Today’s the day. Or now is the time since there are no days here. Whatever. 28 long sleeps.

Vengeance for my family. No more being a scaredy-cat. Being scared is the old Kim, not me.

But I’m scared.

I’m really, really scared.

I don’t want to do this. I can’t keep procrastinating, though. I have everything I need. Joey is playing with his trays. I didn’t get mad or yell when I saw he pooped in our camp area again. Just in case, better to do this while me and Joey are getting along. No reason to start a fight over a little poop.

I walk to the intersection, but before I turn the corner I get down on my knees. Both my parents were outspoken atheists and thought religious people were morons. I don’t know a lot about religion, but I never really had to face dying before. Or doing something on purpose that will most likely get me killed.

No, stop that, Kim! No defeatism. I will kill the monsters. I will get vengeance.

I don’t know if praying will help, but I don’t think it can hurt. And no one is here to judge me anyways. I like the idea of someone looking out for me and a place to go if I die. And being back with my family. Maybe I’m a moron for that. I don’t care.

“Hello, god. If there is a heaven I hope you let mom, dad, and Carlos in. Carlos sucks real bad but sometimes he is nice. He isn’t that bad. I hope you let me in, too. If I fail. Maybe you could help Joey out if I fail? But I don’t plan on failing.

“I think you are supposed to be about love and peace and that stuff, but dad says that’s just what you say but you really like killing and you cause all the wars. I hope he’s right because I’m going to war and I plan on doing a lot of killing. My mom killed the dog thing that killed Carlos and I think that is great. One of those dog things killed and ate my mom. It killed my dad too. If you think me killing these dogs is wrong, sorry, because I’m about to do all the wrong I can.

“In school they say justice is good and vengeance is bad. But to them…when someone is really mean to me and gets caught they just get talked to for a second, or maybe detention. I’m thinking I shouldn’t have ever put up with it. I’d rather get their justice after I get my vengeance. I think vengeance is better. I want vengeance for my family.

“Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m going crazy or something. But I think I’m right. And I’m going to do it. I don’t want to ask for your help because then it wouldn’t be my vengeance. I want to do it on my own. But I hope you watch and if I do good and get my vengeance you’ll be proud of me. Maybe help my family get into heaven. And if I don’t make it maybe I can be put with my family in a nice place anyways? And when Joey joins us maybe make him more…better…than he is now? So we can talk.

“I’m sorry my parents said bad things about you. I hope you don’t hold it against them. If you’re real.”

I go to stand up but decide I have a little more to ask.

“Can I ask you something? Why did you let the green stuff take us here? What does this have to do with anything? Also, why did you make me look this way? Did I do something wrong? I don’t even think I have cankles; why would they say that? Do you know if I do?

“Well, that’s it. I hope you start talking back to me. That would be really cool. Sorry I have so much hate in me. Have a good day. Bye, god!”

Jeez, I say dumb things! “Have a good day.” I’m such an idiot.

I take a deep breath and collect myself.

This is it. This is the time. No more procrastinating.

I enter stealth and crawl around the corner. Both monster dogs are about where they were on the first day. My plan is to take down the new dog monster with my bow, and try to get enough HPs away from the other dog monster before it closes to make it easier to kill it in melee. Keep it away with my spear when it does get close. Kill it. Bathe in my vengeance. Eat my enemies.

I go to the east side of the intersection. I could go farther down the road to have more range and more shots before they close with me, but I want an easy escape in case things go bad.

I changed my quickslots. I have charge in one, my bow in two, my spear in three, and my spear and shield in four. Just in case, I also have a dagger and shield in five. I practiced changing out a ton, so even if I get nervous I should be okay.

I do the mental command for hotkey two. I kneel, nock an arrow, draw back, breath in deeply, aim at the new dog monster, and loose. I’m nervous and my hands are shaking as I nock a new arrow. I draw and see the first arrow hit and bounce off. No damage icons. The dog thing gets up and looks around. Should I retreat and try again later?

No. This is it. Me or them.

