The sound of the notification wasn't a shrill alarm, but a soft digital ping that echoed inside Daniel's skull, pulling him out of a dreamless sleep.
[Daily Quest Accepted]
He opened one eye, then the other. The ceiling of the bedroom was bathed in soft light. For the first time in days, he genuinely felt rested. The mattress was comfortable, the temperature perfectly regulated, and most importantly, nothing had come in to devour his liver during the night.
[Good morning, Your Majesty of the Sheets. Wake up. The world out there is still hell, but at least you got your eight hours.]
Daniel snorted, rubbing his face with both hands to chase away the last traces of sleep. He didn't even feel irritated by the system's morning sarcasm. In fact, he agreed. A good night's sleep in that place was worth more than gold.
He got up, stretching. The vertebrae in his back popped in a satisfying sequence. He went straight to the bathroom, his morning routine running on autopilot. He brushed his teeth while staring at his own reflection in the mirror.
He returned to the kitchen, turned on the coffee maker, and put on an Eminem playlist on the TV. Hip-hop filled the space as he positioned himself on the floor.
Time for the daily quest.
Fifty push-ups. One hundred sit-ups.
He started the first set. His arms moved up and down with surprising ease, the rhythm steady and controlled.
Fifteen. Twenty. Thirty.
His muscles worked without protest, his breathing remained even. Maxed-out stamina and speed made all the difference. It felt like driving a car after swapping out the engine.
He finished the fifty push-ups without stopping and moved straight into the sit-ups.
One. Two. Ten. Fifty.
Daniel frowned slightly as he completed the hundredth sit-up without losing his breath. It felt strange. Any system worth its salt would scale the daily quest difficulty according to the user's growth.
[Quest Complete. You are pathetically efficient.]
He didn't ask about the difficulty. It was a good thing for him, after all.
Daniel opened the status menu. A point was glowing. Without hesitation, he put it into Intelligence.
Status: Alive [For now]
Life Level: 1 – Peak Human
Strength: 12
Stamina: 15 (MAX)
Intelligence: 12 → 13
Speed: 15 (MAX)
With the Intelligence points he had invested so far, he began to feel his thoughts moving faster, memories that had once been vague now sharpening into focus.
Daniel headed for the shower. Hot water poured over muscles warmed by exercise, relaxing them even further.
When he finished, he prepared breakfast. Toast, eggs, bacon, and a cup of coffee.
He was finishing his last sip when he heard three knocks on the door.
Daniel checked the external camera monitor and opened it.
Julie stood outside.
Her blouse was wrinkled, as if she'd slept in it. There were faint dark circles under her eyes, but her expression softened with relief when she saw him.
"Are you okay?" The question slipped out before he could even greet her.
Daniel raised an eyebrow, leaning against the doorframe. "As you can see, I'm great. Slept like a rock. Literally."
"I know, but..." She gestured vaguely toward the vehicle. "After last night, with all those things pounding on it... I just wanted to make sure."
"I appreciate the concern," he said, his tone softening. "But I'm fine. The talisman worked perfectly. No smiling creature managed to get inside to offer me tea."
"And you?" He tilted his head. "You look like you picked a fight with your pillow and lost."
Julie let out a short, humorless laugh, glancing down at the lawn. "Yeah... let's just say Colony House isn't exactly quiet at night. And my parents..." She let the sentence trail off.
"I get it."
"I also came to invite you to breakfast," she added, looking back at him.
"I appreciate it, but I already beat you to it." Daniel lifted the empty mug.
Julie sniffed lightly, tilting her head. "Yeah... I could smell it."
"Do you want to come in and eat something?" he offered, opening the door wider.
Her eyes lit up for a second, tempted, but the shadow quickly returned. She glanced toward Colony House. Her parents and a few others were standing on the porch, watching.
Daniel followed her gaze and understood.
"I'd like to," she sighed. "But I agreed to talk with my parents now. Last night was... tense. We barely exchanged a few words and decided to leave it for today, once everyone cooled down."
