Colton’s sister seems lovely and his niece is adorable and I quickly realize that it’s very, very difficult to read the NPC pop-up. I need to have my eyes on their name tag long enough to activate the pop-up, which only happens if the person is perfectly still. And they they have to stay still for me to read the pop-up, of it vanishes. And unless I’m going to creep into people’s room when they sleep, it might be tough.

  I’m just grateful it worked enough with Colton.

  Suddenly, I’m not alarmed and anxious and nervous about his charm and his smiles. Even though I still can feel the effects of his magic, it doesn’t make me feel like a pre-teen girl with her first sexual awakening in an age-inappropriate celebrity. It feels like he can’t control it, and I remember his comment about not having magic. I believe that he believes that. I genuinely think he doesn’t know that he has this ability. I’m not sure yet how to tell him without revealing more details about the Game, and everyone’s new NPC label.

  I hunt down Nancy and Ryder and share with them what happened. Ryder smacks himself on the forehead.

  “NPCs!” he laments. “Of course! Oh, man, do I feel dumb for not thinking about that.”

  Nancy pats his shoulder. “You were a little distracted with, like, not dying during the apocalypse. We’ll forgive you.”

  Between the three of us, we tag the majority of our new residents. When I come across Savannah in Portia’s kitchen, I share it with her, too. Somehow, with the influx of new people and the assignments we have in this new world, I haven’t seen much of her. She agrees to pass the info on to Beaker and that they’ll keep tagging people.

  It’s really neat—and kind of fun—to watch the yellow dots keep popping up in my map. I think I’ve paid more attention to it tonight than I have in a week.

  The time moves in a way that it hasn’t since the world ended. I’m not struggling to get through the day. I have tasks, jobs, duties to attend to. And it seems that life speeds up the further along we get. It terrifies me, a little, but it also makes a sort of sense. The world changed. Our lives changed. Time slowed down while we adjusted, while we figured out how to navigate this new world, like children learning to walk. Each day is a brand new experience, and it takes the time as one. But once the newness evens out, once one day isn’t a whole new world, things suddenly speed up.

  I pull Ryder into a hug before he heads to bed.

  “What’s that for?” he asks, though he squeezes me back just as tight.

  “Things have changed a lot, over the last few days. I just wanted to remind you that this started with you and me, and it’ll always be you and me.”

  He looks up at me—I’m pretty sure he’s gotten taller in the week and a half since he and I met—and his chin presses into my chest. “Living in comfort’s turned you into a suck.”

  There’s a part of me, an older version of me, that would have denied it, laughed, given him a playful shove. Instead, I smile down at him. “Maybe,” I answer. “But it doesn’t stop it from being true.”

  His face is serious. “I know.”

  There’s a moment’s pause, before I bring up something that’s been bugging me for a while. “You know you can tell me anything, right?”

  He nods, finally pulling out of our hug. “I know. But sometimes I can’t figure out the words to say the things I know in my body. Does that make sense?”

  It’s my turn to nod. “Yeah, I think it does. But the sentiment remains. I’ll be there if you want to try to find those words. Or I can help find the words with you, you know?”

  “Thanks, Jane,” he says, his voice suddenly soft. I know there’s still plenty to work through, but for now I’ll take the small step in the right direction. “Right now, we need to focus on those people from the church. Get a good night’s sleep.”

  I let him deflect. “Good night, Ryder.”

  “Night.”

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  And then I lie in bed and focus on the people from the church. I focus on how much I’m dreading approaching them tomorrow.

  ***

  When we pull up in front of the church the next morning, I’m expecting—though I can’t quite pinpoint why—them to burst from the doors with pitchforks and torches. But it’s a beautiful fall day, silence in the air, calm everywhere the eye sees. The church is a large, angular thing, a large overhang over the front door and a way to drive through it like in a hotel. It seems like there are two wings, with stretches of the building expanding on either sides of the entrance. It’s all stark greys and beiges, not much to look at, but there’s a tall jut of the building with an oversized cross standing high above us. I guess that’s the part that you’re supposed to look at.

  I realize, after a moment, that the cross is askew. Somehow, amidst all the magic and fighting and nature, it was knocked out of place.

