Hare of Misfortune

Sitting up, she tilted to the side to let her wide field of vision take in the grounds outside; the fire guy had gotten some replacement clothes and was making a spectacle out of showing off his fire tricks. Some were freaking out, and others were embracing it.

”A hare?” she muttered to herself, fingers sliding down her right ear.

”What was that?” Cloe asked, glancing up from her screen.

”Just learning from everyone experimenting around campus,” she replied, shifting to the window to lean against it. ”Hmm?!”

”What?! What?!”

Cloe straightened, looking at her, then to the window. Yet Rachel’s focus darted to the dark sky, tinted by light pollution; the sun had fallen below the horizon, and the moon’s rays touched her skin, causing a glow and strength to embrace her.

I’m a lunar hare... I gain power from the moon? Rachel’s gut tightened when her phone vibrated, snapping her mind away from the topic; pulling it out, she swallowed. Mom? What will she and Dad think when they learn I’ve changed into...this? Will they even believe it’s me?

Gesturing to Cloe to quiet down as she peppered her with questions, Rachel held an arm against her stomach to stop the squirms. Full of trepidation, she answered.

”Mom... How are you?” she asked in Korean.

Her mother’s ordinarily soft voice was filled with concern, using Korean. ”Sung-Hyo, tell me you’re okay; there’s been some kind of attack at a mental hospital in Miami...”

”She’ll be fine, Chan-hee...”

”I don’t want to hear it, Gwon! We’re leaving for Miami—now! Rachel, are you okay?!” Rachel’s tail and ears bristled as her mother’s heated voice shut her father down; she’d never heard her shout at him like that.

”I’m, umm... I might have...changed a bit...” she trailed off, not knowing exactly how to explain what she was going through, but her mother plowed right through.

”We can talk about it when we’re in Miami—Gwon, we’re leaving!”

”Chan-hee, Nam can produce energy creatures... Shouldn’t we deal with—”

”Nam is safe at home—we both know Miami is going to be overrun by chaos soon, and my little girl is—” The call cut as a sharp vibration ran through her phone.

Her thoughts dashed after the call. She lowered her phone to see the emergency message that had been sent, while the news radio stream Cloe had pulled up paused its questions about the people with powers.

* -- * -- *

Presidential Alert

State of Emergency Declared

All States

Stay calm, stay indoors—further instructions will be sent. If in public, proceed to a safe location. Martial law has been instated. The Military, National Guard, Center for Disease Control, FBI, and other agencies are being mobilized. Again, stay calm and proceed to a safe location.

* -- * -- *

The reporter came back over the air. ”An IPAWS message was just sent nationwide; stay indoors, and if you are out, please proceed to a safe location. We expect the police to be overwhelmed with calls, and networks may go down due to traffic. Stay safe; we might be under attack...”

He paused for a moment. ”We are getting further information that the President will be making a public statement when more information becomes available; the CDC, US military, National Guard, FBI, and many other agencies are also being mobilized. I repeat, the CDC is being mobilized. Masks, people, and seal the windows and doors—it could be a biological agent released into the atmosphere. We will keep you aware of the situation as it unfolds. Stay indoors, and if you are out, proceed to a safe location.”

Rachel’s face matched her hair after the call with her parents. ”The CDC? Is this a terrorist attack... A virus?”

Cloe jumped to her feet, took one look at Rachel with wide eyes, and ran out of the room. ”I’m sorry!”

Rachel collapsed against her bed as emergency sirens went off in the distance. She couldn’t blame Cloe’s reaction; a part of her wanted to run, too, but something kept her focused and alert. It had been twenty minutes since the lights cracked the heavens, and already she could hear people panicking; a small group was planning a looting trip, expecting to get away with a lot of goods due to the rising pandemonium.

She listened to the chaos around her unfold, mostly to Zoe and her oblivious friends as they stayed in their own little world. They didn’t pay the sirens much mind, other than theorizing it could be a monster break; according to them, they needed to learn their skills, so they wouldn’t die.

