It’s strange the things you notice when running barefoot through the snow towards a screaming Yeti. Mostly because it’s all so damn obvious.

  The first thing was the cold. My bare feet slapped against the cracked icy ground in time to my haggard breathing. I may have been able to run again, but five years bedridden, an athlete does not make.

  The second thing I noticed was that this was the first VW Bug I’d seen in ages. It’s like one day they just all disappeared from the road and I can’t really explain what happened.

  The last thing was the smell. It was odd. Dank and musty like wet dog. It was overwhelming to the point of nausea. It made saliva pool in my mouth, I wanted to throw up.

  “What are you doing?” Caitlin shouted from behind me.

  “I- honestly have no idea.” I was seconds away from the Yeti, and still had no plan for what to do. If this was some big video game then I must have skills.

  “Menu!” I shouted, desperation painting my voice like an enthusiastic landlord.

  A system panel appeared. White text on blue. A cheerful pre-recorded voice announced the text to me.

  `“We appreciate the enthusiasm but full system access begins at 6:00 AM EST December 26 Earth time.”

  I actually appreciated the voiceover because the yeti swung the fucking car through the pop-up menu, almost turning me into pure pulp. It could see the menus too.

  I threw myself into the air trying to turn myself sideways but my muscles were atrophied and stiff from disuse and aggressive medical interventions. I made it about a quarter of a way through a turn and hit the ground. Hard. The wind left my lungs in an instant.

  The pop-up disappeared and the yeti finally saw me. It swung the car in an arc smashing it down towards me. The driveway was elevated so I braced myself and rolled to the side, hoping I’d make it to the end fast enough.

  CRASH! Metal flew into the air. The world circled around me. The yeti screamed in frustration as it tried to pick the little car back up but it impaled its hand on the ruined metal. Steam hissed from its fresh spilled blood. I could smell it all the way over here.

  And something else. Gas.

  I tried to get up but I couldn’t breathe. The yeti was demolishing the remains of the car. Opalescent fluid was flying everywhere, covering his thick matter fur.

  “Are you okay?”

  A cold hand touched my face. Caitlin.

  “Yeah. Just had the wind knocked out of me.” I managed to sit up.

  The yeti continued its rage. But the car’s corpse was rapidly shrinking, leaving a bed of spiked metal. The yeti was stupid but it didn’t seem suicidal.

  “What the fuck is happening?” She asked. She was alive. Human.

  “You pick a class?”

  “Yeah the pop-up thing.”

  The yeti stopped raging and stared at its quarry. It roared in victory.

  I grabbed her arm. “Listen we don’t have a lot of time. Soon that thing is going to be coming after us.”

  The Yeti looked our way.

  “Hammer. There’s a series of hammers hanging up on the far wall in the workshop. Grab one. Any one. It doesn’t matter.”

  Caitlin looked from me to the creature to her ruined car.

  “Okay.”

  She took off running and so did I. She ran to the workshop and I ran right towards the yeti. “Menu!” I shouted.

  `“We appreciate the enthusiasm but full system access begins at 6:00 AM EST December 26 Earth time.”

  The pop-up appeared between me and the yeti, blocking its view. It reared its leg up to stomp on it, on me. I just ran forward, praying, hoping, something.

  I passed through the menu and kept going, right underneath its leg. The yeti tried to turn with one leg in the air and fell on its ass. I was breathing heavily. I had dropped the hammer at some point. A stitch in my side or maybe a broken rib at this point.

  The yeti tried to get up time and again but the gas has made the snow and ice even slicker. It kept falling. Again and again, unable to find traction.

  “Menu!” I shouted again and again as I circled it. Trying to confuse it. Buy just a little more time. The pop-up menus were multiplying each playing their own version of the message each time I said it.

  I saw Catlin emerge from the workshop, hammer in hand. She flew towards us.

  The Yeti screamed and dug his hands into the ground. Breaking through the layers of slick ice. He got to a kneeling position.

  A light in its eyes seemed to have formed. It scanned the environment with an intelligence it didn’t have before. Its hand reached for a car door and it used that to lever itself onto one leg.

  “Menu!” A pop-up appeared. And the Yeti ignored it.

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  “Mister!” Caitlin threw the hammer at me. I flailed my arms out, just barely catching it by the head. I could feel fingers breaking as they closed around it.

  They yeti stood. It ripped the door with its hands creating two long, thin blades.

  “What the actual fuck” It was still standing in the gas.

  I jumped. Leaped for the wreckage of the car and swung. Not at the yeti, but at the exposed metal of the VW bug. It sparked. And exploded.

  I was tossed back. My body was burned. I think I was on fire for a brief moment. The yeti’s screamed in agony. Time passed like a dream. An instant or maybe a year later and I could see, hear. I was healing. I wasn’t sure if it was my new class or just a part of this strange reality we’ve become a part of.

  I stood up and looked for Caitlin. She was on the ground. The sword, made out of her own god damn car had nailed her to the ground in the explosion. She was damn near cut in half.

  I remembered my grandfather’s funeral. My mother sat me down and told me he was in a better place. But I didn’t care, I would never see him again. Never hear him laugh. Never get a sip of whiskey to help with a cough if I promised not to tell my mother. The feeling of loss was so extreme I couldn’t even cry. It was like a hole had been ripped into me.

  I did not know Caitlin. But I could have. A whole branch of the future snuffed out in an instant. What was her favorite color? Her worst date? WHY is she doing Uber on Christmas? So many questions I would never get the answer to.

  I fell to my knees. Touched the side of her face. It’s what people always do in movies. And I FELT something. A spark. Faint but there. Like a static shock that just keeps going. Somehow I knew what it meant. She was alive, if barely.

