Sarah had been walking for a while now, and she became more and more exhausted. She was looking for any sign of civilization or another human, but she found nothing. And the further she got from the place she woke up, the harder it was to walk.

Sometimes, she sank knee deep into wet, stinking mud and had to pull her legs out. From time to time, she also looked at her status screen to see if her activity had changed anything. And it really did. Her SP seemed to go down. It was now 5/20 and started to blink in a yellow color. It was most likely her stamina, which was low right now. It got harder and harder for her to move forward. And every time she had to fight her way through waist-deep mud, her exhaustion got stronger.

HP on the other hand, seemed to indicate her health or something like it. At one point, she cut herself on a twig that was hidden in the shrubbery. And now she had an ugly cut right over her knee, which bled moderately. Due to her wound, her HP count had gone down by one point to 49/50. And even after it had stopped bleeding, the HP didn't recover.

Not wanting her SP or HP to drop any lower, she sat on some nearby thick roots and leaned her back against a tree. She recalled what she had found out about this place.

She seemed to be in some kind of swamp. A thick canopy of trees partly blocked out the sky, and thick undergrowth grew around the tree trunks.

Some parts of the ground were muddy, and she couldn’t walk there. Different kinds of plants grew in these parts, and they looked really beautiful and exotic. If this were a normal hike, she would totally enjoy this landscape, because it was so mysterious. But right now, it was rather cause for concern.

She didn’t notice in the beginning, but when she woke up in this swamp, she didn’t hear any wildlife. No birds, insects, or rustling in the bushes. But as she walked on, she started to hear more and more. Weird bird cries, the humming of insects. And worst of all: the sounds of mosquitoes.

She wasn’t very knowledgeable about flora and fauna. But she was pretty sure that it was a really bad idea to be naked in a swamp. All kinds of parasites, germs, and poisonous stuff were all around her.

While lying still on the ground, a cool breeze managed to slip through the canopy. It cooled down her overheated body, giving her some much-needed relief. The feeling of the wind and the rustling of the leaves made her feel comfortable. This made her forget, for a moment, what was actually going on. 'Maybe I can rest here for a while longer.' she thought to herself, her eyelids growing heavier by the second. While being caressed by the breeze and the ground feeling weirdly soft for some reason, Sarah drifted away into a deep slumber. She was physically and emotionally too exhausted to stay awake any longer.

.

.

Sarah drowsily opened her eyes, not quite registering what she saw. She wanted to go back to sleep. It was so comfortable. But the message flashed again. This time in a bright red color.

When she finally realized what this meant, she was immediately awake. Only now had she noticed that her body was covered in cold sweat and that her left arm felt really, really weird. She tried to move it, but nothing happened.

In shock, she looked down at her arm, which partly lay in some kind of spiderweb. Right in the middle of her forearm, there was a swollen spot with two very small bite marks in the middle. Weird white spots started appearing on her skin around the swollen spot. Something was very wrong with her arm.

She couldn’t move her arm. And what was even worse was that she also couldn’t feel it. The numb feeling almost reached her shoulder. She would have preferred for it to be painful rather than numb. It felt like the arm was already dead.

In her panic, she tried to understand her situation better and opened her status. And one section was blinking bright red.

Status: Badly poisoned (Health Points are reduced by 1 every minute). Left arm immobilized. Spreading at an accelerating speed.)

HP: 23/50 SP: 2/20 MP: 10/10

She was pretty shocked to see that her health was already halfway down. Was she dying right now? Should she try to suck the poison out of her wound? The arm was only immobilized according to the system. Which meant it wasn't dead already. There was still a chance.

Just as she tried to lift her numb arm with her healthy one, another system prompt popped up.

Cut your arm off (10% survival rate)

Acquire specializations ‘Adaption’ and ‘Mutation’ (15% survival rate)

Start praying (0% survival rate)

Sucking at the wound (Do you want to die even faster?)

Please decide fast.>

"What the hell are the last two options even for?" She shouted but pulled herself together. "Damnit, I take option 2, make these specializations!" She shouted at the system while feeling the poison crawling into her shoulder, spreading the sickening numbness.

"Yes!" she shouted, hoping that the system would hurry.

"Wait wait wait." She hastily said, while reading the horrible possibilities that awaited her. But a countdown in the corner of her mind told her that the system wouldn’t wait anymore.

"There has to be a different solution. Just wait a..." She drifted off when the countdown dropped to zero and a feeling she'd never felt before hit her.

It felt like her body, mind, and very being were melting down and reforming right afterwards. Over and over again. She wanted to scream, but she couldn’t. It was like her mind was trapped.

Strangely enough, it wasn’t even painful physically. But the strain it put on her sanity was unimaginable. The feeling of something that shouldn't happen inside her body and the inability to do anything but think made her nearly lose her mind.

After what felt like an eternity, the feeling stopped as suddenly as it came. And with it came a new system prompt.

She barely understood the system prompt. And when she realized that she was safe and that she had survived the procedure, she immediately fell unconscious.