There were no monsters, though, other than the human kind; she could hear cars crashing, guns firing, people shouting, and explosions, all within a mile of her. Curiously, Rachel’s mind was occupied by thoughts of her mother’s unusual reaction. Was it unusual? Had her mother also gone through a change? Apparently, Nam had, which was interesting.

The signal on her phone went dead shortly after the presidential alert, which could have been from traffic or sabotage; the result was the same: she couldn’t contact her mother. The campus internet was still up, and she knew you could call through WiFi, but not how to do it.

Her gaze wandered to the laptop Cloe left, watching the news play out for a time, processing the noise around her; things were becoming insane rather fast, showing fires in some areas and armed gunmen storming ammunition stores only an hour after the news started to spread.

The military was mobilizing, and first responders were already showing up at the college, setting up a relief shelter and processing area for the CDC; it would still be another hour or more before the proper personnel showed up, so Rachel soaked in all the information, creating a complete picture of what she should do.

Her attention was pulled to a new group of Chinese fiction lovers with answers that had pushed ahead of Zoe’s D&D friends. She sat against the wall, listening in to the hundreds of students searching for the same things, offering her a wealth of data to compile as each person discovered their own personal details.

She listened to the fantasy, anime, and novel enthusiasts as they theorized. They were far too optimistic, considering what was happening beyond the relatively tame environment of the campus. Rachel had already heard some horrors and seen a news report from Cloe’s laptop that showed Washington State being overwhelmed by a mass of zombie-like fiends led by a vampire lord—self-proclaimed. Panic was setting into major cities.

However, some fantasy-enthusiast predictions were chilling—they predicted this was basically the apocalypse; luckily, the military was acting fast. The police and the National Guard were locking areas down and bringing those changed into protective custody since some crowds were hunting them. Miami State University was one of those safe zones they were setting up.

Chaos was taking to the streets, whether from people’s beliefs that they were alien invaders, devils from hell, or that some random country had launched a bioweapon and that the infected needed to be culled for the masses to survive. Murder and anarchy were only escalating, and naturally, certain parties were taking full advantage of the circumstances to enact their will on others.

Rachel didn’t want to believe this could get worse, but there was a tightness in her gut that told her this was only the beginning, and that she had to understand her transformation if she wanted to survive. It was lucky she had her ears because the think-tank of fantasy nerds was uncovering a lot of secrets.

It took two hours of pacing, leaning against the window, and lying on her bed before she’d collected all the basics from the scattered college kids, putting their brains to good use in decrypting the mysteries involving their sudden powers.

Certain things became more apparent as time went on, and details about her transformation came in bursts of knowledge. It was similar to how she could move her ears—instinctual—therefore, most would eventually come to the same understanding of their powers as these enthusiasts, it would just take time.

Adam believed they were still in a phase of adaptation, and Rachel had to agree; each person had something somewhat unique to them, yet there were also commonalities she tracked by opening a document on her own laptop and compiling the information. Cloe’s computer continued to play the news in the background.

From those who transformed, she compiled a list of what they told their friends they’d become. A few categories stood out to her. In order from the most common to the least: champion, beastkin, faekin, aberrantkin, and finally, legendkin and mythickin.

There was only one legendkin she’d heard of within the campus, and she was the only mythickin.

Myths and legends had a nice ring to them that made Rachel believe they were a higher tier than the others. There certainly appeared to be something unique about her compared to those who filled in the other categories, and there was only one way to prove it.

She knew, without a doubt, something else was going to come—it was a disturbing pulse that tugged at her chest—and she had to be ready, or she’d die.

Testing something she heard, Rachel crossed her legs on her mattress, closed her eyes, and breathed deeply. Following one of the lessons her grandfather taught her about meditation, she controlled the air that went in and out of her lungs, somehow relaxing despite the tension compressing her from all angles.

I want to disable automatic Feat placement, she repeated, following the advice of Zoe’s group, and information flooded her mind as the world vanished.

Her eyes opened while shut, revealing a void environment with a white, circular platform, where she stood; it was the strangest sensation, and the world outside, with all its noise, disappeared.

”What are my... Huh.”

She didn’t even need to complete the sentence before a simple black-and-white screen popped up, displaying everything she’d heard from the others who had already gone through this process and guided their friends.