Michael tumbled for a second. His bottom slammed into the pavement and then the current caught him up and started bearing him toward where it emptied into the ocean. Michael just made sure to hold onto his bat through the whole ordeal. Despite only seconds having passed he felt the need to surface.

The water was only 4 or 5 feet deep, at least here on the edge, so Michael broke the surface almost instantly. It took him seconds to get his bearings. The zombies were clustered around the side of the canal. Apparently, they wouldn’t, or at least these ones wouldn’t, attempt to enter the water. That was good to know, but after they witnessed him break the surface they started ambling along the side.

The wasps also had clearly zeroed in on him, but they made no attempt to go after him. Perhaps, they assumed that he could simply duck under the water, or maybe they just did not like water. Michael was able to shift his focus to where the current was taking him.

Several hundred feet down stream the water met open waves, resulting in a turbulent delta. The wooden pier extended along the past on both sides. While the cement side was not so steep that he would not be able to scale, the awaiting zombies made it a mute point. Neither could he fight the current and reach the other side before he was deposited in the ocean, and he knew he did not want to go there.

The alternative was not much better. He would have to go under the pier. The wharf extended a good forty or fifty feet past the last of the warehouses. Wooden columns with diagonal supports spanned each 10 feet section. If the ocean promised unseen depths where giant monsters might snag and drag him under, the shadowed water also promised monsters lurking underneath, but at least the pier would have wooden cross beams that he could use to climb out of the water. Perhaps when all was clear he would be able to climb up and over the edge back on top.

Decision made Michael dived under. Last thing he wanted was for the wasps to clearly see and follow him under the pier. The maneuver did not save him from slamming into a wall of water where the surf slammed into the flowing canal. A few seconds later another wave hit.

Michael had swam a few times in the city pools, besides for vacant lots there was not much else for children to do when school was not in session. However, he would not say he was an excellent swimmer. He struggled with the current forcing him one way, while waves crashed in from the other. Having to hold onto the bat was not helping the matter.

Although after a few minutes the current had disappeared almost entirely as water was free to leave from the sides as well as forward. He had hit a sweet spot. In fact the water even helped push him to the side. A couple more waves and he was under the pier. Another wave passed overhead, but he only felt a slight pressure change in the water. Michael tried to get further underneath, but he was also in desperate need for some air.

Michael surfaced to find himself a good 10 feet from the outer edge of the pier. There was no sign of the wasps, as he gasped for air. Hopefully, they would not follow. He was able to take a quick glance around before the next wave hit pushing him under.

Thousands of large wooden supports held up the pier. The supports had continued for hundreds of feet before the water disappeared, and the water crashed against the sand. Apparently the whole wharf was on stilts. All those warehouses were held aloft by thousands of wooden supports.

Michael broke the surface, pulling in more air. The last wave had blindsided him, and he had not gotten a very good last breath. However, he quickly remedied that, and started toward the sandy beach. Sure some monster might be nestled in the nice cool sand, but he would rather face whatever that was, then get attacked in the water. He pushed himself forward.

More waves hit, but their momentum only pushed him along. It took less than a minute of struggling before he felt earth underneath his foot. He quickly shifted to walking up and out of the water. Seconds later he was clear. His head swiveled looking for new threats, but all he saw was wet, cool sand.

Michael increased the space between himself in the water. Right now, it seemed if there was a threat it would come out of the water. Then he took a better look at his surroundings. The pier continued for a good thousand feet, where it ended against a small wall of cement. The pier tampered down toward the short wall, the gap between wood and sand decreasing up to where the wharf district likely ended. The ceiling was already only about fifteen feet overhead. He would likely have to hunch down almost completely to walk near the wall.

Now that things were settled, Michael could see cement supports every hundred feet or so, helping to hold up the weight of the warehouses. Michael walked another hundred feet before he leaned against one of the wooden beams and slid down to the sand. His SP was down in the low 20’s, and he certainly felt winded after the whole ordeal. He needed to rest.

It did not take him long before he was looking at his status screen. Now that he was out of immediate danger, his greedy mind shifted to the second stat point that he had picked up. For the first he had only had about a half of a minute to decide. Now he could take his time and think things through a little more.

However, the extra time was not really that helpful. He found himself wrestling with indecision. He wanted to increase all of them. With 10’s across the board, other than dexterity, any attribute he picked would see a 10% increase. While he had not noticed his reactions or motor skills being any better, dexterity was a little less tangible than if he had thrown it in strength.

