CWD: GA ~ Two

Nacho watched his friends, doing everything he could to delay their departure. As the time of their wedding drew closer, his eyes flicked to Reuben just as his larger friend tugged on the collar of his tuxedo. Looking slightly to the left, where Brie was standing and trying not to see her soon-to-be husband, he suppressed a wince as the unnaturally uncomfortable lady in her wedding dress glared at him more furiously with each passing moment.

Brie was not happy that they’d taken this detour on her wedding day. “Enough of this, Nacho. We have pictures at one, and we need to eat before then because I don’t want to faint. Can we get on with this?”

“Wait, one sec.” Reuben pointed at Nacho’s side, where his clothes were barely hiding a bulge. “Do the thing with the knife!”

Nacho was in his own tuxedo and happy to do anything to stall for just another moment. He gladly took a Gerber Mark II fixed blade knife out of his knife holster and made it dance across his fingers, then shoved it into the ballistic nylon sheath and concealed it with a swift movement. “Glad you like it, buddy.”

Three backpacks lay on the floor, one for each of them. One had an unstrung bow in a tube strapped to the back, along with a quiver of hunting arrows. Nacho reached over and secured a buckle, ignoring Brie’s fuming. “At eleven fifty-five, we’ll put these on. I’m sorry you aren’t going to get your wedding pictures. Or your wedding.”

Brie furrowed her brow and took a deep breath, about to go full bridezilla, but Reuben swooped in just in time. “Nacho. Bro. We’re worried about you. You haven’t worked since before school ended, and all this stuff…? What are you doing for money?”

“I maxed out seven credit cards and took out a loan from, ah… everyone.” Nacho chuckled nervously. “My credit is gonna suck unless the world ends in the next few minutes.”

Reuben forced a laugh and spoke quickly as Brie sprang to her feet in a flash. “Look, man, if it’s the end of the world as we know it, and you feel fine-”

“I feel nervous.” Nacho sat his friend down on the edge of the table. They were now arranged in a triangle, waiting in their little apartment, which had so many memories. “This will all make sense in about twenty minutes, or most of it will. I need to tell you a few things. We’re going to start an Evaluation for the Juxtaposition—”

Brie cut him off with a wave of her hand. “What is being juxtaposed with what?”

Reuben wasn’t going to be getting any more serious. “Hey, I know this one! Crazy-ville and cuckoo banana-pants, juxtaposed together. Nacho, you’re freaking us out, and I think it’s time for us to go.”

“Dang right, it is.” Brie was fuming, practically vibrating in her lacy shoes from sheer rage. “I do not want to be playing Armageddon on my wedding day.”

Both of them went very still when Nacho’s hand shifted toward his shoulder holster. He didn’t directly make a threat, as he would never hurt his friends, but Brie still sank down into her chair and took Reuben’s hand. “Sorry to say, Armageddon is happening, and I’m not going to lose you two like I did last time.”

“Yeah, that sounds great man. Juxtaposition.” Reuben’s hand that wasn’t holding his bride’s was hidden below the table, and he was clearly starting to call for help. Nacho didn’t mind; no one would get here before they were all scooped out. “So what does that actually mean? I don’t think you told us the whole story before.”

“Juxtaposition is just what we call it. That’s a word that means ‘to compare side-by-side’, and… listen. Time’s almost up. I’m begging you, listen to me carefully and at noon and one second, I’ll walk out the door if I’m wrong.” Nacho intently continued his instructions. “In just a moment, Earth is going to be replaced with the ‘Starter World’, and we’re given an interface. You’ll need to blink once with your left eye, once with your right, then shrug to open it. That’ll be really important to know.”

“Left, right, shrug.” Reuben nodded as he calmly repeated after his friend. Brie’s eye twitched.

“The reason it’s a Juxtaposition is that it’s not just the Earth; there’s also the Crossworld, and both get connected to the Starter World through portals. We were just getting to the point where we were fighting the CrossHumans when I was killed. At the moment I died, I was given a boon. You might get one as well; I don’t know. They’re godlike entities, these Patrons, and they’re messing with the game. They give people gifts, but rumor has it, some of the Patrons are actively trying to kill us off. Others are helpful, or seem to be, but be careful.”

