The Skill Path screen was different from what he had expected. In a way, it reminded him of a videogame skill tree. Divided into separate sections, boxes linked together with thin black lines sprawled across the screen. Most were grayed out or otherwise blocked from his access.

One of the few squares he could access sat atop a chaotic tree depicting a cartoonish lump of rock. When he pressed it, a new screen appeared.

Sculpting I 0/5

Art, for the novice, is dictated by rules. What ideal drives your craft?

Prerequisites: None

Quest: Create 0/5 Sculptures of [Inferior] Quality

The System, like usual, was light on the details, but he figured the cost displayed in the square had to be paid with Skill Points, and when he did so, he would be granted a reward. Though the System didn't tell him what the reward would be - the only clue he had was the title of the Path, which wasn't much of a clue at all.

The other two, the Quest and the Prerequisite sections, were reasonably self-explanatory. The only thing he was unclear on was how the rating scale worked. Was [Inferior] the lowest possible quality rating? He didn't know. Was a [Inferior] quality sculpture hard to make? He didn't know!

Clover moved on before he drove himself insane with endless speculation.

Unattached to the branching tree of boxes and options [Sculpting] contained, there was a lone square depicting a glowing blue sphere. Curious, he clicked it.

Magical Talent I 0/5

Talent, like magic, can take many forms…

Prerequisites(1): Unnatural Constitution, Basic Affinity for Magic, ?, ?, ?, Exposure to Magic, ?, Peculiar Soul, ?, ?...

Quest: None.

Unlike Sculpting I, Magical Talent I had a long list of named prerequisites and a list of question marks a mile long. He assumed that the 1 by the prerequisite section meant that he only had to fulfill one of them to qualify to complete the path. Otherwise, completing the Path with how long the list was would be almost impossible. Then again, he could only be sure once he had Skill Points to spend. Once more, he wished the System would have provided a bit more of an explanation.

He narrowed his eyes as he read through the list of Prerequisites he had apparently fulfilled. Unnatural Constitution, Peculiar Soul: He wasn't sure if he should be insulted by what the System said about him. Sure, he wasn't the healthiest person, but he felt saying he had an "unnatural" constitution was taking it a bit far. Though, on a more wishful note, he considered that maybe the System had seen something in him that even he had been unaware of - that perhaps he was unique in some positive way.

It was a nice fantasy, but he doubted it was rooted in reality. He had never been particularly talented at anything before, and even now, he couldn't help but wonder if the System's bar for "talented" had been lowered by his [Beginner Bonus].

Regardless of all that, the prospect of casting magic spells was exhilarating. However terrifying it was to remember, what the tree had done with its magic had captured his imagination, and now that it was within his reach, he couldn't stop thinking about it. He wanted to be able to craft magic - to do the impossible. More than a want, he needed to be able to do that.

Engaging in fistfights with the local wildlife was bound to end in disaster for him eventually. It just wasn't realistic for him to expect to be able to consistently beat monsters if he didn't have some sort of advantage.

Magic could be the edge he was looking for.

There was no guarantee that the Path's reward would help him fight. But, from what he'd seen of the System, he'd be willing to bet his entire life savings of 27 dollars that upon completing the Path, he'd gain a reward that helped with combat.

He smiled dumbly as he began to form a plan. Step one: find somewhere to hide while he grinded out the necessary Skill Points to finish the Path. Step two: profit. Very complicated stuff, he knew, but he figured planning in great detail would be a waste of time given how quickly the situation was changing.

Clover poked around the Skill Path's screen, searching for any information he had missed.

He didn't find anything new of value. Before he could delve too far into the details, the ragtag group he had seen from the hospital's third floor turned a corner and came into view, catching Clover as he poked around the air, navigating the Skill Paths Screen.

A man in a baseball cap near the front of the group did a double take as he spotted Clover's blood-covered visage and outstretched hand. A few others had a similar reaction.

Clover froze, any sort of greeting dying on his tongue. Internally, he screamed, a wave of awkwardness threatening to drown him. What exactly was he supposed to say in a situation like this: "Hey, don't mind me, I'm not crazy. There really is a floating blue screen here. Trust me, guys. I'm definitely not insane."

First impression-wise, this was something from a nightmare - almost as bad as getting eaten by a monster. After a moment of scattered panic, his more rational mind took over. Poking around at invisible screens hanging in the air wasn't weird. The world had changed. It was normal behavior now. The only weird thing he was doing was blankly staring.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

He jerked his hand back and settled for his best attempt at a charismatic politician-like wave. He thought he did a good job because the man waved back, and the rest of the group filtered into the area outside the hospital without looking at him like he was an alien.

Typically, a wave would be the extent of Clover's social interactions. But this was his second chance at life. He wanted to change. So, with great apprehension and anxiety, he opened his mouth.

“Hello!” Clover exclaimed. Huh. He blinked. That hadn’t been as bad as he thought. He wondered what he had been so scared of all those years.

A familiar face emerged from the gathering crowd. “Clover, what happened? Are you alright?” Dr. White asked.

Clover took a moment to mentally summarize what had happened to him. It wasn't easy. More had happened to him in the past hour than in the past month.

"Well, first, a tree tried to eat me alive, and then I fell off a building. Would you believe that? And then this guy attacked me, who, I may add, was also trying to eat me alive." He pointed at the dead Bone Rat, then shrugged. "And, honestly, it's kind of worse than it looks. Ya'know, most of the blood isn't mine." Clover paused his riveting oration, noticing for the first time the shabby shape the doctor was in.

