The fifth day at base was filled with much of the same discussion as the fourth, but as talks dragged on, a tenser mood weighed down the air. We’d been away from the Dungeons for too long, and I think we were all feeling it. It was affecting the entire atmosphere, darkening our moods. Whether this too was part of the Dungeon compulsion or our own wants and desires wasn’t clear.

  I’d written out Adrien’s abilities and laid them out on the dining table for everyone to see.

  We’d been going through our breakdown of who’d get [Wiretap], [Legerdemain], [Cloudeath], [Light Defense], [Drain], [Haste], [Ensnare], and [Shockshot] for three hours straight, when Wren called for a snack break. An argument over [Legerdemain] (Adrien’s illusion ability, we assumed) had been raring, and hackles were rising, so it’d been a good idea on her behalf. Though as Wren happily chewed on a fruit roll-up before heading off, I realised the girl had just been hungry.

  Everyone else seemed to be taking the break for themselves, with Gigi and Jye going out for a walk, something about meeting step counts, and Tam having rolled onto the lounge for a catnap. I didn’t see her go, but I heard the clicks of Wren’s “reclaimed” polaroid camera from her bedroom, followed by quiet murmurs under her breath. Hopefully, the girl was having fun.

  Axel, on the other hand, followed me wherever I went.

  Since he’d finally cried, he’d refused to let me leave his sight, clinging to my side. I suppose knowing that I could look up at any time and meet his cool gaze also reassured me too. And that was all fine and dandy except when I needed to talk to the others privately.

  In contrast to my affection for Axel, the rest of the party held a fond enmity toward him, the way you might nickname a rabbit that snuck into your garden and ate all your vegetables. It was cute, but at the same time it was ruining your life. They’d therefore been less open with him around. It stopped me from having a much needed follow-up discussion with Jye as well as potentially probing out why Tam had warmed to the party. So, that was a bit of a thorn in my side.

  And when I say he would not leave my side, that was no hyperbole.

  Whether it was the breakfast that morning, or pure happenstance, as if waking from its slumber, my body had finally decided it was time to purge the four days of slim servings of only chocolate mousse I’d been eating. It’d been the singular thing that had stayed down until today. Even Tam’s curry had come up within the hour. So now my stomach felt painfully tight, but there was a problem.

  Axel was currently standing outside the bathroom of my bedroom’s en suite.

  And that wasn’t even the worst of it.

  The man was beyond positive that I would disappear into nothing if I was more than a meter away from him and out of his sight. It wasn’t like I’d do anything drastic. I mean, not that the thought hadn’t drifted innocently across my mind once in the grief, but I’d have never acted on it.

  Axel’s stubbornness was a trait I did not enjoy about him at the best of times.

  So I’d already had to fight tooth and nail into cajoling him into letting me close the door. It shouldn’t come as a shock, but I’d never felt comfortable using the bathroom with the door open, and despite Axel’s insistence that he’d seen it all before, that was an issue I would not be changing my mind on. With heated cheeks, I’d argued that us bathing together as little kids did not count. The blond had given me a look, as if to say that is not what he meant, but he’d elaborated little further.

  Of course I knew what he was actually talking about.

  His presence outside my toilet door felt obscenely invasive, but nothing I’d said so far could convince him otherwise. So, what was I supposed to do? It’s not like I could pick him up and lock him outside my bedroom. For one, he’d take me easy. And our doors didn’t have locks, for another.

  It was either capitulate or watch him cry again.

  One of which was infinitely preferable.

  Ironically, I found myself wondering if this counted as the weaponisation of white-passing tears.

  As I sat on the toilet, my ass going numb, waiting for my apprehension that Axel might hear what I was doing in here pass, I let my thoughts wander.

  Unlike myself, no one would’ve guessed Axel had any Asian heritage at all, since he took after Uncle Seb. Mr. Masson, like my mother, was Australian convict stock, born and bred, some absurd mix of every European country you could think of; Irish, Scottish, English, Russian, French, etc.

  Axel’s mother, on the other hand, was something like half Chinese, though she kept that a closely guarded secret. Not even Axel knew, but he’d always threatened to get a 23&Me done. I remember once, as a kid, asking Mrs. Masson about her own parents, and she’d just offered me some sliced fruit instead. (I later learned that Auntie Li didn’t speak about her family since her parents had disowned her for reasons no one had ever explained to me.)

  Actually, thinking about it, the only thing that gave away Axel’s ancestry was the subtle epicanthic fold of his inner eyes. And even then, some Caucasian people naturally had those anyway. Obviously, the hue of his skin color was from his mother as well, but you could wave that away to the good old Australian sun. Everything else about Axel, from high cheekbones to strong jaw to runner's build, was all Uncle Seb.