Things were not helped by the fact that he still felt the after effects of the venom in his system. His HP was stagnant at 29, but his head felt like it was still being thrown back and forth with the waves. The best comparison he could think of to the experience was having a serious fever. With the mental and physical exhaustion he felt he would be able to fall asleep.

Michael did not get to think too much further on the realization before he actually fell asleep. Without adrenaline coursing through his veins spurring him into action he succumbed quite easily.

Michael’s eyes fluttered open. He felt dazed for a moment, confused by the unique surroundings that he found himself in. It only took a few seconds before his mind snapped back into focus, as he remembered his situation. His heart beat heavy as he looked around, but other than the surf crashing a mere five feet away all was still under the pier. He was in the wharf district of Vargas city, inside a survival battle.

How had the water gotten closer? Michael only wondered for a second before he remembered the concept of tides. In truth he had never seen an actual ocean, nor had he felt grimy due to the water’s salt clinging to his skin. He may be from the slums, but he still showered near every day.

Then after a thought, Michael decided to take a look at one of the wasp stings. He could not see or reach the one on his back, but the one at the bottom of his back. Lifting the black shirt he was able to find the swollen nob. After moving his arms, he knew another one was at the bottom of his right shoulder blade. His HP was back to full, so Michael guessed he would just have to deal with the discomfort for a few days.

With that matter settled, Michael instinctually brought up his interface. The time and day were displayed at the top 1403 on Day 1. Goodness, he had slept a good five hours. The only solace was that it was still Day 1, and he still had some time to get more benefits.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

What caught his attention next was the contender counter: 3,112,632. Nearly thirty thousand people had already died. Would there even be over 3 million at the completion of the first day? Perhaps not at this rate.

The rest of his home page was nothing new. Michael Nacht, contender # 352,603. HP and SP were both back up to 100 out of 100, and the battle currency and three secondary skills were all still grayed out. He had to find a way to unlock one of them. Increasing stat points would be nice, but they were likely where the true power came in.

His insatiable greed returned, when he swapped to the tactical screen. The green dot on his map was actually not too far away. Only boards that were three or four inches thick could keep him from coming in from underneath. The wasps would not expect that. It was like a back entrance into the treasure room.

There was likely some queen wasp that served as the drop’s guardian or something. How great would it be to sneak it out from right under her nose? But first he had a stat point to allocate.

His mind was now fully clear, so he could think things through. Good thing he had not allotted the point prior to falling asleep. Who knows what he would have decided in that delirious state. He only now realized how bad it had actually been. Still the dexterity had been a solid decision for what he had needed at the moment. Of course he had made that decision after having only received one venomous dose. Things had not been nearly as bad with one dose, so it was likely the effects exponentially increased with the more quantity.

The question was what did he need next. Pier floorboards were well worn, but even if he found a fairly rotten spot he would still likely have to use the rocks laying around to scrape away the wood. If there was a pier manager, they would probably be extremely mad with what he was planning on doing, but things were completely silent other than the roar of the surf in the confined area.

Michael eventually threw the point into strength. It was either that or endurance, but Michael could not yet stomach throwing a point into endurance when resting a minute would regain the amount of SP he would gain. Extra strength would mean more bang for his buck when it came to making a hole in the pier. Theoretically, Michael was 10% stronger, but he still did not notice a difference from a moment earlier.

He dismissed the thought, and hopped to his feet. It took less than a minute for him to reach the spot under the pier, where the green dot was on his tactical map. The ceiling was only about 8 feet above the sand. He would still have to hang off one of the wooden supports, but it would not be too much effort.

However, his attention had caught something else. A hole in the sand a couple hundred feet further inland. Around the hole were splintering's of wood, where another hole had been carved out of the ceiling above. Sunlight was not streaming through, so the hole probably emerged somewhere indoors.

What the hell had made that? Michael wanted to stay away, but it was not like he was much safer an additional hundred feet away. He should be able to get close enough to find out more, without risking something suddenly snatching him. He would like to have an idea of what could possibly emerge.. Michael edged closer. There was nothing remarkable about the hole in the pier, just an uneven circular hole in the ceiling some six feet above the earth. The hole on the ground on the other hand prompted a notice.

[Warning: this is an entrance into the catacombs.]

