Chapter 17: Chapter 17: The Thin Veneer

I put the cruiser in drive, the tires crunching over shattered glass that glittered on the asphalt like broken stars. In the rearview mirror, the ambulance's lights continued their silent, pointless flashing, a beacon for a tomb. A cold, heavy weight settled in my gut, the kind of sorrow that had nothing to do with sadness and everything to do with a world that was fundamentally broken. I faced forward and didn’t look back.

My hands felt disconnected from my arms as they guided the wheel. Muscle memory. My brain, however, was doing that thing it does after a call goes completely sideways. It replayed everything in a constant, looping coroner’s inquest. A high-pitched ringing started in my ears. If I’d moved faster. If I hadn’t let Roy get the drop on me. If I’d said the right thing to Jonathan. It was a useless, corrosive exercise that only ever ended in the same place.

I forced the thoughts down, focusing on the rhythmic hiss of the air vents as I drove. Breathe in for four, hold the wheel steady. Hold for four, check the mirrors. Out for four, stay on the road.

The silence in the car was heavier than the bodies I’d just moved.

“You must be worried about your parents,” I said, the words feeling clumsy and loud.

Kira, who had been staring out the passenger window at the blur of passing trees, glanced over. Her expression was tight. “They live outside the city. They should be okay.” She was trying to convince herself as much as me.

“Okay isn’t good enough,” I heard myself say. “After we check in at the detachment and figure out what the hell is going on, we’ll take a cruiser. We’ll go check on them. Together.”

She stared at me, her green eyes wide with a mixture of surprise and something else. Gratitude, maybe. The tough-as-nails rookie façade cracked for just a second. “You’d do that?”

“Of course,” I said, turning my attention back to the road. It felt weirdly easy to say. A familiar pang hit my chest. The kind of worry she was feeling, the kind that came from having people to lose… it was a foreign country to me, but I could at least be her armed escort while she visited. My own family tree had been chain-sawed down to a stump long before I ever pinned on a badge.

“Okay,” she said, her voice softer now. “Okay, Elias. Thank you.”

The silence that followed felt a little lighter. I checked the radio again out of habit. The speaker answered with a burst of static, a sound I was getting real tired of.

Kira was staring intently at the empty space in front of her, her brow furrowed. “I’m bringing up my menu,” she said, more to herself than to me. A moment later, she gasped. “It says I have a reward box.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

A soft thump, and a turquoise box, the same kind I’d gotten, appeared in her lap.

“Well, look at you,” I deadpanned, keeping my eyes on the road. “Santa came early.”

She shot me a glare that could peel paint before pulling the lid open. A soft, white light filled the cab, briefly illuminating the exhaustion on her face. She reached in and pulled out… a stick. A big, gnarled walking stick that tapered to three prongs. The middle prong, longer than the other two, glowed red with magic. A floating blue label cleared things up: Rare Wizard Staff.

Of course. A magic sword for me, a magic stick for her. We were officially LARPing the apocalypse.

“The system gave rewards for killing them,” she thought out loud, turning the staff over in her hands. It looked absurd resting against the tactical shotgun propped between her feet. “So the monsters and the blue screens have to be connected.”

“Maybe they’re aliens,” I said, half joking. At this point, I wouldn’t rule anything out.

The first signs of the city appeared ahead. Smoke smudged the horizon like a dirty thumbprint against a blue sky. Then we saw the first crashed car, then a dozen more. A city-wide case of bad driving, or the opening act of the apocalypse. My money was on the latter.

“Main street’s going to be a parking lot,” I muttered, more to myself than to Kira. “Going to try to get us closer via the industrial park.”

I cranked the wheel, turning down a side street. Here, the chaos was more intimate. Stores had their windows smashed, the broken glass glittering on the sidewalks like toxic confetti. A guy sprinted out of a Best Buy, a flat-screen TV big enough to be a dinner table clutched in his arms. The world is ending, and my man is worried about his screen resolution. Priorities. Technology wasn’t even working right now, what was he going to do with it?

They weren’t scared. They were giddy. Like it was Black Friday and all the doors had been kicked in for them. With no phones, no alarms, no cameras, society's thin veneer had peeled back to reveal the grubby, grasping bullshit underneath. It hadn’t even taken a full day.

Just as I thought we might have a clear path, I turned a corner and hit the brakes. A river of abandoned cars choked the street ahead, a metal graveyard as far as I could see. There was no way through.

I slammed my palm against the steering wheel, the horn letting out a pathetic, short blare. We were blocked.

Kira was already unbuckling her seatbelt, the wizard staff now gone, presumably tucked away in her own magic pocket dimension.

“We’re walking from here,” she said, her voice all business.