1) Hole

1st month of the warm season, 8th year of the Mad Mage-King Elost.

Today I finally buried the last vial of the hope potion. I hope whoever finds this will be able to save our race for what is coming, for when this is sealed the world filter shall return.

To my descendent, I hope you are ready for the burden of what will come to fall upon you.

You are our last hope.

The resistance.

20,000 years later.

"Joey come on! We are gonna be late!"

I blinked and looked at the paper again, it was the same calculus practice test I had finished the night earlier.

"How strange, didn't it say something else just now? I could have sworn it said to dig under a tree in our backyard."

My thoughts were blown away by someone snatching the paper in my hands.

"Didn't you hear me? We are going to be late." She looked at the paper she stole and thrust it back towards me. "If you are going to start fantasizing about your math problems do it in the car, now pack your bag we need to go."

With my mind still partly up in the clouds I picked up my bag, threw my books in it and ran down the stairs.

I knew from experience that she doesn't mind leaving without me.

I jumped in the passenger seat and she put the car in reverse. "Just because you have the unit test today doesn't mean that you get chauffeur service all day. You are driving me home and you have to wait until I am done cross country practice."

After 17 years of living together I learned it was better to not argue when she gets like this. "I will wait and drive home, but don't spend too long talking to your friends afterwards. I want to get at least an hour of gaming in with my friends in Warcraft and Worlds"

"You always play that stupid game! You've spent thousands of dollars on it too you realize that this will have no impact on anything you do in the real world right? You should save it or do something instead of just dumping it into nothing."

"Hey now! Don't treat WAW like that, it's an amazing game! And besides if I stopped playing now it would literally be wasting that money that I have ALREADY spent, so go run after your roads. Maybe one day youll catch them."

"So this is what I get for waiting for you, smh. I knew I should have just left without you. That's it, no ride for you tomorrow!"

"Hey, Hey, Hey! No need to get mad now, how about I get gas for the car after school and then come pick you up. That way you can talk to your friends longer, just call me when you want to be picked up."

She instantly got a huge smile on her face. "Thanks bro you're the best!"

My jaw dropped. "YOu, you played me didn't you?!"

"Yup"

"Damn it Lyra! You always manage to pull one over on me."

"Well that's because for an academic you are easier to play than a fiddle. Now you better get back to your studying, if we are even a second late you better get at least a 1000% on that test otherwise I'll make you regret it."

"Sisters are so annoying" I grumbled under my breath and picked up my water bottle to have a drink.

I was about to drink when she tapped her foot on the break causing the water to spill onto my face and shirt.

I glared at her but I knew that any further poking would only lead to more of my losses.

Grumbling, I put away the water and dried the water off as much as I could. It didn't make much difference but now I didn't have to worry about ruining my paper.

I opened my backpack and pulled out the practice test to look it over again, but the paper looked different again. I swear I grabbed the right one but instead of the questions it was blank aside from a few words.

DIG AT THE TREE DON'T DALLY

239:58

239:57

239:56

"What the hell?"

"What? I didn't do anything."

"Not you this, look at my paper. What do you see?"

Lyra turned her head briefly before turning back to the road. "It's math, duh, I hope you are doing better than this during the test or you're gonna be screwed."

"Wait so you don't see the numbers counting down?"

"What do you mean? Numbers are all over the place, so are letters. Are you ok? Do you need to go home? Cause if you do i can let you out here."

I looked out of the car window and looked at the cemetery beside us. "No thanks, this test is too important if need be I can just go home after the test."

"Alright it's your average not mine."

We sat the rest of the 15 minute drive in silence, thankfully my paper stopped doing weird things and stayed on the math.

My sister pulled into the parking lot and jumped out of the car. "I'll call you after practice when I need to be picked up. Don't forget to fill up the car."

"I won't."

I threw my backpack over my shoulder and ran to class after her, I had just entered the building when the first bell rang. I had 2 minutes to find my seat before I would get marked as late.

I ran just into the classroom as the second bell rang.

"Mister Elost, thank you for taking the time to join us."

"Sorry Miss Ursula, I tripped on the stairs and spilled my backpack." I quickly went to my seat at the front of the class.

"Going with the 'my bag broke' story eh? Oh well you were close enough."