  Just like his curly hair when we were young kids, I’d been envious of Axel having inherited nothing of his Asian genes. I’d have liked to have said it wasn’t a race thing, but it was. But more than that, it was the eternal feeling of being different. What I wouldn’t have done as a child to look like the other kids we went to school with. It would’ve stopped some of the bullying, that was for sure.

  As far as I was concerned, growing up in rural Queensland, he’d lucked out looking as white as he had. He wasn’t subject to the racist comments that spat from our peers unfiltered. Part of me was relieved Chrissie never had to suffer their bigotry, especially since she’d been an equal blend of our parents: wavy thick brown hair, green eyes, light brown skin, and a mix of their facial features. She had dad’s smile, but the mischief of mum in her gaze. I still missed her laughter.

  I missed all their voices.

  I’d ended up with all the coloring of my father; darker skin, dark brown eyes, and brown-almost-black hair. Since I didn’t really take much after my mother, she’d once shown me photos of her father who’d passed before I was born. Sure enough, a facsimile of my face was right there in black and white. A flat nose, almond shaped eyes, and softer jawline than I’d have liked.

  As a result of “not looking Australian,” I’d been called derogatory terms on a semi-weekly basis attending school in Charleville—though mostly delivered under the pretense of jest. If I tried to point it out, I couldn’t take a joke. Lucky Axel, however, had skated by on his white-passing looks. It helped that he was pretty too.

  Of course, by the time that this racial prejudice became an pressing issue in our teens, the two of us hadn’t been on talking terms. If I were being honest, the divide in our treatment only further pushed me away from him.

  It was kind of funny how none of that mattered now, not really.

  Chrissie was dead.

  Mum and dad were dead.

  Auntie Li and Uncle Seb were dead.

  And Axel was waiting outside the toilet door.

  It was an awful thought to think, but somehow right now, the last thing was the worst of them all. Everything in comparison, as they say.

  Repressing a sigh, I checked my watch and found the thirty minute break we’d agreed upon was wrapping up. It looked like I would not be shitting today, despite the discomfort in my gut.

  This was just too far out of my comfort zone.

  I’m sure other people went to the bathroom in front of each other all the time, but bodily functions weren’t exactly things I was a fan of, nonsexual or otherwise. The door practically might not be there for how close I knew Axel was; his soft inhales and exhales audible on the other side. The idea of him hearing me was mortifying even though Axel probably wouldn’t have cared less, given stories I’d heard in passing of his past sexual experiences.

  Though maybe he would’ve, thinking on it. When it came to sex, I’d read that allosexual people’s “gross” switch turned off. Mine most certainly did not. And since this was as far away from that context as it could be, he had to still feel squeamish about this too. That meant neither of us truly wanted this.

  It was just fear.

  “Axel, please, where would I even go from here? You really don’t need to be out there. ”

  “I really do, though your objections are noted.”

  Irritated, and stomach upset, I sat forward, reaching up to crack the door open a smidge. “If you don’t leave me alone, my bed is off limits for a week.”

  His gaze met mine through the gap, eyes narrowed.

  “You’re bluffing.”

  “You really want to take that risk?”

  Consideration played over his face, then he sighed. “I’ll be waiting outside in the hall then.”

  His footsteps sounded, fading away, and I clicked my door shut again.

  Finally, some privacy!

  Maybe it was a stupid thing to get hung up on when the world was ending. When I’d just held a funeral for my parents and godparents. When I’d killed a man. When I’d spent almost five hours picking up corpse bits. But you had to draw a line somewhere.

  Besides, as far as I was concerned, just because Axel had seen me naked—and admittedly I’d also seen him nude since back in our apartment as he’d never bothered dressing to get a cup of water at night—that didn’t mean we were on such familiar terms.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  Yes, I guess we were dating insofar as that counted during this… apocalypse. And, yes, I guess we’d seen each other in much worse situations. And, yes, I guess I also shared his reservations in letting him leave my side, the fear of losing him ever present.

  But I couldn’t think of a single thing less romantic to do in front of my partner.

  Relief finally and mercifully granted, I froze as I flushed the toilet.

  My partner?

  My mind span, hooked onto an earlier part of that thought.

  Romantic?!

  Washing my hands in something of a daze, I left the bathroom without wiping them dry, too stunned to properly process anything, and as I opened the bedroom door to the hallway, I was greeted by an irate Axel, though he graced me with his hand in mine anyway. Still thrown by my revelations, I couldn’t say anything.

  My thoughts were whipping around in my head, like a cat-o-nine-tails lashing away barriers I’d put up.

  It was a ridiculous time to consider this, and I couldn’t possibly be in the right headspace the second day after burying my parents, but if not today… When else would I? They say you shouldn't make any huge life choices after a traumatic event, but everything from the moment the Gates had appeared was one continuous traumatic event. There might not be an after it.

  Tam’s concise advice was truer now than ever; words I’d wished I’d said to my mum and dad like barbed wire in my throat.

