The laughter sent a chill up my spine, and my hand froze against the rock I'd been in the middle of harvesting. Bill hopped out from a crevice amid the cliffs like a street performer, his arms spread wide, giving me jazz hands. Unlike me, he wasn't naked. He was clad head to toe in zombie leathers, no doubt crafted by one of my previous lives.

For a long second, all I could do was look at him. Bill was in great shape. No skin flaps, no hunch, but definitely the same monster that I had trapped in a stone cube. Now I was the one who couldn't get out. He was grinning at me like we were best friends, and there were only a few tells that he wasn't wearing his original face. We had different head shapes, so his face was longer than mine, and the cheeks looked stretch. Other than that, we could have been twins.

He broke into a sprint. The opening in the wall wasn't wide enough for me to squeeze through yet, and without a pick, there was no way I could widen it sufficiently before he got to me. Even if I could, he could squeeze in after me. There was a tunnel on the other side of the wall. It was pitch black. Safety, and whatever equipment I had left for myself, were only a few feet away. Tantalizing, and out of reach.

Bill was fast, and I had frozen in place. He had a rock in his hand, and I barely got it up in time to avoid being brained. His mouth stretched impossibly wide in an expression of ecstasy, revealing yellow, uneven teeth that looked sharper than they had any right to be. The rock thumped my forearm, and I lashed out instinctively, punching him in the jaw. The coin in my hand bit into my palm.

The glancing blow from his rock hadn't caused my heart bar to flash. I'd noticed my status had listed an armor rating even though I wasn't wearing any. It could have been a benefit of having a higher Might attribute, or some other bonus from the System. But I didn't think it would have helped me if his blow had landed as intended.

He reeled back, giggling insanely, and tried to hit me again. I ducked and fumbled the next punch, my knuckles brushing the leather of his tunic. He was attacking wildly, joyously, and I could barely keep up. I'd just come back to life, naked, unarmed; not prepared for this.

Bill lunged for me, pressing my back against the cliff, and I thrust my hand against his chest to keep him back as he angled to bite my throat.

Plep.

The coin in my hands converted into a block between us, pushing him back. It didn’t retain any momentum or stick to the face-stealer, but he danced away to avoid having it land on his foot. The block chipped against the ground, and he lunged again. I dropped, grabbing him around the waist and picking him up in one motion.

He smashed his rock into my back, and the heart bar appeared with one missing. If I held onto him, he would bite me, so I tossed him one side. His free hand scratched my shoulder, but he hadn't gotten a good grip, and he flew a lot farther than I was expecting.

Bill landed on the smooth ground a few paces away and rolled, his laughter cut short as the air was knocked out of him.

How strong was I? I squatted, grabbed the top of the fallen block, and tilted it so I could get my fingers under its base. It was probably a hundred-and fifty pounds, if not more, but I barely had to strain to get it up. Bill was back on his feet in an instant, and I lifted the block over my head in both hands as he rushed me again.

He twisted out of the way of a headshot, but the block came down on his shoulder, and he crumpled. His inertia carried him forward into me, and already off-balance from the weight of my makeshift bludgeon, I lost my footing. The block slipped out of my hands, its rough surface scraping my fingertips, and turned end over end.

It all happened too fast for me to keep track, but the next thing I knew, we were both on the ground. The block was half-on his back, and he was half on top of me, his mouth at a level with my chest. His teeth sank into my skin, and I grabbed his head, frantically trying to separate us. Bill's mouth came away bloody, but I barely felt the wound even as my hearts dropped.

We wrestled for a moment, but I was stronger than he was, and there was definitely something wrong with the side of his body that had taken the block hit. A few seconds later, I was overtop of him, my hands around his neck, looking myself in the face.

"So stwong," he croaked, "you got so stwong." His words sounded childlike, and I wasn’t sure what was worse; if he actually had a childlike mind or he was doing that on purpose to make fun of me. His follow-up giggle stuttered as I pressed my thumbs into his larynx.

"You talk now?" I panted. "You should stop."

He jabbed his thumb at my eye. Nothing popped, but it got me off of him fast. He was slow to stand, and I kicked him in the chest, half-blind, tears forming. Bill coughed, grinning up at me like a lunatic. I kicked him again and again.

"Doesn't matter what you do," he gasped, "I'll be seeing you."

The face-stealer tried to scramble up, and I kept kicking him. After a while, he stopped attempting to stand. His breath was ragged, and his eyes never left me as I picked up the block and brought it down on his head.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

There was a crunch.

My chest was bleeding, and I had nothing to eat to heal myself. No water, no food. No problem, I wasn’t going to be here long enough to worry about starvation. One way or another. The bite wasn't terribly deep, but there was a small flap of skin hanging. Fortunately, the System bonus still protected me from infection.

I didn't look at what was left of Bill. How many times had this played out? How many times had it gone the other way? If not for the block, he might have had me. And if he had attacked me moments after I had woken up, I wouldn't have had a chance.

Opening the shelter felt like it took a long time. The canyon was silent except for the rapping of my knuckles against the stone. My mind felt clear, or else I was in shock. The tunnel was only three feet wide, and studded with odd blocks that I realized were intended to hinder spawns. No coal for torches. There could have easily been zombies waiting for me inside.

