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Chapter Ten: The Road That Wasn't There
publish date:
2026-10-21 08:33:41
JakeThat's Chapter 10! If you've read through to this point and you are enjoying it, consider leaving a rating, or comment. It really helps a new story get some visibility. Thanks for reading. More to come!
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Apocalypse My First Skill Was Immortality Chapter Thirty-Three: Rebecca's Fever
Maya didn't ask again on the walk home.They left the annex at dusk, a ragged line of people moving down empty streets with Marcus's truck rumbling behind. Peter carried Sophie on his shoulders. Laura held Ben's good hand. Walter led, Kai limped at the rear with a bandaged forearm and his eyes on the ground. The Stalkers on the rooftops had vanished while Jake was dead, and nobody had explained why. Nobody wanted to.Jake drifted to the back of the line and Maya fell in beside him, a careful arm's length away."You don't have to tell me," she said quietly."I know.""I'm only saying it because I saw the trace stop. I wasn't trying to catch you in anything."He kept walking. Ahead, Ethan glanced back once, pretended he hadn't, and turned around again. A block went by, then another. A bus rotted at the curb. A dog's collar lay in the gutter with the leash still attached."It's my Awakening," Jake said at last. "If something kills me, I come back. Ten minutes later. Healed."Maya didn't
Apocalypse My First Skill Was Immortality Chapter Thirty-Two: The Wrong Kind of Rescue
Walter's radio crackled at four in the afternoon. He'd sent one short burst from the lobby when they first got inside, then switched it off to save the battery. Now the speaker hissed, spat static, and Graham's voice came out of it in pieces. "...truck on the way... fifteen minutes... stay where you are..." "Tell him no," Jake said. "Tell him to stay at the Ridge." Walter hit the button and shouted. The radio only hissed. A last chirp of static, and then the battery light went dark. Ethan swore. "He's sending people into that." Jake was already moving. He took the stairs to the roof two at a time, Maya right behind him. The access door groaned open onto flat gray tar and a low parapet. The plaza lay spread below them, empty and bright in the late sun. Around its edges, on every roof, the Stalkers sat folded like cranes. Thirty of them now. Maybe more. None had moved in an hour. A flatbed truck turned onto the far end of the street. It came slowly, with Marcus in the passenger
Apocalypse My First Skill Was Immortality Chapter Thirty-One: The Building That Stayed Standing
"Run," Jake said.Nobody asked questions. Kai scooped Ben off his feet with the splinted arm still tucked against his chest. Ethan tightened his hold on Sophie. Walter grabbed Peter's sleeve and Laura's wrist and pulled. Maya was already sprinting, one hand trailing along the wall as if the hum under the street were a rope she could follow."Where?" Ethan shouted."There!" Maya pointed down the block.At the end of the street stood a gray concrete building with no windows. The buildings around it had burned or collapsed or been torn open. This one stood whole, flat-faced and ugly, with a steel door and a wide open plaza in front. A faded sign hung over the entrance. A.R.C. REGIONAL MONITORING, ANNEX 4."Open ground," Jake said, and understood why Maya had chosen it. Pale Stalkers hated open ground. They needed walls and dark. In a wide plaza they were faster than people, but not by as much.The first one dropped off the laundromat roof behind them. Then another. They hit the pavement
Apocalypse My First Skill Was Immortality Chapter Thirty: The Signal Under the City
Maya set the badge on the workshop bench next to a creased photograph and didn't say anything for a while.Jake stood across from her with his arms crossed. Graham leaned in the doorway. Ethan was eating a heel of bread and trying to look like he wasn't hovering. The badge was ordinary plastic, scratched along one edge, clipped to a frayed strap. A.R.C. in small gray letters. ADRIAN under the photo. Under that, RESEARCH STAFF, LEVEL 3."I found this at the warehouse," Maya said, tapping the photograph. "The same box as the inventory sheet. I thought it was junk. Then the man came back with the badge."The photo showed six people in white coats outside a brick building. Jake knew the tall one on the left immediately. His father had one hand in his pocket and the stiff half-smile of a man who hated being photographed. At the far edge of the frame, mostly turned away, stood a man in a dark coat. A pale line ran from his temple to his jaw."That's him," Ethan said. "That's the guy.""It's
Apocalypse My First Skill Was Immortality Chapter Twenty-Nine: What Claire Can See
They buried Tomas and Ivan at dawn, side by side, under a gray sky. Kai carried the stones for the cairn without being asked. Graham said four sentences, and none of them were big words. Marcus stood at the edge with his arm in a sling and didn't blink.Jake stayed until the last stone was down. Then he went looking for Claire, because it was the one thing he could still do for someone.He found her in the side room off the medical station, sitting in a folding chair with a notebook open on her knee. Frank lay on the cot in front of her, tied at the wrists and ankles with soft cloth strips, sweating through a clean shirt. Emily sat on the floor by his head with her knees pulled up, refusing to leave."Hi," Claire said, without looking up. "Don't touch anything.""How is he?""Worse than yesterday. Better than he'll be tonight." She tapped the page. "Look."Jake crouched. She'd drawn a rough chart, four boxes across the top and a few lines of her small handwriting under each."Stage on
Apocalypse My First Skill Was Immortality Chapter Twenty-Eight: The First Real Loss
Nobody said anything for a long moment. The wind pushed grit across the concrete. Marcus's people stood in a ring around the open cover, bleeding and gray-faced, staring at two rifles lying where two men should have been. Ruth had a hand clamped over her mouth. Kai was already scanning the street. "Tomas," Hale whispered. "Ivan. They were right here." Jake picked up the nearest rifle and checked it. Two spent casings sat in the dust beside it. Two shots, and not one shout. Down in the tunnel, with the pipes bursting and the ceiling coming down, nobody could have heard a thing. He had told them to hold the surface and shout if anything came. That was the whole plan. Two men, one order, and no other way to reach them. "Maya," he said. "Can you find them?" She was already kneeling. She touched the ground and her face went tight. "They walked toward the depot. Together, not running." She swallowed. "Someone knocked on the bus. Three times. They went to look." Ethan swore under his
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