A moment after the break sirens blared out they were joined by a new noise. Each of their phones all rang at the same time with the cacophony of an emergency alert. Richard snatched his phone out from his pocket to discover just what was going on.

  Warning!

  Ratters have been discovered by the Northern Wall.

  All citizens that live in the Boroughs south of Hiems Avenue are to evacuate to the nearest shelter. Otherwise is it recommended for citizens to shelter in any safe rooms located within their, or a neighbor’s, home. And to not leave their home in any circumstance.

  “Heim Ave? Isn’t that to the south of us?” Shannon asked. “Doesn’t that mean we should stay here? And not go to the shelters?”

  Their father had already opened the front door and stepped out into the night. He was looking north and called back into the house without looking, “There isn’t anything we can do for now. We should stay where it is safe.”

  “And that is here? Why don’t we go to the shelter anyways? They can’t turn us away, right?” His mother asked.

  “It’s probably because we are too close to the wall. You kids wouldn’t have been here if they hadn't moved Thanksgiving forward by two weeks. Stupid global warming and I guess the new southern provinces. They probably had a hand in moving the holiday too.”

  “Hal, come inside. At least close the door. I can’t stand knowing that those little bastards are out there.” She was trembling and Shannon stepped forward and hugged her.

  “Come along Mom, we should probably get into the basement. It’ll be safer there. Also probably turn out the lights?” Shannon asked.

  “It should work well enough. Assuming that they don’t catch the scent it's just as good as a shelter,” his father said. He closed the front door. And as he disappeared deeper into the house he turned off the lights.

  “Richard, what should we do?” Shannon asked. “You’re the explorer right?” It was hard to see her expression in the darkness.

  “I’m not sure. Usually we go to the monsters and not the other way around. I’m not even sure how to fight with ratters. I know that there is a dungeon somewhere in the area. But it’s not a ‘safe’ one by any means.”

  When their father appeared again he was wearing an old chainmail shirt and was carrying a pair of short spears. “Hal, you can’t mean to fight them yourself?”

  “We don’t have a choice,” he said and handed Richard one of the spears. “From what I could see it looked like part of the wall was out. Probably it coming down was what caused the shake earlier.” He turned to Shannon. “Get your mum into the basement. There is a small holdout down there. Left over from before, when we were closer to the break.”

  Shannon nodded and coaxed their mother out of the room and down the stairs into the basement. They hadn’t been gone a moment when another emergency alert came through. Richard glanced at it and confirmed what his father had said. The wall really had come down.

  He rubbed his face with his hands. What were they going to do? What could he even do?

  ***

  Emily cleaved through the ratters like they were wheat. Their soft skins and bones were no match for the two handed sword she was heaving around. It had cost her money and favors that she was still paying off, but it was worth it if she could mow through ratters like she was.

  Arrows whizzed through the air as Art shot one after another. His first quiver was already empty and his second wasn’t looking too full either. “We need some backup or something. Once I'm out of arrows then my deeps will fall through the floor,” he said.

  Janice was smashing ratters back and forth. Doing what she could to prevent them from getting the backline. But her damage wasn’t enough to keep up with the swarm of them pouring through the streets. She was kitted out to tank, but swarms were something that were notoriously hard to get aggro on, let alone hold it. Even more so when they died quicker than she could use her skill.

  “Pao! Any updates on backup from the guild? Or even the other guilds? Hell, I’d take even someone from the city. Anything?”

  Pao was in the back with a tablet in his hands. He would cast a heal here or there, but was otherwise saving his mana in case something big happened. “Nothing yet. The guild is still trying to find people to deploy them. It seems that the holiday has scattered many outside of Welf. Most of them appear to be in Rowan with a few in the surroundings. It’s not likely that we’ll get too many before this is over.”

  Emily took a step forward and sliced through another few ratters. They were being overwhelmed. Art had finished his arrows and had waded into melee with a short sword. It wasn’t something that he was really skilled with. And without his bow he was doing less damage than Janice.

