Chapter 5

…

Floor 1 – Day 3

If it helps, you can think of it as being poisoned, but there's no permanent antidote. The only thing you can do is live with it, and keep buying potions. You'll have to think about it constantly, and never let yourself forget to correct before things get dangerous. But, you can live with it. So, it could be worse.

That's what I remember thinking, when I first got sick. That my sickness was a lot like a permanent status ailment. I was a lot younger back then, and I'd been playing this game. You probably know the one (it rhymes with Mokepon) and there was this move "Toxic" in it, that can hit a character with slow-burning damage. Turn after turn, it just keeps chipping away at their health. It never stops, it just keeps on going. Just a little bit of damage, every so often...

Still, I suppose for much of anything to make sense I need to give a quick biology lesson.

Insulin.

It's important.

At the most basic level, it's a hormone. And a common one, as pretty much any vertebrate on Earth makes it, and there's not all that much variation. From fish, to frogs, cats, dogs, cows, pigs, people... It's one of those chemical messengers that's just so critically important for life to function, that it's pretty much impossible to do without.

And, I don't make any of it.

At least, I don't anymore. I used to, when I was a kid. Then I got sick, something went wrong, and badabing, bataboom: My body decided that those important cells producing that important hormone needed to die. So, sucks to suck: no more insulin for me.

Thankfully, humanity has a habit of sticking the boot of science up the ass of pretty much any illness or disease we can. So, in the early 1920s, scientists found a break-through. Insulin could be extracted, and made injectable. So unlucky folks like me could use that, in place of the insulin our bodies would normally make on their own. This meant that a previously lethal condition with an 100% kill-rate, had been turned into a treatable condition. As technology advance on from there, we found even more clever ways to make it, and mass produce it for the world.

Humanity, fuck yeah.

Of course, treatable does not mean cured. It just means taking medicine, and trying to live a mostly normal life. Albeit, a life with a lot of doctor appointments, needles, and bloody finger tips. But still, mostly normal. The problem is still there, the lethal threat of the problem is still there, but it's reduced dramatically. As long as there's treatment, as long as there's medicine: things are okay.

But, what if you're without treatment?

What if there is no insulin?

At that point, there's trouble. Eating will do a person no good. Food becomes both useless and dangerous. Someone like me could eat all day, and the end result would be nothing but rapidly poisoning themselves. This means losing weight, as their flesh cannibalizes itself in order to find a form of fuel to keep things running. And after that, the only other thing the body can really do, is just keel over dead.

That's pretty much the gist of it.

Thus: Toxic.

Poisoned.

Without insulin, the wonder-hormone, the human body can’t use food. It can't put on muscle. It can't process sugar out of the blood to feed cellular tissue. The human body can only stall for a few days, while things get worse and worse, before dying a pretty miserable death.

Luckily, a normal human body will make its own insulin. This works quickly, so when a person eats and digests, the resulting increase in blood sugar is controlled and put to use. There's no thought required, it just works. The clever biological responses will trigger, and then they will balance everything out without too much variation.

But that’s with a normal, insulin-producing, human body. Which, I don't have.

Needless to say, it’s a troublesome condition.

There's no parking in the wheelchair spot, or anything fun perks like that. Anyone who has this problem will likely look completely normal, in fact. It’s not as though there's an obviously missing limb, or a cane, or anything visible. Yet, in strange contrast to normal appearances, it’s still a death sentence without treatment. And, in short: there's no getting rid of it.

Unlike a game, there's no "antidote." There's no cure, no fix. It's just "potions" forever, and you have to be careful with those, because holy crap those can kill you too.

Anyways: that was the situation I had lived with for quite some time.

Before the pandemic. Before the monsters. Before getting spirited away and [Selected] for the [Trial], it was one of the major reasons I’d given up on taking risks, and had shut myself in my house. I had been hoping and praying the world would normalize in some fashion. All because my body needed medicine to survive. Medicine that needs to stay relatively cool, unless I was using it. Medicine that could spoil rapidly if exposed to high heat, or if it was frozen in extreme cold. Medicine that was already expensive before the world started crumbling, and supply-chains started failing.

