The sounds of unseen life forms surrounded them—clicks and chirps and rustling that his brain couldn''t categorize. Each noise made Kyle flinch.
"Should''ve ran faster," Dex''s voice sliced through their noise. "Ain''t our fault he was too slow."
Kyle''s hand shot out, grabbing Dex by the collar. "You fucking serious right now? That''s JT you talking about. Eight years running together, and that''s all you got?"
Dex slapped Kyle''s hand away. "And what you gonna do about it? Huh? Go back there? That thing is probably using his bones as toothpicks by now."
Kyle''s fist clenched. For a moment. A line they''d crossed on many drunken nights and forgotten the next day.
"Something was stopping me," Kyle said finally, his voice hollow. "When I tried to go back. Like someone put a mountain on my shoulders."
Marcus nodded, his look distant. "Felt it too, man. Like my legs weren''t mine no more."
"That word in our heads," Kyle continued, anger giving way to confusion. "''Survive.'' Like a command. Like we didn''t have a choice."
Marcus''s gaze darted constantly. Never making eye contact. "Like some sick joke, right? Die in the streets just to end up in this green hell getting these fucking messages in our heads."
"Nah, it''s more than that." Dex''s words drew Kyle''s attention. "This shit''s weird. That feeling, that message..."
The flora shifted, making Kyle''s body tense involuntarily. Something moved through the high grass in front of him. A lump formed in his throat. When the presence passed without revealing itself, he released a breath.
"This ain''t like the streets," Kyle said, fingers digging into mud. Eyeballs simmering in their sockets, vision blurring at the edges. "Back home, I knew which blocks meant death. That word burning in my head, doesn''t tell us how."
"Survive," Marcus repeated. "But survive what? And for how long?"
A scream echoed through the jungle—cut Dex off. The sound hung in the humid air.
"That''s not JT," Marcus said, his voice strained. "Sounded like... I don''t know what that sounded like."
Through the thicket, Kyle found Dex already moving, already adapting. Kyle found himself following without conscious decision, feet moving automatically, body responding to the rhythm they''d established over years.
"Survive long enough to figure out what we surviving for." Dex said.
That word kept flashing in Kyle''s mind. Simple as pulling a trigger. Direct as a knife to the gut. They''d persisted by becoming what the concrete jungle demanded of them—hard, sharp, dangerous. What would this jungle require?
"The fuck?" Dex''s panic-edged voice drew Kyle''s attention. He watched as his friend''s fingers traced over his chest, searching for landmarks that weren''t there. "Yo, my scars. All of them, they just..."
When Kyle crested the small rise in the jungle floor, something caught his eye through the dense vegetation—a flash of deep azure that didn''t belong among the purplish-green flora. He paused, he said “Yo hold up” in a loud whisper. Calling Dex back with a hand gesture. Squinting through the filtered blue-violet light. The color was wrong—too vibrant, too solid among the shifting patterns of foliage. "Y''all see that?"
Marcus moved up beside him. "What you looking at?"
Kyle pointed toward the patch of blue partially obscured by what resembled ferns but with fronds that spiraled in hypnotic patterns, their edges trimmed with a yellow shimmer. "That ain''t no plant."
He approached cautiously, each step measured, shoulders tensed as he pushed aside a curtain of hanging vines that clinked softly like wind chimes when disturbed. The azure patch took form—an arm, unnaturally still, fingers curled into a half-fist as if grasping for something in death.
"Shit," Kyle hissed, dropping into a crouch and scanning the area for threats before inching closer. The dense undergrowth gave way to a small clearing where the full scene revealed itself, pulling a knot tight in his gut.
"Bodies," he muttered, the word sour on his tongue as he took in the tableau of death before him. Not one, but four figures sprawled in positions that told stories of their final moments—one face-down, arm outstretched toward a fallen companion, another slumped against the base of a tree with legs splayed at unnatural angles.
The bodies didn''t look more than a few days dead. Their skin was a deep azure. Kyle crouched down, his Jordan''s sinking slightly into the damp soil. The smell hit him immediately— familiar rot he''d encountered in abandoned buildings..
Marcus hung back. "The fuck were these? They ain''t people."
“They''re definitely aren’t human” Kyle found himself saying out loud. The statement probed his mind. where the fuck are we?
