The portals opened instantly.
One above S?o Paulo. One over Tokyo. One in the middle of the Pacific, like someone had misclicked. Then a thousand more. The sky tear violently.
Daniel was in a grocery store when the first creature stepped through the freezer aisle.
It paused beside the frozen peas. Tilted its head. Took in the fluorescent lights.
Then it reached toward a woman and turned her inside out without touching her.
Daniel ran.
In Hell, the screens flickered to life.
They had prepared for this moment for millennia. Vast amphitheaters carved into black stone filled with skeletons, demons, lesser gods, administrators of extinction. Floating displays showed Earth from orbit, from cities, from streets. Every angle. Every scream.
“Cycle 7,429 starting,” announced a horned overseer with ceremonial boredom.
The lower tiers erupted into applause.
Finally.
Someone uncorked something flammable.
The first week, humanity fought.
Jets scrambled. Missiles launched. Emergency broadcasts repeated words like contained and under control until coastlines disappeared.
Something enormous stepped through a portal over the Atlantic and erased a fleet mid-sentence.
Daniel ran.
He ran when shadows detached from buildings and started moving independently. He ran when soldiers fired at things that did not reflect light correctly. He ran when the sky above his apartment folded like fabric.
He survived the first night in a storm drain with six strangers.
By morning, he was alone.
In Hell, the elimination counter began to climb.
8,103,442,991.
7,002,118,203.
6,000,000,000.
Cheers rolled like thunder through the bone arenas.
“Efficient,” one demon remarked, adjusting his betting slate.
“Bit messy in Europe,” another replied. “But acceptable.”
Continents dimmed. Cities burned out. Radio signals died.
The number dropped.
4,000,000.
800,000.
12,443.
69
The cheering slowed.
The counter stopped.
1
Silence spread through the amphitheaters.
“Zoom.”
They zoomed.
They found him.
Daniel did not know he was being watched by billions of dead.
He was too busy bleeding in a subway tunnel.
A creature had cornered him there in Year Two. Its claws tore through his side. He crawled into a maintenance closet and held himself together with a belt and a memory of something he’d seen in a film once. Infection came anyway. Fever. Hallucinations. He poured boiling water into the wound because there was no one left to tell him not to.
He survived.
In Year Three, acid took two fingers. In Year Five, hunger almost took everything. He built traps from scrap metal. Learned the hunting patterns of things that did not technically need to hunt. Slept in shifts of two hours. Never twice in the same place.
He killed three minor demons.
Each victory cost him more than it gave back.
In Hell, irritation replaced amusement.
“Why is he still alive?”
“Did anyone interfere?”
“No divine gifts.”
“Then what is wrong with him?”
"I don't know, but a cycle cannot close while a human heartbeat still exists. And we can't reach those in the earth. Best hope is waiting for his death, I guess."
They zoomed in on his face one night while he read a medical textbook by candlelight. He was thinner than he should have been. Scarred. Shaking. Alone.
A skeleton in the back row said quietly, “He’s just… not stopping.”
Years passed.
Earth grew green again.
Daniel searched every continent. Every bunker. Every radio frequency. No one answered.
In Year Twelve, a minor god from the Third Infernal Tier filed a formal complaint.
In Year Thirty, entire sections of Hell stopped tuning in. Nothing happened anymore. Just one man walking through forests that used to be cities.
But a few kept watching.
A minor archivist demon developed a personal interest. He tracked Daniel’s daily movements. Charted caloric intake estimates. Calculated projected death windows.
"Two months—he can't survive the winter," he declared confidently in Year Thirty-Four.
Daniel survived winter.
“Fuck this guy…” the demon muttered.
Eventually, time did what invasion could not.
Daniel’s heart began to fail quietly.
He had searched the coastline for three days and found nothing edible. Not even seaweed worth the effort. The oceans had gone quiet years ago. His body was done bargaining.
He walked along a silent beach under a gray sky.
In Hell, only a fraction of the audience was watching. Most had wandered off. Some were playing cards again.
The archivist demon leaned forward.
“This is it,” he whispered.
