Cato's tongue clicked. He looked like a perpetually disgruntled cat. One of those big floofy ones, with the sour faces. "I wish that I might be able to express surprise. The fact that you cannot remember something so fundamental as the Countless Dead is one of the most outrageous statements you have made yet. Everything, however, you do is outrageous, and by virtue of being overwhelmed, I merely possess an equal amount of distaste for all that you accomplish. You are without this history, the greatest event in all of this species' existence, and yet retain such obscure knowledge as ‘emo.’"

  Oh, huh. Did emo-children not exist now? That seemed unlikely. It was, actually, now that I thought about it. I bet it was just under a different name.

  "Well, enlighten me," I said. We'd finally hit the street, a seething rush of busy, bright people. It was paved with cobbles, and arched ever so slightly at the center. It reminded me of the old Roman roads I'd read about. I pushed past a particularly large man, who glowered at me before blanching and taking a few steps backward. I couldn't figure out what he'd seen, and he was gone before I could ask.

  Cato's voice pulled me from my observations.

  "...You truly know nothing of it?" he said, and there was a curious quality to his voice now. I shrugged as I trotted. Fucker was speed walking. The one advantage to him was that everyone was giving us a pretty wide berth. We drew all sorts of fascinated eyes from the colorful multitude, focusing on his hair, and I tried not to feel anxious.

  His sister had insisted that white hair was pretty common, but it was reserved for...Busiocrats? Guessing that was the nobility. So...not common, but a sign of the wealthy and important. That would draw stares, for sure.

  I waved at a squat woman with a large basket who craned her kerchief-covered head to watch us go. She squawked and ran faster.

  "Nope," I confirmed when Cato wasn't further forthcoming. "So what's the deal, Sour-puss?"

  He stared at me for a moment longer, those gold eyes glowering at me through his spectacles. Over the course of our earlier conversation, they'd bled back from their slits into normal, round pupils. Mostly. Still seemed a little narrow, a little sharp.

  Something about how he looked at me tinged a memory, an old one, without picture or voice. All I remembered were the words. And the feeling.

  Look like that long enough, my father had said, grabbing my cheeks when I'd pouted at him as a little girl, and you'll get stuck.

  I wondered if White-hair would get stuck with those cat-like eyes. The thought unsettled me, like an itch I couldn't quite scratch, and I buried it with all the other ideas I had that I couldn't really sit with and properly process.

  Cato cleared his throat and began to lecture.

  "In the year 2016, the Lightswallowing occurred. The System--before it was the System--came to Terra, and did what it has always done: devour. It consumed seven billion souls before stopping, though the reason why it ceased is not well understood. That great amount of humanity that died in a singular instant shares a name, for the magnitude of the loss can not be numbered, except by the System itself, and it has never shared. They are the Countless Dead."

  I stopped moving. A narrow woman with a pinched expression ran into me, and began squawking.

  They are the Countless Dead.

  "What?" I asked. My mouth moved, but I didn't really hear my own voice. I stared at Cato. His white hair blew in the breeze, his spectacles and golden eyes reflecting daylight.

  He cocked his head, eyebrows snapping sharply downward. They were dark, I noticed, stupidly, which made him look particularly severe and also a little odd.

  “You are disrupting pedestrian flow, you ridiculous creature. Do you intend to stand there and be run over, beaten to death under wheels and boots?”

  "What?" I said again. "2016? That's when that happened?"

  "If you demand that I explain things to you, and refuse to listen, then I do not know why I should bother. Yes, that was the year--are you so without swiftness of thought that I must bring your thoughts down like errant deer and drag them before you? Will you grasp them better if you can ponder its metaphorical corpse?"

  I looked up at the not-real sky, and the not-real sun, while a not-real man--an AI--told me what a dumbass I was. Right after telling me that everyone I'd ever known and loved had not, in fact, lived long happy lives, and had instead all died soon right after I'd gone and turned myself into a toasted marshmallow. Murdered in something called the Lightswallow.

  Don't lose your shit, Teddy. Don't do it. My mouth trembled. Fuck.

  "Oh, for the love of--are you crying, again? What are you, a fleshbag doomed to leak your saline at every available opportunity?" Cato's disgust couldn't be more obvious, but I let him fume.

  Deep breaths. Count to ten. Don't think about it. Couldn’t think about it right now. We just had to bury the thoughts.

