In the space of a single breath, I go from the empty white cube to outside. I fall from where I appeared a foot off the ground and crash down onto grass. I scramble to my feet as my eyes rapidly dart around.
There are tall trees with dark brown bark in a ring around me. Or rather, I’m in a small circular clearing in the midst of what appears to be a forest. The air has a slight nip to it and a soft breeze is blowing. The sky above me is blue again - I’m still not sure why it turned green in the first place, but I am relieved. A lot was happening at the time, but there is something deeply upsetting about having a green sky. As if part of me knows that it isn’t right.
*DING*
Welcome to the subspace arena! This bubble of contained space was built just for [Humans] and includes the top [8] redesigned regions from [Earth]. These regions are composed of various climates and altitudes and contain various fauna and flora, some of which has been improved from [Earth] and some that are typically found in the Post-Integration Universe. You get the chance to meet them all now!
In order to guarantee a thorough SAD process, the System has generated [20000] unique arenas. Surviving members of the [Human] species have been evenly distributed throughout each subspace region. You have been assigned to arena [16748].
NOTE: To ensure there are no unearned advantages, all arenas are filled up simultaneously as participants pass pre-SAD tests. So if you are in the bottom 20% of participants, you will be one of the last ones to join your arena no matter which one you are assigned to!
NOTE NOTE: The System maintains a rigorous standard of quality in all of its SAD arenas. Due to the unique nature of generation, specific opportunities and challenges in each area may vary slightly, but all are ensured to be strenuous, reasonably fatal, and promote SAD.
Your first real SAD challenge is here! The System isn’t lying this time!
This is a [survival] challenge.
[Objectives]:
1) [Survive]
2) [Thrive] Reach Level 5 within the next [00:06:09:25]
3) Have fun!
NOTE: The System has detected you are a late arrival to arena [16748]. The deadline for the objective [Thrive] was set when arena [16748] opened. To keep the SAD process fair, you have the same deadline as all other participants. You’re welcome.
NOTE NOTE: There is no [third] objective for this challenge. Filter [387-B] allows for creative liberties in order to maintain [morale].
Lot of information to process here. Whoever survived the System up till this point has been assigned to one of 20,000 arenas, although I have no idea how many people are in each one. Each arena seems separate since they have their own challenges, so I don’t actually need to care about the other ones right now except for, like, moral reasons? Honestly, I don’t think I have the time for that.
The timer for reaching Level 5 is counting down as I stand here. If I match it up with the alerts I have been getting, the System thought eight hours was a reasonable time for this quest - which also isn’t saying much considering it keeps giving me eight second notices for things. Why does it like the number eight so much?
Fuck, Kira, focus. You’ve basically lost a quarter of your time already.
How am I supposed to level up? According to my experience playing video games, that would be through either completing quests or… killing things.
I look around me once again. The shadows filtering through the trees take on a more ominous vibe. The description said there were improved animals from Earth here, but how the hell am I supposed to kill anything? With my fucking hands?
The only active ability that I have doesn’t have any apparent offensive use and holy fuck there’s something in my eyes.
I curl my hands into fists to resist from prodding my face again. It isn’t actively hurting me so it’s going on the list of things that I really really want to deal with but don’t have the time to.
I scurry into the woods, which I’m sure aren’t safe but I’d rather have my back covered than be standing out in the open. I press up against a tree and glance around. Still no movement, or noise besides the wind now that I think about it.
I need to… I need…
I dig my nails into my palm, which reopens some of the cuts the broken glass left. Still, the pain helps.
This is not the time to spiral, not that there is ever a good time to spiral, so you’re just going to have to keep it together a little longer. Make a list.
Alright.
Problem #1: Ever-decreasing level up timer. I need to find something and kill it, assuming my understanding is correct.
Problem #2: If I want to kill things, I need a weapon. Magic is useless at the moment.
Problem #3: Water, I guess? Shelter, food, all those things humans need. I’m in the forest with nothing except the clothes on my back and until proven otherwise I can’t risk assuming I don’t need basic necessities.
Problem #4: Whatever the System did to my eyes. Which I’m not thinking about.
The list helps. I’ve always been better when I have something to work on, rather than being left to my own devices. Of my problems, I can solve none of them here, so I start walking.