The interior was quiet, dry, and dusty. Barely any light filtered in through the entrance, but the tunnel wasn't deep and my eyes adjusted quickly. Thanks, Beleth. It opened onto a room studded with enough columns that only the smallest mobs would have a chance of spawning inside. Maybe one of those weird squids. I had to squeeze through the gaps in the stone to reach the worktable.

It was sitting in a lone shaft of light, a bare break in what was otherwise utter darkness. A chimney was cut out of the ceiling, running all the way up to the top of the cliff. It was only a foot wide. Maybe it had started as a stair before being filled in, because I couldn’t dig like that. Some version of me had been busy.

The worktable was interesting, a granite slab resting on two blocks with a leather apron draped across its surface. Cuts in the leather formed a crafting grid, and the lever was pure stone, ground as smooth as glass. Coins were stacked along the edges of the table, their etchings barely distinguishable in the illumination filtering down from an already filtered sky, even with my demonic eyes.

Rock and bone and leather. There was nothing else. No extra gear, but plenty of raw material. Should I have harvested Bill's body? I didn't want to. Enough coins were already here to get me started.

Bone tools were really just stone tools, but with different handles. The shafts didn't feel as solid as the ones I'd made from sticks, and they lacked the texture of wood grain. No need for a hoe or a shovel. There was no dirt here, no crops. I made a pick, a sword, a full set of leathers, and a shield.

Normally, a shield called for planks and an iron ingot, but my formulas tab informed me we'd discovered a variation. More bone, of course, secured by leather strips. It had some bend to it, and I doubted it would hold up as well as the wood equivalent. The crafting process transformed bones as it did other materials. .

Though the coins were uniform, the bones came out differently depending on the product. The pick looked like a couple of stone shards strapped onto a femur. The shield could have been made from a rib cage. It all felt lighter than it should have.

There were many hours between me and nightfall. I sucked it up and stripped Bill, bringing the leather inside, then making more from his skin. Ninety percent of his body was harvestable. Meat and bone. Had I been eating zombies?

I wasn't hungry enough for that, and it wouldn't have helped my thirst. Exploring the cliffs gave me something to do. There were three other shelters, each concealed like the one I'd already made use of. More coins and spare worktables, a few extra tools. There were also many folds and breaks in the cliff that looked more natural, places for Bill to hide, or other monsters, but I was alone.

Bojack had been clearing out the cage every morning. Any monster they left behind with me would be a waste.

But if this was just a mob farm, why was it the size of a stadium? Couldn't they have locked me in a coffin with the Anchor and let the mobs spawn around it? I spent some time scrolling through my journal. It was mostly confusion, repetitive observations, and dumb jokes. But the promised “Escape Files” held some useful information.

The storm above was soundless, or else the diamond muffled the thunder and the wind. Brown, ruddy clouds boiled like a soup. Would Bojack come as soon as the sun set, or did he wait for the end of the night? From the notes, it seemed like I would be on my own with the mobs until it was nearly morning. Was my goal to kill as many as possible so there would be fewer monsters to contend with when the demon appeared, or find a spot to hide and try to slip out when the opening appeared.

The major journal entry hadn't described how Bojack crafted his entrance. He was an Earthbender, apparently, so I assumed he could tell the diamond to move aside and then close it back up when the mobs were all out. Any door he made would have to be big enough for a troll to get through. That was something, but sneaking through would be tough.

Captain’s Log: The Escape Files

We don't have a lot of details on Bojack because he usually kills us before we can make notes. But here's a summary of the records we do have.

Bojack: Eight foot tall horse man. No armor or weapons. Doesn't need them. Scratched him with a sword. It was a solid slash, but he blocked it with his arm and barely noticed. He can make the ground melt around your feet and get us stuck. Throws rocks like missiles. Commands the mobs telepathically? Gives verbal commands sometimes, but they definitely act different when he's around whether or not he says anything.

Mobs that have spawned: Zombies, Phantoms, Trolls and a bunch of those little squids. (Watch out, they stick to the cliffs.) More rarely, a chimera. At least once, there was a wyvern. Then a wolf-horse. (Basically a horse with teeth. Very fast.) It hasn't happened often, but there's something that is basically an Enderman. It's tall, dark, and can move around so fast over short distances that it might as well be teleporting. On its own, it doesn't attack right away, but it will come for us if we see it fighting. Long arms and claws, but easier to kill than a troll.

Escape attempts: We've tried fighting our way out a bunch of times. Ambushing from the cliffs, building a shelter right next to the entrance and slipping out. Once, we had a lucky night and killed ALL the spawns. Don't know what happened when Bojack came, but obviously, we are still here. He may know where we are without seeing us, because he always finds our shelters.

The entrance is not a consistent size, but always on the opposite end of the torch.

At least that answered my question about the opening. My first thought had been to dig under the area in front of the barrier and pop out to make a run for it, but if Bojack had a sixth sense for where I was, that wouldn't work. Still, I had one admittedly terribly idea that hadn't been mentioned anywhere. It was so bad, we might have never tried it before.