Yeoman never truly appreciated showers until now. He used to hate taking them as a kid. His mom would always hog it, and by the time she was done, there wasn’t any hot water left. Luckily, that hadn’t been a problem in a long time. When Yeoman was done showering, he put on some clothes and sat in front of his computer. There was a popular forum that called itself the front page of the internet, and it was exploding with news about the alien abduction. Of course, it wasn’t referred to as an alien abduction, much to Yeoman’s surprise. He shook his head, not bothering to post his thoughts. The facts were obvious, but people just had a deep-rooted skepticism when it came to aliens.

Judging by the titles of the posts, it seemed like everyone had received the same mission. Yeoman clicked on the first entry; it was about someone’s experience in the world of A Rational Zombie. Within the post, there was a poll asking how far everyone got in their missions. To see the results, Yeoman had to answer it himself. He checked the last box which indicated he had completed all the missions. Once he submitted his answer, the results of the poll were revealed. Around eighty percent of the poll takers hadn’t even managed to survive for seven days. Only five percent of the poll takers killed ten infected. Surprisingly, Yeoman’s submission was the only one claiming to have killed the smart infected. He found that pretty odd. The smart infected was a monster, and killing it required tremendous amounts of luck, but people on the internet were liars. There were bound to be trolls who clicked the last answer.

A few seconds later, Yeoman found out why there weren’t any liars. He received a private message from the creator of the poll asking if he had proof of completion. Yeoman frowned. What kind of proof did this person want when all items and results were stored on the alien spaceship? Whatever. Yeoman shook his head and ignored the message. He wasn’t going to waste his time for something with no gain; he had already gotten what he wanted, the results of the poll. When he tabbed back into the post and refreshed it, his submission was gone. Yeoman ignored it and scrolled down, sorting the comments by popularity. The first one was written by someone who claimed to have fought the smart infected and, obviously, lost. Dozens of people were chiming in, and after reading their experiences about the brick-throwing monster that killed people in one hit, he realized how lucky he had gotten.

The second most popular comment was about someone’s experience in exploring the world. The moment the stage started, the commenter took the water from the cabin and ran away. It took him several days of traveling, but he made it to the Ranger Station where he met Bern, an old man who was a semi-significant character in the story. The old man took him in and gave him jerky, but he spent the remainder of his time in quarantine. This comment caused a wave of speculation. What if the next stage wasn’t A Rational Zombie? What if it was a different story? Could they seek out the main characters to help them stay alive?

Yeoman looked through a few more comments before returning back to the homepage. Overall, the world seemed to be in a positive place despite the abductions. People were excited. To a lot of the younger generation, it was like a game they could play where they had an advantage over the older generation unlike in reality where the older ones had already monopolized the housing markets and twisted the education sector into a money-milking machine. Of course, there were also the doomsayers saying it was the end of the world.

One post in particular caught Yeoman’s eye—it was a video of an Indian person with four arms. He or she claimed to be the reincarnation of Shiva. The left half of the person’s body was that of a woman’s while the other half was that of a man’s. The womanly side had peach-colored skin, and the manly side had a light-blue hue. Yeoman furrowed his brow. The person must’ve spent a thousand points on an extra pair of arms, and then more points to modify his or her skin color and gender. Yeoman thought it was a bit blasphemous to copy the depiction of a god, but judging by the internet’s reception to the post, the majority of the people on the forum thought it was super cool.

Yeoman sighed and leaned back in his chair. Just what was happening to the world? As more and more stages went by, people would obtain more and more points. Perhaps mermen or centaurs or more Hindu gods would appear. An entertaining thought bounced around in Yeoman’s head: what if this happened to people in the past? What if the gods and monsters depicted in myths and legends were just normal people who had been abducted by aliens? Yeoman shook his head and leaned further back. A spider walking across his ceiling caught his eye. It wasn’t particularly big, but with his improved eyesight from optimizing his body, he noticed something odd about it. The spider had a slit along its back; it reminded him of a beetle’s wings. Dread filled Yeoman’s body, and his stomach felt heavy. Had aliens abducted spiders too, gave them a chance to change their bodies as well? If spiders could fly, he’d probably shit his pants the moment one flew towards him.

Yeoman zoomed in on the spider with his phone and snapped a picture before uploading it to the front page of the internet with the caption, “Anyone have a flame thrower? This spider has wings.” Surprisingly, his post wasn’t buried. Usually, whenever he submitted something, it would be lost in the sea of content. It was the first time one of his submissions rocketed to the top. The unsettling thing was nearly all the comments were identical, consisting of a prayer emoji next to a tombstone emoji. There were a few people trying to be serious, commenting their theories about animals receiving points as well, but they were drowned out by the emoji crowd. It reaffirmed Yeoman’s belief that democracy was a mistake.

Yeoman shook his head. Now wasn’t the time to worry about the state of the government or flying spiders—even though flying spiders were a serious cause for concern. He had to learn some survival skills for the next stage. He couldn’t rely on Ella to provide him food forever, and he didn’t want Cody to be the sole builder—he wanted a bigger mud hut. Also, there was one important skill he was lacking. He had no idea how to fight. He couldn’t rely on his opponents being slower and dumber than him all the time. What if someone was going for the five hundred points via Proofs of Murder and tried to kill him? Even with his increased strength, he could die if he got stabbed. Yeoman nodded. He’d have to find a dojo of sorts, one that taught him how to fight with weapons. As for fighting barehanded, he put that thought away; he was a human, not an animal.

