Waking with a panicked shout, Paul clutched at his neck and batted at the empty air around him. It took minutes before he was able to calm himself down enough to realize that he was no longer under attack and that his flesh was completely intact.

What the fuck is happening to me?

Paul rocked himself back and forth on the ground, whimpering in the cold. Everything felt the same as it did after he died the first time. Cold stone, the trickling of water. Paul wondered if he was in the same place, but there was no way to tell in the darkness.

Is this hell? It might be.

Paul considered himself an alright guy, but he had done some things he wasn't proud of. Maybe this was his punishment? Dread washed over him.

Was this how I'll spend the rest of eternity? Naked and cold and hunted in the dark? ...Shit, I'm crying again. Paul wiped at his face again.

His tears stopped eventually, leaving him still sitting on the ground, teeth chattering. He rubbed furiously at his arms and legs, trying to generate some heat.

For hours he sat, mentally replaying all the things in his life that he had done wrong, all the reasons why he might be in hell.

He had to admit that when he lined up all the things he had ever done wrong together, they did make a convincing case, though maybe not deserving of having his throat ripped out by a four-eyed rat-creature for eternity. It seemed like a stretch.

After a while, thirst became a concern along with the cold, the trickling of water taunted him. It was following that sound that led Paul to his death - well, his second death - so when Paul finally was able to rouse enough courage to lift himself off the ground, instead of heading toward the water, he pointed himself in the opposite direction, again keeping one hand dragging on the wall to try and orient himself in the darkness. As Paul walked, he realized that things were subtly different than his first attempt at exploring the cave.

While he still couldn't see anything, there were shades of the darkness now instead of monochrome blackness, and sometimes he thought he could almost see obstacles in front of him before he walked painfully into them. His feet and knees, while still bleeding, weren't as in nearly as bad of shape as they were, and when he did fall or bash his shins against a rock, the pain, while still intense, was more manageable.

Yay, I'm getting better at stumbling around in the dark while afraid for my life. Go me.

There seemed to be no end to the tunnel, and while walking helped with the cold, Paul was incredibly thirsty. Occasionally the wall would feel damp, and he would stop and feel for a source of moisture, but didn't find anything that he could drink.

Paul continued, thirsty, cold and afraid, but glad that he had yet come across any other creatures that wanted to eat him.

What was that thing, anyway?

From what had been able to tell in the dark, it was about half of his size and weight, with four legs... and four eyes.

It almost looked like a giant rat. Well, except for those eyes.

Paul shivered. He didn't know of any creature with four eyes, on his planet of Trappist-4 or Earth. So what did that mean for him?

Either I'm still on Trappist, and someone brought this creature here underground; the creature naturally lives here, and I’m somehow on a different planet; or, worst case scenario, it's a monster, and I'm in hell.

Paul decided that he preferred to believe in the first option.

Paul mulled these options over as he slowly made his way through the tunnel, placing one foot methodically in front of the other, one hand dragging along the cave wall while he kept the other in front of him while he peered into the darkness. He was interrupted from his reverie by a message that seemed to flash through his consciousness.

*Nightvision Has Reached Level 2*

"What the fuck was that!?" Paul froze, heart hammering. He couldn't understand what happened. He didn't hear the message, or see it, but he sensed it nonetheless like a flash of meaning across his consciousness. Paul clutched the rock wall and tried to control his heart rate.

Am I going insane? I mean, it would make sense if I was. Dying twice in a day can't be good for my mental health.

Trying to convince himself that the message was just a hallucination, Paul overcame his trepidation and continued walking. He almost convinced himself that it was all a product of his fear-addled brain until he realized that he hadn't fallen or bashed his feet against a rock in several minutes. Not because there weren't dips in the terrain, or because there weren't sharp rocks jutting up from the floor. Instead, Paul realized that he was stepping over them because he could just barely see them.

Whatthefuckwhatthefuckwhatthefuck. How the fuck am I seeing in the dark? I get some fucking message in my head, and now I can just do it? What the fuck is happening to me?

Paul sat down hard on the ground, trying desperately to avoid succumbing to another panic attack.

This is a good thing, right Paul? You can see in the dark better! Less stubbed toes! Less falling!

He was only moderately successful, but managed to squeeze his fear back down to the point where he felt like he was in control of his own body again.

*New Skill Gained: Fear Management, Level  1*

"What?! What the shit? Fuck!" Paul let loose a stream of invectives as the panic he just had carefully shoved back in its hole reared its head a second time. Paul attempted to get himself under control again. Was it easier to talk himself down this time? And if it was, was it because that message popped into his head?  Paul didn't know, and wasn't even sure if he wanted to know. His heart rate almost returned to some semblance of normality when he heard it.

