The alarm rung, a repetitive beep straight in his mind, and Ricardo woke up with a post-crying headache.

Back when he was a teenager, he had hated waking up early. Only Ashley's death had changed that, as the sheer hatred and determination had made him sleep late and wake up early to get a head start on his sworn enemy. Even to date, Ricardo was sure that the few hours he had gained on the murderer every day had made a difference in the end. He had grown and made connections too fast while the playboy had fun.

Ricardo had a new sworn enemy today, the mind eater, but last night had been sobering, and he just looked at the ceiling for a while. His body hurt from sleeping on the hard ground. It was even worse because instead of keeping in a sitting position, he had laid sideways during the night. It was hurting less than he thought it should though, probably because of qi.

His shelter was as hot as a furnace again, and he wondered how long his food could last in such an environment. He took two packs of instant noodles from his storage and ate them raw to avoid wasting water. It felt like the pans he had taken from the market were looking at him mockingly. He drank some water next and stood outside.

It was a little before six AM, and the sun had just risen on the horizon, creating a beautiful sight.

His stump was almost fully healed, though the skin was still too thin to withstand pressure. His foot was hurting just a little. He was still shoeless and adjusted his toes now and then. The healing was mostly done too, and the toes were only slightly crooked. He tentatively put his weight on the foot and had no trouble standing straight.

Last night, he had wondered about his Hunter instincts. What he had felt from it and even his essences all but told him that his class and the instincts that came with it were the best tools he had to survive the apocalypse. He would do well to listen to it as much as he could.

Part of him didn't want to do well. Even now, he felt catatonic. But he pushed through.

His bottled feelings were getting in the way of listening to his class. In fact, it was almost the perfect counter to all the help his class could give him. He had felt so damn peaceful after contemplating nature and his place in the universe, yet it had all gone to waste so quickly. As if losing a hand and blowing up his stump wasn't enough, that was further proof that his actions were self-destructive.

Shoving feelings to the back of his mind to shut them up wasn't working in the apocalypse as it had worked for most of his life. So, to listen to his class, he had to solve his personal issues.

Unfortunately, that couldn't be done in a single day. Fortunately, he believed he had a solution.

He believed the Mind-Cleansing Meditation would be enough to help him reconnect with his class now and then. It would be like forcing his feelings down for a brief time. As long as he reserved some time every day to sort his feelings, it should be fine to bottle them up temporarily.

As if telling him he was on the right path, his Hunter instincts came back and told him that was almost a wise kind of balance. He had to "fix" himself, but he couldn't let go of his responsibilities for that, so a compromise was needed. His survival and that of his entire species depended on him.

Ricardo sat to meditate for a while, basking in the emptiness brought by the skill. He realized that now that he had a skill, getting in a meditative state was much easier. The system had said nothing about it, but it was clear that skills were more than just the system telling him something he did was recognized as a skill. He wasn't sure how it worked, as was so common when it came to the system, but he was confident he shouldn't be able to clear his mind that easily after truly meditating only once.

Feelings and thoughts came. He observed detachedly. They went away.

Qi was all around him. Parts of him wondered what qi actually was. Those parts went silently eventually.

He was just an observer of his mind.

When he opened his eyes, the world felt clearer, sharper. He also smiled when he realized he could feel his Hunter instincts better: they were almost screaming for him to cover himself with the alligator hide before he got blisters on his skin. His torn clothes were mere rags that didn't cover him well.

He covered himself, checked his toes again, then stood up to check his surroundings. Today would be a day of observing his prey, as his instincts had already told him he should do. Hunts started with acquiring knowledge, not attacking recklessly.

So he observed.

At seven AM, the same fish from the first day jumped over his bridge again. No bird came to eat them; they had learned their lesson.

At eight AM, he saw hundreds of tamarins with no apparent mutations walking the streets. The city was known for having them at many parks or even moving on the light posts' wires. They sorted through concrete debris and ate anything interesting they found. A large group of them went straight for the demolished supermarket Ricardo had first visited. They ignored the canned food they found and just threw it away, but they ripped apart and ate from any transparent package or plastic packages with pictures of food.

They left at eleven AM, replaced by an enormous flock of thousands of birds that came down to eat insects. Most of them landed on the grass on the river and pecked around it to find food. Ricardo feared they might come for him, but they only glanced disinterestedly his way.

As the day progressed, he also saw the mutated capybaras, an enormous pack of mutated dogs, a smaller pack of mutated cats, a fish swarm, the gargoyles, and even a silhouette that looked like a giant flying turtle at the distance.

The world moved, and the Hunter observed.

Ricardo closed his eyes now and then to feel qi and move it through his body — he didn't try to push it out of his body though. The skills percentages never went up.

He also thought about his past to sort through his feelings whenever he was too bored. He was surprised when introspection made him realize his loneliness had started when he was eight, before his father struck rich and his family could barely eat. One day, his mother had decided she had had enough of living in misery in the US and brought him to Brazil, hidden from his father, to whom she hadn't even talked about divorce. Ricardo's sisters had stayed behind, and he found himself in a strange country with a strange culture and strange people. He barely spoke Portuguese and the kids made fun of him for his difficulty in communicating.

Even more surprising was seeing that that was also when his anger had been born. He hadn't taken the insults lightly. Frustrated, scared, and alone, he beat the shit out of the kids. They learned their place soon enough.

Ricardo had forgotten about that completely, and he would be willing to bet his remaining hand that remembering it had something to do with his essences.