  “Art, pull back and try and see if you can’t find something better to do,” Emily said. Only before Art was able to disengage a dart flew out of the darkness and hit him in the neck. He grunted at the impact but otherwise seemed to be okay. With a deft movement he pulled the dart out of his neck and threw it into a ratter’s face.

  Pao chanted a quick aria and a small fireball flew over the parties heads. It went high before falling and it hit well away from the front line. Which was a good thing as the size of the explosion was large enough that Emily and Janice still felt it.

  “Oof, that’s something I’m never getting used to,” Janice said.

  “Fall back to the next intersection,” Emily said. “We’ll have to see about reinforcements in one way or another. Art, get Pao to take a look at that.”

  “I’m fine, he said. “Doesn’t appear to have done much. Just enough to stick me.”

  “Do it anyway, I have a bad feeling about such a small weapon coming from those rat bastards.”

  ***

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Richard watched his father stand by the front door, looking out the window with the curtain almost drawn. “You see, the thing about ratters is that they always come at night. It’s been that way since they escaped the dungeons during the break.

  “They are also devious little creatures. Smart enough to have plans and tactics to get what they want. But also primitive and tribal. They had been observed fighting amongst themselves, the winning group absorbing the losers. Either as slaves or breeding stock or both.

  “For some reason they have always been antagonistic against humans. Is that something that comes from their culture? Or is it something that the dungeons or System instilled in them? Something that is passed down even after the next generation is born on our planet?”

  His father had been a man of many words. Even more than what he had just spoken. But usually they were light. Of fun times. Or teasing. Jokes or stories of friends and family. But never something about the ratters, the break, or the past really. Richard had tried to pry once when he was younger. Only to get scolded by his mother about not letting past secrets lie.

  There was one piece of information that he had managed to uncover. “Did that come from… your brother’s research? Uncle Harrold?” If Richard’s question bothered his father he didn’t show it.

  “Yes. But also from so many more that came before him. They all had better ends than Harry though.” They stood like that in silence for a few moments. Richard tried to process how his father must have felt he found out that the ratters killed his brother Harrold. As well as how his father must have worked through such feelings.

  A horn sounded out. It was a long, drawn out, and sonorous blast. His father took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “There it is,” he said. His father opened the door, took a step forward, and looked back at Richard. “Will you come with me? Or stay here and protect your mother and sister?”

  Richard looked down the hallway to the stairs. There was nothing that he could do if the house was swarmed. “Are they safe down there? In the holdout room?”

  “Safer than you or I.”

  Richard looked back to his father. “Didn’t you say that we should stay where it’s safe?”

  His father answered the question with a smile. And then the horn sounded out again a little closer than the last time. “Come on then, they are calling.”

  Richard lost his father in the darkness and figured that he had already stepped into the night. He hesitated for a moment before he grabbed the potion from his inventory, tucked it into his back pocket, and raced to follow his father. He had to stop and close and lock the door. “Who are calling? That horn, it isn’t the ratters right?” Richard asked once he caught up.

  “No. It’s… it’s those who remain. Of our clan.”

  Richard stopped walking for a moment and watched after his father’s back. As kids he and his sister loved climbing all over their father, being picked up, and tossed around. There was never any strain or effort involved. And while the man had aged over the years. Each year a little leaner and a little more grey hair. A little more belly from too much dessert. If anything it seemed like his father always had strength in reserve. And Richard knew that the strength that he remembered was still there.

  For a moment he regretted never giving the old man grandchildren. So that they could bond in the same way as he and Shannon did with their father.

  Richard jogged to catch up and spoke, “Clans were something…”

  His father turned away to the side and spit. “There weren’t any problems with them at all. But the government didn’t care for how they were run. Less like corps, and more like a gathering of like minded family.” Another horn sounded out. It was different sounding then the first, but still carried the same sonorous tone.

