Seeing this latest message, I immediately open my menu and sure enough, there’s a new tile with the image of a bag on it. I tap that thing like my life depended on it. Finally the inventory, the cornerstone of the players arsenal, is what I thought. What I found out was something much less impressive. A 4x4 grid, one block already being covered by the image of a folded up piece of paper.
Okay, I tell myself, trying to find a bright side to this. Out of curiosity, I try pushing my school bag, a rucksack filled with enough books to topple a small child, and sure enough it was suddenly absorbed into a single space, its image branded on top of the tiny square. For a second, I wondered how to get the bag out, but sure enough just thinking about removing the bag was enough for the image to disappear, and for the actual bag to appear in my arms. With a little surprise, I struggle to compensate the sudden shift in my centre of gravity, falling into the closed door in front of me and generating a ruckus that reverberated through the house.
“What was that?” My Dad called up from the living room downstairs, sounding more annoyed or alarmed then worried.
“Nothing.” I called in response. As I started removing books from my bag and pushing them into my inventory, thank god, I thought, they can stack. However, while my textbooks all stacked on top of each other, my workbooks wouldn’t stack with my textbooks, instead using up a whole block for themselves. With that done and dusted, I tried experimenting, I reached inside my empty bag and imaged pulling a my maths workbook from my inventory. This received partial success in that, while a workbook did appear in my hands, it wasn’t my maths book, instead it was my geography book.
You see, I stacked by books in an order that meant that geography was the first in, and maths was somewhere in the middle, I had to circle through several of my workbooks before finally reaching maths. Thankfully, I learned that I could place something back into my inventory with a thought, the same way I remove things from my inventory. And while I didn’t know how many items I could stack into a single block, I know its at least ten (that’s how many classes I have workbooks for).
So I settle on wearing my bag, along with a couple of the lighter of my textbooks (more for the sake of appearances then anything else) and put the rest of my books in my inventory. I pluck my timetable out of the window, because apparently that’s a perfectly viable way to take items from my inventory too, and I place it in my breast pocket, willing it to stay there. With this, two whole blocks where left empty and something in me demanded symmetry.
Well, I thought to myself, my life is a game right, there are always monsters or enemies in the games I play, so it might be worth bringing a weapon. With that I scan my room, looking for something heavy that would make a viable club, failing that I tried looking for something sharp and again I came up dry.
I check the time on my phone, and its 7:52am so I went downstairs, thankfully, Mum had already left for work, leaving Dad drinking a cup of tea before leaving for his own job meaning that, for the while, he couldn’t be leaving the living room.
So I entered the kitchen and quickly thought through my options. On one hand, the more obvious route was to take a knife, Mum had a whole set of knives ranging from a small vegetable knife to a large butchers knife even having pairs of certain types of knives, meaning that, depending on what I picked up, it wouldn’t be missed. The other hand, was the hammer from the toolkit, if Dad ever opened it he would surely notice it missing, but he almost never opens it.
Under further consideration, I realised that the hammer was probably my best choice, any decently sized knife would be noticed by the end of the day while I could keep the hammer for weeks on end without worry.
So I moved from the kitchen to the dinning room, then back to the furthest corner where the toolkit was set under a cupboard. I opened it and the metal lid slid over the top with a chilling scraping noise. Reaching inside, I felt for the hammer and found it rather quickly, once my hand was around it I imagined putting it away in my inventory and sure enough, the hammer disappeared.
With that done, I got up and started for the living room. It was still around 7:55am and should probably leave at some point. “Hey dad, I need money for lunch.” I said in the while standing in the entrance of the living room, it smelt obnoxiously like tea and I just couldn’t handle it.
“Sure,” He said, reaching into his pocket for change until he finally produced two one pound coins, a two pound coin and three fifty pence coins, a total of five pounds fifty, “This should be enough for today and tomorrow right?” He asked as he handed it to me.
“Yeah, Thanks.” I said, walking for the front door the moment the money dropped into my hands. I dropped it into my pocket, expecting it to fill the last of my inventory blocks, instead however, I received a message.
