[You have received your gift!]
Orion fell to his knees, blood seeping from his side. The adrenaline from the fight was beginning to wear off, and he was starting to feel his injuries more heavily.
But he had won. And he had received a reward. He read the message once more, confirming that he had successfully killed the Shambler, and earned his Gift. Opening his eyes, Orion saw something equally as impossible as the Moss Shambler, but infinitely more welcome.
A medallion, about the size of Orions thumb, floated infront of him. It was in the shape of a shield, with a golden rim and black centre. The middle of the medallion had the design of a skull, the right half of which was covered in thick lychen. The whole medallion glowed a soft purple, matching the light from outside.
Orion reached out shakily, touching the medallion. It burst into an array of sparkling purple lights before slowly disappearing. Orion felt something change inside of him, not necessarily painful, but still uncomfortable.
He shut his eyes, and a new message appeared.
[NAME: ORION]
[TITLE: N/A]
[GIFT: DECAY SEARCHER]
[BLESSINGS: N/A]
[PRIZES: N/A]
[CHARMS:N/A]
[VOUCHERS:N/A]
[KILLS: 1]
"…huh?"
Orion had zero idea what he was looking at. Titles? Blessings? Vouchers? He had heard of gifts before, but he still had no idea what that meant either. The only two things in this whole pop up that made sense was the kill count and his own damn name!
Orion steadied himself. He needed to learn as much as he could. It was clear there was some system he was a part of, one that reminded him of the video games he played as a child.
He tried his best to focus on different parts of the message. Unsurprisingly, nothing happened when he focused on his name, and he had the same result when focusing on his title. Nothing happened when he focused on the other sections that had been listed with
N/A.
But when he tried to focus on the gift part of the message, suddenly the letters shifted.
[GIFT: DECAY SEARCHER]
[harnessing the powers of the deadly Moss Shambler, the user of this Gift may summon forth a layer of moss onto a surface, which can act as a touch sensor.]
Orion paused for a moment before rereading the paragraph. He then reread it again, and when he finally understood, he reread it one more time.
"I have the Moss Shamblers powers?"
Orion sat and stared at the message for a long while before slowly opening his eyes. If he was understanding what he had read, he could use the same abilities that the Moss Shambler had.
Was that really possible?
Orion placed his hand on the floor, and tentatively attempted to draw on his gift. He focused on the feeling of change that he had experienced earlier, as though he was trying to draw it out of himself.
After a moment, a sort of energy pushed through Orions hand. Tendrils of moss began to appear on the ground around Orions hand.
He jumped back, cursing as he attempted to put distance between himself snd his creation. Orion breathed heavily, only then realizing that he had been holding his breath.
"How is this possible? How is any of this possible?"
Before Orion had time to truly process what had just happened, a new message came through. The feeling of a new message was far less painful now, more of a mild discomfort. It felt as though someone was pouring a cold liquid directly onto his brain. Unpleasant, but far from painful.
Orion shut his eyes, and began to read.
[New objective: Ascend to the central tower.]
"New objective…"
The words stuck with Orion. He only realized in that moment that he had been hoping, praying even, that it was all finished. He had fought, he had almost died. And it wasn't over.
Who knew how many new objectives there would be? Or how long it would take for him to complete them all? Would he even make it to the central tower?
How many more monsters were there in the complex? Were they stronger than the Moss Shambler? What the hell were the stats in his brain? And why the hell was this all happening?
Orion hadn't had time to think about that last question. He had gotten so swept up in the fight with the Moss Shambler, that he had nearly forgotten the sheer impossibility of the whole situation.
He was in an apartment complex, surrounded by an endless void, filled with monsters, and he had been given strange powers. None of this was possible. And it was terrifying.
Orion didn't know when he started crying. But he knew he couldn't stop. He collapsed on the floor of his apartment, his clothes covered in blood and sweat, and his heart holding nothing but fear and confusion.
He was scared, and more than scared, he was desperate. He wanted so desperately to leave, and to be anywhere else. He wished to wake up, to find himself in bed running late for work. He would take a million more sixty-hour work weeks if it meant he could leave that place behind.
Orion wasn't sure how long he stayed cradled on the ground. The tears stopped eventually, but the pain didn't go away. He began to feel light headed, the blood loss slowly removing his functions.
Orion steeled his resolve. He needed to survive. That didn't mean fighting monsters, not in that moment. It just meant dealing with his wounds and not bleeding to death.
Orion stood slowly, leaving the small patch of moss behind him. He moved towards his bedroom. He had no first aid kit, and definitely had no bandages worthy of his wounds. He would need to improvise. He grabbed a towel and headed for the shower. He was lucky that even though the electricity seemed to be out in the complex, the building still had running water.
He spent a long while in the shower, letting the water wash away the dried blood. It hurt when the water hit his wound, but Orion needed to wash the cuts out to ensure they didn't become infected.
