The first sparks of consciousness Vali gained were accompanied by extreme pain from every inch of his body. His head was pounding, and his muscles felt like jelly. Even his eyes weren’t spared. They felt like they were marinated in battery acid, burning from the sunlight when he attempted to open them.

But he was alive.

The last events before he lost his consciousness flashed through his mind, causing him to try to hastily get up from where he lay. Instead, the pain caused by the action left him as a groaning mess on the ground.

“Easy.” Spoke someone who Vali could only see as a blur through his squinted eyelids. “There’s no threat now, you can rest.” The speaker pushed Vali down onto the ground gently with a single hand, putting a stop to his unsuccessful attempts at getting up. To his surprise, Vali recognized the person by the voice. It was the man who stood to Vali’s right side when they fought the wolf. “I’ll go let the others know you’re up.”

Too tired to speak, Vali just glared at the back of the man as he went outside. ‘Outside?’ Vali came to a realization. The forest he was supposed to be in was gone. Instead, it was replaced with a familiar, metallic interior. ‘The crashed train? What am I doing here?’ Inside one of the less damaged wagons, he was laid on top of an assortment of rags. They were caked with fresh blood, which Vali could tell was his’s.

His observations were interrupted when a face that made Vali’s heart drop to his stomach emerged from the door. “You suicidal moron!” Jonas shouted; his face twisted with anger. “Why didn’t you run away with us?!” With quick steps, he walked up to where Vali was resting and picked a seat right next to him to sit on.

“Sorry for saving your ass,” Vali grumbled. He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles in an attempt to fix his vision, avoiding contact with the inner side of his hand which was covered in wounds. It worked, marginally. “Let me accept your thanks in the form of some water and food. If the pain doesn’t kill me, the thirst will.” His throat felt like two sandpapers grating against each other as he spoke.

He saw Jonas walk somewhere with an unchanging expression. A plastic tray and bottle sat on a seat. Apparently, he came prepared. He uncorked a plastic bottle and knelt right next to Vali’s head. He tried to raise Vali’s head and help him drink the water, but Vali shoved the helping hand away with the back of his hand. “I didn’t ask for a nurse.” After propping himself up with his elbow, he reached for the bottle, only to wince and drop it down when he tried to grip it with his bandaged fingers. They gained a red tint as the wound below them started bleeding from the smallest action.

Vali watched helplessly as the bottle’s contents spilled onto the metal floor, slowly rolling away. “Denny’s gonna be mad at you. He worked very hard to stop the bleeding.” Vali looked at Jonas, whose face had no trace of the anger from before. “I would be mad at you too, if you had spilled the food instead of the water. I’ll go get the bottle refilled.” He grabbed the bottle and headed for the exit, leaving Vali to stare at his hands in silence.

It dawned on Vali how serious his injuries were. He hadn’t moved his other arm once ever since he woke up. He could barely feel anything besides pain in his left arm. He tried to move something, anything, even a twitch from a finger would be fine. The heavily bandaged arm didn’t react. His control over the arm was gone below the bicep. A limb, completely useless now. Vali grit his teeth and forced himself to his feet, his tired muscles protesting the action. The bandaged arm dangled on his side. He looked at the limb with a terrified expression, questions whose answers he feared coming to his mind. How long would it take to heal? Would it heal? What about infections? Would he have to cut it off? Was he going to be a cripple now? Could he even survive here with one hand?

He forced his eyes away from it, focusing instead on the other arm. It was unscathed minus the hand part. The bandages covering it made it impossible to tell the extent of the damage, but being able to move it, albeit with a lot of pain, was enough for Vali. ‘Good.’ Bits of hope crept back into his mind. ‘I can still manage myself with one arm.’ He took a shaky breath, attempting to calm himself. ‘I will use my teeth if I have to. I’m not dying here.’

As he was now standing up, Vali could see outside through the broken windows of the wagon he was inside of. He saw four familiar faces, the people he fought the wolf with, arguing heatedly some distance away from the wagon. Jonas stood against the other three, a pained expression on his face. Whatever he was saying was making the others quite mad, so much so that they raised their voices quite a lot. People were staring at them. Vali couldn’t make out what they were talking about, their words didn’t carry to where he was without losing their coherence. He only heard noise.

