Chapter 2:

Consciousness returned to Alice in waves. Warm sensations and a slight jostling brought her back from the darkness, leaving fuzzy memories before she dipped back out of reality. This repeated several times, each leaving a vague, but distinct impression behind.

When she finally mustered the courage to crack open her eyes, she had no idea how long it had been or where she was. Alice half-expected to see pearly gates, the inside of a hospital room, or the broken wreckage of a helicopter around her. But the searing light stabbing into her corneas blinded her so much that she immediately closed her eyes again, having gotten nothing for her efforts but a flash of pain.

The burning sensation of hot knitting needles being jabbed into her brain faded after a few seconds, and she could think again. Belatedly, she registered a little bit of what she felt. Pain, mostly. Lots of pain all over her body. But she also felt a large, slightly rough hand holding her head and neck steady.

A moment later, Alice felt a disposable water bottle's plastic rim pressed to her lips. The smell of slightly stale water and microplastics was like heaven for a second. Then, it only brought attention to the complaints of her sandblasted throat and tongue.

"Slowly," a deep, resonant voice instructed, "You probably have a concussion, whiplash, broken bones, and broken ribs. At least... Frankly, I'm surprised you're still alive."

When the liquid finally trickled into her mouth, she tried to suck it down as fast as she could. Gentle hands cruelly pulled the container away from her before she could get more than a mouthful, but she lacked the strength to do anything besides moan in protest.

The muscles in the sides of her neck were sore as she turned her head away from the blinding light and opened her eyes again. She was facing a rough-cut timber wall in an otherwise dim room. The air smelled of cedar and smoke, with a hint of earth mixed in.

Alice could do little more than just lie there, suppressing any reaction to the screaming agonies in her neck muscles. Her caretaker took a couple of steps around the cot she was lying on, and she watched as the burly man squatted down, facing her. She willed her eyes to focus and finally found his face.

He couldn't have been more than a few years older than her, 25 at most. His dark complexion and few days of beard growth left him totally ethnically ambitious. As she met his eyes, the brown color felt warm but simultaneously hard and distant. She just stared at him for seconds while he studied her face.

"I have something called a first aid skill," the man said, seemingly uncertain about the term but otherwise exuding an air of confidence. "It seems to have helped you, but it only works when I change your bandages. So if you sit still, I'll take care of it quickly," he gestured to her body.

Alice was confused. A [First Aid] skill? As she tried to regain her wits, her own [System Identification] skill activated. A tag identifying the man as a [Human, lvl 5] appeared over his head.

Level five already? How long have I been asleep?

She grunted, which he must have taken as assent because his hands started gently working at her bindings. Alice took stock of herself, finding that she was still dressed in her jeans and her sports bra. Her shirt had been removed at some point. Bandages wrapped around her ribs, and her arm was splinted. Something on her neck prevented her from moving it too far, and her left ankle was wrapped as well.

It only took a moment to unwrap and rewrap each of the injuries. Still, as he did it, they felt significantly better, as if they were already half-healed. She groaned and realized she had forgotten to swallow the small mouthful of water. Gulping it down, to her horror, her throat spasmed and choked, and she sprayed water all over the top of the man's head as he retied the last of her bandages.

He flinched in surprise, looking up, and Alice felt her face turn cherry red. There was amusement in his rugged face but also annoyance and slight betrayal. But Alice had less than a second to pay attention to that as the muscles in her chest and stomach spasmed, feeling bruised and battered. She struggled to choose between suffocation and excruciating pain before she coughed again.

The man's hands returned to her shoulder and helped her roll gently onto her side. With the new angle, she finished coughing up the rest of the water. It took several moments for her to gather herself, but with some assistance, she managed to sit up against the wall.

With a snort, the man wiped a hand across his face and hair before flicking the water off on the ground. He gave her a forgiving smile, "You definitely have a concussion, but I don't think there's much I can do about that."

Alice nodded very slowly before attempting to speak. Her voice came out raspy and pained, but thankfully steady. "Probably doesn't matter, though. We have more important problems."

The stranger didn't respond, and she looked around as much as she could. It was with a small amount of satisfaction that she confirmed her guess; she was indeed in a single-room log cabin. The wall she was facing away from had a crackling fire in a wood stove. The door of the stove was open a slight amount, and the flame's glow was the source of the room's illumination and the stabbing pain in her eyes. Now that her pupils had dilated, she could look in that direction, but the light was still too bright for comfort.

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With the amount of trouble she had focusing on anything, Alice realized the man was 100% right—she must have a pretty serious concussion, along with all the other injuries he listed. But by some miracle, she didn't think she had any actual broken bones. Well, maybe some ribs, but her bandaged ankle and splinted forearm felt mostly fine. Blessedly, she also felt sensations everywhere—pain, to be sure, but that was still a sensation. So, likely no spinal injury.