When he was done, he turned the shower off and headed back to his bedroom. He grabbed a spare t shirt and a roll of tape. It was a crude way to deal with the wound, but the shirt was clean and would hopefully prevent exposure to harmful bacteria.
By this time, the cut on his leg had mostly stopped bleeding, but Orion still tied a spare shirt around it just to be sure.
It wasn't professional, and he was hardly sure it was helping. But he needed to try to survive. And if this was all he could do, it would need to be enough.
Orion grabbed a new change of clothes. A t-shirt and hoodie, with a pair of thick jeans. He figured that would offer him the most protection out of all the items in his rather limited wardrobe.
Once he finished dressing himself, he slowly laid down on his bed. The soft mattress was a great comfort. It felt as though it was absorbing the weight of Orions situation, alleviating the fear and pain in his life. Orion felt the seductive pull of sleep, and his consciousness began to drift.
It would all be easier if he was asleep…it would all go away if he was asleep. He just needed to close his eyes, and rest for a very long time.
That's when he felt it.
It felt nearly like he was being touched, but he could tell that there was nothing actually touching him. It was a psychological feeling, an understanding that some part of him was being interacted with.
A part of him that he wasn't connected to.
"The moss in the living room!"
Orion sat up quickly, wincing from the sudden movement. He focused on the feeling. He could feel it intensely, something was very lightly touching the moss he had left in the living room. The more he focused on it, the more clear the feeling became.
He could feel a connection between himself and the living room, even though he couldn't actually see the room at all. But he was aware of it, as though a piece of his subconscious had been left behind there.
It took Orion a moment to realize what was happening. There was something in his apartment. Another monster? Orion shuddered at the thought. He attempted to gleam more information from the moss, but by that point, whatever had been touching it had moved on.
Orion grabbed his butchers knife, and made his was to the door. He stopped right in front of the closed door, and reached for the doorknob. He paused for a moment, and then crouched down.
"No reason to open the door, not if I got another way to find out what's behind it."
Orion put his hand on the ground, and drew upon the strange feeling from within him. Moss began to sprout from his hand, but this time, Orion didn't pull away. He commanded the moss to move forward.
Tendrils of moss moved underneath the door and into the hallway. It was a strange feeling, doing something so truly supernatural. But Orion figured he needed to get used to the feeling. If he was going to survive against the horrors that had been presented to him, he needed to utelize all the tools he had at hand.
The moss pushed further into the hallway. He felt nothing originally, and then the same sensation as before.
Something was five paces away from the door, middle of the hallway. He only felt it for a moment before whatever he had interacted with stepped away. Orion tried to expand the tendrils and find whatever was lurking in his apartment, but he had lost it. It must've been hiding in the spots between the moss. It was invisible to him now, at least until he opened the door.
Orion steeled his resolve. No reason to stall, he had a weapon, and that was all he needed. Orion threw the door open and charged into the hallway to find…
Nothing.
The hallway seemed empty. Orion stopped, blade raised and heart beating.
"Is it invisible?" Orion thought, panicked. That was just his luck, an enemy he couldn't see.
Orion ducked down to the ground, putting his hand on the floor and pushing the moss forward. He tried to remove any gaps in his defense, or simply make them too small to be exploited. That's when he was interrupted.
"Oh thank god, you are alive!"
The clearly female voice seemed to come from infront of him, but he couldn't see a source. He waited, confused, and not entirely trusting the situation. Orion squinted his eyes, looking for the source of the voice.
As he looked, he could see a disturbance in the hallways purple light. It was as though the light was being briefly refracted, like a straw in a glass of water. When he noticed that, more shapes and colours began to appear.
Suddenly, standing in the hallway infront of him, was a tall woman. She had tanned skin, with ear length hair that had been dyed a light blue. She wore cargo pants and a dark red leather jacket with a black tank top underneath.
She had a black eye, and a small cut on her cheek. Her knuckes were covered with white boxing wraps, the knuckles of which had been stained with purple.
She was jacked. She looked to be nearly twice Orions size. She could probably crush him like a soda can if she wished. She looked at Orion with a mixture of relief and concern.
Orion slowly recalled the moss and stood up. He didn't put the knife away, still not entirely convinced that the woman infront of him wasn't some illusion set up by another beast. Orion struggled to think of a fitting question to ask.
"How did you get in?" Was the question that came out first. His voice sounded hoarse. It was only then that Orion realized his thirst.
The woman raised an eyebrow.
"Your door was unlocked."
Orion felt very stupid in that moment. He had been so sleep deprived last night, that when he returned home he must've totally forgot to lock the door behind him. Another beast could've easily walked into his apartment without him knowing, assuming that they could figure out how doorknobs worked. The woman spoke this time.
"I live next door, my names Andrea."
She stuck out a hand, coated in what Orion assumed to be purple blood from whatever trial monster she had faced.
Orion looked up at her. She was a person, a real person. He found a grin appearing in his face. Maybe he wasn't alone in this hellhole after all. He grabbed her hand.
"Nice to meet you, I'm Orion."