Mad Hatter's Guide to Clearing The Game
Chapter 139: Ch137. Home, sweet home (2) - Alone

Chapter 139: Ch137. Home, sweet home (2) - Alone

The streets were on fire.

Not in the literal sense, though plenty of wreckage still smoldered and cracked under the weight of destruction. It was chaos, blaring and immediate, and Miles was running through it like a hunted animal, his lungs screaming, his mind barely keeping pace with his body.

The moment the [Bounty Notification] had gone out, the battlefield turned on its axis.

Miles had escaped the hilltop in a storm of blades and spells, dodging lightning strikes that lit the sky purple and bolts of ice that shredded the rusted bones of half-collapsed buildings. Monsters pursued. The players followed. Some with bloodlust, others just out of obligation or greed. It did not matter.

They all wanted the reward.

And so, Miles ran.

Through ruined overpasses with broken signs still pointing toward districts that seemed to no longer exist, over cracked sidewalks with grass growing through them, past shattered windows reflecting him like a ghost darting through a dying city.

A fireball exploded just behind him, sending him sprawling onto the road. He rolled, surprised to not feel any pain, and forced himself back up with a grunt. His scythe was still in his hand, flickering slightly as if responding to his distress.

The city was a skeleton of what it used to be, but something tugged at him.

It was familiar, even though it did not carry the life Miles felt before he left.

Miles blinked through the stinging sweat and grime on his face, peering at the worn-out shopfronts, the shell of a bus stop, the mural on a half-demolished wall. His feet slowed.

"This... This is home..."

It was like a horrible recognition of memory cutting through the haze. The warped corner store with its torn awning, the pothole near the intersection that never got filled. Even the rusted fire hydrant next to the hollowed-out cafe. It was all real.

This was his neighborhood.

Or what was left of it.

The street names had been wiped off by ash and ruin, but Miles knew these turns, every nook and cranny of them. He had walked these routes a hundred times, thousands even, if he counted the times before The Glitch had descended upon the world.

Headphones in, the weight of school or life dragging on his shoulders.

He knew the alley shortcut around the bar with the blinking neon skull. Knew the cracked pavement that always tripped people running late.

But now it was desolate.

No people, just players hiding in ambush trying to get him.

Night was falling, and with that, Miles hoped to see the [Safe Zone] signs glowing faintly in the dusk, bathing the ruined streets in their ghostly green light.

But there were none.

That was what chilled him.

"W-where are the signs?" He stammered through gasped breaths.

They had to be there, the floating projections in green above the buildings’ rooftops, marking where the system allowed safety. Where monsters could not follow until break of day.

Where people could ’log off’. Where they were not alone, in the most positive way.

But now?

Nothing.

Not a flicker of light in the skyline. Not even the faint buzz that usually accompanied a Safe Zone’s boundary.

As night crept across the sky, a deeper darkness followed. Miles picked up speed, trying to hold back the unease clawing through his spine as the chaos decreased ever so slightly behind him.

He knew where he had to go.

Home.

It was a plain five-story brick complex on a corner where the road dipped toward the underpass. He used to live on the third floor, and he had asked Mara to look after Diego before he left. So, they had to be there, right?

The windows used to be lit late into the night, flickering the LED makeshift lights, conversations, and the warmth of family.

He reached it in under a minute, his legs not stopping until he skidded to a halt at the glass door and looked up.

The lights were off, and the door was ajar.

That was not unusual since the [Safe Zone] buff allowed so.

But what was unusual this time was the absolute silence and the darkness in the hall, seemingly deeper with the absence of the glowing sign.

He stepped inside and looked around. The mailboxes near the stairwell were still marked with names, most of them faded now, some scratched out. His own was labeled simply "T."

He reached the third floor, and the door was still there.

Scuffed, dented, the same metallic number hanging in there.

He reached out, touched the handle, and stopped.

A whisper of memory rippled through him. The memory of him seeing Diego fast asleep in his bed, still exhausted from using that new skill of his. And then, he left to look for the Archivist with Sarissa, and his world turned upside down.

He turned the handle, and the door creaked open.

The apartment was dark, with dust clinging to everything like a second skin. The air was thick, stale, untouched. The windows were shut, the blinds drawn. No sign of life, no food, no warmth. Nothing.

He stepped inside and stood still.

It felt like a mausoleum.

The couch was in place. The table where the city map stood was still there. But it was wrong. It felt wrong.

It felt abandoned, but not just physically. It felt like a memory that had been emptied out.

"Dee? Mara?" He called, unsure.

His voice echoed too much.

He went to his bedroom and opened the door, only to find it empty. The furniture was still there, but no one was anywhere to be seen.

"Dee?" He called again. "Mara? It’s me."

The silence was unbearable.

"Please..." He whispered.

No one answered.

No hidden messages, no quest prompts, no markers, nothing to guide him.

He slumped against the bed, breathing hard, his scythe now resting beside him like an afterthought.

He had returned.

But there was no one left to greet him, and the world outside had turned cold.

The bounty still hung over his head like a guillotine. The monsters would regroup, and the players would hunt him down. But none of it stung quite as much as this.

Not the Queen’s curse, not the horror’s whispers.

It was the silence of home.

That was the loudest thing of all.