It took a couple flights of stairs before the question itching in the back of my skull came crawling out, “Why did you help me?”

“What?” Tala asked.

“Back there. Why did you help me? You could have shut the door and kept going but you stopped. You put your life on the line to help me. Why?” I stopped taking steps and leaned against the yellow railing. The veins in my leg were pulsating in a raw pain. Hot and swelling pain.

“We need to take care of your leg. If it gets worse your condition could change and not for the better. C’mon.” Tala took the next few steps in one stride and came to another metal door. She pressed her head against it and waited. I slowly came up beside her and when she was satisfied she couldn’t hear anything she pressed the door open. We both looked out into another long hallway that turned into a series of cubicles. An old office space left vacant since the Older World. The lights were dead and the only source of light was the crimson glow from the long rows of glass windows. The windows were tall stretching from the floor to the ceiling making everything look exposed and open to a wide world of lavender clouds and distant gray buildings.

“Have you scavenged yet?” Tala asked as she stepped through the door and waited for me. I followed and stayed close to the wall. She closed the door as quietly as she could then turned to me and asked again.

“No. Not really. I did loot some fangs from a Duskweaver I killed,” I said.

“Really? You killed something already?” Tala asked in impressive surprise.

“Two actually. One of them is the reason my leg is messed up,” I said, emphasizing my leg by lifting it slightly.

“You’re still Level 0 though. I figured once I killed something I’d level up. How much experience did they give you?” She asked.

“Thirty in total. Seventy more till I level up. Have you gained any experience?” At my question Tala turned away. She was looking down the office space scanning the room with her eyes.

“No I haven’t,” She said, turning to meet my eyes. “I saw Theo take off through the mall and followed right after him. When we crossed the street to the tower I figured I could find a better way in than the front door. So I went around the building till I saw an entrance and found myself in the underground garage. That’s when I was surrounded by these awful crawling arms with red eyes. I almost died. If it hadn’t been for this,” She held up the tire iron, “I’d be dead.”

We both went quiet for a moment. I was reflecting on the Duskweavers that had attacked me. It was a frightening experience for sure and I even thought I was going to die, but to be trapped in an underground garage surrounded by… well monsters. We both almost died today. I just happened to get luckier than her. I didn’t earn these experience points; they basically fell into my lap.

“Glad you made it out alright. If it wasn’t for you I’d be dead now,” I awkwardly put my arm on her shoulder and gave her the best smile I could. She shrugged my touch away and told me not to mention it.

“Lets get some supplies. My dad told me that supplies mean life. If I can’t get experience points from killing monsters maybe I can scavenge for something useful. Let’s hurry,” She turned and crouched her way into the room. I scraped along behind her and studied her movements. She was keeping her head down, footsteps quick and light as she moved from one cubicle to another. We both began looking in drawers, under desks, inside cabinets for anything we could use. I didn’t really know what to look for. I found a pair of large scissors and considered using them as an additional weapon but when I held them in my hand I received no notification of damage or statistics. Which is something I thought was weird. What was considered a weapon then? If I picked up something that wasn’t a true weapon how much damage could I do? I much did weapons really affect my damage-per-second as my father put it. Something I would have to test.

“Found something,” Tala hissed over to me waving for me to come over to her.

She was crouched down in an area that hosted a few leather couches, a small coffee table and a nearby plastic plant. She was pointing to something on the other side of the plant and motioned for me to look. What she was pointing at was a small gray light similar to the one I saw when I killed the Duskweaver. She reached her hand out, grasped the light, and it disappeared in her fist.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Bandages,” She manifested a small cloth rolled tightly around itself. “It’s a common healing item. Here, use it.”

She placed the bandages in my hand and I saw a notification in my vision of the bandages being obtained. I pressed my will on that notification and more information appeared.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

[Bandages: Heals minor injuries]

“What’s considered a minor injury?” I asked Tala.

“What’s your Codex saying about your condition?” She asked.

I pulled my Codex up and checked my condition. It no longer said [Injured] and instead read as [Wounded]. It must have been referring to the damage on my leg. It wasn’t bleeding anymore but it still hurt.

“Don’t you remember anything from your lessons?” She waited for me to answer but I was drawing up blanks. Sure I had gone through survival classes as a kid but when I turned thirteen I mainly worked with my dad on the industrial farm he started and weapons practice. I guess I forgot a lot of things during those three years. Tala shook her head then started, “There are five stages to taking damage. First is [Bruised], second is [Wounded], next is [Injured], fourth is [Maimed]. That’s when damage starts taking a more permanent toll on your body. The final stage before death is [Crippled]. If you’re [Crippled] you might as well pray for a quick death.”

