A phantom scream signaled Seth’s arrival back into the mortal realm.
He went to clutch his eye, then realized that it did not hurt, then he looked to his wrist. Before he journeyed to the Other Side, a stump of flesh spurting blood was the last he saw of his arm. Now, instead of the gruesome sight from before, he saw a hand. It wasn’t his hand, but something else entirely.
The new hand attached to his wrist was black as coal, and it didn’t look the same. His fingernails were now a milky white, and the “skin” of the hand looked as if it was swirling. It appeared to be some sort of liquid, yet when he touched it with his other hand, it felt just like skin. To make matters weirder, it looked as if there was black veins stretching from the hand.
They were in a bizarre pattern, like a digital print. As Seth observed the hand and its veins, he surmised that they were not moving farther up his arm, yet they were changing at a rhythmic rate. Seth’s head bolted upright as he remembered the abomination that had floated in the air before he went to Perdition.
Empty space replaced the area the Fouler had once occupied.
He panned his view left and right, to which he found no sign of the creature. Seth sighed with relief and turned his attention back to the immediate area around him. Fresh gore still surrounded his body. His beloved jacket and t-shirt were both torn to shreds. His dark jeans held up surprisingly well given the circumstances, even if they were soaked in blood, and his blue Nike Pegasus‘s were still intact by some miracle. Seth gingerly got up and shed his tattered articles.
The one good thing about his environment was the fact there was no real hot or cold temperatures plaguing him. He was also happy to discover that none of the injuries from before had caught up with him. Not only was the pain gone, but Seth actually felt... better. His limbs felt lighter and his mind contained a clarity unbeknownst to him before. As he pondered the extent of his new changes, Seth finally noticed the steady blinking at the edge of his vision.
“Menu,” he demanded aloud.
Main Menu:
Status-
Abilities-
Index-
Quests-
Notifications-
Status, Abilities, and Notifications were blinking. He didn’t even know where to start, so he decided to go from the top down.
When he pulled up the Status screen, Seth was amazed at all the information the screen portrayed. There was a full body diagram in front of him, detailing his condition for each part of his anatomy. Seth scanned over the information from that section detailing his blood pressure, height, weight, etc.
“5’11, seriously, you couldn’t have just given me the even six feet?”
He continued past his weight which was listed at 162lbs, and settled at his personal description involving hair and eye color. Seth was confused as he read “Undecided” under both of them. He had always had blond hair and blue eyes for as long as he could remember.
Clicking in annoyance, he decided to move on and look at the full diagram. Every section was green other than his left eye, and right hand. They were both highlighted in blue. Seth mentally selected his left eye on the diagram, and a smaller sub-screen appeared.
-There has been an alteration to your “Left Eye,” identify the change in order to access details.
Seth cursed and moved to his right hand.
-There has been an alteration to your “Right Hand,” identify the change in order to access details.
“Goddam this system is useless,” he muttered. Seth continued to scroll to the end of the screen. His eyebrows rose as he discovered a table displaying his “Attributes.”
Level: Tier One
Intellect: Class F
Constitution: Class D
Might: Class F
Intuition: Class F
Resolve: Class F
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It seemed pretty obvious to Seth he was basically bottom of the barrel in everything. He was kind of pissed that “Constitution” was only Class D after all the shit he had to suffer through in the last couple days. Every attribute was pretty self explanatory to Seth other than “Resolve.”
It didn’t make sense to him for there to be an attribute based on mentality.
“How would I even level that?”
He attempted to select the attribute, but nothing appeared to explain anything about it. Yet again, he tabled the topic, growing more frustrated and decided to move on. The last prompt on the screen also confused Seth.
Race: Fiend
“Will this shit ever make sense?” Seth roared.
He knew he wasn’t the best guy but come on. He also didn’t understand what it meant by race. A fiend is a type of person, not a different species. Not to mention, a fiend is only defined by how a society views good and evil. That was something Seth didn’t buy into. The idea of something being “good” or “bad” relied only on the feeble ideals of the individual.
"That shit doesn't matter right now moron." he lamented.
Seth decided to begin paying attention to his body from now on, to see what exactly might have changed. He desperately wished to have a mirror right now. Between the new race, and the “undeclared” description of his eyes and hair, he was curious as to how he now looked.
Finally closing out of the “Status” tab, Seth looked on to the next: “Abilities.” Mentally, Seth opened the new tab and stared at the new screen.
Racial Abilities:
-Specter State (Pre-Set)
-Wicked Being (Pre-Set)
-Nightmare Adrenaline (Pre-Set)
Aligned Abilities:
-Presence of Doom (Tier One)
-Eye of Opposition (Tier One)
-Undecided
-Undecided
Acquired Abilities:
-Nurture (Menu)
-Identify (Class D)
Seth didn’t even know what to say. His abilities literally sounded as if he was the Anti-Christ or something.
