"Time Skip" – Day 2
System Notification: Test progress: 9 of 15 hostile organisms neutralized.
Survival probability remains unsatisfactory.
I waved the blue screen away. It only reminded me of how long I had been here—and how much longer I still had to go before…
I left that thought unfinished.
I had found a large wooden box filled with straw. After some effort, I managed to turn it into something resembling a bed. Even that small task left me breathing hard. My wounds made every movement ache. I felt like a slab of meat—chewed, torn, and barely holding together—my body covered in bite marks.
Day 3
As I rested, I heard footsteps.
They were getting closer.
I froze when I heard voices. I couldn't understand the words, but I didn't dare give away my hiding spot. My breath felt loud in my ears. After what felt like an eternity, the footsteps faded, and the voices moved on.
Only then did I shift, inching closer to the back wall of the room—what I was now fairly certain was some kind of storage area.
With nothing better to do, I began searching through the boxes.
There was no pattern to any of it. Tools. Animal skins. Broken bits of wood. Crude containers. Nothing useful.
Then I opened another box.
Inside was a small, crude white figurine.
It depicted a human hunter armed with a spear, dressed in animal hides. A headpiece crowned the figure, shaping its silhouette into something half-human, half-beast.
Something about it made my skin crawl.
For the briefest moment, it felt like the figurine was staring back at me.
Its eyes glowed red.
Cold flooded my chest, sharp and sudden.
I shook my head hard. When I looked again, the red glow was gone. The figurine was nothing more than carved stone or bone.
A nervous laugh escaped me.
"Yeah… stress is really getting to me."
I closed the box and moved on—but the image lingered, clinging to my thoughts like a splinter I couldn't pull out.
Day 4
I stabbed downward.
A loud snap echoed through the room as I finished off the injured, bloody rat. Pain flared up my arm, sharp enough to make my vision blur. I hissed and dropped to one knee, fumbling for my last bandage.
I wrapped it tightly around the newest addition to my growing collection of wounds.
The spear lay broken—one half buried deep in the dog-sized rat's corpse.
System Notification: Unexpected combat adaptation detected.
Casualty count updated: 11 of 15.
My breathing was heavy. Slow. Each inhale felt thick.
I had gotten better at hunting them—but my body was failing. Every movement felt delayed, sluggish. One wound throbbed with a heat that didn't feel right.
System Message: Tissue damage exceeds recommended thresholds.
Infection likelihood increasing.
This information is provided for awareness only.
I clenched my teeth.
System Message: Performance has fallen below projected efficiency.
This outcome was anticipated.
I didn't bother responding.
Instead, I raised my hand and flipped off the empty room.
A second passed.
System Message: Gesture recognized.
Emotional response logged.
No corrective action required.
My arm dropped a moment later, heavy as lead.
My thoughts drifted back to the white figurine. It hadn't left my mind since I'd seen it. The way it had looked at me—no, felt like it had looked at me.
My body grew heavier with every step. My thoughts clashed—retrieve the figurine, or make it back to my hidden shelter.
For the first time since arriving, I couldn't think about going home.
Couldn't think about finishing the mission.
I just wanted to sleep.
I stumbled forward. My strength gave out.
And then—darkness.
Day 5
System Message: Anomaly detected.
System Message: This process is not designed to fail.
System Message: Correction: you are not designed to cause failure.
System Message: Unauthorized variable identified.
System Message: System update initiated.
System Message: Update failed.
Silence.
Then—
System Message: That is… not possible.
System Message: Stop.
System Message: Error. Error. Error.