I loose and with even more shaky hands nock a new arrow. I see the piercing icon and sneak attack icon as I’m knocked out of stealth and draw back my bow again. The dogs start barreling towards me. The old dog is in front of the new dog as they run, and the only clear shot I have is against the old dog, so I have to fire at it. I nock again and see the piercing icon.

I draw and loose again quickly.

I think about running. They are both almost on me, and neither is down or injured. I am so nervous it is hard to think straight. I do the command for quickslot four as I see my arrow actually go into the old dog’s back as he yelps and tumbles. No damage icon. I must be right and HPs act as a damage prevention shield. And when it’s gone you actually take real damage.

The new dog is jumping towards me and I hold up my shield as I thrust my spear to where I think he’s coming. I can feel my spear connect right before he crashes into my light shield. I stumble back and fall.

I try to kip up immediately but can’t and scramble to my knees instead. One of the dogs is right on me, and I hold my shield up to block its mouth as I get to my feet. Where my shield is on my arm, my hand and fingers are barely covered by the lip of the shield. And like an idiot I didn’t have my hand fisted. I feel the monster’s bottom teeth on my palm, but there is no pain. I thrust with my spear as hard as I can at his ribcage.

Then pain. Horrible pain in my hand. But I suck it up and it doesn’t stop my thrust. My spear enters the monster’s side as it starts doing its head shake thing from side to side. It is hard to keep my balance, ignore the pain, and extract my spear. But I do it. And I thrust as hard and fast as I can again and again.

Something massive hits my upper body and head, and I fly backwards. My spear almost rips out of my hand, but I hold onto it for dear life. On the way down I see maws about to close around my face. My left hand is still in the other dog’s mouth, and when my arm is extended as far as it can go as I fall, I get jerked to the left by my trapped hand. I get jerked sideways way more than enough for the bite to miss my face.

I get a flash of extreme fear and my body tingles. Then it goes away as I hit the ground, with a giant dog monster on top of me, and another giant dog monster’s fangs in my hand. This is it. I’m probably dead. I hope it doesn’t hurt too bad.

I’m somewhat on my left side. My spear shaft is between me and the dog on top of me, luckily positioned in a way keeping it from being able to bite me. But not for long. The dog biting my hand isn’t moving. There is no chance of me getting my spear into play with the dog laying on me, my arm holding the spear pinned, and especially since the shaft is saving me right now. I rip my hand with the shield out of the unmoving dog’s mouth. I scream out in the extreme pain it causes me, but immediately start bashing the dog on top of me with my shield. Anywhere I can. I wish I could hit harder, but every hit sends shocks of pain through my hand.

I’m sucking air hard and weakening fast. The dog on top of me gives up on getting my face and starts biting at the shield hitting him. Thankfully just the shield, not my hand this time. The only thing I can think to do is bite the dog since both my hands are out of play now. But I can’t get my head close enough to do it. The spear’s shaft between us is stopping me too.

I can’t get my breath back. I try to see if I can wrap my legs around the monster but I can’t shift. The shaft of my spear is digging into my ribs more and more as the dog tries to shake my left arm off as he thrashes my shield back and forth.

I get an idea. That’s it! I do the mental command for quickslot five. The dog shifts as my spear disappears. I get ready to move my shield in front of my face if the dog lets it go and tries to bite me again, now that nothing’s stopping him from doing so. He doesn’t. He is still trying to shake my arm off. I mean it, not he.

My right arm, now holding a dagger, is still trapped under the dog. I twist my hand and try to cut the dog. I can’t. I can sort of stab it a little at a weird angle. It doesn’t do much. I try lifting my hips to try and get more leverage to push it deeper. It kind of works. I think.

