DING!
A new chime echoed through the apartment, sharper and more urgent than the first. Another translucent screen materialized in front of Thalia, this one glowing red and pulsing steadily, like a heartbeat on fire.
Her breath caught in her throat as the letters etched themselves across the interface:
⚠ PRECURSOR ALERT ⚠
> A MONSTER ATTACK WILL OCCUR IN:
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
> INCIDENT CLASS: UNKNOWN
> THREAT LEVEL: UNKNOWN
> OBJECTIVE:
- Defeat all the monsters.
> TIME REMAINING:
2 Days, 23 Hours, 59 Minutes, 12 Seconds…
"No way, this has to be some sort of joke. Nobody knows when a monster attack will happen. Experts have been trying to figure it out for decades, not even the Keepers know that, how could I?" She stood there in her room for a while, her mind grappling with what the message was telling her, the weight it carried.
If she has foreknowledge about a monster attack isn't she obliged to tell the world about it?
She took one last look at the timer still ticking down in front of her and decided it was time to stop standing around.
The train would've been faster, by a long shot, but after everything that had happened, she couldn't bring herself to go anywhere near another station. Not today.
So she took the bus.
The ride was slow, but the hum of the engine and the passing blur of city streets gave her time to think. She leaned her head against the window, watching the landscape shift as they rolled northbound. Brick buildings stacked on top of corner bodegas, old graffiti half-faded into the walls, and people hustling through the sidewalks like life never stopped.
When she finally stepped off the bus and set foot in Harlem, it was like stepping into a living painting.
Children played tag on the sidewalks, their laughter echoing between parked cars. The smell of frying chicken from a local spot mixed with fresh laundry hanging outside windows above. A group of older men posted up outside a barber shop played dominoes on a foldout table, yelling at each other like brothers. Music thumped faintly in the distance, something soulful and proud. The people walked like they owned their rhythm.
Thalia took it all in for a moment before pulling out her phone and opening the map app.
She typed in:
Gerald's Pawn Shop.
A blue dot popped up just a few blocks away. She turned the corner and headed in its direction, boots clicking softly against the concrete.
Within five minutes, she was standing in front of it.
The Shop was a sight to behold. It stood there like a stubborn relic, a test against time, as if it had simply refused to be forgotten. Nuzzled between a laundromat with flickering lights and a pizzeria that smelled like heaven, the pawn shop seemed more like a glitch in the city's rhythm than a part of it.
A single door sat in the center of the storefront, flanked by two large, grime-fogged windows. Above them, a wooden sign stretched across the red-painted frame—GERALD'S PAWN SHOP—or at least what remained of it. Some letters were missing, the rest were so faded they looked like they might disappear if you blinked too hard.
The windows were packed with towers of indistinct objects. Stacks upon stacks of... stuff, junk and treasure alike, so crowded and dense it was impossible to see more than a few inches past the glass. If there was a world inside, it was hidden behind the chaos.
Thalia stepped closer and noticed the crooked "CLOSED" sign hanging from a rusted hook behind the glass.
She placed her hand on the door and gave it a gentle push. It creaked open slowly, a drawn-out groan that almost made her wince. She glanced over her shoulder to see if anyone was watching, but the streets of Harlem paid her no mind. Everyone was caught up in their own lives. Her business was her own.
The door creaked again as it shut behind her.
It wasn't dark inside, but it wasn't exactly bright either. The mountain of inventory pressing against every window let in only thin rays of diffused light. The air smelled of old books, metal, and something vaguely like motor oil.
And despite the clutter, there was an eerie kind of order to it all.
Yes, it was messy. But not random. Each item seemed to have been placed deliberately, like they had earned their exact position through some logic only the owner could understand. An old violin missing one string leaned against a wall-mounted set of antique rifles. A rusted robot dog sat beside a pristine rotary phone that looked like it hadn't aged a day. Military medals from decades past hung beside cassette tapes, snow globes, and an unopened set of baseball trading cards. There was a civil war saber on the wall beside a lava lamp. A vintage diving helmet sat on top of a crate marked "DO NOT OPEN. SERIOUSLY."
Every step forward was a path through decades of forgotten lives and stories.
Thalia continued on, following the narrow footpath that cut through the hoards of memorabilia. Presumably, it led to the counter, vand hopefully, to whoever actually ran this madhouse.
But then, her steps slowed.
That feeling crept up again.
