Saved To Be A Substitute

The first monster fell out of the sky at 11:17 a.m.

Jake Adrian didn't see it happen. He was too busy arguing with a vending machine.

"Come on," he muttered, jabbing the button for a bottle of water. "You took my money. At least rob me properly."

The machine hummed. The bottle stayed stuck behind the glass.

Jake stared at it a second longer, then gave the machine a half-hearted shove. Nothing.

"Great."

Outside the university café, Chicago went about its morning. Cars crawled through the intersection. Students hurried down the pavement with backpacks hanging off one shoulder. Somewhere down the block, a bus driver leaned on his horn like noise alone could fix traffic.

An ordinary Tuesday.

Jake had an engineering lecture that afternoon, an assignment he'd barely started, and twelve dollars in his bank account until Friday. His aunt Rebecca had texted him that morning to remind him about groceries on the way home.

Nothing about his life suggested he'd be dead before lunch.

Then every phone in the café started ringing.

Not chiming. Not buzzing. Ringing. Dozens of them at once, tones piling on top of each other until the whole room sounded like an alarm. People dug them out of their pockets, frowned at the screens, and started talking over one another.

Jake's phone showed a blank white notification.

EMERGENCY ALERT.

He tapped it. The screen went black.

"What the hell?"

A woman by the window shot to her feet and knocked her chair over.

"Look outside!"

Jake turned.

The sky over Chicago had split open.

At first his mind wouldn't take it in. A jagged line ran between the clouds, dead straight in some places and shattered in others. White light poured from its edges onto the buildings below. The clouds were moving. Not away from the crack. Toward it, like something on the other side was breathing them in.

The street went quiet.

Then a man screamed.

Something huge dropped through the gap and hit the road two blocks away, crushing the roof of a parked car. The shock wave rolled down the street. Windows blew out. A traffic light snapped off its pole. People scattered through the dust and broken glass.

Jake stood frozen. A second shape fell out of the crack. Then a third. Some dropped toward the river. Others vanished behind buildings. One landed on top of a parking garage and the metal bent under it.

Sirens started. Then gunshots.

Jake's body finally remembered how to move.

"Everybody away from the windows!" someone yelled.

Chairs scraped. People pushed toward the back of the café, shoving into each other. A student stumbled and Jake caught her by the arm and pulled her upright.

A deep shudder went through the floor. Every light flickered.

Then something changed in the air. Jake felt pressure behind his eyes and a strange pull spreading through his chest. All around him, people stopped.

A man dropped to his knees. A woman grabbed her head and cried out. Blue-white light flickered under the skin of a few people, tracing their veins, then faded. A student reached for a table and the metal legs bent in his hand. He stared at his fingers.

Across the room, a ring of pale fire curled around a woman's wrist, and she screamed.

Words hung in the air in front of her. Not on a phone. In the air itself. She read them with her mouth open while the flames licked her fingers.

More of them appeared around the café. Some people cheered. Others fell apart. A man by the counter grabbed the vending machine to steady himself, and it came off the floor in his hand. He stood there holding it with one arm like it weighed nothing, looking as shocked as everyone else. Someone’s skin turned rough and gray like stone. Near the door, a woman started crying because the cut on her arm had stopped bleeding.

Then Jake noticed something.

He couldn't read any of it.

He could see the light and the flames and the impossible things happening to people's bodies. But whatever they were reading stayed out of his sight.

A voice rolled through the building. It didn't come from any speaker. It seemed to sit inside the walls, the floor, and the bones of everyone who heard it.

WORLD INITIALIZATION COMPLETE.

HUMAN AWAKENING HAS BEGUN.

SURVIVAL CONDITIONS HAVE CHANGED.

A pause.

ADAPT.

The windows blew inward.

Jake hit the floor as glass swept across the room. A woman screamed beside him. Tables flipped. Something slammed into the entrance so hard it tore the metal frame out of the wall.

For one long second, nothing moved.

Then the creature crawled inside.

It was too tall to stand under the ceiling. Its body was pale and stretched thin over a frame of twisted limbs. Several jointed arms dragged it across the floor while another pair stayed folded against its chest. It had no eyes. No mouth. Just smooth, colorless skin where a face should be.

Jake's brain searched for an explanation and came back empty.

The creature tilted its head.

A man near the counter backed away. "Stay back," he whispered. "Stay..."

The creature crossed the room. Jake barely saw it move. One moment the man was standing. The next he was against the wall, and the sound he made hitting it was one Jake would carry for the rest of his life.

People stampeded for the back exit. Jake ran with them. He reached the doorway and heard a kid crying under an overturned table.

He stopped.

It was the stupidest thing he'd ever done, and he knew it even as he turned around.

A little girl was pinned beneath the table, her mother nowhere in sight. Jake grabbed the edge and heaved. The table shifted.

"Come on," he grunted. "Come on!"

The girl crawled out. He pushed her toward the back.

"Run! Don't stop!"

She ran. Jake turned to follow.

The creature was already there.

It hit him across the chest. He flew backward, slammed into the counter, and landed so hard the air left his lungs. Pain burst through his ribs. Something warm spread under his shirt. He tried to breathe in and nothing came.

The creature came closer, its limbs clicking on the tiles. Jake dragged himself backward. His hands slipped in the blood pooling beneath him.

He thought of Rebecca. The groceries he hadn't bought. The assignment he hadn't finished. All the small, stupid things he'd figured he had time for tomorrow.

The faceless head lowered toward him. Jake tried to scream.

The second blow never came. Instead one of its limbs went through his chest.

Pain wiped out the room.

For a moment he could hear everything. The alarms outside. The far-off sirens. Feet pounding on the floor. Then it all went quiet. His fingers twitched against the tiles. His vision shrank to a dot. Something cold touched the back of his mind.

And the world went black.

Jake Adrian died at 11:27 a.m.

For exactly seven seconds, there was nothing. No pain. No fear. No memories.

Then, a message.

(FATALITY CONFIRMED.)

(LIFE SIGNS: NONE.)

(STANDARD AWAKENING: FAILED.)

A pause. Something seemed to study the silence he'd left behind.

(IRREGULARITY DETECTED.)

(SEARCHING FOR COMPATIBLE EXISTENCE...)

(COMPATIBILITY ERROR.)

(RETRYING...)

The darkness shook.

(UNAUTHORIZED AWAKENING SEQUENCE INITIATED.)

(UNIQUE SKILL ACQUIRED: IMMORTALITY.)

Jake's heart beat once. Then again. His lungs dragged in a ragged, violent breath.

(RECONSTRUCTION INITIATED.)

(ESTIMATED COMPLETION: 10 MINUTES.)

(WARNING: THE HOST WILL REMAIN INCAPACITATED DURING RECONSTRUCTION.)

His broken body lay behind the counter, unseen by the creatures now roaming the street outside. And somewhere beyond the shattered sky, something noticed that a dead human had just become an impossible one.

(WELCOME, JAKE ADRIAN.)

(YOUR FIRST SKILL IS IMMORTALITY.)

(SURVIVE.)