As soon as I walk through the door, the scenery around me shifts, reminding me of whenever I enter the Shop. Colors blend into each other, and the cloudy park turns into a worn down hallway.

A carpet covers the floor of the hallway of the building I’m in. A closed door waits at the end of the hallway and a window looks out on darkness halfway to the door. I look behind me to see nothing but a blank wall.

It looks like forward is the only way out.

Cautiously, I walk up to the window. Remembering how Ruins are described as being filled with traps, I watch for any kind of wires, strange markings on the ground, or holes in the walls.

Nothing catches my eyes as I approach the window. I look out the window to see a nicely manicured garden a floor below me and a wall blocking my view of anything past that.

I turn my attention to the only door in the hallway. Testing each step before putting my weight on it, I walk forward towards the door. When I arrive at the door, I move to the side, just in case something comes flying out at me when I open it.

Slowly, the door creaks open.

A soft whooshing sound reaches my ear, and I curse as I feel a sharp pain in my ankle.

I look down to see a rather large needle in my ankle. My vision grows fuzzy, as I fall against the wall.

My mind fading, I cast the first spell that comes to mind.

“[YOU BETTER HEAL RIGHT NOW]”

My mind clears a little as the needle falls to the floor, giving enough presence of mind to cast “[Clear Impurities]”

My vision returns to normal and I stand all the way up. I lean down to inspect the needle, but a thump from the other room brings my attention back.

I carefully enter the room. A wooden mannequin stands in the center of the room, its head tilted slightly as it looks at me. I look around the room to see other mannequins at rest in alcoves around the room. My gaze catches on splotches of blood on the ground.

The mannequin at the center of the room walks towards me in a stilted fashion as if it weren’t used to using its limbs. When it gets two meters away from me, it breaks into a run towards me.

Oh come on. This is such a cliche. Creepy mannequins? Can’t the gods come up with anything better?

I mean, giant spiders, a cliche villain who wants to rule the world, a rushed romance, and now creepy mannequins. It’s almost as if I’m the main character of a trashy novel.

I dance around the mannequin as it throws a punch at me. Casually, I punch it in the chest, activating the Power Punch ability of my gloves.

The mannequin goes flying, crashing against the door opposite me. I smile as the mannequin stands up, its chest slightly dented, but otherwise unharmed. My smile widens as the mannequins in the alcoves stir, walking out of their alcoves.

I reach my arms into the sky and do some simple stretches.

It isn’t like my romance isn’t real. I’m just worried about how fast it’s going.

I stretch my legs as four of the mannequins approach me.

I know that I’m thinking too much about nothing, it’s just something that stays in my mind, because of how important Rose is to me, you know?

I divert another punch from a different mannequin and give it a good kick away from me. He is quickly followed by a second mannequin, and this time I aim for the head with my punch. The mannequin falls to the ground and doesn’t get up again.

The voices in my head have been rather quiet lately, I wonder why?

The rest of the battle is finished within a minute as I aim for the heads of the mannequins, easily disabling them.

I look around at the wooden parts lying on the floor all around me. If I hadn’t healed myself of whatever poison was in that needle, that might be my body parts on the floor. My gaze catches on the splotches of blood in the room.

I sigh, as the room goes quiet.

“...me!” A soft voice on the edge of my hearing calls out.

I hold my breath as I listen for the voice again.

“...elp me!” This time, I hear the voice coming from one of the alcoves.

I walk to the alcove careful of any traps. If I remember correctly, no mannequins came from this alcove, unless the one that was already in the middle of the room came from it.

At the bottom of the alcove is a trapdoor made of stone. I grab the handle, an eye out for any other traps. With an unladylike grunt, I pull the stone trapdoor up.

Only darkness is visible from where I’m standing, which makes me wonder how the room I’m currently in is lit. A thought that I put to the back of my mind as a childlike gasp comes from the darkness.

I activate one of the abilities in my gloves and shine a light into the darkness. A small girl of six or seven stares furiously up at me, tears falling from her eyes. She blinks several times at the sudden light.

Decaying bodies lie around her, their features grotesquely mutilated.

How the hell is the girl still ok, while the others were obviously harmed?

I cough as I inhale the stench coming up from the room, and cover my nose.

The girl’s eyes begin to adjust and she starts to look down at what is around her.

“No!” I yell, causing the girl to look up at me in shock. I continue in a softer tone, “I need you to keep your eyes on mine. Ok? I’m going to help you out of there, but you need to keep your eyes on me.”

The girl nods quietly.

I do my best to keep my eyes on her, ignoring the mutilated bodies. Gently, I lower myself into the room, never breaking eye contact with the girl.

