The saying was ‘ask and you shall receive’. Kane heard it all his life. Ask and you shall receive. Pray and you will be bestowed with strength. Yet the last time he prayed was at his father’s funeral. It wasn’t answered. After that he refused to waste his breath on religion’s salvation.

Yet here he was seeking the Lord’s providence in his perils for safety and peace.

Unlike his father’s funeral, he was answered this time. Violence echoed.

The [CoreHound Cub] raged against the front door to Miranda’s house as Kane forced his body to hold it firm. Feral attacks set the aged house to creak and groan with dying breaths with each cut and tear at the door. Curses, screams, shouts, barks, and prayers joined to create a background choir of noise.

The creature was forcing its way in.

“What is that animal!” Miranda asked over her daughter’s screams and Duke’s barks.

“You don’t want to know! Do you have a gun or a flare or something?”

“Why?”

“We need to scare it off!”

“Okayokay. Okay, I may have something,” was all the response he heard before Miranda picked up Faith and darted out of the living room to her bedroom. Duke scampered after them. He didn’t even look back at his master’s struggles. Kane didn’t have the energy to care about the lack of support from man’s best friend. He was in a losing battle against the terror outside. Monstrous claws raked through the wood door. Body slams quaked the frame. Drywall cracked. Wind chimes on the ceiling clattered together with their plaguing melody.

In the background he heard items being thrown about. Miranda was searching for something. Kane only hoped she found it soon. As the moments dragged on Kane did what any self respecting person would do in a time of crisis. He prayed and repented for all the miniscule to major sins he’d committed in his life up to now. He’d forsaken the faith after his father’s passing but there was never a better time to ask for forgiveness and mercy then just before receiving the consequence.

Yet he knew there was no salvation here. The word of God had little meaning to nature’s culling.

“I found it,” he heard Miranda’s call as she reappeared in the living room with two cans in hand. “Keep holding the door a little longer.”

“I wasn’t planning on letting go!”

“Just hold it! This is bear spray and pepper spray,” she explained and moved to his right. The thick curtains of the living room window were tossed open. Daylight flooded inside. Then Miranda gasped. She froze as she saw the [CoreHound Cub] for the first time. Her scared eyes found his own, before clinical resolve came to the front. She popped the window open and stuck out both cans through the gap. Her arsenal of chemical spray was unloaded on the creature.

“Get away from us!”

Frenzy met her words. The monster practically exploded into action as he felt it thrash and howl and attack with enough force that it felt like the door was going to fall on top of him. Then the pressure stopped. He still heard the howls but it was no longer attacking the house.

“What. Is. Happening?” he panted out.

“It... The sprays are working. It freaked out; started slamming its body on the wall and back away but it’s still outside in the front yard. Mercy me. It’s tearing at its face.” She stopped watching and sank to the ground with her head in hands. “What are we going to do? I just attacked someone’s dog! It probably has rabies with how it was acting and I did that to it.”

“That thing isn’t a dog Miranda. It’s... It’s a monster.”

“It’s sick Kane, not-”

“It is not a dog!” He couldn’t stop the stress from burning through his voice. He was too out of it, too tired, too confused to keep it together. “That thing is a monster. It would have attacked me, attacked us, if we didn’t force it away.”

He took a deep breath and sealed the outburst before continuing. “Please. Please just believe me. Let the sprays do their job and once that thing leaves us alone we’ll be able to get to the car and head to-”

“Oh my god!” Miranda shouted in shock

“Mommy!” Faith screamed down the hallway and pounded into view.

Duke barked as he put himself in front of the girl and the carnage.

Kane stared mutely in disbelief. The living room window shattered as the [CoreHound Cub] hurled through the air. It crashed in a heap of muscle and vengeance in the middle of the room. Miranda and himself on one side. Faith and Duke on the other.

It was the latter which found themselves the focus of the monster’s attention as it snarled in vicious greeting to its lesser kin. They had aggravated the creature. Now it sought revenge.

“Get away from her!” Miranda shouted. Her earlier panic vanished as she rose from the ground to attack the beast. From the corner table she picked up her weapon of choice, a thick book, that she broke against the monster’s head. It barely even flinched. Miranda did. With the careless ease of a man tossing a toddler, the monster kicked out its hind legs that sent the woman into a corner wall with a sickening blow. Her whimpers of pains mixed with the yips of glee from the CoreHound. It eyed her defenseless form but the incessant barking from Duke and Faith’s tearful cries tore its focus to them.

It never saw Kane’s attack until it was too late.

He drove the metal fire poker through the canine. Metal sheared monster with ease. It yelped in pain. It flailed. It bled. The two went down in a tumble as the claws raked Kane’s shoulder. He struck again.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

In all twenty-nine of his years Kane had never been in a fight. He’d never even hit someone unless by accident. Yet a sundering rage quaked beneath skin and muted his mind. Wraith settled comfortably in his hands like a velvet glove. He wrought pain. He slashed and stabbed and slammed the metal rod on the body of the monster.

And still the beast didn’t go down. It lashed out, slashing back at Kane. The two snarled as his anger demanded repentance. He gripped the rage and rode wild as man and monster fell to violence. He didn’t falter. Violence reached him in a way he always feared from his father’s drunken beatings. Now he pulled deeply from its maw with ravenous hunger.

Then it was over.

The monster stopped striking back. Then it stopped moving altogether. Still Kane kept striking at the monster until he heard a chime in his head. The noise was so out of place that he stopped his assault and realized the beast was no longer breathing. The fog of violence lifted ever so slowly as he hunched over the dead beast. Blood, darker than the one dripping off his own cuts, pooled on the mahogany floor. Bloody hands shook from violent deeds done as Kane dropped his makeshift weapon and stood to take in the room.

