Hello There! If this is the first time you have read this Chapter I hope you enjoy it. If you have been here before you will notice some changes to Chapter 1. I hope that this has improved the readability of the Chapter as well as made it more interesting.
You can find more stuff such as a map, stat sheets and a completely different story on yougots.wordpress.com.
Thanks
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A boy was stranded on a cliff side. He left his parents campsite behind to go on his own imaginary adventure but he lost his footing. At the last moment he caught a patch of Earth to stop from falling. This was not the adventure he wanted.
“It’s ok calm down Otis. Mom or Dad is going to reach down any moment and pull me up.”
“Mommy help me!” the child yelled.
“It’s ok they are probably looking for me right now they know I went for a hike while they were making lunch”, he reasoned. He knew they would appear on the cliff side to help him.
His muscles burned and blood trickled down his forearm to his elbows before it dripped off.
“I don’t know how much longer I can hold on they better get here soon.” He begun to exert effort to pull himself up the ledge that was only three feet away from his fingertips. As he pulled himself pain blossomed in his hands and upper back. He tried to find a place put his foot but it kept sliding back to tiny crevice he was already using. He loosened his muscles in his arms and gave up on pulling himself up to the ledge.
“Why can’t I just pull myself up? The ledge is right there!” anger welling up inside of him.
“Why aren’t they here yet?” his voice was low almost inaudible.
“Where are they, don’t they care about me?”
“Why am I stuck here?” slightly louder than before.
“What did I do to deserve this?”
“This isn’t fair!” he shouted.
He thought of his mother. “Don’t get too close to the ledge, she said”.
“The rocks are loose she said”.
“You might fall she said”. His face was twisted, voice full of mockery.
“Well mother I took you advice and look where I am now. I was a few feet from the ledge when I stepped on those rocks and slid off the side. I bet if walked along the ledge there wouldn’t have been any loose rocks. This is fault with your stupid advice!” He shouted and began to cry.
With his hands throbbing he said, “Mom please save me. I will do anything. I make sure all my chores are done, I will always do the dishes and I will stop complaining all the time.”
A few minutes past his body was burning he knew he wouldn’t last much longer. He finally gave up on his parents he knew they were not coming. Subconsciously he knew he was on his own, he knew he could only rely on himself but he had one last hope.
“God, I know I never go to church but just this once give me the strength to climb up. If you can do this I will always go to church. I will leave my home and live in the church for the rest of my life. So please just let me do this one little thing.”
His hope bloomed this was it he was going to be able to climb to the top he knew it. He applied his last bit of strength to his arms and legs. He was going to climb up this stupid wall!
His chest inched up further then it had ever gone before. His confidence grew as he quickly pulled his left hand from the wall for the first time in what felt like hours. Pain burned through his fingertip and palms from the rocks still embedded in them. He desperately grabbed at next outcropping of rocks. Once he had a firm grasp he began to pull himself up. Then the rock broke from the wall he placed his hand back on the wall trying to find a grip to stop from falling. His hand slid down the cliff face only to find a grip on its original hold.
His left hand was rubbed raw and bleeding. “That’s it, I am going to die here.”
“Why did I even try? I only made it worse.” He cried.
“Why have I even been trying? My parents didn’t even come looking for me. Why bother? They probably don’t even want me even god doesn’t want to help me”.
“It’s useless. I am useless”, he sobbed.
…
…
A few moments past. The child was past his limits.
“It’s going to be ok. I can’t fight it. I might as well just let go.” The boy stopped crying. He steadied his breath and his muscles became looser.
“It’s going to be ok.”
“It’s going to be ok.”
“Just relax it’s going to be ok.”
“Just let go and fall to the rocks below.”
His hands started to loosen from the rocks.
“NO.” He shouted and hands firmed.
“It’s going to be ok. I am not going to die like this.”
“Just relax you are going to be just fine”, he said to himself.
His mind began to become less frantic and relaxed. For the first time he observed his surroundings. He looked down. “Maybe I can climb down. No it’s too far I cannot climb three feet up what makes me think I can climb 20 feet down.”
He looked to his right there was nothing of note maybe a couple of hand holds but the ridge sloped up that way so it would only get higher to climb that way.
He looked to the left the ridge sloped down that way. The only problem was the shadows that were cast to that side of the cliffside it would be hard to see where to place his hands and feet
“Hmm, I can try to climb to the left but I don’t think I can make it that far I would need to go about 20 feet to reach the ledge.”
He looked me closely at the possible footing that there is to the left.
