Clover smiled cheerfully as he laid on the ground next to the dead Bone Rat, taking a moment to recover.

“Are you alright?” the brown-haired woman asked between gasps for air.

Clover flinched, jerking into an upright position. To be honest, he had completely forgotten that she was there - too lost in the endless world of possibilities the System had opened up for him.

Another blue box had appeared in his peripheral - he hadn’t had the chance to read it yet, but he pushed it to the side for now.

If possible, he wanted to salvage a good first impression. Fighting monsters or at least making it out of the hospital alive would be much easier if he had someone watching his back.

From her perspective, he must have looked like a complete madman - not exactly the type of person someone would want to work with. There was no need to make things worse by poking around the air and ignoring her.

“Hi, I’m Clover. Could you give me a hand?“ Clover introduced himself with his winningest smile while pointing at his wheelchair that had slid down the hallway.

He had another motive for trying to befriend her. Life in the hospital was lonely, and even when he was well enough to go to school - almost everyone ignored him. He ate lunch alone, and after school, he watched T.V. alone in his room. He had no real friends.

It bothered him more than he cared to admit. Sometimes, while watching other people his age laugh together, a deep sense of loneliness would gnaw at his heart that was just as painful as any physical sensation he had ever experienced.

Well, to put it simply, he wanted to make a new friend. He’d even settle for an acquaintance. He figured it was at least worth a shot.

She hesitated for a moment, then nodded, going with the flow of things on this strange day.

“Thanks for saving me.” She flipped the chair right side up and rolled it over to him. “I’m Claire,” she said, her voice slightly hoarse.

Normally, this type of social interaction would make him extremely nervous, but riding the high of raising his Vitality, he felt fine - slightly nervous at most. He was on top of the world, and nothing could get him down.

“Nice to meet ya,” he said as he hoisted himself into the wheelchair, the process slightly easier than usual. “If you don’t mind me asking, what did you do to piss off that monster so much; it completely ignored me.”

She scratched the back of her head. “At first, it ignored me too. The damn rat walked right past without sparing me a second glance. It looked like it was searching for something.”

He cleaned a disgusting film of rat blood off his hands to the best of his ability while listening to her speak.

What she said was interesting, and posed an obvious question if true: what could a monster be searching for in a hospital? He filed the information about the Bone Rat's strange behavior away for later; he couldn’t make an accurate conclusion till he had seen more monsters. This one may have just been an anomaly.

“Maybe it was on the hunt for some cheese. To be honest, I have no clue.” She shrugged; the whites of her eyes were slightly red. “When it turned its back on me and entered a surgery room, I stabbed it in the chest with a broken broomstick. Which, in hindsight, turned out to be a terrible idea.”

He felt that Claire had left out a great bit of what had happened, but he wasn’t going to press her on it.

He glanced above her head.

Blank - Lvl 1

He wasn’t sure, but he was fairly certain that she had leveled up when he had killed the monster.

He pointed above her head. “At least things ended up well.”

“Maybe.”

They lapsed into a small silence. Clover messed with the controls to his wheelchair, testing if the chair still worked. Luckily, the chair was a bit banged up, but it was still in working condition.

Which was good because, without it, he’d be utterly stuck. And even though Claire seemed grateful, he doubted she’d be able or willing to carry him around.

“We should leave; it’s not safe to wait around in the open like this,” Claire said.

Success! Clover smiled, almost not believing the interaction had gone as smoothly as it had. Maybe he couldn’t classify her as a friend yet, but having another person know his name felt good.

As an afterthought, he noted that with the two of them working together their odds of survival would greatly increase.

“You’re right; do you know how to get out of here?”

Clover glanced at the knife he had lodged into the mutated rat – the low-quality metal was bent and twisted. He decided to leave it there. It wasn’t worth the trouble of retrieving.

“Not a clue. The exit isn’t where I remembered it being,” Claire said as she kicked the dead Bone Rat in the head once.

