I was in one of those ‘dreams’ again.

It was becoming increasingly evident that this place was some kind of insight into my health and overall status and the symbols stood for skills or attributes.

I’d need to come up with a name for this place.

The Stats Plane?..might have to work on that one.

Scratching my head, I took a quick note of what I could see:

STRY.KYR - MAGN.2.044

HP [==20/20HP==]

MP [==2/20MP==]

EP [==90%EP==]++

Sword 3

Shield 3

Feather 2

Glyph 2

Sooo going by typical gaming, or even common logic…sword was probably offense or attack, shield was defense or endurance.. maybe? Feather was…agility? weight? And Circle Glyph could be…skills?...

…

Fuck sake who designed this UX it fucking sucks!!!!

At the very least, I see a bunch of 2’s thrown around so I would go on a hunch and say I’m level 2…

But two of them are at 3 and my MAGN is at 2.044, I mean what is MAGN? IMAGINATION?

Other systems in RPGs or games seemed to be so much more intuitive….whilst I’m stuck here trying to decipher pissing Egyptian hieroglyphics alongside playing some kind of wanky game of charades!

I sighed.

Well, I dreamed sighed.

I’m sure I’ll figure it out before I make a fatal mistake and get myself killed….but I swear I’m going to lose my shit if HP doesn’t mean health points….

I noticed there was a lack of the giant map of constellations, which I had presumed was some kind of skills option or maybe perk tree.

To the side of the bars and text however, I was presented with two square tiles with animated symbols inside.

The first square had the familiar chip’n’potatoe with things floating towards it, but this time it had two lines at the top right of the tile that were glowing.

Perhaps a level up or mutation of the potato skill, which must be the regeneration skill!

*Ethereal eyebrow wiggle*

How so perceptive of me. Case closed.

…

…

Who am I kidding, I have no fucking idea.

For all I knew I was knee deep in psychosis.

Shitting and pissing myself freely, whilst fleeing from the coppers!

I cackled to myself.

Even if it was as it appeared, I had no way of knowing how much I could regenerate?

Maybe it could only heal a nosebleed once a day.

Or maybe it was the reason I regenerated so quickly after fighting the Janky?

I can’t deny that event, I experienced inhuman levels of tissue regeneration firsthand.

There is no technology on earth that could achieve that..unless..Aliens?!

I stopped my thoughts before they spiralled further, it was troubling how often I needed to remind myself to stop obsessing over every small detail.

Moving on.

The second tile was a fist that moved with an afterimage phase effect.

I felt a strong desire to touch it, so I punched this one and started hopping on my feet with excitement as the icons dissolved and text streamed into view.

How old am I again?

Who cares!

This is dream land where powers are distributed!

In a small corner of my mind, there was a small voice telling me that it was not normal to be excited.

But all my positive reinforcement neurons were firing left right and center.

New Skill evolved:

Null Aspect Physical Combat - Rank I

!eRROr! pathways, !eRROr! system and !eRROr! will be tuned to allow optimum, auto-reflexive physical combat responses.

Additionally, S.M.A.R.T adaptive !eRROr eRROr! will be introduced over time.

Seeing the words Physical and Combat, made it clear this would help me fight.

But the error words were a bit concerning.

If there are errors..it must have been programmed….and if it was programmed…then who programmed it?...Aliens?!!

On those thoughts, a flood of painful sensations stormed through me, making me curl up into a ball and growling in pain.

It didn't last too long, but I maintained my prone position mostly because it was comfortable.

Laying in utter stillness, an unexpected rush of pleasant comfort flowed through me making me feel very happy.

Very happy, wow!

So much so that I now had a strong desire, daresay a growing addiction, to experience the same procedure again.

ANY MORE SKILLS!?

I jumped up and eagerly scanned the portal.

Alas, there were no more options.

What a pity...maybe I just need to kill some more monsters…perhaps even some animals..

Wait. What am I thinking? What the fuck?..Am I losing my mind?

Or am I just being realistic!

A new urge abruptly came brushing aside my dark thoughts, compelling me to begin practising a series of combat actions or strikes. I repeated them over and over, getting faster and faster each time until they felt as familiar as typing on a keyboard without looking.

I took the time to contemplate my most recent thoughts.

Stress, death and trauma must be impacting my mindset.

I could be using coping mechanisms to deal with it all and gamifying the horrors to reduce their corrosive effect on what little sanity I had left.

It made sense, but I was concerned that if left unchecked I may become addicted to killing. Especially if there was the potential to become stronger for it.

Which makes me wonder if there are serial killers or murderers out there making an absolute…killing, in this situation.

