System Initialized!
Your world is about to change in wondrous and terrible ways. Magic is real and it is here now, with the System. You can do anything you put your mind to. Good luck User!
Ada stared up at the ceiling, past the glowing notification. The paint was peeling, and there was smoke damage, but she was long past noticing any new information about it. She was looking past it, simply staring at nothing. A finger twitched, but there was no other reaction.
Several hours passed like this, and sometimes she could swear she could hear screaming in the street. She tuned it out, still staring sightlessly at the ceiling. The bright blue notification had faded by now to a blinking corner of her vision, but as the daylight faded, the blinking slowed as well.
Sometime close to midnight she finally stirred, rolling out of yellowed blankets and padding unsteadily to a filthy kitchen. She cupped her hands under the running kitchen tap and drank the lukewarm liquid. Opening a plastic bread bag puffed out spores into her face, as she grabbed a mostly unmarked slice, spreading some remnants of peanut butter on it. She chewed her meal mechanically and slowly. After finishing, she briefly visited the washroom, before lying down on her mattress on the floor of her small room. Most of the room was taken up by the mattress, but there was a small table covered in garbage, including a long-dead potted plant.
A ding rang out in her mind.
First Day Achievement Unlocked!
To view your status sheet and achievements, simply think "Status"!
Ada lifted her blankets over her and fell asleep.
A week passed like this. Her schedule did not change, in the same way a catatonic person's schedule didn't. Other things changed outside the apartment, unnoticed and uncared for by Ada. There were frantic knocks at her door and panicked voices that went unanswered. A bright bloom of fiery light illuminated her room one night, so she buried deeper into her blankets. An ear-shattering roar filled the building one day, and Ad put a pillow on her head. Exactly one week from that day; Ada received a notification she didn't read or acknowledge.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
System control automation alert!
Whether you're a non-sapient monster, a user in a coma, or maybe even just very lazy, you have not interacted with the system your whole life! But don't worry! Your stats, class, and evolutions can be picked by the system. If you ever want to retake control, it's as simple as opening up your status! Good luck!
1 week until System assigned Class Change.
###
A nameless thing skittered through the dark. Its many siblings spread through the jungle of stone and glass around it, all seeking prey. It could hear its brethren's chattering calls in the distance, along with shrill screams of prey and clashes of chitin and steel, but it did not follow the sounds. It had seen how many were slaughtered to allow even one of them to burrow into the flesh of prey. A spark of Intellect lacking in its siblings had allowed it to guess its fate if it joined them. Its larger cousins had been here longer, growing in size and strength through their prey, but for now, even a stomp of a prey-limb would end it. And while it would sacrifice anything for the Hive, its death would mean nothing here.
And so it wandered from the main host crawling over the stone spires of the Hive's new territory when it sensed life. Contained with the tower itself, weak and alone. The perfect prey. It squeezed itself past the ill-fitting glass protection, dropping to the floor on many limbs and crawling towards the prey-nest. The creature did not stir, oblivious to its stealthy movements. And so it wriggled into the nest and burrowed into the vulnerable flesh it found.
###
Damage detected! All free points assigned to Vitality!
Ada made a keening noise, curling up in a ball on the bed as the pain burned through her. Her fingers gripped the mattress tight, and she shuddered, grasping and struggling for the first time in what felt like forever, as she took hold of a ridged carapace thing and ripped it away, tearing flesh and throwing it across the room. Her breath shook but her eyes remained dry, and she stayed in bed with the pain.
###
Biomass threshold reached! Choose a mutation!
The insectoid creature shivered in delight. It was truly blessed by the Queens to have found such easy bounty, despite the forceful relocation. Even more fortuitous and strange, the prey had not moved to retaliate further or escape, and even now the prey’s wounds were slowly healing, much faster than any other prey it had witnessed yet. Now it could improve itself for the Hive, and it knew what it would choose already. It had no interest in the armor and size of its frontline brethren, it would lean into its success for now, as it knew this to be an opportunity to reach its goal much more quickly if it could truly consume this prey at its size and level.
Numbing Venom Acquired!
For this hunt was simply an interlude before it attained its true fate. It would become a Queen, or die serving the Hive.