Daniel sat down in the sand because standing felt unnecessary.
He lay back.
"Well," he said quietly to no one at all, "that's it then."
His breathing slowed.
His heart struggled once.
Twice.
Stopped.
The counter flickered.
1
It hesitated.
Then:
0
“…”
“…”
“…”
Someone yelled, “MOVE YOUR TIBIA, YOU CHEATER.”
I opened my eyes.
I was standing on a massive black stone platform under a red sky. There were skeletons everywhere. Not dozens. Not thousands. An endless field of them stretching to the horizon. Some were playing poker. A group nearby was arguing about rules to a game that clearly had no rules anymore. Two skeletons were arm wrestling even though both their arms were lying on the ground between them. Neither seemed willing to admit it.
I looked down at myself. Bones. Just bones. I flexed my fingers. They clicked together. “Okay,” I said. “Sure.”
One skeleton froze mid jump and stared at me. Then another. Then more. Within seconds the noise died out and billions of empty eye sockets were pointed directly at me.
I gave a small wave. “Hi.”
The silence shattered.
They screamed. They cheered. They tackled each other. Someone threw a femur into the air like it was a graduation cap. A group started chanting something that sounded suspiciously like my arrival had been part of a long running bet. One skeleton grabbed my shoulders and shook me hard enough that my spine rattled. “Do you know how long we’ve been waiting?”
“I was alive,” I said. “That usually takes time.”
At the far end of the platform stood a gigantic gate made of bone and black stone. Sitting on top of it like an exhausted security guard was a demon the size of a building. Horns, wings, cracked skin glowing faintly from inside. It was asleep. Actually asleep. The crowd began stomping in rhythm. The entire platform trembled as they chanted for it to wake up.
One massive red eye opened.
The demon slowly sat up and looked at the crowd, then at me. It rubbed its face with one clawed hand. “You have got to be kidding me,” it said, voice like grinding stone.
The cheering intensified.
It stood to its full height and pointed at me. “Ten thousand years,” it muttered. “Ten thousand years waiting for the last human to die. And you take your time having a beach moment.”
“I didn’t know I was on a deadline,” I said.
The sky flickered and glowing words appeared above us.
[CYCLE 7,429 HUMANITY ALL SOULS CONFIRMED 18,472,639,201]
[TRIALS UNLOCKED, ELIMINATION ENABLED]
The cheering shifted. It became sharper. Hungrier.
“Wait,” I said. “Elimination?”
A skeleton beside me draped an arm over my shoulders. It was holding its own detached jaw in its other hand. “Most of us are getting erased,” it said casually. “But honestly, anything beats another millennium of card games.”
The demon raised its claw and the platform split open, revealing descending stairways lit by fire and symbols carved into the walls.
“Welcome to Hell,” it announced. “Let’s see who deserves to keep existing.”
And then billions of former humans, who had apparently been bored for ten thousand years, rushed forward like this was the grand opening of the apocalypse.
I got swept into the crowd before I could even process what the hell was happening. Skeletons shoved from every direction, their bone feet clattering like the world's worst marching band. The stairways were absurdly wide—like someone designed them for a parade of giants—and billions of dead people poured down them like it was Black Friday at the afterlife mall.
I tried to stop. I tried to ask literally anyone what was going on. But the crowd was too chaotic. A skeleton grabbed my arm and yanked me forward. "First time?" it asked, way too cheerfully for someone without a face.
"First time being dead, yes."
"Oh, you'll love it. Or hate it. Honestly doesn't matter."
The stairs went on forever. I'm talking hours of descending into what I can only describe as the world's most ominous subway system. The walls were carved with glowing symbols that kept shifting between languages I'd never seen. The air got thicker. Warmer. Not hot, just… heavy. Like trying to breathe through a wet blanket.
Eventually, we spilled out into a hall so massive I couldn't see the ceiling. The floor stretched forever, packed with skeletons standing around in clusters. Some were chatting. Some were sitting. A few were just lying flat on the ground like they'd already given up. Honestly? Fair.
At the far end was a platform, and on that platform sat a figure.