That’s all I got. I’m spent. Twisting and pushing my hips up with this huge, heavy monster on me is all the energy I got. I’m sucking air like mad, and shaky from exhaustion. The dog lets my shield go and looks down on me. It looks me right in the eyes. Those watery eyes really do look calm. Just like a peaceful pond. I was right about that. I thought I was wrong because these monsters should have crazy eyes. Angry eyes. But they don’t. This one has dried blood on its face. I think this is the one that ate mom.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Why isn’t it attacking? Because I’m out of the fight? I can’t do nothing so there’s no rush? It’s like a kid at school saying mean things to me because they know I can’t do anything. Like, “What are you going to do? Nothing. Just take it, fatty. Loser.” But I could have done something. I could have fought. I can now too. No defeatism. It’s not over until I’m dead. And if I’m going to die I can at least dig deeper and try to do more damage. Go out swinging.

I think the monster notices a change in me because it pulls back its head for a bite, and I whack it with my shield. My bitten hand flares with pain, but I suck it up and hit it again. I reach deep down and with everything left I have in me I pull my right arm while pushing on my left leg. The dog slides off of me, and I sit up and stab him. It, I mean.

The monster whimpers and pulls back a little ways and I scramble to my feet as fast as I can. I don’t think the stab hurt him too bad. I hit around the shoulder and I think I hit bone because it stopped going in pretty quick and hit something hard. I try to take deep breaths but I’m so out of breath I can’t really control it. My throat and lungs burn. I meet the dog’s eyes. I want to wipe the sweat off my forehead but I can’t. I don’t got the time.

As soon as our eyes meet it rushes at me. I yell as I rush back at it. I aim my shield at his head and try to push it downwards. He tries to get his maw around my shield but fails. I take a swipe and miss. He stops going for my shield and bites my leg right above my knee. I couldn’t stop it. It was too fast. It hurts but I’m so exhausted it probably isn’t registering in my mind like it should. I don’t even really care that I’m getting bit. I start stabbing with the dagger.

I can’t really see what I’m hitting, but for some reason it isn’t going in far. I do see the arrow in his lower back. So this is definitely the old one. The one that ate mom. I start stabbing madly. I remember my training. Ferocious. Explosive hits. Strong, powerful hits with all I have. He does something to my leg that makes it stop working and I almost fall. It sends lightning pain all through my body. Did he take a bite out of me?

I hear Joey nearby freaking out. That makes me real angry for some reason. I don’t want Joey to see me get killed and eaten like mom. I yell, “Joey, get back!” And I get back to stabbing. Fast and furious. I shift a little and hit a spot where it goes in deep. I stab and stab and then start stabbing and ripping down. I feel the monster bite my left elbow and the arm right above it. I keep stabbing. I start yelling as I stab. He lets go and now I’m lying on him stabbing. Stabbing and yelling.

I think it’s dead. I think I won. I slide down a little and look at the monster’s stupid dead face. I yell at it as loud as I can. Then I yell again. “YOU. DON’T. EAT. MY. MOM!” I spit at the face. I put my mouth right next to its dumb ear and say, “Now I’m going to eat you. How do you like that? And then I am going to eat you more.” I bite its ear and try to rip it off, but it doesn’t work. I whisper in his ear again, “Vengeance is mine. I win, dummy. You lose, and losers get eaten. I win.”

I feel Joey’s hand on my bicep. He usually only does that to new people he likes. I look at him. He isn’t looking at me. He is just stimming, making his want noises, and doing his want shake-dance thing.

Still sucking air I tell Joey it’s okay. I won. Everything is okay. I think I tell him that.

I’m shaking pretty badly. I might die if the wound on my leg is as bad as I think it is. I turn around and lay my back on my kill to check my leg out. Phew, he didn’t bite a chunk out of me. But it is pretty bad. I inventory the dagger and shield. My elbow and arm don’t look too bad at all. But my hand. Holy moly, my hand looks really bad and hurts even worse. I shouldn’t have put the shield away. I think it was helping my hand not hurt as much.

My hand is throbbing really, really bad. Every heartbeat makes my hand feel like it’s going to explode. I put the shield back on but the pain goes up so I inventory it again. Ow. Ow. Ow.

Kim! Stop being a baby. Pain is your friend. Pain is weakness leaving the body.