The side of his white lab coat had a hole torn in it and was covered in a light dusting of dirt. Despite that, he seemed energized, like the blood ran through his veins easier.

"Besides, you're hurt worse than me; what are you even doing here?" Clover asked, eager to take the attention away from himself.

The doctor shrugged back. “Just doing my job. My shift doesn’t end till morning.” He rubbed the back of his head. “That sounded better in my head. Actually, I…”

The man wearing a baseball cap who had first spotted Clover stepped forward from the growing crowd and interrupted Dr. White, cutting off what he was about to say next.

“You were in the hospital, right?” the man said, his breath short.

Clover nodded, not sure how to respond.

"Have you seen my son? He's about this tall," he held his hand to his hip, "and he looks just like me."

Several things clicked into place, and suddenly, the situation made more sense. If Clover had to guess, most of the group had stumbled their way to the hospital to rescue their family members who were trapped inside.

Still, even if he knew why the group had formed, Clover couldn’t come up with an explanation of how this large of a group had gathered this quickly. It just didn’t seem likely to him. The odds of it were astronomically low.

Clover pulled himself out of his self-made distraction and focused back on the man's question. Answering wouldn't get any easier, no matter how long he waited.

Clover swallowed the pit in his throat. "I'm sorry. I haven't," he said, unable to meet the man's eyes. His face dropped, disappointed by Clover's words. He knew he hadn't done anything wrong, but he still felt guilty.

"But I know there's a group of people still alive in there. I mean, the walls and stuff were pretty banged up, but all the rooms were empty - there were no bodies. They have to be in there somewhere, just not on the third floor," he said, the words quickly falling out of his mouth before he could think. He didn't know why he said them. He didn't even know if his words were technically true.

"Thank you." The man grasped his shoulder and nodded, then left, rejoining a subset of the group as they cleared the hospital's entrance of rubble. From their tense expressions, he could tell they were eager to move now that their destination was finally in front of them.

"You should get your wounds treated. You don't want to get an infection," a nurse who had trailed Dr. White added. She looked oddly at peace while talking about medical procedure like the world hadn't ended and it was just another day at the office.

"There's a Safe Zone with people who could help you. We're sending a group back there in a couple minutes. You should go with them." She nodded toward a pillar of blue light on the other side of the hospital, at most a block away.

Clover didn't know how he hadn't noticed it. He shook his head. "Really, the blue spotlight? I thought that was where the monsters were invading from."

Movie logic dictated that going toward glowing lights was always a bad idea, so Clover had planned to stay as far away from them as possible. But, he guessed, this wasn't a movie, so anything could happen.

She smiled. "The opposite, really. From what I've seen, the closer you are to the glowing blue spotlight, the fewer monsters you will encounter." She said goodbye and left, her shoulders hunching up as she approached the hospital.

The initial crowd around him had dispersed, leaving him alone with the doctor. He guessed he wasn't that interesting.

“It’s good to see you’re keeping active. Are you planning on making a habit of fighting the local wildlife?” Dr. White said with a chuckle once they were finally alone.

Clover's lips twitched upward into a lopsided smile. "Probably; I figure if they keep trying to eat me, I might as well fight back." His grin faltered. "I don't see any other way."

Dr. White patted his shoulder. "Maybe today there isn't, but in the future, with the System, I refuse to believe there won't be a solution." The doctor looked over his head - like monsters, humans had their Level displayed in blue text. "Did it help?"

"I think. I feel a bit better."

There was no way to be sure if adding Points to his Vitality would be enough to cure him.

The two looked out at the cracked city street for a moment. The doctor looked like he wanted to say something, but the moment never came.

“How did this whole thing happen?” Clover asked, gesturing broadly at the group that had assembled.

"I wish I knew. One moment, I was drinking a coffee in the breakroom, and the next, I was standing in the middle of the road with a couple hundred confused people."

“Really, you got abducted? Like an alien movie?”

“I’m not sure if that’s the technical term, but essentially, yes.”

"So that's how you gathered this big group; you all got teleported to the same place?"

"No, at the time, I wasn't thinking about others." He paused to straighten out the sleeves of his white lab coat. "Once I made it to the Safe Zone, it became clear that not everyone had been relocated by the System. And after I realized that, I couldn't stop wondering if the people trapped inside the hospital were okay."

"Thanks for coming," Clover said simply.

Bouncing from one near-death experience to the next, he hadn't had time to consider anyone else's safety – not even his aunt, his only living blood relative. He hoped she was okay.

"Carlos – the one with the hat gave me the idea." A bit of the professional mask he wore around others slipped away, and his posture deflated. "I wanted to do the right thing, but this whole fighting monsters thing – the violence… I'm not cut out for it."

For some reason, it hadn't clicked before – the doctor's ruffled appearance, his torn coat - Clover wasn't the only one who had almost died that night.

A man Clover didn’t recognize waved at the Doctor, signaling that the rest of the group was ready to move.

Dr. White straightened out his posture and ran a hand through his hair, failing to return it to a respectable state. "Hey, Clover, look after yourself," he said, then left.

"You too." Clover scratched his chin; he was forgetting something. Oh. "There's a magical tree on the third floor. If you stand still for too long, it will put you to sleep, then eat you. Watch out for that."

The doctor shot him a thumbs-up.

Clover let out a breath.

Before long, he departed, tensely navigating dark and cracked city streets, following a crowd of confused and scared people to the Safe Zone.