Erika wasn’t too proud to admit she peed a little. Okay more than a little. That’d teach her to stay well hydrated. It took her a few seconds of frantic flailing at the words before they vanished, leaving her alone with the surprisingly dangerous torches and piles of ash. As her heart settled a bit, she shook her head. The words were like something out of a video game. “Probably just a hallucination from all the stress,” she muttered to herself. Between the headache that’d plagued her all morning, getting dragged into a fight between metas and the police, and John firing her right before a portal swallowed her up, it made sense she’d be a bit stressed.
Shaking her head, Erika picked up another torch and tossed it further into the room the zombies came from, repeating the action until she walked in carrying the last two. The combined light revealed dozens of destroyed beds and old wardrobes and another dark opening perpendicular to where she entered. Suspicious dark residue was splattered across the floor and the wall like something out of a bad horror movie, but what drew her attention was the weapons. Swords, axes, and maces lay scattered about near the stains, some of them clearly broken but all of them in various states of rust and decay. It looked like a tetanus festival. Still, glancing between the torches in her hands and the weapons, they might be an upgrade.
Carefully spreading the torches out to more evenly light the room, Erika looted the room, tearing through all of the wardrobes and chests and piling their contents up into a few piles. The largest was all the trash and junk she’d found and threw into a far corner, with a much smaller pile of things that might be valuable to take and sell, but probably wouldn’t do much to help her out with monsters, and the third was just a few items that seemed useful.
Most of the weapons she’d found left out in the room crumbled or broke as she tested them, metal flaking off in chunks and the wood and leather falling apart. The torches seemed more sturdy than them, even without the flames that seemed so dangerous. In one of the chests she’d found a long knife still in its sheathe that was in good condition, and it wasn’t hard to loop it around her cheap belt. The handle dug awkwardly into her side, but at least she had a weapon that wasn’t a weird torch. She didn’t know how useful a knife, even a big one, would be against the undead though. Everything she’d seen in movies and tv shows and videogames said she wanted something big and heavy, like a sledgehammer. Or a shotgun. Sadly the only weapon she found was the knife.
The other useful thing she found was a leather bag that was mostly in good condition, something that she could put the assorted coins, jewelry, and valuable looking trinkets in. Maybe she’d be able to sell them when she got out of the portal. She could use the money for rent since John fired her. Thinking of her ex-boss, she remembered that the cafe owner had been right in front of her when the portal sucked her in. That probably meant he was in here too.
Hopefully he was having a shitty time.
…
“Aaahh!” John screamed as he ran through the darkly lit hallways, dripping with sweat. Behind him followed a horde of undead, bones rattling and zombies letting out creepy moans as they followed him. Lucky the strange ghost things had stopped following him.
Where were the superheroes?! The police?! The National Guard?! It was their job to deal with these portals, not civilians like him! John’s eyes stung with sweat and tears as he ran, looking for an exit or someone to protect him,.
“Fuckfuckfuckfuck! Someone save me! I pay taxes damnit! Why is this happening to me?!”
…
Erika hefted a rusty mace in her right hand, one of the torches in her left, as she worked her way down another hallway. She’d left the other torches behind, the extra light nice but the going far too slow. The mace was the best of the trash weapons she’d found in that it didn’t break when she smacked one of the rotting wardrobes with it, but she wasn’t confident it wouldn’t break under stress.
But it was better than nothing, and she didn’t want to count on the torch working so hard perfectly again. Besides, she could always grab more of the torches that lit the other hallway beyond the zombie room and burned with the same blue fire as the one in her hand.
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As she passed another ring of light lit by a torch, a figure lurched out of the darkness at her and she poked the torch forward, revealing another zombie wearing broken armor, except this one held a rusted sword. And it knew how to use it. With a yelp, Erika jumped back as the zombie swiped at her with its sword, the metal blade screeching across the stone wall of the tunnel as it missed.
