Nellie excavated all of the dirt within her territory that could be attached and added to the growing cave.

Well, not excavated per say, but she scoped out the packed soil and left it either loosely laying on the bottom of the cave or used it to reinforce the ceilings so everything didn’t just collapse.

What was left of that once crevice was now a large cave, spanning almost the whole length of her Outside territory, and at its deepest, it reached a metre in length.

But it was not just an empty cave. Nellie dug around all of the stone and ice that was mixed in with the soil, creating a kind of stalagmite and stalactite look, but more artistic.

Kind of. But Nellie thought the cave looked beautiful with the mix of misshapen but smooth dark blue ice and reddish-brown flecked dark grey stone.

While beautiful, just staring at the cave made Nellie itch with ideas that she could do with it.

With an idea in mind, she turned towards the little grey-brown string plant thing.

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POV Mila Bergeron

Unnamed Location, Day One

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The world had ended with a bang. What a cliche. Thought Mila.

Really, the world ending with a bang? Did this System thing take all the cliches from every different type of media and decide to choose this?

Well, it did.

The day that the world ended wasn’t that bad.

She had an afternoon university class that the prof had let them go an hour early. And it was her favourite.

It was an intro class on world mythologies, and it was fascinating. Myths and legends had always interested her, and today they began an introduction to African myths.

But anyway, as Mila was walking to her car in the university parking lot, a giant blast shattered her eardrums, and tsunami-like winds pushed her to the ground.

Mila didn’t know what happened after that, but a transparent blue screen covered her vision as she opened her eyes.

Congratulations, Planet Earth 4.74532.12!

After billions of years, enough mana has condensed within the universe to allow the System to activate.

It disappeared within seconds of her reading the blue screen, and a new one appeared. This System didn’t even give her time to process before another one appeared.

Welcome, homosapiens of Planet Earth 4.74532.12!

You have been transported to the Shards.

A training world for the sentient species that takes all the discarded shards of the worlds integrated into the System.

You have one year to train yourself in the Shards before you are transported back to your home planet of Planet Earth 4.74532.12!

Good luck.

The blue screen disappeared within seconds, and her vision was finally clear.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

The first thing she saw was a deceptively calm ocean. A dark blue expanse slowly lapped at the boulder and white sand-ridden shoreline.

Turning her head, she saw a thick jungle made up of what looked like pine trees with very long, draping leaves and trees with long, draping fruits and long, oval-shaped leaves. Filling up the gaps in between were different types of bushes, vines, and other flora that she couldn’t even identify.

Huh. Thought Mila. Well, I guess I’m not in Kansas anymore.

She clenched her fist unconsciously, gripping piles of sand that she didn’t even know she was sitting in.

Slowly, Mila crawled onto her knees, trying to stand up. It was like her muscles fell asleep; she couldn’t really feel them.

She stayed there a few seconds before collapsing into the sand.

With a roll, Mila turned onto her back and stared back up at the sky.

“Oh.” Gasped Mila as she saw the sky.

The first thing she saw was the sun. Well, one of three suns. It was gigantic, easily five times the size of the one back on Earth, but it was white that was edged in blue. When she turned her head left, another sun was at the very edge of her vision. It was barely visible for her to see, but she could see it. It was a dark red colour. As she turned her head to the right, she saw the same. It was a sun that appeared only on the horizon but was dark purple.

It was weird. But Mila was drawn out of her thoughts when a blue screen appeared before her.

To help with your survival, you will be given a random allotment of two skills.

Skill Allotment:

1. Basic Dodging

2. Basic Gathering

Ranking up skills takes a long time, but practice is key.

Good luck.

As soon as she finished reading the last sentence, a zap shot through her brain down her spine and tingled along to all of her extremities.

Surprised, Mila froze for a couple of seconds.

But that continued stillness proved to be disastrous.

Mila slowly began to untense when the hairs at the back of her neck. Every deep instinctual part of her and her hindbrain screamed at her to move.

With an unknown desperation, she wrenched herself to her knees. She crawled only a tiny distance away before the sand where she was standing exploded.

With fear in her eyes, she turned to look at what attacked her.

A small creature, like a squirrel, stood where she was lying. Coloured a dark green, dark enough to blend into the foliage, but in the sand, it stood out greatly. It had large leaf-like hair tufts on the top of its ears and a long furry tail, almost twice its body size. What concerned her most was the claws. They were thick but short, and they definitely looked sharp. Sharp enough that even if the creature clawed at her, it would probably tear her flesh.

Before she could even study the creature even more, it lunged at her with its claws extended.

Her scramble out of the way was a lot more graceful than it ever was before the System brought her to this place.

Quickly, she rose to her feet, but the creature kept coming at her with a speed that she didn’t expect from a small creature.

She turned her back to run as the creature lunged at her again. But she only made it a few steps before a large stone hidden underneath the sand caught her foot.

Mila went head over heels as she rolled onto the sand.

Dazed, her reaction speed wasn’t quick enough, and the squirrel-like creature took her clumsiness and slowness to recover, and it reached her.

Quickly, it targeted her stomach and began slashing at her.

“Aarrgghh!” Screamed out Mila in severe pain.

Its claws raked across her stomach as Mila tried to grab and push it away from herself.

But the curved claws of the creature ensured that any attempt she made to get it away from her just made the pain even greater.

The creature kept on slashing and tearing at her as she tried to get away, enduring more and more wounds and pain across her stomach.

Clutching blindly across the sand. Mila’s fingers managed to grasp onto a rock.

Clutched in a tight fist, Mila used all of her strength to bash the squirrel creature in its side.

The blow stung the creature and made it release her.

With a blank mind, Mila reacted by instinct.

She rushed at the creature and began bashing the creature’s face with the stone. Within seconds, the creature stopped struggling, but Mila continued. It wasn’t until only a mushed-up pile of bone, blood, tissue, and brain matter remained of the creature’s corpse that she stopped.

“Huff, huff, huff.” Escaped her lips as she struggled to catch her breath.

Mila quickly regained her breath as she sat beside the creature’s corpse before she heard a rustling sound.

Terrified at what might come, she sprinted down the beach as fast as she could.