60) Life finds a way.

I’m going to die. This is it. I’m going to…

...Follow Hiram after he put a round of birdshot into one of the Whites and then turned to run away. “I put the fear into them Harry, let’s hole up while they’re freaking out!”

Right. His fear power that kicks in once he injures something. And which looks to have gotten me and the cringing coyotes since we aren’t in his party.

Wylina is shaking where she stands outside the doorway, while Blue is backing up, and turns to look up at me. Chubby is nearly cowering on the ground, his ears flat, and his tail tucked up between his legs.

I shout. “Wylina! Blue! Come!” And grab a handful of coyote scruff as I pull Chubby halfway to his feet, and start to drag him away…

Lifting, or trying to lift, most of his sixty pounds or so with my bad shoulder.

I yell, loudly, which gets the two girls who glanced over at me when I shouted their names, moving instead of standing there. Chubby slips out of my hand as that whole arm goes weak from the pain in my shoulder.

Turning, I begin to run.

Sorry pup, I tried. But if that wasn’t enough to get you moving, then staying there and dying with you isn’t going to do anything for anyone.

There is a clatter of clawed feet on the linoleum which I hope is the sound of all three coyotes running along behind me… to wherever the hell the Grinning man is leading us.

We… we’ve passed at least three doors that I knew led to offices. Why are we still running? Is he hoping we can lose them?

“Hi...” I tried to call out his name, but between my shoulder and trying to keep up with the wiry little man I couldn’t find my breath.

Only after several twists and turns, and running through doors into the hallway later does he finally heave open a door and go inside an office. Spinning around just inside the door, he stood there ready to slam it shut while looking up behind me, with his eyes going wide.

I felt it up in the air behind me, and I dived into the room as something nearly feather light brushed up against the back of my head.

Fortunately, if you can call it that, the pain from landing right on my bad shoulder, then getting a fat coyote pup running over the top of me before it tripped and face planted into the floor, completely covered up the pain of getting two slices along the back of my head.

Heck, I didn’t even hear the door slam behind me, as I tried to count coyotes with eyelids nearly clenched shut from the pain.

Cancer. Would it have been so bad? Plenty of drugs. A nice clean bed in the hospital. Even some underpaid nurse wiped me clean after I pooped in a bedpan.

“Hi… Hiram? Did they all get in?”

I could hear him from behind me. “No Harry, none of the bats… Oh, yeah, them. All three of the coyotes got inside before I slammed the door shut. But I can hear something up above trying to get into the room from above the ledge sticking out up over the door. I think there’s a hole up there but it sized for the black ones. Hey, did you know you’re bleeding from the back of your head? Are you going to-”

Letting all of that blattering sort of wash over me, I tried to think.

The coyotes made it in. Good. Next, I needed to heal my shoulder enough that I could think. Then, stop the bleeding on my head? No, there was something I needed to do before all that...

“Brackets! Level me up.”

There is a message, but I blink it away as my Health goes up three points, and another one as my level goes to four, and raised the bonus from my Dungeon ability from first level.

From being a Hermit in the dungeon, without being in a party.

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I had no time to deal with my shoulder or the wound on my head. Instead, I rolled over and set the stock of the shotgun on the floor, aimed up above the door as best I could with my right index finger on the trigger, and my left hand painfully reaching over to try to help hold it steady.

There is no way I can rack another shot into it, but I can shoot up at least once. “Hiram. I got the hole up there covered. Feed the coyotes another Stone each. I’ll pay you back later.”

I heard him agree, and I could hear the sound of the two stones clinking against the floor, as well as one gulping sound as one of the three coyotes caught theirs in the air.

They wouldn't get any bigger from ranking up to Rank Four spirit beasts, not until they could eat, but it had to do something for them, and we needed any edge we could get.

Above me, I could see the head of one of the Whites sticking out past the ledge, all stretched out as it wiggled back and forth as it tried to squirm its way through an entrance to the office that must have been almost too small for it to fit through.

But its head alone is too small of a target for me, not with how badly my aim must be right now.

“Brackets? What do I have for my Forth level ability?”

[ Such is Life ]

[ Your lonely existence means you can not rely on other’s help when you are hurt. You begin processing Primordial Essance to Life Essence when injured, applying the Life Essence to all injuries equally until they are fully healed. ]

I felt the same familiar feeling of pulling in on something and turning it into a sense of warmth, except this time it was all over me, for a moment I even forgot how much pain I was in.

Then the warmth broke up into dozens of spots, each one getting the same amount of it, not directed to where I needed it the most, but at least the warmth kept drowning out some of the pain.

Well… that’s handy. I wonder if I would have gotten the same ability if I wasn’t hurt and about to die.

Still… No complaints.

The head of the White up above jerked forward as it freed one of its wings from whatever it was trying to crawl through, and it brought it forward to clamp its one clawed finger from the bend of its wing over the edge of the ledge to pull itself forward.

Putting enough of its body out into the open I could hit it.

I closed my eyes to protect them from the wetness that came splattering down on me and I grunted as something fell partially onto my legs.

Dropping the shotgun across my chest, I grabbed the pumping handle in my right hand and held it tight as I pushed the shotgun into it, and then pulled it back to reload the gun. Since it was just my left hand doing anything, that shoulder wasn’t involved.

For a moment, I felt some warmth in my right ear, the one on the same side as the shotgun as the warmth of the Life essence healed up whatever damage shooting a shotgun right next to your head did to your hearing.

As the warmth faded away, I heard a faint whisper of metal grinding on metal. Turning my head I saw the doorknob twisting back and forth.

On the door. The door that didn’t seem to have any visible means of locking it.

“Hiram! They can work doorknobs!”

The Sabatour hobbled across the room, one hand on his hip, and sort of half threw himself and half fell into the door. Slamming it shut just as it began to open up into the room, a single claw around the edge.

Hiram slid down the closed door, a severed claw tipped finger dropping onto his lap, ignored as he looked up.

To the sound of somethings gnawing away at whatever means they had of getting into the room up above.