David's mind wandered in his sleep, he saw memories of his past, dreams he had hoped for and the nightmares he had experienced since coming here. The voices would constantly talk, berating him, breaking his will and spirt, and when he final had enough he would wake once more. It was never a restful sleep, but this time was different, he had not experienced the nightmares, or the pain and stiffness. He woke up feeling refreshed, and happy, his stomach was no longer in pain, his mouth was not dry, and his body was not stiff from sleeping on the rocks.
The pain from his injuries was still present but the bandages and gel had helped greatly. As he rolled over, he forgot about his arm and an incredibly sharp pain shot through his body.
"Ahh, fuck!!"
The pain jolted him from his half asleep state instantly, and he quickly shot up from the sleep roll. David quickly looked at his broken arm, everything was still in place and holding. He knew that the splint and bandages were temporary, and he would need something more permanent to help his arm heal.
David grabbed the auto pistol and tucked it into his waist band; he didn't have belt or holster so this would be the best he could do. he hoped it would hold and that the sinew wouldn't get in his way when he worked. he removed the cover and folded it before setting it on top of the sleep roll. After disassembling the sleep roll, he placed it back into the survival kit.
'Its time to get to work. I need to go check up on all that cave glower meat. It should have attracted many creatures while I was asleep hopefully, I can kill them for XP.'
David made his way towards the bone barricade he had made, taking the medical supplies, pistol and knife with him. being careful to avoid the sharp spear like legs he quickly made his way around the barricade, heading further down the tunnel.
From a distance he could see dozens of infant cave glowers and other creatures feasting on the meat. David slowly set down the medical supplies and drew his knife. he slowly approached one of the cave glowers, it spotted him and started making hissing noises towards him. This drew the attention from all the other creatures. A massive white and red lizard, easily 4 feet long turned it's 6 eyed head towards David, before opening its toothy mouth into four sections. It let out what could only be described as a crackling sound before skittering away from the meat and up the wall towards a crack in the roof.
Hundreds of small worms, centipedes, beetles and other insects started to scatter. A pair of batlike creatures, each with 8 sets of wings and 4 legs, grabbed chunks of meat and took off down the tunnel.
The infant cave glowers started to scatter, but one of them started charging towards David.
This one was bigger than the others but nowhere near the size of the mother he had killed.
'Shit, I down want to waste ammo on this thing. I should have shot the lizard or one of the bats.'
David raised his broken arm into a sort of shielding position and moving the knife behind it waiting for the bold cave crawler to attack, hoping his arm would block the creature so he could stab it. The infant was not as smart as its mother it didn't have the experience or knowledge. It could feel instinctually the large being in front of it was deadly, but I wanted to attack, kill it, it had the scent of its mother on it, it must have been the one to kill its mother.
The infant leapt, hoping to use it smaller size and speed to gain an advantage but the being was tracking it. It quickly moved its limb with some sort of device or thing in front of itself. But the infant wasn't concerned, it would go for its exposed skin on the ground.
David saw where the infant was heading and what it was about to do but it was already to late, he felt the pain as the infant cave lowers four spear like legs pierced into his foot. Its mouth began biting and ripping. stabbing its limbs over and over again into his foot. David started kicking trying to remove the thing from his foot and leg. All this resulted in was the legs already in the skin ripping gashes into him. He stomped in the infant once... twice, but it wouldn't let go. The infant started making its way up Davids's leg, continuously stabbing, biting and ripping into his flesh. Once the infant had made its way up to Davids's knee, a blade came through its side. David with as much precision as he could manage removed the knife and stabbed again to the infant's face, hoping to kill it. The infant cave glower stopped moving its bioluminescent blood started flowing down Davids's leg. It's spear like legs still stuck in his leg. Painfully David pulled each of the four legs from his body. they had gone deep, and he was bleeding heavily, his foot and leg were a mess.