  "To be entirely clear, this information is irrelevant to you at this particular moment. It has been millenia since this has occurred. It is only of interest as a known, traumatic historical event for humanity, and in our conversation's case, related to the nature of Non-Playable Souls. I have no idea why you would allow this to emotionally overcome you. Do you weep when you drop your eating utensils? When you lack a cookie? Are you a toddler, to wail at every ludicrous moment--"

  My hands curled into fists. For a second, I almost told him. I'd been born in 1990. That this wasn't ancient fucking history to me. Or just punch the dick, because God, he was such a shithead. Anger pulsed in my throat.

  So did the infection on my chest, and that snapped me out of it.

  My shoulders slumped. What good would that do me, huh? It'd feel good for a little bit. Anger always did. And then, most of the time, it accomplished jack shit and made everything so much worse. There was no point in getting angry, in trying to make Cato understand, or pull upon his sympathy. What sympathy? The man--no, the AI--didn't have that kind of human feeling.

  And why should he? He wasn't human. God, I really should’ve, like, lost my shit about that at some point, because that was fucking insane. But I just didn't have it in me. Cato not being human felt, in a lot of respects, to be the least of my worries. I knew logically that probably wasn't true. I think it was probably my biggest concern. But try telling my emotions that, the same ones that were grappling with the “oh, everyone you cared for got fucking eaten” bomb.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  He was still ranting, but I just shuffled forward, reembracing the flow of traffic. I wanted food. I wanted to sleep.

  Had getting eaten hurt? What did it mean to be swallowed like light? Had my little sister clutched her favorite stuffed caterpillar and sobbed as she died? Had my brother put on his brave face and held her hand, like he did when shit was really awful? He'd always felt he had to be tough, since he was the boy, and big brothers were supposed to defend little sisters. I’d tried to tell him that was my responsibility, as the eldest, but he wouldn't hear of it. Stubborn little shit. My mouth wavered under the force of remembered, fond exasperation, and then it just fell out from under me, like I was sucking in air not to breathe, but to try to fill a void.

  Fuck me, I couldn't think about that. I couldn't, or I'd just stop moving. One foot in front of the other, Teddy.

  Grieve later.

  I wouldn't say I made Cato anxious, but he hovered like a mother hen. A really pissed-off mother hen. He ranted to me endlessly as I trudged towards this weird-ass looking city. The road diverged, I saw. The cobbles, which I realized now were all perfectly-cut geometric shapes--seemed a little overkill, if you asked me. But the road was made up of exacting hexagons, the outer edge triangles. I wondered how long that had taken to make.

  Then again, I supposed this was a game. The System had just done it, right? Was anything made, or did it just spring into being, with people falsely remembering its construction?

  The more I walked, the easier I breathed. At the end of the day, everyone was still dead. That hadn't changed.

  This didn't really make me feel better, but I'd repeat it until I had thoroughly kicked the strength of my feeling back into the mind grave. I could dig it out later--my grip tightened on my cursed shovel. Much later.

  "So," I said, "These NPSes. How are they related to the Countless Dead?" I wanted to know that, at least, before we focused on whatever the hell we needed to do in this city.

  He puffed up like an angry chihuahua. "Now you respond, you flailing, pathetic, insolent--"

  "Long-legs, cut the shit. You wanted to educate me--"

  Cato looked like he was on the verge of lunging at me, but abruptly, the man snapped up at the waist, holding himself so stiffly that he looked like he was a fancy marble statue rather than...whatever he actually was. "I need to educate you--I have no desire to engage your thoughts or presence, other than the fact I am denied any other option. I also require that you be a student with some measure of spine, will, and courage, and not weep at every available option."

  "I have cried twice."

  "In three days! There is no need to leak everywhere, with your defective, fleshy hardware."

  I glanced around us, but it seemed no one had heard us speak. "Hey, I thought you said not to refer to that sorta thing."

  "I have altered the code. No one can attend to our speech," Cato hissed. "Now, as for your unseemly dribbling--"

  "I won't cry again," I promised, cutting him off. "Just...what was this about the Countless Dead and the NPSes?"

  If it was related in any way to the family I loved dearly, even if I could not remember their faces or names, I had to know.

  For a second, I thought Cato would decline to reply. He glowered at me, those harsh eyes and sharp features angled towards me like a blade. However, he did speak. "My personal theory, which if you had any sense, you would take as divinely-spoken truth, is that the NPSes are scattered with a small number of the Countless Dead...but the majority is made up of their descendants."