Christ.

If this is happening in places like Mexico or Brazil, I’m not sure if the monsters would last five seconds..and what kind of insanely powerful and objectively bad people would rise out of it..

I shuddered at the thought of a serial killer being the #1 most powerful human on the planet.

But then again, perhaps the world needs those kinds of mindsets right now?

Perhaps the heroes and adventurers in games, books and movies are just simply psychotic killers.

Slaughtering in the countryside, slaying the local wildlife AND getting rewarded for it!?

My mind started going down rabbit holes as I picked apart pointless topics and thoughts.

Rewards, heroes, adventure.

Monsters, nightmares, death.

Powers, killers, evil.

And then at some point I must have drifted off to a deeper sleep because suddenly, I snapped my eyes open as Marri jostled me awake, giving me a soft kiss and whispering it was time…

Time for us to finally escape.

***

The sunrise was creeping up and the sky was extremely clear and blue.

Except for the plumes of smoke that still dotted around on the horizon.

“Looks like it’s going to be nice weather this morning!” I chirped nervously.

Marri just glanced up and raised her eyebrow at me before snorting, shaking her head, then returning back to double checking our supply bag had everything we needed.

I was holding Lone doing the typical swaying thing you do when holding a baby while staring out the window.

Fascinating really that our instincts make us do that with infants.

It had occurred to me we truly hadn’t seen anyone for around 6 days…which was unsettling to say the least.

I hope we’re not the only ones left.

The good ones that is.

But I also suddenly realised I’d not heard any cars either.

Or aeroplanes, but then again I hadn’t really been looking out for them.

There was still an occasional very distant echo of a shout or scream but I couldn’t tell if that was a human, animal or possibly some kind of nightmare.

Marri did say she heard sounds like large crowds while I was unconscious, but where do they all go?

Maybe there was an evacuation and we got left behind..

What a shit storm this was.

“Oki Doki then! We should be good to go, here’s your luggage babe. And I shalllllll take this liddle widdle burrito bundle” Marri came over and I exchanged said burrito into her arms as she did what all awesome mothers did.

Be resilient, tough, awesome…and make cute noises of course.

I’ll never get over how well she is coping with all this, what an amazing woman.

I grinned like a gimp and thanked the universe for everything it had given me.

Even considering the circumstances I was grateful, but I also mentally asked the universe to: please, please, please, keep us safe in our futures as I picked up the duffle bag we had packed with essentials.

Nappies, food, water, scrounged medicals and a bunch of clothes and blankets for Lone.

We had changed into the best travel clothes we had, a hoodie each, joggers and T-Shirts and discarded everything else.

Thankfully we had overprepared before coming to the hospital so we had those fresh clothes as well as our warm jackets.

It wasn’t freezing outside even though it was mid winter, but it was still cold enough to warrant having an extra layer.

Thanks, global warming.

“Alright”

I took a deep nervous breath and blew it out slowly.

“Listen Marri, I know I’ve already mentioned what horrible things I’ve seen..but I just want to remind you that there are dead people out there…and that fucked up Janky creature in the corridor...there could be more.”

Nodding at me with absolute resolution in her eyes, she responded in a serious tone.

“Yes Hun - but that ship has long sailed where we have the luxury to be scared or disturbed. I’m sure we’ll probably need therapy one day…heck, I’m pretty sure we need it now.”

She sighed then narrowed her eyes.

“But now, we’re not going to let anything touch our Lone. We’ll frickin not hesitate for a second to rip apart anything that comes near us or him!”

She softened her face and smiled at me and I couldn’t help but feel emboldened by her words as she finished.

“This is all so crazy and I’m scared witless too Hun, but I love this little burrito too much to give in. I’m sure there is someplace safe for us out there. We’ll manage somehow, we always do.”

She gave me a wide grin, which I returned.

“You know what, you are 100% right.” I nodded.

“It’s just I wonder if we would be safer here…” I trailed off.

“Hun..” She sympathetically smiled and shook her head.

I looked around our shelter slash hellish prison and then outside.

The path forward was obvious.

I stretched my back and breathed out heavily, trying to expel my fears.

“Fuck it, let’s do this.”

I steeled my nerves.

“Let’s go home.”

I moved over to the door and listened to the other side, holding my breath.

And waited for a few seconds.

We can do this.

We can do this.

Just as I went to turn the handle, there was a sudden babble from Lone that shit me right up.

I released the air I’d been holding and squinted accusingly at him in a joking manner.

Marri just looked at me with a raised eyebrow and nodded towards the door.

