Imperious, Chapter 001 - Left Behind (Patreon)

This is a Pilot I wrote on a whim, it has no relation to Broker in any way and I just thought I'd share it since it was fun to write and I kinda decided to based on a conversation in the discord server. The genre is System Apocalypse Litrpg. No idea if I'm going to go further with it but if the reaction is good I'll probably write more. My focus is always Broker, though. We'll see what happens!

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Another restless night of dreamless sleep. Another morning opening her eyes to stare at the same ceiling. Another groan, another desperate fight with her alarm clock, the damn thing requiring a puzzle to shut it off. She fell back onto her bed and counted the old plastic stars that she’d never bothered to peel off since she was a little kid. There were sixty seven of them still up there, same as yesterday, the same as the day before. A mess of black hair splashed out around her head like a tiny puddle, pale brown eyes flicking between each star as she tried to rouse herself.

“One fell,” Anna said thoughtfully and sat up again, her head throbbing. She groaned and leaned forward, holding it up as if it weighed a ton, “Fuck, that hurts.”

She squinted at the floor, rubbing at the dark bags beneath her eyes. At some point they’d grown so deep they were basically permanent now, a feature of her face rather than something she could just get rid of with a bit of effort. Not that she cared, much. There, near the foot of her nightstand. She pulled herself off her bed with a grunt and crouched down, plucking it up and walking over to the trash. She tossed it in and stumbled towards her bathroom.

A knock came to the door.

“Anna? Are you up, dear? You’re five minutes late,” Her mother, Amanda Flitt, called.

Anna rest her head against the door to the bathroom, “I’m up!” She called, “Going to shower.”

“Oh good, today’s a big day, love!” Her mother said brightly, “Your party will start at three thirty two, don’t forget! Breakfast is in fifteen minutes!”

“I know!” Anna called again, nearly dozing off against the door. She pushed the door open and stumbled inside, planting her hands on the sink and staring at herself in the mirror. The kind-of pretty seventeen-year-old that stared back at her looked tired, worn, and beaten down. She wore a black tank-top with a faded red skull and a set of off-gray pajamas with little devils decorating it, waving their pitchforks about. She reached up to run her fingers through her tangled cluster of hair and grunted, dragging herself to the shower.

She didn’t feel much better after the shower, though at least she was more awake than before. Brushing and drying her hair didn’t do much, it was still a mess. She shrugged and got dressed, black shirt, black jeans, and chucks for good measure. She sighed at herself in the mirror set into her bedroom door, “Tryhard,” She grunted and scratched her head again, stepping out and wandering down the hall of their middle-class suburban home. Everything around her had the weighty feeling of ‘normal’ bleeding from the walls.

She descended the stairs and rounded the corner into the dining room, following the scent of breakfast. Her mother looked up, dark hair just like her but more brown than black. She had a rigid feeling about her that was hard to pin down just on first impressions alone. That was until she opened her mouth. Amanda Flitt was a physicist, a good one, and she was obsessed with precision to the point of it quite literally governing her life. All the clocks in the house were based on the atomic clock in Greenwich down to the milisecond. Everything she did was on a schedule that sounded almost insane when she said it out loud.

“Happy Birthday, Anna,” Her mother said with a smile, gesturing at the carefully curated breakfast of an omlet mixed with vegetables and cheese, bacon, sausage, and a pair of pancakes and sliced fruit. Precisely the right amount to give Anna the energy to get through to her next meal, according to her mom anyway. 

Anna only had eyes for the black coffee that sat next to it. She plopped down and picked it up, sipping and savoring, “Thanks.”

“Are you excited to be eighteen?” Her mother asked.

I’m pretty sure that I’m not eighteen yet, or I am and it’s been a while. I don’t know, math is hard this early. She grumbled inwardly and sipped at her coffee, “I guess. Not a whole lot changes.”

“True, but there are things you can do on your own,” Her mother said with a nod and sipped her own drink. “Just a few more hours.”

Anna never had a normal birthday, they were always at very particular times and it was a little confusing for anyone else who was invited. Her mother set the time and date to be precisely one year after the last one, going all the way back to the minute she was born. With leap years and other mathematical weirdness it meant that it was on a different day and time almost every single year. Still, in a way it was really sweet. Her mother wanted to celebrate the very instant the time came, and threw herself into the celebration with gusto.

“You can have some of your friends come over a little earlier if you want,” Her mother offered, “I don’t mind. It’s Saturday after all.”

Anna raised an eyebrow as she cut into the omlet, “I don’t have friends.”

“Now don’t say that!” Her mother chided her, “I’m sure you like some people at your school.”

High School. She couldn’t fathom that this woman had actually gone to high school with her personality, the other students would have eaten her alive. Anna had made the mistake of trying to be more like her mother when she was little and it had backfired spectacularly. Since she was small, the other kids thought she was weird. She’d managed to figure out what was wrong by middle school and by then it was far too late to change how others saw her, so she embraced being a bit of a loner. She didn’t mind, she preferred the quiet.

Still, she guessed there were a few tolerable people that she technically talked to.

“I guess…” She mumbled, feeling a bit of heat on her neck as she looked down at her food, “...I’ll ask.”

“Good! Also I set up that appointment for a piercing for you tomorrow if you still want it,” Her mother said as she finished a piece of bacon.

Anna looked up, “Seriously?”

“Why not? You’re eighteen, it’s your choice and I think it would look pretty. You wanted a monroe, right?” Her mother asked, looking a little confused.

Sometimes, the overly literal side of her mother was actually really nice. She never judged Anna, never questioned her sense of style, and never bothered to hold her back. She’d let Anna try alcohol when she was sixteen and thanks to that Anna had actually developed a bit of a dislike for the stuff. She even didn’t mind when Anna snuck a cigarette on occasion, as long as she never did it while away from home. 