Vali chose to ignore them, and instead decided to focus on something else that was on his mind. A little blue screen he barely remembered seeing before passing out. The word ‘Status,’ flashed across his mind, and the thought was answered by a screen manifesting right in front of his eyes without any sound.

Name: Vali Hemming Title: None Race: Human Level: 3 Experience: 38% Class: 1% Health 328/840 0.7 Regen/h. 0.6 Regen/h Stamina 478/2000 7 Regen/m. 6 Regen/m Mana 6/21 2 Regen/h. Unused Stat Points: 12 Strength: 14 Intelligence: 2 Constitution: 12 Agility: 6

“Still works. Jesus.” He looked at the screen in wonder. He pushed a bandaged arm through the screen, and it passed through it harmlessly. He couldn’t feel a thing from the screen, but he wasn’t sure if it was because of the bandages, the blood loss, the starvation, or a combination of all. ‘Am I in an asylum cell, dreaming all this shit up?’ The screen being real instead of a figment of his imagination somehow scared Vali more. But he had no choice but to accept what he was seeing, at least for now.

He slowly went through all the information the screen presented to him, taking his time trying to digest even the smallest detail. All the vagueness aside, the Health stat and the Regen attached next to it were what piqued his interest the most. ‘I lost less than two-thirds of my health from that? It doesn’t seem accurate… Why are my regens red and crossed out? Also, with a rough estimation… hmm… It would take me more than a month to heal to full health?’ Vali questioned the accuracy of the screen. ‘Constitution, huh? If it works like a game… would it fix my arm?’ A hope. He wanted to put some points into it. But before he could even think about how it could be done, Jonas came back.

“Wow, you’ve managed to get up already? How are you feeling?” Jonas asked, holding a refilled water bottle.

Vali visibly flinched, the status screen taking up his vision made him miss Jonas’s approach. “I’ll know how I’m feeling when I learn the exchange rate of levels to functioning arms, I guess.” He tried to remember how to dismiss the screen, and it was gone out of his sight in an instant. ‘Still feels trippy.’

Jonas made a ‘hmm’ sound as he walked up to Vali. “We have a lot to talk about, but first,” He uncorked the bottle again, and shoved it into Vali’s mouth. “Don’t you dare spill it this time.” He said with a sly smirk, ignoring the angry face Vali was making. “Your lips look dry as hell, did you not drink from the river?” Vali managed to still look angry as he drank from the bottle heartily with big gulps. After draining half of the bottle, he showed it away, this time gently, with the back of his hand.

“What happened after I passed out?” Vali ignored his question as he asked his own. The words were already starting to come out smoother thanks to the water.

“Short answer is, we went to get the rest of our group. Long answer is, we went to get the rest of our group, but also fuck you.” Jonas sat back opposite to where Vali was standing up. “Before exploring the forest we split into groups of five and spread a bit to cover more ground. It took only a few minutes of hectic running and shouting to find the others. When we got back, the wolf was already dead, and you…” He trailed off, and his hand rose to his eyes, covering them. He continued, voice a bit shakier than before. “Seeing you like that, I… I thought you were dead.”

Vali watched the man in silence with no emotion on his face. “I did too.” He quietly said.

“In hindsight, I should’ve at least tried to drag you with us.” He sighed. “At least you’re alive.”

“No, you shouldn’t have. That wolf was way too fast, dumbass. And I had no energy to run away.” He retorted. “Wait,” Vali suddenly came to a realization. “Split into… groups of five?” He didn’t forget who he had fought with. There was no fifth person, not unless he counted himself.

Jonas looked away, his response quiet. “We didn’t see the wolf until… It attacked us first. He died before we realized what was happening.”

“Oh… I think I met him when I stared down into the wolf’s gullet.” Jonas didn’t laugh at Vali’s joke.

“You manage to find your left arm in there too?” Jonas spat out. “Should’ve left you sleeping with the wolf.”

“Touché.” Vali shrugged, not minding the jab. “Too soon?”

Fingers massaging the bridge of his nose, Jonas continued. “I should beat your ass when I have the chance.” He went to grab the tray. “We can talk after you fill your stomach. We have… a lot of things we need to talk about.” Jonas raised a spoon filled with stale-looking rice. “But for now… Here comes the plane!”

“You…!” Vali swallowed the rest of his words. He stared down at the spoon with obvious anger, but after a second he begrudgingly bit down. ‘Just you wait, asshole.’