[Catacombs: lie beneath the earth throughout the map. They are the home of the undead, and are extremely dangerous.]

Michael grimaced. He knew what catacombs were. Large underground tunnels where the dead were interred. Damn, he had thought that there were a limited amount of zombies out on the map. With millions of contenders killing them, he was hoping that their numbers would decrease with time. There would be far fewer that would reach the higher tiers of power, but it seemed the undead had a whole other realm below the surface. Perhaps there would be a near infinite stream of them into the world.

Michael would be lying if he said he was not interested in going down into the catacombs. As in previous survival battles, good things usually lay in dangerous areas. This battle seemed to follow that line of thought, since there was a literal wasp nest guarding a green drop. But his greed was tempered by the fact that the catacombs were likely more of a death trap than the warehouse he had found himself stuck in earlier that morning. He could not completely throw caution to the wind. However the wasp nest should be doable, dangerous, but he should be able to manage.

Michael moved back to where the green dot was on his tactical map. Based on the sunlight streaking through cracks in the boards above, he could tell which section of the ceiling was indoors. He studied the darkened space above. He was looking for a section that was worn further than the rest, and somewhere he could reach by standing on the wooden diagonal cross braces.

Unfortunately, the wood was not in too bad shape, so Michael had to settle for an area that had one massive gouge on one of the planks. He quickly found a good rock, balanced on a wooden crossbeam, and got to scraping.

True to if he had done such a thing in real life, his arm burned through the effort, and his SP dropped correspondingly. However, it was effective with the weathered wood. Wooden shavings were falling with every stroke, also true that this was going to take a very long time.

It took just under three hours for Michael to carve out a big enough hole that he thought he would be able to wiggle through. He had taken quite a few breaks to regain SP throughout the procedure, and he was quite surprised that no wasp had attempted to investigate. He had manically ripped off full pieces with a sharp crack whenever he could. Still the surf was once again closeby, so the extra noise might have dampened his efforts.

Still he would not be half surprised to be attacked immediately, when he got himself half way through. He cautiously put his hands on both edges and popped his head in. The warehouse was dark, but he had been under the pier for a while now so his eyes did not need a period of adjustment. Once again piles of crates were silhouetted. Good thing he had not tried to tunnel underneath one of those. Michael had accepted the fact that he might die during the survival battle, but being crushed underneath a bunch of boxes would just be embarrassing.

A second later he had the wood on both sides under his armpits and he strained to pull his chest through the narrow opening. The wood scraped along his green vest, but once his chest was through the rest was quite easy. Moments later he checked his tactical map as he crouched over near the hole.

The green dot was about 35 feet away. While he did hear some buzzing overhead in the rafters, it did not appear the wasps were alerted. That was just fine for Michael, he crept down the aisle. He reached the edge and peered out. The green ball of light blazed about fifteen feet away.

The wasps buzzed in a far corner around a honeycomb like along the wall. However, it was on the far opposite corner, leading Michael to believe that he could swoop right in and grab it with none being the wiser. There was no sign of zombies in the warehouse. Perhaps they were in a dormant state, or perhaps the wasps kept them away. Regardless there was nothing in his way. After a few more seconds of studying the area he scampered toward the green ball of light.

He half expected for something to jump out at him as he approached, but he sailed right through the green light, hand needlessly snatching it as he passed. The next moment he dipped into another aisle. His theft had not gone unnoticed, despite him having been as quiet as a mouse.

It was the light, he realized as he noted that the buzzing intensity had increased. Perhaps the green glowing drop was the wasps prize, or perhaps they just noticed the shift in their environment and decided to investigate.

Regardless, Michael needed to keep from being discovered. He ducked into a small crevice between a crate and large flat board that was leaning against it. He probably could have gone further. Perhaps he should have made a run for his hole, but after glancing out from beneath the board he saw a wasp buzz past overhead. Seconds later another passed going in a different direction. They were definitely searching their warehouse. Luckily, they seemed to need to visually see him or for him to make a noise.

Michael scooted further under the board. Despite the situation, he soon had his interface screen up. The translucent light was only visible to him or others he shared it with, so it should not give him away. He greedily opened his green drop. It was not just to sate his curiosity. There was a good chance that whatever he received might help to extricate him from the predicament he currently found himself in.

Seconds later he scowled in disappointment. All of that effort, and the drop only gave him an item.