"Grrrk..."
A wet sound from the monster's throat broke the stalemate.
Its tentacles lashed the air, leaving a trail of slime on the carriage ceiling. The creature that used to be a middle-aged man no longer possessed a human face. His nose and ears had melted, fusing with the paling skin, leaving a mouth torn ear-to-ear as the only dominant feature.
Kavian didn't move. His heart hammered against his ribcage with a painful rhythm, but his legs were planted as still as stone.
He's blind, Kavian thought. His eyes dissected the enemy's anatomy in milliseconds. No eyeballs. Ear membranes covered by flesh. How does he track?
The monster's tentacles quivered. The tips twitched like insect antennae, then turned sharply toward the corpse of the first passenger whose blood was still warm and steaming. Heat.
Thermoreceptor. Heat sensor.
The monster crouched, preparing to launch its body toward Kavian who stood frozen near the door. Kavian was the only "heat source" standing upright in its path.
Behind Kavian, in the corner of the priority seats—now empty as passengers had fled to the end of the carriage—lay a red canister.
A Fire Extinguisher. Dry Chemical Powder.
In Kavian's logic, that wasn't a fire suppression tool. It was an improvised biological weapon.
As the monster's leg muscles tensed—telegraphing the attack a split second before the leap—Kavian moved. He dropped his body to the floor, rolling toward the priority seats.
Sretttt!
Three tentacles shot past where Kavian's head had been a second ago, piercing the steel carriage wall like a hot knife through butter. The sound of tearing metal was deafening.
Kavian grabbed the extinguisher canister. Heavy. Cold. His hands, slick with sweat, struggled to pull the safety pin.
Pull. Hard.
"Damn it!" he cursed inwardly. The pin was jammed.
The monster retracted its stuck tentacles. Its head whipped around. It realized its attack had missed. With an angry roar, it leaped toward Kavian who was still lying on the floor. The distance between them was less than three meters.
Kavian kicked the extinguisher's handle with the heel of his shoe as hard as he could. Click. The pin came loose.
Just as the monster hovered in the air with its mouth gaping open, ready to devour him, Kavian aimed the nozzle upward.
"Freeze," he hissed.
He squeezed the lever with everything he had.
WHOOOSHHHH!
A white cloud exploded, filling the narrow space. Chemical powder mixed with high-pressure propellant gas slammed directly into the monster's open "face".
The temperature difference occurred drastically. The inside of the monster's mouth, wet and sensitive, was instantly exposed to extreme cold. Its heat sensors went completely blind—like someone staring at the sun with the naked eye.
"GYAAAGHHH!!"
The monster screamed—not a human scream, but a high-frequency shriek that cracked the carriage windows into a thousand pieces. Its body was thrown backward, crashing into a handrail pole until it bent. It rolled on the floor, clawing at its own face which was covered in white powder.
Now.
Kavian didn't wait to see the results of his work. He knew the attack didn't kill, only distracted.
He scrambled up, his lungs tight from inhaling the chemical powder residue. His eyes stung, but he forced his legs to run toward the connecting door between carriages.
Around him, panic reached its peak. Other passengers, seeing the monster distracted, tried to run past it.
A young man in a hoodie shoved Kavian, trying to beat him to the door.
"Move, asshole!" the young man shouted, pushing Kavian aside.
Kavian staggered, his shoulder slamming into the wall.
But a second later, the blinded monster went berserk. Its tentacles lashed out blindly in all directions. One of the slashes hit the hoodie guy's leg.
Craaash.
The young man's leg was severed at the knee, clean as if sliced by a laser. He fell with his face hitting the floor, screaming for his mother. His blood sprayed, creating a new pool of heat on the carriage floor.
The monster immediately turned toward this new heat source.
Kavian watched the scene with a flat expression. His empathy seemed locked behind a thick wall called 'Survival Instinct'.
He became bait, Kavian thought coldly. Opportunity efficiency: Increased.
Without looking back, Kavian used the moment while the monster was busy tearing apart the young man to reach the door to Carriage 5.
The manual lever was pulled. The heavy sliding door opened. Kavian slipped inside, then slammed the door shut again. He turned the manual emergency lock to wedge it.
Bam! Bam!
Something slammed into the door from the other side. The metal door dented, bulging outward resembling the shape of a screaming face. But the door held.
Kavian took a step back, his breath heaving like a steam locomotive. He slumped down, sitting on the carriage connection that shook gently.
Ten seconds of silence. Only the sound of his breathing and his own heartbeat.
Then, a soft bell sound was heard inside his head. Much clearer than before.
[QUEST COMPLETED]
Mission: Survive (10 Minutes).
Status: Success.
Evaluation: Utilized environment and diversion of other victims.
Ruthlessness Calculation: High.
Reward:
1. System Access Rights [Unlocked]
2. +5 Sanity Points
3. Minor Physical Recovery
A warmth flowed through Kavian's body, erasing the pain in his shoulder and the scrapes on his hands. His lungs, previously tight, now felt relieved.
A dark blue transparent panel appeared in the air, right in front of his face. This time Kavian wasn't shocked. He accepted it as the new interface of his reality.
"Status," he whispered hoarsely.
The panel blinked, displaying rows of numbers that defined his existence now.
[STATUS WINDOW]
Name: Kavian Arsatya
Race: Human
Rank: 9 (Blind Seeker) - Early StageSanity: 88% (Stable)
Base Attributes:
Strength (STR): 4 (Average Adult Human: 5)
Agility (AGI): 5
Constitution (CON): 4
Intelligence (INT): 9 (Very High)
Willpower (WIL): 8 (High)
Unique Trait:[Logic Anchor] (Rank F): Converts fear into data. Prevents Sanity from dropping drastically when viewing low-level horrors, but reduces empathy proportionally.
Active Skills:(No skills learned yet)
Passive Skills:[Observer of The Deep]: You can see the names and ranks of creatures with a level equal to or lower than yours. (Side effect: Sometimes "they" see you too).
Kavian stared at his STR: 4 with a sour look.
"Weaker than the average human," he muttered cynically. "Obviously. Too much sitting in front of a screen."
However, his eyes were fixed on Intelligence (9) and the Trait: Logic Anchor. The explanation about reducing empathy made him pause for a moment. He remembered the young man in the hoodie whose leg was severed earlier. He didn't feel guilty. He just felt... it was a logical consequence.
Was it this system that made him cold, or was he already broken from the start?
Kavian was about to close his status window when he realized something. The sound of rain.
The rain outside the carriage began to be heard again. But the sound was wrong. Not the sound of dripping water, but the sound like thousands of soft objects falling onto the carriage roof.
Plop. Plop. Plok.
And then, the screams from Carriage 6 next door stopped completely.
Silence.
The door that had been battered by the monster was now quiet. In the gap beneath the door, thick red liquid began to seep into where Kavian was sitting.
Blood. But the amount was too much for one or two people. It was the blood of the entire carriage.
A System Notification appeared again, this time the writing was a faded purple.
[AREA ANNOUNCEMENT]
The first "Hunter" is satiated and has begun to evolve. 'Larva' rank increased to Rank 8: [Flesh Walker].
System Advice: Run.
Kavian cursed softly. He stood up, tightening his grip on his backpack straps. Carriage 5 in front of him was pitch black, but he had no choice.
The way home was gone. The only way now was to keep moving forward, away from the monster evolving behind him.
"Rank 8..." whispered Kavian, staring into the darkness ahead. "And I'm still trash Rank 9."
He stepped into the darkness of Carriage 5. His first step into a deeper madness.