“I need you to keep your eyes on the ceiling while I lift you out of here, ok? If you look back down at me, I won’t be happy.”

The girl nods again, and I grab her by her waist, lifting her up to the ledge. After a second, I convince her to pull herself over the ledge.

I take one last look at the dead bodies, making sure that I wasn’t missing anything or anyone important.

Once I’m confident that there isn’t anything I’m missing, I back up a small amount. Making use of my increasing physicality, I make a running leap for the lip of the room above.

I pull myself out of the dreadful room, closing the trap door behind me.

I close my eyes, clasping my hands as I say a prayer for the deceased in that room. When I’m done, I open my eyes and turn my attention to the girl whom I’d saved.

The girl is looking at the destroyed mannequins lying all over the ground with fear.

I move into the girl’s line of sight, blocking out the human-ish body parts, and crouch down in front of her, “hey there.” I say softly, “My name’s Elena, what’s yours?”

She looks away from me shyly, not responding.

I smile, trying to be comforting. “It’s ok. You don’t have to tell me.”

Taking in the girl’s state, I pull out a water bottle and an apple from my inventory. “I bet you’re thirsty. Here.” I hold the bottle out to her.

She grabs the water bottle from me, and gulps it down thirstily. After a moment, she hands the bottle back to me, I give her the apple in return.

She eats the entire thing quickly, even the core.

“If we want to get out of here, we need to continue going quickly. Stay behind me, but as close as you can ok? I’ll make sure nothing harms you.” I say, moving towards the door to the next room. “If you see anything that looks like a trap, let me know.”

I look back at her to see her right behind me, nodding seriously.

Not seeing any obvious traps, I move to the side of the door and creek it open. Nothing happens, so I open the door the rest of the way. A small chest sits in the middle of the room, with another door behind it leading to the next room.

Cautious of the chest itself being a trap, I walk up to the chest ready to grab the girl and run if I need to.

The chest opens easily, with nothing popping up to kill the both of us. Inside the chest lies the small figurine of an angel with her eyes closed and two differently colored potions.

“[Identify]”

Ward against undead:

Provides minor ward against undead, will warn owner if ward is breached.

Ward Area: Twenty Meters

Health Potion

Recovers injuries, will not regrow limbs, or replace materials lost. Applied orally.

2 Doses.

Minor Paralysis Poison

Paralyzes opponent under level ten without resistances for thirty seconds. Applied orally, or through open wounds.

5 Doses.

I place the ward and the paralysis poison in my inventory, then I give the health potion to the girl.

“If you get hurt badly and I don’t notice, drink half of this bottle, ok? It will heal you.” I smile feeling a little more comfortable now that she has a way to save herself if she needs to.

Realizing that this room is a relative safe room, I take a small dinner break and pull some jerky from my inventory, giving half to the little girl.

Glancing at my status, I wonder if those mannequins give me any experience towards my next level. I wish I had a handy experience bar to tell me when I’m getting experience

Finishing up the last of my jerky, I force us to continue into the next room.

Following the same procedure as the last two door, both the girl and I move to the side of the door, crack it open, then open it fully. When nothing happens, I continue into the next room.

I walk forward slowly, looking for what the trap might be. The supposedly empty room leading to the next door doesn’t fool me and only serves to put me more on guard.

As soon as both of us are past the threshold, the door behind us slams shut. A white mist, pours into the room from the walls on either side of us.

It takes me a second to realize what the mist likely is, and my mind races as I try to come up with a solution. The mask that I made when I first heard about the “infestation” comes to mind.

Cloth Gas-Mask

Blocks all harmful bacteria, poisons and viruses up to level 5 from entering your system. Must remove to eat. Enchantment is broken if cloth is soaked in water.

Made by Elena

I quickly wrap the cloth around the little girl’s nose and mouth as I consider what to do about myself.

There’s no helping it I guess.

Taking a deep breath, I pick up the little girl and book it to the door. As soon as I grasp the handle, a helpful little message appears.

Door Opens in: 2:59

Fucking stupid system. It won’t give me a fucking break, now will it? Those two days I had don’t count.

I stare at the door in frustration as my mind races to find a way to last the two and a half minutes I need to wait for the door to open. My breath is already starting to burn in my chest.

I run through all of the spells I have in my repertoire.

An idea hits me and I run to the part of the room that hasn’t been covered in fog, still carrying the girl.

Sending a small prayer to Isis, God, and whatever gods feel like being nice to me today, I cast “[Defense Of The Earth]”.

The blessed stone that the building was made out of rises up around the both of us, covering us in darkness.