After a short discussion, they decided to retrace their path. Ultimately, heading back towards Clover’s room and the other side of the hospital.

They moved down the partially destroyed hallway. With his newfound veneer of hope and Claire at his side, the empty hallway wasn’t as terrifying as it once was. It still raised his heart rate to an unhealthy level - a monster could be hiding anywhere, just waiting to jump out at him, but he was able to keep his breathing under control.

“Where did everyone go?” Clover asked as he peered into an empty room. The question had been bugging him for a while now.

“I was hiding in a janitorial closet when this all started, so I didn’t see any of this, but right after the first System message came, I heard a big commotion. It sounded like a bunch of those big rats were tearing through the walls.” Her eyebrows scrunched up as she remembered what happened. “It was a while ago at this point - there was a big fight, and after it was over, the doctors took all the patients to a different floor. Or at least all of them other than you.”

“In that case, we should find some weapons and then try to meet up with the other survivors,” Clover said, feeling a bit like a character in a zombie movie.

Claire agreed, and they spent the next couple of minutes searching through empty rooms. They didn’t find much. All the useful items were missing from the rooms - even the beds.

Eventually, they returned to the house that had been teleported into the hallway. He had found a knife here before he hoped to find another. None were left, but in his search, he found a large metal serving fork. Dubiously, he grabbed it. It was better than nothing – probably.

Claire scoured the room with a frown, not finding anything to her liking. While she was searching, Clover read the System message he had been ignoring.

Class Skill Quests Unlocked: Evolve a General Skill into a more powerful version by completing tasks and objectives!

Available: (0/0)

Acquire a general skill first to unlock a Progression Quest.

Clover frowned at the box, questioning why he hadn’t unlocked any Skills yet. Maybe it was impossible to unlock Skills without outside help – in a pay-to-win sort of way. That would be lame. Something about that thought didn’t sit right with him.

The back of his neck tingled, and suddenly a possible answer appeared to him. He hadn’t been particularly skillful or deliberate in any of his actions – since the System’s introduction, he had been cluelessly fumbling around. Maybe that was the problem. He hadn’t showcased the skill necessary to unlock a Skill.

The answer felt right to him even though logically he could see several holes in that theory. However, he ignored the problems for the moment and decided to test out his hypothesis. Clover smiled at the big word he had used so casually – things really were looking up for him.

Several possible Skills that would be easy to gain came to mind, but he crossed most of them off his mental list – even if he could unlock them, most of the Skills on the list wouldn’t be very useful.

He looked around the room, searching for inspiration. After a moment, he spotted a family portrait hung on the wall. A lightbulb lit up in his mind.

There weren’t any monsters in the area. Plus, Clover had a bit of free time, so he decided to attempt to get a tracking type Skill – it shouldn’t be too hard to unlock, and he thought it would be useful going into the future.

Additionally, he had watched 5 Seasons of America’s Most Deadly Hunter last week, so he was basically a master tracker already. The show was comically bad, filled with portly Texan men in jumpsuits shooting wild pigs from helicopters, but it did teach him some of the fundamentals of tracking and hunting on the occasional more serious episode.

He glanced back at the Mexican man in the family portrait, then wheeled over to the kitchen counter.

He unfocused his eyes, doing his best to take in all the details of the room. Two things immediately jumped out to him. First, brown liquid pooled around the bottom of the mug, leading him to believe that the cup had been slammed down pretty hard. Second, in big red font, the cup said, “#1 Dad!"

A picture began to form in his mind.

Next, he utilized another principle of aerial pig hunting: prediction. Seeing as how the man wasn’t in the kitchen, he had obviously left. He looked out into the hallway. He knew the direction he had just come from ended in a dead-end, so he ignored that half.

Using another technique he learned from the show, he moved his eyes in a zig-zag pattern, going from bottom right to top left. Apparently, it was supposed to help anomalies stand out. He wasn’t sure if the scanning pattern was helping, but it definitely was making his eyes tired.

