Nick was ecstatic.

Today was the day!

Today Nick would begin his legend as a mighty hero of the continent.

Today would be the beginning of his legend. Right after he finished taking notes for class.

Nick’s capsule that he ordered to play Royal Road had arrived this morning and he couldn’t sit still. As he half listened to his professor drone on about circuits and variable signal bandwidths as they pass through black box logic gate diagrams, he imagined what he would do first when he made his account. He had been studying up on the available classes and races provided to starting players and had a good idea about what kind of character he wanted to make he just wasn’t sure about what class he should choose to benefit him the most. On one hand the combat classes were always fun. There’s just something refreshing about going home and logging onto a game to brutally slaughter and mutilate virtual enemies that stood in his way. But at the same time he couldn’t neglect the magical classes either. The fact that magic was an entirely new experience that he could feel in Royal Road held a lot of incentive for him to convert to a mage class. But mages weren’t really good for soloing dungeons or becoming lords and they died way too easily. The crafting classes each had their own merits but none of them had the fighting capability to be adventurers which was something he desperately wanted.

As the professor made some conclusive sounding statements and asked for questions Nick tensed up in preparation. When the class finally ended Nick was already out the door and racing towards his car in the student lot. It was about 3:30 and he had a twenty minute window to get his car out of the lot, onto the interstate highway, and down the long stretch of 2 lane road that led back towards his apartment before all the commuters, workers, and other students also tried to cram onto the same road. If he missed the window he would be stuck in traffic for hours unable to make any real progress while his beautiful new capsule sat inactive back in his room calling to him like a siren song.

So of course the universe conspired to give Nick a very unfortunate surprise in the form of a hooded individual slowly walking towards him. He didn’t look like much but there was something vaguely unpleasant about the man so of course, Nick chose to ignore him.

DOPAHNNNN! DOPAHNNNN!

Dry explosions sounded.

Nick looked up to see the hooded creepy bastard he was trying to ignore holding a black shape that was pointed in his direction. He couldn’t tell what it was exactly the man was holding because the next thing he knew he had tripped and fallen to the ground.

Nick tried to get up but was having a hard time breathing and for some reason his chest felt wet.

Great… I fell in a puddle of some unknown goo, thought Nick to himself.

But as he tried to get up his arms lost strength.

…

Okay that’s embarrassing one more time!

…

He still couldn’t get up. By now Nick was starting to feel a little worried. Something was off about this situation.

DOPAHPAHPAHPAHPAHPAHPAHNNN!

AHHH! I recognize that sound! Nick belatedly realized. As he lay there he struggled to look up towards the source of the noise. Gunfire was a rather distinctive sound especially assault rifles. In close quarters the detonation of the gunpowder was a sharp sound that you felt with your skin, not just with your ears. The small shockwaves that hit Nick were what gave it away as gunfire rather than the construction crews working on the library next to the lecture hall on campus. As the sounds continued Nick saw the same black hoodie wearing douche bag standing relatively close to him firing into the crowd of students leaving class. The group started panicking and tried to back into the crowd coming out the doors but the tide of freed students was an immovable wall that trapped them in the doorway. As the situation grew worse and people started dying, everyone began screaming insensibly.

FUCK! Just what he needed. Another whacko who couldn’t handle the pressure and decided to take everybody down with him, juuuuuuuuuusssssssssssst great. Thanks a lot universe!

As if in response the douche bag walked closer to Nick’s position on the ground while he reloaded his gun with another magazine. The nut clearly didn’t know how to shoot Nick silently commentated to himself; his gun was probably an M4 rifle or something similar that he obtained illegally or stole from his parents. Each magazine should have held about 30 rounds but from what he could tell the guy had wasted most of his bullets on the wall and ceiling although he did manage to hit some of the people coming out since there were some unmistakable forms lying on the ground a short distance away.

