Millie didn't scream.
Didn't gasp.
She didn't even curse, which Junior found oddly ominous.
"Well?" he prompted after a few moments of silence.
She let the curtain fall back into place. "You're not going to believe this."
"Try me."
"It's . . . fine. Everything looks . . . fine."
Junior frowned. He'd been skeptical of many of Millie's claims, but even he admitted he would have expected something to have changed.
"Can you describe what you see?" he inquired.
Millie hesitated, then heaved a disgruntled sigh.
"People are mostly just standing around, talking. Most of the cars are stopped. Nobody's screaming. We still have one sun in the sky - which is still blue, by the way. A little cloudy. Definitely not on fire, which I kinda wanted to see. No eldritch horror from beyond melting through the borders of reality. Everything looks . . . completely normal."
Junior frowned, his fingers tapping an uneven rhythm on the couch cushion. To his ears, his newest acquaintance actually sounded disappointed.
"So, no monsters?" he asked, incredulous at his own question. The absence of monsters didn't seem like the kind of thing he should have needed to confirm.
It was just that kind of day.
"No monsters." She bit her lip then continued at a low mumble, as if to herself. "I need to check the forums. I should grab my phone."
"You're leaving?"
Millie was a little surprised that Junior had heard her. Though she was beginning to recognize she shouldn't be. Despite the situation with his eyes, it was becoming clear to her that Junior had excellent hearing.
"Not for long. Just one level down to my place. I'll be back soon." She offered a smirk, which Junior couldn't see, regardless. "And if I'm not, assume I've been eaten."
Junior didn't laugh. "Be careful."
Millie glanced at her so-called survival pack and scowled. "I'll be faster without my pack. Fat lot of good it's turned out to be so far." She left the overloaded backpack beside the couch and moved to the door. "While I'm out, see what you can learn from your . . . smarthome assistant. Athena? Maybe the news has caught up to whatever's happening."
And with that, she was gone.
Junior exhaled. "Athena, access local news networks."
"Accessing current top stories," came the same soothing tones of his AI assistant.
Junior's apartment had no TV or display screen for obvious reasons; Athena's output was purely audio. There was a soft chime, then he heard the clean, clipped tones of a local anchor:
"-tinuing coverage of what experts have been scrambling to identify but are now tentatively calling a 'shared dream' or 'hallucination'. Hundreds of millions have reported identical visions occurring between 9:24 and 9:29 AM. The majority of the afflicted, including yours truly, have described experiencing sudden unconsciousness followed by vivid but uneventful experiences: crystals or monuments of some kind floating in an endless white chamber. And then they simply woke up."
Junior frowned. Millie had described her dream in those exact terms.
But his . . .
"However," the anchor continued, her tone sharpening, "not all dreams were the same. Reports are emerging of a minority who experienced what they're calling nightmares - violent, vivid visions involving dismemberment, torment, and other abuse by horrifically familiar, but ultimately twisted entities. In every reported case, the subject awoke under physical assault by unknown hostile organisms."
Junior froze as his blood ran cold.
"Across the world, rescuers and concerned neighbours are still discovering the -" the anchor hesitated, briefly enough that even Junior barely caught it, then continued with a slight hitch in her otherwise professional voice "- remains of victims found in their homes, often partially consumed. Lone survivors in these circumstances have been rare. Military and government insiders say their organizations have begun to refer to these individuals as 'Reclaimed'. According to anonymous government sources, the Reclaimed are somehow marked or singled out by the monsters, if not by the strange blue screens we've begun referring to as the 'Reclamation System' itself."
The words from Junior's blue screen floated before him, immovable and undeniable:
Reclamation Interrupted.
Junior swallowed. His mouth felt dry, and his throat tight.
"Authorities are urging all individuals who experienced these dangerous 'nightmares' to report immediately to centralized medical and military facilities for evaluation and safety. Efforts are underway to locate all potential Reclaimed in urban centers."
"Athena, end audio," Junior said faintly. He could hear his blood pounding near his eardrums as his heart hammered in his chest.
Was that what he was now? A 'Reclaimed'?
He pressed a hand to his forehead. His shoulder throbbed, a dull ache radiating outward from under his bandages and into his temples.
The bite was in the same spot that thing had grabbed him in his nightmare. Coincidence? Or something more sinister? Deliberate? Had the nightmare creature he really didn't want to remember left a mark of some kind? One that the . . . very real monster had followed somehow once he awoke?
Junior reflexively turned his sightless gaze to the corner where Millie said the monster's corpse was located. He wrinkled his nose. He couldn't see it, but he could definitely smell it. There was a sharp, briny odour reminiscent of the sea. There were other unrecognizable - but decidedly unpleasant - odours he couldn't identify, and didn't want to spend too much time thinking about.
