Chương 2: What the —

Time to Seal: 07: 53"That is a valid question, I suppose." Gabriel sounded like she needed a smoke. Before she began her explanation, I found the settings for the chat and enabled transcription, which made her previous remark show up in my chat, and portraits. Next to my line there was an image of my actual, human, face. Gabriel wasn't exactly biblically accurate. Two gray eyes on a very pretty, very human-looking face, framed by golden locks and topped with an honest-to-god halo.

"Since we don't have much time, I'll keep my explanations very brief, so understand that anything I say is focused on what's essential for your survival, not an extensive explanation of everything you eventually need to know, okay?" I continued looking through my other menus, but replied with a quick ["Okay."].

"Hell has invaded your reality and wants to destroy humanity. There are systems in place to prevent this from happening, but they not only circumvented those but were also very well prepared this time. The UI you see and your ability to shapeshift are part of the Blessing's effort to bolster humanity, to give you a chance at surviving this." There was a Task menu, which was grayed out, even though it had an icon for outstanding notifications inside.

"Currently a seal is being placed on this reality. It will both limit the ability of Hell to unleash their power here, and also prevent contamination from spreading to other worlds. This will take about eight hours to fully form. While the seal forms, Hell can absorb the soul of any human who dies. Souls carry power, and they burn them up to unleash more disasters on mankind." I had a class called 'Shapeshifter', along with a bunch of stats, skills and some perks—"Eve.

Can you please stop messing with your menus for just a second? This is important." I closed out of the menu. ["Yes, ma'am."]"Some of what I've told you is a metaphor meant to make things easier to digest for you. But what I just said is entirely accurate. Your soul is real, it is eternal, and if you die before the seal is formed, that eternity is gone." I started asking what that meant for Mike, but deleted the question. Not the time. Not when the answer was obvious.

["And if I die after making it through those eight hours?"]"Your soul will be captured, but preserved. They can no longer destroy it. What happens after is a topic for another time." ["You said earlier you did this before. Am I in a time-loop?"]"No, it happened to other realities. There are many out there and Hell wishes to conquer or destroy them all." ["How do I survive the next eight hours then?"]"There is no fool-proof way, but some patterns we can rely on. Don't trust anything digital.

They brought an entity along with them, called the Wyrm. It is not a demon, it is powerful and it will use mankind's technology to kill and deceive. It is who called you, impersonating Claire. It—" ["Stop. How did it know her voice? How do you know her name?"]"Too complicated for now. I'll explain later. It's targeting everyone it can, simultaneously." I made an unhappy noise, which sounded far too cute for the situation at hand.

"Besides the Wyrm there are three types of entities out there you have to worry about right now. Demons, like the one who murdered Mike. Very dangerous with unpredictable abilities. After manifesting in your reality they are bound by its laws, so their bodies rely on chemical and physical principles to operate, like any other denizen of this world." ["Meaning they'll die when those principles get violently disrupted?"]"Correct, but not your concern right now.

Those howls you heard are Lesser Demons—Hell Hounds in this case—creatures summoned by demons, created out of thin air. Less powerful than demons, but still very dangerous." The memory of the howl sent another shiver through my spine. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

"And finally Created. They are created by the Blessing. There won't be many right now while the Seal forms, but they will be more plentiful later. They'll look like anything out of human fiction, myth or legend. Dangerous, but initially far less than the other two. You'll notice when you see a dangerous one." This part made absolutely no sense. I read the transcription over and over again, but I didn't understand. ["Why does the Blessing create creatures who are dangerous to us? I thought it is meant to help us survive?"]"The answer is again complicated, but the short version is that you need experience to grow powerful enough to actually fight back, and they are a source of it." ["Monsters we are meant to grind for fucking experience points? Like in some goddamn video game? Are you kidding me?"]"Yes, exactly like that and not like that at all. I'll explain later.

