The scorpion’s pincers clacked once and missed his leg. Grey crawled further back under the rock outcropping, curling up until he was little more than a ball of dried tears, cracked lips, and bloodshot eyes. Snap. He felt the air from the questing pincers brush his leg and whimpered softly.

A moment passed. Then another. Thirty more, and the scorpion had not tasted his flesh yet. After three minutes, it moved on entirely. Rather than relaxing or moving, Grey only wrapped himself up tighter, dry-sobbing into his arms. His heart had climbed into his throat and refused to descend.

I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t. Fear beat at his mind like the waves of a raging sea, washing away all rational thought. His breath came out in fevered rushes and returned in great gulps, as though the waves had abandoned him on dry land. Slowly, conscious thought returned.

Water. He needed water. He leaned his head back against the relatively cool rock and bit the inside of his lip. The giant scorpion had left. He was safe. Safe. He whispered the word over and over again, crawling out from under the dark rock. There, an oasis in the distance. He could-

The stinger took him through the skull, splattering bits of brain and skull on the sand behind. It jerked once and came free, his limp body falling to the sands. For a moment, he felt the warm void, an embracing nothingness that was… It was peace, a place of no wants, no needs, no anything.

Archon Interference Detected...

Temporary Perk Added: Respawn by Death

Grey sat up with a gasp, touching his face and finding it whole. The notification hung in front of his face. Respawn? Then something pressed into the sides of his face, and a crushing pressure crushing his skull. He cried out. Something wet covered his face. Blood. Then there was a loud crack. He died once more.

A few moments later, he was up again, crying and scrambling away from the monstrous scorpion. Its stinger plunged into his back. Pain. It was not fiery. It was not shocking. It was all encompassing, an eclipse of his conscious mind, a pain that robbed him of his senses, his thoughts, all that made him human. Then Grey died.

Again and again, the scorpion slaughtered him. Played with him. Tossed him about with his innards hanging in front of him. Took great chunks from his face, his chest, his legs. He had shit himself. Pissed himself. Tears ran freely, and hoarse moans and screams and animal sounds of pain ripped from his chest until he grew still and uncaring.

When the scorpion finally abandoned him, he laid still. His chest rose on its own. His eyes blinked of their own accord. Grey was gone, abandoned somewhere between his third and thirtieth deaths. Dead. Buried. Diced into little pieces and never to be seen again.

His lips seemed to move of their own accord. He laughed. He babbled. He screamed and grunted like a base beast. His eyes had long dried, and he pressed them into the hot sand, the pain nothing compared to before.

Then it felt as though something took his mind in its hands, molding it like wet clay. At first, conscious thought returned. Then the hands drifted to his memories, and he felt the vivid scenes of death and rebirth brushed over, their hard edges dulled. Life returned to his body in small twitches and spasms.

Thump. Thump. Thump. For a moment, his world consisted of the soft, rhythmic beat of his heart and little else. Then a notification appeared, bright blue in color. With it came a wave of calmness, and it drowned him so thoroughly he felt little else.

Quest- Ongoing

Become the Ultimate Player.

Huh. That was new, but then, so was this whole world. It was only this morning that he had sat in his car on Earth, wishing for something to change. Now, it had.

He rolled onto his back, blinking at the harsh star above. Though the memories had dulled, he felt the phantom pain of dozens of deaths travel faintly through his trembling body. Respawn. He was really a Player in this sick game. Perhaps it was time he started acting like it.

Grey rose on unsteady legs, scanning the horizon for another monster. The oasis was still visible, so it was no mirage. He walked over that way, stumbling over dunes.

As he moved close, details started to stand out. The vague hints of bluish green became thin, needle-like plants and some type of bush with yellowish fruits. Tents made of flesh-colored leather sat around the greenery, overlooking a lake of an oasis. Sapphire blue water lurked there.

Grey licked dry, cracked lips. He started to jog, a burn seeping into the muscles of his legs. Wait, tents? He skidded to a stop, sliding down beside a dune.

He crawled closer. Closer. Close enough to hear heavy breaths and guttural barks. Humanoid creatures sat in the shade of the tents, their eerily pale skin and black eyes sweeping across the oasis. They passed gourds around, wearing tan pieces of some type of cloth that hung about their shoulders like a poncho. Sunlight glinted from their bald heads and misshapen features. Grey spotted a few weapons among them but little else.

He deemed it unlikely they would be friendly, but he had dropped his spear while running from the scorpion and wasn’t keen on walking back to find it. He had a dagger, however. A shame there were no guns in this place. Or bows, even. He would have to fight.

A slight chill ran up his spine, images of being ripped and stabbed flitting through his mind before scattering to the corners of his mind. He counted five of the things. Five monsters. Five obstacles between him and water. He licked his dry lips again. He could kill them. He could.

He wiped the sweat from his brow. Five was too many. He needed one alone, but there were no chokepoints here in the desert, no convenient ambush spots. He would need a lure, something to draw one away from the others. His eyes landed on one of the tents.