  Life was short.

  It felt like a painfully stupid question to ask myself, and to anyone else the answer might be obvious, but…

  Did I actually like Axel like that?

  Since our broken friendship, and my crush on him had been nuclear blasted, I’d struggled all through puberty and adulthood to tell the difference between romantic and platonic interest. It didn't help that I'd had sparingly few friends either.

  Googling will tell you that the difference lies in the desire for intimacy. And, boy, had I Googled. Nights upon nights of trying to figure things out. No answers. “Everyone’s different.” How the hell were sex-indifferent asexuals meant to tell, then? And if you threw alterous feelings into the mix, it became an absolute non-starter.

  I’d confidently announced to Axel I could fall in love back in Nabu’s Dungeon, but other than my childhood feelings for him, I had no other foundation. My basis of comparison was smiling idiotically in my bed, staring up at the ceiling, as I thought about something he'd said and thinking anything he did was cool. Everything I knew was nearing two decades old and involved memories that were rife with trauma, to boot.

  I’d never fallen for anyone else!

  All I knew about romantic love was Axel.

  Not to mention, I hadn’t even wanted to pursue anyone, not really. At least, looking back at it, I didn’t think so. I’d been doing it out of loneliness, out of service of my autopilot goal for the compulsory picket fence life we were all meant to follow, not because I genuinely felt a spark with any of the people I’d dated.

  I did feel a little bit bad about it now, since the people I’d gone out with had in fact wanted something real. But based on what I knew about love, those dates wouldn’t have gone anywhere; the blame solely on me, of course.

  I cared deeply about Axel, couldn’t stand the thought of life without him, would do anything to see him safe and happy, but did that mean—

  “This better be water,” he muttered, top lip upturned, gazing down at my moist hand in his.

  Unable to resist, drawn out of my quandary by the very subject of it, I laughed in semi-relief. “You really do expect the worst of me.”

  He smiled back. An impish expression curled at the edges of his eyes as he led me down the stairs back to the party meeting. He leaned in close and conspiratorially whispered, “I wouldn’t have let go either way.”

  “Gross,” I said, though it was oddly touching.

  Again, I found my mind freezing. Had I just thought that Axel saying he’d hold my hand even if I’d pissed on it to be endearing? What the fuck was wrong with me? Was I actually… Did I…

  The blond in question had paused in front of me, studying my face.

  “You good?” he asked.

  Did I like Axel romantically?

  I know we were technically dating already, but people dated others and then started liking them, right? Or did it come first? Or did it come later? TV shows and movies portrayed it as a sudden understanding, like a light being switched on, or a slow gradual process, the feeling growing as the people learned more about each other. But I knew Axel.

  I’d always known him.

  Axel’s head tilted, punctuating his question. The same expression on his face in everything we’d gone through together flickered through my mind, each one comforting in its familiarity but challenging in its intent. I knew intuitively I cared for him. That was an undeniable truth. But beyond that…

  As I stared, the feeling unravelled, unspooling.

  It was the warmth of his hand in mine, his arms around me, his lips on my brow, his smile when he looked at me like he saw me. It was him pissing me off, accepting my worst, pushing me, supporting me. It was all he’d done for me, what it meant to me, the way he treated me, how he made me feel.

  The few times I'd nearly died, it hadn't been my life that had flashed through my mind.

  Huh.

  My answer was as easy as breathing.

  It wasn't a reckoning. It wasn't a revelation.

  It was just as it'd always been.

  And heaven help me.

  “Yeah,” I said, a smile tugging at the corners of my lips despite myself. Blinking, I cleared my throat and then clarified, “I’m good. Now, let’s see if we can actually make some headway on assigning Adrien’s skills.”

  After two more hours of heated debate, we finally came to a semi-satisfactory conclusion. We spent the rest of daylight practicing with our new skills in the shed Gigi had been working on. I don’t know how xe’d done it, but xe’d transformed the place into a training paradise, with dummies of hay laying at the end, and makeshift steps and platforms, assumedly to practice evasive manoeuvres; something I was sorely lacking at. In fact, the majority of injuries I’d suffered had been me unable to break away in time or me having thrown myself intentionally into danger.

  Maybe alongside jogging in the morning, I needed to start improving my reaction speed. Perhaps Tam or Axel could help me with that.

  But that was another thing I started becoming aware of. I was seeing results from the regimen that Jye had put together for me. It hadn’t even been a full week since I’d started, though I had gone on a break since… my parents. The gradual changes appeared to be happening to others too, though if they noticed it, I wasn’t sure.

  Whatever the system had done to us, from granting us abilities and stats, it had also boosted progression, so long as you put in the effort. That said, I didn’t feel stronger or faster or better at all. But the improvements were there, nonetheless.

  I think I was beginning to understand the system more and more.

