《All Days Shall Be Numbered ; A LitRPG》


 A Moth-Dream ; A Predator

    It was interesting, how people reacted to seeing words floating before them; to the windows that had popped open into existence in front of every set of eyes on the planet.


    In that one moment, the world as they knew it had ended. Most of them would take too long to realize it and longer to accept it but--


    The Earth died that day.


    A lot of them laughed, not having any clue how else to respond. Others panicked, prayed, got angry, started shouting.


    Some of them read the message again and again; two times, three, trying to understand what this message meant and why it was here.


    People like that who never saw their death coming.


    --


    On the day the world died, Bayler Shrike dreamed of a forest. It was an ancient place, a gloomy and desolate wood so old the trees had sunk down into the earth and calcified, becoming standing, shaggy pillars of stone.


    Their gray trunks glittered, crusted over with blood-red crystals, the remains of minerals pressed out of the wood as it petrified over centuries. Overhead, their branches wove together into a ceiling of stone, plunging root-tangled earth into a subterranean darkness where glowing insects flitted through the air.


    At the center of the forest he found a hospital bed, a half-dead man, and a gray lady.


    The man lay in the bed like a corpse, a mummy wrapped in antiseptic-teal sheets. Its skin was a wax-colored leather, the face gaunt and hollow-cheeked, but the eyes were still wide, living eyes staring out from a death mask.


    Hovering above those eyes was a window of blue light.


    The lady was bizarre and beautiful. Shaggy, ash-colored fur covered parts of her body, and others were made of smooth, dark armor, like someone had made a woman out of an insect¡¯s parts, half-moth and half-spider.


    Her face was as rigid as a mask, mouthless, only crossed lines of faint pink where lips should be. Against the complete grey of her face that hint of color was shocking.


    ¡°Who¡­¡± Bayler stepped forward into the clearing, discovering his voice was dry and rasping, the sounds scraping at his throat. How long had it been since he spoke?


    ¡°My name is Enniac,¡± she replied, and reached down, her fingers passing into the man¡¯s chest with a ripple, like it was water, drawing out a tiny blue flame. It flickered in her palm, as if it was on the verge of going out.


    ¡°Are you death?¡± It seemed like the obvious thing to ask.


    ¡°No, Bayler Shrike, I¡¯m not a death, nor even one of their servants.¡±


    ¡°Are you safe?¡±


    She shook with laughter, an alien sound -- and that cross on her face split open, revealing a four-fold mouth that unhinged like a blossoming flower, each ¡®petal¡¯ ending in a hooked fang.


    He stepped back sharply, and his face must have been hilarious, because she laughed at him again, quieter this time, the mouth closing back to a barely visible seam in her unchanging mask of a face.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t say I was human. Come forward. Don¡¯t be shy. Tell me what you see.¡± Voice still trilling with giggles, she waved her free hand towards the bed.


    There was nothing in the world Bayler wanted to do less than take a single step towards the mummified half-corpse lying there. It seemed to physically repulse him, to make every instinct scream to turn and run, but with the courage of someone who knew he was dreaming, Bayler took one step after another towards the bed, staring down those unblinking eyes, until, with a nauseating lurch, he spotted a scar across the forehead he knew.


    -- it was him.


    The ¡®corpse¡¯ - the dead man with living eyes - was him. Withered away until he could hardly recognize himself, but undeniably, it was him.


    ¡°Listen carefully, because we don¡¯t have much time. You are barely alive, lingering on the edge of death for who knows how many years in a coma. And while you slept, your world has fallen into grave danger. Right now, the nurses that fed you and kept you living all these years are running for their lives, or already dead. You have only survived because your life fire is too weak for the hunters to detect-¡±


    As she spoke, Bayler Shrike thought of and discarded at least a dozen questions, all of them useless. Either this was a dream, and none of it mattered, or it was real and what mattered most was to listen carefully to every word.


    ¡°But if you can wake up, and you can touch the window above you, you will have a chance. In fact, you will have power beyond anything you can imagine. Wake up, Bayler Shrike.¡±If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    And she brought the flame up to her mouth, blowing on it, making it rise from a flickering blue spark into a long ribbon of brilliant fire. The world - the forest - shattered as she shoved it down into his chest.


    Wake up.


    He lifted up from the sheets with a gasp, and then crashed back down a second later, his whole body trembling from the effort of just sitting up. Everything ached. His skin creaked as he moved, dry as old leather. His strength was vanishing even as he breathed, a plastic pipe running over his tongue and down his throat, pumping stale, foul-tasting air into his lungs.


    And above him, a window floated in the air.


    So it was real. It was impossible, but that didn¡¯t seem to matter anymore.


    For the first time in three years, Bayler Shrike¡¯s heart raced. If this was real, he wasn¡¯t just a broken wreck of a human stuck in a hospital bed. She had promised him power. And all he needed to do was-


    His hand trembled and fell halfway to the announcement, the limb shriveled to a stick-figure of skin draped over jutting, angular bones. The muscle had simply evaporated as he lay in bed, doing nothing. He could barely even lift his own hand.


    With a growl, he reached up again, his fingers almost brushing the panel of light before they began to shake and refuse to move, slowly falling down again.


    He groaned in frustration, pushing himself back up against the headboard. The window moved with him, fixed in the air at the center of his gaze. Which meant-


    A manic grin appeared on Bayler Shrike¡¯s face, the face of a dead man. He might not be able to reach up and touch the screen. But he could let gravity do the work. He could fall into it.


    With a lurch, he threw himself with all his featherweight strength towards the edge of the bed, managing to roll himself a few degrees onto his side. And again. And again. The sheets spooled around his legs, making him look like a particularly distressed caterpillar halfway out of its cocoon.


    But inch by inch, he made it to the edge of the bed, maneuvering himself so that his hand hung over the gap, swinging down towards the floor. With a turn of his head, he made the window follow his gaze to meet his dangling fingertips.


    It burst apart into scattering motes of light, vanishing into the air. Another formed to take its place.


    Mortal. It didn¡¯t sound like much, but Bayler Shrike had no delusions of getting out of this bed on his own power. With a grimace, he swung his arm, brushing his fingertips through the window of light. It rippled like water and broke into motes again, but this time they didn¡¯t dissipate. Instead, the shards of light flew into a spiral around his arm, orienting themselves, a constellation of tiny stars.


    And then they plunged into his skin with a sensation like cold fire. His fingers curled.


    Strength was pouring back into his body, and it took everything not to scream as searing, frigid pain lanced through his veins, filling him up, moving through him. In agonizing detail, he felt it roll through his arm, spiderwebbing out. He saw burning designs, spirals and circles, blaze just underneath the skin.


    In the distance, somebody did scream, shockingly loud. There was a kind of pure, throat-breaking terror that was unmistakable; it was the sound of a human being about to become a lump of meat.


    It was cut short with a wet crunch.


    The light flickered, and his eyes suddenly focused on the doorway.


    A shadow blotted out the light coming from the gap in the door, and Bayler could feel the presence on the other side; the smell of blood, a soft and steady dripping; the stink of unwashed fur and a chillingly low jungle-cat growl behind the door.


    Every bit of concentration Bayler had was spent holding back the groan of agony trying to force its way from his own lips as the pain stretched on and on, becoming an eternity.


    Hunters. She had said there were hunters.


    The door bumped, and time, already slowed to a crawl, came to a halt entirely. It could have been a thousand years later when he finally felt sure enough the creature was gone to let out the breath he was holding.


    The pain had stopped, or rather, shrunk, the fire receding from filling his entire body to concentrating into a single design, a flowing pattern, on the inside of his right arm. As he watched, the last of the light faded and left the pattern seared into his flesh.


    He stretched his hand out, splaying his fingers and curling them back into a fist. It was suddenly easy. The fatigue and weakness had simply been burned out of him. If there wasn¡¯t a plastic breathing tube down his throat, he would have laughed.


    And there was not a chance he was staying in bed for a single second longer. The sheer joy of motion called to him, his limbs aching to be used after spending so long wasting away.


    Danger or no, he was getting out of this room.


    He peeled the tubes out of his wrists and his throat, coughing, laughing, losing his caution as the simple power to move his own hands overtook him.


    ¡°What are you?¡± He wondered aloud, staring at the flower-like symbol on his forearm. To his surprise, the design flowed and reformed, into a web of diamonds connected by lines. A web. Something anyone who¡¯d played a game would recognize as a talent tree, the first node already lit up, the three connected to it a waiting light grey.


    As soon as he focused on the unlocked node, words flowed into his head.


    || Will Made Flesh - Iron - The energy of Mortal Will fills your body, overwhelming all weaknesses with indomitable determination. So long as the mind persists, the flesh will too. Only vital organ damage can kill you, negating all lesser wounds and any non-magical conditions at Iron or less. ||


    Being half-dead apparently counted as a ¡®condition¡¯ and Bayler was in no mood to argue. The three grayed out nodes before the wall of black, locked options called to him. Everything so far was starting to feel bizzarely familiar to him, from the announcement windows to this.


    One unlock had given him back his life. As he focused on the three open to him, letting their descriptions flood into his head as phantom words, he grinned.


    ¡°That¡¯s what you are. A game.¡±

 The Chase ; Quarantine

    The first thing his talent tree had told him was that magic existed, and he could learn it.


    || Spellforged Body - Iron - 0% - Residual mana bolsters your vitality, allowing the mind to fuel the body. Each spell you cast or ability you fuel with Mana increases your regeneration by 12% for 5 minutes. Stacks up to five times. ||


    While what the ability implied excited him, he passed on actually taking it. It was interesting, but useless until he actually learned some magic - something he was immediately determined to do.


    || Grim Eyes - Bronze - 0% - Your brush with mortality has attuned you to the energy of life and death, allowing you to sense a foe¡¯s closeness to death.||


    The second ability seemed to be mainly for utility, and he felt comfortable ignoring it until his situation was less dire. If there was anything good to say about it, it was that it seemed to be a rank higher than the other options. The third though¡­


    || Desperation - Iron - 0% - Refuse death. No matter how tempting surrender becomes, refuse defeat. When your health falls below half gain an additional 12% strength for five minutes. ||


    Bayler had selected it without hesitation. If you thought about the highest level of competition, wins were often eked out by a hair, a fraction of a second, but that fraction of a second cost days and years of training to achieve. The difference between top athletes was well below ten percent.


    But with a thought, the other nodes blacking out as he spent his single point, Bayler felt that strength surge into his body. It felt like a burning needle was forcing its way into his heart, and from there splintering into thousands of tiny fires that raced down his individual nerves.


    The weird thing was, it wasn¡¯t ¡®painful¡¯ exactly. Pain made you stupid, confused your senses. This was the feeling of having his body cracked open and made stronger.


    Was it strange that it left a crooked, vicious smile on his face?


    ---


    A creature in a red hood wandered through the city, casting handfuls of jet black seeds into the cement sidewalks and asphalt roads. They were no larger than grains of rice, but where they landed they sizzled and smoked, eating their way through the stone-


    And as he walked on, the streets broke apart, heaving up as roots burst from below, black trees climbing into the air in moments. Where he walked, the city gave way and a midnight jungle ruled.


    In the air above, a runic circle floated, strange interlocking designs written in light providing a solid surface for seven dark-haired women to stand on. They all had the same face, the same delicate features, the same cruel smile.


    At the circle¡¯s heart was a scar of light, strobing through shades of red and purple as it vomited out endless black birds, each the size of dogs, flying down with claws outstretched; wherever they descended, screams rang out as another life was ended.


    In these first hours of the new world, people were panicked, hiding and running, letting the fear think for them. They were behaving like prey, and the hunters were here.


    ---


    Bayler Shrike entered the hallway clutching his IV stand like a spear, ready to bash and poke at whatever horrors awaited. He put his foot directly into a wet, pulpy smear of blood, and cursed in silence, primal revulsion nearly making him double over as he desperately tried to scrape the mess off.


    A body lay against the far wall, half-consumed. Bayler put effort into seeing as little of it as possible. The hallway was wide open, without cover, lit by stark hospital lights. It made the skin on the back of his neck prickle to be so exposed with a monster wandering around.The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    He couldn¡¯t pretend to have a clue what to do, or what he was up against, he could only be sure that he needed a better weapon than an ungainly, blunt metal pole, better clothes than a hospital gown, and to get away from whatever monster was prowling the hospital. All around him, doors had been battered down. Glancing through the wreckage, he saw blood on the sheets within, pooling under the bed.


    It seemed he really had been spared when the rest were culled. But there had to be someone alive out there.


    He reached the metal doors of the elevator and hammered the button, glad to see it still lit up. It almost felt like things would be that easy. And then the ding of the elevator arriving rang through the silent, still air.


    ¡°Fuck.¡±


    The creature came bursting around the hallway¡¯s corner in a blur of black fur-- a six legged panther, long, blade-tipped arms like a praying mantis¡¯ claws stretching from its shoulders and slashing the ground to give it traction as it turned. He could hear the plastic tile being torn apart, sliced through by those claws like hot butter.


    ¡°Fuck!¡±


    Abandoning the slowly opening elevator, Bayler threw open the stairwell doors and ran for it, shooting over the steps, leaping four or five at a time. A corpse in a hospital gown all but flying up the stairway, wild hair trailing behind him.


