(Dyn)

  Dyn was looking forward to getting his favorite cupcake. These weren’t just any cupcakes; they were gourmet cupcakes. Airy—with a fluffy texture that all cupcakes should have. While he wasn’t a baker by any stretch of the imagination, he sidered himself a oisseur of the delectable pastries.

  Most shops had the standard fare: vanil, chocote, and red velvet. But this bakery also had German chocote, Oreo, jelly roll, and his favorite, chocote peanut butter cup. They didn’t just stop with a rich frosting—no, they stuffed those fuckers with a creamy ter. And the cupcakes were huge. It was a feat of strength to eat the whole damn thing in a siting.

  They came from one of those family-owned shops that didn’t deliver or bother with online orders. So, he hadn’t had the crumbly cake in years. Remote work, Amazon Prime, and Uber Eats enabled him to live a life entirely from the fort of his own home. He couldn’t even remember the st time he had to leave his apartment.

  The st of warm spices, butter, and fresh bread teased him a block away. This was the first time he’d ever walked to the bakery. Usually, he’d have driven himself, but he was out and about because his car was in the shop for a recall. Something about brake light fluids, or maybe it was the seatbelt? He wasn’t a car person and just skimmed the letter detailing what it was for. All he knew was it was a free fix, so he picked up his phone and made the appoi.

  The journey was noisier than he expected. Engines rumbled, brakes screeched, and tires ched as traffic flowed past. He joihe silent crowd of pedestrians, all but the oldest glued to the ss on their phone, waiting for their turn to cross the street.

  Dyn hadn’t charged his pho night, and it was in the red when he left the house, or he’d have been among the s zombies.

  An older dy gave him a smile as they made eye tact while he took in his surroundings. Her crow’s feet suggested she smiled easily and often.

  Cars, trucks, and even bikes drove past the walkway, leaving gaps just long enough to see the small oory shop across the street. A solitary “OPEN” sign hung in the door. A dispy of golden brown goods, the source of the delightful aroma, sat in the shop window.

  Ding! His phone chirped, letting him know he had a notification. The crosswalk switched to “WALK” as he took out his phone and stepped off the curb. One moment he was in broad daylight holding his phone.

  And the his bare foot spped down on a hardwood floor, surrounded in darkness. The absence of street noise and his phohrew him off bance. He filed, trying to remain upright.

  A rhythmic sound, like rolling a heavy marble along wood, approached his feet. He gnced down, uo make out what the round object was as it ioward him. The room was dark save for the coasting sphere. It stopped just before his feet; about the size of a snow globe. Faint e and blue light illumihe surrounding floor.

  He couldn’t make out any further details, realizing the room wasn’t just dark, but he couldn’t see well. Everything was blurry. He reached for his gsses.

  “Ow.” He actally poked himself. That firmed they were missing. Squinting, he strained his eyes and traced the path of the sphere, following it to an out-of-focus figure that sat against a wall.

  Automatically, Auto-manners engaged as he bent down to pick up the spherical object. “I think you dropped this.”

  While still bent over, he turoward the window on his right as it suddenly lit up the room. He thought he heard his voice say, “Fuck.” Then the force of the explosion hit. It shattered the window, buckled the wall, and blew Dyn off his feet. He quickly found the nearby wall by smashing into it, leaving a Dyn-sized i before he crumpled to the ground.

  Dust and debris coated Dyn as he y on the floor, his body refusing to breathe. He had the wind knocked out of him and panicked as his diaphragm refused to work with him.

  The first couple of coughs were weak, but his lung capacity returned as he tinued coughing.

  “What the hell was that?” Dyn asked, feeling his voice rather than hearing it. His hearing was gone, repced with a high-pitched ringing. Instinctively, he reached for his phone, only to discover he was pletely naked.

  The explosions weren’t done. More hot and, occasionally, frigid bsts staggered in every few seds over the couple of minutes. Fortunately, none of them were as violent as the first.

  ‘Since when are explosions cold?’ he wondered.

  The fires outside crackled, illuminating the room. Shadows danced wildly along the floor, ceiling, and what remained of the walls. One shadow even got up and jumped out of the damn hole in the wall.

  He thought his actual body might still be lying ireet back at the crosswalk. Most likely, he’d gotten ran over or shot—this was just his brain’s way of processih.

  It didn’t matter; he wasn’t ready to die. If death wanted him, it would have t him kig and screaming into the night. Dyn didn’t know where this resolve came from; this was the first time fag his mortality. He wouldn’t give up on himself and he wasn’t ready to give up on his phoher.

  Something was wrong with his leg. The sharp, shooting pain suggested a fracture, if not a plete break, but he couldn’t bring himself to look. Instead, he focused on finding his phone, reag out and blindly feeling around with his hand.

  Dyn gasped as a neain shot through his fingers, and he quickly snatched them back. His efforts earned him fresh cuts that oozed red down his debris covered digits. Stained gss shards reflected light from the cuts. That would have to be a Future Dyn problem, as he had nothing to extract them.