It’s not a pleasant place to be, even when life is good. When the world is burning itself to the ground though, it's a heck of a lot worse.

I remember watching lifelines shut their doors, as medical supplies were emptied or interrupted. Industrial behemoths "too big to fail" were being crippled by things like nations collapsing, and monsters attacking... and I remember thinking how absolutely screwed I was. All the things I counted on were drying up, and there was nothing I could do about it. Even stockpiling what I could was just stalling. I knew it was just buying time.

So, in a strange way, I had very mixed feelings about the [Trial]

As I was, I would die in a few months. Yet, at the same time: That had already been true. My timeline was 100% set before. Sitting in my house, I’d been utterly screwed. Even more so than most. Without securing more medicine, there was absolutely nothing I could have done to change my fate. And I had no idea where to start looking for more, considering the companies that probably manufactured it, were gone.

Over-dramatic as it sounds, my hourglass had already been running towards empty. With only a few months of medicine left, and about as much food to match that as long as I was smart about it, I was just watching the hour-glass empty.

So, I suppose the question was simple:

How would I really rather spend my last weeks?

Shut in my home, bordering an unstable military encampment that was actively fighting to hold back blood-thirsty monsters? Ducking under my desk every single time I heard gunshots? Praying for just one small piece of good news, while drowning in an ocean of bad?

Or, would I prefer to spend my last days in a beautiful, monster-free, scenic, countryside?

Not really a difficult choice, strange as it was to say it. I was better off, because at least this way I got a nice vacation out of it.

Standing in front of my home, these were the thoughts I dwelled on, as I stared out at the looming mountain. Its snow-topped peak rising up over forests and endless skies of blue. It towered over everything, the one prominent feature of this strange Floor.

Honestly, how in all the hell was someone expected to climb that?

I shook my head, scrolling through the Menu, confirming that nothing had changed. Walking around the field my home had appeared in, I had not been able to see all that much variety to the terrain. It was all grassland, high up to my knees at most, which quickly found itself swallowed up by trees after a few hundred paces. In essence, I was on an island of grass, in an ocean of forest. And that's pretty much all there was.

The only other discernable feature was that giant fucking mountain.

Still, I had managed to confirm, just as the broadcast message had stated, there weren’t monsters on the first floor. Or, if there were any, I hadn’t seen any evidence of them. The Floor was empty, so far as I could tell. The only life consisted of plants, and myself.

Which was very good. Monsters were not something I had an interest in running into. Apart from myself, though, there wasn’t any obvious evidence of people either. It seemed a safe assumption that I was very much alone.

I couldn’t decide if being completely alone on the Floor was a good thing or not. While the cynic in me said that we all die alone and this was probably for the best, the rest of me felt that other people might have been nice to have around.

... Or they might have been stressful.

I had to recognize that most people probably would not handle this situation well. Especially if they chose any of the other starting perks, and were starting to get hungry. I only had so many supplies to go around, and it's all fun and games until you go a few days without anything to eat but bark and grass.

Either way, it was what it was.

The facts were the facts: I was here, alone, and I was probably going to die in the relatively near future. But, even if I was almost completely certain I was going to die, I was also certain I was going to avoid freaking out about it for as long as possible. I was going to continue living the best I could, even if that meant a bitter end.

And I was pretty good at not freaking out.

The entire world was ending before this, and I'd been holding my own. Relying on my secret technique: constant distractions. Of which, there were plenty. Taking inventory, for example. This time with a pencil and some paper.

My final assessment of my home’s supplies was… decent.

Obviously, I had shelter. My home wasn’t a mansion, but it was a sturdy little thing, boarded up and secured months before the Trial spirited me away.

Water… well... I had at least a week or so worth. My pipes were now empty, but my tub had been kept filled for months and my hot water tank was still relatively full. I could tap into that, allowing me to drain it for some extra drinking water. Combining that with the couple liters of soda bottles I’d take to filling with tap water and leaving under the sink during the pandemic, and I wasn’t in the worst spot. As long as I could find another source somewhere, I could just make a fire and boil it until I was sure it was safe to drink.