    And barely a second behind, already closing the distance, the unholy hellcat, tearing down the door with a crash that echoed up and down the turns of the concrete stairwell. It let loose a hideous, bloody growl as it came bounding after him.


    The moment he saw it move - a body made of pure, lithe muscle in lightning-fast motion - Bayler knew he couldn¡¯t outrun it. Even on the stairs, where the constant turns gave him an advantage, he was going to be run down.


    So it was time to do something stupid. Swinging up onto the edge of the balustrade railings, Bayler took a second to look down, regretted it, and jumped. He felt his arm nearly rip out of his socket as he caught hold of the railing on the floor below, his own full weight tearing through the muscles and bones. Letting out all his breath in a horrible, groaning exclamation, he hauled himself up.


    Above, the beast was considering. He¡¯d only opened a little distance, but he might slip away if it went the long route.


    ¡°Do it, you stupid cat.¡± Bayler grinned as he stared the cat down, watching it eye him, hoping it would make the dumb, dumb choice. With a sudden decisiveness, it grabbed hold of the railings with its paws, bending them down. Its hindlegs tensed.


    ¡°Do iiiit.¡± And the beast lunged for him. It was like a black bolt of lightning, and Bayler had no time to judge, only move on blind reflex as he stabbed out with the IV stand and struck home into its chest. The metal groaned, bent, his foot skidded against the cement flooring but he held on, and all that force went the other way too, pushing the giant cat back as its scythe-arm whipped out and barely missed Bayler¡¯s cheek.


    And then the momentum of the jump was gone, and the creature went tumbling down, down, down-- its enormous claws ripping at the railings in the minute before it fell out of sight. Bayler rushed forward in time to see it rebound off a lower level, flailing like a ragdoll.


    A smile spread across his face as he heard it crunch against the ground, red blood spilling out slowly from the mangled mess of black fur.


    ---


    Reaching the top of the stairs, Bayler pushed the door open and stepped out into the night. A stinging, cold rain battered against the hospital rooftop, coming pouring out of a night sky full of strange clouds, a swirling maelstrom colored the green of the sea before a storm.


    When he looked below, dark water covered half the streets, washing away cars as it swept between the buildings.


    The world as he¡¯d known it really was over. He leaned over, his hands on his knees, settling down on the edge of the rooftop. It was slowly sinking in that he¡¯d slept through the end of everything. The last years of the Earth had simply skipped over him. Bayler wasn¡¯t sure how to feel about that-- it was so big it left him vaguely numb, unable to comprehend just how afraid or sad he should be, in the wake of this much tragedy.


    Instead, he simply watched the skies. Shimmering lines of light were beginning to trace themselves through the darkness, dividing the hazy, spiralling clouds into a neat grid.


    As another window buzzed into existence in front of him and was swatted away, the light began to fall, cascading down in half-transparent veils. The world was being segmented up. As he watched, the lower edge crashed into the highest skyscrapers, and the buildings were split open, dust and debris roaring down as the the light cut right through.


    With growing horror, Bayler looked straight up and saw a thread of light descending towards him like a guillotine. He rushed back into the stairwell, leaping more than running down, but it was too late. Above, the ceiling rained dust as it was cut into. Slow but steady the light came raining down, the lower edge of a translucent barrier that rippled with dim, oily colors.


    Tenth floor. Ninth. The lower he could get, the less chance he¡¯d be buried alive. Eighth. His body was still corpse-like, but he moved like a sprinter, fueled by sheer adrenaline and will. The railings blurred beside him, dust clinging to his sweating face as chunks of cement began to waterfall down from above, clanking and bouncing down the shaft between stairs.


    Seventh. He had made it down to the seventh floor when the world lurched underfoot, and darkness came rushing down from above in an avalanche of crashing, echoing stone, hitting him with a force that drove the wind from his gut and the lights from his eyes.

 Burial ; Food Chain

    Plip. Plip.


    A faint dripping sound startled him awake.


    When Bayler Shrike woke up, he couldn¡¯t move. There was an immense, unyielding weight pressing down on his chest, and for a second fear took over. He was surrounded by absolute darkness and completely paralyzed. For a second, he was afraid he had never left the hospital, never been given a second chance and the strength to climb out of that miserable bed..


    More than anything, he was afraid the strength and the power he¡¯d felt were a dream, and he was waking up now, too weak to lift his own hand.


    He threw himself at the barrier holding him back, straining, using all the little ability he had to move, and it shifted. Barely, but barely was enough to wipe away that moment of frozen fear. It was only an obstacle, a dumb weight holding him down. He could do this.


    There was a grinding sound as stone shifted, and his gasping, huffing breath in between pushes as he slowly forced the slab of concrete off his chest and crawled free. Sweat had made him sticky and rock dust clung to every inch of his body, filling his lungs.


    There was no light.


    He felt his way through his surroundings blind, and came up with a grim conclusion-- he was trapped in a space maybe half a room wide and as shallow as a coffin, the ceiling fallen so low he couldn¡¯t get off his hands and knees.


    Plip. Plip.


    That sound again. When he¡¯d gotten a look at the city below, it had been flooding. If that water was slowly pouring in, was he doomed? Or was the oxygen flow here already sealed, and depleting with every breath, so that he¡¯d ¡®drown¡¯ on dry land first?


    He could sit here and worry or ask questions but neither would move him forward. From the moment that window appeared, the world¡¯s logic changed, replaced by a new set of rules he didn¡¯t understand.


    For all he knew, he couldn¡¯t drown anymore. Being trapped under the rubble for deathless ages wasn''t much better, but if it came to that he''d claw himself free, even if it took years.


    There were tricks to seeing in the dark, and Bayler Shrike knew them all from his time spent as an underwater welder. Floating in waters so cold you could barely feel your limbs, holding a torch that scattered rushes of steaming bubbles and shining drops of liquid flame -- working upside-down so the light-strewn surface of the sea became the ground, safe and secure, and the lightless, black abyss became the sky, going on forever.


    If you didn''t learn to tell a real silhouette in the dark from your imagination, you had maybe a week before you started to see leviathans in that abyss, reaching unimaginable coils up for you.You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    He ran his fingers along the scars on his arms, some as small as a pinprick and others penny-sized lumps of hardened tissue. The results of stray drops of flame stinging him as he worked. They were real, familiar, oddly comforting.


    And then the lights came on.


    The announcement cast a hazy light through the cavern as it blinked into existence, and Bayler barely bothered to let his eyes flit over the words. It was simple, pure bliss to be enveloped in light again, almost dulling the stomach-churning bite of the second, less-pleasant surprise.


    It wasn''t water.


    A thick, oily black goo dripped from a crack in the mass of rubble that formed the ceiling. Where it landed it didn''t spread into a puddle but stuck together, blobbing up, forming a shivering, wobbling mass of inky darkness.


    As he watched, fascinated, it started to split off parts of itself. They sculpted themselves into little balls as they broke away from the main body, going rolling through the room. They were almost cute, full of a springy energy as they bounced and wobbled about.


    One of them touched his hand.


    Instantly, every piece of the creature froze, and the main mass let out an ominous, quivering glorp noise.


    Without hesitating, Bayler grabbed a chunk of rock and swung it down. The blob splattered into chunks and droplets of gooey black phlegm, smearing across the floor as he hammered against the larger pieces, grinding them into the dirt beneath his improvised bludgeon.


    It didn¡¯t work.


    The split-off pieces rolled towards the dark pool he¡¯d smashed the main body into, feeding themselves back into their maker as he hammered away as many as he could. Bit by bit, the smeared-out stain began to shiver, drawing itself back in, rising up-


    He hit it again. A dozen times, more, he hit the damned thing, and every time it wobbled back into shape, indestructible.


    It couldn¡¯t defend itself in any real way. It wasn¡¯t particularly dangerous. It was just stubbornly refusing to be killed, no matter how furiously he smashed it down to a jellied pulp. The slime simply reformed, too stupid to die.


    And since he was trapped down here with it, that was all it had to do. Outlast him, even if took weeks or months, distract him from digging his way out, wait until he fell asleep or a cave-in immobilized him and then crawl over Bayler¡¯s face and suffocate the life out of him.


    It was a creature that hunted simply by outlasting its prey.


    Thud. Plip.


    With every blow, Bayler was getting angrier. There was a waiting wave of fear, grief, panic at his trapped situation, everything that had happened since that first same dream - he had held them all back behind a wall of numb determination, doing what it had taken to stay alive.


    Now, this stupid, weak slime was finally an obstacle he didn¡¯t know how to beat, couldn¡¯t break by force or outwit. Now, anger was cracking that wall, threatening to let out the flood of pent-up emotion if he couldn¡¯t make this damn thing die.


    ¡°You¡¯re not going to eat me. I refuse, damnit, I¡¯m not giving up before you do! I don¡¯t die here! You don¡¯t eat me!¡± His words echoed madly in the tiny, barely lit space, his face white as a ghost with clinging cement dust, his eyes staring madly out of withered sockets. And with a sudden, devious grin, he threw the stone away.


    He dug his fingers into the reforming blobs of jelly, grabbing fistfuls and shoving them into his mouth.  ¡°I eat you! You little bastard, I eat you!¡±

 Sam ; The Gu

    Samuel Wellstone stumbled through the flood clutching the spear he¡¯d made out of long-handled gardening shears, a crude plastic pole with a dull metal bit on the end. The water that washed through the streets was so cold he kept losing track of his feet as the tide grasped at his boots, turning each step into a slow drag against the currents, threatening to force a stumble and drench him in bone-cold water at any moment.


    The sky was gone. Huge, storm-cloud grey walls of light stood on all sides, rising up endlessly, cutting them off from the world. The barriers rippled with concentric rings of oily, dull colors. Birds made brief, sharp flashes as they flew into the new walls on their horizon, panicked, and were set alight by some kind of backlash.


    Every time Sam saw a burst of light against those walls, he winced, wondering if he was going to his own death.


    Ahead of him, a white rabbit walked on water. It was brilliant white, half-transparent, its see-through body shedding light through the hazy drizzle. A spirit animal. Sam had known to follow from the moment he saw it. It brought him out of his little den, armed with only a jacket too thin to keep the rain off his back and his makeshift spear.


    There were monsters out here. It wasn¡¯t safe. Sam knew that. He wasn¡¯t an idiot, although he felt like one as he waded on, chasing that damn rabbit.


    By his calculations, he had enough food to last for a week if he stayed inside, but after that, he¡¯d be out here anyway, trying to scavenge up scraps from supermarkets that better scavengers had stripped clean days ago. The best thing to do would be find others and make a group, watch each other¡¯s backs. All good in theory, but Sam¡¯s only friends were on the Internet, a world apart.


    By his own calculations, by the hours he¡¯d spent lying in bed unable to sleep as his mind raced and his imagination provided gruesome ways he could die-- well, Sam figured he was pretty much a goner.


    So how could he not follow the rabbit? Shining as it moved through the streets, the little creature was a ray of hope.


    When he spotted it through his window, he was just happy to see another living creature. To think that if a rabbit could survive this, so could a pudgy, hapless dork. Then it lifted its head just in time to meet him eye to eye. In that moment, like a voice had spoken into his head, Sam knew he was being asked to follow.


    Ahead, the city parked loomed. The trees were bending and swaying in the storm, the earth a soggy mire of wet, rotten leaves. The rabbit shot ahead, vanishing among the roots and trunks of ancient oaks.


    ¡°Hey, wait up!¡± He was so cold and soaked through to the bone that he could hardly feel his mouth as he shouted, his voice swallowed up by the wind. The storm was shaping the raindrops as they fell, rolling them into long, cold needles of water that stung against his face, glasses foggy and obscured by clinging droplets. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    Pausing under the canopy of a tree, he hurriedly pulled his glasses off and wiped them against his jacket, doing little more than spreading the water thinner.


    As he shoved them back onto his face, he realized he couldn¡¯t see the rabbit. The night was dark and lightless. Fumbling in his pocket, he drew out a pocket flashlight and shone it across the park. Nothing but rain glistening on leaves.


    ¡°No no no¡­¡± From the moment he¡¯d seen the spirit animal, a sense of hope had filled Sam¡¯s being. Now it was suddenly withdrawn, and he was cold and wet and terrified, going stumbling forward, in too deep to listen to the voice at the back of his head saying turn back.


    A mist coiled around his legs.


    As Sam roamed through the park, sweeping his flashlight beam over slimy black bark and abandoned benches, he was acutely aware that every second was eating away at the flashlight¡¯s battery, a second of light spent that he might not get back.


    But he couldn¡¯t bring himself to turn it off. ¡°Heeeere rabbit..!¡± He shouted above the wind. The longer he wandered, the higher the trees seemed to loom above him, their branches spiderwebbing across the sky.


    And then his flashlight landed on a face. It could¡¯ve been human if not for the bright horns jutting out from the forehead; other than that, it was the face of an old, old man, sagging with wrinkles piled atop wrinkles. He wore antiquated yellow robes, mysteriously dry even as the rain sloshed down around them, and held a jar in his hands. Mist spilled from the mouth.


    Sam, to his credit, didn¡¯t hesitate for even a second before stabbing out with his spear. The old man¡¯s stick-thin hand shot forward, catching the clumsy thrust and twisting the spear¡¯s plastic handle in an iron grasp until it cracked. That wrinkled face cracked open around a yellow smile.


