Life was… relatively normal.
That was the only thought on Alice's mind as she watched Stuart keep the fire going by throwing more paper trash into it. At first, the man tried to throw in anything and everything, but when the Goddess reminded him that some fumes coming from burnt trash may be dangerous, the man stopped immediately, got on his knees, and asked, 'Oh Goddess, please grant me your wisdom. What should I burn?'
Kukulkan looked like a deer caught in a headlight. Alice could sympathize with her. Despite her claim of being a Goddess, Alice sees Kukulkan as something far lesser than that. The teen sees Kukulkan as a superpowered human trying as hard as she can to save as many people as possible.
After a few more seconds, Kukulkan offered paper and those things outside as a source of fuel.
This was her life now. Every day she'll wake up from sleeping on mattresses and bedsheets Kukulkan looted from a store on 3rd Avenue. Then, she'll brush her teeth using toothpaste and brushes looted from a Walmart next to JFK Airport before spitting them all out using water generated by the same Goddess. After that came a breakfast of pancakes cooked over an open fire.
If she had to take a dump or pee, she'd do it in a bucket inside what used to be the employee washroom here. There were three buckets with another three off to the side in case the first filled up early and Kukulkan wasn't there to dump it away. Each of the stalls contained its own bucket.
With the morning routine done, Alice would often join Rick in his 10-minute morning workout. She often worked up a sweat as she attended classes hosted by Mrs. Berkenstein, who was knowledgeable in teaching as some of her adopted children were homeschooled.
Mrs. Berkenstein was a good teacher. She was gentle, patient, and empathic. This helped immensely whenever Goddess Kukulkan brought back a child.
It's been only five days since everything had gone to hell, and already, 22 people turned into a small village's worth of 52.
She can still remember the disappointment on everyone's faces when Kukulkan said how not even the moonlight was safe on the first night.
Alice hummed to herself as she tried to angle her books to better receive the light from the fire.
Since this was a fortress hidden away from the sun's rays, any possible light source came from open fires or makeshift torches with a head of cloth dipped in gasoline.
With such a routine in place, Alice almost regained a sense of normality. If one ignored the everpresent darkness everywhere, and how Alice can barely get any sleep every night from the constant screams of people suffering from PTSD and night terrors, Alice can almost pretend that the world hasn't ended, that a new Flood hasn't just washed over humanity, that she's just in a refugee camp serving those who got displaced in a catastrophic hurricane.
"(3d - 9c)(5d + 13c) + 11. That should be the answer." A voice called out.
Alice turned to face the voice and saw it belonged to a young man in his late teens talking, "You know this?"
It was one of the people Kukulkan had rescued. David.
"Hell yeah, I do! Shit's caused me to fail a whole math test. My old man spent a whole night drilling this into my brain. Didn't even sleep until four in the morning."
Alice chuckled.
"Wow, strict parents much?"
David waved her off, dismissing her concerns.
"He's just trying to do what's best for me. I can't blame him…"
David trailed off with a pained look in his eyes. It was a look that Alice could sympathize with.
The pain of losing one's parents, children, or family in general caused much grief for many people. In fact, Kukulkan had to stop going out and stay inside this fortress longer as a symbol to give people hope.
It's probably why many people prayed with Bethany whenever she held her evening sermons. During these times of the apocalypse, many sought answers, and since neither of the Ph.D. physicist couples had any answers, they turned to religion.
After entering into this fortress, it became her entire world. Never once has she ever left the darkness ever since the sun became the devil.
"I can't blame any of them…"
David turned away from Alice, trying to look strong and brave. In turn, Alice placed a hand on David's shoulder, comforting him.
"Hey, it's okay. I understand your pain. Like you, my parents were also turned by the sun."
David's eyes sparkled against the flickering campfire. His lips quivered as he fought back against the urge to cry in front of a girl he liked.
"You know what I find really attractive in guys?" Alice asked, "Those who are willing to show their vulnerable side. I've seen plenty of beefy jocks with arms thicker than a Subway sandwich, probably juiced up on steroids as well. I've dated them, but none of them held my interest for longer than a month. They're all the same, they're all so 'alpha' that they can't see me as a person. My last boyfriend actually listened to what I had to say while I returned the favor, and we only separated because he had to move to another school."
Alice moved to give him a quick peck on the lips. While deep down she knew that this was simply her attempt at coping with what happened, the teen also thinks it's the same with David.
So let's heal each other then, she thought as David returned the gesture.
_______________
I stared at the two from the edge of the warehouse. Their silhouettes kissed in front of the fire.
Around me lay tools, colorful electrical wires, lamps, and a half-completed power generator.
I was attempting to set up a proper day and night cycle since inside this shell of absolute darkness, alight only with the glow from fires, one's internal clock would surely be messed up, and that can lead to all kinds of complications.
Of course, I could just use the Pan-Human History me's Authority over water and change each person to become independent of the sun, doing such a thing feels… wrong.
Should… no, when these people reproduce and make the next generation of humans, the changes I make to them will be passed down and affect their children, and then their children's children in an ever-expanding domino effect until the trait is present within every single human many generations later.