After browsing through a review app, Yeoman found a problem. All the dojos weren’t accepting any more people. It seemed like he wasn’t the only one who thought about training. With a sigh, Yeoman increased the scope of his search to include barehanded martial arts and was once again met with disappointment. All of the places that didn’t have a notice stating they wouldn’t be taking in any more students didn’t answer their phones. Yeoman frowned. It’d probably take a few days for the hype to settle down. In the meantime, he could browse some video-streaming sites about surviving in the wilderness. Luckily, there was a post on the front page of the internet in line with his thinking; someone had compiled a list of videos for survival in all situations.

There were videos about setting traps to catch game, using tarps and cloth to collect water, fishing guides involving spears, bows, and traps. He even saw one video of someone fishing with a branch like Ella had been doing. There were also word guides on how to survive in extreme climates like the Arctic and the Sahara Desert. Yeoman didn’t think they were necessary, but when the post pointed out that world-renowned author Virlyce wrote a reverse transported-to-another-world novel, Yeoman felt like he should give those guides a fair chance. He also couldn’t help but curse Virlyce in his heart. Why couldn’t that author stick with one consistent book series? Didn’t he know how to capitalize on a book’s popularity? What was he doing always starting a new series when fans were waiting for something else?

Yeoman sighed and forgot about cursing the author. Perhaps there was a reason why the aliens chose Virlyce’s stories as the setting for their stage. Maybe it had to do with how famous the author was; everyone had read his stories or seen them in a movie form. Or it could have something to do with copyright, and Virlyce was the only author willing to let the aliens use his intellectual property. Who knows, maybe they’d be thrust into another famous work of fiction by a different author next time.

Regardless of the case, Yeoman realized he had a lot of work to do. He also realized why Ella implied he was stupid when he said he chose gorilla and chimpanzee muscles. What was the most important thing when it came to survival? Was it fighting? Hell no! It was finding food and water. How were gorilla muscles going to help him with that? If he had saved his points, it wouldn’t take too long for him to have gotten bat wings. It was much easier to spot a river from the sky than it was on land. He could’ve gotten a dog’s nose or a cat’s eyes. In fact, if he got an owl’s head, he could’ve had superior eyesight and hearing. No wonder why there were so many ancient depictions of Egyptian gods with bird heads. Yeoman could only hope the missions continued assigning things for him to kill; it wouldn’t feel like a waste of his points if that were the case. However, he had to learn how to fight, but every place was booked.

At his job, when he couldn’t resolve an issue, he’d search the internet first. When that failed, he’d ask around. Sadly, Yeoman didn’t have many friends. In fact, it’d be more accurate to say he didn’t have any friends. It was hard making friends as an adult, and the people closest to him could only be called acquaintances. It was a good thing there were three new numbers added to his phone today. He sent Cody, Ella, and Gordan a text, asking them what they were going to do about training. It didn’t take long for him to receive a response.

“My parents forced me to take martial arts as a child. I’m already a blackbelt. For now, I’m going to train my archery some more.”

“Training? You think I have time for that? You see me working in that cart every day! Do you think I’m doing it for fun? I have a family to support.”

“I’ve already organized a training session for my followers. If you don’t have any other plans, you should join too.”

Of the three people Yeoman had asked, he didn’t expect Gordan to be the one offering solutions. He tried to convince Cody to come, but Cody, as he so eloquently put it, refused to work with a snobbish bastard. As for Ella, Yeoman offered to pay her, but she was too prideful to accept his money. Yeoman shrugged and texted Gordan, saying he’d be the only one attending. It wasn’t his responsibility to watch over Cody and Ella; after all, those two were far more capable than him. It was only luck that put him on top of both of them in terms of points. After a moment of thinking, Yeoman texted his mom, but she refused to attend the training as well. He asked her how many points she had obtained, but she told him to mind his own business, which Yeoman interpreted as her dying shortly after the stage begun.

Yeoman’s doorbell rang, and he made sure his bathrobe was closed before opening the door. A delivery man was standing outside, holding two boxes of pizza. The pizza brand that was named after a toy had a very nice deal on medium pizzas, so Yeoman always ordered two at a time. Yeoman tipped the deliverer, and his stomach let out a loud growl the moment he placed the boxes down on his kitchen counter. Two pizzas were usually enough to last him three days, but after he ate his first slice, he found that he couldn’t stop. His hunger only subsided once he had finished both boxes. At first, Yeoman thought he might’ve mistakenly used the HZF Gene and turned himself into a hungry zombie, but then he realized with the addition of two more muscle layers, his caloric requirement must’ve drastically increased. Yeoman’s brow furrowed, and he went to his bathroom. There was a scale in there. He was a bit hesitant to weigh himself, but after a moment, he stepped on top of the glass square. His eyes bulged. Before, he weighed close to two hundred pounds, but now he weighed three hundred!

No wonder why Ella had called him a moron! It wasn’t just about the fact gorilla muscles weren’t useful to survival. It was about the caloric increase! He’d have to eat much more than just a few fish a day if he wanted to maintain his weight. Yeoman felt a headache brewing. If he could redo his decision, he definitely would. It was just after seven days of barely getting enough sleep and food along with the near-death experience he suffered, he wasn’t thinking straight in that little dimension. Yeoman sighed and shook his head before going to bed. Whenever he encountered a problem, the best solution was to sleep it off. When he woke up, he could find a better answer since he had rested, or maybe the problem would’ve resolved itself in his sleep—the best-case scenario.