Initiating

Jack was living his most adequate life.

Stable job, stable budget, stable everything. He had experienced all the packaged entertainments of the moderately-sized city in which he lived, and now had settled into the numb comforts of adulthood. It was like that for everyone, wasn't it? Wake up, go to work, make a spreadsheet, maybe a meeting or two, wait to go home, go home, live 5 hours of your actual life, go to bed, and repeat. Right now he was at the "preparing for work" phase of the cycle.

Jack had once lived a life rife with adventures and new experiences. He had traveled the world pursuing passions and goals, trying to see the change he wanted in the world. But his long goals didn't allow for that. He was privileged to have been born in the richest country in the world, and big-league change meant using that. Around here, stability was what organizations respected, and advancement required that same stability in his own life. Growing up meant staying still. Beyond that, family wasn't going anywhere and wouldn't be around forever. He had already missed a few deaths, and needed to be around for the rest.

Now he lived alone in a rented two-story home, surrounded on all sides by suburban sprawl. It was meant to be shared by two college-aged roommates by its location and pricing, but his last promotion had covered the cost for both renters. This was his greatest extravagance, and made it hard to spend more of his monthly salary, but he liked the location. You have to treat yourself sometimes, right? His next goal was to convince the elderly owners to sell, but he knew those odds were low.

He was ironing his button-down shirt as he mused about that possibility. It was turning into a warm spring day, which often lead his mind to wander. Maybe, once he purchased this or another home, he could finally live up to his mother's pleas to try and date. Maybe. It was always hard to find time. Besides, work was work, and once it was done he never seemed to have energy to do anything 'big' like that. His rhythm now might not be as adventurous as it used to be, but it kept things going. However, as he tucked his shirt into his special dress pants (they looked normal but STRETCHED), he saw something out of the corner of his eye. Something wrong. A floating purple rectangle, seemingly stationary in space yet following his movements to stay perfectly at arms width from him.

He stopped. It stopped. He and the box stared at each other in perfect silence. It was only a moment, but time seemed to grind to a halt. Then, on the box, he saw every character of any language spin through, like a slot machine in a casino. It finally ground to a halt on a single word:

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*Initiating. . .*

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He felt his breathing slow, his pulse speed up. He couldn't know why but his mind was racing as if in a free fall, thrown from a cliff and looking for a handhold in the rocks as they sped by. Faster and faster, the metaphorical ground was closing in, represented in the purple of the box seemingly growing larger in his eyes. On the deepest level, he knew that this odd rectangle was the greatest threat he could ever encounter. This was death and it was coming. Nothing he did would stop it. In that brief and terrible moment, he understood what it was to be prey.

Then, just before he hit the pavement, the feeling stopped. Everything was as it had been, normal. The threat was gone. Before him the floating rectangle showed a new word.

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*Complete!*

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Jack fell to his knees trying desperately to push the air out of his lungs. It seemed stuck in him, too thick to leave. He realized he was hyperventilating due to a panic attack. Counter his instincts, he forced himself to slow his breathing. To focus on the process of it, deliberately and intentionally.

Inhale-exhale-inhale-exhale, inhale. Exhale. Inhale... Exhale. He stood up. Inhale. His hands wouldn't stop shaking. Exhale. He turned from the confusing rectangle behind him, actively keeping it out of vision. Inhale. Trembling, he pulled out a chair and sat down, resting his elbows on the table and covering his face. Exhale.

Then it came. Mad laughter sprouting out of his core, a wicked cackle without rhythm, bubbling out of him uncontrollably. It started soft, then forced itself out, louder and louder, until it was filling the room. His neighbors would hear it and they would be terrified. The cops might come. BUT HE WAS ALIVE. He was so relieved. It was absurd, nothing was here? But he was alive!! THANK GOD HE WAS ALIVE. And as the laughter dimmed from true madness back down in to a self-depreciating chuckle, he once more inhaled deeply, savoring the air in ways he hadn't for a long time.

