“I’m going to go back to that space,” he said, voice steady.

  “Sure,” Isabelle replied, not looking up from her hands.

  “I just need you to watch over me and also tell me if anything happens or changes when I go into that state.”

  She glanced up. “Why?” she said, frowning.

  He shrugged. “I just want to get a full understanding of everything that’s going on, you know. The more information you have, the better. With the world as it is, information will be a lot harder to come by.”

  ????ˊ? ·?? ? ? ? ??· ??ˋ???

  It was a lot simpler than Lucas had thought to return to the step space. All he had to do was close his eyes, and the words bubbled past his lips: “Steps of Ascension.”

  His thoughts then turned inward before falling away, similar to going to sleep and feeling like you were dropping. The urge to jolt was there, but when he gave into it, he sat up on smooth ground, white expanding all around him, and in front of him were the black steps he’d taken.

  At his side, just in the corner of his vision, the system screen flashed to life.

  ══════════◆◇◆══════════

  SYSTEM MESSAGE

  ══════════◆◇◆══════════

  | Time Left: 00:00:00

  | Time Experience: 65 —? 00:06:00

  | Time Experience Remaining: 5

  | Time Left: 00:06:00

  ══════════◆◇◆══════════

  He’d gained six minutes from killing and harvesting the wolves and the boar. In the future, he’d have to make sure he harvested every creature he fought to maximise the time experience he got.

  With six minutes, he could definitely get close to the top, probably not all the way, though, especially with how heavy it got last time. Though hopefully it was a lot easier to climb now that he had a feel for it.

  With the silence surrounding him, Lucas walked over to the black steps and tapped his foot against the ground. Glancing around, he shrugged. There wasn’t really anything else he could do but get to it. With the steps already there, it had to be quicker to get to the top than last time.

  As he stepped forward, resting his foot onto the first black step, the world around him shifted, warping, and space practically swallowed him. The next moment, he was spat out, almost stumbling, as he stood at the very peak.

  Beneath him, the white expanse stretched in every direction, the ground far below—sixty steps below. He sighed, relief filling him. He didn’t have to climb all sixty steps again and could just start where he’d left off.

  The timer on his right started counting down, and he took a breath, taking the first step. It was as heavy as he’d imagined. But he pushed past the resistance, climbing higher with each second. The whole thing was an exertion. He’d taken small hikes before, walked up hills that were—or at least he considered—steep. But this was something else.

  By the time the timer ran out, sweat drenched his forehead and slid down the back of his neck as he rested his hands on his knees, gasping. Though this place wasn’t real, the toll it had on what he assumed was his body—rather than soul—felt more than real.

  The next moment, reality halted, and his vision went blank. Gasping, he shot forward from the beanbag, clutching his now-dry shirt.

  Isabelle’s eyes shot to him. “Are you alright?” she asked, half getting up from her seat.

  He raised a hand to stop her. That had been a sharper return than the first time. With a heavy breath, Lucas then lowered back into the beanbag, reaching for his forehead. Dry as well.

  He’d made it to eighty-something steps. He was close. With a bit more XP, he’d reach a hundred steps. At that point, something would happen. Given the fact that the system was using XP, it had to be some sort of level-up.

  Shifting towards her, he raised a brow. “So, did you notice anything?”

  Isabelle shrugged. “No, you kind of just looked like you fell asleep, though a lot stiffer,” she said, turning away from him and settling back into her chair.

  He brought a finger up and tapped his bottom lip. Stiff sleep. Was that really all that would happen? Lucas supposed that made sense. It’s not like they were warrior monks who would start floating as soon as they meditated. Could going to the Steps of Ascension even be called meditation?

  “So what now?” she asked.

  “Well, I guess...” He paused. What now? The wolves had disappeared, but they would be back. It was unlikely that they would just flee when they had the upper hand. So he had to put himself in a position to get the jump on them when they returned. “I want to go hunt those creatures, the blight kin.”

  She raised an eyebrow at him, looking him over, her eyes lingering especially on a bloodstain at the bottom of his shirt. The stain he’d gotten from cleaning the locket her father had given him. Meeting Isabelle’s gaze, Lucas said nothing. She probably thought it was Lucas’s blood and probably thought he wanted to get himself killed chasing the blight kin.

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  While Lucas wasn’t muscular or even really strong—a scrawny boy, his auntie often called him—he had his puppets that gave him at least a smidge more confidence than he probably ought to have.

  “I can do it,” he said before she could voice her judgment. “And I think you should, too. If not just for you, but for your sister.”

  She turned back to her hands, her fingers locking and unlocking together. What was she thinking? Was she scared? He sure as hell was. But he couldn’t let that stop him, not when strength provided safety.

  “I know you’ve lost your father…” Lucas said, pushing off the beanbag, leather peeling away from his skin as he got to his feet. Isabelle cringed, her frown deepening.

  He dusted off his hands and rested one on his hip. How could he best broach this? He didn’t want to tell her to suck it up and move on. For one, that was cruel and downright unhelpful, but on the other hand, she needed to be tougher now, not just for herself, but for her sister. That was the only way she’d weather the coming changes.