He sucked in a breath and made a decision. He crawled closer, stopping only when he was close to one of the tents. Their backs were to him, so he lifted the tent’s back flap slightly, peeked into the near barren thing, and crawled in.

It was nearly empty inside. He ran his hands over a bedroll and landed on something hard and round, almost like a pebble. He pulled it free and dropped it a moment later, pulling his hand away as though it had burned him. It was a small scorpion trapped inside a piece of amber or whatever this world’s equivalent was. His eyes remained fixated on it.

Could he really do this? Maybe he could find another oasis. Maybe this all really was a dream. Wouldn’t it be nice to wake up in his bed again? To go back to work?

He imagined it, and his expression firmed. No, he didn’t want that. Whatever this was- and it was undoubtedly terrible- it was at least more than before, and for that, he could endure. Somehow.

The guttural speak of the humanoids grew closer. Grey opened the back flap once more and slipped out, the trapped scorpion in his hand. He slid back behind a dune, pressed his back against the sand. He waited. Nothing.

He closed his eyes. They were humanoids and lived close to water. If he followed that reasoning, they also produced waste, which meant that one of them would eventually have to split from the others to excrete said waste. Right? Chi did not have to obey the basic laws of science, but surely these creatures had to at least follow the Law of Conservation of Mass. They wouldn’t need to drink if they didn’t have at least a somewhat familiar biology.

He would wait then and use the scorpion as a distraction. Close to an hour later, a monster proved him correct, although it was not the stunning success he had imagined. No, the monster tripped over Grey on its way.

He sat against a dune, listening for the sound of footsteps and occasionally peeking over at the camp. It was a blistering day, and the sun sapped what little energy he had. Soon enough, he fought to keep his eyes open. By the time he heard the approaching footsteps, it was already too late.

A weight pressed on his chest, and then there was a harsh exclaim. Then his eyes were open, meeting those of the fallen monster. A ghoul, he had named them. Images flashed through his mind, accompanied by phantom pain. Not again.

Grey lunged forward, his dagger plunging into a leg, a chest, a throat, a face. Noises rose up from the ghoul, loud barks at first and wet gurgles after. Its blood was dark, and it spilled out over Grey’s hands. His heart trembled.

Then more guttural noises came over the dune, the ghouls of the camp searching for the cause of the disturbance. Grey’s head snapped up. It was too late. A foot snapped his head back and sent him rolling off the dead ghoul. A line of fire entered the small of his back, and then there were more impacts. A punch to the skull. A kick to the ribs. A knife in his chest, plunging in and out and in again. A great hammer smashed into his head. Void.

Then he was up, the word again bouncing into his mind. The burning star above filled his vision, and more harsh exclaims filled the air. Grey moaned pitifully and reached for the leg of a ghoul. He received a spear between the eyes for his troubles.

Again.

His hand snatched up and yanked on the leg. The ghoul fell, and Grey was on it, stabbing and slashing and biting. Sharp stabs of pain entered his back. Something crashed into his head, darkening his vision. He stabbed more and more and more, blood coating his hands, his face, and his body. Then there was darkness.

Notice: For repeated deaths, a respawn timer will now be added.

Time remaining until respawn: 59 minutes, 54 seconds

Three hours later, a small seemingly golden stone landed softly in the midst of the ghoul’s camp. The ghouls looked over at it, two of them wandering close to look at it. When they turned back around, their remaining companion was gone.

One wandered close to the tent their third companion had stood by, and a hand reached out from the tent flap, yanking the monster inwards. A short scream was all that escaped. The third and final ghoul called out, hefting his rough club and snarling.

He threw the tent flap aside and stepped in. Only his dead companions awaited him, glassy-eyed and dead stiff. Then the tent came down on top of him. He roared, tried to move, and tangled himself up in the leather tent. Hot pain lanced into his chest. Then again. He roared louder, tried to struggle. Nothing.

He collapsed to the ground moments later, and from the darkness of the night, a man rose, clutching a spear in shaking hands. Dried blood and dirt covered his face and tattered armor. He stabbed his spear into the unmoving lumps trapped under the tent several more times before dropping to his knees in the sands.

Tears dropped from Grey’s eyes, slow at first, but they soon became a torrent. Soft shudders wracked his aching body, and he could only hold himself, a single thought rising to the forefront of his mind.

Battle plan completed.

The oasis awaited, watching silently. It did not judge the man for his tears and rightly so. Everyone had a right to shed a silent tear, perhaps those who shed blood most of all. So Grey wept openly, and he did so knowing that the next day would bring its own hell, as would the hundreds of days after that.

On the back of the weeping, a spark of triumph crept. It was marred by the scars of his many deaths, but it shone all the brighter for it, burning his tears away in its wake. He had won. For perhaps the first time in his life, Grey Shor had won. He would die again. A hundred times. A thousand. In the end, the result would be the same.

Grey would win. He roared his victory to the sky.