They had similar features but with blue skin, longer nails, and deep orange eyes that look larger. Their ears tapered to slight points at the top. They had long black hair in braids that spilled across the ground. But their faces looked more like his, except for the small horns that protruded from their foreheads.
Dex circled around the bodies to Kyle''s left, then dropped to one knee beside the largest corpse. His hands moved with no hesitation, already working through what remained of the corpses'' possessions.. His broad shoulders blocked Kyle''s view as he hunched over the body.
Kyle stood up ten feet away, staring at one of the corpses partially hidden by what resembled ferns but more purple than green. The body looked small—maybe 5''2"—lying on its back with one arm outstretched toward the denser part of the jungle.
"Doesn''t feel right," Kyle said, the words escaping before he could stop them. He took three steps forward,
Dex looked up, his face hard. "You want to be here with nothing but your fucking morals? Be my guest. Die again with your honor intact.
The words hit like a slap. Kyle flinched, but Dex wasn''t wrong.
No different than scavenging, Kyle told himself. No different than getting what you need to live another day.
Still, as he knelt beside the body, he whispered, "Lo siento." The apology his grandmother would have demanded.
He noticed, its frame was more slender, more curvy, and had small breasts visible beneath a woven garment. Two small horns protruded from its forehead curving upward, each tipped with a metallic ring that caught what little light filtered through the canopy. Its eyes, half-open, revealed irises the color of burnished copper. It clutched a pack in its blue fingers, knuckles still locked in a death grip.
"This one''s a woman," Kyle said, glancing back at Marcus who stood five feet away, bandana pulled up over his nose against the smell.
Kyle''s fingers, still stained with dirt and his own blood, worked to pry the pack from her grasp. Her skin felt cool and firm. The material felt warped against his skin—not leather, not cloth. Inside, something clinked against his knuckles, Three bottles.
As he pulled the pack away, he turned the woman''s head slightly with his left hand and notice looked at the wound around her neck. It was a clean slice, starting just below the left ear and continuing across her neck—one deliberate cut that had opened her jugular in a single motion. Another stain of dark red marked her abdomen.
He pulled out one of the vials and held it up. The light passed through the glass, clear as vodka but with something suspended inside— a sphere of reddish-purple substance that seemed to rotate in place within the liquid casting crimson shadows across his dark skin.
."Yo," he called, "Look at this shit."
Marcus walked over and leaned over his right shoulder. "I''ve never seen some shit like that before."
Kyle turned and shot him a look that said "no shit.".
"The fuck is it?" Dex asked, rising to his feet and moving closer, wiping his hands on his blue jeans as he approached.
How the fuck should I know? Kyle thought, but kept silent.
Kyle shook the bottle gently, rolling it between his palms. The sphere inside moved, but always returned to the center, like a magnet drawn to its opposite.
"You planning on drinking that?" Marcus asked, his voice tinged with disbelief, and a little humor. He took a half-step back, putting distance between himself and the strange liquid.
"Hell no." Kyle set the bottle down carefully on a flat rock near his knee. "We don''t know what it is."
Dex snorted, looming over both of them with hands on his hips. "Then what good is it?"
"Could be medicine. Could be a weapon." Kyle shrugged. "Could be fucking mouthwash. Point is, it''s something."
They collected the spears from the ground and skeletal hands, the stone tips jagged with string wrapped around some kind of sturdy wood with a dark brown tint like it had been painted. Kyle stood and tried balancing one, shifting it from hand to hand. He''d held a blade before, but this was different—heavier at the tip, unwieldy in his grip.
"How the fuck am I supposed to fight with this?" he muttered, making a clumsy jab that nearly caused him to lose his balance.
"Same way we learned everything else," Dex said, already adjusting his grip, already finding the center of balance. "By doing it."
Kyle crouched lower beside the blue-skinned corpse, balancing on the balls of his feet as he dug deeper into the pack. His fingers brushed against two more items nestled at the bottom, hidden beneath the vials.
The first felt like a piece of paper that had been laminated but somehow crunchy as well, crackling beneath his fingertips as he pulled it from the depths of the bag. He set it carefully on his knee.