*Click*

Oh fuck.

Paul whimpered softly as he slowly backed down the tunnel. *Click* *Click* *Click* *Click* He stumbled backward, landing on his tailbone, and scrambled back to his feet.

I have to fight this thing. If I run, I'm going to fall, and it's going to catch me.

Paul steeled himself, clenching his fists.

It's half my size; I can take it. I made it through boot, I've seen combat, I can do this.

Paul's resolve hardened.

Then four glowing red eyes came into view, and Paul's carefully built resolve evaporated like a drop of water on a hot pan. Naked and weaponless, Paul's hind-brain screamed at him to run.

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You are prey, and it is a predator, his lizard-brain seemed to be saying, this is how this works, now run. As the eyes drew closer, Paul was inclined to agree.

Sprinting back down the tunnel, Paul stumbled, picking himself up again and careening down its length. While his newfound ability to make out shapes in the dark helped, it still just amounted to shades of black, and Paul stumbled again as a rock caught his foot. He struggled to his feet again, only to be knocked to the ground as the creature caught up with him.

Paul desperately scrambled away as it reared over him, standing on its hind-legs before descending on Paul in a flurry of teeth and claws.

It's not the same one. This one is much bigger.

Paul's moment of realization hit as the creature ripped into his lower abdomen, spilling his intestines on the ground.

*Processing Death*

*Alpha Level Implant - Beginning Reconstitution Process*

Paul screamed and clutched his stomach, trying to push his bowels back into his body. It took him a minute to realize that once again he was whole and unharmed, that his intestines were right where they should be, and that he woke cold and naked for the third time that day after dying a painful death.

Taking a deep breath, Paul tried to assess the situation.

Okay, I'm in the dark, cold and naked, with no means to defend myself. I have no food, no water, and no shelter, and there are things in these caves that like to hunt and eat me. On the plus side, it seems like I don't stay dead. In the undecided column, I'm getting messages that appear to help me get better at things.Alternatively, I’m hallucinating words in my head about me getting better at things because I’ve snapped. Synopsis: Still completely and utterly fucked.

Paul tried to decide what he was going to do next.If he went one way, he was pretty sure he was going to run into one another rat-thing-of-death, and if he went the other, he was pretty sure he'd run into an even more massive death rat. Two shitty choices. On the other hand, the first rat he had encountered was as he was getting closer to water, and what seemed to be a source of light as well. Paul made his decision and followed the sound of water into the darkness.

As he walked, Paul felt along the wall and ground for loose rocks, finding and discarding two before he found one that he was happy with. It was heavy in his hand, but small enough to grip well. He mimed swinging it at an imagined giant, four-eyed rat several times as he walked. Clutching the rock gave him courage. Humans were tool users, and with the most basic tool in his hand, Paul felt more in control of his fate.

His progress toward the sound of water was faster this time, his enhanced vision allowing him to avoid many of the obstacles that had tripped him up on his first attempt to find water.

*Night-vision has reached level 3*

Paul was prepared for the message this time, and didn't panic as it flashed into his consciousness.

Instead, he concentrated on the differences in his vision.Whatever had happened to him had an effect. Whereas before Paul could only see shades of black, there were now hints of gray as well. As he walked, he realized that the tunnel didn't stay the same size. Sometimes it constricted down to just two meters wide, and at other times it opened up into immense caverns. It wasn't linear, either. Paul could now see branching tunnels that led away from the one he traveled. Still, he kept one of his hands on the wall beside him. This path had led him to light and closer to the water before, and he didn't want to take a chance in a different tunnel. For all he knew, each one had their own death-rat in them.

After another hour of walking, marveling at the labyrinthian tunnel system that he could now barely make out, Paul finally made it to the section of the cave with the faint glow again. The light seemed brighter now with his enhanced vision, illuminating details on the ground that Paul didn't see the first time. Small growths lined the walls, along with fuzzy mats of vegetation. Mushrooms? Lichen? Paul tensed as he came closer to the source of the glow, but he didn't hear any tell-tale *clicks* of claw on stone.

Creeping forward in a crouch, Paul carefully placed one foot in front of the other, careful to not make a noise as he made his way to the glowing end of the tunnel. His knuckles turned white as he gripped his rock tightly. Every muscle in his body tightened with effort as he ...

*New Skill Gained: Silent Movement, Level 1*

"Fuck!" Paul shouted, dropping his rock and scrambled on the ground to recover it.

Goddamnit. Goddamnit. Godfuckingdamnit. Whatever this is, it has some shitty timing.

Paul stilled himself, not daring to breathe, the echoes of his shout reverberating through the tunnel. Waiting, he held his breath until he was light-headed, ears straining for any hint of footsteps. Slowly exhaling, Paul steeled himself again and followed the tunnel as it made a sharp turn toward the glowing light.

