...Back there, Natalie, Crystal, Dennis and I, Matt were watching the barrier of Emptiness.

“Geez… He’s been there for a bit. I seriously hope he’s alright, like, doesn’t the thought of so many alien things get under your skin?” Dennis pouted. “Yeah, it really does…” I noticed Dennis was shivering. To our surprise, Arthur came out of the goop sprinting and fell over. “O-OH! Arthur!!” I screamed at the top of my lungs and we rushed over to him. I quickly used telekinesis magic to get the goop off him. Arthur panted. “Don’t worry, I’m alright… When did you learn magic though, Matt?”

“Ah... A friend taught me some recently.” I looked at Crystal for a moment, then back at him. She smiled slightly. “Doesn’t matter now though, it’s good to know you’re alright.” Crystal and Natalie began to check him. “Yeah, it doesn’t seem like he’s injured.” Said Natalie. “No marks, no bruises, nothing… You’re just… scared, aren’t you?”Arthur sighed. “Yeah, I get it Natalie… Ugh... “ He then stood up and cleaned himself. Shaking my head, I said, “When we get back, we shouldn’t hide these details anymore. We need to do something about it, and we need all the help we can get.”

The others just stared at me. “Huh?” I started to question if what I said was a good idea, but… Natalie sighed.  “Well, first let’s investigate this place some more, then we can do that.”, “Ah.” My eyes opened wide and I smiled. “Thank you, Natalie. I wasn’t expecting you to agree… But I’m glad you did.” Crystal butted in. “Not gonna lie, I think we should tell everyone else BEFORE we investigate more.” Arthur replied to Crystal’s words. “Well if we got more Shielders involved it’s possible we wouldn’t be given so much freedom around here, so for now let’s enjoy that a little bit, let’s not waste too much time though.”

Crystal started to ponder. “How about I fly around and see what I can find?” Arthur thought about it as well. “Sounds risky, but it could work. You should probably bring someone with you, right? I’m sure you can carry someone on your back or something…” Dennis looked visibly disgusted. “Not it!” Natalie then followed his answer. “Not it.” I looked at Crystal… She gave me a goofy smile… “Ouch.” Was the only thing I could say. Really, ouch… I awkwardly got on Crystal’s back and she then quickly took flight, oddly enough, she was kinda comfy. “Agh… I’m not gonna fall off, right?” It would be a bit scary to fly like this, but my career in architecture made me not fear heights, thankfully…

“You’ll be fine! Just hold on tight while we look around! Plus, if it makes you feel any better, you can now tell everyone you got to ride a big woman!” ???!!! “H-how will that make me feel any better?!” Crystal laughed hard and we just kept flying… desperately looking for answers and clues. “Hey, you see that over there?” I pointed at a crowd of… spider things. “Actually, can we call those things Usurpers from now on?” Crystal sounded a bit annoyed. “I’m getting bothered by the fact that we’re referring to them with no name and just saying stuff like, ‘that thing’. I think giving them a name would be nice.”

“Right… So what should we do with those Usurpers? Do we kill them or something?” The words kill already had escaped my mouth, but honestly, am I really to blame? “No, I think we should observe them a bit. Let’s see if we can learn anything from them.”. “From animal documentaries to alien observation… My life is really spiking lately.” Crystal chuckled a bit as I finished my sentence and we looked at them from a safe distance. We noticed the Usurpers walk around in a herd in a direction, continuing to follow them, we saw… “That… Is that a dead body?” [Gulp]. “Is that the one you found with Dennis?”

“No, that’s another one. I didn’t see it before. Probably one of those detectives that died here… Let’s see what happens!” “Crystal… Are we gonna watch a bunch of creepy freaks eat a body?” …“To be fair, he’s already dead, and it’s all to find out more about them.”... “What was I expecting when I agreed to come with you?…” We watched the scene, with me doing so reluctantly. The spiders just… drained the body out of its remaining soul. I looked at Crystal. “They don’t even do anything with the body itself, they just drain its soul energy. If that’s it, then there’s nothing else to investigate. Can we please go back?”, “Alright, fine you crybaby.” Frustrated and annoyed as Crystal mocked me, we returned to the others.

