Chapter One

I woke up to my phone vibrating itself across the plywood crate I used as a nightstand. I rolled over, squinted at the screen, and felt my stomach drop.

1:27 PM

“Oh, hell.”

I launched out of bed, caught my foot in the blanket, and nearly face-planted into my desk. The monitor still glowed in the corner, my character standing idle in Arc Angels. The raid chat window was still open, frozen on the last few messages from before I passed out.

DeathBringer: SEXYBEAST WHY WOULD YOU PULL THAT

SexyBeast: because nobody listens to me

SexyBeast: I called the add ten seconds early

SexyBeast: I dragged boss off and you taunted him right back

Healz4Dayz: dude we were at 6%

TheLoser: yeah I’m out, night

Stabitha: same

BonezMcGee: done

DeathBringer: THERE WAS NO ADD ON ME

Healz4Dayz: there was, left side

SexyBeast: exactly

I jabbed the power button, and the screen went dark.

What a mess.

My room looked exactly like a twenty-five-year-old failure’s command center should. Computer desk. Dented mini fridge. A doom pile of clothes in the corner. The basement smelled faintly of dust, cheap body wash, and the hot plastic scent of electronics nearing death.

My chair had a tear right down the middle of the seat. The fake leather on the armrests had peeled away in black curls that stuck to my elbows. I kept meaning to replace it.

I kept meaning to do a lot of things.

I yanked on jeans from the floor, grabbed the least dirty shirt I could find, and checked my phone as I hopped toward the stairs.

Three missed calls from Sarah.

One text.

Are you even awake?

“Fantastic.”

I called her while trying to button my jeans at the same time. She answered on the second ring.

“Where are you?” she asked.

No hello. No softness. Straight to the knife.

“I’m up. I’m moving. I overslept.”

“You said you’d meet me before my shift ended.”

“I know.”

“You always know.”

I hit the first stair. “Sarah, come on. I said I’m on my way.”

There was a pause on the line. I could hear cafe noise behind her. Milk steaming. Someone laughing. Dishes clinking.

Then she said, quieter, “Just get here, David.”

Something in her voice made me stop halfway up the steps.

“What’s wrong?”

Another pause.

“We need to talk.”

Every bad cliche in the English language showed up at once and started breakdancing in my skull.

“Sarah.”

“Just get here.”

The call ended.

I stood there for half a second staring at my phone, then shoved it into my pocket and climbed the rest of the stairs.

Upstairs looked like the house had gotten stuck somewhere in the late nineties and refused to move on. Flowered wallpaper peeled at the seams above dark wood paneling that ran waist-high along the walls. Everything about it felt old in a way that wasn’t antique, just familiar and tired.

My dad was in his recliner, leaning forward at the TV like his rage might influence the game.

“Throw the damn ball, you blind son of a bitch.”

A beer sat on the armrest. Grease-darkened hands. Thick shoulders. Hair everywhere except the top of his head, which had apparently filed for relocation years ago. He had a seventy-inch TV and somehow still had a VCR rigged into it with enough adapters to violate several laws of nature.

The picture on screen looked like it had been filmed through a wet sock.

He glanced at me, then at the clock over the kitchen.

“Well,” he said, “good afternoon, princess.”

“Hey, Dad.”

“That your job-hunting outfit?”

“It’s my going outside outfit.”

He snorted and turned back to the game. “Aim high.”

My mom was at the sink, rinsing a plate. She turned when she heard me and gave me that look. Not angry. Not even surprised. Just tired in a way that made me feel about nine years old.

“I made you a sandwich,” she said.

She pointed at a plate on the counter. Grilled ham and cheese. Pickle spear. A little bag of chips.

For one second, guilt hit me so hard I almost couldn’t breathe.

“Thanks, Mom.”

“You’re welcome.” She dried her hands on a towel. “You going to see Sarah?”

“Yeah.”

“She sounded upset when she called earlier.”

“She’s fine.”

My dad barked a laugh from the living room. “When a woman says she’s fine, you better start writing a will.”