This was the reason why experiments into gene-editing technology on humans were so controversial in the scientific community in my old World before I signed on with the Company. Because, unlike rats whom you can euthanize if the result is undesirable, you really can't do that with a human. You'd effectively permanently alter the entire human gene pool.
That's a scarily large amount of power. It's one I'd prefer not to use unless it's a last resort.
"Should I be worried?" I muttered, inadvertently causing the person beside me who was also working on the power generators to suddenly freeze.
"Um, worried about what?"
Asian descent, with a pair of glasses on his head, Michael Jae-Hwa was an engineer I saved when I checked Columbia University in Harlem. Just like every other place, the university was overrun with those things.
"I'm just wondering if I should bring some protections."
Michael's gaze turned to where I was looking.
Michael Jae-Hwa probably had the strangest background I've ever heard. He was born in North Korea and his family escaped when he was only five. There, because of the years of living inside the DPRK, his parents developed extreme paranoia and instilled this paranoia into the young impressionable Michael. He became very paranoid of potential North Korean agents assassinating him, to such a degree that it wouldn't be inaccurate to call it an 'obsession'.
When I rescued him from inside his dorms, I found the place to be much more heavily defended than everywhere else. Michael explained how he paid the University extra money to allow him to improve the security of his own private dormitory, and it was primarily because of this fact that he was able to barricade himself inside while the fused human monsters unlocked the doors of other dorms and dragged those inside out into the sunlight.
The young man scowled as he realized it was nothing important, "I don't know, do whatever you want."
"Damn teens, they should die for finding love in a place like this," Michael muttered quietly, probably thinking I can't hear him.
Most people here placed me on a pedestal. They worshipped me and took my every word as gospel and my suggestions as rules they should live by.
I didn't know how much fame actually traps you. They're like bindings that force your limbs to move in a certain way.
I can't talk with these people like I did during the first few hours of When Day Break. They see me as so above them that they would never initiate a conversation, only seeking to appease me with kind words and compliments if I do start a conversation with them.
While it may be an ego boost for most people, it's grown tiresome. This is why I preferred to speak with people like Rick and Michael, the latter of whom spits on all sorts of authority.
It then suddenly occurred to me the environmental similarities between here and a prison in North Korea. I remember reading an article that compares the DPRK's prisons to concentration camps in terms of quality.
"Are you mad at me?" I asked Michael who returned to working on the lamp.
"...No."
"Are you mad at me because of how this place resembled a North Korean prison?"
Michael barked out a laugh, "Oh please, this is nothing like those prisons."
"You're the most hostile rescuee I've ever met."
Michael sighed.
"I can see what's happening." He said, pointing a screwdriver at me, "I took an interest in political science before going with engineering. Could've gone for a Master's or even a PhD. I even prepared a Thesis for fun before I dropped out. That Thesis was on how dictators rise to power on the backs of democratic revolutions. There's a specific part that focused on the 1979 Iranian Revolution."
I wasn't too familiar with the Middle East. So I waited for Michael to continue after he rewired the lamp.
"There's going to be a tyranny of the majority. With that majority being Bethany at its head."
I felt my brows furrow, "That's unrealistic."
Bethany, becoming a political leader? Really? That's the furthest thing possible. If anyone would become such a thing I'd expect it to be Rick.
In fact, Rick has become something of an unofficial leader when I'm not around.
Michael turned to stare unflinchingly into my eyes, unlike most others who would never do such a thing.
"Powers change people, Kukulkan. You're a Goddess so you're probably born with power, but when we powerless humans get a taste of that power we want more of it. It's a drug. The most addictive drug in the world."
Michael finished and returned to tinkering with creating a proper power generator that would feed on my plasma to create electricity. Currently, it was the size of a large house plant.
I brewed over Michael's words. Bethany doesn't seem to be the kind of person who would do that, would she? At her core, that woman is a Christian who wishes to follow the word of God to the letter. She's fanatical in her beliefs.
I will recognize how this may lead to the tyranny of the majority, where one voice triumphs over all minor ones. At the same time, maybe that's desirable in such circumstances as now. When I chose this dock warehouse, not a single person objected to it. They all just went along with my motion like fish swimming down a river.
A few more seconds of deliberations later I decided to let them continue to have their faith. So long as it doesn't hurt anyone, they can believe in whatever they want.
With that said, I closed my eyes and all colors drained away from my sight. My vision was once again solely comprised of the position of every single air molecule within a 100-meter radius around me.
I've grown better at using Quetzalcoatl's Authority of the Wind. With it, I managed to excite the air around my hands to a tremendous degree, turning them into shredders that can grind through concrete with only half a second of contact.
I finally have a technique I can use without fearing potential civilians being harmed.
I may or may not have zoomed through the air in excitement and joy. Nobody can confirm or deny such a thing happened.
Gravity released its hold on me as I started floating. I didn't detect any flesh monsters.
Then, I released my hold over Quetz's Authority and moved towards the garage door.
"You're leaving?" Rick called out to me just as I was about to lift the extra heavy reinforced garage door.
"Yes. Launch the fireworks if you're in danger."
