While my vision was blurring in and out and I was having trouble thinking, the itch of multiple notifications sprang up. Clearly, the system that gauged my vitals was warning me about my constantly dropping health points, as if I was unaware that I was seconds away from being strangled to death. With my thoughts turning more sluggish every second due to a lack of oxygen, I stopped attempting to tear apart forcefully the slippery tentacle wrapped around my neck with my bare hands and instead weakly reached for the knife clipped to my pants.
Due to my wildly flailing legs, my body suspended in the air began to swing back and forth, making my desperate grab for the knife attached to my belt slightly awkward. After several attempts, and with my entire head feeling as if it was floating in the clouds above, I managed to retrieve my knife from the sheath and, summoning the last of my flagging energy, I swung my blade above my head. Relieved, my heart slowed as the blade briefly met resistance before slicing through the tentacle like jelly, freeing me and dropping me to the floor in a gasping heap.
Groaning in pain from my rough landing on my side, I'm sure if I still had air in my lungs, they would have also been knocked out of me. My knife had also been knocked from my grip upon making contact with the floor, sliding a few feet from my curled-up form. A wet gurgling roar had continuously rung out above me after I sliced the tentacle tongue, mixing with my gasping grunts of pain, but at that moment, I didn't have the mental capacity to focus on anything else other than breathing. With heavy limbs, I desperately attacked the severed tentacle still wrapped around my neck and after unwrapping it like a scarf, I threw it across the floor while gasping for breath. The air at that moment felt sweeter than a sugar-coated chocolate bar, filling my parched lungs greedily. Feeling the sanity returning to my brain, I was hit with another wave of pain coming from my neck as I attempted to sit up. Gently touching my throat, I winced as the area felt like tenderized meat. "Shit on me." In a croaky voice, filled with a bout of coughing, that sounded as if I were a seventy year long smoker, I cursed my crappy luck.
Another wet gurgling roar ringing out from above stole my attention from my pain and back to the bastard who had me swinging from a fleshy noose. The bus headed zombie was still in sight, half leaning over the rail with its tongue dangling over the railing, writhing in the open air like a beheaded worm. The part I severed was liberally spraying a black oil-like substance around the area, with even some of it spraying on my pants. For some reason, the zombie, besides roaring in what I guessed was pain, appeared to be in a somewhat frozen or stunned state, with just the tentacle that came from its elongated mouth moving about. I knew that every second I lay there looking up at the zombie; I was rolling the dice on being subjected to another attack; however, at the same time, while every second passed, I felt the pain around my throat lessening and my body regaining strength.
Taking the chance while the zombie was in its stunned state, I summoned what I had now dubbed as my battle notification log with a mental thought.
[You have suffered a Physical attack from a Level 3 Snatcher Zombie – Damage –10]
[You have been ensnared by a Level 3 Snatcher Zombie – Damage –5]
[You have been ensnared by a Level 3 Snatcher Zombie – Damage –5]
[You have been ensnared by a Level 3 Snatcher Zombie – Damage –5]
As I mentally scrolled, I skipped several notifications repeating the same news about me being ensnared, stopping only when a different notification appeared.
[You have inflicted 25 (+50 Critical) damage upon Level 3 Snatcher Zombie. Due to a critical hit to a highly sensitive area, Snatcher Zombie has been inflicted with the Dazed debuff]
After reading the last notification, a small, somewhat evil smirk couldn't help appearing on my face. I lifted a trembling hand, cursed, "Serves you right, you ugly shithead," and stuck my middle finger up to the frozen Snatcher Zombie. With only a little swaying, and with the help of the banister at the start of the stairs, I got to my feet and scanned around for my knife. Seeing its black blood-soaked blade lying only a few feet from me, I took a couple of trembling steps towards it, half pushing off the banister to get myself moving. Just as I reached down to grab the knife, a gross, wet gurgling sound rang out from above me.
