Zane stared into the mirror. The doctor's words echoed inside his head:

  "Mr. Rider, we have had to move your wife to palliative care... Mr. Rider, do you know what that means in this situation?"

  He knew. He didn’t need the doctor to say it. But the words kept replaying anyway.

  "In this situation, this is end-of-life care. Your wife doesn’t have long to live... Mr. Rider, do you understand me?"

  Zane had only managed a nod. The rest of the doctor’s words blurred together—something about a nurse, helplines, contact information. He couldn’t remember. None of it mattered.

  His face finally came into focus in the mirror—a 55-year-old man, six-foot-one, blond hair cropped short, a light beard that had gone mostly grey. Faint smile lines softened his face, but they did nothing to hide the exhaustion in his eyes. His large nose, a feature he’d always found too prominent, was now just another part of the stranger staring back at him.

  “FUCK!!!!!” Zane bellowed, slamming his hands onto the sink. “I’m too young for this! WE ARE TOO YOUNG! FUCK! SHIT! FUCK!”

  His grip tightened, fingers digging into the porcelain. He wanted to break something. Wanted to smash the sink into rubble. But all he accomplished was straining his arms and chest. His breath came in ragged gasps as his muscles burned from the effort. Somewhere outside the bathroom, hospital staff likely heard the outburst—words of rage laced with despair ”fuck cancer”.

  Time passed. How long, he wasn’t sure. When the pain in his muscles finally rivalled the ache in his chest, his mind cleared just enough to remember the last thing the doctor had said.

  "You should let your kids know so they can come see their mother before she goes."

  Zane inhaled deeply, forcing air into his lungs, willing himself to function. He straightened, shook his arms loose, and left the bathroom.

  He made his way down the hall to his wife’s room. Machines beeped softly around her as she slept, frail and still. He lingered, watching her breathe, then turned and walked away.

  The parking lot was nearly full, a sea of compact electric vehicles lined up in neat rows. His truck—a four-door diesel Ute with kangaroo bars—stood out like an ancient relic.

  The memory of the fine he’d gotten on the way to the hospital resurfaced. Some city cop had taken issue with him driving a hybrid diesel into the city without the proper paperwork. Zane had argued for half an hour, explaining that he lived in the Bush, that electric cars didn’t have the range for his needs. In the end, he’d managed to talk the officer down, but it was just one more thing added to the pile of bullshit today had thrown at him.

  With a sigh, he pulled out his phone. The screen lit up:

  6:49 PM – 15/03/2034

  “Where have the years gone?” he muttered, thumbing open the map app.

  Crawney, New South Wales 2338

  3 hr 52 min (343 km) via M1

  Fastest route, the usual traffic

  This route has tolls.

  Do you want to proceed with Auto Drive?

  Zane stared at the screen for a moment before pressing NO. He didn’t want to think. He didn’t want to process. He just wanted to drive.

  With a tap, the transparent navigation map projected onto his windshield.

  He paid the $50 parking fee, pulled out of the hospital lot, and onto the road. The hum of the engine filled the cabin. For the first time that day, he had something to focus on other than grief.

  He drove.

  And for now, that was enough.

  Zane made it most of the way home before it wasn’t enough anymore. The grief surged back, squeezing his chest, making it hard to breathe. Tears streamed down his face, unchecked, as they had since he left the hospital car park.

  It was late, and his mind struggled to organise his next steps. He needed to contact his kids. His son, Kai, worked on an offshore mining rig. Wasn’t he on night shift this week? Or was that his daughter, Lily, over in Perth? The thoughts swirled, barely registering as he turned off the main road onto his private driveway—an eight-kilometre stretch of gravel and dirt leading to his home.

  With no other cars or people around, Zane loosened his grip on control. He let the Ute speed up, the numbers climbing past 100 km/h. On a freeway, that wouldn’t be fast. But here? A single-lane track with blind hill crests and sharp corners? It was reckless. Borderline suicidal.

  And for a fleeting moment, he didn’t care.

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  Just after cresting a hill, his headlights flashed on something green—or... was it a child?

  Zane screamed, slamming on the brakes, but it was too late.

  The Ute was going too fast. Half a second later, the impact jolted through the front left wheel.

  THUNK.

  The sound sent ice through his veins. The truck skidded another 150 meters before coming to a stop, gravel and grass flying in all directions.

  Heart hammering, Zane threw open the door and bolted back up the road.

  A child? No. It couldn’t be.

  His mind screamed for another explanation. A wallaby. A kangaroo. Anything but a child.

  Please, God, let it be anything but that.

  It was a child. Or at least, that’s what it should have been.

  But its head and upper chest—gone. Completely obliterated, except for the blood.

  Except the blood… was green. Not even close to red.

  Zane’s mind went blank. For several seconds, he just stared. Then, out of nowhere, he started to laugh—hysterically, uncontrollably. His brain latched onto the most ridiculous explanation: local teenagers had built an alien-like scarecrow, complete with fake green blood and guts, as some elaborate prank.