He quickly made his way back to the medical supplies. He had used all of the bandages for his burn, so all he had were some tape and med patches. He applied the med gel into the puncture holes and cuts, using the patches to cover the holes. He used the tape to try and seal the tears and cuts. He knew the tape would cause more injury to the wounds once he removed it, but it was all he had.
He closed his eyes again hoping to see a notification about killing the cave glower but no appeared only the notification about allocating the stat point. David quickly selected it hoping it would help him.
"Your states have increased, please allocate your one additional stat point." the same robotic voice stated.
The notification closed and a new tab opened. It showed all of Davids stats.
"Health: 32/100"
"Stamina: 70/100"
"Strength: 6"
"Endurance: 10"
"Food: 12/50"
"Water: 19/50"
"Fortitude: 15"
Each stat had a small learn more icon next to it but in David's mind they were pretty self-explanatory. He looked over the stats and found small plus signs next to Strength, Endurance, Fortitude and Mental. Judging by this there was no way he could just directly heal himself with his stat point. It seemed all he could do was change characteristics such as how long he could run or how much mental strain he could take.
Hoping that putting a point into Endurance would help his body keep pushing even though it was damaged and long been mistreated. David put the image in his mind of selecting the 'plus symbol' next to the endurance stat. The effect was immediate but underwhelming. His muscles felt like they had a nice stretch, and the pain seemed to lessen slightly. David looked back at his stats again noticing that his health had risen to 35/105 and his stamina rose to 80/115.
Having finished with all his notifications, David put the remaining tape and few med patches back into the medical kit. He knew he couldn't afford to have more injuries like this.
He chose to return to his camp and rest, if he waited a bit longer the bigger creatures might return. Limping his way back along the tunnel, the pain in his foot and leg hit David like a hammer every time he was forced to put his weight on it. He reached the bone spear barricade and headed for the makeshift tent. Upon reaching his tent he sat down and looked over his injuries.
His leg and foot were punctured in a dozen places with three major cuts and a bite wound. The tape was holding the wounds closed and the bleeding seemed to have stopped.
If the older infant could inflict these kinds of wounds on David, then he had to hurry before the other infants grew older and attacked him just as this one had. If he wanted to make progress, he would need to summon more equipment, which meant hunting down deadly creatures.
'Is it deadly creatures or just the mother cave glower? I killed that one that attacked me, but I got nothing from it. I need to learn what counts in the system and what doesn't.'
David closed his eyes and tried to find information, but nothing appeared, no red boxes, no notifications, not even a help or more info box. Giving up on that idea, David decided to rest, give his body some time to heal then head back to the meat and see if the lizard or bats had returned.
As David sat on the outside of the bone barricade eating his ration he noticed movement down the tunnel. The flicker of red was all he saw and it was gone.
'Was I imagining things? Was that a figment of my imagination? Shit what if those creatures saw me fight and followed me here to finish me off.'
David quickly got up, grabbed his pistol and limped down the tunnel. As David reached the rise in the tunnel looked around cautiously doing his best not to be ambushed but with his current condition it was more than easy to detect David from a distance.
45 feet from David hiding in a crack in the ceiling was a large centipede, its body was easily 4 feet long, with black and red armored plates. Its mandibles still had chunks of meat stuck to it as it watched David hoping that he would bleed out or die some way so it could eat him without much trouble.
The centipede's legs twitch with anticipation as David hobbled his way down the tunnel, a little bit further and it would be able to strike at his head.
David noticed the crack in the roof of the cave. He moved slowly as he brought the pistol up. He knew from the past few weeks that creatures loved to hide in the cracks in the rocks and wait in ambush. David took the exact-o knife lid and threw it at the crack. He had done this many times before. If the lid hit the rock it would make a hollow sound followed by it bouncing off the rock. But if a creature was in the crack there would be not hitting rock sound.
As David threw the lid he quickly reach for his pistol, anticipating in case of any creatures.
The lid made a hollow sound but it never fell, this told David all he needed to know. There was something up there waiting.