Not the giant demon from before. This one was smaller. Almost normal-sized, if "normal" included wearing robes made of literal smoke and hiding your face under a hood like you were trying way too hard to be mysterious. It held a staff carved from bone, topped with a glowing sphere that pulsed like a heartbeat. Very dramatic.
The figure raised the staff, and the hall went silent instantly.
"Welcome," it said, its voice calm and soothing. "You have waited long. You have endured stagnation. You have existed without purpose. That ends now."
The sphere flared, and glowing words appeared in the air again.
A low hum filled the hall. Not sound, exactly. More like a vibration that went straight through my bones—which, given that I was literally just bones, was deeply uncomfortable. Every soul started glowing. Blues. Greens. Reds. Golds. Some glowed bright. Others barely flickered.
I looked down at myself. I was glowing too. A dull, gray light. Like old, forgotten metal.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
"That's not good," said the skeleton next to me.
"What does it mean?"
"Gray means baseline. No energy. No rank. You're starting from absolute zero."
"And you?"
It held up its hand. The bones glowed a soft green. "I managed to scrape together some energy during the wait. Not much, but enough to not be completely screwed. You, though…" It tilted its skull. "Yeah, you're gonna have a bad time."
There was a loud, clean cracking sound. Not dramatic. Just a sharp, decisive TAK—like the universe snapping a glow stick.
The ground beneath a massive section of the hall dropped.
Tens of thousands of us fell at once.
One second we were standing shoulder to shoulder. The next we were in freefall, limbs tangling, skulls bouncing off each other midair. Someone yelled, “FIRST WAVE ADVANTAGE!” like we were boarding a flight. Another shouted, “DOWN IS UP, REMEMBER!” which I assumed was a joke but nobody corrected him.
I fell with them.
We slammed into stone.
Imagine pouring a truckload of cutlery down a canyon. That was the sound. Bones shattered and reassembled. Arms detached. Legs spun away and rolled past strangers who politely kicked them back. I hit hard enough to come apart at the ribs before snapping back together like a badly assembled action figure.
I lay there for half a second, staring at a ceiling I couldn’t see, wondering if this counted as dying again.
Then I heard it.
Movement.
The chamber we’d landed in was circular, wide, enclosed. The hole above us sealed shut like a trapdoor. Along the curved walls, tall slits opened one by one.
Creatures stepped out.
They were thin and stretched wrong, skin pulled tight over something that shifted underneath. Their arms were too long, fingers scraping the floor as they moved. Their heads twitched constantly, like they were listening to something no one else could hear.
For a brief, beautiful moment, everyone froze.
Then somebody near the center pointed at the far side of the chamber.
There was a spiral shaft carved into the floor. Wide. Deep. Descending into darkness.
And that’s when I realized something important.
Nobody here was trying to survive. They were trying to get lower.
The first skeleton sprinted for the shaft before the creatures even attacked. It leapt down without hesitation. Others followed instantly. Within seconds, the entire crowd surged toward it like we’d all agreed on this beforehand.
The creatures lunged into the mass.
Bones flew. Spines snapped. A skull shattered against the wall and someone else tripped over it and apologized mid-fall. But even while being torn apart, people kept moving forward. Crawling. Hopping. Dragging themselves.
“KEEP GOING!” someone yelled as a creature bit into their shoulder.
The monsters followed the flow. Most of them abandoned random attacks and chased the flood of skeletons pouring downward. It became a current. A downward stampede of clattering bones and wild enthusiasm.
I didn’t move.
Because I couldn’t.
Everyone else treated this like the first interesting thing to happen in ten millennia.
But I had spent forty-three years alone on a dead planet trying not to die.
I wasn’t built for blind enthusiasm.
I stood near the outer wall while the crowd funneled past me. They shoved. They trampled. One skeleton used my shoulder as leverage to launch itself into the shaft. Within less than a minute, the chamber that had been packed with thousands was nearly empty.
The noise didn’t stop. It moved downward.
Screams echoed from below. Impacts. The distant, rhythmic sound of claws hitting stone as the creatures chased them.
Up here, it got quiet.