He gaped at what he saw. The tunnel opened up into a vast cavern, hundreds of feet high and almost a kilometer wide. Stalagmites and stalactites dotted the cavern, some of them growing together to form immense columns that ran from floor to ceiling.  Around the edges, other tunnels wound away from the cavern into darkness. What drew Paul's eye though was the source of the glow. At the opposite end of the cavern from where he stood, colossal shelf-fungus grew around a small pool of water that formed at the base of a rush of water that flowed down a seam in the rock. The fungus glowed with an ethereal, phosphorescent light, and they, in turn, were surrounded by a thick bed of lichen, mushrooms, and moss.

Paul didn't realize how much he had missed color. After seeing in shades of black and grey since his first death, the blue-green phosphorescence, the orange lichen, and the off-white mushrooms were the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Light reflected from the pool as well, casting limpid reflections on the walls of the cavern. When walking down the tunnels, Paul had pictured the caverns to be nothing but dark grey rock. Now he realized he couldn't have been any more wrong. Veins of iron ore ran rusty crimson through sedimentary layers, while on other walls white quartz banded with darker minerals shone in the glow of the fungus. A myriad of rocks and minerals ran through the cavern walls, adding their own colors and patterns to the cavern. Paul wiped away tears, his thirst reminding him why he came in the first place.

Clutching his rock, Paul made his way into the cavern toward the pool at the opposite end. While he was glad to be out of the blackness, he also felt incredibly small and exposed without the feel of the tunnel wall beside him. He tried to move silently again, taking care with each step. It didn't seem that the death-rat that had attacked him the first time was here now, but he didn't know when it would be back. While Paul still moved slowly and with effort, it seemed like the message he received earlier had helped him, his body moving more naturally as he tried to navigate the cavern silently. His sweat was clammy on his skin, and he tried to keep his teeth from chattering as he walked toward the pool.

As Paul walked through the cavern, he noticed details he hadn't been able to see in the tunnels. Several species of mushrooms grew along the base of the stalagmites and columns. Peering down at a small copse of them, he also noticed what looked to be a tiny pale earthworm wiggling around them. At another fungi patch, he saw several insects as well, crawling on the mushrooms and a sparse layer of moss and lichen beneath them. Paul wondered if there was this much life back in the tunnels he came from, and he just didn't notice it because he couldn't see. He doubted that the moss and lichen could grow without the light from the shelf-fungus, though.

As he came closer to the pool, life grew thicker. Paul felt a soft carpet of moss beneath his feet, and weaving his way through mushrooms - some of them that rose to his waist. He had never heard of mushrooms this large, but he had never heard of four-eyed rats that weighed 100kg either, so he took their giant size in stride. Giant mushrooms were far from the strangest thing he was dealing with at the moment. I wonder if any of these are edible. His parched throat reminded him he had more pressing concerns. We'll find out later. Water first.

Paul jumped back as he caught a glimpse of a tiny snake slithering between two mushrooms. It was the size of a garter snake, with black and orange markings. He didn't know if it was poisonous, and he didn't want to find out, giving it a wide berth. There were more insects here as well, spiders spinning their webs between mushrooms and stalactites, centipedes moving through the moss, tiny beetles climbing over lichen. A flash of movement caught his eye, and he watched as a small lizard the size of his forearm snapped forward, its tongue darting out to pull a beetle into its mouth. It looked very satisfied with itself as it scurried back away through the mushrooms.

Despite the familiarity of these creatures, Paul couldn't help but feel there was something wrong about them. Like they didn't quite make sense. He stopped suddenly, realizing why. The "spiders" had six legs, not eight. The "lizard" had four eyes, not two. The "beetles" had an extra body segment. He shuddered.

This is all wrong. Trappist-4 doesn't have anything like this. Paul considered the possibility that he was no longer on his home planet. He clamped down on his speculation before it could overwhelm him. One problem at a time.

The pool was more substantial than it had appeared to Paul from across the cavern and was surprisingly deep. Small creatures flit through its depths. Paul couldn't see the bottom, despite the crystalline water and the light from the shelf fungus, which were incredibly bright up close. Deciding not to chance drinking the water in the pool, Paul made his way around to the water’s source - the small stream that led him to this cavern in the first place. It was quite loud, forming small waterfalls as the water splashed down from the ceiling of the cavern onto the rock wall and down to the pool. Cupping his hands, Paul gathered the water and drank greedily. It tasted like sulfur and iron, and was so cold it numbed his hands and hurt his teeth, but Paul didn't care. Water was life, and it was delicious.

Mentally, Paul marked "Water" off his survival checklist. One down.