Chapter 1: Start of a New Unlife

Staring at the shambling dead and coming to terms with my death I have been sitting on this log for three days now. The decently thick fog and accompanying silence had been making it far too unnerving to keep my thoughts in order. The grand trees of the forest and root carpeting everywhere reminding me that I wasn’t as stoic as I thought I would be in a life-or-death situation. My hands hold what little remains of my insides as I try to keep it in place, the action making sure I don’t get the delusion of this being only a dream.

The first coherent thought I had was on the second day. It was, that having a hole in me was bad. I had a lot of holes now but, only one with stuff coming out of it. I grab some more string I made from the surrounding bushes and try to finish the makeshift bandage I was wrapping around my stomach. The twisting and knot-work is taking time from the lack of mobility my fingers no longer have. Unfortunately, I couldn’t think of anything else to do. Can someone who is dead even experience shock? So, patching the hole where my liver used to be it is for the time being.

Finally moving and doing something productive seems to have jogged my brain. As I try to thread the last few strings my mind wanders to what happened.

 All I did was walk below a fallen log in the forest. No particular reason as to why I was out in the middle of nowhere. To waste time, I think? First warning should have been the sudden fog in the middle of summer. It didn’t creep up on me, it simply appeared. Like going into a differently designed room. Yet like a complete idiot, I walked up the small hill that also came out of nowhere. Completely ignoring the temperature change, how the sun wasn’t in the right spot, or how the ground was relatively flat before ducking my head into another world.

“Ugh. I should have at least tried to have dodged to the side of them.”

A [Zombie] behind me to the right snarled in my direction when I spoke out loud. Even if I’m a fellow undead, he reacted to my voice. The two that killed me, a [black zombie], a desiccated roided out corpse that looks like it was dumped in tar, and a [white zombie], with a similar muscled exterior and caked in a type of white powder; are now moving their heads left and right trying to find out where it came from as well.

I look further towards the small hills to my left past the two. That small space between them is where that fallen tree rests. I don’t like remembering it. Even without a rapid pulse, I can feel the anxiety somehow.

In horror movies, I always hated how the characters would make stupid decisions. Turned out that they are somewhat accurate. When I saw those naked walking corpses I ran backward. Down the same path I had gone up and hoped that whatever had happened behaved like a rotating door.

Fate promptly told me to go fuck myself.

There were two more of them at the bottom and I just threw myself hoping to make it back onto some fresh green grass instead of this root floor. It felt like hitting a wall when I crashed into them. They didn’t even recoil from the impact or slow down. They immediately grabbed me and when I tried to move away their hands felt as if they were made out of cinder blocks.

The first bite tore into the left side of my chest. After that, I only recall constant pain for the thirty or forty seconds they kept biting me. All sensations simply stopped and they backed away. Leaving me on the floor.

Something. I don’t know what but, something. Even now tells me that I was still there, fully conscious and unable to move. Bouncing around in my own head as a minute passed and only then was I able to get up and crawl toward a stump. It was a good stump. Very nice as a chair. The best.

I realized that I was opening myself up again as I clenched the bandage. My knuckles had gone white from the force I was exerting. I wasn’t shaking. I didn’t even register that I was going to have to remake the patchwork already as half a finger was inside me.

I get up from sitting and brush off some dust. Nothing was going to happen if I just stayed here sulking. What caught me off guard was that I was able to stand normally. Most of my left thigh was gone. When I had tried kicking them away one took the opportunity to start munching on it. There was no way I would be able to normally stand. Yet, I feel no discomfort or shift in weight to suggest otherwise. Then again…

[Fractured Bones Lvl. 22, 18]

[Dried Skeletons Lvl. 18, 22, 20]

These guys don’t seem to need anything to keep themselves together. This group of animated [Skeleton] at my horizon make rounds every two hours. It is like they are following a pre-programmed route similar to a video game. They climb past one of the hills and stop in the same exact spot. Between a little nodule of roots and a lightly green-colored bush. A bit hard not to notice a pattern.

I walk over to the incline where I left the backpack I came with. The feeling of moving in molasses takes over again.

I don’t even know why I can see these little boxes. I’ve read half a book before and played video games. I know it’s a status screen. The thing is that my own status doesn’t reflect the “how?” I’m able to. I pull my own screen up.

[Dilapidated Zombie Lvl.1]

Reanimated Corpse

Undead

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[General]

HP- 5/10

MP- 10/10

Str- 12

Def- 8

Int- ERROR

Mag- ERROR

Dex- 1

Stam- NULL

[Skills]

Skill Points- 10

Death’s Grip Lvl. 1

Makes sense that I’m a mob. The pattern suggests that 10 is average. Oddly enough it seems I can change my what? Classification, species, race thing? When I checked on it a couple of hours ago, I was a [Fresh Zombie] and now my ragged state shows on the blue status. Confirmation from this world that I got wrecked. But what is with the error messages? I guess I’m too smart for having a dead brain. Wish I had a cheat sheet so I could know what was happening.

I start to smile then. It did say magic, in beautiful crystal-clear letters. Magic. Here I was thinking that I was in a type of hell. After all, I have been accosted by spreadsheets since the moment I woke up. Who wouldn’t consider it hell having to stare at quarterly reports for the rest of eternity?

As finicky as this thing is being, an MP bar is still present even if I can’t actually see the underlying [Mag] stat. So, I started blasting. Or at least I channeled my inner kid and fist-bumped the air in every variation I could think of. Even tried to web sling at one point. Nothing kept happening and I was left disappointed.  

“Finally!” I say out loud. “I have to do something about my speed.”

I have reached my backpack and take inventory. Stats can wait. The almighty gun takes priority. Medkit…, baton, a knife that is more cleaver than a knife, a block of calories that is five years old at this point, and a noise box to scare off predators.

…

“AGGH!” I groaned out loud. I didn’t bring it!

Wait a minute. It dawns on me that I’m not depressed anymore. I’m just accepting all of this a bit too leisurely. I got up maybe five minutes ago and now I feel fine? Is there something wrong with me?!