David slowly crouched with his pistol raised at the crack in the ceiling. His thumb flicked the safety to burst and readied himself. He tried his best to plant himself and set a stable form but it was hard. The wounds in his leg and foot screamed in protest. With difficulty David moved his broken arm to use as a stabilizer.
Steadying his breathing David slowly pulled the trigger, he could feel the resistance and waited an anticipation.
Three rounds fired in quick succession up into the ceiling. The recoil sent the barrel far from the target and David strained his muscles to reset his aim as quickly as possible.
A black and red centipede sprung from the ceiling headed straight for David. There was blood pouring from its exoskeleton.
David pulled the trigger again, but it didn't change anything. The centipede's mandible was shoot off but it was still able to latch onto David's arms and pistol. The centipede started to use its body to wrap around David and crush him. It legs ripped into his skin and clothes.
David pulled the trigger again. Chunks of exoskeleton burst and more blood poured from the creature.
David must have hit something important, the pressure around his body lessened and the centipede's movements slowed.
David pulled his good arm from the centipede and aimed at the centipede's head before pulling the trigger a final time.
The centipede crumpled to the ground its legs still twitching. David once again heard the chime and quickly closed his eyes.
"You have killed a Shleemlow centipede. You have been awarded 2XP and 1 summon slot."
'Fuck i needed more than that, I needed another stat point to try to upgrade my health.'
'I need medical supplies now, my body cant take much more.'
Steadying his thoughts David started searching his memories for something, anything he could summon for a measly 2XP, that could help him, could heal him, could save him.
'A med-pack! Why did it take me so long to think of something so simple. Used to stabilize combat injuries. Now all I need is to do is hope i can afford it or else I'm screwed'
Focusing his mind on the mental image of the med-pack he felt his energy draining.
Opening his eyes David saw before him his salvation, his hope of survival, a small bag with a tourniquet attached to the front. David worked on freeing himself from the centipede despite the pain, as he moved the sharp tips of some of its legs left shallow cuts in his skin.
David grabbed the bag and opened it, he knew with the amount of XP he had he wouldn't be able to summon a whole medical kit but a small emergency pack was more than enough for him.
David quickly got to work applying bandages, he places med gel into his new wounds and tried to cover the large exposed areas where the burnt skin had peeled from his body. He applied a numbing gel to his foot and leg to help with walking. He tried to pack as much gauze as possible into the puncture holes he had tried to close with tape.
The pain faded as the numbing gel did its work. David grabbed the pack, the exact-o knife lid and his pistol before making his way back towards his camp. His stomach started to growl as he spotted the bone barrier.
David reached the tent and set the med pack inside the survival bag then grabbed the partially eaten ration. He sat down outside the barrier with his ration and canteen before starting to eat a well earned meal. Finishing his meal David got up and went to dispose of the ration and refill his canteen with water runoff. He didn't want to risk heading back to the aquifer just yet, he wanted to give his body some time to heal.
Once finished with these small tasks he started to feel his leg again, the numbing gel was wearing off, much to David's displeasure. David made his way back to his tent, as he got there he felt off as if something wasn't right in his back. Reaching around he started to feel his back. Sticking out from the small of his back one of the centipede's legs had remained stuck in his skin. He removed it from his back, but he had no way of properly cleaning and covering the wound besides feeling around with his fingers and hoping he applied the med gel and patch in the right spot.
As David sat working on his wounds, he had time to think, he thought of how he missed his family, how he hadn't talked to them in months, if they even knew he was gone. He thought of his roommate and how Kile must be panicking over his disappearance, or worse how he had died and ended up here. He thought about how he hadn't talked to anyone in 27 days, or at least that's how long he thought he had been here. He reminisced on what he had done since coming here, all of the miracles he had experience to have survived this long. He asked himself 'Is this really so bad? I am doing things I never thought I'd do in my life, yeah, I am nearly dying every day but still I now have one hell of a story.
With these thoughts in mind David went to sleep, preparing himself for the days ahead, His journey had only started, but he had no idea how far he would end up going.