“What the hell?”

To Adam’s surprise, his voice came out strong and unhurt. Hesitantly, he tried putting weight on his legs. He stood up without any trouble, as if his torso hadn't just been shredded to confetti by an impossible monster.

Reality caught up to him in that moment. Adam rapidly moved his hands all over his body, searching for wounds that had been present mere seconds ago. They were gone. He was as healthy as ever. Only an intense, almost nauseating exhaustion remained – but no visible sign of injuries.

Except for the mixture of red blood and black ink staining his clothes. It served as proof that everything that just happened. His body healing, and his blood turning to ink.

Although, unless his eyes had been deceiving him, that pitch-black color seemed to turn back to red right before his wounds closed shut.

Adam stared at the smooth, unblemished skin where his injuries used to be. What flowed through his veins at this very moment? Was it blood, or was it ink?

If there's more creatures like those around, he thought, I'll probably find out soon enough. Can't do anything about...their...

Then, on a sudden whim, as if the action was as natural as breathing, Adam looked to the side. He spotted the distant tree where the monster had been first lurking behind. With a confident motion, he lifted his arm.

His hand contorted itself into ink, shooting out the same arrowed fragments that the monster had used earlier. The projectiles pierced the tree once, then twice, seeming to change shapes and shred it from inside until the tree collapsed into itself with a shuddering groan.

Adam studied his inked hand with a raised eyebrow. This...is new.

He thought back to the voice, to the old man’s shop, and to the events that had just transpired. A sudden idea came to him. He picked up his tablet. If a new layer had appeared in his file, then maybe there was more information somewhere within.

It only took reaching his home screen to be proven right.

Name: Adam

Talent: Painter (Novice)

“Once the victim, now a survivor. Your prize is the very sword that was thrust through your heart.”

Painted Talents:

Stained Ink (Craftsman)

Adam stared at his tablet screen for a long time. There was a lot to digest. Between his name being on it, the mysterious quote, being able to use the same ‘Ink’ that nearly killed him moments ago, and the fact he’d sucked a monster into his tablet…his mind didn’t know where to start.

Even so, there was one immediate concern that rose above the rest.

“Oh please, please still work like a normal tablet. I seriously can’t buy a new one.” He hurriedly swiped away from his home screen. His fingers only stopped trembling when he saw that his old files were safe and sound. “Holy shit, thank god. It’s – it’s all still there.”

Chances were he probably would never have to do schoolwork again. On some level, Adam understood that. But if he did, he really didn’t want to have to worry how to pay for a new tablet on top of everything else.

Another thought came to him – his tablet’s battery life hadn’t dropped. At all. Whatever had made it capable of trapping monsters also seemed to do wonders for its usability.

He let out a sigh of relief. If it turned out that he was in a place without electricity, he didn’t know how he would’ve been able to charge it. Especially since this hunk of plastic’s battery life was already half-dead on arrival. Bought it cheap on ebay, and I got what I paid for.

After calming down, he drew a deep breath. “Okay,” he muttered to himself. “Guess I should actually unpack what’s written on here.” He examined the tablet. There were mentions of his name and a talent – being a painter. It also called him an apprentice.

Adam frowned. There was something infuriating about your own tablet criticizing your skills. Regardless, the ‘Painted Talent’ was what caught his attention most of all. He appeared to have obtained the same ability as the freakish monster that he’d trapped in his tablet.

He stopped to think, piecing together the chain of events that led to that happening. I drew a picture of the monster…and then it flew into my tablet. Slowly, Adam recalled the dream-like meeting he had with…something. He wasn’t remotely sure of how to think about that. All he knew is that when he was sucked into the painting, an overwhelming voice had asked about the color of his soul.

How did I answer it, again? It felt like trying to hold onto the fleeting memories of a hazy dream. Almost like he wasn’t supposed to remember it. But for now, he did, so he made sure to write it down on his tablet so he wouldn’t forget it in the future.