“What’s that?” He noticed the shadows a few feet to his left. Looking a bit more closely it began to show a shape of a crevice. The crevice was at the level foot about 4 feet away.
“That looks large enough that I could sit in it and rest for a bit.”
He made his decision he was going to head for that hole.
He released his bloody red hand and slowly slid it to the left trying to find a place to grab. Once he found a spot he moved his right hand to the bloody spot where his left had been. He then slid his left foot over along the crevice it was currently on till he reached its edge and then slid his right foot over.
He slid his body over one more time. Now he stretched his left foot over to the hole on the side of the cliff. Once he was confident that his left foot was on firm enough ground he carefully moved the rest of his body into the hole. It was deep enough for him to fully squeeze himself in.
For once he was happy he was short for an 11 year old.
He looked down at his hands saw them covered in rocks and bleeding; his left significantly worse than his right. He took stock of his injuries that he had some he didn’t even know they were there. His knees and elbows were full of scrapes a couple of them were deep. He looked at his stomach and chest.
“Looks like I have serious case of road rash.” He painfully wiped the rocks from this hand and body.
“Hmm...I wonder if I will ever get to play that again. I have only had the game for a week.”
He looked at his clothes. His left sleeve was full holes in fact his clothes were tattered from all the climbing. He ripped the rest of his left sleeve off and wrapped his left hand. Afterwards he pulled off his shirt and used it to wipe the rest of the dirt and grime from his wounds. He glanced down at his Mickey watch his grandma gave him a few months ago for his 11th birthday, it was way past lunch time.
Speaking to himself he said, “Let’s get a little sleep first then I will get out of here.”
The boy closed his eyes and rested a bit.
…
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…
A humming sound, low at first, came from behind the back wall of his hole. It was increasingly getting louder like a airplane turbine spinning up to full power. All of a sudden a pronounced crack echoed into the surroundings.
The boy’s eyes shot open from the noise. “What the heck was that?!”
He didn’t know how long he slept but he reasoned it couldn’t have been that long. He looked out at the cliffside nothing changed. The Texas sun was still blazing hot and hadn’t moved since he closed his eyes. He turned his head and looked towards the back wall well where the back wall used to be.
“Wasn’t there a wall here, I could swear that this was just a hole not a cave.” He reached out thinking his eyes were playing tricks on him but his right hand only felt emptiness.
“I guess I was too tired and didn’t notice.” He squinted his eyes. “Looks like there is light coming from end of the cave.”
The cave entrance was only large enough for him to crawl through. “I guess let's get this over with.” He got on his hands and knees. Pain lanced through his body as he slowly crawled towards the light. The cave began to widen and he was able to stand up.
“It feels so good to stand up straight. I never thought I would feel this again.”
He began to walk through the cave. He looked at the ground and walls they were flat, unnaturally flat. At this point he didn’t care about the strange cave he just continued to walk forward staring at the light getting larger and larger.
The boy entered what looked like a square room. The light was not an exit. It was a strange floating object the shape of a diamond. Although it was bright it did not release any heat.
“What in the world is that?” The boy looked at it with a curious expression. Pain and exhaustion could not squash his sense of curiosity.
He reached out to touch the object. He felt the touch of cold glass. The object flashed bright white light.
The glass object cracked at his touch, then shattered and fell disappearing before it could reach the floor.
The boy stumbled back in fright. Feet stepping in cobwebs.
“That was weird. Why did it break like that?” The boy looked around not noticing that the wall and floor were no longer flat. He only noticed that there was no light in front of him.
“Looks like I came all this way for nothing.” He pouted as he turned around. After he turned around he was facing a wall.
“Did I get turned around when that thing broke”? He glanced to his left seeing the light in that direction he turned. Right as he was about to walk Blue text entered the upper left of his vision.
[Magic System Enabled]
[HUD System Enabled]
[Universal Language Enabled]
[Health Bar Enabled]
[Mana Bar Enabled]
[Stamina Bar Enabled]
[Mini Map Enabled]
[Title System Enabled]
[Active Skill System Enabled]
[Passive Skill System Enabled]
[Racial Passives Enabled]
[Racial Passive: Adaptability]
[Racial Passive: Elitist]
[Racial Passive: Reign of Destruction]
[Racial Passive: Conditioning]
“What is going on?” He turned his head to look away from the text but it followed always staying in the upper left.
“This is crazy. How do I get rid of it?” The boy waved his arms around to wipe the words from his vision, destroying several spider webs in the process. The text began to fade out which caused him to calm down. He noticed in the lower right of his vision there was a box that was all gray except for a line that was brown. In the upper left above where the text was there are three bars stacked on top of each other, one red, one blue and the last green and all of them had a number displayed in it. The red one show 33 and the green was almost completely out with only the number 5 in it.