It’s eerie, walking in a silent forest. There are roots and stone among the grass and dirt, but however the System made this place it didn’t do it quite right. For example, where in a normal forest with these types of trees there would be old pine needles or half-decayed leaves littered along the floor, this one has no sign that seasons have ever graced it. I pick up one of the stones that looks big enough to do some damage and find that there is no layer of moist dirt clinging to its underside - another thing that’s just off.
I don’t really have a direction that I’m heading, more just walking hoping that I’ll find something. I pull up the timer again to check it.
[Thrive] Reach Level 5 within the next [00:05:42:57]
Shit. I'm getting to the point where I need to manage one level an hour, instead of the System’s expected every two hours. I pick up the pace, fast walking through the woods.
Another ten minutes pass. At this point, I’m jogging while frenziedly swiveling my head, trying to keep an eye behind me while also trying to find something, anything except for more fucking trees. I- There! I whip my head around and freeze, attempting to find the thing that caused the glimpse of gold I caught out of the corner of my eye.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Over the sounds of me trying to muffle my rapid breaths, I hear a slight scrabble from behind me. I whip around again and raise my scavenged rock.
Behind me is an empty forest.
I walk forwards slightly, trying to get a view of the back of the closest tree. I dash around the trunk and bring the rock down on - nothing. There’s nothing here. I lower the rock, confused. Was I imagining shit?
I’m about to continue on my search when the hairs on the back of my neck rise up. I stiffen, as some instinct I’d forgotten I had tells me to look up.
Slowly, I raise my gaze up the tree. The branches are all above six feet high. There, perched on the lowest one, my gaze locks with two black eyes.
I blink in confusion, then tilt my head in bewilderment. The… squirrel? I’m looking at mirrors me, tilting its head too and maintaining eye contact.
I’m hesitant about calling it a squirrel because instead of being brown or gray or a normal squirrel color, its fur is gold. Not like pale yellow, but bright, almost metallic looking burnished gold. The squirrel’s tail is massive, almost double the size of its body, which is much more regular sized. It also has a massive acorn clutched in between its two tiny paws. It’s peering at me from above the acorn, perfectly still except for its rapidly twitching nose.
My fingers tighten around the rock briefly before they loosen. I mean, people around the world kill - or killed - squirrels all the time, whether for food or for their fur. And yet, it’s looking at me almost like… like it trusts me.
I’m probably anthropomorphizing the squirrel for no reason. I shake my head and turn around anyways. I don’t know what I was thinking, I should have expected to find forest critters in a forest.
I take a step forward, ready to start - OW!
What the fuck? I put a hand to the back of my head - I’m bleeding?
I whirl around and make eye contact with the squirrel again. Its tiny paws - notably acornless - are empty. Its twitching nose no longer displays trust, rather, it seems like it’s laughing at me.
Oh, it’s on.
I take aim and throw my own missile at him. For a second, I think I have him and I’m already smiling a vicious smile, but right before the rock connects the squirrel flickers and disappears. I stare at the empty branch in surprise. Did that squirrel just fucking teleport?
The next thing I know I’m on the ground, jolts of pain rippling through my body from my ankle. I try to move my leg, and it moves - just not the way I intended. My muscles aren’t responding to me, instead contracting and jerking involuntarily. The convulsions last for a few seconds before the pain stops.
My lungs listening to me once again, I gasp for air and sit up. The golden form of the squirrel - sorry, the fucking electric squirrel - is sitting next to my ankle, its tiny paws of death resting on my skin. Its fur is standing on end, making it look like an even larger puffball. Through all the fur, I can see it staring at me with squirrelly surprise.
I yell and punt the fucker far away from me. It goes flying before slamming into a tree almost ten feet away - not because I’m particularly good at kicking, but because it practically weighs nothing.
The squirrel slides down the tree onto the ground. It rolls once, then rushes to its feet and turns to look at me. I’m still gasping for air, and I begin to scramble backwards as I realize that kicking it into a tree is not enough to kill a squirrel.
The already giant tail begins to get bigger - it’s unfurling it from that curl that squirrels always have. It’s on all four paws, staring at me like a dog that’s about to take off running, and for some reason it’s begun to vibrate.