  “Clans were what built the world after the break. Guilds are what replaced them. People banding together for safety vs people legislated by the government moving for profit.” A call sounded out, closer than the horns. Richard’s father threw his head back and did the same. “HYYYOOOOOOOHH!” It contained a furious force as well as a slight mourning tone similar to the horns.

  Richard removed his hands from his ears. “Why didn’t you ever tell us about any of this? Why did it need to be a secret?”

  “Your Mother didn’t want you kids caught up in anything to do with the clan. Also the government wanted everyone who was part of the clans to retire silently. We did. But we also had the foresight and power for some concessions of our own. We made them agree that we could gather in emergencies,” his father turned and smiled at Richard, it was a smile that he had never seen on the old man before. One with manic energy that contained a promise left unsaid.

  Another hyoooh sounded out, it was close. Maybe the next street over. It was then followed by one of the horns. One moment they were alone, and the next several old timers appeared. From the houses and from the streets. Each of them were equipped with old and worn armor and weapons. Some of them were carrying horns, no two horns the same, while many were without.

  “Hey Hal! Where did your horn go? I thought that I was hearing you yelling. But then I says to myself, can’t be. Hal had one of the loudest horns of us all.” The man who spoke looked older than his own father. His hair had gone all grey, though it was still thick and was not thinning in the slightest. There was a peppering of snow on his cheeks and chin. And he was carrying a horn in one hand and a short sword in another.

  Richard took a moment to look at the horn. It was something that looked like a half meter long war horn. With a small end for sounding that widened into an opening. There were metal bandings all along its length and it appeared to be made from some sort of bone or horn.

  His father laughed and clapped the other man on the back. “Gunther! You old scamp. I’m surprised to see you. Didn’t the wife threaten to kill you if you ever suited up again? And as for the horn,” he coughed, “the old lady threw it away. Said that she didn't want the kids getting into it.”

  Gunther shook his head. “She can’t kill me from the grave. Old bird’s ticker ticked out.” He looked at the few people that had gathered. “I was getting kind of bored. Just sitting around at home. And I got to wondering what they would say to me when I joined them. If I too died in my chair and not in combat. But now we march!” Gunther showed a smile that was similar to the one his father wore just a moment before.

  Before long there were countless more people walking around them. Men and women that his father knew. Most of them were as old as him or older. While there still were a few younger folks closer to Richard’s age that had joined the procession.

  “Hal! Is that your boy? I remember seeing him once before your Ms got that bee up her but,” said an older woman. Her hair was all grey and pulled into a bun. And she had a lovely smile on her face.

  “Jackie! Haha, you made it! I was just thinking that we might be needing someone who could actually tank. Think that you still got it in you?” His father asked.

  “I don’t know if I do or not. But at the very least I believe that I still have the same old capacity for violence. Those ratters are going to be mulch after I’m done with them.” She showed a different smile that Richard was beginning to understand.

  “And yes, this is my boy Richard. Just started exploring himself a couple of months ago.”

  Richard greeted Jackie. His first impression was that she seemed like any other old grandmother. Sweet enough to be pleasant to be around, and yet there was something unyielding in her manner. He also found that there was a sort of dissonance between her lovely grandmother like appearance and the brutal looking spiked armor that she was wearing. Of all the old timers she appeared to be the most heavily armored. And Richard wondered how she was even moving under all of the metal.

  The smile on her face dropped and her head snapped forward. “Hoho, I think that I smell some of the shits now,” Jackie said. She threw her head back and belted out the loudest hyoooh that Richard had heard. Everyone that still had horns threw them into the air and blasted them out all at once. The force of the sound pushed through Richard and felt it to his core. And a ripple of emotion flowed through the crowd as the tension rose.

  A group of ratters trotted onto the street from behind a house. The group of old timers seemed to be synchronized and countless heads all snapped towards them at once. The rat-like humanoids took a step back as their hackles raised. Then they hissed and changed the much larger group.