A flash of blue lightning struck the nearby antennae, followed by a sharp clap of thunder. The ground shook beneath my feet. I scolded myself for not preparing to take shelter earlier, but I had been hunting for hours on an empty stomach which grumbled at me, though I felt more than heard it thanks to the storm. I sulked at the prospect of no food, no fire, and a sad excuse for a shelter. Underneath the crumbling ceiling of an old a-frame style house whose doors had been pried off and windows shattered months ago, I worried for my safety.
Weather before the apocalypse had been nasty during this time of year, but post-apocalypse weather was controlled by the System. From my own gaming experience, I figured out early on that the weather in my region was determined by an RNG (random number generator) with specific parameters relating to region. Since I lived in the mid-south, formerly known as Texas on world maps, I had to be prepared for tornadoes, harsh electrical storms, droughts, or flash floods. And that was just during Spring and Summer!
Unfortunately, the weather was the least of my worries. If I somehow managed to avoid being struck by lightning, catching hypothermia, or death by starvation, it was highly likely that a Metamon would kill me. I rested my head back against the wall and mentally summoned the GUI - a transparent interface which now existed in reality for every single sentient being on earth. Well, what was left of sentient beings besides the fantastical monsters that appeared with the System.
Penny Mathieson UIN: 004-82-9963-751
Health: 250/250 Sanity: 16/20
Stamina: 13/30 Nutrition: Low
I'd never seen 'nutrition' before, but the Guidebook said it calculated a person's hunger, hydration, and nutrient levels which affected one's stamina. If any of these three were too low, my stamina would decrease by 5 points every hour — an effect which I experienced first-hand over the next hour. I sat in misery with my stomach grumbling and the storm shuddering the house. I eased into a light sleep until the crash of glass awoke me. My hands instinctively nocked an arrow and pulled tight. Through blurry eyes and brain fog, I made out a pudgy dark shadow with wide glowing eyes. A Metamon!
It hissed, then growled at me. I did not loosen my grip. Metamons were the reason humanity now teetered on the edge of extinction. Although some were cute and friendly, most were predators with a taste for human flesh. I had survived six months after the introduction of the System and Metamons; I was not going to die because of a pudgy cat. Not tonight.
A fresh boom of thunder sent it skittering into another room of the house. I released a heavy exhale and lowered my arrow, but definitely not my guard. I shifted in my spot to keep an eye on the door frame where it hid. So much for sleep.
As the storm eased up, I saw the creature poke its head around the corner to watch me. We waited, each cautious of the other, for the storm to completely pass on. It was well past midnight when the rolls of thunder were heard miles away. My stamina bar had decreased another three points and I could barely keep my eyes open. It was far too dangerous to leave the house alone at night, but the Metamon refused to leave well after the night was clear. I forced myself to find a section of the house where the mysterious creature couldn't get me: the attic. I triple-checked it for any hidden Metamons before I finally made a makeshift bed out of whatever articles of material I could find and passed out.
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I became conscious only a few hours later to hunger pangs. Painful ones. I felt nauseated and the room was spinning. There was no way I could hunt like this, but I had to find something to put in my stomach. That Metamon downstairs might make a decent meal if it really was as pudgy as I thought. I climbed down from the attic to search for it, arrow nocked, but it was gone. Big paw prints trekked mud out of the front door to the wilderness beyond. At least I wasn't in danger of it eating me.
I rummaged through the kitchen to find something, anything edible. In the cupboards, I found a bag of popcorn. What few kitchen appliances were left, such as the microwave, were useless without electricity and I had no idea how to cook popcorn with a campfire. Plus with the room spinning every few minutes, chopping firewood or searching for kindling outdoors to start a fire was not a good idea.
After searching the rest of the house more thoroughly, I discovered a hidden stash of stale chips, half a package of beef ramen, and an unopened bag of rice. I ate the chips and stuffed the ramen and rice in my vintage field medic's bag for later. Staying in any one place for too long risked being hunted by Metamon. Some of the locally spawned creatures (again, determined by RNG like the weather) preferred to hunt in packs. I did not have enough arrows to take on three or more monsters at a time and, to be honest, I wasn't that great with my weapon of choice.
The chips were enough to last me for an hour. In that time, I found a lost piglet, a Metamon known as Terraswine. One of the first monsters I'd encountered after the System took over, Terraswine had slowly become a favorite of mine because they were herbivores, non-aggressive, and adorable. The following entry appeared on my GUI for the Metapedia, a database compendium created by the System:
> Terraswine is a young piglet with soft grassy fur and no horns. This mon relies on the adult Mossboars within its herd to protect it. Its special attack, Sod Barrage, is the only defense it has against predators.
>
> Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!