Broken bones littered the floor. A detached jaw lay near my feet, still muttering something about probability. The red light from the walls dimmed slightly.
I told myself to move.
I told myself that standing still in a monster-filled pit was objectively worse than jumping into the unknown.
My legs didn’t listen.
That’s when I realized something else. Not all the creatures had followed the crowd. One remained.
It stood near the opposite wall, half in shadow. Smaller than the others. Thinner. It wasn’t rushing. It wasn’t twitching.
It was watching me.
A glowing notification materialized in the air above the creature's head, hanging there like the world's most inconvenient name tag.
[SCAVENGER WRETCH LEVEL 1]
[STATUS: HUNGRY AND SLIGHTLY DISAPPOINTED]
The text flickered once, then added a second line in smaller font:
[PREFERRED PREY: STRAGGLERS, LOST THINGS, PEOPLE WHO OVERTHINK]
I stared at it. The creature stared at me. Neither of us moved.
"Scavenger Wretch," I muttered. "That's... honestly kind of sad."
The wretch's head tilted sharply to one side, like it had heard me and didn't appreciate the commentary. Its fingers tapped against the stone floor in an uneven rhythm. Tap. Tap-tap. Tap.
I looked at the spiral shaft where everyone else had vanished. The screaming had gotten quieter, which meant they were either deeper or dead. Probably both. My instincts were screaming at me that following a stampede into an unknown pit full of monsters was a spectacularly bad idea.
Then I saw it.
On the far side of the chamber, half-hidden behind a pillar of carved stone, was a door.
Not a grand, dramatic entrance. A normal-sized wooden door set into the wall. It looked almost out of place, like someone had installed it as an afterthought.
The Scavenger Wretch noticed me looking. It tensed, claws scraping forward an inch.
I didn't think.
I ran.
Bones clattered as I sprinted across the chamber. The wretch shrieked—high-pitched and furious—and lunged after me. I could hear its claws scraping stone, gaining ground fast. My ribs rattled. My legs felt like they might come apart at the joints. I wasn't built for this. I hadn't run from anything in decades.
The door got closer. Ten feet. Five.
I slammed into it shoulder-first, grabbed the handle, and yanked it open.
The wretch was right behind me. I could feel the air shift as it swiped at my spine.
I threw myself through the doorway, spun around, and slammed the door shut.
There was a heavy THUD as the creature hit the other side. The wood shook. Claws scraped against it from the outside, frantic and angry. I pressed my back against the door and held it closed with everything I had, even though I was pretty sure my skeletal arms weren't going to do much if it really wanted in.
The scratching continued for a few seconds.
Then it stopped.
Silence.
I waited, listening. My bones creaked. My skull felt like it was vibrating from leftover adrenaline I didn't technically have anymore.
Nothing happened.
I slowly turned around and looked at where I'd ended up.
It was a hallway. Long. Narrow. Lit by the same dull red glow that seemed to be Hell's only design choice. The walls were smooth stone—an empty, quiet corridor stretching forward into shadow.
I exhaled—or at least made the motion of exhaling, since I didn't have lungs.
"Okay," I said to nobody. "That was either the smartest thing I've ever done, or the dumbest."
A soft chime echoed in my skull.
New glowing text appeared in front of me, hovering in the air like a very passive-aggressive notification.
[DEVIATION DETECTED]
[NON-STANDARD PATH SELECTED]
[TRIAL ADJUSTED]
[DIFFICULTY: UNKNOWN]
I stared at it.
"Unknown," I repeated slowly. "That's... great. Love that for me."
The word UNKNOWN hung in the air a second too long before it flickered. The red hallway dimmed, the stone beneath my feet vibrating softly like something enormous had just rolled over in its sleep. A clean rectangular panel unfolded at eye level.
There was a pause. A long one. The kind of pause that suggested something extremely powerful was scrolling through documentation and sighing heavily.
Then the letters rearranged themselves.
[NAME: DANIEL KERES]
[SPECIES: UNDEAD (SKELETON)]
[CLASS: IMPROVISER]
I blinked. “That sounds like you couldn’t find anything better.”