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“Ok just calm down. Everything is going to be fine. Just relax.” The boy’s breath started to become steady and less frantic.
“I will worry about it later I just need to get to get out of this cave first. Let’s head back to the cliff and climb out.” He began to walk towards the exit. He glanced at the box in the lower right and looks like the reaches out to a green area.
“This box must be that map thingy the text was talking about. Good I am heading towards the exit.”
While focused on the box he walked into a cobweb that covered his face. He began to try and pull it away.
The boy heard a few rocks tumble and some movement coming from in front of him, he looked up and squinted his eyes to see into the distance.
“That spider is huge!” The boy stared at the spider that was larger than his family's shih tzu Short Round. Its legs were extremely long and thin and each leg bent at several sections. The boy tried to turn and run but all his thrashing around caused him to be completely tangled. He stopped moving and watched the spider it had stopped coming towards him when it was about 10 feet away. It slowly picked up its front two legs and placed them on the webs that adorned the walls of the cave. The spider began to flick the strands of webbing on the walls.
The vibrations from the strands of webbing began to hum with sound. The sound's loudness increased and could be heard in all directions, it was disorienting. The boy felt nauseous, he could no longer stand, his vision blurred and the darkness took him. He couldn’t stop it he was helpless and weak the boy gave in and fainted.
…
…
…
…
The boys head slammed to the floor as he fell jarring him awake.
[Status Effect Faint Removed]
Otis opened his eyes after the pain lanced through his mind. He could see the walls sliding past him. He was being dug further and further into the cave. The light from the exit was fading from behind Otis. The spider paid no attention to the boy, it just continued to pull. It had not noticed that he had awoken. Otis’s mouth was covered and his body was bound by the spiders webbing.
“Looks like this time I am really going to die this time. I can’t believe this just when I thought I was safe I run into this dang monster!!” He thought to himself.
“Calm down Otis everything is going to be ok. Freaking out is not going to help, you can get through this. For now let’s figure out how to get out of this. I wonder where it is pulling me. Well it’s not like I am along for the ride.”
He looked up at those bars in upper right of his view, the red one was lower than the green one but they were slowly recovering and were about halfway full. “I must have been out for a while it wrapped me up.”
A message popped up just below those boxes.
[Passive Skill: Mental Resilience Enabled]
[Status Effect Immobilization Removed]
After the status effect went away Otis could move his right arm. “Looks like the rest of me is still bound by webbing.” Otis cautiously began to pull the webbing off his left arm. The webbing was thick and sticky, he did not have the strength to pull it off and with every pull he could he only made the webbing constrict tighter. Otis released the webbing and felt around the floor with his free hand. He felt around picking up several rocks until he found one with an edge on it. Otis rubbed the rock against the threads. The cave was getting darker it was getting harder for Otis to see in front of him. The one thing he could see was the bright text floating over the spider.
[Silken Scout Spider level 2]
“At least now I know for sure it’s a spider. What has it been eating to get that big?” Otis looked down at himself. “Oh, makes sense.”
After a few moments sawing at the webbing his arm was completely free. The spider kept pulling and rounded a corner in the cave. “I feel like this is my best chance for a surprise attack.” Otis sat up and quickly sawed through at the thread on his legs and feet. “Ugh this is taking too long.”
Otis used the wall to pull himself up to his feet. He no longer felt a pull from the spider’s web. “That spider definitely knows something is going on.” He hopped to the corner and pressed his back against the wall.
A few moments passed. The spider stepped around corner to see what has happened. At that moment Otis fell forward and brought the rock down smashing it into the spider's eyes.
“Screech!” the spider squealed in pain. The disoriented spider tried to run but it was disoriented and slammed into the cave wall. The spider bounced off the wall and continued to run only to be stopped again because it is still anchored to the web that ran to the boys legs.
“Stupid spider you're mine!” He shouted in his mind. Sitting on the cave floor he grab the thread and pulled the spider back towards him.
It yelled again in fright, “Screech..Screech...Screech!”
Otis grabbed the bloodied rock again. He brought the rock down on the spider's body once again. A quarter of the spider’s red bar above vanished leaving only half of it left.
In haste he smashed the rock against the spider, purple blood sprayed out of the back of the spider. The red bar dropped another quarter.
“SCREE!...” Otis smashed the rock into the spider one last time, a sickening crunch interrupted its last yell. The rock Otis held had been broken into pieces. He threw the last bit of rock to the ground and pulled the webbing from his mouth.