Anna smiled a little, the caffeine was helping too, “Thanks, Mom.”

Her mother smiled in return, “You’re welcome, dear. Now, enjoy your breakfast and see about contacting some of your friends.”

Anna resisted a sigh, “Right.”

Anna tried, she really did, she’d sent out a few messages over the various social media apps she had on her phone that she never used and even went as far as firing off a few text messages. More effort than she ever had thrown into something like this. Truth be told, by the time Anna hit High School she had all but given up having any sort of impact on others or strong relationships. It had actually become something of a talent, she could practically disappear in a crowd and no one paid her much mind at all. The sense of invisibility was refreshing at times to the point of people letting their guards down. She heard a lot of juicy stuff.

All to say that no one responded to her messages. She was a little surprised about how many had even bothered to leave her on read meaning that they’d at least opened the message to begin with. Again, she didn’t mind, that just meant she could have a bit more quiet before all the ‘adults’ came over to celebrate her becoming one of them. She barely knew her mother’s associates and really didn’t care to, they were her mother’s friends and were there for her mother. 

Anna told her mother that she’d sent out the messages and hadn’t gotten a response to which her mother responded with her usual infectious positivity; “Oh well! Perhaps they’re just busy, it is a bit short notice come to think of it.”

Anna sighed, she wished she had that almost unflappable outlook on life that her mother had, it was like nothing fazed her. She’d even asked her mother why nothing ever seemed to bother her once and her mother had just dismissed the question, saying it had to do with her father. That didn’t help at all since Anna had no clue who her father was and her mother never bothered to enlighten her even once. As a kid that had upset her, but as she grew up and got to know the realities of life she began to see that it was likely he wasn’t the nicest guy and should probably just forget about him.

Which was why the next thing that happened that day was so jarring.

Anna stepped out onto the porch and took in a deep breath, squinting against the harsh Florida sunlight as the postal worker pulled up and tossed a few letters into the mailbox. He looked up but didn’t even seem to notice Anna as he turned his attention back to the street and kept moving. That was more normal. She stepped off onto the path and meandered over to the mailbox, glancing at a few of her neighbors as they enjoyed the near-summer day. Kids were playing in pools, adults were mowing lawns and sitting on lawn chairs, sipping drinks and soaking in the sun. She glanced at the kids in the pool again, a little reminder of another reason she was bereft of quote unquote friends. There weren’t any people her age in the entire blasted neighborhood.

She huffed out a breath and turned her attention back to the mail. Bill, bill, crappy ad for some kind of window replacement company, a credit card offer for her mother, and- she froze. It was a letter for her. She blinked and held the thick envelope in her hands, running her thumbs over the rough parchment like material. She squinted up at the nearly-noon sun, wondering if she was getting heat stroke. There was no return address, just her name, not even a sending address, nothing. How did it even get here?

She opened it, frowning as her phone buzzed in her pocket. Her mom probably calling her to lunch, it would be noon on the dot in a minute. Inside was a single piece of folded paper, nothing spectacular. She unfolded it and stared at the handwritten words. They were in a flowing, neat hand with red ink so dark they might as well be black. Was it blood? No way. 

Three words.

Do Well - Dad

“...huh?” She blurted and looked back at the house. She folded the letter up and walked to the door, grabbing the handle and pulling it open, “Hey mom! Look at this-”

Her entire world turned black.

Initiating Integration

Welcome to the Multiverse, Human - Terran of Planet Earth

As you are currently not of your species recognized age of adulthood, you will be transferred to a youth tutorial. Please wait.

ERROR

Not enough available time to participate in youth tutorial. Redirecting.

ERROR

True tutorials have been filled, all available spots have been taken. Redirecting.

ERROR

Unusual readings detected. Scanning. Scan complete. Waiting room deemed unnecessary. 

Returning to Planet Earth. 

Good Luck.

It happened so fast that Anna didn’t even get a chance to react. The words just appeared in her mind, spoken by a voice that sounded both mechanical and unfeeling. It was like there was a machine in her head. One second there was darkness, the next she was stumbling forward into the entry hall of her house and falling flat on her face. Everything felt wrong, different, her body ached for a few moments and she curled up into a ball as every cell in her body seemed to react to something she couldn’t begin to comprehend. 

Then it was over, just like that she was just laying on the floor and blinking in confusion. She staggered to her feet and tried to remember what had happened. She remembered the words, sort of, but as soon as she tried to think about it her head hurt and the memory just started to fade away. She grasped the side of her head and groaned, pushing herself to her feet and stumbling towards the kitchen. “Mom? What the hell was that? Hey!” The pain faded as she walked but it felt like there was a buzzing in the back of her head that she couldn’t get rid of.

She looked around, her mother was nowhere to be seen. “Mom!” She called, wincing as the buzzing continued. She walked over to the counter and saw a notebook with her mother’s pen next to it, a bunch of math that she couldn’t comprehend. Probably one of her puzzles. It was weird to see her pen there though, uncapped. That wasn’t like her. “Mom?” She called again, wandering into the hallway. She felt a tension forming in her gut, “Mom!” She shouted, running up the stairs to her mother’s bedroom.

She threw the door open. Empty.

She ran to her room. Empty.

Bathroom. Empty.

She ran outside, the sun beating down on her head as she whipped it around. Lawn chairs, empty. Pool, empty. Lawnmowers left running. Cars stopped in the middle of the street.

Anna felt the panic rising in her chest as one thought hit her with the force of a truck. Everyone was gone and she had been left behind.

Days left until integration of Earth: 364 Days, 23 hours, 45 minutes.