

  Ethan let him continue. He hoped they lived long enough for him to become whatever he wanted to become. Maybe…just maybe…by that time, they would know what was going on.