"Makes sense. Hot heads never solved anything."
"You know how to cook?" she asked, changing the subject as she peeked inside the motorhome.
"I do. When I went camping, I usually cooked for myself. Nothing fancy, but edible."
"So one of these days you can cook for me?" Julie asked, hesitantly.
"Deal." He inclined his head slightly, almost gallant. "You're always welcome in my humble abode. I'll even offer cloth napkins on special occasions."
Julie rolled her eyes, but she was genuinely smiling now. Then her gaze drifted upward, settling on his forehead.
"Wait." She stepped closer, eyes narrowing. "Your wound... it's almost healed. How?"
Daniel instinctively raised a hand to where the stitches had been.
"Kristi said people heal faster here. Apparently it's one of the few things this place does that doesn't try to kill us. Accelerated regeneration."
[Don't give all the credit to the town's fresh air, "Doctor." Your fifteen points in Stamina and Speed are pulling their weight in the heavy lifting. If it were just the local environment, you'd still look like a bargain-bin horror movie extra.]
"Good to know." He started fantasizing about having Deadpool-level regeneration.
"That's... weird," Julie murmured, but there was relief in her voice. "At least it's something good."
"Exactly. You take your wins where you can get them."
She nodded, taking a step back. "Well, I should go. See you later?"
"I'm heading to Colony House too," Daniel said, closing the door behind him and stepping down the stairs. "I've got work to finish."
The third-floor windows still needed boarding up, and even though the quest was complete, he'd given his word.
When they reached Colony House, people looked at him with respect.
He'd slept alone inside a vehicle surrounded by monsters and survived. That bought credibility around here.
Even Jim straightened his posture and gave Daniel a nod. A universal male gesture of acknowledgment. Tabitha offered a smile.
But it was Ethan who broke social protocol.
"Daniel."
The boy ran over, clutching a book. He stopped a few steps away, his excitement a mix of awe and curiosity.
"I heard people saying you faced the monsters like the Cromenockle! Is that true?"
Daniel blinked, glanced at the boy, then at Julie, who was holding back laughter. He crouched down to Ethan's level.
"Well, I'm not exactly sure what a Cromenockle is, but I'll explain what I did in a simple way."
Ethan nodded vigorously, completely focused.
"You see those talismans people use on doors?" Daniel waited for the confirming nod before continuing. "They work like an invisible shield. The creatures can't cross it."
"I got that when the sheriff explained. It's like a force field," Ethan interrupted excitedly.
"Exactly. I hung one in my motorhome. So when the creatures came... they knocked, tried to get in, but the talisman stopped them. I stayed inside, safe, watching a movie and eating popcorn."
Ethan's face processed the information. For a moment, Daniel thought the boy might be disappointed by the lack of direct heroics.
Then his eyes lit up even more.
"You're smart! Like... you used magic against them without having to fight!"
"That's right." Daniel lightly ruffled the boy's hair. "Sometimes the best battle is the one you don't have to fight."
"But tell me, what is a Cromenockle?"
Cromenockle... sounds like a low-level mob from a beginner dungeon.
Ethan launched into an enthusiastic explanation, gesturing wildly as he talked about the story in his book, about a creature searching for a way out of a magical place. Daniel listened attentively, adding comments like "Sounds problematic" or "I wouldn't invite that to dinner," which made the boy laugh.
The rest of the Matthews family watched the interaction with smiles.
While Daniel entertained the boy, reality elsewhere in town was far less playful.
After waking up, Boyd went straight to the Box.
As he approached, he noticed several townspeople watching from a distance, pale faces whispering among themselves. No one dared get close.
The smell reached him before the sight. A nauseating metallic stench.
The sheriff stopped in front of the metal-and-wood structure.
Frank's torso was open. Torn from sternum to abdomen in an irregular line that suggested brute force, not surgical precision. His heart was gone. Other organs were missing as well, leaving only a dark, hollow cavity.
The intestines were scattered across the floor of the Box like ropes tossed aside carelessly.
