Chapter 490 (1/2)

The kid with the orange hair from the run-in with the Dungeon Divers was leaning up against Hank’s door, snoring obnoxiously loud. Ezekiel chuckled quietly to himself as Hank clenched his fists so tightly that his knuckles popped.

This was not what he wanted to come home to.

So he decided to ignore it entirely. With the pale, wan light of the morning sun behind him, Hank stomped passed the kid, silencing him with a look. He took out a long metal key, that he had made himself, and unlocked the door. Leaving the door open, he walked straight through the messy hallway, past the living room and kitchen, to his room.

When he was in his room, Hank popped the top off of an old whiskey bottle that he had been nursing for about 6 months. Although people were gradually getting the hang of it back, the homebrewed whiskey they had access to now wasn’t near the quality of the stuff they could make before the System hit.

For whatever reason, alcohol hadn’t really been considered as a luxury good worth stockpiling in that frantic few months between the contact from the System’s representative, and the actual arrival of the System. In a lot of ways, their Zone 1 was blessed. But for this way only, Hank resented his Zone viciously.

After taking a careful swig and savoring the taste, Hank got into his bed and leaned back into his pile of pillows. His eyes flickered, then closed. He didn’t need to sleep, per se, but right now there was very little else that would clear away the annoyance Hank felt towards the world.

‘Am I really going to do this?’ Hank asked himself.

‘If you won’t, who will?’ Hank’s father’s voice replied.

In his dream, Hank was standing on a mountain, looking down over a long valley. But the valley was shadowed in a thick fog, completely covered by moving air currents. Blinking away some of his bleariness, Hank peered closer.

Although he couldn’t get more than shapes, in the fog, something was moving. It crept, insidious, but it was clearly spreading from the depths of the valley, winding its way up the ridges and around streams. Hank did some quick calculations in his head; if things continued as they were, the strange tendrils spreading from the monstrosity down there would reach him in a few hours. He raised a hand to cover his eyes and looked up.

In the sky, there were seven spheres, each a different color making up the rainbow, red orange yellow green blue indigo violet. The light filtered down and sizzled strangely against his skin.

Abruptly, Hank’s father was next to him. “Do you know why I hate the aristocracy?”

Hank just looked at him.

“Because they are the veneer of civility on the collar of the great Beast,” Hank’s father announced, the flesh of his face falling away, revealing the bones underneath. “And when Beelzebub hunts for the rest of us, they are nowhere to be found.”

Hank blinked, coming awake immediately. Someone was in his room.

Hadn’t he locked the door…?

No, he hadn’t, although he had meant to when he had stomped away from his hangers-on, leaving them on the entranceway. Sitting up, Hank found himself face to face with a very familiar face, framed with a cascade of deep, auburn hair.

He cleared his throat. “Hello, Laurel.”

His ex-something-or-other regarded him with a critical eye. “You were dreaming again, weren’t you? What did you see?”

“Ain’t polite to just wake a man up and ask him about his dreams,” Hank grunted, standing and moving past her to the bedside table. He almost sighed when he saw the aspirin and the glass of water waiting for him there. He had hoped, but in his heart, he knew that he hadn’t left anything of the sort there; she had brought it.

Even now, she wanted something from him. Just what was it…?

Saying nothing about the newly arrived medicine, Hank took the pills and threw them back, then gulped down the water. Some spilled out the edges of his mouth and ran into his quickly growing facial hair, but he ignored that. The feeling of cold water was too sweet to pass up.

Another benefit of the System, Hank reflected, lowering the glass. Water quality had improved by leaps and bounds, as it had to pass somehow through the barrier around the Zones to reach them. What came through was free of lead and other contaminants, although Ghost had released a study that seemed to indicate it was also full of strange, unearthly nutrients.