  This stupid video game shit. My class. Fleshmancer. The pop-up said I could heal people. I focused, trying to find some deep well of energy within me. Focused on that sensation of a spark. Even tried a meditation technique my ex-fiance taught me. Nothing. None of it did shit.

  “MENU!” I shouted to the world, to the system to anyone who would listen.

  The same pop-up window as before appeared floor the thousandth time.

  “We appreciate the enthusiasm but full system access begins at 6:00 AM EST December 26 Earth time.”

  The spark was getting fainter. If that was her life force, the only assumption I could make, she was almost gone for good. I looked about me for something. But I didn’t know what.

  There was no hospital nearby. No ambulance. And even if there was her two halves were attached by about 3 inches of flesh and viscera. I didn’t need a doctor I needed magic.

  “Hey, Game Master!”

  Time stopped.

  – Opening private channel with Game Master –

  – GM Kna’lu has joined the chat –

  – Patrick Douglas’ name has been changed to Snitch –

  GM Kna’lu: Hey buddy what the fuck. This is crunch time.

  Patrick Douglas: I need your help.

  GM Kna’lu: Oh you have some nerve.

  Patrick Douglas: Please. Just tell me how to use my skills.

  GM Kna’lu: Wait what? That’s what this is all about? You saw the announcement you’ll get the tutorial in like 10 hours.

  Patrick Douglas: That’s too late. She’ll be dead by then.

  GM Kna’lu: Okay I don’t know if you’re aware or not but just over 6 billion people have been either turned into mobs or killed by mobs. This is a drop in the ocean, my friend.

  My mind went blank. 6 billion people were gone just like that. In an instant.

  Patrick Douglas: I- what?

  GM Kna’lu: God this sensitivity shit is not my job. Yeah, like everyone you know is probably dead. Well statistically ? of everyone you know. But could be know one, could be everyone. Outliers you know.

  My friends. My family. I couldn’t do anything for them right now. But I might be able to help Caitlin.

  Patrick Douglas: Please just tell me how to heal her.

  GM Kna’lu: Okay look, I can’t activate your skills early. Not even I can go that far. But Game Masters do have the discretion to nudge the odds in one direction or another IF we think it’ll lead to a compelling storyline when the players arrive.

  Patrick Douglas: What does that mean?

  GM Kna’lu: It means you need to build something here. A town, a dungeon, a weird sex cult. I don’t care. Right now this zone is pretty much empty except for the poor idiots who got teleported here during the population rebalance. Promise me that and I’ll put her in stasis until the tutorial. Then you can try to fix her.

  Patrick Douglas: Okay.

  – Private Channel with GM Kna’lu has closed –

  – You have received a new quest! –

  Time resumed. I had a nosebleed. My foot ached. I still had my hand on Caitlin’s face. The spark was weak but it had stopped fading.

  I didn’t know the extent of this stasis thing so it was probably best to get her inside where it was warmer, safer. The biggest challenge was moving her. I was afraid if I did it wrong she’d tear in half.

  I don’t know how long it took. But I lost feeling in my hands and feet. An inch at a time I worked to save the life of a woman I have never truly spoken to. My hands bled and healed over and over as I cut myself on the sharp metal edges.

  It’s funny I remember chickening out of being a bone marrow donor because I was afraid of the pain. The recovery time. They’ll find another match, I told myself. There are so many people in the world. The country. But here there was only me.

  With a grunt, I finally dropped Caitlin onto a makeshift sled. Just a wood pallet tied to some rope. I took the rope and finally dragged her inside.

  The warm air made my limbs tingle, then burn. I worked them as best I could. Going through a series of physical therapy exercises my PT taught me a few years back. A couple of dynamic stretches and a whole lot of rubbing.

  With difficulty, I managed to get Caitlin up onto the couch. Covered her with a blanket. The stasis seemed to stop her from bleeding but that didn’t keep the blanket from immediately soaking through. Nothing to do about it though.

  I added some fresh wood to the fireplace, the smell of smoke helped to cover up the smell of blood, sweat, and fear.

  I caught sight of myself in the dining room mirror. It was ghastly. Covered head to toe in blood and chunks of yeti. Clothes burnt from the fire. But my wounds were fully healed. I just needed a bath.

  I trawled over to the bathroom and finally felt the exhaustion hitting. The second the water turned on I collapsed into it.

  I blacked out. When I came to, the tub was overflowing. Water, an ever-lessening shade of pink as it ran out of the old-style claw foot and into a drain on the floor. I decided to let it keep running. Let the evidence of today wash away into whatever remained of the drainage system.

  I got out of the bath and limped naked to the forge. The Taco Bell bag still lay there. Artifacts from a different era, only a couple of hours old. I fished around the desk and found what I was looking for. My phone.

  I put my thumb on the print scanner, hoping, as the screen came to life. No signal. Whatever had happened either they were blocking our signal or the local cell tower had been destroyed. Most of my family was spread out across the country. Nearest would be my older brother, out in the city. But that was hours away even by car. Not like I can walk the distance. And what did he say about population rebalancing?

  I turned the phone off. Just in case we lose electricity. Then I picked up the Taco Bell and picked up where I left off. It might be the last time I ever have fast food after all. It was nice and warm from the heat of the forge.

  I settled in and had my final meal of the earth I'd known all my life. Whatever the future held it was governed by beings and rules I didn't understand. Things that I needed to understand. And who knows, if this was a game maybe it could be beaten.

  I finished my meal. It was fucking delicious. Threw on some clothes, and made my way to the living room where Caitlin was laying down. I closed my eyes and tried to get some sleep. I had a feeling that tomorrow was going to be a very long day.