With her best pitiful expression plastered on her face, Alice reached out for the water bottle. The olive-skinned man looked at her skeptically as if she were a toddler about to kill herself at the nearest opportunity. He wiped some more water off his face, and Alice cringed. But she persevered and licked her lips. With her mouth mostly mobile, she croaked out, "Water, please."

Her speaking seemed to assuage his fears of her choking again, and he handed the bottle over. Before he let it go, he made sure her grip was steady. Her hand shook slightly as she lifted it to her lips and sipped as slowly as she could.

Alice felt incredibly awkward as the man sat there and watched her intently. She could only meet his eyes for a couple of seconds before it started to feel awkward, and she had to look away. The stranger had no such compunctions, studying her face and every move she made. There was something unnerving about his watchful gaze, but he was patient and let her drink without interruption.

When she'd finished half the water bottle, Alice felt like she could talk without excruciating pain. "Thank you," she said. This time, it came out far more intelligible, and she decided to push her luck with a second sentence, which also came out intelligibly. "Where are we?"

Her rescuer looked at her passively for a second, his eyes digging deep into her brain as if he were trying to read her thoughts. She hoped that wasn't possible but with the System and all the craziness, who knew? As if someone had told her not to think of a pink elephant, all the things she didn't want to talk about sprang forward into the forefront of her mind. The first thing obviously was the reason for the disaster, followed shortly by every memory she had that made her cringe when they resurfaced. Eventually, though, he spoke, and it wasn't about everything she feared.

"How are you still here? Everyone else disappeared."

The words crashed into Alice like a bowling ball. The rich tone of his voice did little to soften the impact. At least, she was pretty certain that the System hadn't given him the ability to read her mind, as he did have to ask. That was something, at least.

Looking up into the stranger's face, she suddenly second-guessed her plans about coming clean to the first person she found and asking for help. This man was intimidating. How would he react when he found out it was all her fault?

Alice was suddenly aware of how weak her injuries had left her. Not that she was some paragon of martial combat or anything, but she could barely sit up, let alone defend herself or try to run. The man was still waiting for an answer, and she started to croak out, "I don't—I don't know. I..."

She trailed off before she could finish. She'd never been very good at lying, and her normally nimble mind was drawing a massive blank. Though inept in social situations, she'd never run out of words to say. In fact, the exact opposite was usually the problem. Not shutting up had gotten her into far more trouble than quick talking had ever bailed her out of. Now wasn't one of those times where shutting up was going to help her, though. The man's face was impassive, but somehow, that made her feel even more pressured to speak.

Damn this concussion, Alice thought as she scrambled for an answer. But all she could think of was, why was he here? No one should have stayed behind. Why had the AI failed to move people? What were those errors about? She hadn't hesitated to search out the other humans left behind, but now she questioned that decision. She wondered what was special about them. Was it just random? Possibly. Or was there something else? There were several other instances of that message and other people running around, so clearly, he wasn't unique.

Right before his face turned from impassive to stony, she blurted out an answer. "I don't know. I… I didn't choose to go to the tutorial."

Alice cringed. Could she have told a more obvious lie? Not only had she contradicted herself, but even mentioning the tutorial suggested that she knew more than she let on. And if he hadn't gotten a choice…

She felt a bit of liquid trickle down her neck. Was she sweating already? Glancing down, though, she saw it wasn't sweat. The man's hand had appeared near her throat, the pommel of a knife gripped in his fist. Its tip just barely pricked her skin.

"Lie to me again, and you'll die," the stranger said in the same low voice he'd whispered everything else to her. The warmth in his eyes, though, was entirely gone, and only the cold, hard passivity remained.

A knot formed in the pit of her stomach, and she held herself perfectly still. When she had cringed, she must have cut herself on the blade pressed to her throat. She hadn't even realized when the knife had gotten there. There weren't any sudden movements she could remember. It could have been there for minutes, for all she had known.

Her eyes crossed as she tried to look down the length of the weapon before she gave up and looked to meet the man's eyes. She felt creepy crawlies work their way down her back as he delivered his threat. She had an unshakable faith that he was not bluffing, and if she lied again... well, she didn't finish the thought.

A quaver entered her voice. She tried to keep her spine stiff. With resignation, she gave up trying to hide the truth. This had been her plan from the beginning, and now she just didn't have a choice but to follow through.

"Whatever you want. No need for knives. I'll tell you everything," she said.

Abruptly, she was cut off mid-sentence. The man started to speak. The words came out rough and guttural, echoing around the room with the force of his delivery. She was lost in the sound of the strange and unfamiliar words. They weren't anything close to English or any language she could remember hearing. All she could do was stare in confusion. "What?"

"Good," the man said with a conciliatory smile as he removed the blade from her throat. "The name's Titus."