In the hopeless, grim future, the apocalypse may have blurred the passage of time for others, but he remained acutely aware of every fleeting second, a fact that pushed him to the brink of sanity, staring into the dark abyss of madness.
He once possessed everything, seemingly untouched by the world's destruction. However, after one hundred days of solitude in his shelter, he understood that he couldn't continue that way.
Precisely one hundred days prior, his parents had asked him to move his elaborate Wartopia games out of the hurricane shelter, which he and his friends used as a playground. They would spend countless hours playing there, waging wars between little plastic men and little plastic monsters, fully immersed in their war of grim fantasy.
Admittedly, being twenty-four years old with no independence, still living with his parents, and having no romantic prospects, wasn't ideal at all, but what choice did he have?
He could have blamed inflation, but then the monsters from the Dice of Destiny monster manual were unleashed upon the world, and Kevin Tanaka found himself completely alone in his family's shelter.
Hours before the fall, he had a big fight with his father. It concluded with him being told to move all his senseless toys out of the hurricane shelter. He argued that, since it was built, it had never once been used for actual sheltering from any hurricane.
That night, he was heartbroken as he moved everything outside the shelter in no less than ten large boxes: all the terrain pieces, the fortification complexes, Men-at-Arms, Mechs, Demons, Heroic Miniatures, and most of all, the streaming equipment he was using to make money from this whole activity.
Everything had started almost ten years ago. It was so near and dear to his heart that he would have asked his parents to rent the shelter for him, but everybody knew he didn't make enough money to afford rent.
But just as he was steeling his heart, ready to call his friends to cancel tomorrow's game or perhaps move it elsewhere, his phone began flashing with continuous notifications.
He had never seen an emergency notification before, but as soon as he swiped it aside, all his social media apps were flashing with notifications about the Monolith situation.
He didn't seem to understand, but as soon as he saw the tags on the posts, it became clear something was terribly wrong with the world.
Monolith, Portals, Monsters, Death, Destruction, London, Tokyo, Cairo, Istanbul, Moscow, New York, Army, Bombs, Tanks, Death…
It took him a minute to realize what was going on.
This was nothing like any fantasy he had ever dreamed of: fantasy monsters invading the world, dragons fighting jets in the sky, goblins raiding malls, orcs brutalizing people in public squares, giants wreaking havoc in the middle of Wall Street, and that last thing… some sort of Lovecraftian monster?
This was either the internet's most organized prank or the end of the fucking world.
Not a minute later, he realized it was the end.
"KAITO! KAITO!"
He heard his father's voice calling for him, and his head peered from the shelter's entrance. Slowly scaling the steps to the outside, he saw his mother and father rushing towards the shelter.
"Dad?"
He didn't realize what was happening in his state of disbelief, but in just a split second, something fell from the dark night sky like a meteor right in the middle of the street behind his parents.
Everyone fell to the ground: the people running from their suburban homes to their shelters, his parents, and he himself.
And as they raised their heads, it all became terrifyingly real.
Everyone looked at the mythical creature raising its head in the dust cloud, its gaze sweeping over them.
Why?
Of all things?
Why a Dragon?
"A… Anata!" (H… Husband!)
His mother, unable to get up, was the first to make a sound, and the dragon's head turned, eyes focused on her.
Her husband, watching the dragon in terror, tried to take a quiet step towards her, but…
GWOOOSH!
… the Dragon moved faster than anything possible.
The mother was caught by her left leg and dragged away in a flash. Her fingers carved five feet through the lawn, her scream echoed, and at the end of the single second this all happened, she was flung into the air…
"ONEGAI… TASUKETE!!!" (PLEASE… HELP ME!!!)
… and swallowed.
"AIKOOOO!!!"
The father's harrowed shout marked the beginning of the madness.
The people screamed and ran!
The dragon was a meticulous hunter, focusing on one family at a time, beginning with Kave's.
"… kaa-san…" (… mom…)
Kave couldn't even believe what he saw, unable to hear his father yelling at him to close the door as he rushed over.
He just… froze there.
His father's shouts, his mother's screams, and the movie-like scenes on social media were nothing compared to the thing he saw.
He met eyes with the dragon, and that terrified him like nothing else in the world.
He saw a vision of worlds burning, civilizations collapsing, hell breaking loose upon every world: the skies filled with the winged menace, and the earth with people of all shapes and colors. Chains on their necks, on their hands, on their feet, all kneeling, bowing, kowtowing. Parents offering their children to the fire, heads shaven, madness in their eyes. And on their foreheads was a scar, no, a brand, like the one on animals. This one, however…
But that vision was suddenly interrupted by his father, who pushed him into the shelter. He fell down the steps all the way to the ground below.