Duke edged closer, sniffing at the dead animal before he snuggled close and nuzzled Kane’s bloody hands. Then he saw Faith’s look of fear as she hunched close against her mother as if to hide herself from him. Pain lanced through him more than the monster’s attack at the display. But he didn’t have time to comfort her.

Instead Miranda looped her arm around her daughter, kissing her head before she turned to Kane. Tears welled in her eyes. She groaned and wiped away the tears with one hand as the other braced her abdomen.

“Faith. Honey. Go to. Your room. Finish packing. For the trip. Okay? Go. Go now.”

Miranda gasped out the words between pained breaths. Faith nodded mutely and moved. But her haunted eyes never left Kane or the unmoving animal until she was out of site in the hallway.

“Kane. Kane. Listen to me. Kane.”

He focused on Miranda as she stepped closer. A gentle hand caressed his cheek before she examined him. Her touch was soft but had a firmness to it.

“You’re in shock. Adrenaline is. Rushing through you. We have a few minutes. I need to. Get your wounds. Cleaned up.”

Kane nodded. His head was buzzed and felt light. He heard her words but it was like he was reacting a few seconds behind. As if he wasn’t fully in control of his own body as she guided him to the bathroom. The same mirror as before greeted him. A new face stared back. Dazed eyes. Blood on his face and hair. Rips in his shirt and cuts on his skin. It looked like he had been in a car wreck as Miranda worked through her own pain to make sure he was taken care of.

A medical supplies box appeared. Scissors cut through his shirt and a warm towel wiped blood away before a needle and thread appeared. Miranda moved quickly and with care as the brain faze in his head cleared and pain ebbed and flowed throughout his body. Yet even through the throbbing he remained focused on the lower icon in the lower corner of his vision.

It had been flashing for a while now. A tiny sphere with the number ‘five’ inside it. On instinct he focused on the icon and willed it to stop blinking. Messages appeared.

Skill [Pain Resistance (I)] has reached lvl 2 - ADJUSTMENT - prior experience and achievements recognized - Skill: Pain Resistance (I) has reached lvl 12.

- Experience not available. Class needs to be assigned.

Skill [Pain Resistance (I)] has reached lvl 13

- Experience not available. Class needs to be assigned.

Skill [Pain Resistance (I)] has reached lvl 14

- Experience not available. Class needs to be assigned.

You have slain a Lvl 1 [CoreHound Cub]. 8 Experience Gained.

- Experience not available. Class needs to be assigned

Action Report

- You dealt 82 physical damage

- You received 34 physical damage

- You used 29 Stamina

It took a few times reading through the messages before Kane connected to the dots. The messages were reports on what he just went through. Like a game’s action log. How much damage he did, how much he took, what he earned and how.

Of course he could understand that part, but there were others he saw that were still unknown. How did the system recognize a skill like Pain Tolerance in him and track the usage to give him more levels in it? What did the levels do and how were they measured or how high did it go? What was the benefit of the skill or how were new ones made?

His mind spun with questions but the one he kept coming back to focus on was the repeated messages about a Class. The system was requiring that he pick a role in order to grow. Until he did that he would remain static. Even he knew that was a death sentence despite his limited knowledge on this changed reality.

“Kane. Come back to me. Focus on me.”

A cool hand tilted his head down as his eyes focused on Miranda’s. His thoughts and worries faded into the background as he watched the concern on hers shift to joy. A small, shy smile tugged at her lips. The moment skipped a beat before she refocused and determination took hold.

“We’re getting out of here Kane. I patched you as best I can for now but the rest will have to wait until we get to the hospital. Your bag is in the car with the rest. We’re heading out and we’ll soon be safe with others in town. Ready?”

He was far from ready. His body ached and his mind worried about what could be next. But at the end of the day she needed him and he needed her.

“Ready,” he confirmed and took her hand as they walked to the car.

-X-

Kane continued to hold Miranda’s hand as they walked through the middle of the deserted street. Faith trailed next to them, holding her mother’s hand and Duke’s leash in the other as the trio and dog walked through the eerie silence of an empty street.

Miranda’s shushed voice echoed lightly as she cooed gently to reassure her daughter that everything was alright.

It was far from alright.

The Jeep was dead. So was his truck. The phones and power and internet were all still down. Modern technology had abandoned them and they were left with two options. Remain in place and wait for power and life to come back to them, or go out and find others in the blackout at the designated meeting points.

They chose the latter.

Unlike before, Kane didn’t put up a fight even with their worsened circumstances. It was due to their new circumstances that he so readily agreed. When faced with the unknown you seek comfort in what you know. Yet when reality perverts the familiar into something to fear it is better to confront the adversity then let it confront you. Or so he repeated to himself ad nauseam while he put on a brave front for the girls.

So he and the others found themselves marching through the empty road leading to town and the hospital.

All was quiet. No sounds of cars. Silent power lines. Even the air was dead. It was unnerving to the extreme Kane thought as he kept the wood-cutting axe in hand. He felt almost foolish. Walking down a road during the middle of the day with his neighbors while carrying an axe like this was an apocalypse and he was going to fight off random bandits.

So on they marched through the quiet street. Kane remained vigilant of his surroundings, but he couldn’t stop his focus from drifting to the messages. The Status Screen. Classes. Skills. Levels. It called to him like a caffeine addict strung out for days without a taste of the liquid gold.

He could only put up so much of a struggle before his will caved.

He glanced to the left. Miranda was comforting Faith and Duke. He glanced to the right. Empty houses and dead sounds echoed in the background. They were safe. For now.

Acting before he could second guess himself, Kane pulled up his Status Screen. He needed to know what the notifications meant about a Class.