    ¡°Food for my jar-¡± He pronounced, as Sam turned and ran. ¡°Food for the gu.¡±


    With every step Sam took, the trees seemed to loom higher above him. In just a few feet, it was undeniable. Sam was shrinking. As he ran, stumbling and screaming, his footsteps grew shorter and shorter, and before he could even accept that this was real, that he wouldn¡¯t just wake up, he was so small the grass of the park towered above him, pillars of green. The water came up to his chest, sweeping him back as he tried to fight his way away from the old imp and the jar.


    A pair of wrinkled fingers shot down and plucked him up. With a cruel, dusty little laugh, the imp dropped Sam into his jar.


    Sam screamed for all he was worth, his eyes closed, feeling himself plunge through the air and crash into cold, wet dirt. When he finally opened his eyes, he was among trees and green grass, no taller than they should be- and for a second he dared to hope that it was all an illusion, and he was back in the park.


    But when he looked up it was the imp¡¯s hideous grin, and not the moon, that loomed in the sky. He was trapped in a miniature world inside a jar.


    Sam stared about him. Emptiness, green life, a tiny jungle. He should have been looking down. Underfoot, the loose dirt began to shift, as below, slimy crawling things felt his footsteps on the earth. Felt the presence of prey above.


    Crawling monstrosities erupted up from the dark earth. Thousands of legs, and pincered mouths, and bright red heads atop black, shiny armored bodies.

 A Gift ; A Plan

    The slime was beyond disgusting. The flavor was a wretched mix of salt and fermented sweetness, but the texture was far worse. Rather than being smooth and clear like jello, the slime¡¯s body was full of stringy, viscous threads, a kind of crude muscle that allowed it to move. He had to rip through them with his teeth to bite the larger chunks down.


    But he didn¡¯t stop until it was gone, and he had won.


    Bayler felt his world swing round and round with a dizzying kind of nausea, trying to sort his thoughts. Ever since he woke up, there were only brief islands of sanity and calm in a sea of danger. Brief moments where something wasn¡¯t trying to kill him.


    And every time his life was in danger, he went a little farther to win. Leaping off the stairwell. Eating the slime. It was like when his life was on the line he went briefly insane, doing things that no normal human would even contemplate.


    Both times, it had kept him alive. ¡®Refuse death.¡¯ ¡®Indomitable determination.¡¯ He¡¯d written off the descriptions of his new abilities as fluff, but maybe that had been a mistake. Maybe there was a mental component to the powers he¡¯d accepted.


    Maybe this madness that had kept him alive at all costs was part of the gift this new world had given him.


    A new window floated in the air above him, offering another ''present'' from these strange announcements that treated life and death like a game.


    Glaring at the announcement, he swiped his hand through and thought ¡®no¡¯ with all the mental force he could muster. A feral growl echoed through the tiny chamber, and it was a second before Bayler even realized it had been him.


    These ¡®gifts¡¯ were changing him.


    The screen was shattered into shards of light that slowly drifted down, their light fading as they sank through the floor.


    He had barely let out a breath when a presence filled the room. It was the undeniable feeling of being watched, that strange, irritating tension, but there was nobody there. He could feel it so acutely it was like a breath on the back of his neck.


    The window reformed, the message shifting before his eyes.


    ¡°No.¡± He smashed it into pieces again, but this time the shards shot through the air, circling, aiming sharp geometric points at him. ¡°I said-¡±


    His protests didn¡¯t stop them from stabbing through his chest. The pain was worse this time, thousands of time worse. Where before it was needles, now it was fragments of glass forcing their way through his veins, as hot as coals. They spread outwards from his heart, moving further with each pulse as he fell to the floor, twitching, his limbs refusing to obey as the cold flame reached them.


    Phantom words echoed in his head.


    || Indulgence - Bronze - 0% - When you devour, you make the world less and yourself more. Let your appetites rage. When you consume a living monster, gain 10% of its mana. You may spend this mana to transform yourself into that creature. Only the last monster eaten is remembered.  ||


    Pushed past his limits by the pain, his body already in an exhausted, wounded state, Bayler slipped unconscious without even realizing it-- the pain following him into his dreams.


    When he opened his eyes, he wasn¡¯t alone anymore. He floated in a black void, an insignificant speck in a starless night.


    Before him, towering up like a mountain, a giant with a pig¡¯s head sat cross-legged. The giant was tremendously fat, with dozens of jeweled pendants hanging from around the rolls of his flabby neck, as big as mountain and made entirely of blubber. As for its head, the gigantic difference in size magnified every detail, from the cracks running down its yellow tusks to the hairs of the wet, snuffling snout. Only the eyes were even vaguely human, shot with bloodred veins the size of rivers.


    It opened its mouth, and spoke. A voice that made Bayler think of rotten, slithering meat boomed through the abyssal void. ¡°So, you tried to refuse my blessing, boy.¡±


    ¡°The last one I took turned me into a lunatic!¡± He shouted up, but his own voice was drowned out, barely even noticed as the pig-god continued to speak,


    ¡°A foolish thing to do, turning down power. Still, I like your spirit, so allow me to explain something.¡±


    That enormous head bent down, rotten stale breath sweeping over Bayler and tossing him back like a leaf billowing in the wind.


    ¡°You own nothing but your life.¡±


    ¡°It is your last possession. Everything else is dust now, gone now, so hold tight to your little life, do everything to protect it. Go mad if you have to. Take every scrap of power the gods offer you. Arm yourself with every weapon. Fight. Let no one take any more from you than has already been taken.¡±The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    ¡°Take my gift, and fight.¡±


    With that final word, Bayler was thrown backwards, flying away at tremendous speed. The enormous pig-headed giant shrank into the distance, becoming no bigger than a normal man, no more than a speck, gone--


    And then Bayler was alone again, back in the cramped little cavern of rubble beneath the hospital ruins, the taste of the slime clinging to his tongue.


    Not for the first time that day, he felt overwhelmed by the strangeness that had interrupted his life. Worse than being in constant danger, his world was constantly being shaken up, and he felt like a rat in a maze, being toyed with. It made his teeth grind. Giants and gods and fucking game announcements all playing with him.


    He needed to get out of here before he went crazy. Crazier.


    And as he examined his new skill, turning his arm over to examine the new words that had appeared on the flowering tattoo there, he had an idea of how.


    ¡°Indulgence.¡± He said aloud, to no effect. Frowning, Bayler paused, unsure of how to actually use the power that had been forced on him. Closing his eyes, he concentrated on the words, on the tattoo, trying to find some mental button or lever to make things happen.


    Eventually he found that when he focused on the words Indulgence, a kind of image formed in his mind. It was a bronze statue, depicting the pig-headed giant in meditation like some kind of absurd Buddha, and the more he repeated the words in his head the clearer it became. The image only grew sharper, more solid, as he layered in the memory of encountering the bloated giant in the void, the smell of its breath, the sound of its awful voice.


    The energy, the cold flame, that had invaded his body when he first ¡®accepting¡¯ the blessing began to stir, spreading outwards with his breath. With a sudden shiver his body shifted, becoming boneless, soft, his skin melting into a rush of slime.


    As the fire burned through every particle of his being, Bayler Shrike melted into a puddle of black goo.


    His eyes were gone, and almost all his other senses too, leaving him confined within his own body, a mind in a void. New sensations, alien ones, assaulted him, making him want to groan with confusion. Only he didn¡¯t have a mouth. Tragically, taste was the one sense that remained, and it had shifted to his skin, to the oily outer membrane that enclosed his body.


    Imagine your body was a single enormous tongue, dragging itself along the ground to move.


    Worse, for lack of other senses he experienced everything with an inhuman concentration, even able to taste a Bayler-shaped shadow of sweat where he had lain on the ground. As he experimented, he found he could throw himself forward by contracting and expanding the snotty strands of ¡®muscle¡¯ within his shapeless body, discovering another sense -- a kind of inwards looking touch, the ability to make his soft bulk reshape itself.


    Curious, he split a part of himself off, spitting it across the floor. The tiny blob shivered, and rolled itself into a ball, coming bouncing back to merge into him again.


    Frustrated, realizing he¡¯d be unable to control the little inkblots, Bayler tried again, this time thinking very hard about a command as he split the mini-slime off. ¡°Find light.¡±


    The blot, as he¡¯d chosen to call them, didn¡¯t come back this time. Without eyes, Bayler was unable to see where it had gone. The closest he had was a dim sense of light hitting his skin, radiating from the window that still floated in the air above where his ¡®face¡¯ would be.


    He waited, and waited--


    There was a sudden pang of emptiness, like how lungs started to burn when you held your breath. The cold flame that Bayler imagined must be Mana was beginning to ebb. With a horrified realization, Bayler realized he hadn¡¯t figured out how to turn himself back--


    Crack. Crunch.


    Forming bones hurt much worse than losing them. Forming skin, flesh, tissue, was a lot harder than forming a shapeless blob of gelatin. With a series of sickening pops and cracks his joints linked together, pushing out the soft bulk of his slime-body, shaping it roughly human as jellied flesh solidified into muscle.


    It happened automatically as he ran out of Mana to fuel his transformation, but that didn¡¯t mean it was easy. The moment he was fully formed except for his skin was the worst. And then it was over, and he lay on the ground, even his clothes - a thin hospital gown - returned to him.


    The inkblot was nowhere to be found. Had it been turned back into a disembodied finger, somewhere in the honeycomb of tiny gaps and cracks between the rubble, searching for a way out? Bayler quickly took count to make sure he still had everything.


    It was all there. Everything except his Mana, which had died to a tiny, barely-alive spark in his chest. He had barely noticed its presence until it was gone, but now the lack felt as panick-inducing as the need to breathe.


    If he was going to escape, he needed more. Enough that the transformation wouldn¡¯t give out halfway up, and leave him wedged into some terrible, claustrophobic position, trapped or worse, simply crushed into a space too small to hold him.


    He looked up at the announcement still floating in the air. Select a weapon.


    ¡°I need¡­¡± He started, and then paused, closing his eyes, ¡®speaking¡¯ silently in his head as he reached out. His fingers dipped through the screen of light like they were passing into water. ¡®I need a weapon that lures monsters in. Something to bring me prey. Something that casts light, if possible¡­¡¯


    And only because his life depended on it, he added a grudging, ¡®Thanks.¡¯


    His fingers made contact with cold iron. From the space within the announcement, he pulled a rusty iron lamp, with four glass walls enclosing a pale blue fire. Flickering blue light washed through the tiny space, filling it to the brim. The frame holding each glass pane was wrought into curling designs containing strange runes, and as he looked at them, Bayler felt the phantom words flood into his head, the same way they did with his tattoo.


    || Lamp of Treachery - Iron - Sings a song only monsters can hear, drawing them towards its light. With each life taken, another soul fuels the flame, giving this weapon the potential to climb the Great Chain, with a faint chance of evolving to higher rank.


    Souls Absorbed 0/1,000


    Speak the word ¡®Kesslith¡¯ to call forth a ray of flame. ||


    The fourth line of the announcement turned gray and faded out, but the second and third remained. Reaching in again, Bayler drew out a small box of dark wood engraved with dozens of runic marks, and thin steel chain bearing a round, bone-white medallion, a single character carved on each face.


    || Divine Paper - Black - Scatter this blessed paper to the wind to invoke the Powers That Were, rejecting the monstrous energies of the Underworld. Establishes a 10 meter radius that rejects monsters of up to Iron rank. Lasts for twenty four hours. ||


    || Talisman of Reversal - Black - Break this talisman to undo your last steps, reverting you through space to where you were ten seconds ago. ||


    Running his fingers over the runic patterns carved on each item, Bayler Shrike began to think. This. He could work with this. A man without tools was little more than a pink ape, but a man with tools¡­


    A human being with the right tools was an apex predator.

 Pike ; Third Time

    Plip. Plip.


    One by one, slimes dropped into the shallow cavern, lured by the lamp¡¯s dancing flame. The walls shimmered with flecks of brilliant white and blue like some strange crystalline grotto.


    And lurking in the shadows was a monster.


    No sooner did a slime manage to wriggle through the gaps in the stone than Bayler pounced, shifting shape as he lunged forward so his body dissolved into an onrushing wave of gelatinous weight. He would envelop them in a single move, crush them with his superior strength, and devour. The brainless creatures fell easily and quietly. They didn¡¯t have mouths to scream with. Conversely, their entire bodies were mouths to eat with.


    The mana flame in his chest, almost depleted, was soon overfull. The more he worked the more acute his sense of it grew. Every time he transformed, his exterior senses faded away, but the fire remained a constant, and his lack of distractions allowed him to focus everything on that.


    And it was much, much less disturbing to do it this way that eat them as a human, one by one.


    There was a mental effect too, he realized. When he transformed his thoughts slowed. His mind dulled. It was calming, meditative even. Bayler had never gone in for meditation but the simple, brutally efficient work of killing and devouring the slimes his lamp lured in was oddly soothing.


    The first kill had been panicked, a life or death struggle. By the tenth it felt normal to devour his enemies. Repetition brought skill and skill made it easier to slip into rhythm.