Since walkie-talkies only receive that same corrupted broadcast, a very bright and loud firework launched into the sky is the next best way to catch my attention ASAP.
"I have one request."
"Go on."
"I'd like you to…" Rick gulped, "I'd like you to bring back a photo from my home."
I tilted my head, "Sure, where's your home, and what's the framed photo about?"
Rick told me his place of residence, was somewhere in Union City. The framed photo is on his coffee table in the living room. The framed photo was of him and his parents during his graduation from Oxford.
I took off after making sure no one would be in the direct path of the moonlight from outside. Right now, it was dark out, the fifth night ever since I came to this World.
The moon, oddly enough, retained its silvery glow. It was strange. You'd think given how the sky turned crimson during the day that the white moon would turn crimson as well, but it wasn't.
This sun just keeps on getting stranger and stranger.
I blasted across New York, opting to check the numerous subway tunnels that ran across the city.
During my first night here, I did check those tunnels, but they were absolutely swarming with those flesh monsters. I think a third of the city's down there. Thousands of them congealed into blobs twice as long as a subway car, and they used these large masses to sweep out any potential survivors hiding in the dark, sunless tunnels.
Going down into a subway station, I listened to any sounds out there in the tunnels. All I could hear was the disgusting sounds these things made as they crawled across the tracks, occasionally pushing the subway trains along with them or just straight up crushing the metal tubes with their mass.
I think these things cleaned the tunnels up. Thoroughly.
I went out of the subway station and back into the air.
The City That Never Sleeps was sleeping. There wasn't any light source anywhere. All fires burned themselves out, with the fire I caused in Central Park ceasing after the third day. It left that strip of wilderness barren, devoid of any greenery.
Though… I could finally confirm why the Foundation told people to avoid formerly wooded areas. I was right. The trees melted into unmoving masses on the fourth day, capable of entangling any survivors that tried to move through it.
I was about to head back before I picked up a strange radio chatter that pierced through the exceedingly loud constant corrupted broadcast.
I hear explosions.
Pausing mid-flight, I thought about what could've caused that and came to one conclusion very quickly.
Survivors?
I head towards it without a second thought.
____________
"Onru, what did I say about provoking them?!" Sarah Hughes, Commander of Mobile Task Force Tau-5 'Samsara' yelled as she focused on driving the Armored Personnel Carrier through the streets of Manhattan.
"I didn't try to provoke them. These things are telepathic. Each of their cells is capable of connecting to a private telepathic network. I wanted to see if I could get a reading off these things but it seemed to only have alerted them to our position. The only thing I got from temporarily connecting with that telepathic network was the command 'get them'."
Onru tried to justify himself. Other than Specialist Onru, and Captain Sarah, there were four other people in the APC. The other members of Samsara Squad Irantu, Munru, and Nanku, and Staff Sergeant Arthur Chen.
Sarah cursed as the APC's Soulseeker-II radar detected more masses of these things moving through the streets ahead of them. These things were trying to box her in.
Well, that's fine. "Irantu, I need you to man the main guns."
"On it Captain."
The APC that Hughes drove was a heavily modified Terrex Infantry Carrier Vehicle bought from Singapore. On top of this vehicle was a grenade launcher containing 20 40mm high-explosive concussion grenades designed to blow apart buildings and another 20 40mm cryo grenades capable of extreme rapid cooling that'll turn helium into a liquid.
With a single shot, the left side of the road ahead lit up in a fireball. Another shot and the other side lit up in another massive fireball that could fill up a town square.
"Irantu, go for cryo grenades. Use sparingly."
"Yes, Captain."
There were walls of flesh collapsing in on the APC from both sides. Every side street there were more of the flesh walls, forcing Hughes to drive the APC down this road into what's surely going to be a trap.
There, right in front of the APC, at the edge of Soulseeker's detection range coming into view, was the largest pile of these collections of molten meat. They were easily enough to fill up Times Square.
"Irantu, shift into multi-launch. We're going to smash right through that."
Hughes floored the pedal and pushed the wheels to their absolute limit. More energy was siphoned out of the micro-fusion reactor to push this vehicle to speeds faster than the top speed of a Ferrari.
The APC plowed through stopped cars resting on the road, its drivers having been right outside when everything had gone to hell. Those cars were flipped over to the side like they were a thick blanket of snow thanks to the giant shovel-like thing in front of the APC.
Sarah could see on the infrared monitor in front of her just how large that mass had become. It was like a tsunami, it was like a giant hand of god that reached up before falling down and smashing this APC into a pancake.
They won't be able to smash it.
"Everyone, prepare to jump car—"
A sudden burst of light blinded the infrared monitor, turning it pure white.
Sarah switched to the regular monitor and saw a sight found only in the aftermath of a nuclear explosion.
Right there, where the giant mass of human meat used to stand, was a single figure. It looked human. All around it were pulverized and blackened pieces of that human meat. The ground in that human's immediate surroundings was a lake of lava.
"Uh, you guys seeing what I'm seeing?"
The air around that human started heating up as plasma formed. There, the human shot them at the APC, lancing across the 400-meter distance in less than half a second.