The shelter's hatch door was reinforced metal, heavy but reliable, perfect for keeping anything out. Still, it required effort to be pulled from the side and closed shut.
The dragon was close behind, its throat bright with flames. There was no time to shut the hatch door and for Kaito to get inside.
For his son, Mr. Tanaka chose the ultimate sacrifice.
✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧
When Adam arrived at the place he was familiar with, a suburban area called Springhead north of Brighthaven City, he found it a gray, ashen wasteland.
Survivors from this place spoke of the horror that had occurred here: a dragon had descended upon this place, and everything was set aflame. Adam had to rely on his knowledge of the surviving landmarks to rediscover the place, little by little.
And there it was, the Tanaka family hurricane shelter.
This area had been built more than sixty years ago after a hurricane hit the state, and the Tanaka family had managed to move in thirty years ago after migrating from Japan. The house already came with a shelter, but it was never used since no hurricane ever happened.
In high school, their son, Tanaka Kaito, made it his own playground and would invite his friends to hang out. Kaito's English name was Kevin Tanaka, but since he had his own shelter playground, he was ultimately called Kave.
Everybody loved Kave, and Kave's cave held a special place in the party's hearts. Kave spoke about his parents' nagging him to move out after failing to hold a job or maintain a relationship. Ironically, Adam met his ex, Megan, at Kave's shelter.
To Adam, he wouldn't miss that place easily, and his desire to find it now was greater than ever, especially since this place housed the largest Wartopia miniature collection in Brighthaven.
So when Adam arrived at the door of the shelter, he couldn't believe the sight he saw.
A skeleton lay on the door, remnants of one, not even a full skeleton, fused into the metal itself.
As for the door, its hinges had melted, and it had become one with its frame.
The skeleton was of someone who was probably rushing to the shelter and died burning. Adam had seen sights like that all over for the past three months, and he had buried a lot of people. He had gotten over being fazed by many things, yet as he took a closer look at the left side of the skeleton, he noticed something cuffing it to the metal door.
At first, anyone would dismiss that as the shelter's door handle melted around the hand, but it seemed like a different type of metal: silver, from a silver watch.
Only one man he knew would wear a silver watch for no occasion whatsoever in these parts, and show it off as the gift he was given from his workplace for his ten-year no-vacation or holiday record.
"Shit! It's Mr. Tanaka."
Behind Adam, Captain Creed was watching from a distance. His heavy steps made a loud noise as he approached and took a look at the grim sight of the skeleton fused to the metal hatch door, asking:
"Your friend?"
"No, his father."
If Mr. Tanaka was here, maybe Kave and his mother would have perished before they could open the shelter. There were many scenarios that could have happened, but Adam never expected his friend's current whereabouts to be right one thick, reinforced metal door away.
"I'd ask you to kick the shelter door in, but would you give me a hand and remove it, please?" Adam asked.
"For what purpose?" Creed didn't seem too pleased to be asked to do so.
"This underground shelter contains what you call relics from your world. Last time I was here, we had an endless number of figurines, miniatures, and lore books about Urd."
"So, a vault of Solarium knowledge."
"A treasure trove, more like. If we are lucky, we may even find the game, the visual lore piece you wanted to see, the one that depicts you at the Pale Gate with the Solwoken."
"Oh… I see now."
Captain Creed seemed to have never expected he would get to see the sight of his heroic death this soon, but a Star Paladin would welcome death in the service of the Solarium any day. Witnessing his own glorious death in the Eternal Peace was nothing short of a blessing from Sol Imperius.
He walked to the hatch door, placed the hands of his power armor on its sides, and clenched, forcing the entire plate out with bits of concrete clinging to its sides.
THUD!
The Paladin placed the hatch door with Mr. Tanaka's skeleton to the side, and as he turned to see Adam, something strange eluded his sharp senses.
There was a strange energy fluctuation coming from different sides, but as soon as he turned in the other direction, a voice called to him.
"Hey! Hold it right there!"
Creed looked and saw a man standing behind Adam, cloaked in black, with a sharp blade over the young man's throat. He disarmed Adam right away.
"Whoa there! Wait! Hold on!"
Adam tried to pacify; however, his attempt was met with a strong hit.
"Shut it!"
The man hit Adam's side and held him close, taking him hostage. Creed assessed the situation by heightening his senses and realized that there were no fewer than seven individuals other than that man.
"By what right do you detain him?" asked Creed as he turned exactly to where the others were before facing the man behind Adam.
"…"
The man seemed to be trying to assess the situation with this large man in strange armor.
"We were here first. The shelter is ours," the man spoke after his group seemed to have stationed themselves and surrounded the armored goliath.
"Hey, hey! Listen…" Adam started speaking with his hands raised. "We want no trouble, okay? We're just here for something small. A memento. Anything of value in there, you can have it."
