I was right. I could set the reset point.

  The five of us were back in the car, just after Kaelyn had nicked me with her knife. I could feel the tiny dribble of blood at my neck. She had the knife in her hands - the shards of her weapon had been scattered around where she lay and had reset to where it had been at this moment.

  The four of them looked at me and became a synchronised eyebrow-raising team.

  “I know you’ll have questions. We got found. Shit went down. And I’ll explain all of it to you later, but right now, we need to get the fuck out of here.” Those groups that had been stirring in the park had now walked over to the railings to get a better view. A few had pulled their phones out – no doubt, calling the police. Luckily, the closest entrances to the park were further down the road to either side. If any of them wanted to come take a closer look, it would be four or five minutes at least.

  I looked at the three women, my gaze lingering just that little bit on Carmen. I smiled at her. She smiled back with a little uncertainty. I wondered what it must feel like knowing a reset had happened but having no memory of it. As far as she, and the others were concerned, I was an elderly man and now I wasn’t. The effect must have been jarring, to say the least.

  “Kian, Charlotte, Kaelyn – I need you three to pick up as many weapons as you can find. Rifles, handguns. See if you can get some vests as well. They might come in handy. And look for as much ammo as you can as well – anything, and everything. Get it in the back – we have three minutes. Oh, and clear the road if anything’s blocking it.” There were bodies to clear.

  “Carmen, we need to move those cars and vans out of the street up ahead. Just smash them into the cars to the side – we just need to clear a path.” She nodded at me. She was a tough girl. I mean, she was my girlfriend – she had to be to put up with me. But even so, I didn’t want her rummaging through the dead bodies. I wanted to protect her from that. At least for now.

  Of the five of us, she was the straightest. No criminal links. No prison time. No rough childhood. No trained from birth to kill. I remembered her panic when the police had found us, and the reality of what we were doing setting in. I had no fears that Kian and Charlotte would take it in their stride, but it was going to take some time to get Carmen used to it. Right now, she was following my lead because of our bond. So were Kian and Charlotte, in all honesty. But even the strongest of bonds can be broken if you bend it too much. If you ask people to cross a line that they weren’t prepared to.

  All four car doors opened as one and we all set to our tasks. Kaelyn as well. No questions asked. No explanations needed. There’d be plenty of time to discuss later. That’s why I loved these three. Kaelyn was a weapon. A trained fighter. Used to orders. Carmen, Kian and Charlotte were just smart people. We were a team. We would need to be.

  As I made my way to the van and cars ahead – there were four of them blocking our exit – I had a look at the items I had placed earlier. Five remained on either side. So the range of the reset was three to four metres roughly. That was good enough for me to know. I wasn’t planning on testing it again.

  “Once we’ve moved these, check the cars for weapons and ammo,” I said to Carmen as we made our way to the vehicles, walking alongside each other. She kept glancing at the dead bodies around us. I took her hand, and it startled her at first, before she realised it was just me. “It’ll be okay. We’ll get through this. Let’s just concentrate on what we need to do to get out of here.” I gave her a peck on the forehead and a hug.

  Then we set to work.

  ***

  We’d gotten away from Primrose Hill with no more trouble, a boot full of guns and ammo, and a hell of a story for me to tell the others. We headed to Charlotte’s house first, as I caught them up on events. Their original plan had been to drop myself, Carmen and Kaelyn at Primrose Hill, then Charlotte and Kian would have gone to get her parents, but of course, those plans had been slightly derailed.

  Charlotte’s parents were in their late fifties, living in a three-bed semi in northeast London. They wanted Charlotte to be with them for whatever was coming but she had made it clear to them that that wasn’t an option. We needed to be mobile, and we’d all decided we needed to be further away from the main population centre of the country. They’d agreed to go with her. She was the only one they had now, her brother still being in prison. He’d been in and out of prison most of his life, and at this point, he was more comfortable being inside than out.

  After Charlotte had gotten her parents into their SUV, two suitcases in tow – I didn’t know if they thought we were going on holiday – we’d gone to Kian’s. I felt a little guilty for that one. I was the one who’d pushed him into it, with Charlotte’s support. I knew he’d miss his mum. I knew he’d feel crap if he didn’t at least try to get her and his younger brother, but like he had tried to tell us, his family had no intention of joining him.

  Truth was, his mum loved her children equally, and dearly, but she could never leave his eldest brother. Even when she knew how much of a dick he was. He lived in the home with her, ran the house to his liking using her money, and to top it all off, would abuse her and Kian’s younger brother. Not to mention his own wife and two kids.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  I knew Kian had tried so many times to pry them free, but abuse was a funny thing. From the outside in, people always wondered why victims didn’t just leave their abusers. Well, not only does that often not lead to the end of the problems – a lot of those cunts manage to find a way to get to you – but the abuse was often not the actual problem.

  The most insidious thing was that victims would be manipulated over such a length of time, and in the subtlest of ways, that they became accustomed to the abuse. It was their life. It was their normal. The vast majority didn’t even recognise what was happening to them as abuse. They knew it wasn’t right, but they were always waiting for that day when things would get better. Things never got better. Trust me. They never got better.