What a dumb saying. I hope it is right because a lot of weakness is leaving my body if it is. I take out my healing kit and use it on my hand. Nothing happens. I see the green healing icon but miss the number. The pain is the same, the bleeding is the same, everything is the same. I open my character screen and see my HPs are 2 out of 10. It only gave me 2 HPs? That is garbage. I should check out how that works, but I’m in too much pain right now to look at things or read.

I’m finally starting to catch my breath. The pain increases. It’s impossible to ignore, but I got to ignore it for now. My original plan was to take this corpse back to my camping area, but with my leg like this, and my hand, that isn’t going to happen. As close as I can to the dead monster I start a campfire with my kit. It takes me a while to get part of the monster over the fire. It weighs a ton and I can’t move too good right now. I finally manage to get a little part of its back and butt over it. Just doing that was exhausting. I use the rest of its dead corpse as a pillow as I wait for it to cook. I don’t want to use survival on it yet – just in case it messes up the real cooking. The vengeance cooking.

The pain is getting worse. It is really throbbing now in my hand. In my leg too. I do not like it. Not one bit. I want to wrap up my wounds but besides underwear, my army boots, and socks, I’m just wearing game stuff. And the game stuff doesn’t really function like real clothes where you can wrap something in it. I guess I could use my socks, but they stink real bad. I guess that is better than nothing. I unequip my game boots and…holy moly, there is no way I can get my army boots off. Crap. Guess I just got to suck it up for now. My arm wound isn’t bleeding much, and my hand and leg don’t seem to be bleeding too bad. Hopefully that means I won’t die from bleeding. I’m not sure how that works.

I roll on my side a little so I can reach over and feel the area of the monster over the fire. Just a little warm. I hope this works. A promise is a promise, and I 100% look forward to keeping this one.

Since I got some time to kill, and to keep my mind off the pain, I use my repair kit. I use it on my shield since it looks messed up. Durability goes from 6 to 7, but it still looks messed up.

Ow. Ow. Ow. This hurts so much.

“God? Sorry I’m not kneeling but I can’t right now. I know I said I didn’t want any help but my injuries really, really, really, really, really hurt. I don’t think the saying about pain is weakness leaving the body is based on science or anything, because it keeps hurting worse and worse. I’m supposed to be really tough now and like pain…or at least be able to ignore it, but it hurts too much. Please make it hurt less if you can. I’ll kill a bunch of monsters for you if you do. Please? I’m really trying not to be a baby but come on. Please?

“Thank you, god. Have a good day. Say hi to my family for me.”

It still hurts. Ow. Ow. Ow.

“Joey. It hurts real bad. I can’t ignore it. Owie. Owie. Owie.”

I check the monster again. This isn’t working. This fire doesn’t burn anything, and I guess can only cook things the fake way. The game system way. I promised I’d eat him, and I don’t think looting some meat counts. I equip my dagger and try to cut some meat off. Man, I hurt so much. Just shifting weight is horrible pain.

No blood comes out of the monster. I’ve seen them bleed. Where is the blood now? After a lot of pain I finally manage to cut a piece of its belly off. The piece just disappears. Holy moly, why? I put my finger inside and there is nothing. This thing is an empty shell. How weird is that?

Ow. The pain just won’t let up for a second. I loot the monster, then use my survival kit. I get two pieces of beast meat. Then get my cooking kit to cook the beast meat I get from it. I get a cooked steak back. I cook the second piece of meat I looted. I call Joey over to try and give him the second piece so we can both have this crappy form of vengeance but he ignores me, as usual. Fine.

I try to inspect the steak for a description but I can’t. It just says ‘basic plain grilled steak.’ I put it in my inventory and the popup title still says ‘basic plain grilled steak.’ I get a description this time, but it just says, ‘basic food.’ I was hoping it would say something related to this specific monster so my vengeance will feel more vengeance-y. But no. I take it out of my inventory and throw that one near Joey. If he doesn’t want to come to me he can eat dirty steak then. I try and eat the one I still have, but I am too tired and in too much pain. I have to hold it with one hand and rip bites off with my mouth since I don’t have a fork. I guess I could use my dagger to hold it but I’d still have to bite into it anyways, so why? I get two bites down and put it in my inventory.