Adam had never been overly fond of writing notes. If he was being honest, preparing schedules and to-do lists were amongst his least-favorite things to do. Much as hated it, though, he couldn’t deny that recording information onto a list seemed to help him understand things more clearly. And so he opened a new file, jotting down the essentials of what he knew in case he lost his marbles later.

Notes On The Painted World

— I came here by entering a painting. I don’t remember seeing it in the old man’s shop before that day.

— There are monsters here. I don’t know where ‘here’ is but there are monsters. This seems relevant.

— Drawing Monsters lets me trap them in tablet. Doing that apparently lets me ‘steal’ their attacks.

“Any chance you’ll fill me in about the monsters if I ask nicely?” Adam muttered to his tablet. There was no response. Which, fair enough, is about what he expected. “Okay. Let’s run some experiments, then. Better to find out now than when another monster shows up.”

Adam extended his hand. Once again, he saw it transform into that strange ink-like substance. He willed it to fire the arrows from before, wincing a bit when they shot out of his flesh. This time, with the adrenaline having long left his body, he felt much more tired after each shot.

He kept experimenting. With some effort, he discovered that he could turn even more of his arm into the liquid – solid? – substance, although he seemed to lose some control in exchange. Adam doubted he’d be able to fire accurately if he changed his entire arm. Maybe the general direction, but definitely no bullseyes.

A slight bit of dizziness came over him. Changing his arm didn’t seem to tire him, but firing the arrows drained his energy. That was…worrying. If it only took a couple hand-sized arrows to make him dizzy, Adam wasn’t eager to find out what would happen if he fired one as large as his arm. Especially in the middle of a forest with monsters that wanted to torture and kill him.

Nevertheless, information was information. He added it to his notes.

— Using the ‘Stained Ink’ exhausts me. It seems like it only really tires me out once it’s shot out like a projectile though.

“It’s like a sort of…flickering, floating ink,” Adam muttered in amazement, as he studied the substance. It behaved like a liquid lighter than air, twisting and moving away at his touch, but solidified when he tossed it against hard surfaces.

Or when I want to kill, he thought. It was an intrusive thought, one he didn’t want to consider, but it was true enough. The Stained Ink became solid whenever he tried to attack something.

The ink responded to his intentions immediately, although it took a few seconds to initially ‘spawn’ into reality. Adam found he could wrap the ink around his arm to avoid this delay, to a degree. Even then it was still a little taxing.

It helped to make the ink as thin as possible. He had no idea whether this made the actual attacks weaker or not, but this seemed to feel a little better, and he could even hide it under his sleeves.

For a fleeting moment, he wished he could test that out on something.

Then he saw a monster appearing out of the corner of his eye and decided that he should stop tempting fate. “Lovely. Just lovely.” Adam quickly hid behind the nearest tree he could find. Careful not to draw attention to himself, he kept his eyes on the monster, watching it from way off in the distance.

Monsters, he realized. There was more than one.

Much like the distended lion from before, each of them vaguely resembled an animal – or several mashed together – but their proportions were all wrong. Some heads were too large for their bodies, while some had a single limb that was grotesquely larger than the rest of their bodies. None of them had mouths, although several had holes in place of eyes, vacant gaps that went through the back of their skulls.

And every single one of them left those same stained footprints behind.

I wonder how long the footprints last, Adam mused. This forest seems pretty big, but if the ground stays like that forever…it’s all going to go to hell at some point, isn’t it?

“As we find ourselves in this forest of walking trees and painted horrors,” Adam whispered, “we are privy to a sight that is both mesmerizing and truly extraordinary.” He’d adopted a theatrical tone, as if narrating a wildlife documentary. It was funnier to him than it should be. “On one side, we have the noble elephant ink monster thing, a majestic beast that retains a certain grace despite its imposing bulk. The tentacled hawk, meanwhile, is an equally impressive sight to behold. With its sheer aggressive nature, and the dark ink pulsating in its body as if it had a life of its own, no creature dares oppose it.”