There are cosmic forces at work beyond your comprehension and some of what I explain is simplified and filtered through metaphor so you can understand. You'll have to trust me for now." The obviously correct and most likely explanation was that I just thought too hard about calling Claire and had given myself an aneurysm. This was all shit my mind was making up in a coma. I still didn't want to get mauled by demon hounds in this painfully real coma, so I didn't have much choice but to play along. ["Fine."]"I'll rapid-fire some guidelines now and explain later. Stay away from areas that look wrong. Profane spaces are dangerous and you'll have to trust your instincts to spot them when you see them. There might be one in this building, so stay on guard." At first I bit down on my questions, but then reconsidered. Might as well use this chat as my scratchpad. ["Ignore my questions, just taking notes for later: Can any place be profane? Why can a school be profane? Dangerous, how? Does the opposite exist?"] Gabriel sighed.

"There is a notes feature. I'll unlock that for you. Your UI is limited right now so as to not overwhelm you. I suppose that's not exactly a risk for you." And just like that a new menu called "Utilities" appeared, with a subsection for "Notes".

"Yes, keep an eye out for sanctified spaces. They are important, but not immediately so. Also stay away from liminal spaces, reality is fraying and—" she didn't get to finish that explanation. The park in front of the school rapidly brightened and I scrambled for the broken window, too slow. The entire building shook when the fireball struck and I got caught by the shockwave that followed. I was flung out of the stairway, along with shards of glass and debris, and slammed into a tree trunk.

My hearing was gone, I had cuts all over—I remembered the distinct crunch of a bone breaking and my health bar was blinking red.

"Shift back! Now!" Gabriel's command aligned with my deep-seated desire to no longer be in this frail body, and I immediately went for that 'Cancel' button. The transformation was as swift as last time and as disorienting. Even more surprising was the fact that I was entirely unharmed.

"If I shift back to cat, will it still be as injured?" I asked.

"No, it won't. But you only have two attunement points, or ATP, left—" that had to be the bar underneath my health "—and you'll only recover them at midnight."

"Got it." I stood up and shook my head. Fire was rapidly engulfing the building I had just hidden in. Would I have survived the shockwave in this shape? Another thought for later. Remembering where I now stood, I looked around. I spotted the demon again and, to my dismay, it had also spotted me. Instead of rushing me it only lifted its hand in my direction and started speaking. Even at a hundred feet between us I could hear the guttural inhuman noise. I turned in the other direction and ran.

Seconds later a glowing symbol formed over me. Before I could identify what it was meant to represent it descended onto me. I tried dodging, but it seemed anchored to my position. It shrunk and lowered itself to the back of my left hand where it stuck—a crimson heptagon with a jagged-looking glyph at its center. There was no physical sensation to it, no texture. Just the faintly glowing alien symbol. But my UI recognized it and gave me a warning in bright red letters. ["Marked as Prey. Duration: 360 minutes"]"Gabriel?!"

"Oh. Oh no." I kept running and used my chat to talk to her. Much easier when sprinting. ["Not helpful. What does that mean?"]"That demon was a summoner. He set a pack of Hell Hounds on you. They're tracking you right now." ["How do I get rid of it?"]"Wait six hours, kill the summoner or kill the pack." ["Biological rules, right? Massive trauma kills them? Do they need oxygen? Vulnerable to fire?"]"Yes to all of those, though fire is less effective than for comparable canines from Earth."

I stopped at the street, looking for options. The city was bedlam. Fires everywhere, wrecked cars, a few people running and shouting. No way to assist any of them, not with a pack of demons on my heels. I needed weapons—some way to kill those hounds. Going down without a fight was not an option.

"I'll activate your minimap," Gabriel said.

"It was useless so far, but because of the mark you'll see them there." And just like that I had a tiny map in the bottom right of my vision. It was centered on me and zoomed out far enough that I could see the five red dots approaching. They were still three blocks away, but beelining in my direction. Their movement briefly stopped—howling rose over the sound of the Apocalypse. For now, I just ran the other way.