Three feet away, Marcus stood watch, he glanced between the dense wall of vegetation to their left and the open clearing to their right, spear clutched tightly in his sweat-slicked hands.
The second item Kyle extracted was another container, not glass like the vials, but some kind of wooden vessel with a lid that needed to be clamped down. It fit in his palm, slightly warm against his skin despite the dead woman''s cold touch.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
"Anything useful?" Dex called from where he knelt beside another corpse ten paces away, his broad back turned to Kyle as he continued his own scavenging.
Kyle pried open the wooden container, his thumbs working against the resistance of whatever sealed it. The lid popped with a soft suction sound. Inside was an ointment with a consistency somewhere between petroleum jelly and honey, gleaming with an iridescent sheen in the filtered purple-blue light.
He brought it closer to his face. It smelled like some strange hybrid of fruit and flower—nothing he could name, sweet yet sharp. A small, disturbing part of him had an urge to taste it, the kind of intrusive thought that didn''t feel entirely his own.
Marcus abandoned his watch position and stepped closer, looming over Kyle''s shoulder. "What you got there?" he asked, leaning down for a better look, his hot breath hitting the side of Kyle''s neck.
Kyle tilted the container away from his friend''s face. "Some kind of cream or something." He closed the lid with a snap that echoed in the small clearing. "Smells like some kind of food or herb.”
He slipped the wooden container into his front pocket, where it created an uncomfortable bulge against his thigh.
Then he looked down at the paper-like material still balanced on his knee and carefully unfolded it. The material resisted, then yielded with that same crunchy texture between his thumb and forefinger. It expanded to the size of a dinner plate, revealing what appeared to be some kind of map.
Dex abandoned his position by the other corpse and crossed the clearing in four long strides, coming to stand opposite Marcus. The three of them formed a tight triangle over the unfolded map, their shadows merging on the forest floor.
Strange symbols and lines crisscrossed the map''s surface, with markings in a script Kyle had never seen before—angular yet flowing, like nothing from Earth. There were patches of blue that might represent water, and clustered shapes that could be settlements.
"Can you read that shit?" Dex asked, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, droplets falling onto the edge of the map.
Kyle angled his body to shield the paper from Dex''s sweat. "Does it look like I can read this?" he responded, turning the map sideways. Certain patterns seemed to suggest mountains, valleys, what might be rivers. But the writing remained impenetrable, like hieroglyphics without a Rosetta Stone.
The light shifted as clouds or some unseen aerial creature passed overhead, casting momentary shadows across the clearing. Kyle carefully folded the map along its original creases and tucked it into his back pocket.
As he shifted his weight to stand, Kyle noticed one of the corpses sprawled just two feet to his left had a small knife sheathed at its waist, partially hidden under a long garment. He reached over, stretching across the gap between them, and carefully extracted it from the leather-like sheath.
The blade was curved slightly, not metal but carved from what looked like bone or perhaps a massive fang. About six inches long, its edge gleamed wickedly in the strange light filtering through the canopy, catching purple highlights along its serrated back edge.
It was lighter than it looked but felt sturdy, with worn grooves that fit his fingers as if designed for a human hand despite its alien origin.
Dex grunted quietly from his position across the body, a hint of approval pulling at the corner of his mouth as he studied the knife
Before they could start arguing over the knife, a noise hit his ears suddenly—a crash amid the thicket, something big moving fast through the growth fifty feet to his right. Kyle''s blood pounded as the thing burst into view.
Part boar, part lizard, all abomination. Its hide was a mosaic of mottled green-gray scales with patches of coarse bristles. Its head, massive and crowned with two twisted.ram-like horns that curved alongside its skull before jutting outward in deadly points. Amber eyes with vertical slits locked onto Kyle. Yellowed fangs hung from its lower jaw, dripping with fluid that steamed where it hit the forest floor.
The abomination''s chest swelled as it sucked in air, releasing a grunt that Kyle felt rather than heard. Its clawed feet dug into the soft soil, powerful muscles bunching beneath its armored hide.
"Oh shit—" voice scraped past his lips.
Somewhere in his consciousness the word SURVIVE emerged once more.