    For the seventh time, the crossbow jumped in August Pike¡¯s hands and one of the creatures barking and baying at the gates went down, dead. They were more or less dogs, if dogs had no flesh on their faces, everything past the neck peeled down to a gristle of bare red meat and long teeth. They snapped, they drooled, but they pretty much couldn¡¯t get over that fence.


    Which meant easy points towards the next ranking. Pike¡¯s crossbow was a thing of beauty, carved from sleek red wood with twisting veins emblazoned in gold across the stock. He felt it like an extension of his limbs, and the shots twisted to follow his will.


    One by one, his bolts punched holes in the skulls of the hounds.


    A pair of teenagers - kids really - were limping away from the gate, having just gotten through in time. The boy had the back of his calf torn open, limping against the girl¡¯s shoulder as they both flinched away from the snap of teeth and the hellish barks behind them.


    See, that was the difference between him and them. They only saw the danger of the situation, the misery of the pelting rain and the fear of the monsters lurking in the shallow rivers pouring down the streets.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    He saw opportunity. Of course, it helped he had guns, a warm place to sit as he fired them, and cans of sugary coffee to chug as the rain splattered down and his kill counted lifted. They had soaked-through clothes and a pocket knife.


    But that was life.


    A last shot kicked through the crossbow, answered a split second later by a hound going tumbling over with a bolt through its head. Pike drew back from his second story window and padded down the stairs to unlock the door for his runners.


    It was a good arrangement they had. He liked his warm, comfortable house, and they did too, so they had to go out in the rain and fetch for him.


    The girl was glaring at him as he opened the door, half of a granola bar wedged into his mouth. She shoved a plastic bag at him.


    Peering down like a kid on halloween examining the haul, Pike counted three dark green beads. Mana beads. The granola bar was gulped down in a hurry as he made way to place one on his tongue, the cold glass melting away, a fire pouring down his throat as he swallowed. It tasted like nothing and felt like swallowing razors.


    But the surge of strength that rushed through him was all but addictive.


    His head swum, his heart hammering, his fingers clutching tight to the bow. He ran his fingertips along the etched veins and felt like he could read them, like they spoke to him in a language he almost knew but had forgotten.


    By the time the high faded, he had been leaning against the doorway long enough for the rain to build a puddle underfoot. The hellhounds had retreated from the gates, leaving their dead behind. Slowly, flickering light consumed the bodies, burning them up from within. Ash dissipated on the wind of the storm. A few of them would leave mana beads behind.


    So he¡¯d send the kids out to gather them, and before long, the hounds would catch wind and come rushing back to his killing fields.


    It was an easy cycle. Lather, rinse, repeat.


    Behind him, the boy was crying and the girl - Lauri, that was her name, Lauri - was fussing over him, saying Pike¡¯s name, asking for help. With a sigh, Pike swung the door shut.


    Bayler climbed up through the rubble, fitting his body through gaps the size of pencils, shaping himself to ooze through each obstacle. Cement dust and fragments of rock pressed into his body, piercing through the oily outer membrane. Dragging himself up against gravity, he insinuated himself through miniscule cracks and dripped out the other side.


    All the while the flame inside him was shrinking, shrinking. It was impossible to tell what time it was, but he¡¯d measured the rate at which this form took up his mana, and by his best guess, it had been maybe five minutes.


    He could hold the transformation for just eight.


    It was six minutes in, when he splashed into a puddle, that he knew he was going to make it. Rain was pouring down, filling in the cracks with tiny waterfalls. He followed them up, going as fast he could, the cold rainwater refreshing, invigorating.


    With a final rush of speed he slid a pseudopod up into open air and hauled the rest of his body through, coming tumbling off a shelf of cement wall and down a rubble slope. By the time he hit the bottom he had shaped into a human again; a rail-thin, leather-skinned, dressed in a torn hospital gown, looking more corpse than man.


    Lifting his head, he stared up into the sky, feeling rain against his cheeks. A grimace of triumph spread across his face. That was three times now. Three times the world tried to kill him, and missed.

 Lauren ; Gone

    The hospital was gone. Lauren stumbled to a halt, her dark hair plastered over the freckles of her face by the rain, her breath coming out into the cold air in silver clouds of fog. The hospital was gone. What remained was a sagging heap of broken walls and bent metal, bleeding out muddy ribbons of debris as the rain dragged cement dust down from the ruins and into the rivers flowing through the streets.


    Her brother was going to die.


    A choked noise of panic hiccuped out of her. She had run all the way here, the skinless hounds chasing at her heels until she had broken through some invisible barrier that prevented them from going any further. She hadn¡¯t stopped running.


    The thought of her brother bleeding out as Pike - useless, half-mad Pike - tried to stitch him up had kept her going, burning reserves of desperate energy she didn¡¯t know she had as she slogged through the cold and rain.


    Something was wrong with the wound. Her brother - Cayden - was burning up, a fever twisting his body into spasms. He needed antivenom, anti-inflammatories, something. They¡¯d try medicines until one cured or killed him, if that was what it took.If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    But first she needed to find medicine. And the hospital was gone.


    So she didn¡¯t know what to do. Ever since the world went insane, she had clung to her brother, and he had clung to her. There¡¯d been no space for dispair between the two of them. To let hopelessness creep in would have meant letting him down.


    The rain felt very cold.


    As she watched, a black, shapeless blob pushed up from the hospital ruins. It slid down the slope of rubble, forming arms and legs as it tumbled, collapsing down into the shape of a man. Something like a man. Stick thin, with skin the color of old leather and wild hair sprawling down to its shoulders. The withering of its face made its eyes bulge out.


    Some kind of slime-ghoul. Another monstrosity. Lauren gripped the knife in her pocket very tight, but she didn¡¯t step back. Something between bravery and suicidal intent refused to let her leave. Even if she had to dig through the ruins until her nails were bloody, she wasn¡¯t going back.


    She wasn¡¯t going to sit by Cayden while he died and try to tell herself she gave it ¡®her best shot¡¯ when she¡¯d ran at the first sight of danger.


    Lauren stepped towards the ghoul, and it finally seemed to notice her, turning its head down from the sky.


    Then, to her surprise, it spoke.

 The Ghoul ; The Spider

    Bayler Shrike took a long moment to enjoy the rain on his face. It was motion and sensation after so long trapped in that dark, still grave beneath the rubble.  The fact he was only wearing a hospital robe, with nowhere to shelter and dry off, vaguely registered before he dismissed the concern. Little things like that didn¡¯t seem to touch him anymore.


    In a way, the Mortal blessing made him numb. It made fewer and fewer things worth worrying about. Either something killed him or it made him stronger.


    When he looked down, there was a girl staring at him. She was young, maybe sixteen, with a tiny joke of a knife in hand as she sidled towards him. If he was charitable, he could pretend her arms were only trembling because of the cold.


    ¡°I¡¯m not going to hurt you.¡± Bayler was surprised to see that she flinched back when he spoke, but then he remembered what he must look like. It didn¡¯t help that his voice sounded hollow and scraping, a ghoul¡¯s voice. ¡°I¡¯m not a monster, I¡¯m just having a hell of a day. By the looks of it, you¡¯re having a rough time yourself.¡±


    A hiccuping little laugh of relief, almost a sob, lifted her shoulders as it burst out of her mouth.¡°Medicine. I need- My brother is sick. A monster bit him.¡± The knife lowered with every word she spoke. Seemingly less because she¡¯d decided to trust him, and more because the thought of her brother dying left her too panicked to focus on anything else. ¡°I need you to get out of my way.¡±


    ¡°So that you can dig through the rubble with your bare hands?¡±


    She stared him down, unwilling to admit that was her plan, but daring him with glaring eyes to say she couldn¡¯t.


    So instead, Bayler offered a third way. ¡°Is there a vet nearby? They¡¯ll have the same drugs.¡±


    Her eyes went wide. It was night and day, ¡°Oh. Yes! Yes, there should be a few streets down, I can-¡±


    ¡°We.¡± Bayler corrected, clambering down from his perch atop the rubble.


    ¡°No. No, just because you¡¯re human doesn¡¯t mean I trust you. Why do you care, anyway?¡± The skepticism and fear came rushing back in to her face, furrowing the little bridge of skin between her eyebrows as her eyes fixed on him, a piercing blue gaze.


    He shrugged. ¡°You left your brother somewhere, right? A safehouse? I want in.¡± That was the reason, sure, but lying under it was the simple fact she was the first human he¡¯d seen today. The first human he¡¯d seen in three years. Some part of him was worried if he let her run off into the night alone she¡¯d be the last, too.


    Hefting his lantern, he added,¡°I¡¯ve got a light.¡±


    ¡°Fine. But stay far away from me.¡±


    Together they slogged downriver, bits of the hospital bobbing past as mist wreathed over the flowing water. Everything Bayler remembered of the city was washed away, or else had become rocks in the stream, the water frothing white as it rushed over fire hydrants and the bases of lampposts.


    The whole time, Bayler was waiting for something to come slinking out of the shadows. His lantern should have been drawing monsters out of the woodwork, but the streets were oddly quiet, leaving him unsettled.


    There was a strange sense that the city was askew, tilting over as it sank deeper and deeper into blue-green floods. The lights were out. It was a small thing to say, but in a city this size, the lights were never out; always there was a window lit in one of the skyscrapers rising into the horizon, or the reflections of the streetlights against the clouds above. Now, instead, the stars were crystal clear in an expansive, clear night sky.


    They found the veterinarian dark but not empty. As they opened the empty frame of the broken glass door, a chorus of barks and growls exploded out, cages rattling within.


    ¡°Oh god. They just left them here?¡± Lauren took a step forward and stopped abruptly, reeling back from the smell. Frightened animals left in their own filth for days produced a unique bouquet. One that made Bayler grab the walls for support to keep from doubling over.This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    ¡°Keys.¡± It was such a palpable odor that it actually burned his eyes. ¡°We need to find the keys.¡±


    Together they braved into the tiny space, covering their mouths and noses. Dogs threw themselves against the bars of their cages, howling, yipping, whining.


    ¡°Where are all the cats?¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t know? They all left. All of them, all at once. Nobody knows where. People were saying it was the end of the world.¡± For a brief second Lauren¡¯s voice was mocking, and then the lightness of her tone sank, getting a little quiet and a lot more bitter. ¡°I guess they were right.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve been asleep for a while.¡± He rustled through the cupboard underneath the main desk, finding nothing but papers and crumbled dogbiscuits.


    ¡°Well, you slept through the apocalypse, then.¡± She called, slipping through a door into the back room.


    A second later, he heard a gasp, a stumble, and then her voice again. ¡°I- I found the keys.¡±


    When he got there, she was plastered against the wall, doing everything not to get her shoes in the puddled gore spilling out from the corpse that lay, headless, against a row of filing cabinets. An impressive fan of blood was painted across the wall out from the severed stump of the neck, suggesting that the head had simply¡­ exploded.


    Grimacing, Bayler prodded the corpse, half expecting something to emerge. When nothing burst out he bent down and snatched the keys from the body¡¯s belt, tossing them to Lauren.


    Behind them, the dogs started to howl again, a full chorus barking out the sounds of panic, whimpering and shrieking.


    ¡°I¡¯m going to step outside.¡±


    Sure enough, there was the sense of being watched as soon as he stepped through the broken frame of the doorway. There was another presence in the night. He swung the lantern about, eyes sweeping the gloomy cityscape. ¡°You might as well come out!¡±


    ¡°Promise me you won¡¯t run.¡±


    The back of his neck prickled, and he looked up.


    A massive spider made of glass clung to the wall behind him. Its body was colorless and transparent, so that he could see right through its skin, down into its belly. Encased within was a woman in white robes, lying with her arms crossed, like Snow White in her coffin. Blonde hair spilled out around her beautiful face in a halo of gold. She looked like a saint at rest.


    ¡°Bayler Shrike.¡± He heard the voice inside his skull, speaking without words. It was like he was remembering her speaking, without it ever happening, the words simply appearing in mind. ¡°You are an interesting individual.¡±


    He snorted with laughter. It was just too much. This day was too strange. ¡°Well, you¡¯re the damn weirdest thing I¡¯ve ever seen.¡± The spiders glass mandibles glistened with a faint trace of green, a dripping venom, and its eyes were red as rubies.


    A dog shot out of the vets office, bounding away with its tail tucked between its legs. Inside, Lauren was throwing open cage after cage.


    ¡°Girl! Find the back exit!¡± He shouted, taking a good step back from the spider. She looked up, catching his eye, hearing the seriousness in his voice-- and then she went back to opening cages, throwing them open as quickly as she could. Bayler grimaced. She was too nice for this apocalypse.


    ¡°I will not hurt you.¡± The spider¡¯s voice was like the ringing of bells, charming and melodic. ¡°You must have questions. Strange times have taken hold of your world, and I am here to provide answers, guidance. I am here to see you grow into warriors.¡±


    ¡°Well, isn¡¯t that convenient.¡± Out of the corner of his eyes he was watching Lauren finish with the last of the cages, clutching her hand from where one of the dogs had bit it. She was headed for the medicine cabinet now, fumbling the keys, smearing blood across them.


