Cold and awkward were the two words that the naked man would describe himself in what appeared to be a crematory room. He was clueless as to how or why he was there. In fact, he couldn't recall his last memory at all. But the feeling of being cold scared him for some reason, he didn't like it at all.
His eyes scanned around the room for clothing of any kind until he found a set of clothes placed on a table near him. Blue jeans, black shirt, briefs socks, shoes, and a jacket. He tried the set on and they all fit perfectly like a glove.
"These have to be mine right?" He asked himself, believing that they had to be.
The man tried to remember his name but nothing was coming to mind. He must have died if he was at a crematorium and so there must be some records about him in the building. And with that thought, he decided to search the building for anything about him.
But what was odd, he thought as he roamed, was that it was too quiet. He couldn't be the only person in the building. There had to be at least one other person working there.
He could tell it was daytime based on the view he was seeing from a window, perfectly normal outside. Although, there didn't seem to be any neighboring buildings.
His thoughts would come to a stop when he finally heard some noise coming from a corner hallway. Curious, he quietly went over and peeked to discover something gut wrenching.
There was another man hunched over a woman's corpse munching on her body. The sight was shocking at first and nauseous after.
'A zombie!?' He thought as he continued watching it feast. He wasn't believing it to be a zombie and decided to view it as a cannibal, maybe some deranged man. He didn't have a good look of the person to confirm it was a zombie but it was definitely dangerous.
The man didn't want to confront the crazy man and instead wanted to find a way to escape. There had to be a back exit, possibly the other hallway near the room he had left, was his thought.
So he decided to turn back, keeping quiet, till a sound of a man echoing from the hallway had just peeked. There was a loud thud that startled him followed by a growl that could only be the cannibal.
His legs spent up not wanting to know what was going on behind him. The exit had to be in the other hallway. He hadn't looked when he left the room he was in.
Footsteps could be heard behind. No, it wasn't just footsteps. It was running and the shout could be heard behind saying “Hey! Help me, please!”
The man had no weapon on himself, if he had, he would feel more confident facing the flesh eating guy. But even so, despite not wanting to test his chances, he halted himself after feeling an urge to stand and fight to help the person asking for his assistance.
‘Fuck, I can't believe I'm doing this.’ He thought, he looked to his left which was the autopsy room. ‘Maybe there's something I can use there?’.
He rushed in frantically searching for a weapon of any kind that looked like it could do good damage. But all that was in there were small knives, hammers, tools, etc. There wasn't anything he could find to use to properly fight off the cannibal.
The sound of running was getting closer and he looked at the autopsy cart with an idea.
An older man with glasses and gray facial hair appeared into view looking visibly hurt holding his left hip. He seemed to be one of the doctors who must have worked in the building. The doctor locked eyes with the man and asked once again for help.
Not long after, the one person that the man had been waiting for came into view. He wasted no time as he jammed the cart into the body of the deranged person. The being was slammed into the wall next to it, giving out a shriek before becoming unconscious.
Upon closer inspection, the being looked pale, almost a light gray color. It wore a white gown, had stitches on different parts of its body. But above all, there was blood and pieces of human flesh around it's mouth.
The man could only conclude that this person had to be something much more than a regular cannibal. This was a crematorium, a place for the dead to be turned to ash. If this was an actual living person, they would be in a place like a hospital. This had to be a zombie.
He then thought about one other thing, himself. ‘Was I dead? But how could that be possible?’ He was confused.
His thoughts were cut off when the doctor spoke after catching his breath. “Fuck! Thank you so much! I was hiding in one of the rooms since yesterday before mustering up the courage to try to make my escape.” He was exhausted from sprinting for his life.
“Yeah, of course.” The man told him as he kept looking at the deceased corpse. He wanted to be sure it was for sure dead. When he did look at the doctor, he noticed one distinct feature of his appearance which was his amber colored eyes that bothered him for some reason in a bad way.
The doctor had calmed himself down and looked at the zombie with disgust. “Bastard nearly got me before locking myself in a room. But I'm even more grateful that you arrived to save me.” The doctor said with a smile, his eyes still looking uncanny.
The man just nodded in response, he wasn't able to shake off the strange feeling that something appeared to be off about the doctor. He felt that the doctor was hiding something from him as he kept glancing at his amber colored eyes.