  After that, we’d decided as a group to make a video. I told the world as much as I could about the USP. Told world governments to take it seriously, and defend their territories, and their people. At the end, I added a warning. Made it clear that if anybody came for me, it would be the last thing they do. Even if it was the police or army. I hoped I’d sounded threatening enough.

  We uploaded it to Carmen and Charlotte’s socials, telling their thousands of friends and followers to spread the word, and hoped it would go viral.

  Then we drove out towards the Chilterns – an area just beyond the boundaries of the northwest of London. It was a lovely place with rolling hills, farms, woodland and charming villages. And large houses of the expensive sort that weren’t always occupied.

  As the rest of us had waited in the cars, Kaelyn had snuck around the quaint, picturesque village until she had found a quiet, secluded home, nestled away from the rest and with no occupants in sight. Maybe they would arrive at any moment, but for now it was exactly what we had needed, and Kaelyn had shown herself resourceful in finding us a way in. I didn’t know why that would have surprised me. She was a trained assassin.

  Once inside, Charlotte’s parents were a little aghast at how at ease we seemed at breaking into someone else’s home. Carmen looked a little uneasy too, but Charlotte, in her happy-go-lucky way just made it clear that it would be a shame to leave it empty, and it might be the last time we’d be somewhere comfortable.

  It was a three-storey building, but it was the size of four of Charlotte’s house, probably twelve or more of my apartments. It was the kind of place that if you were on the top floor when dinner was called, it would be cold by the time you got to the kitchen.

  Once inside, and after we’d familiarised ourselves with the place, we took our turns to get refreshed and showered, changing into a different set of black hoodies or t-shirts and bottoms – comfortable clothing in a bland colour. Only Kaelyn kept the same outfit on – the leather triangular crop top and the figure-hugging leather bottoms. We’d had something to eat, and after dinner, Charlotte had made her parents go to bed. When I had tried to make Carmen sleep as well, she refused. We were in this together, she’d said. She wanted to be prepared for whatever was coming. I couldn’t have been more proud of her in that moment. I could see it in her hazelnut eyes that she was nervous, unsure, terrified even. But she was determined. She wasn’t going to rely on the rest of us to protect her.

  So, the four of us ended up practicing with the weapons we had taken. Kaelyn hadn’t joined us. She’d decided to stay back in the house, complaining of headaches. She’d had them since the reset. We figured it was due to the lost memories. I’d tried to fill in the gaps of what had happened as best as I could, but neither of us had the important information. How to use the mana-stones.

  The only thing I knew from what Kaelyn had told us earlier was that my stone most likely controlled time. She’d said the stones gave mastery over the Threads of Mana. Aspects of reality. She had a lesser stone that gave control over space. It was good information, but it still left me with questions. What were the aspects of reality that mana-stones controlled? How could I access the mana-stone’s power? And how would it allow me to control time, beyond what the reset did?

  Those were questions I pondered as we learnt to load, shoot, and reload in the massive back garden that was the size of two football pitches, beyond which lay treeless flat land. It was a good spot to see what was coming.

  We didn’t start shooting until after less than an hour remained until the start of the USP, and we were careful to only shoot as much as we had to, to understand how the guns worked. Not only because we didn’t want to attract attention to ourselves, but also because we needed to conserve ammo.

  All of us struggled at first, especially with the recoil. We learnt quickly that short bursts or single shots worked best for us, but even then, it was a struggle controlling the things, and even if we managed to control them, accuracy was another matter entirely. I tell you something though. It wasn’t half fun! I could see the appeal for our friends across the pond.

  Eventually, trained as much as we could be – which was that we could aim and fire and pray we hit something – with not much time remaining, the four of us had retreated to the conservatory that had been built next to the kitchen, with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out onto the garden, and a glass roof above which the stars twinkled.

  Two armchairs occupied the corners furthest from the garden doors, one in which Kaelyn rested with her eyes closed, and Carmen occupied the other, hands beneath her head as she slept, her hair partially covering her face. I was sat on the sofa between the two, and beyond the coffee table in front of me, standing by the garden doors was Kian, with his back to us, Charlotte by his side with her arms around him. He had been silent and stoic ever since we’d left his mum’s place. I could tell he was hurting.

  From what had happened today, we all knew what was coming. Death. And we’d all have to live with the knowledge that we were allowing others to be sacrificed. Carmen had called her parents for the first time in weeks, cried as she’d told them she loved them. Charlotte and her parents hadn’t had the chance to call her brother – the prison wasn’t allowing calls. Kian at least got to hug his mum and younger brother, even as he had tears in his eyes. We all expected to lose loved ones.

  Except me. Everyone I loved was in this room.

  I reached over to grab my cup of tea, and a biscuit. As we’d raided the kitchen earlier, we’d realised the house had been occupied. The cupboards and the fridge were fairly well stocked, but like the Brits that we were, all we really wanted was some tea and biscuits. There’s a certain comfort in those small familiarities.

  As I settled back, glancing at the woman I loved, and the best friends that would stick by my side, and the newfound friend who just wanted to get home, I knew that whatever was coming, we would face it together. And we would survive.

  Whatever it took.

  It was a few minutes later when the blue screen appeared.

  [Universal Survival Protocol Initialisation Complete]