That prickle. The same one you get when a shadow moves in your periphery or when you know someone's eyes are on you, even though you can't see them. The hairs on her arms stood up. She stopped walking.
A wooden floorboard creaked behind her.
CHK-CHAK.
The unmistakable sound of a shotgun being cocked.
In an instant, she reacted, her instincts firing before her thoughts could catch up. She ducked low and pivoted, her arm shooting upward to catch the barrel of the gun just as it was raised. The weapon went off.
BOOOOM!!
A deafening roar. Dust and debris exploded from the ceiling as hardwood splintered and showered down. The sound echoed through the cavernous mess like thunder in a canyon.
But Thalia didn't let go.
With both hands gripping the barrel, yanked it downward and forward, pulling the figure who'd been hidden in the shadows into what little light there was.
Or at least, tried to.
Before she could see their face, a heavy boot slammed into her stomach.
"Oof—!"
The wind blasted out of her lungs as she was launched backward, her body tumbling through a shelf of assorted junk. Trinkets and tools and old camera parts clattered to the floor like a collapsing scrapyard.
She landed hard on her back, surrounded by a dozen broken things.
Pain rang through her ribs like a bell. She groaned, clutching her gut.
From somewhere in the shadows ahead, the sound of the shotgun cocking echoed again.
CHK-CHAK.
Thalia's eyes sharpened. The pain in her ribs hadn't vanished, but it dulled just enough for her instincts to take over.
BOOOOM!
She rolled just in time.
The shotgun blast obliterated the spot she'd been laying in, vaporizing that ares with bullet holes. Screws, springs, bits of glass and rusted metal shot through the air like shrapnel. Junk rained down around her as she dove into the hoard.
Crouched behind an unstable pile of clutter, Thalia held her breath, listening.
Footsteps.
They were moving toward where she'd been, deliberate and cautious. That was her chance.
She gritted her teeth and shoved her shoulder into a mountain of junk, sending crates and old radios and a dusty office chair cascading toward the source of the sound.
There was a grunt. The figure shifted aside to avoid the avalanche, but it was all the opening she needed.
She bolted forward.
There, in the dim filtered light, she could just make out the glint of metal in the figure's hands.
The shotgun.
Thalia didn't hesitate. She scooped up a metal baseball bat that had been lying beneath a stack of VHS tapes and charged in. The figure began to turn, but before they could ready the weapon, Thalia swung from her blind spot, hard.
CLANG!
The bat struck the barrel of the shotgun, knocking it from the figure's grip, but he still held the stock in his other hand.
"Not done yet," she growled.
She stepped in again and brought the bat down like a hammer, but the figure reacted fast, lifting the gun's body to block the strike with its midsection. Metal cracked against metal with a jarring clang.
Thinking fast, Thalia slid the bat upward along the shotgun's body. The narrow barrel caught in the bat's edge, wedging itself into the crevice between the grip and the flat bottoms part of the bat.
She yanked up.
The shotgun tore free and spun into the air before clattering somewhere deep in the store, out of reach.
But then...
WHAM.
A fist struck her square in the center of the bat, bending the aluminum like wet clay.
The impact launched her backward. She flew through the air and crashed into a pile of old bicycle frames and rusted cash registers. The breath was ripped from her lungs, her chest screaming as her back hit solid wood.
"Guh—!"
She wheezed, crumpling to her knees. That wasn't just a punch. That wasn't normal.
Her body trembled, coughing violently as she tried to suck in air. Her limbs refused to move. Her head swam.
She was down.
A pair of heavy boots stepped into the light.
A man now stood above her, weathered and old, but solid. His frame was thick like iron, his beard flecked with grey, his coat long and patched, eyes sharp and half-sunken beneath a heavy brow.
The man looked down at her with casual curiosity, like she'd just passed a test she didn't know she was taking.
"Not bad, kid," he said. "Still alive, so you must be a cape. You look new."
He walked past her, stepping carefully over the wreckage, and flicked a switch on the wall near the counter.
The overhead lights snapped on, flooding the room with clarity.
What they'd just done to this place wasn't a fight. It was a wrecking ball. Junk was toppled everywhere, piles of antiques scattered, furniture broken, glass cracked, walls dented.
The store looked like it had been hit by a storm.
Still coughing and trying to catch her breath she managed to get out "W-what fuck you old geezer!"
She spat out a glob of saliva soaked blood.
"You almost took my fuckin head off!"
"Yet here you are in one piece, it's a miracle" he replied condescendingly