The dead woman and the side of the doctor's injured hip came to mind. He wondered what sort of events had transpired with the zombie encounter. “There was a dead woman on the floor at the end of the other hallway you came from. You wouldn't happen to know what happened to her would you?” The man questioned him, the doctor had to have at least heard her before her life faded.
The doctor paused for a moment, as if he was hesitating to answer. Then the doctor parted his lips, about to speak, when suddenly a loud screech came from the other end of the hallway.
There at the other end stood a frail lanky figure. It was the woman's corpse now animated. Her flesh from her limbs torn and shredded from becoming the previous monster's feast. Her head twitched to the side, her gaze locking into her first victims.
“Shit!” The doctor yelled, his voice shaking a bit as he looked upon their new foe.
The man turned to the cart and grabbed the handle, readying it for another charge at the zombie.
But he was interrupted unexpectedly when the assumed defeated zombie animated once more, shoving the cart to the side and throwing itself at the man. The zombie was now pressing himself against the man who was resisting with all his might.
The zombie snapped it's jaws at it's prey, blood and bits of flesh falling out on top of the man's face. The man took quick glances at the doctor, who seemed to be frozen in place, hoping he would come to his aid like he did for the doctor.
“Don't just stand there! Get him off me!” The man shouted as he kept doing everything he could not to get bitten.
The doctor's facial expression turned into a face of amusement followed by an evil grin that seemed to confirm the man's suspicions. The doctor then replied. “Sorry young man, survival of the fittest, as they say!”, the backstabber then turned away, bolting to what could be the exit that was at the end of the hallway.
And as the sound of the doctor's footsteps sprinting off towards his freedom got quieter. The man's anger rose higher and higher. It was at that moment that he was no longer fearing for his life anymore, instead, he was filled with rage. He knew something was off about the doctor. Yet, he did not trust his intuition and allowed his escape to happen.
The sound of footsteps approaching him from the other end of the hallway brought him back to reality. He knew there was one more threat he had to deal with and he had to hurry.
Now fueled with hate and a burning desire to get back at the doctor, he went all in contesting with his attacker. It was a struggle against a being with inhuman strength but with his goal of kicking the doctors ass in mind, he slowly started to turn the tide. He noticed a part of the zombies head was badly damaged from the crash he cause, exposing it's brain.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Quickly, he held the zombie at bay and reached for the biggest knife he could find that fell from the cart before stabbing at it's weak point repeatedly. Each strike powered by venting frustration.
He could feel the zombie getting weaker with each stab, the man's hand getting bloodier as he kept going. He was so missed that the doctor had turned his back on him after receiving his help. If he made it out alive, he would make it his mission to hunt down the doctor.
And with his last stab, the corpse was now truly lifeless. His attention then shifted to his next target after shoving off the defeated zombie.
He was going to get up and ready himself for his next encounter, but something strange appeared in front of his face. It was a light blue screen with white text reading, “First Blood!”, followed by “Now creating Character Profile!”.
The moment was so random that the man didn't realize that the other zombie had caught up to him and reached it's head through the blue screen, causing it to shimmer and disappear, startling him some what.
The man reacted fast enough to back up in time before possibly getting a hickey from the woman. However, one of his legs was grabbed by the woman as she prepared to take a bite out of his foot.
Luckily, the arms of the woman were weak enough to yank away his leg from the undead. There wasn't much muscle on her arms, seeing as they've been eaten from the previous zombie.
And with a trusted kick, he propelled the woman back, causing her to stumble against a wall and on to the floor. It was enough time for the defender to stand back up to retaliate.
His focus was back on the cart once more as his weapon of choice but this time he was going to beat the brains out of this wicked undead.
With both hands gripping the handles of the cart, he lifted it and rushed over to the zombie, who just stood up and swung the cart at it's head. Blood and teeth splattering across the walls, the monster fell back on it's side again.
Wasting no time, he charged up another attack, slamming it on the woman's head. Bits and pieces of it's brain flying out. The man didn't not stop, continuing to vent his anger from the doctor's actions. Relentlessly smashing the cart again and again and again.
It was only a minute until he stopped bashing the cart, when another blue screen appeared once more with white text reading “Are you finished yet?”.
He wondered what the hell this blue screen was about, it was so strange that he questioned if this was all a dream.
The man decided to ignore it and continued on making a mess of the undead corpse. Actually, at this point, most people wouldn't call it a corpse anymore. To psychopathic killers this was a work of art and it needed a couple more touch ups.
