New World Day 3

  As the shadow creatures advanced towards me I noticed that they had forms that I could easily recognize. They were squirrels, chipmunks, raccoons, and possums. The black inky forms made the otherwise innocuous animals incredibly creepy and their silence combined with the unnaturally coordinated movements made the small animals far more menacing than they should be. The rifle I had in hand was unlikely to be of much use against a horde of small animals. So, I did the only thing I could do. I ran! They might have blocked my path, but they were still just small albeit evil looking animals. I bulled my way through the horde and ignored the smaller animals that jumped and clawed at my legs. One of the shadow raccoons got smacked with the butt of the rifle when it latched onto my upper leg. Its skull deformed under the impact and it promptly lost its hold on my leg. Thankfully the animals didn’t seem to be any stronger than their original forms and I was able to break through with only a few small scratches. However, after I sprinted into the open field past the trees I looked back to see them chasing me down. Even the raccoon I had struck down was back on its feet. Its head reforming as if it had never been struck at all. That was certainly an ominous development. If I couldn’t kill them outright then even such small animals could overwhelm me given enough time. Just as I began to worry about how I would deal with them, the cloud that had been blocking the sun finished passing by, and the animals melted away into pools of shadows that darted into the woods and merged with the three shadowy trees dwelling there.

  Sighing, I knew that I needed to stop being so naive and foolish but it isn’t easy to change in just a handful of days. This wasn’t the Old World anymore, and I needed to remember now that even the trees could kill me if I gave them half a chance. Turning back towards the road, I made my way forward towards my neighbors’ houses. The front field remained much as I had remembered except the fence that enclosed the orchard and the fence the circled the property had been torn through in multiple places. I walked past my still intact car sitting all alone in the front field and advanced towards the holes. I noticed that in one place it looked like something had slashed through the metal fence like butter, but in a second place it looked like something had run right into the fence and kept running until the metal finally gave in and tore apart. The nearby fence posts had almost been torn out of the ground by the strength of whatever had run into the fences. I moved through the gap in the fence and hopped over a small ditch onto the road so that I could make my way to the nearest neighbors house that sat just a little ways down the road to my left.

  I didn’t have high hopes that anyone was still there. Once I had entered the front field they should have been able to easily see me, but no one had come outside to greet or help me. The house was a small one floor house with white siding and a small brick chimney sticking out of the black shingled roof. The white paint was peeling in numerous places allowing the gray wood underneath to peek out. The front steps creaked and shivered as I walked up to the front door. A gust of wind blew across my back and knocked the door ajar with an eerie whoosh. That wasn’t a good sign. If there was someone still there the door should have been locked or at least firmly closed. I switched the rifle out for my shotgun and pushed the door all of the way open. A disgusting and unfortunately familiar smell poured into my nose as I stepped into the house. The first room was a small family room dotted with a pair of faux leather recliners and a small blue couch. The two recliners were on their sides with puffs of padding sticking out from long claw marks that had been torn into each of them. The couch was tipped over backwards and splattered with blood. Behind the couch there was a small hallway that lead to the back of the house, and there were two doors opposite one another that I suspected to lead to a pair of bedrooms. The blood stains from the couch continued into the hallway. The stains were dried so whatever had happened here I had arrived too late to change the outcome. I knew that whatever awaited me in that back room wasn’t going to be pretty, but I had to know what had happened to this family.

  Firmly stepping forward, I followed the blood stains and went to the back of the house. The hallway led to a small kitchen decorated with floral wallpaper along the walls. It had rickety cabinets, an old rusted stove, and shiny steel sink to the left. A small wooden dining set occupied the right side of the kitchen, but my attention was focused on the grisly sight in the backyard. The back door had been torn apart and wood chips were strewn about the kitchen. The blood stains from the front of the house led out the destroyed door to a pile of flesh and chewed bones. The sight caused me to gag and vomit into the sink. It took me a few minutes to gather my courage and walk into the backyard. Unfortunately, there was no doubt in my mind that the disturbing sight in front of me was what remained of my neighbors. I saw that there were large paw prints sunk into the grass and mud all around the remains, and a thought struck me. The small pack of forest coyotes that had attacked me that first night had already been covered in blood when they attacked me. Were they the culprits? There was one thing that bothered me though, well more than one really but one in particular at least. If they were responsible for this attack and they already had a food source here why did they come and attack me?

  I turned around slowly and surveyed the backyard to see if I could find an answer, but there was nothing in particular that jumped out at me. The paw prints led into the forest a few hundred feet behind the house, but that was all I took notice of in regards to the attack. Besides the paw prints, I did see an old shovel leaning against the back of the house. The wooden handle was cracking and splintering and the blade had specks of rust on it, but it should still do. I hadn’t really known the couple that lived here, but they deserved a better resting place than this. I dug two graves in the backyard, and separated the remains as best I could. Holding back the bile that kept building in the back of my throat, I carefully placed the remains in the graves and quietly shoveled the dirt back on top of them.

