2025-07-29 00:04:22The city at night was a different beast. Lights flickered where they once glowed steady. Horns blared without rhythm. People moved faster, talked louder, and trusted less. Jared walked with his hands in his pockets and his eyes sharp.
The system’s mission hovered silently in his mind like a loaded threat.
[Mission 002: Acquire one firearm (pistol or shotgun) within 48 hours.]
Simple. But not easy.
He wasn’t military. He didn’t have criminal contacts—at least not yet. And legal permits? Out of reach. So that left one option: the black market.
In his last life, he’d learned where the cracks in the city ran deepest. There was a spot near the riverfront, where shipping containers were stacked like building blocks and nobody asked questions. He remembered the name of a man who dealt in silence: Koro.
It took two commercial buses and a fifteen-minute walk to get there. The road narrowed the deeper he went, buildings giving way to silence. By the time Jared stepped into the makeshift lot, the air smelled like oil and cold metal.
A skinny teenager with dreadlocks and a split lip stood near the entrance, arms folded. He looked Jared up and down with zero interest.
“You lost?”
“I’m looking for Koro.”
“No one by that name here.”
Jared reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the only thing he knew would open doors—₦10,000 in crumpled bills.
The boy didn’t smile, but he stepped aside.
“Straight ahead. Don’t touch anything.”
Inside the container, the light was dim and yellow. The walls were lined with knives, crowbars, machetes, and—on the far wall—a wooden crate of pistols, all wrapped in black cloth.
Koro was seated behind a rusted desk, counting cash. Bald. Stocky. Dead-eyed.
“You don’t look like my usual buyers,” Koro said without looking up.
“I’m not.”
“Then why are you here?”
Jared didn’t hesitate. “I need a gun.”
“Why?”
“Because something’s coming,” Jared said. “And I won’t survive it without one.”
Koro finally looked up. Something flickered in his eyes. Not belief, but the familiarity of hearing crazy people talk.
“₦120,000 for a pistol,” he said flatly. “Cash.”
“I only have sixty.”
“Then you can buy a knife.”
Jared’s jaw tightened. “What about a trade?”
“I don’t do trades.”
“Information?”
Koro chuckled. “You think I need information? In this city?”
“You will,” Jared said quietly. “In less than a month, nothing in this city will matter. Phones won’t work. Power will fail. People will eat each other alive. You’ll be wishing you had someone like me to warn you earlier.”
Silence stretched.
Koro leaned forward, elbows on the table.
“You on something?”
“No,” Jared said. “But I’ve seen what’s coming. And if you give me one pistol, I’ll pay you triple in two weeks. You won’t need to chase me. I’ll come back to you.”
Koro studied him for a long moment. Then, slowly, he got up, walked to the back shelf, and pulled something out of a drawer. He came back with a matte black pistol wrapped in a cloth and placed it on the table between them.
“₦70,000. Final offer. You get bullets next time.”
Jared hesitated only a second, then pulled out the last of what he had. The money he’d saved for emergencies. What Elena’s father would say if he knew… Jared didn’t care.
The deal was done.
[Mission complete.]
[+1,500 points earned.]
[Combat Tab unlocked.]
In his mind, a new panel opened.
[Combat Tab: Skill Slot 1 – Empty | Weapon Slot 1 – Loaded (Pistol)]
[Locked: Tactical Reflex, Endurance Boost, Precision Mode]
Koro wrapped the gun tight in cloth and handed it over.
“If you’re wrong,” he said, “you’ll be broke, stupid, and alone.”
Jared looked him dead in the eyes.
“If I’m wrong, none of that will matter.”
Back at the Bai residence, it was almost midnight. Jared stepped through the door as quietly as possible, but someone was already waiting in the living room.
Elena.
Still dressed, eyes tired, fingers wrapped around a half-empty cup of tea. Her gaze flicked to him, then to the cloth in his hand.
“You were gone again.”
He nodded. “Had something to take care of.”
“What is it this time?” she asked, voice low. “More dignity?”
He almost smiled. Almost. But the truth weighed too much.
“No. Just protection.”
“From what?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he walked past her, heading up the stairs.
Behind him, her voice followed, quieter now. “Jared…”
He stopped.
She didn’t say anything else.
He didn’t turn around.
“I won’t always be useless,” he said. “You’ll see.”
She didn’t respond.
But she didn’t deny it either.