Presumably, there was a stream or something relatively close by. The mountain had snow towards the peak, which meant that probably melted and flowed… somewhere.

I wasn’t entirely sure, but I wasn’t panicking on that front.

As for things to eat, I knew I had enough food for at least a few months. Probably longer if I rationed it carefully. Though, I would have to admit, the meal choices were going to get very boring. I had plenty of peanutbutter, multivitamins, and protein shake mix to go around. Some pasta and dehydrated beans too, saying I could get a decent cooking fire going in the back yard. All the non-perishable essentials…

Adding to that: I had weapons.

There didn't seem to be anything to use them against, but a shotgun and a pistol were not half bad to have around, if trouble happened. There was a good amount of ammo for both, as well. From what I knew of monsters that had appeared on Earth, in the worst-case-scenario these were going to be limited in their usefulness. While maybe they would work, I had my doubts.

But that wasn't really the issue.

No, the main problem was the same as it had always been.

Medicine was always the bottleneck. The pharmacies had shut its doors ages ago, and my stockpile had been dwindling without resupply ever since. Though I’d done what I could, my efforts at obtaining more once things fell apart had been rough. Financially, I could only afford to secure a small amount for an excessively large cost off the black market. And that was when the money I had was still holding value. After a certain point, I’d been told I would need to trade physical goods.

I’d gotten some, to my credit, but not much. Eventually, the risk was just too much to even feel safe going outside, and I mostly accepted I was done for.

So, now…

Well, there was nothing I could do about it.

Insulin wasn’t the type of medicine a guy could just make at home. Even if I were knowledgeable enough and well-equipped enough, to attempt it: the old-style of insulin required the use of a large number of animal pancreases. And the newer stuff was lab grown with extremely specialized bacteria that had been created using some incredibly advanced science. The literal insert of human, hormone-producing, genes, into vats of bacteria. Which were then harvested and processed, and refined…

Simply put, it wasn’t something I could just cook up on my non-functional stove. And my lack of a PhD in Bioengineering.

It was what it was.

All I had left was a few months. Maybe three, if I skipped meals. But, like I said, I had already been living with that cloud hanging over me. The thoughts were almost a comfort, as I went wandering around the grasslands outside. I tried to let my mind drift as I attempted to relax. To live in the "now" and not worry so much about what I couldn't change. The situation could certainly be worse. It could be a lot better too, but this wasn’t as terrible as it seemed.

I could almost treat the 1st Floor as a gift. This was a nice and well-earned break, before an unfortunate end. One long session of R&R, before I had to make a tough decision. In a lot of ways, that was better than most people deserved, and I found that I couldn’t really complain. All this meant was that I was basically in the same situation I’d been prior to the Trial plucking me out of existence on Earth, minus the monsters. Minus the chance of getting robbed, or shot, or some other horrible fate.

But, the question nagged at me.

What if?

All those odd details in the internet post kept floating back into the center of my thoughts. The things that had been mentioned... they were clearly impossible. Fantasy elements, spells, super-human abilities... These were easy to brush aside as crazy, but now that I was actually here?

I really wasn't sure.

The menu reformed in my mind’s eye.

[Status]

Name: John

Attributes

Class: None – Skills: 0/6

Titles: None

Perks:

Strength:

10

-

[Domicile] – 1st floor

Dexterity:

10

-

Constitution:

10

-

Intelligence:

10

-

Wisdom:

10

-

Charisma:

10

-

Advancing Attributes, gaining Skills, and earning a “Class.” These things had been what the global broadcast advised me to do, although it was a little sparse on the details. How I was supposed to do any of these things, seemed vague.

Exercising was mentioned.

Well... I could exercise.

Heck, I would be doing that anyways. Working out at least a little bit was just my routine after being shut inside for as long as I had. Some weights, some pushups, some situps. Simple sorts of things, intended to keep medicine requirements a little lower, and it let me stretch my supplies longer.

While I found it was hard to believe working out was going to make a real difference, I also felt that I had a rough idea of what it was trying to hint at.