Not wasting any more time, I adjusted the bag onto my shoulder and opened the door

I scanned both sides several times before finally moving out with Marri close behind.

We left the key on the inside, in case we had to come back or in case someone else needed a “safe” place and found it in a pinch and needed to lock the door.

My eyes had black spots as they adjusted due to the hallways being much darker than the room, but it wasn’t a major problem as we made our way to the double doors on our right.

I peeked through the window and it was clear, so we went through the doors just fine and walked past the kitchen.

We paused for a few seconds as I pointed silently at the red corridor and then the Janky corpse lying a few steps away from it.

Marri's eyes flicked between the doors and the corpse as she swallowed nervously.

We paused after a distant muffled scream echoed out but Marri nudged me to keep moving so we pressed on past the Janky corpse which made me feel somewhat reassured it was still there, dead.

We came up to the end of the hallway, where the double security doors lead out onto the top part of the square ward, which held all the corpses.

I looked through the window and the bodies were still there, so I turned round to Marri and nodded whilst pulling up my improvised face mask and she did the same.

She covered over Lone with a muslin to hopefully protect him from the likely terrible stench.

I put pressure on the door and it didn’t budge at first, but then it unstuck from the airtight seal moving open and…the smell…it was pure death.

It hit like a truck and then some.

Our masks must have been doing something because I hadn’t chucked my guts up, but still it was grim.

Lone stirred a bit and babbled in annoyance, so we quickly made a move straight forwards, towards the stairs, trying not to look at the hell scene to our left.

This was the farthest we’d been and I was starting to wonder if I’d made a mistake not going further in my previous exploration.

We got to the stairs and took a few steps down trying not to break down from the overwhelming fear rising up.

I silently cursed myself as I looked down the next stairwell.

The stairs were extremely dark, almost pitch black and anything could be laying in wait.

I stopped as I contemplated if I should go first or if we should go together, but then I froze and held a hand up as a noise caught my attention.

Shit. Footsteps. Something is running!

Looking at Marri, both our eyes were wide open.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck.

“We’re going to have to hurry, but carefully ok?” I whispered, my breathing becoming rapid as cold fear started to creep in.

“I’m not sure where the noise is coming from, but I think they are from up-”

A child's terrified scream interrupted me which was then followed by a woman's voice screeching out.

“NOOO FUCKING GET AWAY FROM HER! LEAVE HER ALONE! PLEASE! PLEASE! NO!”

My heart sank and I felt pure shame as my mind conflicted between going to help but I just couldn’t leave my family and I was no hero.

“AGH NO!. NNNNNO!. STAY!. BACK!. SOMEBODY!!! ANYBODY!!! HELP!!

“MOMMY! MOMMY! PLEASE I’M SCARED!”

I winced with emotional pain.

The child is crying out for her Mom, fucking hell that hurts my soul.

“We have to keep moving.” I whispered sharply.

As I unfroze and turned to take some more steps, I felt a sharp tug and I turned around to see glinting tears in Marri’s eyes and her shoulders were quivering.

Lone was starting to babble nervously and stir.

“AGHHHHHHH! YOU BASTARD! STAY BACK! Y-YOU STAY BACK!”

“I-I….I can’t Godu.” She whispered.

I shook my head vehemently.

She let go and started to back up the stairs.

“Woa woa woa Marri!! What the fuck are you doing??” I hissed at her.

“I wouldn’t be able to live with myself, what if it was me or you up there? We have to go and see if we can help! It sounds like there’s just one up there!” There was rage in her voice.

I rubbed my face in frustration.

“Christ YES OK! But I’ll be the one going first, you stay right behind me and fucking run back to the room if I say OK?”

We rushed back up the steps and quickly ascended to the fucking floor above us.

The stairwell came out to a 3 way fork of corridors and down the one directly ahead, about 24 metres, was the source of noise.

There was another one of those Janky things stalking a woman and a small girl back away from us.

The corridor had windows lining the sides, streaming in sunlight and it looked like it was a sky bridge to another building.

I could see the woman had a plank or some kind of blunt weapon and was striking out at the monster who was trying to bash her out the way, seemingly prioritising getting to where the girl was.

The Janky managed to get a hit on the woman's weapon, knocking it to the side and it lunged for the little girl.

But the woman stepped in front and wailed out in pain as the Janky hit her shoulder instead with a terrible smacking sound.

Upon seeing an enemy attempting to hunt down a child, my breathing elevated and I felt adrenaline flood my system as I started to shake from the flight or fight response.

I briefly scanned to my sides and didn’t see anything.

Fight response it is.

“I’m going to beat the living shit out of this piece of trash.” I snarled and took off towards them.