  Rage mixed with relief, confusion, and sheer exhaustion. Zane collapsed onto the ground, trying to control his breathing.

  That’s when he noticed it.

  In his vision, floating like a digital overlay, was a light blue message. At first, he didn’t register it—he had been seeing a similar projection on his windshield for hours. But this was different.

  Congratulations ZANE RIDER

  You are the first to kill a Dungeon Defender on planet EARTH

  You will receive 1X bonus XP (Experience Point) for all STATS at each level Up until level 10.

  Also, you have been granted a skill

  Very Basic appraisal

  The system will not properly initialise until all criteria have been met

  Zane blinked. He read it again.

  Then again.

  And then, just like that, the text faded from view, shrinking into a tiny blue dot in the corner of his vision.

  No matter what he did—no matter how hard he focused on it, no matter how many times he shouted commands like “Open” or “Initialize Display”—it wouldn’t come back.

  Anger, confusion, and sheer disbelief churned inside him.

  Silent, reeling, Zane turned and started walking back toward his Ute.

  As he walked he started hearing a chorus of guttural whispers, like children attempting to mimic a monster, echoed through the trees." Maybe 3 or 4 of them he thought. As he got closer The sounds coalesced into something almost recognizable, a jumble of syllables that strained against his understanding.

  “toh!”, “atta so?”, “khaavolaar!”

  Zane froze, his anger shifting into a mix of confusion and caution. As four small green figures turned in his direction, with the largest one shouting "chaat'oor!"

  Now he could see clearly they were more than just costumed pranksters, they stood in front of him with their crude weapons—handmade spears, jagged knives, and rough-looking axes. Their skin had an odd, almost unnatural sheen to it in the dim light, like something that shouldn’t belong in the world of human imagination.

  "Who the hell are you?" Zane demanded, trying to steady his breath, his heart racing now for an entirely different reason. His mind raced, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. The creatures weren't just a prank. They were real.

  The bigger one, the one that had screamed "chaat'oor!" earlier, stepped forward. Its features were sharp, and its eyes gleamed with an unsettling intelligence. “Iza'rath! Iza'rath!" it shouted, then pointed at Zane. There was something almost human in its voice, though far more guttural.

  The smaller ones shuffled in place, their sharp eyes flicking to Zane and then back to the woods behind them. The atmosphere felt heavier, thicker, as if the very air had changed with their presence. Zane’s instincts screamed at him to get in his car and drive off, but his legs felt frozen, as if he was being held in place by some unseen force.

  “Who are you?” Zane’s voice was tight. He still couldn’t quite grasp what was happening, but one thing was certain—he wasn’t about to back down from whatever this was.

  Then, completely unexpectedly for Zane, the one with the spear suddenly threw it at him. Catching him in the upper left thigh.

  Zane’s heart pounded in his chest as the pain from his leg seared through him. His vision blurred with a red haze of anger, and the small green figures in front of him seemed to grow larger, more menacing. The weight of grief, fear, and now searing physical pain twisted inside him, feeding the rage that was building since the hospital. Zanes mind relabelled these little greens shits. As a threat—dangerous, unforgiving, and relentless.

  The one in charge, the slightly larger one, had already screamed at him again, but Zane didn’t hear the words. He couldn’t hear anything but the roar of adrenaline and fury in his ears. He looked down at the spear lodged in his leg and, without thinking, wrenched it out. Pain exploded in his body, but it didn’t matter. He felt nothing but the fire inside him now, a fire that demanded retribution.

  “You wanted to mess with me?!” Zane bellowed, the words rasping from his throat as he lunged toward the nearest one. The green figure barely had time to react before Zane swung the spear with a brutal force, driving it into the little bastard’s chest. There was a sickening crunch, and the creature crumpled to the ground, its eerie, high-pitched scream cut short.

  Two of the others tried to scatter, but they were too slow. The rage coursing through Zane’s veins made him faster, more vicious than any of them had anticipated. He moved with precision, his body acting on instinct as he turned the spear in his hands. The next green creature was too close to dodge. With a snarl, Zane drove the spear forward, piercing its throat. The thing sputtered and choked, eyes wide with shock, before it collapsed in a heap at his feet.

  The last two attempted to retreat, but Zane was relentless. He wasn’t sure if they were still speaking their strange language or if they even realised how deep in trouble they were. He took a few steps after them, and with a single, vicious swipe, he struck down one, then the other. Their little bodies hit the ground with a sickening thud.

  Zane stood there, chest heaving, the heat of battle slowly giving way to an overwhelming exhaustion. His leg throbbed, but he didn’t care about the pain anymore. He looked down at the four green corpses, running with green blood, a sense of finality settling over him.

  In the back of his mind, a small voice of reason persisted: What have you done?

  And he knew—if it were any other day, he would never have attacked them like that. It was the grief, the pain, the unbearable weight of the day that had driven him to lose control. He didn’t know what had just happened. Had the overwhelming stress of his life recently broken his mind? Had he just attacked a bunch of trees or something? But he couldn’t shake the feeling that these green creatures were real and that it was only the beginning of something much bigger than him.