Tick Tock On The Clock [LITRPG Deckbuilding with Time Ticking down]

ACT I AFTERTHOUGHTS

"Open, you piece of junk!" Dorian growled, throwing his full weight against the emergency hatch. Beside him, the kids pushed with everything they had—Mara and Lian against the wall for extra leverage.

"Push, brother!" Mara cried breathlessly.

"I'm pushing, Mara! You try harder!" Lian shot back, his voice cracking under the strain, sweat streaming down his face.

With a final tortured groan, the hatch gave way. The heavy metal frame buckled under their combined effort, and a blast of cold, fresh air slammed into them—a shock after so many days of breathing nothing but recycled rot and decay.

Above them stretched open sky.

The first light of morning bled through the shattered canopy, pale and trembling like a dying heartbeat.

Mara stumbled out first, her hands flying to her mouth in disbelief. Lian collapsed to his knees in the dirt, staring up at the heavens as if afraid they might vanish if he blinked.

For a long, precious moment, they simply stood there, frozen, trembling, drinking in the impossible sight.

"We made it…" Mara whispered, her voice cracking with wonder.

"We're out... we're out…" Lian said hoarsely, disbelief and relief threading through his words.

And then the tears came.

Mara clutched Dorian's side, burying her tear-streaked face into his battered jacket. Lian dropped his forehead to the earth, his small shoulders shaking with silent sobs.

Dorian didn't speak. He dropped to one knee and pulled them both into a tight, grounding embrace, wrapping his arms around their fragile, trembling bodies. He held them there, letting them cry. Letting them feel.

Because they deserved this.

Because they had survived hell.

One of his hands remained on his shotgun even as he sheltered them, his sharp eyes sweeping the broken treeline like a wary, wounded wolf. The instincts never left.

When the children finally began to calm, he eased back slightly, smoothing Mara's hair, and giving Lian's shoulder a firm, reassuring squeeze.

"We're out," Dorian said, voice rough and low with emotion. "You did it. Both of you."

They looked up at him through red-rimmed eyes, faces raw but burning now with something that hadn't been there for so long—hope.

Dorian forced a crooked smile, ruffling Lian's hair once more before his gaze dropped grimly to the watch strapped to his wrist.

Thirty-two minutes.

There was still time… but unease gnawed at him, relentless as a splinter lodged beneath the skin. He unclipped his comms device. A hiss of static greeted him immediately, harsh in his ear.

"Elira, this is Dorian. Do you copy?" he barked into the mic.

Only silence answered.

A cold knot twisted deep in his stomach.

He switched channels. "Cassian? You reading me?"

Still nothing. Just static, like the whisper of an empty grave. Dorian's jaw clenched. His teeth ground together hard enough to hurt. His mind flashed back—to Elira's strange, hollow expression when they'd parted ways. The quiet softness in her voice when she'd spoken to the kids. Her words had been measured, heavy with finality.

She hadn't said, "See you at the exit."

She hadn't said, "Meet you outside."

She had said: "Take care of the children."

Nothing more.

Just "Take care of the children."

The realization struck him like a blow to the chest.

"That stubborn idiot," Dorian growled, bitterness lacing each syllable. His hand slammed the comms again, voice cracking as he shouted into the static. "Elira! Goddamn it, answer me! This isn't the time for pranks!"

Only silence—the kind that rang too loudly, that tasted like endings.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Fury and helplessness surged inside him, two beasts locked in a cage. His fingers trembled on the comms device, so close to hurling it into the nearest tree. Every instinct screamed at him to turn back, to storm into the ruins and drag her out by force if he had to.

But a small, trembling hand closed around his sleeve.

Mara.

Her eyes were red, her fingers cold. Lian stood just behind her, gripping the datapad to his chest like it might protect him from the world.

The kids.

They were depending on him. On him.

Their faces—frightened, raw, tear-streaked, but still glowing with something dangerously fragile—trust—stopped him dead.

He took a breath. Then another. Forced the storm back down, shoving the grief behind the mask of command he'd worn so many times before. He needed to be an old soldier one more time.

"Elira…" he whispered, his voice rough and low, a plea buried beneath his breath. "You better have a damn good plan."

He turned his back on the hatch—the grave they had left behind—and swept Mara into his arms. "Lian, stay close. We're moving."

The ruined forest swallowed them whole as Dorian pushed forward, boots crunching over charred debris and blackened leaves. Smoke curled through the trees like lingering ghosts. The world behind them was burning, and still, he moved—faster, farther, deeper into the wild.

Please be alive. Please... survive.

Lian stumbled more than once and when Lian lagged, he slowed. His grip on Mara never loosened. His eyes never left the path ahead.

His mind was a relentless drumbeat of fear and grief, of faces burned into memory and silences that said too much.

Finally, he found a hollow beneath the collapsed trunk of a massive tree—deep enough to shield them, thick enough to matter.

"Here," he barked, voice rough. "Under. Stay low."