[You have learned a new skill, Wallet]
The money in my pocket disappeared and I whispered for the menu. Sure enough a balance showing of £5.50 was show under the regular window.
Following the example of the inventory, I placed my hand into my pockets and imagined withdrawing that money and sure enough, it manifested in my hand.
With that I opened the front door calling out a quick “Bye,” as I walked out into the street.
Once outside I have expected every other step to cause some kind of random encounter and was relieved to find it didn’t happen. So instead I tried practicing my auto-pilot skill. It was kind of weird, first I tried “I want to walk to school” before activating the skill, but my body did nothing with that instruction. So instead I tried, “Walk forward,” pointed myself in the direction of the end of the road, and activated the skill.
At this time of the year, it was almost always really chilly, worse still was the outright abusive wind that would bombard your face with one wave of cold air after another. Thankfully, while auto-pilot left me aware enough to know where I was and where I was going, it numbed my actual senses to a point where the cold barely phased me.
The only real problem was that I had to keep track of my surrounds to keep my body from walking into a random wall or worse, walking into the road and getting hit by a car.
It takes roughly twenty minutes to get to school with most people arriving around 8:10am while the gates close automatically at 8:30am.
Around half way to school, I was waiting for the traffic lights to grant me access past a busy road, spamming the walk button, not that this ever achieved anything. Finally the traffic light went red, stopping a row of cars from passing while the little green man lit up, indicating that I should start walking.
I also took the time to check on my stats. Walking did manage to eat up at my stamina (SP), though my natural regen was slowing it down considerably. It didn’t help that my hunger quota was falling, which meant that the longer I walked, the more stamina walking would consume. On the plus side, even after ten minutes of walking at a brisk pace, my stamina had only decreased by one or two.
At my first step into the road, something odd happened. My vision went blurry and the roads itself seemed to get distorted somehow, its pushed out in all directions with me at the centre. In front of me was a monster, a creature, man-sized and humanoid in shape. Its wore tattered rags over its torso, these rags was thankfully long enough to obscure the view of its crotch. Under the rags, its skin had gaps missing where raw pink flesh could be seen. Its face sagged and barely clung to its head, causing it to look miserable and tired. Its mouth seemed to draw my attention rather quickly, it hung open revealing blood red gums with very few crooked teeth remaining.
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My first reaction, “Somehow I called it.” I held out my hand and summoned the hammer from my inventory, however my initial nonchalant attitude left me as it got closer and I could a good look at the pus-oozing freak.
I lifted up the hammer and considered attacking the monster, attacking a living (or at least moving) thing in a game was one thing, but this was something else entirely. It however did not have my reservations.
It lumbered forward, reeling back before swinging its arm at me, with its entire weight behind it, a part of my mind registered the attack as being rather slow, something I could probably avoid, but my body hadn’t caught up after being shocked by the sheer horror of it. It struck me across the face, forcing my head down into my left shoulder, my ears rang, and the entire side of my head stung like crazy. I stumbled back and struggled to keep myself up right, for a long moment my legs felt like jelly under me.
[You have lost 31HP, now at 37HP total]
Holy shit, that only took out 31HP? I back away from the monster and try to use examine.
[info: Zombie, a low level undead creature that often spawns in urban areas. Zombies have mild levels of “Str” and “Con” and low levels of: “Vit”, “Agi”, “Dex”, “App”, “Int”, “Wis”, “Cha” and “Luc”. Their behaviour is characterised as: “Aggressive”. This Zombie is level “5”.]
Despite the message popping up, the zombie kept moving towards me, so I backed away, at some point I expected to come up against the kerb but that never seemed to happen, the road had been stretched out to a point where I could probably run forever without getting anywhere. Still it was so slow that, while backing away, I managed to make a fair amount of distance between myself and the zombie.
Realising this, I didn’t even bother trying to run. I faced the monster head on, a fight or flight response, that’s what its called, and oh my god do I have it. My stomach was tying itself into a knot while my heart raced like a madman. Its life or death and I refuse to loose.