The nightmare-made-flesh charged. One hundred pounds of muscle and scale, closing twenty feet in a heartbeat. Kyle''s right foot slid back, but his left heel caught on a gnarled root. His ankle rolled with a sickening pop. White-hot pain lanced up his leg as he crashed down, tailbone slamming into packed dirt hard enough to make his teeth clack together. Copper flooded his mouth—he''d bitten his tongue.
The spear tumbled from his sweaty grip, rolling just beyond reach of his fingertips. His lungs seized, refusing to draw breath as the monster bore down, close enough now that globules of its saliva spattered against Kyle''s cheek, burning like tiny cigarette tips.
Kyle''s left hand scrabbled blindly in the dirt, fingers closing around one of the glass bottles. No plan, just desperation. His shoulder screamed as he whipped his arm forward, muscles tearing from the torque.
The bottle spun end-over-end, sunlight catching the liquid inside. For one suspended moment, Kyle watched it rotate—beautiful, useless—before it exploded against the creature''s skull with a sound like crystal wind chimes.
Liquid sprayed across the monster''s face in a prismatic mist. The suspended sphere ruptured, releasing vapor that changed direction mid-air, defying physics to seek out the creature''s orifices. The mist poured into the thing''s nostrils, forced its way between jagged teeth, slithered into eye sockets.
The abomination''s charge faltered. Its front right leg buckled. Where the vapor touched, scales bubbled like plastic under a blowtorch, peeling away to reveal meat that smoked and blackened. The monster''s shriek bypassed Kyle''s ears entirely, vibrating directly against his skull bones until something warm trickled from his left nostril. Blood, bright and human against his dark skin.
"Holy fuckin'' shit," Marcus wheezed, ten feet back, his bandana now soaked through with sweat.
The entity staggered sideways, claws gouging furrows in soil as it fought to stay upright. Half its face had sloughed away, revealing pulsing musculature. One eye dangled by strands of sinew.
"FUCK!" Dex''s voice cut through Kyle''s stunned expression.
Dex charged in, spear extended. The point skidded along scales with a sound like nails on chalkboard, opening only a shallow gash across the entity''s flank before momentum carried Dex past his target.
The abomination whirled. Its tail—which Kyle hadn''t even registered until now—whipped around, catching Dex square in the chest. The impact lifted him clear off his feet. Kyle heard ribs snap before Dex slammed against a tree trunk five feet away. He crumpled to the ground, gasping like a landed fish, face twisted in agony.
"DEX!" Kyle''s fingers closed around his fallen spear, palm slick with sweat and blood from where thorns had sliced his hand earlier. He staggered upright, putting weight on his injured ankle. Pain detonated up his leg.
The nightmare charged Dex''s prone form. Marcus hurled a stone that struck the creature''s remaining eye with a wet thunk. The beast''s head snapped toward the new threat, strings of yellowish fluid trailing from its ruined socket.
Kyle stumbled forward, dragging his injured leg. The spear shook in his grip. His first thrust was pitiful—arms too straight, no power behind it. The tip barely dimpled scales before sliding off.
"Fucking stab it!" Dex screamed through bloodied teeth, crawling backward on elbows, leaving a crimson smear in the dirt.
Kyle shifted his stance, muscle memory from fights taking over. Left foot forward despite the pain, knees bent, elbows tucked. The spear settled in his grip, an extension rather than a foreign object.
His second thrust had intent behind it—but still glanced off armored hide, the impact numbing his hands to the wrist.
Marcus appeared at Kyle''s left, brandishing a rock the size of a grapefruit. "Together," he panted. "Like when we jumped Hector''s big ass cousin."
Kyle nodded. "Circle it. I''ll go right."
They split, approaching from opposite sides. Marcus hurled another stone that cracked against the monster''s jaw, forcing its attention away from Kyle''s approach.
The creature twisted toward Marcus, exposing its soft underbelly. Kyle saw his moment and lunged forward, driving the spear with every ounce of strength in his shoulders and back. The point struck where scales gave way to matted fur, meeting resistance that nearly tore the weapon from his grip.
Kyle roared, driving forward with his legs, ignoring the white-hot agony from his ankle. The spear punched through, sinking into the creature''s flesh with a wet, sucking sound. Something inside ruptured. Hot gore jetted out, splattering across Kyle''s face and neck. It burned like menthol mixed with acid, blistering the skin where it touched.
