The Leviathan wasn't anywhere in sight when I woke up. I grabbed some jerky and ate a portion as I approached the opening. The sun was shining but not as brightly as before; it could be either early morning or late evening, or it could just be cloudy. Even if I had brought my phone with me, it wouldn't have lasted once water came into the equation; that didn't change the fact that I would kill for some way to tell the time.

There he was, hovering a few feet below me. Was he trying to attack me by surprise? His attention wasn't on my crevice though I could tell through his body language it was shifted in such a way as to stare at something below me, not me. Why was he hovering there?

"The moment you were brought here, your fates were sealed. Surrender your lives now, and I shall make their ending as painless as possible," he had said yesterday. Several phrases were plural instead of singular. I thought it was a mistake, but what if it wasn't? What if he was telling every single person left alive the same thing? Now he was staring at something below me. Several cracks along this rock wall could fit other people, so maybe I wasn't the only one here! So far, I had only seen him eat a few people; a part of me was hoping that most people managed to escape or hide.

I layed on my side with my head leaning against my hand and ate more jerky. At one point, the Leviathan looked up, and I waved at it with my middle finger. It was childish, but it made me feel just a little better. He started his brain connection a second later, speaking straight to my mind.

"You're awake."

"Obviously, I got to say I'm not a fan of the rock bed in there, but considering it's free, no hotel can beat it in affordability," I yawned. The creature turned from the wall swimming away from me; despite the distance, it didn't hamper the connection. I decided to try something and asked a question in what I hoped to be a nonchalant tone," Am I the only one who has to talk to you? I can't hear anyone else?"

"Ahh, curious about the other four?" The Leviathan turned around in the distance; he was so far away I could barely make him out. I knew that there had to be other survivors! It seemed strange that he was looking at something below me. It turns out that something was someone. Four out of that large group seemed small, though. "I can hold several conversations at once."

"Oh, I understand quantity over quality, huh? Yeah, that shows." it didn't reply, just facing me in the distance. Then all at once, it charged forward, turning into a blur that shot straight into the rock wall, the ground itself seemed to warp and shake, and I was nearly thrown out into the open. The only thing that prevented me from doing that was the current which hit me back against the cave wall with more force than I would have liked. I gripped the back wall, my fingers finding a small indent to latch onto. It was an action that saved me as the Leviathan continued to assault the wall, sending the ground shaking and water slamming into me with the full force of a tsunami. He was trying to shake me out like I was the last few pringles left in the can. Pebbles and even a few rocks rained down on top of my back. I feared that if the Leviathan didn't get to me, the rock wall would surely cave in, crushing me. It didn't though both the wall and my grip held firm.

I was in a contest to see who would give out first. I thought that the contestants were me versus the Leviathan, but I was wrong. The Leviathan's body was huge. It could likely keep this up way longer than I could; the contestants were not me versus the Leviathan but me versus all the other refugees in the rock wall. I couldn't win any contest versus the Leviathan, but I could win this one. After a few minutes, the shaking stopped, there was nothing, and then I could sense that he was eating. The connection with the Leviathan seemed to convey more than just words as I could almost taste the salty blood in his mouth, the sense of satisfaction that the Leviathan felt. It made me sick.

"Three left."

I found throughout the day that staying alive or battling hunger wasn't that difficult. No fish attacked me, the Leviathan couldn't get to me, and I had at least a few days worth of jerky if I rationed. That left only one battle to fight: the battle against boredom. After what seemed to be an eternity of doing nothing, I started using a small rock to etch things into the crevice's wall. At some point, the Leviathan charged into the sand, burrowing into it before he whispered that there were two people left. Two people out of the massive group it had been the previous day; that was if he was telling the truth. The day passed in boredom, with cave carving and sleep being the only things I could do. I didn't particularly like either activity; both were a waste of time. I'm the type of person that enjoys being active. Still, I'd rather live and do both than be eaten.