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

His eyebrows raised by a hair. “And there they go. The two titans vie for the fruit between them, circling warily, sizing each other up...wait a minute, fruit?”

Oh yeah, food.

That was probably important.

Adam had been so caught up by the painting portal and ink arm that he’d forgotten the mundane side of things could kill him faster than any monster. Finding food and water was priority #1. Some form of civilization would be even better, but he wasn’t super optimistic about that.

He’d start searching as soon as he was able to tear his eyes away from the monster fight. It was just too fun not to watch, and he needed the morale boost.

“The elephant-leopard eyes his rival. With a mighty roar, its tusks unleash…fire. That was actually fire. Made of ink. Hmm.”

It’s not that Adam wasn’t surprised. It’s that he was so surprised that, rather than gasp in shock, he found himself nodding as he soaked in the absurdity unfolding before his eyes. The tentacled-hawk was consumed by the fire and fell, slowly dissipating without leaving so much as ashes behind. Strangely, the forest itself appeared immune to the elephant-creature’s strange black fire.

Without fully processing what he was doing, Adam withdrew the tablet from his backpack and started a quick sketch of the monster. He didn’t understand anything about its biology, but he didn’t need to know why something worked to understand cause and effect. Drawing the lion monster had trapped it inside his tablet. Might as well try it again.

Adam remained hidden behind a thick tree trunk, only peering to glimpse at the creature a couple more times before sketching. It wasn’t his best work, but neither was his sketch of the last monster. That shouldn’t be an issue.

In theory.

“Okay, anytime you feel like it,” Adam told his tablet. There was no response. He gave it an awkward shake, then gently tapped the device, mildly impatient but unwilling to risk breaking it. “Come on – come on, please.”

Nothing.

Adam muttered a string of nonsensical curses, then pulled his tablet closer to amend his notes.

Notes On The Painted World

— D̶r̶a̶w̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶M̶o̶n̶s̶t̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶l̶e̶t̶s̶ ̶m̶e̶ ̶t̶r̶a̶p̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶m̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶a̶b̶l̶e̶t̶. Drawing Monsters sometimes lets me trap them in my tablet. I’m not clear on the specifics yet.

There were other monsters lurking near the elephant’s tree, all waiting for their turn to come. Adam tried sketching them out and was met with the same lack of success. Whatever the issue was, it wasn’t just one specific monster being immune. So what was different about the first one?

Something to consider another time. Right now, Adam knew his first priority should be to get the hell away. Maybe he could fight one monster, but not dozens. There didn’t seem to be a lot of trees bearing fruit – or indeed any animals outside of monsters – but he was sure he could find another one if he looked hard enough.

Turns out he was half-right.

Finding other fruit trees wasn’t too difficult. As he wandered aimlessly around the forest, he came across one or two an hour. Finding one without monsters…now that was a different story. It felt like every beast in the forest was either stalking a tree, fighting for it, or waiting to take a bite.

Their behavior doesn’t make sense, Adam thought, at the third sighting of a fight. Why are some fighting while others are just taking turns? And how do those things even stay alive here if there’s so little food to go around?

More things to worry about later. While Adam had been curious at first, now the question seemed almost pointless. Who cared about the ‘how’ or ‘why of his situation if he was going to starve to death?

He kept running from tree to tree, hoping that he’d eventually get lucky. Hours passed. By then, night had fallen, and he still hadn’t managed to obtain a single morsel of food. Adam kept searching – if not for a food source, then at least for a clearing. Some place devoid of trees, grass, and monsters.

Finally, just when he was starting to give up hope, he found it. An open, empty space.

Well, almost empty.

One object stood placidly in the center. At first Adam thought it was a stone statue, but upon closer inspection, it looked closer to metal. The object was rectangular in shape, resembling-

No. It fucking can’t be.

