The smell hit him first.
Rust, filth, and the gut-wrenching, coppery tang of old blood. It was a smell of finality, of things left to rot.
Alex's eyes cracked open. Iron bars, pitted and brown with rust, filled his vision. He was in a cage, barely large enough to curl into a ball. His head throbbed, a dull, pounding rhythm that matched the jeering laughter coming from outside.
"Look, boys! Fresh meat's awake!"
The voice was rough, like gravel grinding in a cement mixer. Alex pushed himself up, his muscles screaming in protest. His body was a map of fresh bruises. Through the bars, he saw them. A dozen or so figures, their faces caked with grime, their eyes holding a hungry, feral glint. They were gathered around a large, crackling fire, sharpening crude blades on a whetstone.
Cannibals.
The word slammed into his mind with the force of a physical blow.
"Hah! This one's a city boy. Soft," another one cackled, pointing a sharpened piece of rebar at him. "He'll be tender."
Dinner and a show. And I'm both, Alex thought, a wave of hysterical, black humor washing over the terror.
He was going to die here. Eaten. His life, with its student debt and dead-end job, seemed like a distant, beautiful paradise now.
It was in that moment of absolute despair, with nothing left to lose, that something new appeared in his mind.
Lines of glowing text, crisp and blue, bloomed in his vision.
[System Boot-up Complete. Administrator Alex authenticated.]
[Welcome to the Conceptual Integration System.]
Alex stared, his panic momentarily forgotten. A system? Now? A bit late, don't you think?
[Core Ability Detected: Analysis.]
[Would you like to Analyze your current environment?]
> YES / NO
It was insane. A hallucination. But it was also the only thing in this hellscape that wasn't actively trying to kill him. He focused his entire will, his entire desperate hope for survival, on the word.
YES.
Instantly, the world dissolved into a web of glowing blue lines. Text boxes popped up over everything his eyes landed on.
[Object: Rusted Iron Bar. Properties: Hardness (Degraded), Brittleness (Moderate), Rust (Active).]
[Object: Dirt Floor. Properties: Dryness, Granularity.]
[Being: Cannibal Raider. Properties: Hostility (Extreme), Strength (Low), Intelligence (Minimal), Hunger (Active).]
He saw it all. The world broken down into its fundamental concepts.
[New Ability Unlocked: Extraction.]
[You may now Extract a single, non-essential Concept from an analyzed target.]
He fell into thought, his mind racing, ignoring the cannibals who were now bringing a large, dirty pot of water to a boil over the fire. He looked at the cage door. It was held shut by a simple, heavy padlock.
[Object: Iron Padlock. Properties: Hardness (Moderate), Rust (Active), Lock Mechanism (Simple).]
The lock. It's rusted, but still too strong to break.
His gaze snapped to the bars of his own cage. Properties: Hardness (Degraded), Brittleness (Moderate), Rust (Active).
He could extract a concept. He focused on the bar in front of him, on the flaky, reddish-brown corrosion eating away at the metal.
Extract... extract 'Rust'.
[Attempting to Extract Concept: Rust...]
Success. [Concept: Rust (Active)] has been acquired.
[New Ability Unlocked: Integration.]
[You may now Integrate a stored Concept into a compatible target.]
His heart hammered against his ribs. He looked at the padlock. It was his only chance. He had to be subtle. He couldn't let them see what he was doing. He shuffled in the cage, pretending to be weak, and pressed his hand against the bars, his fingers inches from the lock.
Integrate 'Rust' into the padlock's internal mechanism.
[Attempting to Integrate Concept: Rust...]
A faint warmth spread from his palm. He watched, his breath held tight, as the grimy surface of the padlock seemed to darken. A fresh bloom of angry, red corrosion appeared around the keyhole. Inside, where he couldn't see, the simple pin-and-tumbler mechanism was being eaten away, its structural integrity turning to brittle, metallic dust.
Integration Complete. [Object: Iron Padlock] properties have been altered.
[Hardness (Degraded), Brittleness (Extreme), Lock Mechanism (Critical Failure).]
Just then, the leader of the gang, a hulking brute with a scarred face and a necklace of human finger bones, walked over to the cage. He was sharpening a long, wicked-looking butcher's knife.
"Time for dinner, meat," the man, who his friends called Scab, snarled. He kicked the cage door, expecting it to rattle.
Instead, with a quiet, pathetic groan of tortured metal, the rusted-out locking pin shattered.
The door swung open.
Alex stared at the open doorway. Scab stared at it, his jaw slack with disbelief. The laughter around the fire died.
For a single, frozen moment, there was only the sound of the crackling flames.
Then, Scab's eyes, filled with a sudden, murderous rage, locked onto Alex.
Of course. The story continues from the exact moment the cage door swings open.