His gaze stopped on a brown splotch on the floor. He looked closer. It was the coffee the man had been drinking. He must have split some of it one his hand in his rush, leaving a trail as he moved down the hallway.

Clover almost laughed when a blue box appeared. That whole time he had felt like an idiot, trying to follow someone’s tracks like a bad knockoff of Sherlock Holmes, but it had paid off.

Track Lvl 0 (Common) – Cost 5 SP

Follow your target's tracks to the ends of the Earth. Current range limit: 10 meters. Track Clarity depends on the quality and recency of the trail.

Accept Y/N?

Clover accepted the Skill; he had 8 Slots, 16 if he included his Class Skill Slots - it was okay to take a Skill or two without some grand plan behind the decision.

Immediately, he attempted to use [Track]. Nothing happened. After some experimentation, he came to the rather obvious conclusion that he needed a target for the Skill to activate properly. He focused on the image of the Mexican man in the family portrait and used [Track] again.

Congratulations! Track has reached Level 1. +1 Skill Points.

Six faint green footsteps blinked into existence on the floor, leading out the door. Some were partially formed, and the chain of footsteps was broken, leaving large gaps in between the tracks.

Clover stared at the pretty lights in wonder. Some child-like part of him was utterly fascinated by this display of what could only be magic.

The Skill’s effects did not seem to fade. Within him, he could feel the ability to turn [Track] off at any time with a flick of intent and willpower -similar to how he had been able to make his [Status Screen] appear and disappear.

However, he did not release the Skill just yet. There was no reason to; he liked looking at the lights it created. They were cool.

He returned his attention to the break room, where he found Claire taking a bite out of the half-eaten bagel by the coffee cup.

“I was hungry?” she said before he could even ask. She finished the rest of the big bagel in one big bite.

“Are you ready to go?”

“As ready as I’ll always be.” She picked up a large metal stool from below the kitchen counter.

Clover stared as she hefted it over her shoulder. Well, it was probably a better weapon than a large fork. Who was he to judge?

Armed to the teeth, they journeyed down the hall, searching for a way out of the hospital and other survivors. They traveled slowly, following the glowing green footsteps that only Clover could see.

The hallways were not as he remembered them; they were long and twisting - easy to get lost in. He intermittently used [Track], keeping them on the right course.

Congratulations! Track has reached Level 2. +1 Skill Points.

Congratulations! Track has reached Level 3. +1 Skill Points.

Through use, he learned that the quality and number of footprints that appeared were majorly influenced by the amount of “evidence” he saw and kept in mind while activating the Skill.

As he got farther away from the coffee trail, the quality and amount of green footsteps decreased. [Track] was still at a low level, so he wasn’t too concerned about its current performance; the Skill’s range had already increased to 40m.

The sound of yelling and gunshots grew louder as they continued forward. It didn’t feel particularly intelligent to walk straight towards what was obviously a dangerous situation, but that was the direction [Track] pointed, and Claire said she remembered there being an exit in that direction.

Finally, after what felt like an hour, the corridor made a sharp left turn. 30 feet down the hallway, there was a giant hole in the wall large enough for two cars to drive through at once. He couldn’t see what was directly on the other side of the hole due to the angle of where he stood, but he could see the starry night sky through the top bit.

He used [Track] again. A solid trail of green footsteps led out of the hole in the wall. It seemed they had found their exit. The only problem was that it sounded like an all-out brawl was taking place between monsters and humans outside.

From the other side, a Level 1 Bone Rat jumped through the hole in the wall, landing on four legs. Long jagged teeth going down to its chin stuck out of its drooling mouth. For some reason, now that he knew there was a chance of surviving past his cancer, the monster scared him more deeply than last time.

The warm glow of his boosted Vitality had faded to a lump of dark coal in his chest.

Clover raised his large metal serving fork, preparing for a fight he knew there was a good chance he’d lose. Alongside him, Claire raised her metal chair over her head.

The monster ravenously charged toward them on all fours.