  It amazes me how much the world has changed in the last few days. It looks like scenery from a post-apocalyptic movie or TV show as we drove, where the greenery has grown to inhabit the human-make structures we left behind. Cracks in buildings where a tree stands sticking out of the roof. A car that looks like it’s halfway between being turned back into a pumpkin, with tendrils of roots and vines pouring out the windows. Ivy crawling up the traffic lights and street lamps, so even if the lights were working you wouldn’t be able to use them. Monsters just… exist. Bothering no-one and having no one bother them. I see a pair of rabbits munching on some purple growth that looks like no fruit or vegetable that I’ve ever seen—but the rabbits are the size of Rottweilers and their ears are swollen to look more like mouse ears. One of the rabbits sneeze and spikes shoot out of their skin to puff it up like a porcupine. It shake the sneeze off and, as I watch, the spikes recede. A moment later, it’s like nothing happened.

  “I really have seen it all,” Ryder says sagely, standing at my side and watching the rabbits too.

  “Do you think it’s just… done?” I ask.

  “Is what done?” Nancy asks.

  “The surges. The magic of the earth settling, or whatever the Game said. Is it done? Are we settled?”

  “I guess there haven’t been any surges since we started doing these little quests,” Ryder realizes.

  I shake my head. “There haven’t been any surges since that big one in the farm field.”

  Ryder’s brow furrows in thought. “Oh. Oh shit, you’re right.”

  Nancy and I respond immediately and simultaneously: “Language.”

  All three of us pause, our eyes wide as we look at each other. It feels like any other moment, like every other moment. How can it be that you can be nostalgic for something that happened a week ago?

  We all grin, chuckling, sharing the warm feelings of a sort-of inside joke. But then Nancy lets out a hum. “The surges stopped the same time that nature went berserk.”

  “The same time that we started seeing the monsters just out and about and, well, fairly docile,” I add.

  “Then maybe it is,” Ryder said. “And there are no more surges.” He lets out a raspberry sound from his lips. “Which means no more Tokens,” he bemoans.

  “We can still ash,” I remind him.

  “Yeah, but that’s such a hassle,” he says, but there’s no fight in the words. He’s already moving away and heading toward the entrance of the church. There’s still been no movement and no greeting. My concerns about pitchforks and torches turn into a very different sort of concern.

  But I take one moment to consider that with the surges done, and the greenery shooting up like a kid in puberty, maybe we’re more like those post-apocalyptic shows than I thought. Maybe we’re not longer in the apocalypse. Maybe we’re past it.

  We had started referring to the timeline as Before and now. But maybe it’s Before, the Apocalypse Event itself, and the now. The post-apocalypse.

  I trail behind Nancy and Ryder while my brain spins. There’s something about being introspective as you step into a church that just makes sense, I guess.

  We enter into a vast front room, one that might have been warm and inviting at some point. Speckled carpeted floors soften our steps, but there’s still a hint of an echo in the tall ceilings. Large letters are mounted on the wall, but enough have fallen over the last week and a half that I can’t read them anymore. Some peel-and-stick decals are unravelling and folded over on itself, too.

  At the far end is a heaping pile of what looks like… cushioned chairs? They almost look like they belong in a theatre more than a church, but the way they’re stacked feels intention. Whether they’re blocking a door or trying to get things out of the way… who’s to say.

  I have to quell the kleptomaniac urge to go and pull every one of those chairs into my inventory.

  The thought disappears a moment later when I realize that the patterned carpet is hiding stains that look a lot like dried blood.

  “Where is everyone?” Nancy whispers.

  I shrug, and gesture to the double doors in front of me. A few sets line the wall opposite the entrance, and I can only assume they open right into the main chapel. That would be where I’d first think to check anyways.

  Both Nancy and Ryder look at the doors, look at each other, and then look at me. Then they both gesture me toward the double doors. I sigh, but there’s also a little smile on my face. I guess I’m still the Party Leader, despite everything.

  I cross the rest of the hall and grab a door handle. There are windows, tall and skinny, embedded in the door. It takes a moment of trying to peek in to realize that it’s been painted over and blacked out.

  “Here goes nothing,” I mutter to myself. And with no idea what I’m about to walk into, I pull open the double doors.