Adam couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Yet, even beneath the dim moonlight, even with his mind rejecting what he saw, he couldn’t deny what that metal object was.

A vending machine.

A literal vending machine.

Sure, it was taller and wider than what he’d seen on campus, but the shape and buttons made it clear enough what it was. A goddamn…vending machine. In the middle of a monster-infested forest.

…Fine.

Adam approached it slowly and carefully, stepping with the tips of his toes, as if he was prepared for a landmine to go off at any moment. When he got closer to the machine, he saw that it hadn’t been randomly placed in the middle of the clearing. It was half-sunken into the ground by design, likely to prevent monsters from knocking it over.

“Must be other people here,” Adam muttered. “Someone to restock it when – wait. What the hell?”

Now that he was able to inspect the vending machine in closer detail, he made two shocking discoveries. The first, which probably should’ve been his focus, was that he could read what was written on the machine, even though it clearly wasn’t English or any other language he could recognize. Which meant that something had been done to his brain when he arrived here, wherever ‘here’ was.

The second, which he actually focused on, were the options the machine was displaying.

— Shelter (Monster-Immunity guaranteed!) : 3000 Orbs

— Food (Two-meals!) : 2000 Orbs

— Water (Enough for three days if you ration!): 1750 Orbs

— LIMITED TIME DEAL – Food + Water +Shelter: 5200 Orbs

He absently tried pressing all buttons, as if the whole thing was a joke. Doing so prompted a blue flash of light to enter his body, pulsating through him like a scanner. After a moment of pause, the vending machine displayed another message.

— You have: 0 Orbs. Please come back when you have enough Orbs.

“Are…you…fucking…kidding me?” Adam’s disbelieving voice was so low that he could scarcely hear himself. Then, when his outrage caught up to his shock, he furiously kicked the machine and screamed, “THERE ARE MONSTERS HERE! AND IT COSTS—WHAT?”

Adam didn’t know what Orbs were, but he sure as hell knew what it was like being told he didn’t have enough money for something. Throughout this whole ordeal, the fact that he wouldn’t have to worry about how to afford things had been his only dark silver lining. Then…this. The sheer absurdity, the cruelty made him kick the damned thing five times, cursing all the while.

There were monsters here.

They killed people.

How many had died because they didn’t have enough money to buy food or shelter?

Adam knew that he should focus on what he could learn from this. There were people here, there was some form of civilization, and while this area was dangerous people would show up here often enough. Any one of those facts should have cheered him up, at least a little.

He kicked the machine even harder, his voice rising to a furious crescendo. “JUST—DIE—YOU—”

A sudden roar brought him back to reality.

Adam whirled around, still reeling from his righteous fury, only to find another monster behind him. This one looked like the corrupted outline of a leopard, each leg resembling a stain of ink on paper rather than an actual limb, its head showing empty holes instead of eyes. With each step it took, the ink appeared to flicker like some sort of static, before snapping back to its original position.

“I’m in a terrible mood right now, you abomination,” Adam barked out. He was afraid, but he knew that running wasn’t his best option. This was different from the last time he’d come face to face with a monster.

Now…now he could fight. “Try me, you ugly bastard. I dare you.”

The monster didn’t oblige. Not immediately. Instead, it remained in position, roaring, until several other identical-looking monsters slowly emerged from the forest to join it. Four, five – Adam gave up counting after seven, but he was sure he was hearing more hiding elsewhere.

Hmm. Okay. Maybe I don’t want them to try me.

Adam considered his options. He could try fighting them, but he had no idea what the monsters even were, let alone what they could do. There were also too many of them – with how quickly his ink arrows tired him out, there was no way he’d kill them all before they swarmed him. And unfortunately, drawing didn’t seem like it was an automatic seal-inside-his-tablet trick like he’d hoped earlier. WIth all that in mind, there was only one real choice.

He raised one hand, waved to the monsters, and said, “Yeah, I’m out.”

Then he ran.

As fast as his legs would carry him.