The force of the zombie’s blow sent it staggering as it missed and Erika took the opportunity to dart in, slamming her pilfered mace down on the undead’s arm. Putrid black blood spurted out of the zombie’s flesh, spraying her white shirt as an unholy stench filled the tight corridor. It made her want to puke, but she’d do that later. Pressing her attack, Erika battered at the zombie again and again until a wild blow crushed the monster’s skull. As if it were a puppet whose strings were cut, the zombie collapsed to the floor, its eyes no longer glowing as it oozed putrid black blood.
Gasping for breath, Erika looked for more enemies coming out of the darkness, but she saw none and sighed with relief. Only to swear as more words appeared in her vision.
*Ding!* You have defeated Zombie (Class F)! You have gained 100 EXP! Congratulations!
“Oh fucking hell!” She yelled, her voice echoing oddly down the hallway before she got control of herself again. She watched the words again, waiting a few seconds before they disappeared like the first time.
“What the fuck? Is this some kind of video game? Are more words going to pop up if I say ‘menu’?”
More words did in fact pop up when she said menu. As if she were in some sort of video game, an opaque box appeared in her vision with several lines of text.
Congratulations user on awakening to the Super System! As this is your first time viewing the menu, a helpful greeting message has been provided! The Super System will allow you to gather and spend experience points (EXP) to purchase and upgrade your capabilities as an awakened being! This is super exciting! Congratulations! Please select an option from the list below, or think or say ‘close menu’ to close this dialogue window!
Status
Powers
Shop
Log
A flurry of emotions ripped through her as she read the words in her vision, and a few things suddenly made sense. The headache that’d been bothering her for days wasn’t just a stubborn migraine, it was a meta sickness. Every meta that awakened had some kind of symptoms that stuck with them until something forced their powers to manifest. A stubborn cold, wounds that healed too slowly, sensitivity to random things. The symptoms were always unique to the meta, and some said they probably indicated what kind of powers someone would awaken.
She’d never heard any proof of that being true, but she believed it. After all, her ex had been lethargic for days before he suddenly awakened during a camping trip. Back when he’d been nice. Shaking her head, she pushed thoughts of her ex out of her mind. He was a superhero now, and a pretty powerful one. In fact if he showed up right now he would be able to pull her and anyone else still alive in the portal out nice and fast. But the last thing she wanted was to see his face. She’d rather kiss a zombie.
“So, I’m a meta,” she said, looking at the menu. As far as she knew, metas didn’t get menus like this. At least, none of the metas she knew had mentioned anything like it. They just instinctively knew how to use their powers as if something had come along and crammed the knowledge in. She didn’t feel anything of the sort, just common sense from playing a few video games before. Because of course she wouldn’t get something useful like instinctive knowledge. She’d have to fiddle around with things and hope she didn’t blow herself up.
Figuring the best place to start was at the top, she said “status” as she focused on the menu option.
This is your Status page! As it is your first time viewing this option, you will receive a one-time explanation of this page! Your Status screen displays your current statistical rating (stats) in several physical and mental categories. Higher stats means you perform better in that category!
Name: Kira Nakamura (Alias: Erika Sato)
Age: 22
Race: Meta-Human
Power: Super System (Class F)! (The best power ^_^)
Available EXP: 1,800
Purchased Powers: N/A
Strength: 4
Vitality: 6
Dexterity: 8
Intelligence: 11
Willpower: 9
Conditions: Mild Stab Wounds (Bandaged; Healing) Moderate Bruising (Healing)
Erika blanched when she saw the first line of her status. “Why do you know that name?! Hide it! Delete! Name change!” Fear mixed with anger as she shouted any command she could think of, but nothing she did would change the name her power displayed. Looking over her shoulder, she started to calm down as she realized no one was there to see it. “C-Close Menu,” she finally stuttered, banishing the text .
Her heart pounded in her chest as she started walking, barely paying attention to the stinking corpse of the zombie as she stepped over it. Today really wasn’t her day.