Pain erupted from the side of Otis’s body, in a daze he looked around, he had been slammed into the cave wall. Otis was trapped between two sharp objects. The tip of the left object had entered his chest. Attached at the other end of those objects is another spider.
He immediately reach downed to grab a new rock. It felt smaller than his previous rock but Otis was desperate. He smacked the side of the spider’s head with his rock.
He heard a dull thud as it made connection. “No way, it's red bar barely dropped”
[Silken Soldier Spider level 4]
He smashed the rock into the spider’s face, the red bar lessened a little more. Otis’s red bar on the other hand was practically nonexistent the boy could not take another hit.
“Screech!” The spider reeled back, the tip of its fang was pulled from his chest.
“The spider is afraid for some reason. It doesn’t want to come closer.” He looked at the rock in his hand. He felt a strange liquid dripping from his hands. “Wait! it’s not a rock it’s the head of the other spider. Looks like it doesn’t want to be hit with its little brother”.
He got up to his feet and spider backed away a little further. “Is it going to shoot webbing at me? No it’s going to charge me like before.”
It started its charge again. “I have enough time to jump out of the way.” Otis’s legs were still bound so it’s more like he fell out of the way but it worked.
BOOM!, the spider slams into the wall. “That surely would have killed me.”
The spider was dazed and stumbled around before gaining itself. Over half of its red bar was gone. “Stupid spider! No, I am stupid it’s not the time for this right now.’ He stumbled up to his feet. Otis leaped onto the back of the stupid spider. It was much larger than the first spider he had encountered this one stood at least four feet tall.
Otis clung to the spiders back and began his attacked. He repeatedly beat the spider with the head of its kin.
“Screech!” The spider yelled in anger.
He continued to hit the spider, it screeched in response. It’s anger caused the spider to be completely disoriented and it spun around attempting to remove the boy from its back.
“Screech!”, BOOM! the spider slammed into the wall again and shaved some more of its red bar down. There is only a third of its red bar left now.
“Let’s see if I can steer this thing.” Otis leaned his body to the right and the spider began to move that way. He directed the spider towards the exit of this cave and hit the spider with the dead body. It screeched in pain and anger and moved towards the exit. It was half blind and confused. It readily moved forward as long Otis urged it to.
After he beat the spider a few more times it picked up its pace. “I can feel the wind rush past me and the light at the end of the tunnel is getting bigger. Oh no, of course it’s never easy.”
Otis spotted another spider standing in front of the exit.
[Silken Scout Spider level 2]
He directed his riding spider forward encouraging it to speed up.
The spider flicked the webbing frantically starting its vibration attack. Otis felt dizzy but it was not as bad as last time. The spider he was riding on the other hand started to stumble and slow down.
Otis slammed the head into the spider one last time.
“Screech!” It squealed in anger and began to speed up.
BAM! The spiders collided at full speed and Otis am tossed off the back of the spider to the ground. He surveyed the spiders and thankfully they are both dead lying in a heap.
He sat up and took stock of all his body parts. “Looks like they are all where they should be.” He finally pulled the webbing from his mouth and legs. Once that was done he looked down to his bleeding chest. The wound is not very deep only the very tip of the fang had entered. “I am glad I had reached up at that moment otherwise I would have been skewered.”
He grabbed some the leftover thread placing some in his pocket and wrapped some over the wound on his chest like a band aid. “At least that should be good for now.” He glanced back at the spiders. “I need to get out of here. Oh looks like you dropped something. Don’t mind if I do”. He reached down and grabbed the fang that broke off of the big stupid spider. “Looks like I can use this as a knife.”
He turned to the exit of the cave and made his way out. The stupid spider had carried him a majority of the way which was good because the boy could barely walk. Otis’s green and red bars were down to a sliver though his blue one was completely full. “That blue bar is completely useless.”
As he exited the cave he was greeted with a shocking view. He was standing on of a mountain but as far as Otis had known there are no mountains in central Texas.
The morning sky was stitched with clouds shaded in blues and pinks. A shadow was cast down from the mountain, it stretched for miles and miles. At the base of the mountain were towering rocks, hundreds of them. It’s looked as if they were pushed they would fall like dominoes. Beyond that looks like a forest. To the left of the standing rocks and forest is a wide river that would be impossible for the boy to swim cross. On the opposite side of the river was an even denser forest.
“Looks like I am lost.”
[Title Granted: Lost Child]
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Edited July 17 changed sound effects and tried to make things clearer.
Edited August 22 removed first person POV