The system did not dignify that with a response.
[ATTRIBUTE INITIALIZATION]
Strength: 4
Agility: 6
Endurance: 3
Cognition: 9
Instinct: 8
Presence: 1
“Presence one?” I frowned.
A smaller line appeared underneath.
[OTHERS ARE LESS LIKELY TO NOTICE YOU UNLESS YOU MAKE A MISTAKE]
“…Oh. So I’m socially irrelevant.”
[FUNCTIONALLY YES]
“Rude.”
New text rolled in.
[SKILL ACQUIRED: DELAYED REACTION – LEVEL 1]
You hesitate. Then you act correctly. After 2.4 seconds of processing, gain increased evasion or counter accuracy.
“That’s not a skill. That’s anxiety.”
[True]
Another line formed.
[SURVIVOR’S INSTINCT – PASSIVE]
Extended solitary survival has produced abnormal threat pattern recognition. Increased escape probability. Reduced initiative in voluntary aggression.
“So I freeze before attacking.”
[YES]
“Great. I’m a coward with processing lag.”
There was another pause.
This one felt… uncomfortable.
Like the system was digging deeper than it wanted to.
The text that appeared next was smaller. Almost reluctant.
[CORE TRAIT DETECTED: RESOURCELESS ADAPTATION]
[Generating signature ability…]
“Please don’t make it embarrassing.”
The letters flickered.
[SIGNATURE ABILITY ACQUIRED: POCKET SAND – LEVEL 1]
I stared at it.
“Excuse me?”
A description unfolded.
[POCKET SAND]
You produce a small handful of debris appropriate to the environment and throw it into a target’s most relevant sensory intake.
Requirement: You must shout “POCKET SAND.”
If you do not commit to the bit, the skill fails.
Damage: None.
Humiliation: significant.
Cooldown: Low.
Hidden Mechanic:
The more absurd the timing, the greater the effect.
I looked down at myself. “I don’t have pockets.”
A beat passed.
[POCKET NOT REQUIRED]
“…Where does it come from?”
[CLASSIFIED]
I stared at the text. Then at my bony hands.
Then another line appeared beneath the skill.
[PASSIVE SYNERGY: IMPROVISER]
All mundane objects have a minor chance to become tactically viable in moments of extreme danger.
“Oh.”
LEVEL: 1
EXPERIENCE: 0 / 100
“…You know what,” I muttered. “Fine.”
Somewhere deep in the corridor ahead, something scraped across stone.
I raised one bony hand defensively.
“If this works even once,” I said quietly, “I’m never using anything else.”
[HELL PROGRESSES DOWNWARD]
[ASCENSION REQUIRES DESCENT]
[YOU ARE BEHIND EVERYONE]
As if summoned by that sentence, something scraped along the corridor ahead. Not behind me. Ahead. Slow. Intentional. A tall shape stepped into the red glow, limbs bending in angles that suggested poor assembly instructions. A small tag hovered above it.
[CORRIDOR LURKER LEVEL 2]
My vision flickered.
[DELAYED REACTION AVAILABLE]
I didn't move. The creature didn't move. We stood there like two people who'd accidentally made eye contact on a train and were now committed to the awkwardness.
Then the timer in my head started counting down.
2.4 seconds.
The Corridor Lurker shifted its weight. One leg bent backward at the knee—or what I assumed was the knee. It was hard to tell with Hell's anatomical creativity. The thing looked like someone had started drawing a person, gotten bored halfway through, and finished it angry.
1.8 seconds.
It took a step forward. The scraping sound echoed down the hallway. My instincts screamed at me to run, but my legs refused to cooperate. Not out of fear—well, partially out of fear—but because some part of my brain was still processing.
1.2 seconds.
The creature's head tilted further. Too far. Like it was trying to get a better look at me from an angle that didn't exist in normal geometry. A thin clicking sound came from somewhere inside its torso. Possibly its throat. Possibly something worse.
0.6 seconds.
"So," I said, because apparently my mouth still worked even when my brain didn't, "you come here often?"