My head shot up like a flash, so quickly it had made my vision slightly spin, and after all the spinning doubles became singles again, I saw, to my rising horror, that the Snatcher Zombie had stopped groaning in pain and begun sucking its dangling appendage back up to its gaping maw. The sound, like one sucking through a straw at an empty glass, set my teeth on edge. Even though the tentacle was being reeled back at a snail's pace, the sight still made my heart race, as a part of me guessed that the moment it retrieved its elongated tongue was also the time it had completely left its Dazed state. Given my condition, I realized that my chances of defeating a Level 3 zombie at full strength were slim.
With a knife in hand, I stumbled towards the stairs, having to quickly grab the stair railing to steady myself, as my weak legs almost buckled under the pressure. Looking up at the two flights of stairs I needed to climb and the zombie that was still slowly retracting its tongue, I gritted my teeth and muttered, "I'm coming for you, bus head." A part of me knew that the smartest thing to do in that moment and especially considering my current fatigued and battered state, was to copy the cowardly Beetle and get the hell out of dodge, not race up several flights of stairs to fight and attack an entity above my level of strength. However, another larger part of me was overriding any real rationality as it screamed within me for revenge, blood-filled revenge.
With sweat gathering on my forehead, I began a shaky, heavily labored climb up the stairs. It was like an odd race, with me climbing the stairs one at a time, with my arms half dragging me up by the rail, while the dangling tentacle retracted up like a patient fisherman reeling in his line. With the corner of my eye focused on the tentacle, I pushed my battered and bruised body up the stairs as fast as I could.
My pain-filled body, hurting with every step, began to lessen with each passing second, and as a result, I was swiftly catching up despite having started the race late. Thanking the high heavens once again for such a useful talent as Troll Chieftain Blood, my shambling pace straightened out once I hit the second flight of stairs and with an agonizing push, I swiftly leapt up the remaining stairs outpacing the retracting leaky limb. Luckily, it appeared I had won the race, as the Snatcher Zombie still had a little over a foot of tongue still dangling over the railing, while the rest of its body was in a frozen state half leaning over the rail. I took a couple of slow steps towards the zombie and paused for only a moment, confirming the zombie was still in its weird, dazed state, and couldn't react to my presence, even though I felt as if its milky orbs were side-eyeing me. Without the reach of the metal bat and not wanting to call in any more zombies by using the loud handgun, I had no choice but to get within arm's length of the beast after several more small steps.
Although my inner tanks were running on fumes, a hate-filled strike at the zombie's head with my knife at full force was still possible. Originally, I planned to give it a quick death by driving my knife through the back of its mushy looking skull but once I was only a step away from the beast that had dangled me like some wanted pirate, a vengeful fury that had always lain dormant within me came surging to the surface and filled my vision red. Because of my burning rage, the attack wasn't elegant in any sense of the word, nor did it possess the skill of one trained in bladed combat. I just ruthlessly stabbed the black combat knife right into the side of the ugly bastard's temple, leveraging my tired body's almost dead weight into the strike. It turned out looking more like a tackle, with my body falling on top of the zombie, knocking it down with me alongside it and helping my blade to sink even deeper into the skull when its head bounced off the hard floor. It felt as if I were stabbing into a birthday cake. There was next to no resistance; even the hard skull bone felt brittle under the force of my strike.
The zombie let out a gurgling screech once my knife was inserted into the side of its head, and it began to struggle violently on the floor, its long arms striking out wildly. "Just die already!" I roared into its face from my position on top of its prone body and with a face full of pain, frustration and naked rage, I ripped my knife out the side of its head in a spray of gooey blood and began to plunge it repeatedly into the Snatcher zombie's face. Every time I ripped my knife out and plunged it back in, a spray of blood followed, dousing my already dirty jacket and jeans. I don't know how long I stabbed the zombie for or how many times, but the moment I heard my blade make a resounding clack noise when the tip had gone all the way through its head and into the stone floor under it, I finally paused. Wiping my bloodstained and sweating face, I looked down at what was left of the Snatcher Zombie's head with heavy breaths and blurry eyes. I don't know when it happened, but at some point in my flurry of strikes, I had begun to cry. The salty tears of built-up frustration and fear had spewed forth in an impotent rage.