    ¡°It is a small compensation for the trials the Powers will put you through. They have sent monsters to test you, and me to guide you. This is their fairness.¡± A sour note chimed among the musical, clipped tones; it seemed that even completely alien races understood sarcasm. ¡°As for me, I saw the same happen to my own world. I would like to help.¡±


    ¡°How generous. Be sure to tell them thanks.¡± His eyes met Lauren¡¯s for a split second as she shoveled pill bottles into her arms. She shot him a thumbs up, and moved for the back door. ¡°Look, I¡¯m not doubting you. I¡¯m just really needing some proof, right now, that you¡¯re as friendly as you say.¡±


    ¡°Then ask me a question, Bayler Shrike. Any one question.¡±


    It didn¡¯t even take him a split-second¡¯s indecision to know what he wanted to know. ¡°What happened? Why did everything go to hell?¡±


    ¡°When a mortal dies, their soul is carried to the afterlife. So also with worlds. When a planet like your Earth dies, its ruins fall into the Afterlife of Worlds, a vast and all-devouring sea we call the Abyss. And it drags its occupants, be they thousands or millions, with it.¡±


    "Even worlds must die. All days shall be numbered."

 Generosity ; Lantern

    Bayler Shrike had slept for three years, his eyes wide but seeing nothing. Deaf and mute. Three years lost in dreams of an ancient forest where the trees were made of stone. And in that time, the last days of the world ticked away.


    They say everything dies. Maybe it was more of a surprise the Earth had held on so long. "Say that''s true, and say I believe you. What happens now? The city keeps flooding, and someday we just sink into the sea, gone?"


    The translucent spider¡¯s mouth was constantly moving, its glass mandibles constantly rubbing together with a low, harmonic hum. By comparison, the saintly woman within the monster''s abdomen was as still as the grave, eyes closed in peaceful repose. Her voice existed only in his head.


    ¡°Things will not be so simple. You will not be left in peace to mourn your world. These walls do not exist to trap you, but to protect you. Countless other planets have fallen into the Abyss and been devoured by the sea. They leave behind nomads, drifters, who would take your land for their own given the chance.¡±


    Leaning back against the hood of an abandoned car, Bayler set his lantern down. Far enough from his hand to be a sign of trust, but not so far he couldn¡¯t reach it if that trust was misplaced. ¡°So right now, this is all to prepare us to fight. That¡¯s why you¡¯re here?¡±


    ¡°That is why the guides were sent here. As for why I chose to be one of those guides, those reasons are my own. Now, I must ask something of you.¡±


    ¡°So this isn¡¯t strings-free generosity.¡±


    ¡°The Powers require you complete their petty challenges before allowing me to teach you more. There are stones left behind when a monster perishes. Bring me three.¡±


    ¡°One more question.¡± Bayler pushed. Something told him that this limit might be more permissive than the spider let on - some part of him refused to believe this ¡®new friend¡¯ was being entirely honest.


    ¡°One.¡±


    ¡°Where can I find the person who took first place in the rankings?¡±


    Laughter filled his mind, soft and beautiful laughter. ¡°Bayler Shrike, if I knew that, would I settle for second? I can only say they have likely hidden themselves away, and will remain in hiding for some time. I have some idea what they may have received for their victory.¡±


    ¡°But.¡± Bayler noted, already seeing it coming.


    ¡°But you must pay the price for that knowledge. As I already have.¡±


    This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.


    He caught up with Lauren barely a block down the street. Instead of running away and not looking back, like any sane person, she¡¯d hunkered down in an alleyway, watching from behind a dumpster.


    ¡°What happened?¡± She asked, looking like she was surprised to see him again.


    ¡°You know, actually, they turned out friendly. First real lucky break I¡¯ve had.¡± Bayler paused, considering. Maybe that wasn¡¯t quite true. He resented being changed against his will, but the Blessings had kept him alive. If he had been given the choice, no matter the cost he wouldn¡¯t have chosen to stay in that hospital, too weak to move; there was very little he wouldn¡¯t have given to escape that fate. ¡°They were nice.¡± He amended.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t see anyone.¡± The look she was giving him now - skeptical, one eyebrow lifted, mouth scrunched down and off to the side - said he might be crazy.


    Bayler Shrike couldn¡¯t dispute that he probably was.


    They walked together without saying much, after that. The pale blue glow of his lantern wavered in reflections atop the floodwaters. The spider really must have cleared away most of the monsters surrounding her territory, because the haunting light didn¡¯t draw any attention until they had crossed several blocks, the city center slowly giving way to smaller and meaner buildings.


    In the shadows, things stirred. Lauren saw them almost as soon as Bayler did, tugging at his arm. The ¡®no getting close¡¯ rule had quietly been dropped. ¡°I see them,¡± he answered.


    Dogs with no skin on their faces, their muzzles stripped to red, bloody gristle. They sniffed the air with drool dripping from their bared teeth. They slid through the back alleys, through the shadows. One was on the rooftops, leaping from one low cement building to the next, a blur of shaggy black muscle. They came from all directions, slowly drawing a net closed around the two of them.


    ¡°Well, I think I¡¯m gonna jump them before they jump us. You wait for an opening and just start running. Don¡¯t stop and wait this time.¡± Sweeping his eyes over the closing ring, he identified the weak point - only two of the skinless hounds guarding a sidestreet. Two, he could take two.


    "If those things bite you, you''ll get sick." She had frozen up, every inch of her body language reading raw panic, her shoulders hunched as she clutched her armful of pill bottles. "Like my brother. You don''t need to do this."


    ¡°Don''t worry, I''m not one to die heroically. I''m going to be fine.¡± And he grinned, the leathery flesh of his dead-man¡¯s face creaking to make room for a crescent of gruesome yellow teeth. Three years without a good fight had left him itching, and as he watched the circle closing, as the dogs began to howl and snap their jaws, taunting, he thought-


    ¡®Nothing here I can¡¯t take.¡¯


    ¡°Kesslith!¡± A blue fire roared out from the lantern, engulfing one hound and turning its barks to screams as it tumbled over. Before the one beside it could react, Bayler was lunging forward, swinging the Lamp of Treachery in a wide, flaming arc that met the side of the hound¡¯s skull with a wet dense thud.


    Expecting it, Lauren started to run a second before the hounds did, darting past him as he turned to meet the incoming horde. Ten, maybe an even dozen. Claws and teeth. Something instinctive told him to run, that it was impossible to kill that many, that he was about to be torn to bloody raw meat while he was still alive. But he pushed that back down.


    ¡°Kesslith!¡± The surging rush of flames caught the first of the pack, sending it bowling over, its body tangling with the three behind it. He lunged forward, refusing to give them the space to encircle him.


    The world had changed, and so had the possible.

 The Door ; The Eye

    Three thousand years ago, there was a city that sank beneath the waves; three thousand years ago, before the seas swallowed it whole, the city had been beautiful.


    Now, the marble columns were shattered and stuck crookedly out of the seabed like broken teeth, crusted with dripping weeds and barnacles. The grand domes of once-beautiful temples were cracked open, the mosaics of their tiled floors shattered, the murals of their walls washed away by the briny sea. Only scuttling crabs lived here now.


    But today, the sea had been lifted back.


    A dome-shaped barrier had appeared over the ancient city, pushing the waters away. Fish flopped on the ground, suddenly drowning in air.


    At the center of the city there was a grand cathedral, a temple that had once been a wonder of the world. Now, its marble was tarnished to an ugly grey, its gold faded to green. Within the empty halls, the steady drip of water made everything gloomy.


    At the heart of the temple was a black iron door. It stood ten feet high, emblazoned with the symbols of the seven planets and the vast sun.


    Three figures stood in the door¡¯s shadow, here in a city that had been forgotten by the world.


    One of them was almost human, albeit with silver scales scattered in glittering constellations across her face, running down the sides of her neck, joined seamlessly with pale blue flesh. Gemstones of every shape and color orbited the top of her head, a miniature solar system of peridots, agates, sapphires. She leaned against a sheathed sword, sitting atop a ruined wall. ¡°I thought you could open any door.¡±


    ¡°This? This is an evil spirit. It just happens to be door-shaped.¡± Her companion knelt before the door, groaning and fussing over a diagram drawn in blood. Words in evil languages lined the outside of circles, complex fractal patterns diving inwards from triangular bases. His hands were beginning to shake from blood loss, drawing each new character by slicing open his palm and dipping a golden pen into the wound. A new cut for every word.


    The third man was quit unamused by his companions bickering, shaking his horned, eyeless head. He was a hulking creature, utterly inhuman except in the rough shape of having two arms, two legs. As they talked, he chased a crab across the floor, stomping after the tiny creature with his heavy boots.


    With a delighted laugh, the mage joined the last interlinked rune and carefully held his pen outside the circle to shake off clinging drops of his blood. ¡°Done, done! Let¡¯s see it hold up against this.¡±


    Scrambling to his feet and dusting off his robes, he held his hands aloft. The rings on his skinny fingers gleamed in the half-light as he wove complex patterns. One by one, the runes lifted up from the floor, beginning to rotate in the air.Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    ¡°By my blood-¡± Streams of bright crimson blood flew from his mutilated hand, wrapping around his pen as he hefted it like a spear.


    ¡°By my will-¡± Cascading yellow light spread up his arm, entering the bloodspear and causing it to shift from ruby to gold.


    ¡°By the fiery Dismat and the winds of Almat. Be broken!¡± The runes collapsed into the spear in the moment before he threw it, replicating themselves across its surface and making it more solid, more real. It flew from his hand with an explosive burst of force that sent billowing winds throughout the temple, forcing his companions to cover their faces as a miniature gale sprung up at the point of release.


    All that force and power slammed into the door and went right through it, vanishing into the black iron without a trace. Like a stone dropped into dark waters.


    ¡°What!¡± The words exploded off his lips in a spray of spittle, more outrage than actual question. His face had gone pale, his wounded hand trembling like a leaf as threads of red wound their way down his fingers. With a sudden gasp he fell down on his ass.


    And then the door began to shift. Ripples spread across the rusted surface, and a vast eye swelled out of the metal, blinking slowly open. A brilliant, starry light spilled from its pupil, the iris a galaxy-whirl of tiny pinprick stars arranged in a wheel around that glowing core. Colors that had never been seen on the face of the earth existed within that eye.


    Like he was a puppet on a string, the mage jerked up to his feet and began to walk. The horn-headed man almost stepped forward to stop him, but he found his companion¡¯s arm suddenly barring his way, the scaled woman only shaking her head. Too late.


    Their friend left a mad laugh echoing behind him as he dived towards the blinding light of the iris and vanished, passing through the metal without trace just as his spear had.


    The eye blinked shut and vanished.


    ¡°He could be alive¡­¡± The giant offered, in the silence and gloom that descended afterwards.


    ¡°He could be alive.¡± The woman repeated, tone grim. ¡°But he¡¯s not.¡±


    After a long, ugly pause, the giant spoke again. ¡°What I don¡¯t understand is why. If their magic was this strong, why seal it away? Why are we here chasing what someone else discarded like so much trash?¡±


    ¡°They were insane like that. Always were, probably still are.¡± The woman¡¯s mind was elsewhere, clearly, her eyes fixed on the rust-patterned doorway. ¡°We need another mage. A human one would be best. The door might only open for its makers.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s going to be a while before there are any human mages.¡±


    ¡°Yes. Which is why we¡¯ll need something to defend this place while we search.¡± Reaching into her sky blue robes, the woman drew out a tiny glass box, a blot of living shadow writhing within. The giant took a large step back.


    ¡°Crows, where the fuck did you get that.¡± His eyes were wide, his hand instinctively settling on the hilt of his sword.


    ¡°From our benefactor. We should go before it wakes up.¡± Lifting her foot, she stomped down, cracking the glass open. What remained was only a dark stain on the floor. A stain that began to slowly spread outwards.

 Life and Death ; Dismat and Almat

    The ray of flames shot out, lancing the hound in the lead and sending it tumbling over. Pitiful, high pitched shrieks and flailing limbs both served to slow the pack behind it. In that moment, Bayler Shrike had the advantage of reach and the enemy had no momentum. He waded forward with reckless, furious strikes.


    He brought his lantern swinging up into the underside of a hound¡¯s muzzle, feeling bones bend and break as the impact smashed the beast¡¯s lower jaw into the upper with enough force to crack teeth, the wave of force continuing up to throw the hound¡¯s brains against the inside of its skull. It was a concussive, lights-out hit.


    He swung a wide haymaker at the next hound to leap at him, the creature¡¯s entire body twisting around as its head was snapped to one side.


    He swung down, brutalizing another enemy. Cracking another skull. With every swing the world faded out into a blur of motion and violence. With every impact, blue flames leapt from his weapon and spread across the enemy¡¯s bodies. His rational self was left in the dust, barely able to follow the whirl of swings, the snap of teeth, the sound and the weighty, crashing sensations of fighting. Instinct filled the gaps, moving his body like a machine.


    Bayler had always had the talent. More than anyone he¡¯d ever known, he thrived under pressure, when the conscious mind loosened up and everything beneath took the reigns. Fighting felt cold and clear, even as the world around him turned into a blur of fangs.


    One dived at him over the fallen bodies, aiming to knock him down so the rest could swarm. It caught him by the arm he lifted to shield his face, teeth sinking down and chipping against his bones, but with a furious howl Bayler turned and twisted so that instead of bringing him to the ground, the momentum fed into a brutal throw that dashed the beast against the streets. A second later and he brought the lantern down overhand to finish the job.