The Lurker stopped. Its head snapped upright with a wet crack. The clicking paused.
0.0 seconds.
[DELAYED REACTION ACTIVATED]
My body moved before I consciously decided to. I dropped into a crouch and rolled left as the creature lunged forward, claws slicing through the space where my skull had been. I came up against the wall, ribs rattling, and saw it recovering from the missed strike.
The Lurker turned toward me, slower this time. Cautious. Like it had just realized I wasn't behaving the way prey usually did. Its limbs repositioned themselves into something that might have been a defensive stance, if defensive stances were designed by someone who'd never seen a spine before.
"Alright," I said, backing up slowly. "Let's be rational about this. You're level two. I'm... whatever I am. We're both having a bad day. Maybe we don't need to—"
It lunged again.
This time I didn't wait for the skill to activate. I raised one bony hand and shouted the words I never thought I'd say in Hell.
"POCKET SAND!"
A handful of gritty debris materialized from nowhere and I hurled it directly at the Lurker's face. The creature recoiled, its head snapping back as the debris scattered across whatever passed for its eyes. The clicking turned sharp and erratic. It staggered, clawing at its own face.
I didn't wait to see how long it would last. I threw myself sideways, hit the ground hard enough to crack something that might have been important, and scrambled toward the nearest alcove in the wall. Behind me, the Lurker thrashed blindly, its claws scraping stone in wild, disoriented arcs.
I pressed myself into the shallow recess and held perfectly still.
The Lurker stopped in the middle of the corridor. Its head swiveled left, then right. The clicking resumed. Slower. Searching.
My presence stat. One. Others are less likely to notice you unless you make a mistake.
I held my breath—which was pointless, since I didn't breathe—but the instinct was still there. The creature took another step forward. Then another. It passed within three feet of me, head still scanning the hallway.
I didn't move. Didn't blink. Didn't exist.
The Lurker continued down the corridor, away from me, its footsteps gradually fading into the red dimness.
I waited.
Counted to thirty.
Then counted to thirty again because I didn't trust the first count.
Finally, I unstuck myself from the alcove and looked down the hallway. Empty. The creature was gone.
A soft chime echoed in my skull.
[COMBAT AVOIDED]
[EXPERIENCE GAINED: 15 XP]
"Nice," I muttered, checking the notification again. "So I can gain XP just by avoiding fights.”
I looked down the hallway. The Lurker was gone, but that didn't mean the path was safe. And behind me, the door I'd come through was still closed. I could hear faint sounds on the other side.
Forward it was.
I started walking, keeping close to the wall. My bones made soft clicking sounds with each step, which seemed cosmically unfair given that I was trying to be stealthy. The hallway stretched on, unchanging. Same red glow. Same smooth stone.
After what felt like ten minutes—or possibly three hours, time was getting weird—I noticed something ahead.
Light. Different light. Not red. Pale blue, flickering like a malfunctioning screen.
I approached cautiously. The corridor opened into a small chamber, barely larger than a closet. In the center stood a pedestal made of dark stone, and hovering above it was a translucent blue rectangle.
I stepped closer. Text appeared on the rectangle's surface.
[WAYPOINT DISCOVERED: THE QUIET HALL]
[FUNCTION: TEMPORARY SANCTUARY. NO HOSTILES MAY ENTER]
[DURATION: UNLIMITED WHILE OCCUPIED]
[WARNING: EXITING RESETS LOCAL SPAWN PATTERNS]
I stared at it. Then at the chamber. Then back at the text.
"A safe room," I said slowly. "Hell has safe rooms."
I looked around the small room. There was nothing else here.
I sat down against the wall and let my skull rest against the cold stone.
"Alright," I muttered. "So I'm in Hell. I'm a skeleton. I have anxiety. And apparently I need to... figure out what I'm supposed to do here."
The blue light flickered peacefully.
"This is fine," I said to nobody. "This is a perfectly normal situation."
A notification appeared in front of me, small and almost apologetic.
[TIP: REST WHEN POSSIBLE. HELL IS LONG]
I closed my eyes—or made the gesture of closing them—and tried very hard not to think about what "long" meant in a place where time didn't seem to work properly.