Brie and Reuben exchanged worried glances, and Nacho watched a tear fall down his best lady-friend’s face. He felt tears in his own eyes and gritted his teeth. He felt sick that he needed to do something like this to make them listen, and it certainly didn’t look great for his trustworthiness.

He gulped back a sob as the memories of the Probability Vision hit him like a hammer. He remembered being in the apartment, getting ready for the wedding by himself. Because, yes, even though pictures had started at one pm, Nacho had been running late. He’d just pushed out of the door, car keys in hand, in this very tuxedo, when the Juxtaposition had pulled away every soul on Earth.

Nacho had done well in enduring the Evaluation, almost entirely because his gamer-side had kicked in. He played the scenario, thinking it was all fun and games like the books he used to read… until the gecko bear had ripped him apart. By then, he was on the verge of exhaustion from hunger and sleep deprivation, and it had only been day two. He’d thought that was the end, but the result was only that he’d done fairly poorly in the Evaluation.

He’d blinked and appeared in a surreal Mall that offered anything from food to superhuman abilities. Once more a gamer, he’d bought his character class and then exited. In the next few seconds, he’d appeared in a meadow, holding his car keys, finding himself with everything he’d had on him before being whisked away, except for his cell phone. Technology that required electricity wasn’t a part of the Starter World’s ecosystem, and none of it was allowed.

Nacho’s neighbors had been standing around him, those between the ages of fifteen and fifty-five: one man with a pacemaker had dropped in the next second, since a chunk of his heart had been ripped away with the life-saving tech. The ex-assassin’s hands shook as he remembered the screams of terror as the nightmare Oscreech birds flew in—talons sharp, and beaks sharper. When the birds hit the ground, the humans had found out that the creatures could run as fast as they could fly.

He’d run for the church where Reuben and Brie were getting married as his neighbors had been torn apart, but it had been five miles, and he was in terrible shape. It had taken him hours to try to find the location, but the church was gone… and so were his friends. He’d heard later from survivors that a semi-blind mole creature, later identified as a Dirt Devourer, had come to the surface and wiped out most of the neighborhood around the church. Some of those first monsters had been tough right off the bat. If there was someone controlling the Juxtaposition, they had been playing too much Melden Ring.

Nacho forced himself to relax his jaw muscles. “I can save you this time. We have a definite advantage, and we’re going to abuse the heck out of it. This is the most important thing. Whatever else happens, choose ‘Balanced, Instant’ for your build type. Any of the other options are a trap. Do you hear me? Balanced, Instant. The next thing… you’re going to get a class choice. Brie, you’re a natural Body Player. You’ll want to choose that.”

“That sounds a little PG-Thirteen.” Reuben’s fake work laugh really highlighted how tense the man was. “I mean, it’s like a pick-up line. Hey there, pretty lady, if I said you were a Body Player, would you hold it against me? Wokka wokka! Hey, do I hear saxophone music?”

Nacho wasn’t laughing. Brie either. “My friend, you’re going to want to be a Mind Player. You’re good with resource management, and that’ll work well for spells. Knowing you, I think you’ll get great mana bonuses.”

“Nine-one-one, what is your emergency? If you can’t answer, please know that the police are on their way.”

“Mana?” Brie spoke too-loudly, trying unsuccessfully to cover the sound of the phone. “Is this like in one of your video games?”

“Right. If one of you is a Body Player, and the other is a Mind Player… it’s—okay, like this. If we don’t have food, we’ll probably have water, so at least one of us will be able to fight. I was a Body Player before, an assassin, and I’m not going to change that. It’s what I know, and I was the best.”

Reuben tugged at his collar, his brow furrowed in concentration now that Nacho hadn’t made any moves to hurt them. “Let me guess: the better you do in the Evaluation, the better class you get?”

