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The bus trip changed from uneventful to interesting all of a sudden when a line of fire beelined across the sky with an ominous thundering sound. Chasing away his drowsiness, Rowan yawned and stretched, his eyes chasing the object. At the same time, a grandmotherly lady sitting across the aisle decided he was the perfect target for a chat.
“Do you like hiking, young man?”
Rowan opened his mouth to say yes, but instead of the word, he gasped. The meteor was drawing near, and its trajectory was now a subject of worry. It passed over, and everyone glued their faces to the windows. That was no meteorite. The UFO screamed as it went down, disappearing over the hills, and then came the shock. A giant fist of air hit the bus and the forest, making the trees swing wild. A trunk fell on the road, just ahead. The vehicle swerved and stopped, brakes screeching, mere feet from the obstacle. Yells and ouch-es erupted around, with a few people hitting their heads on the chairs in front of them.
“Everyone OK? I’m a doctor.” That was the old woman’s husband.
People said stuff. Yesses or noes, irrelevant, the booming noise covered all. Then came the light. Rowan dove down; the chair next to him was empty, but there was no heat or aftershock.
“That was a nuke?” somebody asked.
“It was a UFO,” someone else said.
The engine and the lights of the bus went off.
“I lost power,” the driver shouted.
“T’was a nuke all right; that was the electromagnetic pulse,” the same person from before said.
Checking his phone, Rowan found it working. No signal, though.
“I’ll open the front door manually,” the driver yelled. “Don’t rush!”
In the next five minutes, the passengers, all retirees except for Rowan, exited more or less orderly, gathering on the grass outside the road. Behind, a few cars stopped as well, and one was the police. Their lights and engine were working fine.
“Have you seen the UFO?” a policewoman yelled, exiting her vehicle.
“It’s the Russians,” the driver said.
There were so many voices yelling around that Rowan felt dizzy. He instinctively walked away, leaving some space between him and the group. For a minute, he tried to put some order into his thoughts. A UFO had crashed close by. That was…
Voices screamed for help in the distance, up the hill. He let his thoughts be and rushed to another police person, a man in his fifties, speaking to the drivers of the cars stuck behind.
“Officer! Officer!”
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“What?” the man blurted. “Don’t you see I’m busy?”
“Someone’s calling for help in the forest.”
The policeman frowned, then shook his head.
“Maybe you hit your head. Stay with the group. I have a lot of stuff on my hands.”
The screams were clear as daylight and close.
“But—”
The policeman frowned, and Rowan knew from direct experience that more arguing would earn him being tased. Did the police ever care about who started the bar fight or was in the right? He cursed and ran off into the woods, toward the source of the noise.
A quarter of a mile up, there was a clearing. Clouds and a giant plume of smoke from the northwest filtered the dim sun. Bodies were lying all around, and things feasted on them.
Fuck!
He threw himself behind a tree, trying not to throw up. Alien moose? Yes, that was the closest comparison. If moose had fangs and claws, walked upright on their hind legs, and liked to eat freshly slaughtered bodies. Four of them were gorging on mangled human remains, while a fifth guarded a group of prisoners tied together with a shiny rope, one end held in the creature’s hand.
His heart skipped a beat. The prisoners were kids, preteens, or younger, and there were about nine of them. They called for help now and then, and the moose couldn’t care less. Little by little, their voices lost hope and energy, and silence fell, letting only the chewing sounds be heard.
Moment of truth… Do you have it in you, Rowan?
From his backpack—which he had taken with him when exiting the bus—he extracted his camping knife, resting the backpack down near the tree. Getting back into the forest, Rowan made a detour, approaching the captives from the east as silently as he could. It proved an easy task; neither the main group of monsters nor the guardian noticed anything.
Step by step, Rowan arrived behind the moose with the noose, so close he could touch it. His fingers tightened around the hilt, and he prepared to strike. At the last moment, he withheld his hand. The monster had shifted its position; there was no way he could attack now without being observed.
Then, his eyes met a kid’s. A cute girl, maybe five or six, with auburn hair and lightly tanned skin. She screamed a wild, loud, desperate wail—nothing like he had ever heard. Rowan’s heart stopped. The feeding monsters ignored her, but the overseer pivoted, roaring and raising its arm to strike the girl down.
He dashed ahead and plunged the knife into the monster’s back again and again, searching for vitals—heart, lungs, anything. A backhand threw Rowan away like a rag doll, making him drop the knife. Dodge-rolling, he tried to avoid the charging creature and its antlers. A sharp point winged his leg, and then the moose hit a tree head first, its aim off, falling, dazed, to the rusted leaves beneath. The bluish rope had disappeared.
“Run to the road!” Rowan shouted, trying to get back up on his feet, ignoring the pain in his calf. His blade was nearby, and he grabbed it in a hurry and faced the rest of the moose, preparing to stall them, or at least try, while the kids would escape.
To his surprise, the remaining monsters ignored him, continuing their gross behavior.
“Are you stupid? Kill it already!”
The yell had come from a Black boy, maybe ten. Skinny but with a fierce attitude, he rushed forward, hammering the moose in the head with his fists over and over. Despite the difference in height and weight, the monster, nine feet tall and at least a few hundred pounds heavy, was jerking back with each hit, its head banging the tree behind.
“The eyes! Aim for the eyes!” the boy screamed.
For good measure, Rowan stabbed one eye, then the other. Somehow, his hits hit true, despite the stress and the moose wobbling all around.
“Fuck!” he jerked back, surprised. The body of the monster had dissolved into specks of light, then grouped into three streams, one flowing into his chest and the rest into the girl and the boy.
The Bleeding Damage Over Time (DOT) has stopped. You are the first Earthlings to have slain a monster: DireDeer, level 20, Epic tier, Mini-Boss (1/5). Rowan Allinder, you have been awakened to Mana and deemed worthy to keep all your stats at their current value. You have gained XP. Level up x6. Menu unlocked. Class Selection unlocked.
!!!Welcome to the System!!!