“Frank,” my mom said without turning.

“What? I’m helping.”

She looked back at me. “You need to do something, David.”

There it was.

Not shouted. Not cruel. That almost made it worse.

“I know.”

“You keep saying that.”

“I said I know.”

Her face tightened. “I’m not trying to fight with you.”

“Then don’t.”

The words came out sharper than I meant them to. She flinched just a little. That tiny movement punched a hole right through me.

I looked away first.

“Sorry,” I muttered.

Silence stretched for a beat. The announcer on TV shouted something about a turnover. My dad slapped the armrest and cursed like the game could hear him.

Mom pushed the plate toward me.

“Eat before you go.”

I picked up half the sandwich. “I’ll eat on the way.”

“You can’t live on bus rides and excuses.”

“I know.”

She closed her eyes for a second. “That’s the problem. You always know.”

I wanted to say something smart. Something sharp enough to cut my way out of the moment.

Instead I took a bite of the sandwich and nodded toward the back door.

“I’ll be back later.”

“David,” she said.

I stopped.

“I love you. I just need you to start acting like your life belongs to you.”

I slipped through the broken section of fence instead of using the gate because I’d been using that shortcut so long the splintered wood felt more official than the actual path. The air outside had that damp Pacific Northwest bite to it, cool and gray and smelling faintly of wet earth and car exhaust.

I ate the rest of the sandwich walking to the bus stop.

The docks were still an option tonight if I got there on time. They always needed bodies when the boats came in. I hated the cold slime of fish crates soaking through my gloves, hated the smell that never fully washed out, hated the way gulls screamed overhead like they were laughing at all of us.

Still paid cash.

Cash beat pride.

The bus stop bench was wet, so I stayed standing and called Sarah again. Straight to voicemail.

“Great.”

A city bus hissed up two minutes later. I climbed aboard, scanned my pass, and looked down the aisle.

Ms. Gretta sat near the front with her mountain of plastic bags piled around her feet like she was preparing to survive the collapse of civilization one canned good at a time. She always smelled like peppermint and wet newspaper.

Most people ignored her.

I didn’t, mostly because she knew my name without ever being told and that was the kind of thing that gets your attention.

As I passed, she said, “You’re late.”

I stopped. “That’s been the theme of my twenties.”

She kept digging through one of her bags. “No. Late-late.”

“What does that even mean?”

She pulled out a can of soup, looked at it like she’d won something, and tucked it into another bag. “Means clocks are rude little liars.”

“Okay.”

“Today is the day, David.”

That made me pause.

She usually said weird things. End of days, city of smoke, the hungry sky, repent before the glass rain, that kind of thing.

But this was new.

“Today is what day?”

Now she looked up.

Her eyes were startlingly clear. Not cloudy. Not confused. Clear in a way that made me uneasy.

“The day you stop almost becoming yourself.”

I stared at her.

She nodded once, satisfied, and went back to reorganizing canned goods like nothing had happened.

I moved to the back of the bus.

“Cool,” I muttered. “That’s not ominous at all.”

Seattle slid past the windows in gray blocks and wet streets. By the time the bus hissed to a stop near Sarah’s coffee shop, my chest had tightened into a bad knot I couldn’t think my way around.

The shop sat on the corner, all dark trim and expensive coffee and customers who looked like they owned reusable tote bags on purpose.

Sarah was outside by the door.

That stopped me before I even reached her.

She was smoking.

Sarah hated cigarettes. Said they made her clothes smell bad and her mouth taste like burnt paper. Yet there she was in her black work blouse and fitted skirt, holding one like it was the only thing keeping her still.

She flicked the cigarette away, crushed it under the heel of a pair of black pumps, and folded her arms.

“Hey,” I said, trying for normal. “What’s with the funeral face?”

She didn’t smile.

I went in for a hug anyway. She let me touch her, but only barely. Her hands stayed at her sides. Then she stepped back.

That half-second of empty air between us told me more than anything else could have.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

She looked at me for a long time before answering.

“What are you doing with your life, David?”