    But it was a second he spent with his back turned to the horde. One slammed into his legs at the back of the knee, another leapt onto his back to rake claws across his shoulders and sink teeth into the back of his neck.


    Neither met anything but black slime.


    They tore him apart as they crashed into him, scattering his transformed body into the river flowing underfoot. He reformed downstream, water flowing off his back as he lurched up, grinning. Five of them were dead or down. In exchange, the meat on the back of his left arm had been stripped away, blood spilling over the bare bones. Nothing to worry about. Painful as hell, but useless against him. They would have to bleed him down to nothing before they stopped him. More troublesome was the fact the lantern¡¯s light was almost gone, spent with each incantation, each ray of flame.


    They rushed him. He brought the first one down with a wide hook. The second one was on him before he could even draw his arm back, going for his left leg. The third was an instant behind, leaping for his right arm, pincering him. He gave up the leg, intercepting the one to his right with a hard swing and a satisfying crack-


    - and then they dragged him down.


    His back splashed into the river as his leg was pulled out from under him, his head going under the water for a split second. In that moment, the world was drowned out, and he felt the shock of cold saltwater hit every wound on his body. Above, shaggy, foul-smelling bodies crushed against him, teeth sinking into his arms, his gut, his neck. He felt with agonizing clarity as fangs pierced into his windpipe, and dragged back, tearing his throat open with a meaty, gargled gasp.


    That¡¯s where he would have died, if he was anyone else. Instead he jabbed his thumb into the hound¡¯s eye. It let go with a howl and he headbutted its snout, grabbed hold of the raw gristle of its neck, threw it aside. With his right arm pinned down now, he couldn¡¯t do more than punch, push, lash out with his bare hand. They were eating him alive.


    Grabbing his own neck, he covered the gaping hole of torn, pink flesh and shouted -his voice craggy and broken- ¡°Kesslith!¡±


    Fire erupted without direction. The hound holding down his arm took the brunt of it, roasted instantly by the surging wave of blue flame, and then that fire rushed up Bayler¡¯s arm and caught hold of his chest.


    It was the worst pain he¡¯d ever felt. The fire sank through his skin, piercing down into the muscle, the fatty tissue, making them sizzle and burn. It was like every particle of his body was being torn apart individually. He roared and grabbed a hound with a flaming hand, seizing the panicked animal and not letting go until the fires had torn their way across its body and set light to its fur.


    His arm free, he swung the lamp around and caught a back leg as the survivors retreated. He swung again and again, pulping the beast as its remaining two brothers fled into the night.


    And then he threw himself down into the floodwaters, rolling, the cold river rushing over his burned skin and stinging worse than anything he could describe. Pain saturated him, filled up his capacity to feel at all. There was nothing that didn¡¯t hurt.If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    But his enemies wouldn¡¯t feel anything, anymore.


    Staggering up, his skin charred, his eyes blurry with pain, he swept his hands through the water seeking what the spider had asked for. The bodies were starting to dissolve. A light shone out from within them, hollowing them out, until they burned like paper; holes lined in orange embers spreading across their thin surface until there was nothing left but a drifting ash.


    He sifted through that soot until he found a hard, round object. A bead the size of a candy, the purple color of a bruise.


    Bayler Shrike slept in the loading bay of an abandoned post office, climbing atop a shipping palate to get out of the flood. It was a hard, uneven bed, and every time his skin scraped against the wood he winced, his charred-black flesh starting to crack and bleed.


    But he slept instantly, and soundly, exhaustion overwhelming him and sweeping him off in seconds.


    He opened his eyes to a familiar forest.


    The petrified pillars of the trees had started to crack open, releasing verdant green vines to tangle over the grey bark. A thick mist billowed between the roots, carrying with it a primordial scent of wet leaves, of decay, of new growth.


    Enniac, his Gray Lady, sat on a fallen log. Moths fluttered about her, luminous violet things. In the ancient dark of the forest it looked as if she wore a dress of illuminated wings.


    ¡°Bayler Shrike. How nice to see you alive.¡± She rose, her flock scattering, a beautiful explosion of fluttering light. ¡°Are you going to stay that way much longer, I wonder?¡±


    ¡°If I can help it. And maybe you can help me too.¡± Now that he had a closer look, Enniac seemed less and less human. A collar of white fur wreathed her neck, and the diaphanous gray dress she wore wasn¡¯t a dress at all, but layers of transparent gray wings curled around her body.


    ¡°Of course. I¡¯ve already sent you a friend, he should be arriving soon. But we have business to discuss.¡±


    She stepped forward. Her hand touched his arm, her fingers clad in a hard, smooth armor of insectoid chitin. An exoskeleton, giving her the flawless appearance of a porcelain doll.


    ¡°The divine tattoo, your Epitaph, marks your progress on the path of the Blessings. But there will come a time to cut your own path.¡± Taking his hand, she turned it over to show the flowering design printed on his forearm. ¡°On that day, remember you have a friend. That is the cost for my help.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s it?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s it.¡± And then she laughed. Bayler had enough warning not to flinch as her face split open, revealing tiny, hooked teeth within that fourfold jaw that expanded like a flower. ¡°Trusting me to help you forge your path is no small thing. It will involve a certain amount of putting your life in my hands.¡±


    ¡°When did your world die?¡± It had nothing to do with anything, but it was the question Bayler wanted to know. His thoughts were on Earth, on the coming war for its remains, on what would be left after the scavengers finished fighting over the scraps.


    ¡°Long before I was born. I¡¯ve only heard stories.¡± She shook her head. ¡°Not even the broken shards remain now. They¡¯ve fallen into the sea, and we remain as a drifting people, aboard countless ships.¡±


    ¡°Will they try to take the Earth from us?¡±


    A sigh, and she drew her hand back, turned away from him. ¡°There is not a civilization in the Underworld that does not look at Earth with greedy eyes. And it¡¯s not just Earth they want, but human slaves. For the same reason I chose you. You have no magic, no stains on your souls, you are pure in ways that rare within the Abyss.¡±


    Bayler paused, unsure what to say, reaching up to scratch his head. If her people were coming to Earth, she was betraying them by helping him. He wasn¡¯t dumb enough to think she was really doing this out of kindness and charity, but still, he was grateful. Having just one ally in a literal sea of enemies tends to leave you feeling that way.


    ¡°What¡¯s the next step, then? I need to get as strong as possible as fast as I can.¡± He said finally, just letting the moment slip by. ¡°You seem to have a plan.¡±


    ¡°I do, although it could be painful. You have discovered your Mana, yes?¡± Her tone was short and businesslike.


    ¡°Something like a fire inside me¡­¡±


    ¡°Dismat, the fiery power of life. Your perception is good, as I expected. The Blessings will slowly teach you to understand more, but we can take a more direct path-¡± She turned back to him, setting a hand on his chest. ¡°But when I said this could be painful...¡±


    ¡°You were underplaying it. It¡¯s going to be agony.¡±


    ¡°Worse than whatever you¡¯re imagining.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve been set on fire once today already.¡±


    ¡°And yet, it will be worse.¡±


    She whispered a word Bayler couldn¡¯t hear, and a wisp of heat traveled through her fingertips and down through his chest, towards his heart. He braced himself, shooting her a cocky grin-- and as the strand of energy pierced into the beating champers of his heart, it exploded outwards, filling every twist and bend of his veins in a single, all-encompassing moment of pain.


    He staggered forward and she caught him. His hands twitched helplessly, his eyes wide. Fire filled him and devoured him from the inside out. It burned hotter and hotter, until he could see his veins glowing through his skin, a thunderbolt-shaped river of fire spread throughout his hands, running down through his arms. He could feel his skin begin to sear down into nothing, begin to turn to ash.


    He was dying.


    ¡°When you awake, remember this feeling. This is the strength of your Mana, let free.¡± She whispered into his ear, as she laid him down among the mossy roots of the forests.


    He didn¡¯t know how he¡¯d ever forget.


    Bayler Shrike snapped awake, gasping. Sunlight trickled through the broken windows. He was alive, and only a little burned.


    But the fire of Mana remained in his chest, sleeping, waiting to be let free.

 Saint Fish ; Stronghold

    A fish swam above his head, maneuvering in circles with deft little flicks of its tail. It was a beautiful creature, with golden-orange scales and long, wavering tails of silver, frilled fans of delicate rainbow-threaded membranes fluttering to either side of its head. It floated through the air in a little bubble, one that extended to carry it and shrank away behind it. A little light shone from the translucent sphere.


    It was an oddly beautiful thing to wake up to. Especially at the end of the world.


    Reaching out, Bayler discovered it quite liked to be touched, to have its head stroked. It made a comical little open-mouth blub when he scratched the elegant crest of its head.


    Floating over him, it spat a silver ring, a pendant shaped like a fish, and a small black cube onto his chest, then returned to swimming circles.


    Bayler picked up the cube and was surprised to find it hot in his hand. One side flashed white, and out extended a cone of light, half-transparent images of Enniac appearing in the beam. A hologram. He had to surprise a grin. Was he her only hope?


    ¡°Hello, Bayler, if this has reached you, you¡¯ve exceeded all my expectations by not dying.¡± Instantly the smile soured.


    ¡°This is a memory crystal, a useful little thing. You¡¯ll figure out how it works on your own. I¡¯ve encoded into it answers for every kind of question that might be useful. The pendant is my way of finding you, if you survive until the end of Quarantine. Wear it always and it may save your life.¡±


    ¡°Next, the ring. Wear it and you will be able to see how much Mana remains in you. An essential treasure.¡± Turning the ring over in his fingers, Bayler saw the outside was marked with little black notches while the inside¡­


    The inside of the ring held a tiny, thin needle meant to slip into the arterial vein running down the inside of his ring finger. Pleasant. Even the gifts were bloodthirsty here.


    ¡°The final gift is the fish itself. I can¡¯t promise you it will be willing to bond with you, but if it does, it will be your companion until death. It is called a Spacial-Saint Fish, Messenger-Class. These are sacred creatures, Bayler. They are the only creatures who can leave the Abyss if they so choose, slipping away by unknown currents, but they stay with us, watching over us.


    ¡°Not even a Power would dare to harm one. They alone are immortal. For the rest of us, all days shall be numbered.¡± That line again, repeated like something between a prayer and a farewell. The image flickered and went out.


    Alone in the dark together, Bayler watched the fish swim. It went nowhere but in circles. There was something ethereal, otherworldly about it. It made him feel carefree to watch it move.


    Reaching up, Bayler covered the hole in his neck and spoke, in a rasping awful voice, blood spilling between his fingers as the mangled mess of his throat flexed painfully. ¡°Well, want to come with me, then?¡±


    Reaching up, he offered his hand to the creature. It darted forward and, as he went still in surprise, drank a drop of blood from his burned, ruined fingertips. It curled around his hand like a cat might, brushing over his wrists. Being inside its bubble of personal space made him feel weightless and cool.


    He took that as a bargain signed and shaken on, and scratched the golden scales of its head again. There was a patch of crimson right on its brow, a noble jewel of red, giving it quite the regal air.


    Bayler paused. His tattoo - Enniac had called it his Epitaph - had changed. Not only had Appetite appeared on a lower ¡®branch¡¯ but the number besides Mortal had risen.


    As he focused on Mortal and pressed his thumb to the design, the familiar ¡®voice¡¯ spoke into his head. This time it wasn¡¯t just numbers though, but a chart, half filled-in and half greyed-out.


    || Receive Enlightenment of Death ||


    || ??? ||


    || Defeat an Enemy a Rank Above ||


    || Bring Death to Ten Creatures ||


    || ??? ||


    || Receive a Fatal Wound ||


    || ??? ||


    By the looks of it, he needed to complete three more hidden tasks before he¡¯d get an opportunity to gain a new power from the Mortal Blessing. As for Appetite, it hadn¡¯t progressed since he¡¯d fulfilled the first requirement and received his ¡®gift¡¯ from the pig-god.


    || Devour a Living Enemy ||


    Going by all that, his first goal had to be to uncover what the hidden tasks were. Mortal seemed singularly focused on the concept of Death. For Appetite, they almost certainly involved indulging his vices in one form or the other.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    Unlike the Mortal tree, which had given him three options, the Appetite tree was a single ladder, climbing from one option to the next, with the occasional branch into a dead end. The only one open to him was:


    || Envy¡¯s Vigilance - Black - 0% - When a Skill is used against you, your own comprehension of that skill is increased for the next week. ||


    In the end, Bayler Shrike simply wasn¡¯t eager to take any more ¡®charity¡¯ from the hideous pig-creature, especially when Vigilant Envy was likely to make him more Envious, and every step of the path after would lead him further down the seven sins.


    By comparison, he seemed to find his way down the Mortal route without even trying. So long as he continued to fight and survive there¡¯d be further gains.


    Swinging himself down from the palette, Bayler Shrike savored the unique experience of waking yourself up by dousing your feet into icy seawater.


    The flood was rising all the time, slowly but steadily, racing higher through the streets, starting to form whitewater churns where it struck against submerged obstacles. Soon it would be impossible to simply walk. All the while a steady rain came down, sometimes drizzling and sometimes furiously pelting at him with stinging droplets.


