image [https://cdn.midjourney.com/e40885f2-7e49-4ed7-8902-e61d9fa12f1d/0_0.png]
----------------------------------------
The bus trip suddenly changed from uneventful to frightening when a line of fire beelined across the sky, followed by 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 loudly. The meteor was drawing near, and its trajectory was too low for comfort. It passed over, and everyone glued their faces to the windows. That was no meteorite. The giant 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, shaking a few times up and down before it settled in place. Yells and ouch-es erupted when a few people hit their heads on the chairs before 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 beside 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.
After checking his phone, Rowan found it working, but there was no signal.
“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. He followed them, taking his backpack as a precaution in case they had to abandon the bus. Behind, a few cars also stopped, and one was, by happenstance, the police. Their lights and engine worked just 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, trying to put some order into his mind. Were the US under some kind of alien attack? He had read some articles recently about—
Voices screamed for help in the distance, echoing up the hill. Forgetting his thoughts, Rowan rushed to another police person, a man in his fifties, speaking to the drivers of the cars stuck behind.
“Officer! Officer!”
“What?” the man snapped the word like a rubber bullet. “Don’t you see I’m busy?”
“Someone’s calling for help in the forest,” Rowan pointed toward the hill to be more convincing.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
The policeman frowned. “Maybe you hit your head. Stay with the group. I have a lot of stuff on my hands.”
“But—”
The policeman growled, and Rowan knew from direct experience that more arguing would lead to nothing or earn him being tased. Did the police ever care about who started the bar fight or that Rowan was in the right? He cursed and ran off into the woods toward the source of the noise. The uphill spurt soon took its toll, and a couple minutes later, he had to rest, panting, hands on his knees. There were no more sounds.
Maybe I heard it wrong…
He was now a few hundred feet from the road, maybe a fifth of a mile. Then, as he straightened up, he saw the clearing. The gap in the tree allowed a giant plume of smoke from the northwest to filter the dim sun. The crash site, for sure. But that was the least of his worries. Bodies were lying all around, and… things feasted on them. A sickening scent of innards reached his nose when a gust of wind blew his way. And the salty metallic smell of blood.
“Ugh!” Rowan dashed behind a tree, trying not to throw up. Fuck!
The closest comparison that flashed in his mind was of Alien moose, if moose had fangs and claws, walked upright on their hind legs, and gorged on freshly slaughtered bodies. Four monsters munched on mangled human remains, their lower jaw chewing laterally, like herbivores, a rivulet of gore flowing on their chins. A fifth guarded a group of prisoners tied together with a shiny rope, one end held in its hand.
Rowan’s heart skipped a beat. The prisoners were kids, somewhere between five and twelve years old, about nine of them. They called for help again, the same call he heard before, but the moose couldn’t care less. Little by little, their voices lost hope and energy, letting only the chewing sounds be heard.
Rowan squeezed his eyelids shut. Moment of truth… Do you have it in you, Rowan?
He wished he had a handgun, but alas, he had not. His only firearm was a budget hunting rifle used once in a blue moon for birds, and it was back in Louisville. That didn’t mean that Rowan was unarmed, though. He rummaged in his backpack for his bush knife, leaving the luggage near a tree afterward. Returning to the forest, Rowan made a detour, approaching the captives from the east as silently as he could.
Step by step, Rowan arrived behind the moose with the noose, so close he could touch it. His fingers tightened around the hilt. 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 jerked, then 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, in a frenzy, 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, struggling 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 while the kids escaped. To his surprise, the remaining monsters ignored him.
“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 fallen 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, bounced back with each hit, its head banging the tree behind.
“The eyes! Aim for the eyes!” the boy screamed.
For good measure, Rowan stabbed the monster through an eye, pushing the blade into the brain. He hit true despite the stress and the moose wobbling all around. When the guard reached the socket, he changed grip and pushed the knife deeper with the heel of his palm.
“Fuck!” Rowan jerked back, surprised. The monster's body 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!!!