“Well, I guess that is to be expected, the crazy bastard who gave me these abilities didn’t exactly seem like an angel.” He sighed in displeasure.
There was a mischievous glint in Seth’s eye though. Supernatural powers, no matter how dreadful sounding, were still supernatural powers. He focused on his first racial ability, Specter State.
Specter State:
-When activated, Specter State erases detection from all senses, including lower rank detection abilities. (Only applies to abilities of lower power than the lowest attribute of the user)
Seth instinctively activated the ability and was surprised at the lack of change in his state. He took a couple experimental footsteps and was happy to discover that he didn’t hear a thing. He had no way of seeing if the other aspects of the ability worked, but he was satisfied for now. Next, he turned his attention to the next racial ability.
“Wicked Being” was definitely third on his “Scariest Ability Names” list. He severely hoped this one was as useful as the last, regardless of the name.
Wicked Being:
-Due to the nature of your race, your existence alone deters all other hostile beings of equal or lesser power.
“Wow, so I’m basically revolting to everyone that sees me?” Seth questioned with distaste. “Well now I know how skunks feel.” Closing out of the sub tab, Seth selected the ability that came in second on his list.
Nightmare Adrenaline:
-The specific dimensional energy now coursing through your veins has tripled your reflex reaction speed.
A low whistle escaped Seth’s lips. With tripled reflexes, he basically had what he imagined was Spider- Man’s sixth sense. So far, Seth was actually happy with his abilities to this point. Even with his first reaction to Wicked Being, he was quite satisfied with its effects. Hopefully, it would deter other Foulers and whatever else might be out there.
He was kind of bothered though.
What did “Pre-Set” mean?
Perhaps it was just a factor of the kind of anomaly he absorbed. He slapped that question into his growing list of things to ask the patchwork bastard. Seth finally looked to the last two abilities he knew nothing about. He had already seen the description of Presence of Doom, yet he didn’t understand what it meant. It was so vague that Seth couldn’t make heads or tails of what it might do. It seemed obvious it had something to do with his new hand, yet even his natural instinct on how to activate it was nowhere to be found.
He flexed the new hand and became lost in thought as he watched the swirling black storm inside. Something in it mesmerized him. Seth became so focused on the chaos inside, that he started to notice purple sparks floating around it. The moment he saw the sparks, they vanished just as fast as they had appeared.
“What was that?” Seth murmured.
He flinched for a second as he realized what the color of the sparks were. They resembled the same color of the eye that was shoved into his head thanks to Folly. Seth quickly pulled up the “Abilities” tab again.
Eye of Opposition:
-This artifact was created through the will of a mad man. The eye alone opposes natural law and is said to be able to manipulate reality itself.
If Seth was in a cartoon, his eyes would have leapt out of his head.
“The ability to manipulate reality itself,” he said breathlessly.
The truth dawned on him soon after and he realized that this one was vague, just like Presence of Doom. Although, Seth found that he actually DID know how to use this one. He held his hand up in front of his face and tried focusing on it as hard as he could. Purple sparks started to appear around his hand yet again, then Seth saw that they were actually everywhere.
He strained to look around when his concentration finally broke. A soft headache grew in his head and Seth finally noticed the familiar blinking at the edge of his vision. He went to Notifications and looked at the newest entry.
-Your continued shaping has exhausted your energy reservoir and inflicted: Mental Block.
Mental Block:
-Your focus is significantly impaired due to your energy exhaustion.
“Seriously? I either have an incredibly low amount of energy, or trying to use that ability consumes a huge amount of it.”
Shaking his head to try and wave the headache, Seth moved on to the other notifications. To his immense frustration, the group of Notifications left were simple banners that read:
-Data could not be found.
-Data could not be found.
-Data could not be found.
-Data could not be found.
Seth shrugged off the anger in order to gather himself. It wouldn’t help to be angry in his current situation, he needed to find a way to sustainably live here until he could leave. The lunchbox at his feet drew his attention. Seth knew exactly what he had to do but was unsure if he had the strength to do it.
————
“Goddam that was awful,” Seth complained.
The trash of the Lunchable lay at his feet as Seth attempted to wash out the taste of it with the water dropper. To Seth’s amazement, the water in the dropper continued to trickle out into his mouth for way longer than he thought was possible. After he was finally quenched, he inspected the dropper, only to find it was still full even after his consumption.
“Awesome,” he breathed.
That was one thing less he had to worry about. With a renewed sense of vigor, Seth turned to the border of obsidian and sand, and set off.