  Sitting up would give him a better perspective to find his phone and call for help, but he wasn’t sure he could with a bum leg and all the gss on the floor. His arm actally bumped the sphere from before and a weird prompt showed up in both his mind and vision. There was a dissonance when he read it.

  [Time orb]: Initializing, wait.

  He tried to swipe away at the message; it was in his way, but nothing happehe mismatch was because his mind could read the message clearly, while his vision couldn’t.

  [Time orb]: Four framework slots avaible, Time framework not found. Requesting permission to activate. Choose one.

  [sent] [Deny] [cel]

  Dyn’s head hurt and he retty sure he had a cussion. Even in the best of health, he never had the patieo deal with End User Lise Agreements. So he did what he always did. He reached up and tried to tap on “cel”.

  “Weird,” he said out of habit. The ringing tio b him in a terrible white noise. Nothing happened and his finger went through the overy—it didn’t physically exist. The prompt didn’t go away.

  “Deny. cel. Escape. Go back. Undo,” Dyn said out loud, hoping it had better hearing than he did. He sighed. The three options stubbornly persisted. Closing his eyes tightly, he focused oion: the first one. He mentally selected “sent”.

  [Time orb]: sent aowledged.

  Dyn was gd the first option worked, but he would’ve tried them all if it hadn’t. The sphere shattered on the floor o him.

  “Oops.” Dyn just wahe halluations to stop and never meant to break the stupid collectable.

  [Time orb]: Activating Time framework----—SKIP.

  Dyn realized he could mentally skip the prompts. He had to figure out how to wake up from this damn a dream and these prompts were very distrag.

  [Time orb]: Framework two of—SKIP.

  A warm sensation coursed out from his chest and into his extremities. It felt like a reinvigoration; it felt like power.

  “Oh, that’s nice,” he said, actually hearing his words again. The ringing had stopped.

  [Time orb]: New passive [Synicity] unlocked—SKIP.

  “Wait, what?” he asked after hearing himself.

  [Time orb]: juring first magifluence—SKIP.

  “How many of these things are there?”

  [Time orb]: Maing new ability with Destiny—SKIP.

  [Time orb]: New ability [Dejavu] unlocked—SKIP.

  [Time orb]: Three open ability—SKIP.

  “Holy crap, give it a rest,” he grumbled.

  Dyn held his hand up and couldn’t find the cuts on his fingers. The only evidehey ever existed was the dried red stains. He pulled his hand away from his fad watched it remain in focus the eime. He checked for his gsses again, this time poking the bridge of his ween his eyes.

  ‘I see,’ he thought as he looked around the room. That’s when he realized the background noises he was hearing weren’t from some stream or movie.

  g, moaning, and whimpering crept into the room over the crackle of the untamed fires. He rolled onto his side and got up, careful to avoid stepping on the shards of gss. Peering past the missing wall revealed a disaster that reminded him of the war zones he’d seen on social media. There had been a building across from him, but only a portion of it remained. A crater repced the missing half.

  There were people down there. One of them ran, yelling for help. A few of them were upright, but stumbling; they looked fused. Then Dyn’s stomach dropped as he noticed the ohat were crawling.

  “Oh my god..." Dyn whispered, bringing his hand to cover his mouth in shock. Parts of them were missing. He stopped looking for more people when he found ohat hadn’t been moving at all.

  ‘Why isn’t anyone calling for help?’ he wondered, notig none of them were using their cellphones.

  The missing portion of the building id in varying sizes of debris. Sickly green fire engulfed the remaining half. Looking past the immediate disaster in front of him, there was something off with the trees in the distance. He wasn’t an arborist, but he could usually reize most trees, ofteifying them by sight. Occasionally, he eveheir proper names—like willow, instead of the “hair metal tree”. He’d seen none of these trees before.

  A tall, dark fence delihe border, separating the well-maintained grassy fields and tree line, whose opy rose even higher than the fehe foliage lit up from the fires scattered around the area, and they reminded him of New Engnd in the fall. The trees were full e, yellows, reds, browns, and he could have sworn, blues and purples. Not a speck of green to be seen. Even the remaining grass looked like a mix of burned yellows and browns.

  A breeze caressed him with an intimate touch that reminded him he was still naked. He could really use some pants, which triggered a thought.

  ‘Maybe it’s in my pants?’ Pursing his lips, he sed the room w where his phone was. He suddenly remembered there had been someone else in the room with him before the explosion.

  Dyn looked over at them and said, “Oh hey, give me a sed. I’ve got to, uh…” He covered his nakedness with his hands. His eyes sed the room and found a bed tossed against a er. Quickly, he salvaged a sheet from it.

  One of the few things he remembered from his two semesters at college was how to fashion a toga. Never in all his years would he have imagihat skill would e in handy.

  “That’s better,” he said, adjusting the fit. The result was loose and breezy, but at least he wouldn’t be fshing anyone. Well, anyone else. It was too te for his poor roommate.

  Dyn turned around and froze, belting out a high-pitched scream that would’ve made any six-year-old girl proud. There was a chubby man with wide eyes staring at him with the same surprise he felt. That guy was also in a makeshift toga.