From the post online, I remembered that the user had been pretty clear they earned superhuman abilities. Of course, it had sounded ridiculous. I'd pretty much considered it to be the ravings of a madman, at best, but it clearly wasn’t entirely insane considering the obvious fact that I was "Selected" too.

It was like putting together an incomplete puzzle. Rough notes on a random post from the internet. A post that was long gone and couldn't be revisited. A very general broadcast message, with some helpful starting tips and nothing much more.

The post had said that advancing in the Trial meant earning powers.

The Global message seemed to indicate something similar.

"Do not panic. Understand that whatever limits you once had no longer exist. We will overcome this."

That line stood out at the very end.

No limits... While that didn’t specifically say “Super powers” it also didn’t suggest otherwise. In fact, in context, it sounded pretty good. Plus, there was this line, too:

“If you Manage to clear a floor, injuries and damage received while on the previous floor will be healed.”

That also sounded ridiculous, but I was getting numb to that at this point and was willing to suspend my disbelief. And all this combined, meant it wasn’t difficult to see where all these things were directing me. If the lack of medication was going to kill me, why not try and climb that mountain?

I mean, the worst I could see happening was that I made an honest effort at something and died in a slightly different way than I was currently expecting. And I was sure that plenty of people had gone to the grave with a hell of a lot less going for them.

Why not?

Why not fight on until the end, instead of just lazing away and dying a pitiful death? If I made it to the second floor, would it cure me? Wipe my illness away? Would it just heal me temporarily? Resetting things?

Maybe, I didn’t need to accept a vacation before heading off to an early grave.

Maybe, I still had a chance.

If supernatural abilities were involved, which it seemed might well be the case, all bets were off, right? Who was I to say there wasn’t some sort of solution to my predicament? I’d been plucked off of Earth and placed here, so clearly the limits of what was and was not possible were frayed around the edges a bit.

My heart was racing, as I scanned the global message over again, looking for some additional hidden clue that I might have missed the previous hundred times.

It clearly stated that passing a Floor would heal a person.

What the heck.

It was beyond a longshot. Looking at that giant mountain, it sounded impossible. More than impossible, but that was in my current condition, regardless. I didn't have years, but I had months.

If I got stronger… If I really prepared myself…

Just because I wasn’t sure of the exact details of how this was supposed to work, that fact didn’t change. If I was going to have even a slim chance of surviving, no matter how small, I would take it.

This wasn’t even a choice.

I could either lay down and die, or I could try to live.

And I wanted to live. God damn, did I want to live.

Still.

Looking ahead at that mountain… I felt the frown forming. Each Floor was tougher than the previous floor, huh? And this was Floor 1. So, by default, this was the easiest floor.

That mountain looked far.

At least a day’s walk, and then who knows how long it would take to get to the summit after that? I would have to pack a bag and a lot of water. I could take the remaining insulin if I packed it carefully and kept it from getting too warm...

The mountain loomed, though.

The longer I stared, the taller it felt. There were no clouds in the sky, and yet, if there were clouds, I felt the mountain would be jutting through them.

I shuddered.

No.

No, I wasn’t ready. Not yet.

Plus, if this was just the first challenge of many I would need to get through, I had no way to know what would be waiting on the next Floor. Clearly, if it was safe and easy to clear the floors, there would have been a lot more people returning to Earth. This was no walk in the park.

It wasn’t just about getting to the summit: by the time I took on the Mountain, I needed to be ready for whatever came after it.

The thought was daunting.

Even with the thrum of excitement in my chest, I was filled with uncertainty as I turned back from my survey of the surrounding area, and returned home.

“Each floor is progressively more difficult than the floor preceding it. Floor 1 is the intro floor, and it is recommended you spend as much time as you feel is reasonable improving yourself on this floor before advancing.”

I wasn’t ready to climb that mountain.

I knew that.

If I tried as I was, today, I probably wouldn't make it. And even if I did, what came after it might be my ruin.

No, I wasn’t ready.

But I felt that maybe… just maybe, if I really worked at it:

I could be.

And there was only one way to find out.