I never thought I would be one of those bodies on TV after one of those school shootings. I guess when you really think about it it’s not all that uncommon especially with the pressure to do well in school these days this sort of thing is happening more often. I suppose this is the end then…

With a nihilistic hope for survival Nick decided to just lay down and accept his fate. He had trained as an EMT a few summers ago and he knew that the chance of getting proper emergency treatment in a firefight like this was rather low. Priority would go to securing the campus and protecting other students and medics wouldn’t be released to aid the wounded until the area was confirmed to be safe or the police contained the situation.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

KYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH! Nick heard a scream that pierced through his bleak thoughts. He had managed to turn his head a bit so he could see the entrance to the lecture hall. As he refocused on the situation he saw her.

Nick had never managed to actually talk to the girl before since his social skills were average and best and his face made him look perpetually angry. Even his best smile was described by his friends to be smug at best rather than reassuring. His very being radiated antagonism towards others. Well that might be a little exaggerated but the point is Nick did not mingle easily with others. Girls preferred the more ruggedly handsome and confident men that always seemed to sense when he was making any headway with a chick and his other friends tended to be intimidated by him at first until they spent some time with him making it hard to make good first impressions. Even so, every awkward guy has a girl he likes and for Nick that was Mia Takeguchi. Mia was a cute girl of oriental ancestry who had a bubbly personality making her easy to talk to. Nick had done a few projects with her but never managed to get to know her better like he wished he could.

Mia had been ejected from the press of bodies crowding the entrance and was now totally exposed to the shooter’s line of fire. Nick felt a pain in his heart knowing what would happen if he didn’t do something. He tried to move his arms again but it was useless. The bullets that had hit him had tore through his chest and shoulders shattering bones and pulverizing muscle tissue. And with the rate of blood loss Nick realized he only had minutes before he went into shock and passed out. Still he had to do something, anything he thought.

The shooter had finished reloading and was moving back in position to fire on the crowd, carefully taking aim so he could achieve maximum damage. Mia looked up towards the shooter and seeing her death began to scream and cry for help. The panic in her voice lit Nick’s mind on fire. His eyes clouded over with a pinkish haze as he became enraged at his weakness, at the unfairness, at the cruelty of this fate.

“FUUUUUHHHHHHHHH!!!” Nick groaned as he strained to move, to save her. The shooter noticing his still moving form quickly turned to put him back down for good, but by this point Nick had gotten his feet back under him and was dashing madly towards the killer. Nick was past feeling pain, his nerves long shut down unable to comprehend the damage to his body. He was living on borrowed time but he remembered talking with his dad about some police officers who managed to take their killers with them. According to some rumors or studies depending on whether you believed it, it was possible for the body to continue functioning even after the heart stops for 10 seconds or so. It was a seemingly random number but there was evidence that some animals continued to rampage even after they received fatal wounds for several minutes unless you took out the brain. Nick chuckled to himself a little thinking over the memory. He had 10 seconds to take out the shooter, 10 seconds to incapacitate him, 10 seconds he could use to save everybody, to save Mia.

DOPAHPAHPAHPAHPAHPAH! The shooter fired again and Nick felt the impacts all over his body, but he gritted his teeth and continued his lurching run. Nick rammed into the shooter and fell down on top of him. The guy fought back with his fists trying to push Nick off of him, but he didn’t have the right leverage to do so. Nick was out of time as his vision began to flicker and darken.

NONONONOOOOO! I still haven’t stopped the guy yet, I need more time! But time was something he didn’t have. He could still hear the crowd’s screams, her cries for help. Nick knew at this point he wasn’t going to make it. That last stunt had cost him any chance he had at being saved, but his dad’s words still echoed in his mind. 10 seconds to take the other guy with them… Nick tried to palm the knife in the shooters waistband but couldn’t muster the strength to stab the shooter. The man noticing his movements took the knife in his hand and violently stabbed Nick. Nick vomited blood in the killer’s face gaining a moment of respite while he tried to think of something but he lacked any weapons and the strength to fight back. So in a last ditch effort Nick leaned down and bit the man in the throat, tearing at it like a beast. He tasted blood and bit down harder. He wanted to give up, he wanted to lay down and die, he wanted to throw up from the copper taste, but he persevered. The shooter continued to struggle but Nick was losing consciousness, he was finally out of time. As he slipped into the darkness he thought…

Not a bad way to die I guess…