The next few days were uneventful, and I rarely saw the Leviathan. I knew he was there though ,waiting, close enough to strike if I ever left the safety of my crevice. It wasn't until the fifth or maybe the sixth day that something happened.

It was nearing sundown, and my head was at the edge of the crevice lying on my arm. Arm, I hated the thought of that word. Water was in abundance. Thankfully it was freshwater, so I could drink it just fine, but finding food had been a problem after the jerky ran out. Until I realized that I had some food with me the entire time…the man's arm. As it stands, anything that looks like a human appendage is far from appetizing to me; of course, this arm was several days old and looked like it had been nibbled on by a few fish which didn't make the experience any easier. It was meat, though, so I took my knife and cut strips from it; that action alone nearly made me sick. I finished the task and slowly rationed it for a few more days. After I ate the first slice, I got a stomach ache almost immediately. It hurt, I worried that I might catch some disease and pass away, but after a few moments, it disappeared as quickly as it had started. Every time I ate the arm meat, I experienced the same thing, a momentary stomach ache that both started and stopped suddenly.

To pass the time, I found a new hobby, fish watching. Have you heard of bird watching and how intense it can get? If it's too much for you, there's fish-watching a tamer alternative. If I wasn't underwater, you might have seen a tear stream down my cheek; I was so bored. I tried to make it fun. I would make a game to see if I could count how many fish I could see or what type of fish was in the area. There were fish the size and shape of bright yellow goldfish type fish; they were the only fish to get close to me, and a few times and I had even managed to catch some. There was long eel-like fish that stayed far away, and then there were ones burrowed in the sand; they hid there and would pounce out and kill anything that got close. Those were the size of sharks and might be dangerous, but as far as I could tell, they didn't swim far and mainly attacked food that came to them.

As I was watching, I noticed a new type of fish, a dog-sized fish that looked like a catfish; it had giant whiskers sticking out of the bottom of its mouth, and weirdly, the tips of those whiskers glowed a light blue. I saw two of them; one headed into the coral, and another swam towards the rock wall I was hiding in. It waved its whiskers in the air, and each one flopped and windmilled all over the place. One whisker pointed in the direction of an eel-shaped fish. The blue on the end of the whisker turned orange, and the catfish shot forward, swallowing it whole. It began waving its whiskers again until one pointed right toward me. I was several feet away, though, hiding in a cave. It couldn't have sensed me. The tip of the whisker turned orange, and it started swimming towards me.

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"Uh oh," I tried to say. I was underwater, though, so it came out as air bubbles. The fish swam towards me, it didn't swim as fast as the Leviathan, but it was pretty darn fast. I grabbed my pocket knife and flicked it open, an action that took seconds but was more than enough time for the catfish creature to get to me. It opened its mouth wide enough to fit my head through, and I could see a row of glistening, jagged teeth. I dove to the side as it swam past me, its side brushing up against mine, and I shivered before plunging the knife into it. It thrashed, something wrapped around my ankle, and then I was yanked down, the knife slipping through my hand, remaining lodged where it was in the beast's side. It had wrapped its whisker around my leg! It wrapped its other one around my chest and brought my head towards its mouth like I was a burrito.

"Nah," I bubbled!

My hands shot out and gripped either side of the catfish's mouth, keeping it pried open while also pushing my body back and away from the mouth. The teeth dug into my palm, and I could see blood paint the water around me a shade of pink. I kicked and then wiggled, trying to get out of its grasp while trying to keep the mouth from closing. The whiskers, both the length of my leg, wouldn't budge, so I changed tactics. I let go, shoving my body out of the way with a last push. the mouth shut quickly with my head still firmly outside it ,of course. Then I wrapped my hands around the creature and hugged it tight, preventing it from opening its mouth while my left hand searched the fish's body. Where was it! My hand searched all the while, its mouth heaved against my single arm that was squeezing it shut. The whiskers tried to pull me back and were constricting like a snake. I felt something slap into my knee, there! I grabbed the knife and pulled up on it, gutting the fish. It wiggled and thrashed and finally stopped moving its whiskers, falling limp.