    ¡°You¡¯re a messenger right? So you can find someone for me?¡± The fish did a particularly deft little turn in the air, which Bayler would take as a yes. ¡°There was a girl with me, yesterday. I don¡¯t¡­ I don¡¯t know her name.¡±


    The fish paused, looking at him with giant, serious eyes before turning away. No good without a name, then. ¡°Black hair?¡± He croaked, only to be ignored.


    ¡°Fine.¡± He had a plan, albeit a bad one.


    Stepping out into the rain, he lifted his lantern high, letting its light flare into the narrow mouths of alleys and across the submerged streets. What he needed was another one of the hellhounds.


    Transformed into a slime, Bayler could just about eat an entire horse in one, if he was willing to wait a while for it to digest. Consuming the hound he¡¯d killed - the hound that had come out of its hiding place hesitantly, lured by the light of the Lamp of Treachery - was no obstacle.


    Afterwards, there was a ripple, and the lump of black, sludgey goo condensed into a four-legged form, one with shaggy dark fur up to the base of its neck, where hair and hide suddenly peeled away to leave its muzzle bare and raw and red. Drool dripped from skeletal, permanent grin with no lips to hide it.


    And most importantly, a clever, sensitive nose drank in the air. Putting his head low, Bayler Shrike began to hunt.


    The trail of his prey carried him through the streets, low enough for the waters to wash around his underbelly as he tracked a faint lingering scent. Other hounds called out to him, and Bayler was surprised that he could vaguely understand their language, as much as it was a language at all. They were curious, unsure if he was one of them. He ignored them and padded on.


    The fish was sometimes there, sometimes not. It seemed to shimmer out of existence as soon as danger threatened, only to slip back in when it pleased.


    By the time his transformation ran out, he was well on his way. Turning into a hound took much less mana than becoming a slime - there was less differences in anatomy between him and a dog than him and a shapeless, primordial blob.


    He stopped and hunted again, three dogs filling up the alleyway where he propped his lamp and waited. The last fight had torn his robe until he could only knot what remained around his waist as a rough kilt and hope there was no dress code where he was going.


    At first he thought the narrow ground would give him an advantage. Then, as the first hound shot towards him, another ran up the walls and dove downwards, jaws snapping for his throat. He shoved his hand into its mouth and screamed as it crushed his fingers, drove him to the ground. He had to punch, kick, beat his way out of the crushing pile of fur and fangs that descended on him-


    Overconfident. He¡¯d gotten overconfident.


    In the end, he won because they couldn''t kill him fast enough. Because he answered every bite with a punch, until they were broken and he was, somehow, still alive to lift himself up and grab for his lantern.


    Three quick, hard hits finished the job.


    Metaphorically licking his wounds, he bit down and chewed enough raw, tough meat to refill his reserve and shift forms again, and continued on the trail with a new limp. His wounds were adding up. Continuing to function despite his body crumbling was one benefit of Will Made Flesh, but the pain was starting to be a problem on its own, the drip of blood down his body constant, oozing from a dozen wounds.


    It was sweet relief when the scent grew thicker in the air, both more recent and traced over older whiffs of the same odor, telling him she¡¯d been through this territory more than once. Finally, he found himself standing before a tall, white house, three-stories high and unappealingly boxy, with a wide lawn that had been reinforced by nailing plywood planks between the rails of an iron fence. The top window was open, and something glinted among the curtains.


    With a shiver, Bayler turned into a man and stood back up, lifting his arms.


    There was a long, tense pause, and then the door burst open, Lauren rushing down the flooded lawn towards him. ¡°You!¡¯


    ¡°You! We should actually trade names sometime.¡± Bayler called back, still keeping the corner of his eye on that open window, the swaying curtain. There was only one reason somebody would leave their window open in this rain.


    ¡°Dammit¡­¡± Groaning, Pike leaned his head out past the curtains and shouted down from his nest, ¡°Lauren! Why is there a goddamn dead man standing in my driveway!?¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s a friend, he¡¯s a friend! Pike, don¡¯t you fucking shoot him!¡±


    Through all this, Bayler stood perfectly still, letting the scene unfold around him. Letting Lauren make his case.


    ¡°Well that¡¯s nice. Tell him to go away!¡± The man leaning out the window had slicked-back, graying black hair, a smooth sweep of it over a sour, simian face, turning a shade of red as he howled down.


    ¡°I can pay to stay here." Bayler finally interrupted, reaching into a pocket he¡¯d fastened in the knot of the hospital robe and drawing out his sole, glimmering Mana stone. He held it up between two fingers to catch the light. Even from here he could see a sliver of pink dart across the man¡¯s mouth as Pike licked his lips and considered.


    ¡°I don¡¯t have any more spare beds.¡± It was a grudging, surly concession, but the gem had clearly gotten his attention. ¡°But you can sleep on the floor. Why the hell do you look dead?¡±


    ¡°Afraid that¡¯s a story with a two beer minimum.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t drink. But I have coffee.¡±

 Bayler ; Joseph

    Pike plunked a can of sugar-laden cold coffee down on the counter as Lauren dragged a needle and thread through Bayler¡¯s throat, trying to stitch together thoroughly mangled flesh. ¡°It would be easier if we just cut some away, got a clean edge to work with¡­¡±


    Bayler flicked his hand in the negative. No losing any more skin than he¡¯d already given up.


    ¡°You¡¯d better get a real tight stitch on that, or he¡¯s going to spill that coffee right back up.¡± Pike giggled, moving constantly at the edge of the conversation. Bayler already disliked the man; he was just visibly off in some vital way, always pacing, moving from one window to the next to peer out into the half-light.


    Sun was rare now that the barriers had blocked off the horizons. Only a few hours of noonlight, when it was directly overhead, lit up the sinking remains of the city.


    As he came back to the table, Bayler reached his hand out and turned it over to show the tattooed design on the forearm. Grasping his meaning, Pike licked his lips and set his arm down alongside Bayler¡¯s to compare their Epitaphs.


    On Pike¡¯s arm was the word Steadfast. ¡°This means I see everything that goes on in my house, my little territory. Everything. And I got a second one, one that says while you¡¯re here, you can¡¯t lie. Flat out can¡¯t lie to me no matter how you try. So, once she gets your neck back to working, we¡¯re gonna chat.¡±


    For his part, Bayler just pointed to his torn-out throat and shrugged. Still alive.


    ¡°Yeah well, you win I guess.¡± Pike grumbled, popping open another can. He didn¡¯t seem to go two minutes without slurping down more coffee. ¡°How¡¯d you get two, anyway?¡±


    Again, Bayler shrugged.


    Lauren slapped him on the shoulders. ¡°Cut that out and hold still. You two can measure up once I¡¯m done.¡± The needle pricked into him again, wriggling through his skin, and his arms tensed against the rests of his chair as he fought to be still.


    It had never been his specialty.


    In the background, Cayden groaned. They¡¯d tied him up on the couch, holding him down as he thrashed and writhed in pain, his face slick with sweat. Something was wrong with him worse than the pills they shoveled down his throat could hope to fix.


    Tomorrow, Bayler planned to ask the spider how to help him. One question out of three was a small enough price to save one of the only three humans he¡¯d met. And of those, he only liked two.


    ¡°Done.¡± Lauren declared, cinching the last stitch tight.If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    ¡°So¡­¡± Pike said, the moment she¡¯d pulled the needle out of him. ¡°Why are you modeling the zombie look, buddy?¡±


    ¡°Coma. A long, long coma..¡± His voice was an awful croak. Finally, he sounded like he looked, a thing that had dragged itself out of the grave. ¡°My brother put me there.¡±


    ¡°I hadn¡¯t seen him for years. Hadn¡¯t been to the States for years. I saved up, bought a sailboat, bummed around the coast of Europe. When the Golds took over, I just fell into the riots by acquaintance. Ended up being a smuggler for a bit when Greece was on embargo.¡±


    He had to put the pieces of his memory back together as he spoke, pausing often, working his tongue over his teeth. Recollection came in pieces, a flash of a pub conversation, or an image of the waves rushing up at the side of his boat.


    But more often than not, he simply came to a blank spot. Bits of his life were simply gone.


    ¡°I came back because my brother got involved in a cult.¡± Cults, radical fringe groups, the world was on fire and people were being pushed to the wild edges of society. ¡°Drugged up, waiting for the apocalypse. He must be having a ball now if he¡¯s still alive.¡±


    Either way, he was dead to Bayler.


    Or- No, no that was a lie. He rubbed the scar on his forehead, still there after all these years. The honest truth was, no matter how bad Joseph fucked up, Bayler would be there for him in a heartbeat if the stupid idiot could just bring himself to ask for help.


    Even after-


    ¡°Joseph called me, asking for help. I went halfway across the world, snuck in, got him- didn¡¯t get out. He turned on me the moment they caught us. Helped them kick the shit out of me. All I really saw was the underside of their boots but he was in there.¡±


    There was an ugly air in the room when he finished, an awkward silence. At first Bayler thought they just felt awkward hearing his shitty family drama so casually aired out. But as seconds ticked by, and the odds of it being something that small dwindled away, a hard knot of worry formed in his guts.


    ¡°Spit out.¡± He growled.


    Even Pike, who had about as much manners as the average cockroach, couldn¡¯t quite come at the issue straight on. ¡°So uh, you said his name was Joseph. Joseph Shrike?¡±


    ¡°Yeah?¡±


    ¡°Woooo.¡± Pike whistled, shaking his head.


    ¡°Will somebody tell me what my brother did.¡± The hard edge of tension in his voice made them both flinch, as he gripped the table so hard his knuckles turned white.


    ¡°Uhm, Bayler, your brother-¡± Lauren was staring at him.


    ¡°Goddamnit.¡± His face sunk into his hands.


    ¡°Killed people. He killed a lot of people. The cult you were talking about, it was the Followers of the World, right?¡± She said, watching him carefully, in the way a doctor watches a patient they¡¯re about to deliver a lethal prognosis. ¡°They let loose a drug-resistant virus in Brazil. They- Your brother took credit personally. It got most of the country. The whole Amazon is a death zone for humans now.¡±


    She was tearing up, but Bayler just looked blank. His mind bluntly refused to accept what she was saying as anything more than words, as anything that had actually happened. He could accept the world was dying. He refused to believe his brother was a killer even if he knew - he knew - Lauren wasn¡¯t lying to him.


    Moving slowly under the weight of the news, he stood up from the table.


    ¡°I¡¯m going to go kill some monsters. Pike?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, yeah I¡¯m right there with you. Wish I had a beer for you.¡±

 Rage ; Balance

    Bayler kept himself in motion, trying to outrun his thoughts. Trying to lose himself into the blood-splatters, the crunching impacts, the motion and the fury of fighting. It was something he¡¯d done even before the world had ended, but now, now the dance was more satisfying than ever.


    And there it was, the pang of guilt.


    He loved to fight. Killing, he didn¡¯t mind at all.


    Was his brother the same way, deep under that weak, soft exterior?


    He brought his fist up, catching a hound by the throat as it lunged at him. It was an instinctive movement, clean, efficient. He threw the beast down onto the street and caved its chest in with his lantern. His backswing dashed open the skull of a second one trying to creep around him.


    Was he responsible? In the strictest sense, his brother was only alive thanks to him, only had the chance to do this thanks to him.


    But that way was madness. He couldn¡¯t be responsible to every butterfly effect he¡¯d set in motion, every chain of events he¡¯d touched.


    The world was just too unpredictable for a human to shoulder that much weight.


    But still¡­


    A twang and a crossbow bolt flew past his shoulder, curving through the air in an impossible arc to plant itself through a hound¡¯s eye. The beast was dead before it hit the ground.


    It opened a brief window in the pack¡¯s coordination, and Bayler descended in that moment of weakness, tearing the pack apart with a surgical ferocity. It was incredible how calm he felt as blood spattered across his face and snapping teeth were brought short an inch from his flesh, swatted aside at the last second. How perfectly at peace he felt in that moment.


    But still.


    It was his brother. How could he pretend he wasn¡¯t at fault, when he¡¯d all but raised Joseph. When he¡¯d covered for every mistake the idiot had ever made. Made him into the man he was.


    His lantern swung in great arcs of blue fire, billowing out in brilliant eruptions of flame each time he made impact. With each death the fires grew higher and hotter.Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.


    Another hum of the bowstring. Another blur of motion that ended in another kill, a bolt burying itself into a throat. This time it cut off an attempt to creep around Bayler and pincer him, and with the distraction removed, he was free to dive deeper, crashing against the enemy, sweeping them back with fire and fury.


    They made a good team. Bayler didn¡¯t like or trust Pike, and vise versa, but results spoke for themselves. The distant fire kept his flanks clear as he demolished everything before him. Between the two, the hounds were corralled, bombarded with sprays of fire and held back by superior reach, superior strength, an enemy they couldn¡¯t kill except by overwhelming force.


    And then it was over. Too quick. Bayler was left panting, his heart rising against the walls of his chest, his mind spinning from the blur of violence. All around him, corpses. In the background, Pike was firing again and again, cutting down the last of the hounds as they fled in all directions- they knew they had encountered a superior predator.