The same blue screen popped up, “Would you please stop! You've already won!”, it pleaded this time. But the man, once again, ignored it. He would stop when he wanted too, although the weird blue screen was concerning to him, he wasn't finished venting.
Five minutes went by before he slowly came to a stop to admire his masterpiece. His whole body was exhausted between fighting for his life and getting a bit too creative with his work. He dropped the banged up cart, now deformed, letting it clatter on the floor.
Another blue screen appeared reading “First Title Obtained!. Title: ‘Psycho Blood Artist!’. Effect: When drawing blood from a foe, you receive a +3 in both Strength and Agility for 10 seconds in combat. Cooldown: 90 Seconds Per Foe. Stacks up to 5×.”
When the man finished reading it, he wondered what it was all about. It seemed like something he would receive from completing a quest or something from a video game. The words ‘Strength’ and ‘Agility’ were video game related keywords. ‘This is so bizarre.’ He thought.
Once again, another chat window appeared. “(-_-) you done now?”. It asked, the man felt like whoever was messaging him had emotions, especially now that it was being sassy. The man nodded responding to it's question.
“Good.” It replied. “Because now I can share the important bits of information to you before leaving. I have more contestants to inform after.” He was curious about what it mentioned about ‘Contestants.’.
“Congratulations on surviving your first encounter with a mob and slaying not just one, but two! Because you survived, you are now registered into the new game event ‘Lost Adventure!’. The rules are pretty simple I promise. Survive or meet the conditions of each quest, objective, etc. Using whatever means necessary. You were too busy making a mess of the poor zombies that you didn't realize your Character Profile was created. All you have to do is say the magic words ‘Open menu’ or think of it and a blue screen, similar to the one you're reading on, will appear with a list of options.” The system paused for a moment, seemingly wanting the man to try it out.
He spoke the command, and like it said, a blue menu window did appear with a list of options. These options were the following: Character Profile, Inventory, Party, Quest Information, Forums & Communications, and ???.
The option ‘???’ made him curious, he wondered why it was named that way and when he tried accessing it, it wouldn't open. He decided to ignore it for now and instead check out his profile.
As he opened his character profile, the system chatted again. “From here, you can check your current status such as your health, mana, stamina, etc. And you get stronger as you level up everytime you obtain enough experience points from a couple of things, such as slaying mobs or completing events. This is all basically a video game, which I'm sure you've played a few, only catch is you have one life. Fun right!” It indeed, did not sound fun at all to the man.
“Well, that's all you need to know for now contestant. I'll be taking my leave now, please put on a good show for us all! Buh bye!!” The system said in a cheerful tone before closing the window.
The man was left to himself again once more. He wanted to chase the doctor down right away but assumed that he was probably long gone by now and instead wanted to assess the situation he was in.
Basically, from his understanding, he is apart of a game that has real life consequences and that includes dying. The name of the game is called ‘Lost Adventure’ and he has to survive through all sorts of challenges which range from defeating monsters to completing events of any kind. All of which he will have to do if he would like to survive another day and get stronger like in a video game.
He still wondered if this was all a dream, this whole situation seemed looney. For now, he would have to accept it.
The man looked over at his profile, hoping that it would include his name at least that would give me some comfort as to who he was.
His stats for himself were as followed: Level: 1; Health: 300; Stamina: 300; Mana: 100; Exp: 67/100; Strength: 3; Agility: 4; Endurance: 5; Intelligence: 3; and Wisdom: 3.
There was also the keyword ‘Titles’ which had a drop down list that only contained ‘Psycho Blood Artist’, for the moment. He thought it was both odd and interesting that there were hidden titles like the one he got that could be obtained through amusing means.
He saw some other information that peaked his interest. It was the following: Karma: 90% Good/10% Bad; Class: None; Age: ??; Name: *@^*@((@^/÷×][@&;@?,x.
He was confused, why couldn't he see his name? It made no sense to him and the same thing applied to his age. It was as if the system was hiding it from him. He had an idea of what class could be, but he wasn't sure how Karma would affect him.
‘Maybe there's a record of me in this building that I can find. That was what I was originally going to do.’ He thought, he was hoping he could find his identity. Even just the first letter of his name would suffice.
The man went searching for clues, revisiting the corner hallway he found the first zombie. As he walked down the hallway, he found an open door with dents that looked like a hammer was banging on it. It had to have been the room the doctor was hiding in and the zombie was trying to break in.