  After I finished burying them, I headed back inside and investigated the kitchen and bedrooms for anything that might be of use. I thought it was a cold and callous thing to do, but I hoped the couple would understand and forgive me for my disrespect. The house contained a few bottles of water that I stuffed into my backpack, but the big prize was the ammunition that I found in the night stand of one of the bedrooms. There were shotgun slugs instead of the bird shot I had been using up till now. I immediately took the shotgun off my shoulder and loaded it with the slugs. With that finished, I said a silent prayer for the deceased family and moved on. There were a few more houses and families along the ridge that I needed to check before the sun set.

  All of the houses in this area, my parents’ included, sat on a ridge that dipped into forested valleys. Most of valleys had creeks running through the very bottom of them that flowed into the river a few miles down the road. Atop the ridge the land was mostly clear and used for grazing by cows and horses. The ridge contained a handful of artificially created ponds for the livestock to drink from, and one of those ponds sat next to the house I had just left. It took only a glance to tell that this pond, like the Small Lake below my parents house had greatly expanded in size. I made sure not to get too close to it since I was worried that the creatures that had exploded from the small lake would be present in this pond as well.

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  It took me only five minutes to get to the next house. There weren’t any new stretches of land that had appeared, but I did see that all of the other cow ponds had expanded in size just like that first one. I spent all afternoon walking along the ridge and visited all 12 of my neighbor’s houses. Each house I entered was a risk. I couldn’t know what may be waiting for me inside each of them. However, I needed to verify what had happened to each family with my own two eyes, and though I was loath to admit it, I needed all of the supplies I could get my hands on. The condition of the houses, mostly one bedroom mobile homes, were almost identical to the first house including, to my great regret, the fate of their occupants. With each house I visited my brow grew heavier and my mood darkened. Horror and disgust gave way to a deep numbness that spread through both mind and body. After the first couple of stops, I found it very hard to hold out hope that any of them had survived. In the end, I was able to confirm that not one of my neighbors had survived the onslaught of the forest coyotes. Their paw prints could be found all around every house on the ridge.

  I made time at each of the houses to bury the bodies of my neighbors before I searched each house for anything useful. The goods I took from the houses were all the same. A bit of water and a large amount of ammunition. The corresponding guns were there as well, but I had no way to effectively carry them back to my lair at the moment. I was at my last stop just getting ready to bury the bodies when I heard them. The barking howl of the forest coyotes was a distinctive sound that had been burned into my mind. The sound came bouncing out from the forest to my right. I judged that they were quite a distance away still, but I already knew that they could close the distance incredibly quickly. I knew it was foolish, but I didn’t intend to stop what I was doing. If I left my neighbors remains out to be used as the play things of those damn beasts I would regret it for the rest of my life, and I had enough worries and regrets plaguing me already.

  I had felt it the previous night when I woke up in the middle of the night. It was a familiar twinge. One I had tried to ignore and move past. Depression was threatening to pull me into its terrible embrace yet again. I knew from personal experience how it would go. It would start small. You would be fine during the day. The sunlight was refreshing, and there were things to do and people to talk to. But once night came and you lay there in your bed trying to sleep everything would come crashing down upon you. All of your worries, fears, regrets, and mistakes would swirl around and around in your mind making it impossible to sleep. So, you would do something, anything, to keep your mind occupied. It didn’t matter whether it was reading, games or watching TV it was all done to escape the prison of your mind. Eventually, you would fall asleep due to sheer exhaustion. The next morning things would appear to be mostly better. However, due to the lack of sleep you would be just a little bit more irritable, a little bit angrier, and when night returned so too would your troubles. It was like you were lost and mired in a swamp. That extra edge to your personality would seem like a small thing, but it would make it that much easier to make more mistakes and build up more regrets. Each day you would fight your way out just a little bit, but every night you would sink down even deeper than the night before. This cycle would continue night after night until one day you would look up and find that you had sunk so low and so deep that you simply couldn’t see the way out. That was a place that I had sworn I would never return to and the way to keep that promise was to live a life without regrets no matter how foolish that might make me. I would bury these last bodies and I would deal with whatever consequences that might arise no matter how dire.

Title awarded! Risk Taker (B) *

Title awarded! Repeated Risk Taker ( C ) *

Title awarded! Compassionate Fool ( C ) *

Name: Jason Silver

Job Name: N/A

LVL: 1 55%

Job LVL: N/A 0%

Job Points:

N/A

N/A

Titles:

Survivor (B) LVL 38%

Fool (B) LVL 1 40%

Pack Killer (B) LVL 1 0%

Beast Killer (B) LVL 1 0%

Risk Taker (B) LVL 1 84%

Repeated Risk Take ( C ) LVL 1 17%

Compassionate Fool ( C ) LVL 1 0%

Title Points:

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

5

Stats:

HP:

MP:

Mana Regen:

Endurance:

Strength:

Speed:

Bonus Points:

105/105

10/10

2 per min (-1)

7

6

7

3

Status Effects:

Regen

Skills:

Basic Axe Mastery (B) LVL 4 17%

Basic Gun Mastery (B) LVL 3 49%

Basic Regen (Passive) (B) LVL 4 92%

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*

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