I looked down at the creature as my heart started to calm. I had food that wasn't arm now; although I didn't have time to celebrate because there was still another one out there. I went to stare outside the crevice, there it was still in the coral patch. It was staring right at me with the whiskers pointed my way, one orange, the other blue. I gripped the knife, readying myself; it turned and left, swimming the way it had come.

"Well, that was anticlimactic," I bubbled. I felt slightly disappointed; while terrifying, that fight was the most exciting thing to happen to me in days, and now it was done. At least if I had another battle, I wouldn't have to go back to staring at fish!

I sat down on top of the dead fish and stared at it. I wish I had some heat to cook it with, I was getting sick of raw cold food, and my luck could only last so long until I caught an illness from the raw meat. My mouth started to water at the thought of a cooked fish or maybe some seafood chowder-.

"Gahh!" I clutched my head. It felt like someone had shoved the entire internet into a bullet and fired it straight into my brain. It was the worst pain in my life, and then it was over, and I was staring at words in my vision once again.

Congratulations, you have defeated a Sensor Shifu Level 3

Experience gained: 23

Error: No system designation for subject 1092-93470274930

XP Threshold reached = True

Subject 1092-93470274930 Sentience =True

Downloading system type: Preset 3

Notice: System admins contacted about an error in the system; we apologize for any inconvenience it might have caused and hope you enjoy your time playing Alrune World.

For any questions or to contact customer service, please go to Co:5028AlruneWorldCTC.

You are playing on a preset system; please download the latest Alrune World System at our Raybook: Alruneworldctc.Systems downloads Errors might occur otherwise.

Notice: The system has auto-uploaded all previous missed experience points

Congratulations, you have killed 5 Yellow Jois

Experience gained: 2

Congratulations, you have assisted in killing a Jugorath

Experience gained: 38

Experience halved due to group combat

Experience halved due to dealing no damage

Suddenly, it was one after the other; they were all similar to the prompt from before with the same layout and font. This time, however, once I read one line fully, another came up. It didn't stop or give me time to parse what I ended up reading until it was all done. After the last line, all of it disappeared, minimizing into a little gray dot in the upper right corner of my vision.

"What the hell," I bubbled," what was that." It was strange, like something you'd find in a video game with how it talked about experience points. Sure, It was interesting, but the system download part caught my attention more. It sounded like some kind of software had been downloaded straight into my brain, which was what it felt like. There was also the notification about downloading an upgrade? I didn't want to download things into my head; there was barely enough room in there as it was! I could feel it; there was something in my brain, in my memories, that wasn't supposed to be there, and it was taking up a lot of space.

There were more dots in my vision. There were around 5 small gray dots on my left side lined in a vertical column, and on my right, there were four. I looked at the dot the messages had gone into, and some words appeared as I focused on it.

Notifications

I could feel a question that was more feeling than words being asked as I looked at that dot. It asked do you want me to open and I mentally replied yes. The gray dot expanded into a square prompt that filled the center of my vision. It had the same messages as before, but this time, it wasn't disappearing. It wasn't disappearing! How did you get this thing to go away?! It disappeared; the thing in my brain, the system, could tell what I wanted and respond to my thoughts and feelings.

I turned my attention to the top dot on the left side of my vision.

Character Sheet

I clicked on it, and the dot expanded to show me something that looked straight out of Dungeons and Dragons.

Character Sheet

Name: Sinbad Harlou Level: 0

Health: 95/98.6 Stamina: 40/90 Mana: 0/0

Species: Human

Class: None

Titles: None

Experience: 73/100

Body: 4 Mind: 5 Magic: 0 Luck: -3/6

Stat points to assign: 0

Compared to watching fish swim around, this was like watching the best movie ever made. Finally, something to do. I smiled and grabbed the dead fish, bringing it to the deeper part of the crevice. Tonight was going to be the start of something fun.