When we got back, we just explained to Natalie, Arthur and Dennis that we didn’t reach any new conclusions. “This is stupid.” Natalie groaned, annoyed and SLAMMED her fist on her own palm. “Let’s just go home before something dumb happens.” With that done, we went into the spaceship and sat down. As always, Dennis drove the spaceship back to Stellar Site.

I looked at Natalie. “Hey, Natalie, you got a moment?”

“...What is it?”

We looked each other in the eyes, I could tell the entire situation was frustrating her. 

“I’ve been thinking about building houses, so I wanted to divide my work hours to do that. I think it’d be a good idea to give everyone a home that can withstand incredible damage.”

“...Alright, that’s fine. I’ll do the necessary paperwork when I get home.” Natalie calmed down a little. “Thank you.” I smiled a bit at her… After several seconds, she couldn’t resist and smiled back at me.

The noises of the spaceship and the usurpers being so close were killing me with anxiety, but our smiles calmed me down. 

We eventually got back to Stellar Site and we parted ways without saying much… Of course, then, everyone went home… But I went to that company that advertised to me instead.

Just before I could reach the door’s handle, a strange man appeared right on my face, as if dropping from the ceiling.

“HELLO THERE!”

Remaining completely silent and motionless, I just stared at him.

“Woah, the death glare huh? That’s got some skill, who’re chu fam?” … “...I’m Matt Brown. Architect, Shielder. You literally gave me a flyer…”

“Ooooh yeah! That guy! Now I see that badge on your chest isn’t just for show, yes yes mmhm...  I remember now. Come in!”

This man… seems to be weirder than Crystal, which is an achievement by itself, but I walked in nonetheless. As I looked around the company, I noticed that the walls and floor were all decorated to resemble royal colors. Kinda interesting, I guess???

Well, alright. I talked to him. “Alright, uhh Mr. I brought this folder with all the documents you need to register me, including my academic titles. Uhh where are you?” I looked behind me and I completely had lost sight of him.

“OVER HERE SILLY!” I almost jumped from his yell and looked in front of me. Somehow for reasons I couldn’t explain, this man had moved to a desk in front of me without me even seeing him go there.

“Oh my lord…” I cringed and put my palm on my face. “Alright, I’ll just…” I slid the neat brown folder across the desk without even looking at him.

“Come on, don’t be so silly, Matt.” The man returned the folder to me to my confusion. “You got a Shielder’s badge! That’s like… An instant qualification ticket! You got the job, ooh-la-lah!”... “Oh… okay?” I looked at my badge then back at him. “In that case, what’s your name uhh… Boss?”. “My name… My name is Michael Taylor, my friend! From now on, we’ll be the best of friends! We’ll be BESTIES! We’ll work together to build houses like hell, and we’ll make loads of cash!” He extended his arm to half hug me.

“Michael… You’re scaring me.” [Blink]. “Don’t worry", he said, ”Although there’s something I would like to discuss with you. Something… A bit too important, my friend.”. “Uhh? What is it Michael?” I gently got his hand off me and looked at him. “It’s about Emptiness, Matt. Surely you know something about it, yes?” 

…

“Your silence speaks volumes, Matt. Looks like I hit it right in the bullseye!” He fingershot me as I remained in silence. Hell, I already hate this guy.

I shook my head. “I’m not exactly sure how you know that exists, and frankly I don’t want to know either… But the information was gonna be publicized anyway. So let’s see…” I looked through my phone to see if the events regarding Emptiness were already shared.

