Within minutes, more than a dozen people had crowded around the campfire by our RV. The fire quickly grew into a bonfire as the newcomers brought their own firewood. Most of the newcomers were more interested in our food than our alcohol. Claire asked if it was okay for us to give away our food, and I suggested with a smile that we could just loot more food tomorrow.
As the crowd around the bonfire grew, a sensation deep within my body gave me a flash of terrible insight. Even though I had been eating regularly throughout the day, I felt hungry.
When the others were out of earshot, I whispered a query. “System, can MDC bodies digest SDC material?”
[NEGATIVE]
“Why is that?” I asked. It followed logically, at least. We were made out of MDC stuff, so it made sense that we would have to eat MDC stuff to survive. What I didn’t understand was the logic that differentiated MDC stuff from SDC stuff. What had changed within our bodies that made us incompatible with SDC objects?
[THAT INFORMATION IS CLASSIFIED]
[IF YOU WISH TO KNOW, YOU MUST FIND THE TRUTH YOURSELF]
Huh. That was the first time the Revelation System had refused to give me information. There must have been something significant about the distinction between SDC and MDC objects that the System felt was important to withhold from me. This distinction was important enough that the System referred to it as the [Truth].
“Thanks anyway,” I said with a sigh as I closed my [Menu].
I looked over to the crowd that had formed at our campsite. A group of three from the Raleigh area were engaged in conversation with Liz and Carlos, and a few individual stragglers who were interested in the prospect of free food stood around the bonfire as well. Standing to one edge of the campsite were a mother and daughter who stared cautiously at the steadily-growing party.
For a moment, I considered walking up to the mother and child, but Claire approached them first. I saw as the mother’s face lit up as Claire told her they could eat their fill. We couldn’t digest the food, anyway, so they might as well have it.
“Hey, Vincent!” Carlos shouted from where he sat next to the group from Raleigh. “Stop standing over there in the darkness. We have a question for you.”
I approached the bonfire and saw Carlos engaged in a fierce conversation with a young black man who wore an NC State T-shirt. Carlos was sitting on his own camping chair, and the student from NC State sat upon a log that hadn’t been there a moment before.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
“Vincent, this is Enoch,” Carlos said, gesturing to the student. “He’s the leader of the group from Raleigh.”
“Calling me the leader is a bit of a stretch,” Enoch said, looking over at a middle-aged man with graying hair and a young Indian woman who seemed to be the other members of his group. “I’m just the only one of us who knows anything about video games. Who woulda guessed that being a gamer would be the most useful skill to have during the apocalypse?”
“You know, I always kinda suspected things would turn out this way,” Carlos said, clearly joking.
I cleared my throat and said, “You had a question for me?”
“Right,” Carlos began. “We want your help in breaking a tie. What is the best anime that finished before the end of the century? I say it’s Cowboy Bebop; Enoch here says it’s Dragon Ball Z.”
My body twitched as I felt hundreds of beetles crawling over my upper arms, back, and neck. I looked down at my arms, and I could see dozens of small orbs crawling underneath my dress shirt. It took me an instant to realize that the beetles were entirely in my head.
As far as petit reverie hallucinations went, this was one of the gnarly ones. It was definitely the most physically uncomfortable of the many hallucinations I regularly suffered, but at least it didn’t affect my mind. As long as I allowed the hallucination to run its course, I would be fine.
“The best anime of the 20th century? That would be Trigun, of course,” I said with a mischievous smile.
Of course, my input did not help bring the argument to a close. We argued lightly about anime for a few minutes. Though I would typically enjoy such a conversation, I just wanted to curl up in a ball and sleep off the crawling beetle hallucination. It was funny, in a cruel kind of way, that I could have dispelled the hallucination at any moment, but that would only serve to put off the problem. Whenever I forcefully dispelled a hallucination, that just meant the next one would be much worse.
Eventually, I reached the second stage of the hallucination, and the beetles began burrowing into my skin. I was very tempted to activate [Grand Reverie] just so that someone could understand what that felt like, but I was able to overcome that temptation with a strong exertion of willpower.
Liz walked by, and Carlos attempted to pull her into our conversation. “Hey, Liz. Do you know anything about anime before the turn of the century?”
“Absolutely not,” Liz said.
With Liz’s appearance, I saw my opportunity to pull away from the conversation. Standing from my camping chair, I said, “Hey, Liz. Can you talk in private for a second?”
“Sure,” Liz said with a worried look on her face.
Carlos looked at me and raised his eyebrows suggestively. I flipped him the bird in response, causing him and Enoch to laugh loudly. Despite the immense pain I was in, I couldn’t help but smile.
Once Liz and I were far enough away from the bonfire that I was confident they could no longer see me, I allowed a groan of pain to escape my lips. I fell to both knees and pulled back the sleeves of my shirt. In the dim light, I could see the insects crawling under my skin. It took every bit of willpower I had to not start tearing into my arms with my fingernails.