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Chapter 85- What the World Is Becoming
POV: JaredI go farther than I ever meant to.It starts small. A longer walk. One more hill. A place I used to avoid because there was nothing there and nothing is dangerous when you are used to things breaking.But the nothing is gone now.There are paths.Not carved. Not forced. They curve the way feet prefer to move, the way water would choose if it had legs. I follow one and realize I am not deciding where to step. The ground already knows.I pass a frame of something that might become a shelter. Three walls leaning into each other, patient. No tool marks. No signs of hands. Just intention, paused mid-thought.I touch the surface. It is warm. Alive in that quiet way stone sometimes is when it remembers heat.There are people.Not echoes. Not visitors who vanish when you look too closely.People with packs and stories and tired eyes that have learned how to hope without making noise about it. They move carefully, like the world might change its mind if they rush.When they see me,
Chapter 84- Proof of Life
POV: JaredThe visitor returns on a morning that feels undecided.Not stormy. Not kind. The sort of morning that could become anything if pushed hard enough.They do not come alone this time.There are two of them now, standing where the ground still remembers Emma’s footsteps. One waits farther back, respectful or wary, I cannot tell. The other holds a narrow case against their chest. Not sealed. Not dramatic. Just carried like something that has already been opened too many times.I do not ask why they are here.I think part of me has been expecting this since the footprint by the river.They kneel. Open the case. Push it toward me.“There’s no point bringing images,” the visitor says. Their voice is softer than before, like they learned something since last we spoke. “Those can lie without knowing they’re lying.”Inside the case are three things.They are arranged without ceremony. No labels. No explanation. Just objects, trusting me to recognize the truth on my own.The first is a
Chapter 83- The Day the Journal Changes
POV: JaredI notice the journal first.Not because I am looking for it. It has learned how to find me on its own. It sits where it always does, near the window, catching the part of the morning light that feels undecided. I pick it up the way I always do, careful, familiar, like my hands remember rules my head did not make.I read the same page as yesterday. I am sure of that. I even remember where I stopped, the way her handwriting slanted when she got tired, the tiny pause before the sentence broke off.That is why my eyes trip.There is a line that does not belong.Not a new page. Not an ending. Something threaded in, quiet and precise, as if it had always been waiting for space.The ink is darker. The letters are steadier. Cleaner than the rest, like her hand did not hesitate even once.I read it again. Slower.I remember more when I’m farther away.The room feels smaller for a second. Or maybe I do.I flip back a page. Then forward. I check the margins, the binding, the spine, li
Chapter 82- Staying Still Means Trusting
POV: JaredTime does not pass the way I expected it to.It does not rush at me. It does not circle back to hurt me on purpose. It moves like the river does when no one is watching. Forward, uneven, sometimes quiet enough that I forget it is working at all.The first days are the hardest. Not because of pain. Because of habit.I keep turning to speak to her. I keep saving thoughts like spare coins, planning to hand them to her later. When I realize there is no later yet, my chest tightens, then loosens. Over and over. Like a muscle learning a new job.I do not break.That surprises me.Instead, I learn the shape of loneliness without panic. I learn that missing someone does not mean I am losing them. It just means there is space now, and space can be lived in.I talk. Out loud.At first it feels foolish, then it feels necessary.I tell the tree by the river about my dreams. The ones where the world glitches and she laughs like it is nothing. The river gets updates too. I explain my day
Chapter 81- The Goodbye That Isn’t One
POV: JaredEmma did not disappear.That was the lie I had been preparing myself for. Light. Noise. Some dramatic tearing of space that would give my grief something sharp to hook onto.Instead, she packed slowly.Not with bags. With pauses.She touched things like she was checking they were still real. The edge of the table. The wall where the shelter leaned a little to the left. The river stone she liked because it fit perfectly in her palm. She left it where it was.I stood a few steps away and did not help. Not because I did not want to. Because helping would have meant participating in the leaving, and I was not ready to be that honest.When she was done, she walked.No announcement. No speech. Just forward, toward the place where the air thinned and the world felt less certain. The visitor waited farther ahead, out of respect or strategy. I did not care which.The grass bent under her feet. Then sprang back up.Every instinct in me screamed to follow.I had chased her across coll
Chapter 80- Emma Chooses Something New
POV: JaredShe did not say it like a sacrifice.That was the first thing that scared me.Emma said it while folding her sleeves, like she was preparing to wash her hands. Calm. Thought through. Already lived with the idea long enough that it had softened around the edges.“There’s a third option,” she said.I waited for the catch. There was always one.She would go with the visitor. Not forever. Not to save everything. Just one breach. One place that was still tearing itself apart. She would help them stabilize it, show them how to listen instead of forcing fixes, teach them how to let broken systems breathe.Then she would come back.No vows attached. No guarantees smuggled into the sentence.Just intention.I opened my mouth and nothing came out.I wanted to argue. I had the words ready. I had them memorized. I could list risks and probabilities and timelines like scripture. I could tell her how fragile this world still was, how fragile she was, how every separation felt like tempti
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Reader Comments
Jared you can do this
This is really Nice