Somewhere far above me, or maybe far below, something enormous howled.
I decided not to think about that either.
I sat there for a moment longer, letting the blue light wash over me. The howl had faded, but its echo still rattled around in whatever passed for my consciousness now.
Then something occurred to me.
"Wait," I said aloud. "The Lurker had a level. Level two."
I stared at the empty air in front of me, as if the system might materialize just from being looked at hard enough.
"If it has a level..." I trailed off, feeling stupid for not thinking of this sooner. "Do I have a level?"
Nothing happened.
"Status?" I tried.
Still nothing.
"Character sheet? Stats? Menu? Uh... open sesame?"
The blue light flickered slightly, as if amused by my incompetence.
I let out a breath I didn't have. "Okay. Think. You overthink everything. How would a system interface work? There has to be a—"
And then, as if responding to sheer desperation rather than any actual command, a translucent panel materialized in front of me.
It was simple. Almost elegant. A floating rectangle of pale text against a darker background, hovering at eye level.
CHARACTER STATUS
NAME: DANIEL KERES
SPECIES: UNDEAD (SKELETON)
CLASS: IMPROVISER
LEVEL: 1
EXPERIENCE: 15 / 100
ATTRIBUTES:
STRENGTH: 4
ENDURANCE: 3
PRESENCE: 1
COGNITION: 9
SKILLS:
DELAYED REACTION (ACTIVE)
SURVIVOR'S INSTINCT (PASSIVE)
I stared at it. At my own stats, hovering in front of me like a report card I hadn't asked to see.
"Level one," I muttered. "Of course I'm level one. I've been awake for twenty minutes.”
And then, as I was about to dismiss the panel, another notification appeared beneath it.
[REWARD AVAILABLE]
I blinked. "Reward? For what?"
[FIRST WAYPOINT DISCOVERED]
[FIRST HOSTILE AVOIDED WITHOUT ENGAGEMENT]
[CLAIMING REWARD...]
A soft chime echoed through the chamber. The blue light pulsed twice, and something small materialized in the air before dropping into my bony hand with a pathetic little clink.
I opened my fingers and stared.
It was a sash.
A bright pink sash, made of some kind of synthetic material that looked like it had been designed by someone who had never seen fabric before. Emblazoned across it in large, desperate letters were the words: PLEASE DON'T KILL ME.
Below that, in smaller print: I'm new here.
A description flickered into view above it.
PLEASE DON'T KILL ME SASH (COSMETIC – ACCESSORY)
A bright pink sash with questionable motivations.
COSMETIC EFFECT:
Highly visible. May invoke pity in certain creatures.
PASSIVE BONUS:
Intelligent enemies are more likely to monologue briefly before killing you.
WARNING: Does not work on anything smart enough to read sarcasm.
I stared at the sash for a long moment.
"You're joking," I said flatly.
The system remained silent.
"This is a joke. This has to be a joke."
Still nothing.
I held the sash up to the blue light, watching it shimmer with all the dignity of a clearance-bin pool float.
I closed my eyes—or made the gesture of it—and let my skull tilt back against the wall.
[SURVIVAL IN HELL IS NOT GUARANTEED. COSMETIC ITEMS MAY PROVIDE PSYCHOLOGICAL COMFORT]
I looked down at the sash again. Then at my skeletal hand. Then at the empty chamber around me.
"I'm wearing this, aren't I."
The system didn't respond, but somehow the silence felt affirming.
With a deep, unnecessary sigh, I draped the sash over my ribcage. It settled across my bones at an awkward diagonal, the bright pink fabric clashing spectacularly with the dim red glow of Hell.
A notification appeared.
[COSMETIC EQUIPPED: PLEASE DON'T KILL ME SASH]
[EFFECT ACTIVE]
[DIGNITY: -2]
"There's a dignity stat?!" I nearly shouted.
[NO]
I stood there for a moment.
"This is fine," I muttered. "This is a perfectly reasonable situation."
The blue light flickered, and I was almost certain it was laughing at me.
