A tickling on the tip of his nose woke him up. Larry groaned. He blinked a few times to get used to the morning rays, which fell through the treetops and lit the forest in a golden light. The shadows of leaves and branches danced across the grasses, the morning dew reflecting flickers of light, transforming the ground into a field of glowing stars.

Larry turned his head and spit out a clump of dried blood. He moved his tongue over his lips and teeth, licking of the disgusting taste of old spit. He realized he hadn’t brushed his teeth since he had come to this world.

Slowly he heaved himself up, careful not to provoke his burn wounds. He cringed in anticipation. To his surprise, there was no pain where he had been burned yesterday. He ripped of the last shreds of his formerly white shirt and ran his fingers gently across the burns. To his surprise, they didn’t hurt at all. He could still see clearly where the fire had hit him the hardest, which was on the upper right side of his body, but the wounds seemed to have turned into pale, red scars overnight.

“Morning, kid,” said a voice behind him.

Larry turned around to see Jorg sit on the ground, clumsy cleaning blood of his hammer with his own shirt. One of his arms, the one the male mage had broken yesterday, was wrapped in fresh bandages. Larry wondered where Jorg was getting all this stuff from. He had never seen him carry any bandages around with him.

Ah right, the inventory.

“What happened to my wounds?” Larry asked. “They shouldn’t heal this fast.”

Jorg fished a empty vial out of his inventory.

“Healing potion,” he said. “Last one I had on me, actually.”

Larry sighed. These things were basically the number one reason he was still alive. And now he had ran out of them.

“Actually,” said a familiar voice next to Larry. “It was the second to last healing potion he had. I got the very last one.”

Larry turned to look at Melissa. She sat cross-legged next to him, her arms and feet constrained by improvised bonds of ripped cloth and what looked like self-made strings made out of roots. Larry raised a brow.

“You gave her the last healing potion?” he said to Jorg.

Jorg shrugged.

“Seemed like the right thing to do,” he said.

“Didn't you get your arm broken last night?”

“Sure did,” Jorg said, continuing to clean his hammer, not looking at Larry.

That guy’s heart is as big as his muscles.

Larry turned his head and eyed Melissa. She was definitely looking healthier than yesterday. Her hair was still dirty, with a few twigs tangled up inside it, and she still had blood from yesterday smeared across her face, but at least she wasn’t looking quite as dead anymore. She grinned at him.

“Like what you are seeing, fuck you?” she asked.

“What?” he said.

“Yesterday you said your name was fuck you. I just called you by your name, that’s it.”

“Very funny.”

“My humour is often underappreciated.”

Larry watched her struggle against her bonds. She wasn't trying to hide her attempts at escape.

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“Mind taking these things off?” she said. “My feet have fallen asleep and I have to pee.”

“You seriously think I’d take your bindings off? After all that happened yesterday.”

“I thought you’d take them off because of the things that happened yesterday. We really bonded that night.”

“You burned me.”

“And you hit me with a pipe. I’m pretty sure you cracked my skull with your hit. You didn’t pull your punches either, that’s for sure. I think I might have lost some Intelligence points from the hit, that's how much it hurt. I think we are even.”

Larry looked at the scars the ran along his body, twisting it into ugly shapes.

“You don’t actually believe that, do you?” he asked.

Melissa looked at him.

“Not really, no,” she said. “You look like shit.”

“You aren’t the first one to tell me that.”

“And with your looks I’m definitely not the last one.”

Larry tried to suppress his laugh, but failed. He cringed when he saw how smug Melissa looked because she made him laugh.

“Fuck you,” he said and stood up .

“Melissa,” she said, but he was already walking away.

Larry looked at the battlefield from yesterday. All around the extinguished campfire was scorched earth. Somewhere off to the side of the clearing was the dead male mage. Larry walked up to him, and put his fingers on his head. Nothing dropped from his inventory, but Larry was sure the man was dead. Jorg must have taken the stuff already. Looking at his own cloth, Larry decided to instead put on the mages black robe.

Ah fuck it, I’ll just take all his stuff.

A few minutes later, Larry was wearing his new robe, with a simply brown shirt and pants below, and his feet were finally protected by boots, instead of the dirty bandages he had been wearing for three days now. There was one more thing he wanted to check out.

Larry walked up to the defeated bone knight. He tried emptying its inventory, but either its skull was to smashed for it to work, or summoned creatures did have anything inside their storage. Probably the second reason. He took the Bone Knight’s black cloak. There wasn’t really a reason he should wear it right now, especially since he already wore a robe, so he decided to put it in his inventory. Larry touched his head.

Welcome to Status.

Your Level has risen. You are now level 8.

You have been cursed! Curse of the Bone has been added.

Your curse has altered your species. Your stats have been altered.

Great. A curse. As if I wasn’t fucked enough already.

He used his Status to look at the curse. New information popped up.

Curse of the Bone: At the brink of death and with a weakened mind and soul, the cursed sword which was embedded into your bones was able to spread its curse throughout your body. Neither dead nor alive, you walk this world as an anomaly.

Larry stared at the screen, considering what it said. He had noticed that the Bone Knight’s sword wasn’t stuck in his arm anymore, but he just assumed Jorg has removed it while he was unconscious. He didn’t like where this was going. The description of the curse had made some not so subtle hints as to what his new species could be. To confirm his suspicion, he opened the information tab to look at this stats.

Larry Foulery Level 8 Species: Undead Parasitic Human Title: Non Mystomorphosis: Whisper Stories: Uninvolved

Neither dead nor alive, he thought. This’ll play out just fine. Not.

Stems: 2

Strength: 15 Intelligence: 10 Agility: 10 Thought: 10 [LOCKED] Durability: 5 [LOCKED] Willpower: 6 [LOCKED] Senses: 5 Instincts: 3 [LOCKED] Regen: 0 (53)  

What the hell happened to my stats. So much is locked. Turning undead gave me more Strength too, it seemed, but it also changed my Regeneration.

It was zero right now, but it showed fifty-three right next to it, which could mean many things. Ultimately, he wouldn’t know what Regeneration now did, until there was something to regenerate. He opened his Ability tab.

Adaptability Parasite Undead

Undead: Death is but a word to you. You walk this land as an outsider, rejecting the bounds of the mortal existence.

You gain: Regen disabled during day. Regen increased immensely during night. Increase in Strength. Weakness to Pure. Weakness to Light.  

Well, that mystery was solved quickly. I regenerate faster at night. By the looks of it, I get a Regen of 50. That is far above my other stats.

Larry finally put the black cape of the Bone Knight into his inventory. He was undead now. Physically he didn’t feel much different, but that didn’t make it less uncomfortable. An outsider, Status had called him. That was very much how he felt right now. Now, that he was concentrating on the details that had changed, he discovered the small changes his new species had made to his body.

He didn’t need to breath, he noticed first. He didn’t need to blink, and the parts of his skin that weren’t burned were paler than they used to be. He plucked out a single hair from his head and saw that it had turned from black to a dark gray. Lastly, his heart wasn’t beating anymore. It stood still.

It was surreal to miss something so ingrained into life. His heartbeat has been part of him since he was born, and whether he was aware of it or not, he had heard it from that point on until now. The more he listened to the silence in his chest, the more he didn’t feel like his body belonged to him anymore. It was weird how a small thing like a sound could stir up so much emotion, once it was gone.

In silence, Larry decided to find a way to restore his heartbeat. He would live again.