A rustle to our left cuts through the tension. The squirrel’s head twitches in that direction, and before I can even figure out what it is the squirrel vanishes.
I, unfortunately, can’t teleport, so I’m still there on my ass when a fox emerges from a cluster of ferns. The fox eyes where the squirrel just was, then turns to look at me. Its tail sways lazily as it begins heading in my direction, and I get to experience the uncomfortable feeling of knowing that I’m on the dinner menu. At least this time, the animal hunting me isn’t colored strangely.
I raise one hand in its direction while stretching the other one out and frantically searching the ground behind me. “Nice foxy,” I try.
The fox lowers itself to the ground, but I’ve had a cat before I know what that fucking mea-
It launches itself at me, claws outstretched and teeth bared.
At the same moment, my hand wraps around the rock I threw at the squirrel.
I swing the rock around and catch the fox on the side of its body, but I’m a little too slow. The wicked sharp, steel-like claws dig into the inner flesh of my swinging arm. I scream as the weight of the fox drags its claws downwards. With the hand that I had outstretched, I manage to block my throat just in time for the fox’s jaws to snap shut on my forearm.
FUCK! Red clouds my vision as I grab a chunk of the fur next to its neck, my impaled muscles screaming in protest at being used. I prop my bitten arm up as a barrier and hold it in place to keep the fox from letting go and going for another bite. Instead, its back paws come up and rake at my thighs.
I roll over and use my weight, the one thing I have over it, to pin its legs down and stop it from clawing at me indiscriminately. I raise the rock up and bring it down, over and over.
One of its back paws slips out from under my knees and scratches a long line out the outside of my leg.
“Aagh! Just. DIE. ALREADY!” I scream and bring the rock down with every word I say.
*DING*
Congratulations! You have killed [Sharpened Fox] [LVL 2]!
Level up!
You are now [Level 2]!
The noise of the notification breaks into my brain. I see the word ‘killed’ and drop the rock with a sob. I can’t manage to care about the level up at this point. I almost sit back before I realize the fox’s teeth are still inside my arm.
This isn’t over yet. I look down at my body, panting. Shit, blood is pouring out of the arm I held the rock with, and my other arm is probably not too far behind once I free it. I’m covered in tiny scratches and my legs are injured, but nothing as bad as my arms.
You have taken [1] physical (bleeding) damage from status [bleeding]!
The System message is just further proof that if I do nothing I’m going to bleed out. I struggle out of my cardigan, which is somewhat shredded at this point anyways, while trying not to aggravate the bleeding further. I’m not sure how well I succeed at the second point, but the important thing is I manage to get it off.
Using the dead fox’s outstretched claws as a sort of crude, makeshift knife, I cut away at sections until I have something that is serviceable for a bandage.
Although the wound on my right arm is bleeding worse, I can’t treat it without freeing my left arm from the fox’s mouth. I take a few quick breaths to prepare then pry open the fox’s jaw. I yank my arm off the teeth with a hiss and drop it straight onto a waiting bandage. There are four distinct holes where blood is oozing out. I cover all of them with the thick cloth and pull it tight before tying it off with my second hand and my teeth.
You have taken [1] physical (bleeding) damage from status [bleeding]!
Shit, I’m getting close to zero. I glance at my HP.
HP: 2/20
Fuck, that’s really close. As quickly as my damaged left arm can move, I wrap up the slash on my right one. I’m feeling lightheaded now, and I struggle to focus on tying the bandage correctly.
There. Done.
You have taken [1] physical (bleeding) damage from status [bleeding]!
No no no no no no no no no no no no no
I need to meditate. I don’t have time to find someplace safer, so I press my back against the tree and cross my legs.
Breathe in, breathe out.
Somehow, the lightheadedness from the blood loss actually helps me tune out the pain. Meditating while having the skill is definitely different from the breathing technique I was doing before. I can tell the precise moment I go from sitting there breathing weirdly to ‘meditating’. Everything falls away.
It’s like someone turned the dial down on all of my senses. The pain fades to a dull ache. The smell of blood is no longer as overpowering, and the faint rustle of leaves has gone beyond the range of my hearing.
I feel the impulse to check my HP again, but I don’t want to risk breaking my meditation so I send it on its way, a leaf floating down the river of my mind.
At this point, there is nothing I can do but wait.