At least he thought he had stopped laughing. But the noise was still there. Louder and louder with each passing moment. He checked his mouth, and confirmed it was closed. Then what was that noise? A car alarm? Multiple car alarms? It was getting too loud for that. A veritable chorus of... human noise. Screams? Screams. But now deafening and coming from all angles. Some far away and some far too close. Some panicked and fearful. But most barely human. Resonating like a battle cry from hell's army, announcing its intent to massacre all before it on a march to burn heaven itself.

Jack looked once more at the purple rectangle, the only known constant in his situation.

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*Congratulations!*

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"Congratulations... seriously? ... What the fuck do you think you're..." In a moment of pure annoyance, Jack was stunned by the new message on the box. The world was screaming and this thing had the gall to congratulate him? Particularly after... threatening his life..? He shook himself out of it. This was clearly some sort of two-dimensional sassy alien and he didn't have time for it's bullshit. He was NOT safe right now. He had to GO.

Allowing his flight response to take over, he pushed himself out of the chair. His hands and knees still trembling as he rushed toward his bedroom on the second floor. Exiting the kitchen where he kept his ironing board, he pushed his body at a tilt to maintain his balance while swinging around to the staircase. However while doing so he saw his cat, Derp, attempting to hide underneath a decorative table. It covered her poorly, justifying her name. He attempted to cancel his momentum when swinging onto the stairs, failed, and fell on his ass. He then crawled over on all fours and grabbed her (earning a few painful claw marks) before pushing himself up. He once again ascended the stairs, this time making it up safely.

Once in the hallway on the second floor, he rushed to the second door to the left. Entering and locking the door behind him, he surveyed his bedroom and found nothing out of place. That is aside from the cacophony of screams and the purple box floating nearby. "Fuck off." he muttered, swiping his free hand at the intruder. Surprisingly, that worked, as his hand went through it scattering it in a puff of smoke. Filing that with the hundred other things he had to process later, he set Derp down (who immediately escaped under his bed) then grabbed a comforter to jam into his closet. Then, without delay, he followed after it and closed that door behind him too.

Sitting underneath a combination of business attire and a few articles of more fashionable clothing he had bought on a whim but never wore, Jack once again focused on his breathing. He was glad that the screams outside were now more muffled, but now felt periodic tremors through the floor. He wondered if those were... car crashes? He remembered falling on the stairs in reaction to what was going on, and assumed he might do the same if he was driving. But he wasn't driving now, and he needed to focus on being present where he was.

Thankfully, as he worked to calm down it sounded like... whatever was out there was finally beginning to do so too. Or... at least the screams were getting quieter. However, some part of him knew that wasn't necessarily a good thing. Beasts aren't loud when they hunt. ...And if he couldn't hear those things, they were now far more dangerous.

While he contemplated the similar feeling of "being prey" which that new thought evoked in him, Jack began hearing (and feeling) a new sound reverberating through the air. A metallic howl had begun softly at first, then grew deafening. It approached overhead until it seemed to shake the entire house through its mass. No, the house was definitely shuddering, only slowly stopping as the thing thankfully began to grow further away. But only for a few seconds, before Jack heard an immense and elongated crash from the direction it had gone. Sounding like a giant machete swinging through multiple construction sites, the whole earth shook from the impact of... whatever just crashed down. Jack pushed himself out of the closet to peer out of a window facing the crash, but only saw a gigantic cloud of smoke rising a few streets away.

Taking the chance to glance around before retreating back into his danger-closet, Jack saw that the rest of his neighborhood looked as he would expect it. The houses across from him were intact and there were even a few neighbors, far braver than himself, who had left their homes to investigate all this chaos. At least, he thought that at first, but something about them seemed wrong. Listless and off-balance. He contemplated checking on them (maybe they were hurt?) but that same feeling of danger crept up on him. The hairs on the back of his neck were standing up one by one, and he knew he should definitely NOT get close. Or even let them see him. He immediately crouched down to hide his presence and began backing up towards his closet again.

However, before he could get there, he heard something close to an auditorium PA system come to life in his head. "HELLO? IS THIS THING ON?"

...At this point, why not?