I let out a weak laugh. “Straight for the throat, huh?”

“I’m serious.”

“I don’t know. Working. Figuring stuff out.”

“No, you’re not.”

The knot in my chest pulled tighter. “I do work.”

“At the docks when they’ll take you. Sometimes.”

“That still counts as work.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Then what is the point?”

Her jaw flexed. She glanced toward the shop window, then back at me.

“The point is I’m tired.”

I opened my mouth, but she kept going.

“I’m tired of waiting for you to become the person you keep saying you’re going to be.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No.”

Her voice hardened. “Do you know how many times I’ve heard ‘I’m trying’?”

I looked away. Cars rolled past. Somewhere down the block, a siren wailed and faded.

She stepped closer.

“Do you remember my birthday dinner last year?”

“Sarah…”

“No. Answer me.”

“Yes.”

“Do you remember me sitting alone in that restaurant for forty minutes because your guild was in the middle of a raid?”

I felt my face heat. “I said I was sorry.”

“You said ‘just five more minutes.’”

“I didn’t know it would take that long.”

Her laugh came out like broken glass. “That’s always the excuse. Everything with you is five more minutes. Five more minutes and you’ll get a job. Five more minutes and you’ll save money. Five more minutes and you’ll call me back. Five more minutes and you’ll act like this is a real relationship.”

“That’s not true.”

“Isn’t it?”

I looked at the sidewalk instead of her face.

She took a breath, and when she spoke again her voice had gone quiet.

That was worse.

“I loved you, David.”

The words hit so hard I almost missed the tense.

Loved.

Past tense. Clean. Surgical.

“I did,” she said. “For a long time. Longer than I should have.”

I looked up fast. “Then what is this?”

“This is me being done.”

“No.” I shook my head. “No, you don’t just get to spring this on me out of nowhere.”

“Out of nowhere?” She stared at me. “You think this is out of nowhere?”

She stepped closer, eyes bright now, anger finally surfacing through the fatigue.

“I begged you to care. I begged you to show up. I begged you to think about anything beyond the next game, the next excuse, the next promise. I have dragged this relationship behind me for two years, and now you want to act surprised because I finally put it down?”

I felt my own temper flare, mostly because everything she said had too much truth in it.

“So what, that’s it?” I snapped. “You just wake up one day and decide I’m not worth it?”

Her face changed.

Not anger. Hurt.

“That’s the worst part,” she said softly. “I kept trying because I thought you were.”

That landed clean.

No bounce. No defense. Just impact.

I swallowed. “Sarah…”

She shook her head.

“I can’t keep loving someone out of pity.”

I actually took a step back.

“Pity?”

“Yes.”

The word burned.

“You stayed with me because you pitied me?”

“I stayed because I thought maybe one day you’d want more for yourself than this.”

My laugh came out ugly. “Wow.”

“You asked.”

“No, you know what?” I said, voice rising. “Forget it. If I’m such a burden, why didn’t you leave sooner?”

“Because I’m an idiot,” she fired back. “Because I loved you. Because every time you looked me in the face and said you’d do better, some stupid part of me believed you.”

I wanted to argue.

I wanted to say I had reasons. That life was harder than she made it sound. That people got stuck. That not everyone got handed a ladder.

But while I was standing there searching for something to throw back, all I could remember was her standing under a streetlight outside her apartment, arms folded against the cold, while I sat at my computer saying, five more minutes.

Excuses sounded paper-thin when you held them up to memory.

Her shoulders dropped.

“I didn’t want to do this over the phone,” she said. “That’s the only reason I waited.”

Then she stepped around me toward the curb.

That was when I noticed the car.

Black Mercedes. New enough it still looked like it belonged in a showroom instead of on an actual street. Clean lines. Dark glass. The kind of car that didn’t just cost money, it announced continuity of success.

The passenger door was already unlocked.

I looked from the car to her, then back again.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

She didn’t answer.

“Really?” I asked. “That’s where this goes?”

“It goes nowhere,” she said. “It’s already gone.”

She opened the passenger door.