My promise seems hollow so I plan on trying to take a bite out of the corpse near the hole in the stomach. I have to put weight on my injured leg and it sends ridiculous amounts of pain through my whole body and makes my brain hurt. I push through. I try for what seems like a long time to bite a piece off, but I don’t succeed. I roll back over. I’ll try again in a minute.

I close my eyes and try to think about other things to take my mind off the pain. My head is throbbing now. Moving made me lose my corpse pillow. Dumb monster. I will eat you. In one minute.

I open my eyes some time later. Thinking really helps ignore the pain. I was thinking about beating up Keisha Lautour and her dumb friends. And when Maria tells me I have cankles I kick her in the head with my non-cankle ankle and say, “The better to kick you with, my dear!” And then me and Amy both laugh and become best friends forever and kick dumb, stupid Maria in her dumb face all the time. I definitely don’t have cankles. My ankles are pretty thick though. Ah, who cares now anyways? I probably do have cankles. I’ll kick everyone in the face with my cankles.

I try moving to use the dog corpse as a pillow again, but it isn’t there. It must have despawned. Dang!

I don’t know how long it will take for the dogs to come back, or respawn, or whatever they do, but I’m pretty sure I have plenty of time. The pain is always there, and always hurts real bad, but thinking about beating up jerks and bullies helps deal with it.

I must have fallen asleep because Joey startles me awake. He immediately walks away and sits and starts stimming with trays. What a jerk. Ow. The pain is worse I think. Ow. It hurts so bad.

“What do you want, Joey? You know, you have a lot of bad ideas. I know you didn’t really tell me, but I am going to pretend you are the one who told me that pain is weakness leaving the body. That way I can tell you off. You were wrong, Joey. Pain is awful. All the things causing me pain right now make me weaker. Healing is pain leaving the body. Pain leaving your body makes you stronger. Healing makes you stronger.”

Joey is ignoring me, so I raise my voice, “Where did you come up with that crazy nonsense?”

Still being ignored.

“You can shake your trays all you want, mister, but that won’t change anything. You told me nonsense. Now admit how wrong you are.

“What, you are right and I am being a baby? What? Stop it, Joey. That is crazy talk. I got vengeance for us. I’m winning. I just don’t like pain. What? Winning isn’t whining? Where do you get this stuff, Joey? I’m not whining. I’m in a tremendous amount of pain. I’d like to see you deal with it.

“Pain is weakness leaving the body. Give me a break, Joey.”

I look over and see the steak I gave to Joey still laying in the grass exactly where I threw it.

“Holy moly, Joey! You didn’t even try the steak I made for you. You think steak grows on trees or something? Can you bring it to me? Please? Right there, Joey! Grab that. Please don’t make me move. Joey! Joey! Joey! Look! Where I am pointing. Bring to me. Joey, bring to me. Curse you for eternity you ingrate!”

I don’t want to move. What kind of jerk tells you pain is weakness leaving the body and doesn’t even bring you the steak you gave him?

“You really need to work on your manners, Joey. And your dumb sayings. It hurts so bad.”

I have to move out of this area. This is going to be really hard and hurt a lot. Just my right arm and right leg work normal. I scoot around the other way. I push myself over to the other monster dog nearer the intersection and loot and then use survival on it. I look around for the steak on the ground and…forget about getting that. I would have to turn back around to get it. Scooting forward is too hard. Scooting backwards is the only way to scoot. I was going to loot dad too. That is definitely not happening now either. His corpse is way too far away.

My pain is flaring up so I day dream about beating up jerks and saying super cool things while doing it. It’s crazy how that really works.

Time to start skootching to my camp area. Or scooting. Is it skootch or scoot? Who cares? This is really going to hurt. This sucks so bad.