And he was glad for that.

He didn't think it was worth it for the whole damn world to end and for him to lose a hand to face his past issues, but it did feel good to see where it had all started. How he had come to be who he was. What had molded him into the man he had become.

He was twelve when they returned to the US, and he had hated his mother for the better part of his teenage years. It would even have spilled into his adulthood if it weren't for her. Ashley. She had pushed him into making peace with the woman who made his childhood pure shit.

And that was enough for that day. He didn't want to risk losing himself in the past and lose connection with his class.

The rat swarm appeared three times that day too, but not close enough to care about him.

The most important things he learned were the beasts' habits. They mostly kept their pre-evolution mentality, but the mutations also interfered. The seemingly non-mutated tamarins had acted like common animals, except maybe for increased intelligence in sorting through the market's debris in search of food. The mutated capybaras had fought among themselves brutally and ate the corpses of their fallen.

That told a lot to his Hunter instincts. The animals had evolved, and many become big out of nowhere. That had created a need for nourishment that hadn't been met, an environmental imbalance. Even most of the food made by humans that they might have eaten was buried. The markets only had so much food and it would be gone in a few days at most, some of it just spoiled as there was no power to refrigerate anything. The lack of fresh storage room would also contribute to making things rot.

So, probably within the week, or in a couple of weeks at the latest, there would be carnage.

The beasts would be aggressive, full of power, and starving. They would go on a rampage for a few days until a new balance was found. He had to pay attention to the signs and make sure he was at his bridge then.

He also had to have metal planks on both sides of his bridge in case powerful beasts or entire packs came to his bridge from one side, and he needed to run away to the other. He could fight a few beasts, but he wouldn't make the same mistake of overestimating himself again.

But more importantly, he had to build traps.

A Hunter didn't fight fair. When they attacked, it was from a vantage point, and they aimed to kill in a single hit. Traps and ambushes were preferred over risky and needless long fights. Even if the prey was too powerful or numerous to be trapped or killed in a single hit, and thus a fight was inevitable, a Hunter chose the time and place of the fight well. Ideally, even imperfect traps would have at least weakened the prey first too.

His instincts also told him he should have known better than to look for supplies before he was satisfied with his fighting capabilities — not to mention looking for fights before he had secured a better weapon or a shield. That had been outright stupid. A rival company might be on their last legs, but you didn't try to destroy them unless you were sure you had the resources for it and could deal with the backslash. Likewise, one didn't face beasts with subpar weaponry no matter if it was the right moment.

The right moment became the wrong one if you didn't have the tools to take advantage of it.

A wrench was no weapon. He had been lucky to survive his encounters against the capypard and the hound. No more though. He would get himself a proper weapon before anything else, and he knew exactly which one he wanted and where to find it: a fire ax at the fire station.

He had wondered before whether Brazilian firefighters had axes, and now was the time to find out. He couldn't think of any better weapon for a one-handed man to wield, except for firearms, but those weren't an option.

Ricardo would still keep his eyes open for spear-like metal scraps anyway. He could keep the ax on him and try to use the spear to poke his enemies to death first. As long as the prey mobility was limited, that might work, and it was much safer than fighting in a closer range. He couldn't freely move a spear around with a single hand, but poking was possible.

He wasn't so sure about shields anymore. Even if he found one, he would have to strap the shield to his stump, which might affect his mobility. He would have to contemplate the decision when he found the damn shield.

When night came, he checked his toes one last time, thought about his past, and went to sleep.

Ricardo woke up sweating cold and feeling absolute fear. He immediately identified what it meant: the mind eater was nearby once again.

He sat from where he had laid once more and held a piece of concrete firmly, waiting for an echo to appear. Meanwhile, he focused on his answer for mind manipulation:

Ashley, her murderer, Ashley, her murderer, Ashley, her murderer.

His breath quickened as sadness and rage clashed inside him. He sweated cold. And suddenly, he was sitting on his desk in his dorm room. Someone knocked on the door.

"Rick?" Ashley yelled from the outside.

Breathing even more quickly now, he stood up. He clenched his concrete-shaped pencil case hard. He walked kneeling to the door because his room's ceiling was so low. He opened the door and stood up.

Ashley was standing in front of him, only she was in her snake-like form today.

He bashed her head without a second thought.

This time, he dodged the silver blood that came his way, then bashed the echo only two more times to make sure it was dead. That was enough for the system to give him 5 XP, making him reach 23,315 total.

Ricardo dropped the piece of concrete, pushed the echo's corpse on the river, and sat down, hugging his knees.

He had heard her voice again, and it brought the crushing loneliness back.

He only gave himself a few minutes to recover though. The mind eater might be close. It was still 3 AM too, and he hadn't observed the nocturne beasts yet, so there might be other dangers around.

As if hearing his thoughts, as soon as he stood up, he saw a bright electric blue light appear on the riverbank in the distance. It was moving quick his way. Before he even thought about running to his shelter, it had already moved half the distance. When he made a single step toward safety, it passed by his bridge.

Glad to be ignored, Ricardo turned his head to see what the light was. It looked like a solid ball of blue energy moving faster than a car. An alligator was eating a capybara on the riverbank, and the ball passed right through them. Both beasts' upper halves were removed as if cut by laser and simply disappeared into the light. The capybara was already dead, and the reptile also died instantly. The light kept moving as if it hadn't even noticed what it had done.

Ricardo held his breath. He had found his savior, and it terrified him.