  “Isabelle,” he said. She turned her head to him and waited for him to continue. He stammered for a moment, took a breath, and sighed. “I think—no, I’m going to help you through this. I feel like I ran into your dad out there for a reason, and it’d feel wrong just to abandon you when you clearly need people the most.”

  Her lips parted, but before she could say anything, a shout from inside interrupted her.

  “Lucas, come out here right now!” his mother yelled, voice coming from inside the house through the open kitchen window. She sounded both terrified and awed at the same time.

  He frowned, as did Isabelle, and the two of them rushed inside.

  Lucas’s shoes beat against the hallway’s laminate flooring as he barged into the living room, where he found the dog sitting in the corner, still waiting. He frowned at the beast before surveying the area. His mum wasn’t in here, nor was Sasha.

  Then why was the dog still here? But before he could puzzle that out, he caught sight of his mum through the front window. Past the front garden wall, she stood in the middle of the street. A short distance away from her were several neighbours. One or two of them, Lucas recognised. They were all looking up at the sky, even the ones all the way across the road.

  “What’s going on?” Isabelle muttered, but he didn’t answer her. He didn’t have time.

  He rushed from the living room—Isabelle and the dog chasing behind him—slammed open the front door, and sped through the front garden. With a creak, he opened the garden fence, his gaze moving towards what everyone was looking at, and he froze.

  In the distance, a thick red beam surged skyward, the thin smattering of clouds struggling to dim its glow. It buzzed with power. Even from here, it practically prickled against Lucas’s skin, setting all his hairs on end. What was this thing?

  It gave off a heavy energy, one that weighed on his chest. His gut told him that this was only the beginning of worse to come.

  Stepping past him, Isabelle moved towards her sister but paused when her eyes landed on the beam.

  “Are you seeing this, Jeffrey?” a neighbour just across the road said, elbowing the man next to him.

  “I am Paul. What do you think it is? You think it’s the government? A smoke signal?” Jeffery stroked a messy beard, his eyes practically sparkling as he watched the light.

  “That doesn’t look like a smoke signal to me,” Paul replied. The older man then bent over and picked up a brick that had been resting against a ruined front garden wall. His knuckles whitened as he gripped it.

  “You’re right,” Jeffery said, giving Paul a sidelong glance. “But if it’s not... A flare, maybe?”

  “You ever seen a flare like that?” another neighbour standing behind the two interrupted. “No, it’s something else.”

  And Lucas could guess what that something else was. The wind whipped through his hair as he gulped. It had to do with the wolves and the boar and the flame crow. While it was a loose connection at best, they were all red, and this red beam; they had to have something to do with it.

  “Hey, there’s another one over there,” a young woman standing on top of a car with a popped tyre said, pointing into the distance towards a beam further out.

  Lucas turned to where she pointed, and there he saw another beam of light, this one green, but unlike the red one, it was much further away.

  Was there another one? He turned away from the forest and toward Main Street, where they’d come from earlier, and there in the distance was a blue beam. Though it was much further away than the other two.

  If he had to guess, the red one had to be at least an hour or more away on foot. So the blue one was definitely at least several hours away. Others around the neighbourhood saw it, some muttering to themselves, while others pulled their family members closer.

  “It’s death,” Isabelle whispered at Lucas’s side.

  His brow furrowed. What was she talking about? Facing her, he searched the girl’s face, but all he found was blank horror. It was like she was watching a car accident unfold, and was barely processing it.

  “We’re all going to die. The universe has given up on us and sacrificed us to demons,” she muttered.

  Her hand then reached for her sister’s shoulder, and she gripped it, pulling the little girl in closer. Sasha let out a yelp, but Isabelle barely responded. Instead, her eyes dropped from the sky, and she shifted her gaze between everyone on the street. Her eyes held suspicion, the kind that said she trusted no one and anyone could be a threat.

  Her eyes then flicked to Lucas, and as their gazes met, he gave her a weak smile. But that achieved little. If anything, she seemed to recoil slightly, stepping back an inch. She didn’t even trust him? He’d saved her.

  Had she forgotten his speech in the garden just a moment ago? Or at least the one he’d been working up to. He wanted to help her. Could she not see that, or...

  But then it sank in as the wind blew through her short brown hair. A woman sobbed somewhere nearby. And a child’s voice spoke soothing words. No, Isabelle probably knew she could trust him. But she was breaking. The world was overwhelming her, and she was doing what anyone would, pulling in to herself and those she cared for.

  “Lucas,” his mother called as she stood staring at the sky, her messy bun blowing loosely in the wind as her nightgown also drifted about. She dropped her gaze and glanced over her shoulder towards him. “We need to head inside now and get our things in order. I’m serious.”

  Lucas nodded. She was right. Though he wanted to go hunt more of those wolves, they also had to think about not only their safety but also supplies. He still hadn’t checked if the water was still running, and the gas most definitely wouldn’t be on.

  If it were, they didn’t exactly have a way to store it, but water was different. They could fill the bath, fill tubs. And they needed to because if the entire world was going through this—and that was a big if—then society would not be going back to normal for quite some time.

  The four of them and the German shepherd began filing back towards the house, various neighbours around the street doing the same, muttering to themselves while they secured their families—what remained of them, anyway.