Flap Flap
Shriek Shriek.
A silhouette of an eagle soaring in the sky, squawking and flapping its wings.
In their midst, a man stirred. His gray hair stuck in place as if frozen.
Vann slowly opened his eyes, squinting it due to the intense light radiating from the sun above. His eyes widened and his thoughts scattered.
With a puzzled and confused tone, Vann exclaimed:
"What…?"
His brow furrowed.
"Where am I?"
***
"You little punk!"
A grown man lashed out at Vann, kicking him against the boxes, dust scattering everywhere.
"You are just a mere slave yet you dare try to steal from me?!"
"I'm sorry… I'm sorry…"
Vann begged, sobbing as his body bruised from the impact.
"I promise I won't do it again… I was just so hungry…"
The man raised his voice, kicking Vann again.
"You think that reason is enough to satisfy my anger?!"
The beating went on and on until Vann was barely hanging on to consciousness. Each kick always seemed to loosen his grip to reality until Vann collapsed.
The man clicked his tongue.
"Do you even know how much it cost me to buy a young teenage boy like you? What a waste of money."
…
After a while, Vann regained consciousness, his breathing was ragged and he was in dire need of help.
He crawled his way up from the basement, leaving a bloody trail behind him until he could hear the conversation from just outside the door.
An older woman voice broke the silence:
"Him again? You didn't kill the boy, did you?"
She sounded like a wife nagging her husband.
"Since he's young, it would be a shame to not flip him for a profit."
The man let out a tired sigh, frustrated.
"I know, I know. That punk wouldn't die that easily. He's like a cockroach. Hopefully, I can find a potential buyer."
'Damn bastard…'
Despite this, Vann wasn't that surprised. After all, he had been passed around numerous times. According to them, it would be a "waste" to kill him off. After going through such situations many times, he had grown accustomed to the feeling.
The feeling of being abandoned.
Before Vann could reach the door, his consciousness suddenly faded again and he blacked out completely.
***
Flap Flap
Shirek Shirek.
"What…?"
Vann said dumbfoundedly, confused.
"What's this?"
Whoosh
Vann found himself looking at a forestry area, covered in thick untouched snow. Tall coniferous trees—spruce and pine—stand tall, covering the entire area, weighted down by a heavy frost and threatening to fall over Vann any second.
The cold biting—so intense that Vann could feel the shiver immediately. He instinctively brought his hand together, his leg shivering in the intense cold.
His ragged and torn clothes didn't help him one bit. It was barely any different from being butt naked in the cruel snow.
Vann was ,somehow, in the taiga region.
He was puzzled. He was confused, finding himself in such a peculiar and strange situation was certainly not what he had expected in his dying moments.
Vann looked down, assessing his body that seemed to have… healed.
The strange situation made it even more bizarre.
Vann began walking, his leg dragging against the friction of the seemingly endless thick snow. His body was met with intense frostbite, threatening to collapse at any moment now.
Vann needs to find something to keep his body warm—hopefully a shelter or warm set of clothes.
Being born in the slums and being forced to live his life as a slave, as unfortunate as it sounds, Vann needed to learn how to survive, even in the worst of the worst situations. He had to adapt. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to live this long.
After a while, he stumbled upon an old looking shack. It looked abandoned, walls were littered with holes, an entrance that seemed to have been torn off and a roof that threatened to collapse at a moment's notice.
Vann, with no other option to protect himself from the cold, entered the abandoned shack. The wood creaked with every step he made.
Vann's body was growing weaker and weaker by the second. A small bed laid inside the shack, along with a wooden table next to it and a chair to complement the table. The shack was small and cramped. But in such a situation, the more packed and cramped it is, the better.
Vann noticed a browned thick winter coat lying draping on the bed. Vann reached out for warmth, grasping the coat. It seems luxurious, being made out of thick fur with strange designs over it.
Without wasting any time, he threw the coat over his shoulder and stuck his hand inside the coat.
He felt the warmth instantly, lying lazily on the bed just before a strange sound interrupted him.
A translucent text had appeared in front of Vann. One that is floating.
[Lurker's Hide]
'What…?'
Vann became more confused as his eyes trailed down to the next set of lines.
Rank: [Ethereal]
Item's Description: [A memory of sorrow, of vengeance that walks on long dead limb. The forest watches you, and rarely, it remembers.]
'What are all these strange texts? A memory of sorrow and vengeance…?'
Attribute: [Cold Resistance, Silent Snow, Protection, ???, ???]
Cold Resistance: [A second clothes. Offer Some Resistance against the Cold.]
Silent Snow: [Advantage in the snow, leaving behind little to no footprint.]
Protection: [Invisible steel armor. This coat protects you from physical attack.]
Vann was a slave, a kid born in the slum. He has never seen or played any video games so he wasn't familiar with the strange text.
With a puzzled expression, Vann murmured out loud:
"Rank… Ethereal? Attributes? And what is with these question marks?"
After reading through the description and details of the coat, Vann's eyes widened in surprise.
'This… This is amazing. No wonder the cold seemed to have… just disappeared.'
Despite this, Vann was skeptical. Why was there such a coat here in this abandoned shack? Why was he suddenly here with all his wounds healed?
The more Vann tried searching for the answer, the more his brain hurt. Almost like something was stopping him from doing so.
Vann began inspecting the shack itself, from the marks on the wall to the messy item laying on the floor but nothing really rings a bell.
He found a not so suspicious bottle just laying in the corner of the room. To his surprise, when he picked it up, it was full. Full to the brimmed.
'Someone had lived here before… but what happened to them?'
He peeked outside, meeting with the endless blizzard of snow and the tall conifer trees, hindering his sight mostly useless.
Soon, Vann's stomach growled and his face frowned.
He was forced to go outside in search of something to satisfy his growing hunger. Thankfully, the hide provided him with enough protection against the cold.
Vann continued making his way through the thick snow, his energy was slowly withering away.
Then suddenly, he heard a crunch of a branch behind him.
Vann slowly turned his head around, expecting to see some wild animals or even a person, but what laid there was beyond what he could ever have imagined.