This seemed to be the usual routine for us, I would just be not late by the skin of my teeth and make up some story and then she would pretend to believe me.

It's just one of the benefits of being the person with the highest grades in her class I guess.

The class went as usual with her handing out paperwork to fill out and other stuff that I never found all that difficult to do.

The strange phenomenon kept happening occasionally though, it was slightly concerning at this point.

It wasn't there constantly but every 2 minutes it would happen and the number would be 2 less than the previous time it appeared. It was like it was a count down to something.

"Joey."

"Joey!"

"JOEY!"

I was jolted out of my reverie by Miss Ursula slamming a hand down on my desk.

"Are you ok Joey? Didn't you hear me calling you?"

"Sorry I haven't been feeling well today, I've been spacing out a lot." I lied thinking that it was better to say a white lie than to have her think I am going crazy.

"Do you want to lie down? I can ask jenkins if you can write your test on a later date if you want. I'm sure she won't have a problem with it."

"Yes please if you don't mind Miss Ursula. I think I would like to go to the nurses if that is ok."

"Of course go right ahead."

I packed up my bag and pretended to walk towards the nurses office but instead I headed back to the parking lot.

Something was telling me to go dig. Either that or I am going crazy, and I plan to find out.

I had taken the keys from Lyra when she left so I jumped in and headed back home.

On the drive home I saw the strange thing happen once more to the license plate of a car in front of me at a red light.

It changed into three words. YOU'RE NOT CRAZY

"What the fuck…" I muttered under my breath. I decided that I am officially insane or something is trying to communicate with me.

I wasn't much longer until I pulled into our driveway. Thankfully our parents were away on a business trip this week so I didn't have to think up an excuse as to why I was going to be digging a hole.

I grabbed a piece of paper from my backpack and left it at the front door, then grabbed a shovel from the garage and headed to the backyard.

Part of me was thinking that this was absolutely bat shit crazy but I know what I saw.

I held the paper out in front of me and walked around the backyard waiting for something to happen to the paper.

I walked back and forth throughout almost the entire yard until I got to a certain spot and the writing finally came back.

DROP THE SHOVEL. DIG HERE.

"Fuck it, the magic words on paper said to dig here so lets get to it. If I can't learn magic within a year of this I ought to be locked in a mental institute if they have those."

I folded up the paper and started digging.

And digging.

And digging.

And digging.

I had never dug a hole before in real life, it was dramatically harder than in games. Normally it's just clicky clicky clicky and eventually your hand gets tired. Actually digging with a real shovel sucks.

My hands hurt, my back hurt, my arms hurt, my legs hurt, my nonexistent abs hurt. At this point it felt like the only thing that didn't hurt was my head.

I pulled out the paper and hoped that it would say something else. At first the words didn't form but I took a step back to go out of the hole and they formed once more.

KEEP DIGGING

"Fuck you too, stupid paper." Even if I wanted to profusely curse at this paper I simply didn't have the energy at this point.

The words changed.

THE HARDER THE STRUGGLES THE BETTER THE REWARDS.

REWARDS YOU COULD NEVER IMAGINE.

"Of course it has to give me a pep talk. God damn it." I folded up the paper and put it back in my pocket and looked around.

The hold was now slightly deeper than my waist and I had gotten warm enough that I had taken off my sweater and shirt exposing my pasty white chest that rarely saw the sun. my normally skinny forearms were slightly veiny and my one hand was stiff from holding the shovel handle for so long.

"There better be fucking magic down here. If there isn't then this is the start of my path to villainy." I picked up the shovel again and started to pick up dirt.

I had a strange thought as I continued my way to becoming a mole man. Despite being so close to a tree I haven't hit any roots yet.

At this point I was just going through the motions, shovel in and shovel out until eventually I got lost in my thoughts, and found myself in a state of flow and had barely noticed the passage of time until finally my shovel struck something other than the dirt.

THUD.

The impact was jarring and interrupted my blissful digging and brought attention back to my sore body and my hand that was now permanently in a claw shape.

I squatted down groaning in exhaustion and made a claw with my other hand before laughing out loud and yelling "MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY"

I laughed at my own antics and kneeled down into the dirt and wiped away at it with my non-clawed hand.