I bent slightly and caught my reflection in the window. Faded jeans. Cheap shirt. Shoes with the tread peeling off. I looked like a guy who apologized for being late more often than he brushed his hair.

The driver’s side door opened.

Brian Sanderson climbed out.

Of course it was Brian.

Good haircut. Expensive watch. Smile like life had never once told him no.

He looked at Sarah, then at me, and gave me the kind of polite nod people reserve for strangers they expect to remain unimportant.

“Everything okay?” he asked her.

Sarah gave a tiny nod. “Yeah.”

Brian looked back at me. “You want me to give you two another minute?”

I almost said yes. Almost lunged at the tiny scrap of dignity being offered.

Sarah answered before I could.

“No. We’re done.”

There it was. Final and public.

Brian’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile. He opened the passenger door wider for her.

She got in.

Before closing it, she looked at me one last time.

“Goodbye, David.”

The door shut with a soft thud.

I stood there as the Mercedes pulled away from the curb.

It didn’t screech off. Didn’t need to. It just slid into traffic like it belonged there.

I watched it go until the taillights vanished around the corner.

For a moment the whole street felt strangely hollow, like sound had been scraped out of it.

Then a woman screamed.

It cut through everything.

I turned fast.

A mother stood in the middle of the sidewalk, spinning in place, wild-eyed and pale.

“Emily!” she screamed. “Emily!”

A man burst out of a bookstore across the street.

“Lukas! Lukas!”

Another voice joined in. Then another.

People poured out of storefronts, panic spreading in an instant. Not confusion. Not irritation. Panic.

Parents.

All of them shouting names.

“What the hell?”

A little girl’s shoe lay on the sidewalk near the curb.

Empty.

Something cold slid down my spine.

Then the ground moved.

At first it was a twitch, just enough to make everyone pause. Then the street heaved hard sideways.

Car alarms exploded into noise. A streetlight pitched, bent, and crashed into the road in a shower of sparks. Glass burst somewhere behind me.

“Earthquake!” somebody yelled.

I think it was me.

People ran in every direction at once. A man hit the pavement. A woman fell to her knees clutching both sides of her head. Bricks rained from somewhere above and smashed across the hood of a parked car.

I staggered backward, looking up.

The buildings were swaying.

Not a little.

Bending.

Impossible.

Then there was a flash.

White. Sudden. Total.

Something slammed into my chest so hard it felt like getting hit by a truck made of light. The air left my lungs in one violent burst as I flew backward, slammed into something behind me, and collapsed onto the pavement.

My ears rang.

The world turned muffled and distant, like I’d been dropped underwater.

Through the blur I saw one of the taller buildings across the street buckle in the middle. Steel shrieked. Windows burst outward in a glittering wave.

A section of stone facade tore loose and came down toward me.

I tried to move.

My arms wouldn’t listen.

I had exactly enough time to think, So this is it.

Then everything went white.

I woke up screaming.

“Oh God. Oh God. Oh, no.”

I rolled onto my side, coughing, hands scraping across slick stone.

Cold.

Wet.

Not pavement.

My eyes snapped open.

Darkness pressed in from all sides, broken only by a dim gray light that didn’t seem to come from anywhere. I was lying in a narrow tunnel made of rough stone blocks, each one uneven, ancient-looking, damp with condensation.

For one insane second I thought, sewer.

Then I saw the walls.

I scrambled backward until my shoulders slammed into solid stone behind me.

My breathing turned ragged. “No. No, no, no.”

This wasn’t Seattle.

This wasn’t anywhere.

A soundless shimmer appeared in front of my face.

I flinched so hard I cracked the back of my head against the wall.

Light gathered in the air, flattening into a glowing rectangle.

A screen.

Just hanging there.

Bright blue-white letters formed across it one by one.

WELCOME TO THE MULTIVERSE, CHAMPION

I stared at it, chest heaving.

Then I did the only reasonable thing a man can do when he gets dumped, hit by the apocalypse, and wakes up in a stone tunnel with a floating screen in front of his face.

I said, very softly:

“What the hell.”