[You have learned a new skill, Adrenaline]
I ignored the message and focused on the zombie.
[You have learned a new sub-skill, The Fight Response]
I ran at it, screaming. It didn’t seem to react to the sudden change in my behaviour though, as it too merely charged at me in its own sluggish way just as it had been doing beforehand. I ran surprisingly fast raising my hammer up above my head, when I reached the creature, it didn’t make any attempt to block the strike I would send its way.
I, gripping the hammer with both hands, bring it down from above my head. With all my momentum and fears behind it, I send the head of the hammer into the Zombies head. The hammer buries itself into the Zombies, now irreparably broken nose. It didn’t end there, my momentum forced the otherwise relentless monster back just enough for it to trip over its own feet.
[You have learned a new skill, Charging Strike]
[You have dealt 24HP worth of damage]
[You have used up 15SP, now at 48SP total]
Both messages disappeared as quickly as they appeared, I was winning this, little battle. Still I play it safe and back far away from the monster. At this point, I’ve calmed down somewhat and I decided to quickly check my phone. It was 8:06am, I needed to hurry this along.
So I go again, I have no idea how much health this thing has but I used Charging Strike again.
[You have used up 15SP, now at 33SP total]
Thankfully the zombie was stupid as a rock and didn’t even try to defend against the attack, without much effort, I was able to aim the attack at the roughly the same spot, dead in the centre of its face.
[You have dealt 24HP worth of damage]
Once again the attack forced it back, this time it didn’t fall over, and once again I took the chance to try and distance myself from it again, perhaps you the skill again. During my retreat, it tried to grabbed at my shoulders. Its grip was like iron, there was no getting out of it.
I started to panic, this was it, this thing is going to kill me because of my own carelessness. In my panic, I switch the hand my bloody hammer is being held in so that it is in my freer hand, my right hand. I raise it and start smacking the monster.
[You have dealt 1HP worth of damage]
[You have dealt 1HP worth of damage]
But without my special attack I wasn’t able to do any real damage.
At the same time, this beast is clenching down on my shoulder like a clamp to the point were I could feel its decrepit hand squeeze my bones.
[You have lost 9HP, now at 28HP total]
With its other hand it slowly wrapped around my entire body. But before it could manage that much, I struck at the bloody hole in the centre of its face, and pulled down with all my weight, the monsters face broke into pieces at that.
[You have dealt a CRITICAL 15HP worth of damage]
It drenched my face in its blood as it reeled back in what could only be pain. So, seeing my chance, I broke free of its grip and ran away for a moment. With my sleeve I wiped the blood off of my face and turned back towards the monster that was now sluggishly charging at me again. I was ending this.
[You have used up 15SP, now at 18SP total]
I ran at the zombie, raising the bloody hammer over my blood soaked face and screamed, “CHARGING STIKE!”
The blow landed in the gapping red hole in the middle of its face this time not just making it wider but bursting open its head like some kind of water balloon.
[You have dealt a CRITICAL 65HP worth of damage]
The zombie and its mutilated head fell to the ground, leaving me victorious, leaving me alive.
[You have earned 183EXP from killing the zombie]
[You have levelled up! You are now at level 2]
[You have 9 new stat points to allocate!]
[You have earned £13 from killing the zombie]
[The Zombie has dropped “Rotten Flesh” and you do have the space in your inventory to collect it. Would you like to take it? Y/N]
With that last message I thought no, and it disappeared. My vision blurred again, and the distortion of the road was somehow undone. Which put me right back in the middle of the road, with the little green man icon flashing. I run to the other side of the road and once I’m safely out of the way, I lean against the traffic light and spew down onto the ground.
I make my bloody hammer disappear and I check my clothes and face, expecting there to be rotten zombie blood all over the place. There wasn’t, and I thank god for that.
After a couple minutes of just standing there and gathering my composure, I continue heading to school, I needed to share this ability of mine and I needed help.