"You sure you're okay locking up tonight, Daz?" Adam asked his young co-worker. He then looked at the slowly setting sun before checking his old leather strap watch to confirm that it was indeed, nearing eight o'clock in the evening. He and Daz had been working at the recycling centre past closing hours due to a few sneaky civilians managing to get past the gates with their cars just before Adam had gone to close them at seven o'clock, the usual closing time for a Monday evening.

  "Don't worry about it, I always lock up, you've got a wife and son to get back to, right? Besides, I doubt you want to clean up that mess, do you?" Daz had replied before he gestured to the heap of branches and leaves that littered the edges of the garden waste skip's bay.

  The last few customers had stuffed several bushes and branches into their cars, and that was the reason for the mess and the reason as to why he and Adam were forced to work extra unpaid time. Garden waste always took ages to dump since there was usually a huge amount of it.

  "Really, how would our shift ever get done without you? I owe you a beer, man. Seeya on Saturday then. Don't die on me or something like that until then, hahaha," Adam said with a laugh, forcing his aged face to crinkle up even more.

  A life of hard manual labour and a three-pack a day smoking habit had prematurely aged him far past his 42 years upon this world.

  "You too, Adam. Seeya later. Just close the gate after you," Daz responded a bit plainly.

  After Adam had left, his face immediately became devoid of any emotion at all and he quickly made his way over to the tool shed to get a shovel and a broom to clean up the mess.

  Although he could go home faster if he had Adam help him out, he knew that there was nothing waiting for him there, nothing except his onliner game-addicted younger sister. Besides, Adam wasn't very fit, so Daz didn't mind taking the extra work if it kept his body and mind occupied.

  Granted, he loved his sister dearly, but she was even more mature and intelligent than even he was, so he didn't need to rush home to look after her, not like she'd appreciate such sentiments since she'd entered her rebellious phase.

  Naturally, Daz had parents. Well, if you could call them that. He had never met his mother, and his father... well, they were hardly on speaking terms.

  He did, surprisingly, have a girlfriend. Unfortunately for him, her 'hobby' had her living in another state. They would share a video call every other night with the help of his tech-savvy sister, so thankfully, loneliness was the last of Daz's worries.

  After he was finished cleaning up the branches and leaves on the ground, he leaned against the railing that separated the bay from the skip and sighed. It had been a long day. He left the broom and shovel there and went around all of the containers and sealed them up before he went to lock up the main gate and leave.

  "Ah! The broom and shovel... Damn it. Now I need to unlock the tool shed after just closing it," Daz grumbled. He then went back to the tools he had abandoned and quickly made his way towards the tool shed. Although that was its name, it was actually a blue metal shipping container like a few of the other containers on the site, but it was full of tools and a few miscellaneous objects.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Daz leaned the broom against a fence to fish about in his pocket for the keys, but just before he could grab them, an enormous blue screen flashed before his eyes.

  Daz was rather surprised by this screen. 'Am I hallucinating? I never ingested anything weird and I should be fitter than ever... Strange...'

  "Okay..." Daz said skeptically as he directed his gaze towards the shovel in his hand.

  Little did he know that he and that shovel would experience much together, far too much for a regular man. Thankfully, Darenzo, otherwise known as Daz, was no ordinary man.

  He was pulled out from his thoughts by the sounds of explosions and screams of terror. It would seem that people were panicking despite the fact that the first message had told them that they had two hours of protection. Daz walked to the edge of the recycling centre to gaze at the city that was sprawled out below him.

  "Guess it's not a hallucination then, huh?" A mumble escaped Daz's lips. "Either that or I suddenly figured out how to dream and my first one's a dream to trump all others."

  He wasn't entirely sure what to do, but he figured it'd be wise to act as if this was all real for right now.

  He nodded before he mumbled to himself, "I should fortify this place. It'll take me at least an hour to get home, maybe longer what with all of those explosions... Rose should be fine on her own considering the house's defenses and her wit... Well, best get started." After deciding on this, Daz returned to the tool shed and equipped himself with a belt that had an assortment of small tools on it before he made his way to the scrap metal skip.

  He was going to need to work - and work hard at that - to get things properly fortified in two hours or less, that was for sure.

  Artwork of Daz:

  Spoiler: Spoiler

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