Hector startled awake to the sound of Jeremy’s incessant sneezing. Evelyn growled beside him and pulled a pillow over her head.
“Important events were happening in my dream,” Hector said.
“I’m sorry you picked a hotel with so much dust,” Jeremy shot back.
“We’re not letting him into our room again,” Evelyn said.
Jeremy sneezed once more. “Are you going to pay for two rooms, Hector?”
Rather than promise anything, Hector chose to continue his previous compint. “My dream guy was about to get married. One of the major figures in Xian history just arrived.”
Evelyn lifted the pillow off of her face to look up at him. “The Lord General?”
“Yeah. He was ughing and joking. Much less intimidating than the first time we met.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Jeremy said. “You met the Lord General of the Xian in your dreams? That’s insane. He’s like if Hitler and Stalin had a baby as far as the Jinn are concerned.”
“Sounds about right. The Lord General’s army killed my guy’s parents in brutal fashion.”
Jeremy sneezed once more. “So who is your guy? Anyone famous?”
“He’s a nobody whose only talent is his mental sense. Though with the way things are going, he could become a member of the Lord General’s retinue.”
“Retinue. Sounds bougie.”
Hector sat up. “It’s an entourage that entertains him, serves him, and theoretically protects him. Though I can’t imagine a level ten Xian needing help from anyone.”
Sneeze. “If he’s such a chill dude, call him up and tell him to save Earth.”
“You really think inviting Magic Hitler to invade is a good idea?”
“I think he mostly ignores unempowered people,” Jeremy said. “He just sughters Jinn. Oh, shit. That’s me now. Maybe let’s not summon the devil.”
“Good call.” Hector stretched. “I’m going to hit the fitness center. Do you two think you’ll be ready by the time I get back? The Professor wants us at his pce by ten to start taping.”
“Boo, no fitness center. Stay in bed with Evie.”
“Baby talky no attractive,” Hector admonished the girl in his bed.
She threw a pillow at him in reply.
“I can warm his side of the bed if you’re lonely,” Jeremy offered.
“Punch him in the penis, Hector.”
Jeremy sneezed once more. “I’ll be taking advantage of the complimentary breakfast and not your girlfriend, Hector. No penis punching, please.”
Hector left the room to hunt down the fitness center and get a quick workout in. Though he could have skipped a few days of his regimen, he didn’t like the fact that he would be essentially useless the rest of the day. He had no information to offer on monsters and even less on relevant combat strategies. What he had learned vicariously through Volithur would be insane for normal humans to implement. From what he understood, punching a monster was one of the quicker methods of suicide. He wouldn’t fare any better with a paltry level two soul and zero body enhancement.
Evelyn was still in bed when he returned and Jeremy was pying games on his phone. Hector had to herd the two of them through a morning routine and out the door to his car. They reached the garage studio of Professor Rahman and Hector moved to one of the raggedy couches to stay out of the way while the others discussed survival strategies that could be of use in a monster apocalypse.
Sitting there, Hector thought of his father’s tale of Deronto dying as colteral damage in a dragon attack. That same dragon had survived the ultimate strike from the most offensively powerful Xian of the Amarat nation on Tian. The risk to Earth wasn’t a dragon, fortunately. Unfortunately, a horde of monsters would ultimately lead to the same outcome. People couldn’t successfully hide. They couldn’t defeat the rger specimens. They would eventually be poisoned by chaotic miasma if they managed to survive on the run long enough. That was the best outcome possible: live long enough for an inimical poison to rot their souls.
“I don’t want to lean too far into the doom and gloom aspect,” Rahman said. “People will tune out. This is a waste of time if we don’t get views. The views, whether you think it appropriate or not, will come from us having fun with it. The introduction will be something along the lines of ‘we all know from our dreams that monster invasions are a thing that can happen; recently, a viewer asked me what should be done if such a thing happened on Earth, so I thought we might explore that topic for an episode’. It frames the scenario in a way that makes people curious. From there we can get everyone thinking about the issue.”
“It really sounds like you’re concentrating too much on your views,” Evelyn said.
“That’s how it has to be done. You could post your own video if you wanted to. No one would ever see it, though, because you don’t have an established audience. I have an audience because I know how these things work. We want this video to go viral so we can have an impact on people. That’s a requirement for us to be effective. You think it will be some amazing boon to my channel, but this is going to be very off brand for me. I’m a technology video blogger. One random off-topic video going viral won’t give me a permanent boost in my numbers. It might even hurt if my original audience thinks I’ve sold out.”
Hector tuned out the rest of the discussion and sank into the couch. He attempted to cultivate, both with his aura and mentally, but the meager amounts of cosmic energy in the garage were rapidly depleted. Enclosed spaces at ground level tended to be poor environments.
“Fleeing is the best strategy,” Rahman was saying. “We should emphasize stockpiling supplies and pnning escape routes. A lot of our research has already been done by survivalists who write about ‘shit hits the fan’ events. The monster element doesn’t appreciably change the best move avaible for the average person.”
“This is ridiculous. I can tell people where the monsters are most likely to come ashore. The invasion point is over the Atntic Ocean.”
Hector huffed in annoyance. He considered doing some push-ups for a moment. That would be weird and distracting for the others. What was he supposed to do here? After thinking it over for a while, he stood. “Guys, I’m not providing any value here. I’ll be back at the hotel. If I’m not back before you finish taping, give me a call.”
He left before anyone could object, returning to the hotel where he cultivated in various public spaces while he considered his options. No action he could take would be immediately useful. Or even eventually useful. He still only had a level two soul. By his original time estimates, he should be close to level three by now, but these side quests were taking his focus away from cultivation. It would still take weeks of effort for him to advance his level.
Once he reached level three, the fact remained that level four would require four times the cosmic energy and time investment to achieve. He might manage to get there before the impending monster apocalypse, but he would never see level five or higher. He certainly wouldn’t be able to enhance his body. He would never have enough cosmic energy to make casual use of his domain, but it wasn’t impossible that he could use his aura on occasion to block damage.
That would not be enough. He couldn’t fight the monsters. The survival focused video being created by the others wouldn’t save any lives, only prolong them a few weeks. There seemed to be no hope for the future.
Hector suddenly felt a pang of grief for his parents. His mother had been the glue that held their family together and he still on occasion held one-sided conversations with her. His father’s loss was far more recent, bringing a sharper stab of pain. He’d chosen to cast off Jen. All he had left were casual acquaintances and a romantic retionship that likely wouldn’t st long enough for the end of the world to terminate it.
Back in the dusty room he had rented, Hector y down on the bed and began to use the inefficient version of mental cultivation. There really was only one thing he looked forward to. Much like his father in the end, Hector wanted to see the full story of his dream counterpart. “Hope you’ve got something good to entertain me with, Volithur.”