The monster bucked, nearly lifting Kyle off his feet as he clung to the embedded spear. Its bulk slammed into him, crushing him against a tree trunk. Something in Kyle''s chest gave way with a dull crack. His vision sparkled with black dots as air refused to enter his lungs.
Dex appeared, moving despite his broken ribs, his own spear finding the soft hollow of the creature''s throat. He drove it in with a bestial grunt, blood vessels bursting in his eyes from the effort.
The abomination reared up on hind legs, nearly eight feet tall now. Marcus, closest to its flank, drove his makeshift spear into the meat of its thigh, puncturing an artery. Orange-black blood fountained out, coating Marcus from chest to knees. He screamed as it splashed on his skin.
Kyle refused to let go of his spear, even as the creature''s death throes whipped him about like a rag doll. His shoulder dislocated with an audible pop, but adrenaline transformed the pain into distant information.
The monster crashed down. Its final exhalation gusted across his face—hot and fetid, carrying scents of scorched metal, rotting vegetation, and something alien that human language had no reference for.
In the sudden silence, Kyle could hear only ragged breathing—his own, Dex''s wet gasps, Marcus''s whimpering..
"We..." Kyle coughed burning his inners. spitting orange-tinted blood that seared his tongue, and lips. "We killed it."
No one answered. No one needed to.
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The creature''s massive corpse lay still, its orange blood seeping into soil that drank it without judgment. Kyle''s breath came in ragged pulls, the copper tang of exertion coating his tongue.
Then it began.
From the entity''s cooling flesh, pinpricks of white radiance bloomed like stars being born in the darkness of its hide. Kyle blinked, thinking his vision had fractured from adrenaline, but the lights remained—multiplying now, pushing through dead tissue, rising like souls abandoning a sinking vessel.
"The fuck is that?" His words emerged breathless, but neither Dex nor Marcus answered. Their eyes said more than words could have.
The motes increased in number and intensity until they resembled a constellation hovering above the corpse, above the blood-spattered ground, transforming gore into something almost beautiful, almost holy, almost worth the horror that had preceded it.
Then they moved.
Not randomly, but with purpose—like missles with designated targets. The swarm split into three uneven streams, each one arrowing toward one of them with Kyle having the largest. His muscles locked.
The motes struck him in the chest without collision—only a cold so fierce it gnawed at his center, spreading outward from his sternum to every extremity like burning frost racing across glass. Kyle''s jaw clenched against a scream as his dislocated shoulder wrenched back into its socket with a wet pop. The fractured ribs beneath his skin realigned, bone fragments scraping against each other as they fused. His ankle—twisted and swollen—straightened with a series of sickening cracks that left him biting through his lower lip.
Deep within his core, the motes dispersed, becoming part of his bloodstream, his breath, his being—changing him in ways he couldn''t comprehend, altering something fundamental, marking him as different from the man who had died on 58th Street.
Then came words—not spoken, not heard, not seen, but understood on a level that bypassed his ears and eyes entirely:
[Welcome to The Cosmore][The Cosmore has granted you a second chance at life]
[Level 0 Quest Complete: SURVIVE][New Quest’s Available] [Congratulations you are now Level 1] [New Skill acquired: Spear Mastery (Novice 2)]
[Location: Cuson Walf]
[Age of Location: 8656 years]
[Current Quest’s]
[Character Sheet]
[Subject: Kyle "Alvin" Williams] [Age: 24] [Level: 1] [Race: Human (Basic 1)(High-Conscious)]
[Classes]
[Affinities] [Affinity Rating: 38.4] [Core Type:] [Energy: 12/12 (Un-Attuned)]
[Stats:] [Will: 6] [Strength: 4] [Intelligence: 2] [Vitality: 1] [Agility: 4] [Dexterity: 2] [Resilience: 1] [Unbound Points: 8]
[Abilities]
[Skills] [Hand to Hand Combat (Novice 7)] [Spear Mastery: (Novice 2)]
[Spells]
[Items of Significance] [Unnamed Weapon- Spear Basic Non-enchanted No Description] [Unnamed weapon- Knife Basic Non-enchanted No Description [2 Vials of substance Enchanted No Description] [Doriana’s ointment (basic)] [Doriana’s Map]