“Wait… When I first got attacked my Codex said [Bleeding],” I asked.

“That’s a special condition such as [Poisoned], [Burned], and [Frostbitten]. Special conditions take precedence over damage stages. They essentially overlay themselves on top of the damage step. You said that your Codex says [Wounded] now? That means when those Duskweavers attacked you they caused the [Injured] condition which was then overlaid with [Bleeding]. You took care of it… well sort of. And overtime you healed a little. You stopped the [Bleeding] so it dropped a stage. Using those bandages will drop it down another stage. Go ahead, try it.”

My lessons started coming back to me quicker and more clearly as she reiterated things I had already known. Five stages of damage conditions with possibly endless special conditions that can be applied. All things I should have remembered earlier. I underestimated how much the fear and dread of the Fallen States caused me to forget my valuable lessons.

I carefully removed the torn cloth from my leg, seeing the thick blood that had coagulated against my skin stretch like melted wax. I dropped it on the ground and replaced it with the clean bandages. I felt an immediate difference as soon as I finished wrapping my leg. Checking my condition again I saw that it was updated to [Bruised]. I wanted to unwrap the bandages and take a look but decided against it.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Don’t mention it. Can’t have you hobbling around. You’ll be dead weight,” She started scavenging again.

My leg felt much better now and made moving much less of a chore. I quickened my pace hoping to find something I could share back as a gesture of goodwill. I wasn’t sure what her game was yet but it would be great to have someone watching my back.

I found my way into a dusty break room with a round table in its center and a fridge pushed against the far wall. There was a dead body of a man in the corner, shriveled, thin and with dark eye sockets that stared, unblinking at the ceiling. The man was wearing a navy blue suit now covered in a deep river of dried blood that ran down from his throat. In his hand he was clutching a large kitchen knife.

I walked in, keeping my distance from the dead man, and started searching the cabinets. I found a few plastic utensils, paper plates, and glass cups but not much else. I next looked in the fridge but had to close it immediately as an awful scent poured out of it like a thick fog. The only thing left in the room I hadn’t checked was the dead body. I had no plans on searching through his clothes but the knife in his hand looked tempting.

I crouched down slowly expecting the body to suddenly jump out at me, when it didn’t I reached for the knife. Taking a look at it I noticed there was a subtle glow around the blade. It was gray and faint. I pried back the fingers and felt bones snap as I did. Once the knife was free I slipped it from his fingers and got a notification.

Kitchen Knife (Common)

🗡 1 - 4 Damage

◈ 5% Chance to cause [Bleeding]

Attack Speed: Fast

Combat Power: 32

I held the blade in my left hand, rotating it back and forth while comparing it to the Rusty Knife. I tried swinging with both weapons, an action I’ve seen the [Midnight Ranger] do during some of the combat practices he did with Theo. It felt awkward and sluggish as if having both knives in my hands caused me to attack slower. I imagined the Rusty Knife fading from my hand and into my inventory and in an instant it disappeared. I now held the Kitchen Knife alone and my attacks went back to feeling like normal. I thought about some of my fathers lessons at that moment. Despite my knowledge of weapons, mostly firearms, due to having my Codex Unlocked, if I don’t have the correct skills then some weapons would be useless to me.

“Certain skills allow you to use certain weapons more effectively. You may be good at using a pistol now but when you unlock the skill for it you’ll feel unstoppable,” The words in my fathers voice echoed in my skull.

“Find anything?” Tala called from the door.

I held the knife behind my wrist and said, “Nothing. Let’s keep looking.”

I felt guilty about not telling her that I found another weapon, something that could be better than what she already had, but the words “First to the Top” kept scratching at my brain. I pushed past her and made my way to the next room without saying anything more. We spent the next half an hour searching from room to room but unfortunately we found nothing of use.

“I think we should head up now. Not much sense in wasting time here,” I said. Tala stood from looking under a desk and let out a huff. Looking at her I couldn’t help but compare her to the other girls in The Quarters. I had seen her around before but not often. She tended to keep to herself and from what happened back at the escalators it seemed that was her dad’s idea. I wouldn’t consider her to be that beautiful but she wasn’t unattractive either. She had sweat on her forehead and dried blood on her cheek. Her eyes were still flushed from crying and her hair was slicked back in a ponytail.

Tala and her father were Filipino, or at least that's what my dad told me. Said things like race and skin color were a big deal before the end of the world. Now, not so much. People are an endangered species now. We all had to work together to survive. Though I’ve never met anyone outside The Quarters, for all I knew we were the only ones left.