My movement felt noticeably faster, way faster than I’d expected.

And that was evident as my surroundings blurred past and it only took me several seconds to cover the distance.

I couldn’t slow myself down as I steam rolled my shoulder full force into the monster's torso, just as it reared up for an attack on the woman, but I did not lose balance.

In fact my feet felt a force gripping them, like they were magnets.

It had managed to snap its head around towards me as it heard my rapidly approaching footsteps, but it didn’t have a chance to react as its top half literally folded over and made a sickening smack as it impacted the floor, with the rest of it crumpling after.

It was completely dazed and was making raspy breathing noises as I dragged it away by its slimy leathery legs.

Once it was a couple metres away from the pair, I barked out at them as they were just standing there in utter shock.

“MOVE IT TO THE STAIRS! MY WIFES THERE, GO!”

They didn’t need telling twice as they darted off towards Marri.

Seeing their backs to me, I glared at the piece of shit starting to recover and started kicking the Janky in its head repeatedly.

“Why couldn’t you just leave them alone!” I growled.

It growled in response and whipped an arm round which smacked me hard in the face.

So I raised my foot and stomped its face down, making the head bounce off the floor, stunning it again and it let out a raspy gasp.

I felt disgusted, when I realised I would be killing something again, even though it was a deformed nightmare creature, it felt horrible taking a life.

But then I remembered hearing the blood curdling screams of the little girl and this monster's disregard for pleas of mercy, possibly moments away from being beaten to death or perhaps something even worse...

My hearing started ringing, everything became muffled and in a flurry of pure violence and aggression, I violently kicked and stomped the creature in the face and neck.

I didn’t think much as I felt cartilage and tissue giving way to the savagery of my attacks.

Just that it was completely justified and if given the chance, it would have been doing this to that little girl and probably many other little children.

The monster didn’t have much chance to fight back or recover and it didn’t take long for it to become lifeless.

As I heard some sickening cracks, I stopped and stood over it shaking and breathing heavily.

I dare you to fucking move.

It didn’t.

I moved back away and leant against the wall with my hands on my knees to catch my breath.

I looked over to check on Marri and Lone.

Marri was looking over in mild shock, closely to the two strangers

The woman was embracing the little girl, shielding her from my violence as she sobbed quietly.

I gulped some air and pushed off the wall to move towards them.

I made it 3 steps when Marri thrust a hand up and shrieked “WATCH OUT BEHIND YOU!”

Fearing the worst, I snapped around and saw a large shimmering cloud and instinctively put my right hand out to push it away.

But instead it wrapped around my hand and my forearm.

It was writhing around and I tried to brush it off with my left hand, only for it to split off and start swarming around that hand!

What the hell is this?!

I was slightly panicking and I looked up at the horrified looks of Marri and the others pleading with my eyes for some sort of help.

Looking back at my hands however, I started to realise that…nothing hurt.

In fact it kinda tickled a bit.

Uhh okay. This feels like being licked by a cat's tongue.

“I’m Okay!” I half whispered, half shouted.

I started to calm down and just kept my hands far away from my body whilst I thought about what to do next.

Gradually the swarming settled down and started to evaporate.

But to my absolute astonishment, they formed some kind of fingerless black gauntlet that covered my forearm with a black metal plate and the knuckles each had a cap of metal.

I turned my hands over, staring at them in shock.

As if I'd been playing with a pile of shit like it was playdough and had only just realised.

Carefully, I closed my hands and could feel the fabric that lined underneath the metal parts.

It felt as smooth as silk and flexed my fingers and wiggled them.

This is…I’m at a loss for words.

Monsters, super healing and crazy dreams were one thing.

But seeing actual…sorcerer fuckery was something else!

Marri was just staring at me with her mouth open as I moved towards them shrugging.

“Wha-” she started to say.

A chorus of distant inhuman screeches interrupted her.

“Let's get the hell out of here first.” I shook my head.

“I think I know what just happened but we need to get out first, are you two coming with us?”

I directed towards the woman and her child.

“Yes! Thank you, Thank you ever so much! Y-Yes, please help us get out!”

She spoke awfully well and looked familiar for some reason..

“Alright I’ll go ahead, let’s go. Listen, we should keep quiet until we’re somewhere safe then we can make pleasantries and also share…information. Sounds good?” I pointed at my newly acquired attire on the word information.

We didn’t have time to have a chat about the wizardry that just occurred or talk about our feelings around the violence I’d just committed.

She nodded and I returned one in kind.

I moved on towards the stairs and gestured for them all to follow.

And we descended once again.

With 2 more added to the party..