One leg was... pulverized. There was no better word. Flesh and bone had been crushed repeatedly until they became a wet, red mass that barely looked human.
The other leg had been completely torn off, along with an arm. The limbs lay several meters away, as if the creatures had played tug-of-war with them.
It was a scene that would traumatize anyone.
And what hurt the sheriff the most was that he'd grown used to it.
There was no shock. No nausea. Just a clinical, almost professional recognition of the horror in front of him.
He grabbed the cart stored near the station. Pulled on thick gloves. And began the work.
He lifted the torso first. The weight felt wrong, unbalanced without the limbs. He placed it carefully on the cart.
Then the crushed leg. The intestines. The arm.
That was when his hand started to shake.
Slightly at first. Then harder. His fingers contracted involuntarily, making the glove tremble.
Damn it.
It wasn't the task. He'd done this before. More times than he cared to count.
It was something else. Something that was getting worse.
He clenched his fist hard, pressing until his nails dug into his palm even through the glove. He took a deep breath. Once. Twice. Three times.
The shaking stopped.
He continued.
When all the parts were on the cart, he covered them with an old cloth. Gripped the handle and began pulling it toward the church.
The sound of the wheels grinding against cracked asphalt echoed far too loudly in the morning silence.
The townspeople watched. Some looked away. Others followed his progress with hollow eyes, already too accustomed to the ritual.
When he reached the front of the church, Father Khatri was waiting. He stepped closer to the cart and briefly lifted one corner of the cloth.
His face remained serene, but his eyes closed for half a second.
"Not much left, huh?"
Boyd didn't respond to the comment.
"It's important to bury him with his family," the sheriff said, recalling Frank's request.
"Alright."
"Will you come to the funeral?"
Boyd let out a short, rough, humorless laugh.
Khatri frowned. "I'm sorry, what are you laughing at?"
The sheriff stared at him, his expression severe. "Are you going to talk at the funeral about how hard you pushed for him to be killed?"
The priest held his gaze for a long moment. Not with anger. Just that infinite patience that was sometimes more irritating than any argument.
"Feeling lighter now?" he asked at last.
Boyd felt the tension in his shoulders ease slightly. He hated to admit it, but the jab had worked. It had taken some of the weight off.
"Bring the cart back when you're done." He turned away without waiting for an answer.
He walked back toward the station without looking back.
—
At the diner, Sara served tables with practiced movements, but her ears were on high alert.
A small town without entertainment meant everyone knew everything. And today's topic was universal.
"The sheriff tried to cut Frank some slack," a woman commented three tables to the left. "Offered to let him isolate himself in the forest."
"But Frank chose the Box himself," another resident added, shaking his head. "I wouldn't have that kind of courage."
"Courage or desperation?" the woman shot back. "The man lost everything."
Sara absorbed every word, piecing together the puzzle in her mind.
Boyd had tried to save Frank. Offered an alternative. But the man had chosen death of his own accord.
She let out a sigh of relief she tried to disguise as fatigue.
There was still hope. If the sheriff had shown mercy until the very last second... maybe there was a path.
But she couldn't let her guard down. Her case was different. Frank had been negligent. She... had acted directly, even if manipulated.
She needed something that made her too valuable to discard.
The voices.
After her conversation with Daniel, she kept trying to communicate with them, without success, until around three in the morning when they woke her.
"We can't speak often," they whispered, their voices echoing strangely inside her skull. "It hurts you. But now is a good time. The others are... occupied."
Sara had asked dozens of questions. About the place. The creatures. How to leave. Why all of this was happening. She didn't fully trust them yet, not after being manipulated so easily before, but they were her only card.
Some questions were ignored.
"There are things we don't know," they replied. "And others we can't say."
But what they did say...
She was still processing it. The implications were absurd.
That morning, she told Nathan everything. He'd gone pale—then incredulous.
Now she needed to talk to Daniel.
As they'd agreed, any new information had to be shared immediately.
And this... this changed everything.
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