  I stumbled. Tripped on fucking air. Keep walking, Teddy. "Descendants? If they're dead, how can they be descendants?"

  "Try not to snap your neck in the space of a second. It would be a uniquely suitable end for you, but aggravating in the extreme," Cato said. He hadn't stopped glaring.

  One day I was going to bonk this man over the head with my shovel.

  "Stop being a sassy bitch and explain," I said between gritted teeth. "How can they be descendants?"

  "You will not refer to me with your obscene mouth--"

  "Unless you ask for it?" I said, grinning. I felt no real joy. The NPSes are the Countless Dead and descendants. Was my family out there, in this fucking Raid? "Cat got your witty tongue, White-hair?"

  His nostrils flared, and that molten, roiling fury returned to his eyes. I stared at him, flat, my mouth curling upwards in a half, dry smile.

  C'mon, Cato.

  "You demand of me my patience and then seek to annihilate it in a breath," he snarled, low and angry. For a second, I thought I heard a hint of an echo. Careful, Teddy. The memory of the monster that seemed to live beneath his skin was a strong one. I'd be happy never to see holographic eye tendrils again.

  I took a deep breath, and I exhaled. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have called you a sassy bitch. How are they descendants, White-hair?" I asked.

  "Why should I grant you the information that you seek?" he sneered. I didn't reply, instead watching him, waiting.

  To my surprise, he did continue. But then again, he had promised me an education. Shit, he'd threatened me with it.

  "You may be dead, but this game makes it feel as if you are living again, correct? Humans that feel as if they are alive breed, like the slavering beasts you are. While no physical creation results, soulcode intermingling produces more, unique soulcode. Ergo: descendants. Therefore, the Non-Playable Souls. A curious mix of the Countless Dead and the hordes of code that has issued forth from their virtual loins."

  I straight up didn't know what to say. My family might’ve been out there. The thought had never occurred to me, because--well, Cato had implied that my soul being even five hundred years old was unusual. But they might’ve been out there. My elation was a freefall, glorious and terrifying. And like a freefall, it brought a swift end, as the implications of what Cato had suggested rolled over me. Yeah, they might’ve been out there, them and the generations of nieces and nephews I'd never met, but it had been two thousand years. Six billion had died, and then grown--exponentially, probably. Fuck, how many souls did the System have, then? Was the chance of finding them a needle in the ocean? Despair hit me, like my body splatting against the earth.

  Bury it. I had to bury it. I simply couldn't handle that right now, I didn't have the emotional thought, or space, and I'd promised to not cry. I gritted my teeth, pulled out my imaginary brain shovel, and set about burying. Later. I'd deal with this later.

  Someone stepped in front of us, and they cast a long shadow. My head swiveled, and the blood evacuated my face like I'd held it at gunpoint. The bustle around us parted wide--no one wanted to be anywhere near us. For good reason.

  The armored Knight in front of us was absolutely enormous. The giant that was staring down at us dwarfed Cato by a solid foot, and was three times as broad, easy. The armor was brilliant, shining steel. It was also carefully inlaid with all sorts of pretty-looking shit.

  Before I could react, Cato's staff had materialized in his hand. He swept it backwards, shoving me to his right and aft, so I was slightly behind him. He snapped it forwards so the end of the end of the thin stick of wood was located directly in front of the armor's face.

  I logically knew Cato packed a magical--glitchy?--punch, but man, that piece of wood versus the wall of solid steel wasn't looking great. Not that I had it much better. I reached for my shovel.

  CURSED - Unusable popped up as a notification.

  Right, shit. Uh. I raised my fists and braced. Sure, why the fuck not? As long as I went down swinging. I swallowed my fear and grinned, pulling back my lips to make the expression as wide as possible.

  Revenant - Power Stealing Superhero

  by Siborg

  When Michael needed a hero, no one answered his call. His life lay in ruins. His dreams were shattered. With no options left and nowhere else to turn, he found himself forced into the shadowy embrace of a criminal enterprise. Trapped under a crippling debt and the threat of death, he did what he had to survive, even if it meant helping the monsters he once hoped to fight against.

  He had all but given up when it finally happened. His powers manifested.

  Granted, the ability to steal the superpower of any corpse he touches. Michael pushes to carve out a better life for himself. The life he always dreamed of. He would be a superhero, but first, he would need to clean up the underworld that had dug its hooks into him.

  Will he forge his dream into reality, or be devoured by the ghosts of his past?