A moment of silence passed, then the man behind Adam spoke.
"Good," he said, and then aimed his blade at the Star Paladin. "Tell your friend to get out of that thing."
And, of course, that was what they were after: the Power Armor. It was a pretty logical thing to do by anyone if they were to see such a good piece of gear, but it seemed these guys were thinking little of the Star Paladin inside. It looked bulky, big, and slow, and it had no visible weaponry on hand, as both the Plasma Pistol and Solar Saber were easily hidden in its belt.
The best thing was that this was some sort of improvised prototype technology that had been looted from some military lab.
"Do you even know what you're asking?" Adam asked, his voice shivering and his breath haggard.
Adam's pacification attempt was met with scrutiny, however, as the man holding him hostage hit him on the back with the pommel of his blade, forcing him to his knees.
"Listen, pal. You want to play it cool, walk out alive? Tell him to GET THE FUCK OUT OF THAT THING!"
The man finally took out a pistol and pointed it at Adam's head. The others also approached slowly from all sides, forming a tight circle. The Star Paladin remained passive and seemed to be preparing something, but right then and there, something nobody, not even the Paladin, had prepared for, unfolded.
Clink! Clink! Clink!
A strange sound of metallic footsteps started coming from a place nobody expected… from the Shelter itself.
"Ore… sherutā no gōsuto…? Un, sō, gōsuto da yo."
A suppressed voice was heard coming from deep in the shelter as the footsteps started to draw closer and closer.
"Ore, dāku no naka no harikēn! Buwātte! Yabai yatsu!"
Finally, a figure emerged from within. It wasn't something anyone expected, but it made them all stare in awe.
"Kage, nakusu. Kage, kiero!! Doragon... un, doragon wa... SHINE!!!"
It was a sight to behold.
A man stood at the entrance of the shelter, wearing nothing but skin covering some bone. His head was covered with a metal bucket; his feet were in two other buckets. He stood unshaken with a broomstick at his side, and once he saw the people in front of his shelter through the holes he had poked in the bucket, he wielded his broomstick as if he were unsheathing a katana, and shouted atop of his lungs.
"What the actual fuck?"
The man holding Adam hostage aimed his gun at the madman walking out of the shelter, and as he proceeded to squeeze the trigger, Adam moved immediately.
"NO!"
BANG!
Adam threw himself at the man immediately and caused him to miss. However, Adam was no longer in the position of a hostage. Just as…
BEW! BEW! BEW!
BANG! BANG!
BEW! BEW! BEW!
It wasn't a shootout; it was a massacre.
The Paladin fired his plasma pistol, able to poke a precise hole in anything he aimed at.
Even when he was shot at, he reacted almost immediately, deflecting the bullets with his armor by positioning his body just barely to ricochet them against the raiders.
In a Star Paladin versus eight human raiders, the raiders were dispatched in a flash, no resistance considered.
"SHINE! SHINEEE!! Seigi no tame ni! Ningen no tame niiii!!"
The madman kept waving his broomstick madly, fighting his own battle with his own demons. After seeing that the raiders were dead, Adam immediately got up, picked up his rifle, and rushed at the madman, waving a stick in the face of a Star Paladin.
"Wait! Kave, man! Stop! Stop it!"
He immediately held the stick his mad friend was waving, attempting to stop him from hitting the Paladin, who might get irritated and retaliate.
In his madness, Kave could no longer tell what was real and what was not. He, who was mumbling gibberish in Japanese, was acting even crazier than he had been before. In fact, he couldn't speak Japanese despite how many times his parents had tried to get him to learn it, so he was mostly speaking nonsense from memory.
As his broomstick was taken away, he fell on his backside, looking up at the figure holding a firearm against him.
"Haha! Baretto, ore korosenai yo! Doragon kage... kuru, zettai kuru. Ore no shi, dake... aitsu, kowai nda...!"
"What the fuck are you talking about? It's me, Adam! Adamant!"
"… Nani?"
Adam put his weapon aside and slowly approached the bucket helmet, removing it and exposing the face of the madman beneath.
Kave tried to cover his face again, but Adam held his hand and forced him to look at him. The two met eye to eye for a while until Kave calmed down.
"Masaka! Adam-kun? How? The Dragon… it didn't take you?"
"That's some good news, at least, right?"
Adam looked at the friend he had known for years, and his appearance was the sorriest. He had grown a beard, lost his hair, and smelled of feces and urine. He had also lost most of his weight, now thinner than Adam himself.
In a way, he had become a true caveman. It would take Adam no less than a couple of hours to convince Kave that what he was seeing was real and that there was indeed a Star Paladin walking around the place. The Unicorns were another matter, though.