    Blood dripped down Bayler¡¯s bare chest, but it was all from old wounds. Half his stitches had pulled open. But there were no new wounds. He was surrounded by a ring of corpses, but the space beneath his feet was clear. An oasis in the carnage. They had died without even touching him.


    Cold fire burned inside his chest. The mana flame had begun to revolve, to spread outwards through his veins like when he earned a Blessing. He could feel currents forming in the flames, a spiraling whirlpool forming in the space opposite his beating heart, sending rhythmic pulses through the lines of energy that spanned his body.


    Not for the first time, a voice spoke into Bayler¡¯s head.


    || You have learned the Mastery, Battle Meditation - Black - 0% - In the heat of war you achieve cold balance. In rage, you find peace. When you act to kill, your emotions will be suppressed and converted to power, bolstering your natural strength and resilience by up to 5%. ||


    That was new. It wasn¡¯t unwelcome either. If he had two pressing needs, they were to get stronger, and to get his mind off Joseph and back to the problems at hand. Finding a solution to both was a damn nice turn in an unusually bad day.


    Best of all, this wasn¡¯t another Blessing. Those seemed to come with strings attached. This felt - Bayler didn¡¯t know how he knew, but he knew - like something that belonged to him. Something born between Enniac¡¯s vicious education in Mana and his own emotion.


    Trawling his fingers through the cold, knee-deep water, he drew up a fistful of mana beads as the corpses melted away into light and ash. Four this time - it helped that he wasn¡¯t half-dead and exhausted past a proper search.


    When he looked back up, a stag made of silver light stood on the opposite side of the street. It turned its majestic horned head, as if it sensed his eyes, and met his gaze. As clearly as he knew anything, Bayler knew it wanted him to follow as it turned and galloped away, hooves gliding over the top of the waters.


    He looked back, but there was no time for the others to catch up. He had to go now. The need to follow pulled him like a fishhook in his soul.

 Eruption ; Ecology

    The streets gave way to a forest, and the transition was violent. Huge slabs of paving cement were suspended among black tree limbs, roots cracking the streets as they burrowed into the earth beneath. A midnight jungle had torn its way up through stone and steel to impose itself upon the city, vines crawling through broken windows, flowers sprouting from the ruins.


    The forest was dark as pitch, the alien trees dripping with a black oil that pooled among their roots, reflecting the fading daylight across dark surfaces.


    Despite all this, Bayler Shrike followed as the white stag pranced its way among the broken cityscape and midnight trees.


    He knew he was heading into danger. But the light emanating from the ghostly stag gave him such a calm, peaceful feeling. Even if it might be luring him into a trap, Bayler couldn¡¯t bring himself to turn away, to abandon the hope he felt following the stag.


    Soon he couldn¡¯t even see the city behind him. All trace of what had been was lost among the creeping vines and roots.


    As he trekked through the forest, hurrying to keep sight of his quarry as it vaulted between the trees, he caught his first glimpse of wildlife within the forest.


    A huge lizard lurked above a pool of black oil. It had a broad, flattened triangular head, and palid white skin. From the underside of its throat, dozens of squirming pink tentacles descended into the black pools and fished out squirming eel-like fish.


    It was eyeless, blind, but something about Bayler¡¯s movement nearby caused it raise its head and face him, circular pink mouth opening and closing, revealing rows of sharp teeth within.


    Bayler froze.


    It didn¡¯t seem to care about him, though. Its head twisted left and right, mouth gulping in heavy, wet gurgles of air. It must smell with its tongue, Bayler realized.


    And then he started to wonder, if not him, what had drawn its attention.


    There was a hard knot of tension in his gut as he turned.


    Fat, bloated insects crawled up the trees behind him, their waxy yellow flesh bright against the black bark. They were ticks, giant ticks the size of a clenched fist, nothing but legs and mouth attached to an enormous stomach. He shifted his weight slightly, and they seemed to read his fear, sense he had seent hem and was about to run.


    They swarmed.


    The foremost ticks could simply fall of the trees, raining down on his head as reinforcements surged up the branches and lobbed themselves down, dozens splashing into the oily pools underfoot in exchange for a single one landing atop him.The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    He swung his fist out, and a tick was reduced to a gory, wet splat, exploding like a waterballoon under his knuckles. Another landed on his shoulder and bit down, serrated jaws sinking into his neck, piercing the jugular. He could see the ribbon of pulsing hot blood being siphoned out of him and filling the creature''s belly.


    With a snarl, he tore it away, but the creature¡¯s head ripped off as he grabbed hold of the body, leaving its pincers stuck in his neck as he threw the rest down and stomped on it.


    By the time he¡¯d done that, three more had latched on to his shoulders, two to his arm; their weight dragged at him as he struggled to fight against the next wave. Howling, he smashed himself back against a treetrunk, crushing the ones that had bitten into his back.


    Pulped bug and his own blood were pasted to him. Their weight was threatening to pull him down and overwhelm him, and still the trees were crawling with bodies; they poured in rivers along the branches and rained down onto him. He stumbled forward as he was drowned under a tide of bodies, his feet splashing through pools of oil.


    This entire place was a tinderbox.


    He¡¯d be at point blank of the blaze.


    He wasn¡¯t sure he had another choice.


    ¡°Kesslith!¡±


    A beam of flame erupted into the trees, nearly a hundred ticks hissing and exploding as the water and blood within them heated to bursts of steam, ripping them apart. The fire hit the oil-slicked branches, and the entire tree went up in a roaring pillar of flame that towered into the sky. The flame poured down the trunk and hit the roots, the pockets of oil built among their tangles. A dozen licking tongues of flame popped up ahead of the rushing main of the blaze.


    Bayler was swept up in a cataclysmic burst of heat. The ticks died in multitudes and he staggered, nearly tripped, barely held himself up. He felt his lungs bake and crack in his chest, coughing up blood that sizzled and turned to smoke. Fire danced upon his skin, eating him alive.


    The lizard let out a happy, blissful croak.


    His eyes starting to cloud - starting to bake - he stared at the placid creature, at how the flames turned blue and calm as they ran across the mucus membranes on its slimy skin.


    With a howl, Bayler became a wolf, a hound with no skin on its head. Covered in fire he pounced towards the beast.


    Kill or be killed. He had seconds to eat this thing and take its powers for his own before his heart started to roast inside him.


    Sensing his aggression, the creature¡¯s radial mouth opened and it spat out its club-like tongue, the wet appendage whipping through the air to smack against his head and send him stumbling. It drew back in a spray of slime.


    He lunged again, and the beast slashed its tongue out, but this time he was ready, rising from all fours into the shape of a man and catching the slimy muscle. On instinct it pulled back, retracting its tongue at whip-crack speed, and Bayler borrowed the momentum to plant a skull-denting kick into the top of its head as he was dragged along. It reared up and he dropped into the form of a wolf again, lunging into the soft underside of its throat.


    His fangs sunk into flesh covered in flame, but the wet burst of blood extinguished them. Raw, bloody meat filled his mouth. The fire was beginning to cripple his limbs, cook his muscle. It hurt so damn bad. But he was alive, and his enemies were dead.


    All around him, the trees shuddered. One by one their black bark cracked open under the heat, and from beneath, blue flowers rose into the air. They were delicate, dandelion-seed things, puffs of blue thistle that caught the warm air and rose, tiny parachutes that would drift across the city as their progenitors crumbled into ash. The violence of the blaze ensured they would float far.


    From this one forest, a hundred would be born.

 Bargain ; Lacuna

    Bayler Shrike felt cool relief as he shifted into the lizard¡¯s form, his new skin armored with a thin web of wet, glistening mucus. The flames poured across his back without harm. All around him, violent cracking noises sounded out as the trees came apart, releasing their payloads of blue floating spore into the fire-scarred night.


    Bayler simply rested, breathing in slowly, satisfied to still be alive. His wounds stayed with him when he transformed, and they were dire. Much of his muscle had been cooked through, his lungs perforated by the scalding air, his throat full of blood. Seconds longer and his blood would have boiled, taking his heart and brain with it. That would have been the end. He was blind, his eyes reduced to jelly.


    His new reptilian tongue flickered out, tasting the air. The lizard¡¯s sense of smell was sharp, allowing him to taste individual threads of scent in the air, marking the passage of creatures; he could sense that much even through the overwhelming musk of woodsmoke and blazing oil that made the air cloying and pungent.


    There was a thread of scent that smelled like lilac and ginger, that gave him the same hopeful, uplifted feeling that seeing the stag had inspired.


    Groaning, Bayler shifted the immense, unwieldy bulk of his new body, moving on sore limbs through the blazing forest. All around him, tree limbs broke and fell flaming to the ground, and fire raced along the pathways prescribed by the rivers of oil, flaring up in writhing snakes of flame.


    Now and then an alien creature would emerge from the blazing forest, bolting along in panic. Other reptiles waddled serenely in the confusion and uproar, feasting on the roasted pulp of ticks and other oversized insects who¡¯d been caught up in the fires.


    As he walked, the fires dimmed. There was a kind of buzzing in the air; an invisible barrier of energy he passed through. The flames clinging to him went out at once. The forest within the boundary was dark and still. The white stag was close.


    Even blind he could feel its presence. The absolute peace it inspired. He moved towards it, even though he could taste another living creature nearby, a sour, moldering scent. His world was blinded but even in darkness he could sense so many things.


    It made human senses seem almost laughable.


    Even so, he was caught off guard when a voice spoke.


    ¡°Why don¡¯t you take your real form, and let me see you.¡± The sheer command it carried was threatening. He almost followed the order without thinking, pushed by some invisible force to obey.


    ¡°Oh, you can resist? Well, now I really want to speak with you. Or kill you. Your choice.¡± The voice was ancient, croaking, bird-like.


    In the end, Bayler couldn¡¯t fight in this state. It was a lousy decision he had no choice but to make. He shifted into his human form, losing his last advantage, his keen sense of smell, and surrendering to total blindness.This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    ¡°There we are. My, if I didn¡¯t know better, I¡¯d assume you were undead. The Blessing of the Mortal, maybe?¡±


    Bayler said nothing, but his body language - the slight tense of his shoulders - must have confirmed the other man¡¯s guess. Which meant his enemy likely knew how to kill him know.


    ¡°Yes. A Mortal, and appearing so soon after this world¡¯s fall. Impressive. Don¡¯t make me kill you, or your world really will lose a champion.¡±


    ¡°And how would I make you kill me?¡± Bayler finally spoke, having to force each word painfully up his scalded throat.


    ¡°Ah, you can¡¯t see, can you? I am fused to this forest. I have grown into the trees, given my body to become part of the beauty that is nature. If I hadn¡¯t put up the barrier, you would have already killed me. I suppose you could kill me now, if you were willing to settle for mutual destruction, but I could quite easily end your life before I burned¡­¡±


    Bayler almost laughed. This one liked to talk. ¡°What is it you want?¡±


    ¡°A piece of your world. Not for my species - you humans can still have the place - but for me, my forests. I wish to spread and grow. To reclaim this dead city of concrete for life while life lasts. And in exchange, I will let you go where the white stag is taking you.¡±


    ¡°And where would that be.¡± Bayler asked.


    ¡°To the Lacuna. A rip in space and time, leading to a memory so powerful it creates its own space, its own time. A memory that demands it be relived, over and over. A memory the people running this game are deeply curious about. They will reward you, richly, if you can enter the Lacuna and return.¡± The voice explained, although it didn¡¯t help Bayler much.


    ¡°A different space? Like another world?¡±


    ¡°Yes, very much like that. Or to be specific, a memory of a world that no longer exists. Just think of it as a dream- one where you can die, where you can see the past, where you can gain understanding of the history of our world.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not much like a dream.¡± Bayler noted.


    ¡°No, I suppose not. A Lacuna is a Lacuna. You will understand when you enter. But first you must make me a promise.¡±


    Bayler wanted to say go to hell. The words stuck in his throat. He felt a searing pain come from the tattoo on his forearm, a burning reminder of the Mortal¡¯s words. Refuse death. Even if it meant dealing with the devil, he couldn¡¯t say no.


    ¡°Fine. You¡¯ve got me.¡± He growled out.


    Something landed in the dirt in front of him. Running his hands over the ground, he found a knife, carved out of what felt like bone. ¡°Pick it up and cut yourself over your Epitaph. While the blood still runs, promise to watch over this forest and protect it from harm.¡±


    He made the cut as instructed, blood dripping in threads and ribbons down his forearm as he held up his hand. ¡°I swear I¡¯ll keep your forest safe. Scout¡¯s honor.¡±


    But in case it made any difference, he kept his fingers crossed behind his back.


    ¡°Then we may part ways peacefully.¡±


    A wet nose nuzzled against his face, the pain evaporating as it rubbed against the vicious burns that covered his skin. The stag. Bayler reached up, touching its muzzle, and felt its muscles move as it turned, leading him away. With one hand on its back he followed.


    There was a light ahead. He felt it on his skin, along with the brush of dense, cool mists. Gravity seemed to be tugging him in the wrong direction, forward instead of down, a stomach-turning change. Although he was blind, he could sense the presence of the Lacuna, feel rippling waves of force roll through the air around it.


    The stag came to a halt. Letting go, Bayler took the last few steps alone, blind, arms outstretched. He stepped through, into the Lacuna.