He then thought about the woman, ‘The doctor must have sacrificed the woman to protect himself. Selfish bastard…’ He would vow to avenge her death.
He also remember paving her whole corpse into the floor, splattering everything everywhere. He felt guilty, he let his anger get the best of him. ‘I went a bit too far…but fuck that doctor!’ He thought balling his fists.
The reception desk came to mind, thinking he could use one of the computers to pull up files that could give him something.
He rushed further down but not much once he saw what seemed to be reception. There were chairs for guests, some friendly portraits and photos on walls, and the reception desk with two computers. The room was simple but gave a welcome feeling.
The man was anxious and hopped onto one of the computer's but when he did, it asked for a password. He scanned around his area for a hint and spotted a sticky note on a picture of two children with the words ‘4EverLove’.
He imputed the words and it worked, his eyes shifted around the screen until it locked on to a link leading to a record of the patients from a website. With one click, a window opened up to the crematorium's website of records.
His hand guided the mouse, surfing through a list of recent patients. The game he was in could not have altered whatever was on the internet, he had to believe his name was on record and he would know it was his.
He spent about 10 minutes scrolling when he stopped and stared at the screen in disbelief once again and then with anger soon after. Once more he saw a name typed as shown: ‘@%@&#%^^@%&#*&’.
Deep inside he wanted to throw the computer across the room but calmed himself down and wondered if he could at least read any info about him, maybe how he died.
The man clicked on his record description with some hope only to lose his shit again because everything about him was full of random gibberish nonsense.
“I. JUST. WANT. TO. KNOW. MY. FUCKING. NAME!” He yelled out, not caring if any more zombies came running in.
He had to give himself a moment to gather himself. ‘Why the hell is the system preventing me from seeing my name?’ He wondered if the system was toying with him, like it was taunting him.
The man had a thought, ‘What if I print out my information and have someone else read it to me?’. He had to try, it was his only hope that he could think of.
Calmly using the computer without wrecking it, he printed out his information of decrypted words and went to grab his documents.
But when he touched it, they disappeared. Instantly, he spun around, stomped to the pc monitor, lifted it and chucked it at a wall. The monitor went flying, caving it into the wall and shattering the screen.
What he didn't realize was that there was a notification window telling him ‘’÷^#&@,@*@(%#^ Documents’ added to inventory.’. He felt embarrassed, thinking the system was being petty.
The notification window automatically closed and the man took a deep breath, closing his eyes before exhaling. ‘I really need to calm down more.’ So far he was not good as controlling his anger. Slaughtering and making artwork from a corpse showed that much of his control over his emotions.
‘What am I supposed to call myself if I meet someone? Will I ever find out who I truly am?’ He wondered.
His mind drifted trying to think of a name for himself, something that was at least simple and not too flashy.
Suddenly, he dropped to a knee with a hand on his head with a look of pain. He felt as though his head was splitting open, his eyes remained closed as he tried to bear through the intense moment he was experiencing.
In his mind, a flashing image appeared of a man dressed in what appeared to be a warrior cosplay. The person wore a billowing cloak, clad in armor, a huge sword on his back, with short hair. That was all the man could make out of his appearance as it was vague and kind of faint but he could tell that he seemed to be an adventurer.
“Hey B-Barry…” A voice called out. “Please…Barry I'm sorry!” The voice sounded distressed, a hand reached out towards the warrior presumingly named “Barry.”.
His headache began to diminish after a minute and was able to stand up again. “Open menu.” Were the first words he said, in a tired voice, as he recovered himself. He was still feeling the aftermath of his mind being split.
His hand motioned to touching his profile on the menu window and glanced at his name once more. ‘Name: #^&$_/#>>&#^>*@.’.
No surprise, he still could not see his name. He was too tired to be mad or disappointed anymore so he just sighed.
‘So I'm likely not that Barry guy I saw in my mind then if I still can't see my name…’ He figured because he couldn't see at least his first name.
But despite not being able to know his real name, he was actually a bit happy that he was able to remember something at least. The name Barry didn't ring any bells and the image of a guy with a huge fucking sword with a cloak seemed like a movie actor or something.
After a moment, he felt alright again and decided on something that was very important to him at the moment.
“Barry, I don't remember or know you but I'm borrowing your name because it's all I can remember.” Barry said as he looked at the ceiling, almost as if he hoped this Barry was listening to him.
Barry then turned to the entrance doors and walked out but not before voicing his opinion. “But damn is Barry such a boring name.”.