Jean smelled the fresh aroma of chorizo filling the house while he finished an essay due that morning in first period. Martina, his mom, was recently unemployed due to the economic crash of 2023. Which, in her opinion, was an answer to her prayers. She had been trying to bond with Jean before he finished High School and moved up to northern California. Jean was planning on going to the University of California Berkley for a philosophy and engineering double major. Though he was not overly ambitious Jean enjoyed learning and the crowded city culture, thus, Berkley.
“Jean,” Martina cried out from the kitchen across the house, “come and eat or else!”
Jean finished a few closing lines and clicked control P, pressed enter, and dashed out of the room across the house. Already at the table were his older brothers Juan and Francis, twins going to the local community college, still mooching off of their parents. Both of them shoveled chorizo onto tortillas and grabbed cantaloupe from a massive bowl of melon. Jean sat and joined the overconsumption, knowing that Martina had been cooking and cutting for a couple of hours.
“Jeez, pudgo. Way to take all the food.” José said ironically to Jean.
“You shove it. You’re nearly double my weight Number Two.” Jean snapped with a glaring sneer.
After the next 10 minutes of no one talking, Jean finished, rinsed his dishes, and went to collect his things for school and his soccer game.
Skating down the streets of San Bernardino was never safe by anyone's standards, but most of the local thugs, bullies, and gangs knew the Perez family and probably ate at a house party of theirs at least a few times in their lives. So, Jean passed down the crooked streets with comfort and confidence, even landing a few tricks while jumping over age-old cracks in the pavement. Nearing San Bernardino High, in the middle of foot traffic, Jean threw his board on a loop on his backpack and turned a corner. Tripping after a dizzy spell, Jean saw a fizziness in the air that seemed to create a bubble around him and a few other students nearby.
Pain. Jean saw warping twisting flesh, then red, then black.
_
Thoughts stirred in Jean's head. I forgot to grab my essay off the printer, dang. Why am I wet and itchy? He opened his eyes with shock, confusion, and embarrassment. Completely naked and hairless, Jean jumped up feeling the cool and damp grass on his hands and everywhere else. Outstandingly confused he tried to take in his surroundings for a moment. I’m in a forest? Where are my clothes? Why are there naked people sleeping around me? Is someone walking towards me?
Jean blinked and rubbed his eyes, then started to take in his surroundings a little slower. There were people around him still naked and in the grass. Embarrassed but confused he look up and focused on the one shambling closer.
Who is that?
There was someone, clothed, shambling toward the group of them. But there was something really wrong. The man stumbling closer only 20 yards away seemed injured, really injured.
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Jean asked in a panic, “Are you ok?!” He took a few steps closer before stopping. “Where are your arms?” Panic flooded Jean as he saw the dark blood mixed with mud covering the thing’s whole body. Noticing the pale skin Jean’s instincts came in as he turned his heel and bolted away in a sprint.
Three seconds later he heard a scream, and Jean’s heart stopped.
Quest. Save fellow outworlders. Rang in his head.
Turning his head he saw a young woman who woke up trying to scurry away from the dead person shambling over her. It jumped on her, tearing into her with its teeth. Her screams woke the others up. Waking in a panic everyone scrambled up running in every direction while the screams turned into silence with only the girl getting feasted on by the armless dead man.
Frozen, Jean couldn’t do anything. Moments passed like it was a lifetime, no words passed through his head; only shock.
The thing’s blood-bathed body shimmered a moment with a light blue for a brief moment and it fell backward.
The strangeness snapped Jean out of his shock only leaving fear and disappointment that he couldn’t save the girl, whom he probably had seen around school. She wasn’t recognizable now.
Quest. Kill Zombies before race evolution completes.
Jean wasn’t sure if he had a strange thought or if someone was talking to him. But he knew one thing: That thing needs to die, now.
Jean took a step forward toward the mangled body and the zombie pulsing blue on the ground.
Bone started to grow from where the arms should have been on the zombie. It shifted and twitched.
Jean saw a smooth moss-covered rock next to the body. Scared but determined he ran to it and started to dig it out of the ground, fully aware of the thing a couple of feet behind him twitching and morphing. He heard a long breath come from behind him. He frantically heaved the rock up, barely lifting it above his head while turning. He looked down at the thing, now with bone arms, with eyes open staring up at him without moving. Jean threw the rock down and forward a foot and a half, smashing the top of the thing’s head.
Collapsing to the ground, Jean’s mind raced with the implications of the zombie.
What the hell is going on? What is this thing? Blood is splattered on my naked legs.
“What the hell am I supposed to do now?” He exclaimed.
Loot the corpse, then continue.
Jean’s slow mind realized that that was not a thought. Rather, something thinking besides his own mind. Confused, knowing he would not consider touching the thing’s body, he felt the intuitive urge to loot it with a touch.
Slowly, Jean reached out a hand to touch a dryish spot on the thing's shoulder. Reaching while staying on his knees, he touched the body and it started to mist away in a rainbow of smoke. The smell choked him, making him gag until he vomited up chorizo and cantaloupe. Vomiting cleared his mind even more.
Essence of Bone looted. Lesser healing potion looted. 29 iron spirit coins looted.
“Essence of bone,” Jean mumbled in confusion.
Would you like to absorb Essence of Bone?
“Yes?” Jean said without thinking.
Jean’s body felt weird like something was crawling from his spine moving down all his bones to his scalp, fingers, and toes.
Essence of Bone absorbed. Essence of Bone merged with power attribute. Absorb four awakening stones to complete evolving power attribute.
Absorbed one out of five essences. 25% towards Iron Rank.
Essence ability awakened. Bone Spear. Conjure a spike of bone from the ground within your aura range. The length and width of the pike is dependent on the amount of mana used.
Jean was now sure that this inner voice was not his own. He couldn’t make this sort of thing up. What’s more, he felt an instinctual knowledge of it being something other. Similarly, he felt the ground around him in a curious way, knowing he could make a spear spurt from the ground, maybe five feet from himself.
Looking up, realizing that he had zoned out for a couple of minutes, he still heard long raspy breaths. Half the blood was gone, now around him was a pile of his puke, and the girl’s mangled body with most of the front flesh eaten off. Yet, the chest rose, and to his horror, the body started to shimmer a light grayish blue.