The Metapedia tracked what monsters we'd encountered, hunted, or — the more elusive concept — tamed. I'd played games in the monster tamer sub-genre before, but those had specific mechanics such as tossing an item at the monster to 'capture' it and transform it from 'enemy' to 'friend'. As far as I knew, such a mechanic did not exist in this new, bizarre reality.From what little I'd learned about the nature of Metamons, once the youngsters got lost it was unlikely they would find their way back to the herd. Herds did not go looking for their young, either; they had too many and risked being attacked by predators (or, more accurately, lured by poachers). One lost piglet did not justify changing the herd's track. I let it move on, knowing it would eventually be devoured by something hungrier than myself. I did not have the heart or stomach to hunt game. Instead, I found a sufficient amount of berries and plants to whet my appetite.
With starvation no longer an immediate threat and my Nutrition levels slowly increasing back to a stable average, I trekked on in search of fresh water. It was mid-afternoon by the time I found a quaint, gurgling stream where I could refill my salvaged water canteen and cool myself off. The sensation of cold, wet water passing through my parched lips and down my dry, itchy throat refreshed my senses after several sips. It was important to sip it slowly, I'd heard, though no one ever explained why. I relaxed in the tranquility of the scenery with the odd chirping of Metamon birds and the gentle sway of the trees in the wind. I wanted it to last for the rest of the day after my long journey, but fate must have had other plans. Or, rather, the System did.
An alarming notification, urgent yet not enough to hurl one into a full-on panic attack, alerted me to the approach of an enemy. Usually, these were Metamon predators searching for a meal, but every once in a while, there were threats far worse than wild otherworldly creatures: my fellow human beings.
I heard the hunting party before I saw them and immediately bolted back the way I came towards a thicket of thorns and trees. Something may have built a nest here previously, but it was long abandoned by the time I curled up in it. The party were not chasing me, but they were certainly looking for something. One shouldered his hunting rifle and shimmied up an oak tree to scout the area.
"No sign of him," he grunted.
"Damn! I swore I heard footsteps, Manny, I swear—"
The man at the head of the party named Manny said something in Mexican Spanish I did not understand to the man who swore, and called him Oscar. Each of the four men were heavily armed and wore camouflaged hunting vests; Oscar and the fourth man carried hefty packs full of what I assumed would be ammo, supplies, or both. Manny hollered to the man up the tree who came down immediately. Among the four men, Manny had the buffer physique with prison tattoos showing around the collar of his neck and on his hands and knuckles.
He gave another order in Mexican Spanish and the four pressed on. I stayed still in the thicket until I no longer heard their footsteps. Then, I pulled up the regional map which showed my location and the current threat which moved away from me. The moment they were well out of range and the red dot disappeared from the map, I crawled out of the thicket and hurried back to the stream.
Who were those men? Who were they looking for? Why were they looking for 'him' and what did they intend to do once they found this person? These questions and more buzzed around in my head as I splashed cold water on my face to lower my heart rate. Close encounters with humanity rivaled a shot of adrenaline to the heart, a leftover survival tactic from Milton's War. The war lasted three months, a country-wide coup d'état against those in charge of safe havens and sanctuary outposts. In the end, sanctuaries and havens were destroyed, people died en-masse, and what was left of humanity joined together in primeval factions to not only survive the cruel world, but to show others how cruel it could be still.
I disliked people before, but Milton's War and its consequences showed me the worst of our species. Metamons had an excuse: they were beasts with extincts to eat, expand territory, and protect what was theirs. Humans had the potential to rise above such animalistic behavior, but those in such factions chose not to. My encounter with this hunting party told me things had not changed in the three months since Milton's War, and I doubted it would any time soon.
The cold water did little to ease my anxiety. I wanted to put as much distance as possible between myself and Manny's hunting group, so with my canteen refilled a final time, I followed the stream downwards in haste. I'd watched a few television shows and tutorials on the online video sharing platform Yink that claimed walking in a stream or river covered one's tracks. I did that as I followed the stream in hopes they were right; I did not want a hunting party following me and killing me in my sleep — and that was the most civilized situation that went through my head.
Shortly after sundown, I discovered a pleasant camping spot not far from the stream. With water nearby and a grove of pecan trees within reasonable walking distance, I knew I wouldn't find a better spot for weeks. The wind picked up, but the night sky was devoid of clouds. After a hefty snack of pecans, I settled down for the night.
Underneath the billions of stars and black abyss, I pondered my future. Is this what my life would be like in a year? In five years? When I was sixty? Foraging for survival at sixty, if I managed to last that long, was a hard figurative pill to swallow. Everything I'd worked for before the apocalypse - all those long nights studying, the stress over college grades and final exams, the relationships I'd cultivated with my friends and classmates - were rendered pointless in an instant. Nothing was as it should be, nothing happened the way I'd expected it might. Even the worst circumstances I'd presumed involved humanity learning its lessons from nuclear warfare and working towards a better future. My imagination had not been wild enough to conjure up an indiscriminately genocidal System, a real user interface tracked my body's nutrition levels, and nightmarish monsters which had the potential to be tamed.
My mind wanted to shut down completely after thinking through what my future held now that I, and thousands of other human survivors of the apocalypse, existed in this absurd reality. I closed my eyes and let the exhaustion overtake me. I didn't want to be here anymore. I didn't want to get up in the morning and have to repeat today's efforts of finding food, water, and shelter. Surviving made for a lousy life...