This was a fury that had been building within me over the last couple of years, and it wasn't just because of the last couple of hours of violence and fear I had endured after finding myself dropped into the mental world of walking death. It was the bubbling forth of several repressed emotions I had buried deep within myself after my father disappeared and the feeling of hopelessness that engulfed me after my brother fell sick and my mother started drinking into the long reaches of the night to soak her own sorrows. If anything, the last couple of hours of single-focused thoughts on my survival were some of the freest moments I had felt in the last two years. A bleak thought but a fact nonetheless and something I was just coming to terms with as I knelt above the remnants of what was once a man, turned monster, now a pile of fleshy pulp on a rotting body.
Having once been the size of two heads stacked on top of each other, the head now looked like a pumpkin with its insides smashed into mash. If it weren't on top of what more or less resembled a standard human body, nobody would guess that the mashed pile was once a head. After wiping away some of the sludge-like blood that had touched my lips, I used the railing to my right to lift my exhausted body off the zombie's carcass and leaned against it, taking several deep breaths. Staring at the butchered carcass in a daze, I didn't quite understand what had come over me after striking the snatcher zombie the first time.
Thinking over my previous tantrum like actions caused me a heavy amount of worry, as I wasn't sure if it was just my pent-up frustrations and fear unleashing themselves or if it was something more dark, as I felt no real aversion to the blood and guts before me. The sound of several heavy thuds coming from the floor above me made me stop my current introspection and focus back on what was most important right now. Which was to loot the now headless zombie and get the hell out of the building. Maybe if I were quick enough, I could even catch up with the bastard who had left me to hang and express to him physically how unhappy I was over his actions. 'I think a certain bug needs squashing." A sinister, vengeful thought rose to my head at the thought of the fleeing, limping Beetle.
Wiping off as much of the sticky black blood coating my knife on my jacket as I could, I put it back into its sheath and with a not so light kick, I mentally commanded to loot the zombie corpse after hearing the emotionless voice ring in my head. The corpse didn't burst into a pile of ash like the other zombies had once looted, however, and instead appeared to disintegrate like motes of sand being carried by the wind starting from its smashed up head and down to its unshod feet. The sight carried a certain quiet beauty to it. For some reason, it had a calming effect on my racing mind; it was almost a cathartic experience. "From dust to dust. You ugly bastard." I muttered.
Once the corpse's entire body had turned to sand, I was finally able to see several objects appear in the pile as if summoned up from the earth or even created by the monster's very ashes. The first thing I pulled out of the pile was what looked exactly like a medieval money pouch, with a string tied around the top. It even made a clicking noise as if several metal pieces were banging against each other inside as I gave it a light shake. Untying the string and looking inside the pouch, I was confused to find not gold coins, as I had half expected, but what looked like a handful of purple-colored usbs. Retrieving one from the pouch and holding it up to the safety lights ringing the staircase, the following sight stole my breath away.
The usb shaped object was smooth to the touch and radiated a slight warmth against my skin, unlike the cold of a metal object. It was a perfect rectangle the size of a standard usb and looked as if it were almost transparent. Holding it up to the light allowed me to see what appeared to be a swirling galaxy frozen within the object. It was just like the pictures of our galaxy taken by space probes I had seen at school; an absolute collage of vibrant colours presented itself to me. "Beautiful." I breathed and, feeling the familiar itch, I mentally opened the notification corresponding to the object in my hand. A small panel of information hovered next to the object held within my hand, which read.
[Universal Chit – Currency used by all &%*@* governed worlds. Referred to simply as Chit by the majority of sentient inhabitants.]