  Our very body, our character, our life and background, informed what we were capable of. These things were calibrated into the system as hidden modifiers that we might never be able to see. I had a feeling that even at the exact same attribute score, and if we were both using [Swift Footed], Axel would still leave me in the dust. Just as Gigi’s shields would forever be stronger than mine. Just as Wren would be able to heal more efficiently than me. And Jye had better control over their Load. And Tam could land hits that little bit easier.

  There was something underneath the stats that the system handed out.

  And that was us.

  Undergoing this extra training was shifting these modifiers, changing us at a fundamental level. Given the speed of our progress, I had to assume that this is what players were meant to be doing, or figuring out. This was part of the game. Part of the entertainment.

  Like a magic trick.

  What goes into the box, isn’t what comes out.

  How much can we put these toys through until they break?

  No longer keeping such thoughts to myself, I mentioned as much to everyone else, though in less harsh words, and was met with grim nods. Better out than in…

  Once we’d gotten a grip on what we could do, though Tam and Jye stayed behind to practice longer (despite Jye not having been able to purchase their attributes and skills yet), we agreed it was more than time to hit another Dungeon.

  Whilst you could be fooled into thinking our levels seemed decently high and that we’d come so far, the truth was we’d only achieved under 4,000 XP out of the 255,750 needed to reach LVL 11; barely 5 percent. So, with concrete resolve, we started prepping for our next outing, our next first clear. We also discussed our approach to it, practicing an opening strategy that Gigi suggested.

  I guess we were going to New Delhi tomorrow.

  After wrapping up for the night, considering it’d be an early morning tomorrow, Wren approached me as I was heading upstairs for bed, Axel hovering down the hallway, ever near. In Wren’s hands, she held a pile of polaroid photos so tall that to stop it from toppling over, she was pressing down with the bottom of her chin, her head angled up awkwardly. Wow. She’d likely run through her entire collection of film. We’d have to go looking for some more when we had time.

  It was odd how she’d taken to the hobby while I’d been out of it. Maybe we weren’t providing an enriching enough environment for her. I’d thought the arts and craft stuff Jye had given her from Bunnings would keep her preoccupied for a while. Maybe I needed to have another conversation with said giant, since out of the crew, only the two of us had dealt with younger siblings before. Well, Tam might’ve, but I would never know.

  With a frown, not meeting my eyes, Wren said, “These are for you.”

  I didn’t hide my shock since I thought she’d just come to show them off.

  Pleasantly surprised, I thanked her.

  With a delicate touch, I eased them from her grip and glanced down at the first photograph, expecting something like flowers and harmless but badly framed and composed candid pictures of the party. I had already loaded some empty compliments into the forefront of my brain, ready to deal them out regardless of the photos’ artistic quality. As much as I wasn’t a fan of empty platitudes, Wren was just a kid. It was better to be encouraging than critical at this age.

  Instead, I was greeted with the dead face of one of the gate guardians we’d killed. Someone had laid a sheet over their chest, their face clean of blood, relaxed, their hands crossed over their chest.

  Laid to rest.

  Flipping to the next, it was another, and then another, and then someone from Bia’s Dungeon. All of them in the same position, under that same sheet. My throat went dry, confronted once again by the insurmountable amount of death we’d already seen.

  “Wren… What is this?” I asked, my voice barely squeaking out of me, the weight of the photos I was holding suddenly too heavy.

  Her hands met at her waist, wringing. The girl’s hazel gaze flicked up to meet mine, her expression hesitant.

  “I’m not really good at cooking, or cleaning, or planning training, or helping you sleep, or figuring out things. This is all I can do.” She paused. “You said you hoped people would find them, right?”

  Understanding hit me. I swallowed. It was all I could do to fight back the tears.

  “You want us to hang these up somewhere in the city so people know what happened to them?” I wondered aloud.

  She nodded quickly.

  “And maybe, if we can figure out a way to communicate, we can return people to their family and friends.”

  I smiled weakly, part horrified and part mystified how she’d come to this solution. It definitely wouldn’t have been something Makris had asked of her. In fact, I was surprised he’d let her do this at all. Fuck, had she been washing her hands between these? No, wait, while this was touching and thoughtful, it was incredibly messed up. Kids weren’t supposed to be engaged in post-mortem photography!

  And, yet… It wasn't an awful idea. Rather, it was the only idea we’d had. It was a real tangible answer to the issue we’d been having, and while it wasn’t fully concrete, it was a hell of a lot better than nothing at all. We could work from this, springboard off it from here. It was something to start with. Not only that, but she’d clearly put a lot of thought into this and so much effort.

  I didn’t like that she’d been moving around dead bodies on her own, but that was neither here nor there.

  “Thank you, Wren,” I said, and this time I meant it from the depths of my soul.

  The ten-year-old beamed back.