"Athena, how can I dispose of a cor-," Junior's words fumbled to a stop. He felt like asking how to dispose of a dead body wasn't exactly the kind of thing he wanted in his search history at the best of times, let alone now. "Uhm, I mean, Athena, how can I safely remove a . . . dead dog?" He finally continued after a moment's thought.
Beside his couch, Junior heard a plaintive whine from Achilles and absently reached down to pat the dog's head.
"I don't mean you, of course," he muttered reassuringly even as Athena replied.
"I'm really sorry you're going through this. Losing a pet is incredibly difficult. Here's a safe and respectful way to handle the removal of a deceased dog." Junior barely managed to restrain a sigh at the AI's unneeded reassurances. "According to the galatea.gov website, to remove any living or deceased pet, you can contact animal services. It's okay to grieve. You aren't alone in this."
The AI then continued to provide additional condolences in a voice that seemed even more soothing than usual, interspersed with actual tips on safe handling and hygiene. Junior listened to the whole thing stoically while Achilles continued to whine intermittently. He had several items already, like gloves to wear and towels to wrap the monster's body, but he wasn't sure he had a leak-proof container large enough. He shuddered at the thought of touching the monster's corpse to determine how big it was, and instead bravely decided to wait for Millie to return and enlist her help.
As he thought, he considered related, but more abstract questions. A monster. Plural, according to the reports. Where did they even come from? How had this one entered his condo? Millie and Junior had been incapacitated for minutes at most. She'd found no sign of the monster's entry. Millie dismissed its presence as some kind of summoning and blithely accepted that the monster just appeared out of nowhere. It was in line with her 'LITRPG' conspiracies, after all.
But despite everything, Junior still balked at the idea of horrible, apparently hostile beings just popping fully formed out of nowhere.
A hurried knock sounded from his apartment door, interrupting his meandering thoughts. Before Junior could answer, he heard it already creaking open.
"I'm back," Millie called, sounding winded. "And guess what?"
Junior turned his head slightly toward the sound of her footsteps.
"I don't want to guess anymore."
"Good instinct."
She dropped herself onto Junior's sofa and propped her booted feet up on his coffee table. Junior heard the twin thumps and deduced their cause, but said nothing.
Achilles, however, raised his furry eyebrows and observed her from his spot on the floor. Millie glanced sidelong at the golden retriever and huffed defensively. She could feel the canine disapproval in Achille's gaze. Or maybe not. Maybe she was reading too much into it. Achilles was just a dog after all. This broken, useless System hadn't shown any inclination to give her anything remotely cool like the ability to speak with animals.
"Tell me what you learned," Junior said, ignorant of Millie's irreverent thoughts.
Millie shook her head and focused on her new friend. Follower. Whatever.
"Nothing concrete," she replied. "Guesses. Speculation wild enough to make me look downright normal."
Junior nodded slowly. "Like what?"
Millie sighed and ran a hand through her hair. She instinctively tried to make eye contact, but Junior's oddly roaming eyes unsettled her, so she flinched away, then immediately felt guilty about her insensitive reaction.
"Millie?" Junior prompted as the silence stretched.
"Crud. Sorry," Millie said, flustered. She cleared her throat and reflexively glanced at her phone without really seeing the screen. "The sensible ones think the System is broken. Whatever it's supposed to be doing, hallucinations and random nightmares don't seem to be it. Others are leaning into the more sinister side of things, as if a failed apocalypse isn't sinister enough. Mass mind-control gone wrong, for example. Or worse, mind-control that worked and we're - or more like they're, for the really paranoid ones - still stuck in some sort of fake dream world. The word Reclamation's being bandied about as proof that the System has less than wholesome intentions for us, which I sorta agree with. Opinions on what exactly we're being reclaimed of vary wildly, though."
Millie paused for breath while Junior mulled her words. Her expression grew intently serious as she gazed directly at his face.
"Look, Junior. Don't tell anyone what happened to you."
He didn't answer, but Millie saw him flinch a little.
She pressed the issue.
"I mean it, Junior. Don't report it. Don't give your name to any website, hotline, or government agency. Don't. Say. Anything."
Junior remained expressionless, but then he slowly started to nod. Millie sighed, and her shoulders slumped a little with relief.
"Because I'm one of the . . . Reclaimed?" Junior asked.
Millie nodded along with him. "Because whatever this System is, our leaders can't possibly have any idea how to deal with it. And the Chuckleheads-That-Be usually have specific ways to deal with things they don't understand. Or even worse . . . fear."
Junior's pulse sped up again as Achilles emitted a low, sympathetic growl.
"Apprehend. Contain. Study," he said grimly.
Millie picked up her phone again, turned the screen towards him, although he couldn't see it. "There are other, disturbing themes gaining traction. That the Reclaimed aren't even human anymore. That they're carriers for . . . something. That our dreams weren't visions.
"That they were infections."