“Right, it’s already all public. Just take a look at this…” I showed my phone to him, as he leaned and put his palms on his face emoting an exaggerated thoughtful expression. “You have internet access, right? You should already know about this Michael…”

“Well…” Michael stood up and chuckled. “I’m not a fan of staring at phones for too long… So, thanks, Matt!”. “You’re welcome…” On the internet, tons of news articles were already posted, and lots of people were expressing their concerns and complaints on social media. I find it odd that he didn’t seem to care about that. More money than concerns in that brain of his?  “Well then Matt, surely you want to start working, aye?” He smirked and looked at me. “Uhhh yeah, I was hoping we could make houses that could be protected from Emptiness. One of my co-employees and friend is immune to it, so it’s definitely possible.”

“Your friend? Who would that be? Mmm??”

“Arthur Gold, you know, the guy who used to be a king for generation after generation…”. “Fantastic!!!” Michael started to clap for me. “You sure are a popular man! My, you’ll make both of us so rich!”

“Well… Yeah. I’ll look into it some more, but for now, why don’t we get to work?” I scratched my head a bit.

“Righty-o Mr. Matt! I’ll advertise our magnificent plan to mass produce households that will survive the end of the world!” Michael sat down and touched his computer. “This beauty will auto generate an advertisement for us and spread it everywhere, it only costs a small amount of money for someone like us, but I’ll cover it.”... “Right…” With just a few gestures and taps from his hand, the advertisement was auto-generated and completely finished.

“Now then Matt, how about you go and search for… Literally anything on the web?”

“Uh, okay.” I held my phone and searched for ‘Cute Kittens Compilation’

I quickly noticed an ad on the right side of the website. An ad for this business, if this guy can put ads everywhere so quickly, I should probably be careful with him. He seems to have a lot of control on the market, my god...

“Welp, now I see I shouldn’t mess with you. I guess we wait for clients.” I saw Michael quickly check his computer and then he looked at me with glee. “Worry not Matt, we already got ourselves a nice customer interested in our business. Here, look at this!” Walking to his side, I took a quick glance at the computer’s screen. I noticed there was a list of people interested in purchasing a house… already. Wow. Michael chuckled. “There’s a lot of land in a more open area a few minutes of driving from here. That’s where you and I are gonna start building houses like crazy, mmhmm!”

“Right…” I held my coat and pulled it a bit nervously. “So, I’m guessing you have a car?”, “Of course I do, Mr. Matt! Look!” At that moment, Michael pressed a button on his desk, and a beeping sound started to loop in the building. “Uhh… Michael?” I looked around wondering what that startling sound was about. Suddenly, my body got lifted. “W-what?!” I looked below me, and noticed a small space ship had appeared on my feet. “Michael? You… got a spaceship? It doesn’t look big enough for us!”

He smirked, soon enough I slid down the spaceship but I managed to land on my feet. “Ugh… You could’ve warned me, you know.”  Michael simply opened the ship’s door, and got in. “Well Mattt… I figured you’d learn more if you saw this nice vehicle by yourself, rather than by hearing my boring words.”...? “What’s that supposed to mean?” I blinked and raised an eyebrow, but nonetheless, I ended my confusion with one big sigh. “Nevermind… You want me to get in there with you, right?”

Michael nodded. “Yep, come in.” I awkwardly sat next to him in the spaceship, and then… the roof of the building opened. “How much money did you spend on making your company’s building so convenient, Michael?” I just looked at this... bizarre man, honestly not sure what was going on anymore. No thoughts. Just raw, complete and absolute horror. “More than you’d think, heh.” The small spaceship then bounced off the ground and took flight outside of the building. I looked through the window and saw the roof close and look normal again.

To be honest, I believe I would’ve felt more comfortable riding Crystal than doing this, now that I think about it. But it’s too late now… Compared to the spaceships at Stellar Site, this one feels more cheap, more basic. I can feel my body shaking as this thing travels at fast speeds. The Stellar Site spaceship didn’t make us feel anything! Putting my hand on my chest, I felt my heartbeat accelerating at unbelievable speeds. Yet Michael looked so calm while driving this thing. The fast view started to make me feel motion sick… I felt weak. So weak. So… So weak… Soon enough, my eyes shut, and my body stopped moving, I guess I passed out again… Out in complete darkness.