“Kinda. You earn points to spend.” Nacho swallowed. His mouth was so dry. “Ah, I almost forgot! Evaluation! The water will disappear, as will the food. Mostly it’s berries, like blackberries on bushes, and strawberries. Look at the ground and in the trees. There’s also peanut bushes, or, uh, they look like peanuts. You’ll see. Pick them and hoard them. Food is critical in this game. It was a…”

Nacho had run out of breath. He had to take a moment.

Reuben and Brie let him sit there in silence.

“I wrote this all down. Front pocket for both of you. If you have the time to read it when we get to the Starter World, please do, so I can answer questions. If worse comes to worst, the largest secret of that world…” Nacho inhaled shakily and powered through. “The Evaluation was a hint that none of us understood. I’m getting ahead of myself… also, you will die in the Evaluation. I didn’t know that at first; no one did, so we were all too careful. You don’t have to be. Take risks. It’s the only way to get enough credits for an advanced class. Keep hydrated and eat. Collect water and hoard food.”

“What else, what else…” He tapped at his head as he tried to think, moving to a ready position as Brie shifted slightly. “Okay, there’s a shack to the south with weapons, baskets, and some supplies. On the rocky ledge above the central pool, you’ll find some armor. There’s also blackberry bushes there. Those ledges are a good base. There are weapon caches here and there. Use them to kill monsters to get Evaluation Points.”

“Kill monsters.” Brie clearly didn’t believe him. Nacho didn’t mind. She would soon enough. “Well, in five minutes you’re either going to leave forever, or we’ll be in a new world.”

“That’s right. Kill monsters.” Nacho echoed the only part he wanted to reinforce, even as a pang ran through his heart. “Don’t eat any meat in the Evaluation world! It’s all full of Putrid Mana. If you eat it, you’ll get sick, and you won’t be able to fight. You’ll see the world slowly dying, so again, store food and water. Remember, choose Balanced, Instant. You won’t be able to change it. You’ll get what seems like a casual choice, but it’s the most important decision you could make at the start. No one knows it until after the fact.”

“Okay, we’ll choose Balanced, Instant. Just curious, but what are all the options?” Reuben wasn’t joking now, his eyes serious and locked onto Nacho’s.

Nacho licked his lips and cracked a smile, now that it looked like his friend was starting to believe. “There are three build types in the game, but we’re out of time.”

Brie grasped her dress in two frustrated fists. “This is not the kind of wedding day I wanted. You know I’m not super girly in general, but I do like it when things I spend time planning work out.”

“We do.” Reuben quirked an eyebrow at Nacho. “You do know if nothing happens at noon, you’re out of the wedding, right?”

Nacho ignored the jab, grabbing a bag and revealing that the side of each held a long machete.“I have clothes, weapons, food, and water for us. We’ll appear together, all at the same time.”

He glanced at the time on the microwave, then stood up fully and shouldered on his pack. Reuben helped Brie with hers, and then got himself taken care of as the sound of police sirens started drawing closer. The three stood facing each other in the apartment, and Nacho desperately wanted to say something in an effort to mend the bond he had just endangered. Years as an assassin had taught him how to keep his mouth shut, luckily for him.

As the seconds hand on the clock passed the large six, Brie let out a shrill, disturbing laugh. “Okay. One positive with either the end of the world, or dealing with the police that are coming to throw you into a little white room, is that I won’t have to deal with my family. I know you two had it rough in the Mom and Dad department, and I don’t want to be insensitive, but…you know.”

Nacho smiled warmly at his two friends. “We’ll be together again. We’ll have gear. The Evaluation is going to freak you out, and you’ll die, but you won’t stay dead. Then you’ll be with me, and I’ve done this before.”

“I’m just glad I didn’t want anything to eat or drink when I got here.” Reuben rolled his eyes drolly and looked at his fiance. “This is so cult-y. I’m looking for the grape Kool-Aid, but we’re probably good.”

Brie threw an elbow into his arm. “That’s not even funny. Time’s up, Nacho. Get out of the—”

Her voice cut off. Armageddon had come right on time. It was time for the Evaluation to grill them.