"What in the holy hells? Worlds? Multiple?" I questioned the air in a hasty breath, not expecting and of course not getting a reply. The little information revealed about the object actually contained a hell of a lot of mind-boggling information already. I don't know why the name of the supposed entity that apparently governed these so-called worlds was garbled and unreadable, but the fact that it said multiple worlds, not just one, gave me a hint into its actual strength and scope. And the fact scared the shit out of me. My world was already well aware that we weren't the only intelligent life forms in the universe, considering we were currently in what felt like a never ending war with one, so the information that there appeared to be multiple worlds which were obviously filled with fairly technologically advance lifeforms, since they were using currency didn't worry me too much. What worried me was the fact that it appeared that there was some omniscient godlike figure that reigned over them and, in my current moment, myself too, and its purpose or wants were absolutely unknown to me.
Shaking my head to clear it of the cluttered thoughts once again, I knew pondering over all this bullshit at that moment was well over my pay grade and instead I should be focusing on more important things, like not getting swarmed by zombies while I wondered over the supposed power of entities so far above me I may as well be a speck of dust to them. Placing the so-called Chit back into the pouch with the rest and counting the total amount, I found the pouch contained twenty Chits. I wasn't sure if that was a lot or a little or even where the hell I was supposed to spend it in what was obviously a zombie-infested city; I still placed them securely in my backpack. Never throw away free money.
Reaching back into the pile of ash, I retrieved another odd-looking item that looked like a collectible card inside a hard plastic pocket. The card sparkled like a diamond, but flipping it over revealed the same blank sparkling surface on both sides, causing my brow to furrow. Staring at it for a few more seconds, I was rewarded with a description that turned my blood-spattered frown into a Grinch-like grin.
[Random Talent Card – Unique – No Req.]
Uses: 1/1
System note: A talent card can be used by any entity with a free Talent space to absorb one of the talents of a personally slain enemy.
"Haha! Talk about an ace up my sleeve!" Holding the card case above my head, I couldn't help but let out a bellowing laugh that echoed throughout the enclosed stair case. After placing the card case inside my pack as gently as if it were an egg that could break any moment, I then retrieved the last item within the pile of ash, which, compared to the other two, was so very mundane.
[Potato chips – Sweet chili and sour cream]
System note: A party packet size of chips, high in sodium. Enjoy.]
With a smirk at the description of the chips, I also put them in my bag, next to my squashed and broken cracker packets and bottles of water. After slinging my bag over both shoulders, and pushing my weary body off the railing I was leaning against, I took a couple of tentative steps towards the stairs down and found the previous vertigo-inducing feeling of exhaustion had at least temporarily left. With a sigh, I trudged down the stairs one at a time, but had to pause halfway down as the constant small itching sensation of unread notifications began to intensify at an almost painful pace. I originally wanted to get to a safer space before I started reading all my backed-up notifications, but it appeared the system wouldn't let me be. After only a couple of seconds, I started to feel as if there were an army of ants crawling all over my skin, making me shiver and shudder in response. As quickly as my sluggish brain could manage at that moment, I mentally commanded what felt like the itchiest notification to appear, and after reading what the notification was about, my previous frustrated and annoyed expression at having to stop was swept away.
[Congratulations, Lifeform.856 323 210 238 231 32 for elevating your essence. You are now a Level 1 Lifeform and have officially entered the ranks of the Greater Universe of $%&*@*. Due to your current Life Force: Tier 0 - your first essence level increase will be accompanied by an advancement of your Life Force Tier. This is an elevation of your very being, and your consciousness will enter a hibernation state to protect itself from the changes for an ordained period of time. Due to being under the protection of the Trial phase of new inhabitants to the Greater Universe of $%^&*@ you will be given a thirty-minute window to find somewhere safe before the metamorphosis begins. Time remaining 29:12 ]