CHAPTER 4

THE ORCS - A


Ten weeks.

That's how much time we had before everything would change.

Forever.

I can't tell you how much time I spent on preparations for the end of the world because at that point I had just given up on going outside and planned to hang out in a hole until everything blew over.

On week three, however, fate had a different plan for me.

When I was checking my supplies for any inconsistencies that detracted from the main function of the supply, I heard a thump from downstairs.

Immediately I grabbed the nearest weapon; a Luna Blaster.

Clenching it with both hands, I moved closer to the door slowly and quietly.

Of course, until I yelled, "Who's there?"

No answer.

I opened the door and went down the stairs.

Nobody was in the kitchen or the living room.

Now I was starting to get worried. Was I getting robbed?

I heard a step on the wood floor behind me and whipped around.

There, standing in front of me, was someone in a black coat and sunglasses. He had his hood up, of course. Nobody would just outright show their identity if they seemed fishy.

"What do you want from me?" I said to them.

"You. We need you," he said. His voice was gravelly and dark.

"Who is this 'we'? Some sort of shady society?" My hands were getting a lot less steady.

"You will learn soon enough," he said back to me. "But I can assure you that we are not what you think we are."

I started to lower my blaster. There was a long pause.

He looked out the window as if expecting someone to be there, then he looked back at me and said...

"How would you like to... stop the apocalypse?"

I looked at him in disbelief. "What are you saying?"

From what I could see of his face, he was smiling. "Alex, we both know that nobody wants this to happen."

I flinched when he said my name. How did he know it?

"I've seen you in Turf War and Ranked. You are very skilled."

"If you have seen me there, then you probably know how I flopped when I tried to face that Octarian squad."

"True," he said. "But that was a simple mistake. You just underestimated them. Now that you know what they are like, you will dominate."

He walked up to me and handed me a business card with the name "ORCS" on it with a red dot below it. The Octarian Removal and Containment Society.

Up to this point, I was confused. Why the heck did they choose ME, of all people? Is this guy just a dirty liar trying to get me to join a cult?

I looked back up after I was handed the card, we looked at each other for a moment.

"Put your thumb on the dot if you want to join," he said.

I looked down at the card again, trying to figure out what he was talking about.

"So... is this some sort of scanner or-"

When I looked away from the card, he was gone.


That night, I couldn't sleep.

I kept on having these strange dreams. They all started the same way; I see four people, including me, standing at the top of a hill, looking up at a red sky.

Then those same people beside me would slowly disappear, leaving just me.

Afterward, things start to flash before my eyes, such as the Big Bang, the silhoette of what looked like a street light pole, a green tube, a huge statue of a human that is partially broken, and many other things I couldn't understand at the time.

At the end of the dream, I was laying down on the floor, with inks of all colors surrounding me inside of a destroyed warehouse. Someone then jumped down from the roof, holding a modified Splattershot. Right before I wake up, this person extended a hand toward me, and everything went black.


When I woke up the next morning, the grogginess I expected came to me as soon as I opened my eyes.

I rubbed them and looked over to the ORCS card on my nightstand. I figured that since the world was already pretty much gone at this point, I might as well give this weirdo organization a shot.

Gathering my end-of-the-world survival kit and my courage, I slowly put my thumb on the dot, and got thrown backwards into unconsciousness.