The kids obeyed without hesitation, crawling into the makeshift shelter and clinging to each other in silence. Dorian crouched just outside the opening, shotgun laid across his knees, every sense trained on the blasted treeline behind them. He kept glancing down at the timer on his wrist.

Five minutes.

Three.

One.

He watched the cracked face of the watch as the final seconds bled away.

Five… four… three… two… one...

Dorian squeezed his eyes shut. Hot, silent tears streamed down his cheeks, cutting through the soot and grime.

Elira. Cassian.

Please—

Then came the light.

Blinding. Searing. Absolute.

It devoured the forest in a heartbeat, turning the world into a flood of white. Trees, leaves, air—everything vanished in that radiant tidal wave. Dorian threw himself over the children, pressing their trembling bodies deeper beneath the trunk. His arms wrapped around them in a protective cage, a human shield between them and the annihilation above.

The blast hit like the wrath of gods.

A towering mushroom cloud punched into the sky, swallowing the heavens. The shockwave rolled through the earth with apocalyptic force, flattening everything in its path. Trees cracked like bones. Soil lifted and twisted. Debris battered their shelter, the weight of destruction hammering overhead.

Dorian's body shuddered beneath the pressure, his bones vibrating, his grip tightening as he held the children through the maelstrom. But the storm outside wasn't what broke him.

It was the absence.

No Cassian.

No Elira.

Only silence.

Tears stung Dorian's eyes, the bright white of the blast fading into ash and ruin. He held the children tighter, shielding them as the sky wept soot and the earth stopped screaming. Mara clung to him like a lifeline, her tiny fingers knotted into his jacket. Lian huddled close, his face buried, hands trembling as they fisted into the fabric of Dorian's back.

Why am I the only one left?

Why them?

Why not me?

The questions tore through him, ripping past every wall, every lie he'd told himself to keep going. Their weight settled in his chest like stone, cracking something inside him that had been straining for too long.

How am I supposed to bear this?

How do I carry their deaths too?

How…?

He squeezed his eyes shut again, but it wasn't enough to block it out—the voice that echoed from memory, quiet and resolute.

"Take care of the children."

Elira's voice.

Not a goodbye.

A plea.

He clutched them both tighter, pressing his forehead to the bark of the fallen tree. Around them, the forest had gone still, as if holding its breath.

Please, Please survive. Please… be alive.

His breath shuddered out of him, broken, and he buried his face against the crook of his arm to hide it from the kids. Elira was gone. Cassian...

And then—another explosion.

But this time, the light wasn't white. It was crimson.

The blast slammed into them with the force of a god's wrath—hotter, heavier, sharper. The fallen trunk groaned under the pressure of the new shockwave. Dorian instinctively tightened his grip around the children, shielding them once again as the blast roared overhead, rattling the earth itself.

The entire world was dyed in blood-red light. The very air screamed as the second shockwave tore across the forest, flattening the landscape all over again.

When the wind finally died and the dust began to settle, Dorian lifted his head, heart hammering against his ribs.

Cassian.

The thought thundered through his skull, louder than the explosions, louder than the roaring silence left behind.

Was that Cassian?

Without a moment's hesitation, Dorian barked a hoarse order, pushing the kids deeper into the hollow. "Stay down. No matter what. Don't move unless I come back. Understand?"

Mara and Lian nodded wordlessly, their eyes wide and terrified. Mara clutched Lian's hand so tightly her knuckles turned white, but neither of them uttered a sound.

Dorian sprinted toward the blast site, boots hammering against scorched earth and shattered roots. His lungs burned with every breath of ash-thick air, but he didn't stop. Couldn't stop.

The trees thinned, broken, and stripped bare, until at last he stumbled into a clearing—and saw it.

The aftermath.

A hole. A wound gouged deep into the earth.

Where the center of the facility had once stood, there was now only an unfathomable chasm, a vast pit of darkness so deep that even the newborn light of morning couldn't reach its bottom. It was as if the world itself had been clawed open, leaving behind a jagged, black maw.

Dorian staggered forward until he stood at the very edge, boots teetering dangerously close to the abyss.

"No…" he breathed, the word falling from his lips like a prayer already too late.

There was no way down. No shattered structures to climb, no wreckage to navigate. Only emptiness. An endless, consuming void.

"CASSIAN!" he roared into the chasm, his voice raw and desperate, tearing from his throat like an animal's cry.

The sound echoed off the broken earth and disappeared into the hollow dark.

Nothing but the crushing, deafening silence.

Dorian stood frozen, fists clenched so tightly that blood welled between his knuckles, dripping unnoticed onto the cracked ground. His heart broke in slow, brutal increments, a cold grief wrapping its fingers around his soul.

And yet...

Somewhere deep inside, beyond the fear, beyond the despair—something refused to give in.

He's alive.

Cassian has to be alive. He always finds a way.

Dorian stared into the darkness a moment longer, the desperate hope burning inside him brighter than the crimson clouds overhead.

...