Shadow Runner [LitRPG]

Nothingness isn't always oppressive. In fact, I felt only peace as I drifted aimlessly through the dark, my mind empty and no pain intruding on me at all. I felt free. I felt like all my problems were so, so far removed that they meant nothing to me.

And then an incessant ringing interrupted my wonderful slumber.

I tried to ignore it. To push it aside. Somehow, I did manage to silence it briefly.

Of course, it came back with a vengeance, gripping me, squeezing me, yanking me up and out of the peacefulness I'd found. One final glimpse at the void, and a massive eye that snapped open in the distance…

Then I was gasping and hacking my lungs out. The call connected immediately, but only because I hit accept without even meaning to. I was just trying to get the noise to stop.

"Adrian! What's… Are you alright?"

I opened my mouth to answer, but choking sounds came out instead. I forced myself to roll so I was lying on my side instead of my back. Just about every millimeter of my body protested that particular maneuver, but my arms and back were by far the worst.

"A-Am f-f-fine," I managed to choke out, before finally getting a bit more breath to work with. "Choked on my s-spit."

"You did WHAT?"

"L-Like it n-never happened to you, p-princess." I coughed and sputtered again, but breathing was becoming less of a struggle.

"You choked on your fucking… No, no, that's not the problem right now. Mela! Mela, come back! He answered! Also, you little shit," she hissed, turning her attention back to me with nearly enough venom to melt me through the call. "You hung up on me! I've been trying to call you this entire time to see if you're still alive, and you rejected my call!"

"I did?"

I twitched once before going still again, biting back a groan. Movement was definitely not the right choice for the time being.

"Yes, yes you —"

"He's okay?!" Mela jumped into the conversation, sparing me a worry-fueled tirade from Amelia.

"Yes I am," I insisted, though I actually felt like my body was falling apart.

"Prove it, then." The red-haired fucker squinted into the camera. "Because from what I'm seeing, it looks like yer face down in the dirt."

Grousing to myself about the unreasonable demands of older sisters, I forced my body to start moving.

It was as horrible an idea as I had suspected. Several points on my body erupted with pain, reminding me helpfully that I had been shot. My hands felt like slabs of raw meat. The less said about my back, the better.

"S-see? Perfectly f-fine!"

My voice only threatened to break twice. And when a wave of nausea and dizziness hit me in response to the movement, I almost threw up, but I didn't!

"Sure, yeah, ya look fucking amazing," Mela snarked. Amelia was just staring at the camera with wide, terrified eyes as her fingers shifted minutely, starting to form various surgical implements before reverting to normal. "Now, look around. Ya should be in a short stretch of tunnel blocked off on both sides."

I did as she told me to, though turning to take it all in gave me a splitting headache.

The tunnel I was in looked like it had once been part of either a maintenance passage or the actual sewers. Some enterprising slum dwellers had gotten down there and walled up both ends, ruining the tunnel's original purpose. But they had also moved in a small bed and what looked like one of those extra tight-sealing containers with a digital lock.

"Good, looks like everything's still there," Mela muttered to herself. Then her attention snapped back to me. "Now, get to that storage container. Password is 8O3A83."

"Right. Get to the thing. Easy."

Crawling was undignified. That was why I tried to lever myself upright from my awkward sitting position. This didn't really work, on account of how my left leg insisted on crumbling when I tried to put any weight on it.

I heard Mela's new hands tighten so hard, they made some interesting squealing noises.

"Yer fine, my ass," she snarled.

"Uhhh…" Giving up on dignity entirely, I started to drag myself closer to the box. Bit by agonizing bit. "It's a work in progress?"

"How are ya still alive? I'm fucking happy you are, but how?"

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

I didn't really have anything to say to that. Especially since Amelia sobbed at the question, shredding my heart into about a billion little pieces as guilt twisted in my gut.

"I'm just too stupid to die, I guess," I tried to joke, wincing when that made Amelia sob louder. At least I finally managed to drag myself up to the storage thingy a few moments later. Then I raised my hand and faltered.

"Um… what was that code again?"

"Fucker. 8O3A83."

She said the code slowly and carefully, pausing way too long between each digit and making me wait to press the next button. Finally, I put in the last number 3, and the thing hissed as the top came loose.

"Huh, hermetically sealed crate? That's fancy," I mumbled, pushing the lid up.

The inside was probably the most beautiful sight I had ever seen, sans Amelia. Several rows of high-end MaxDocs graced the top row of storage. I also spotted where I could grip the 'shelf' and pull it up to reveal more.

I did just that, then gaped as five more shelves unfolded out of the container, each holding different emergency medical care supplies. A shelf of various ointments, special bandages with healing gels, injectors I knew nothing about, and bottles of various pills. At the very bottom of the container lay a small collection of weapons, arrayed carefully on top of some velvety cushioning.

"Whuh?" I asked intelligently.

Then, without waiting another second, I snatched a MaxDoc and shoved the inhaler into my mouth.

Sure, the experience was fucking awful, and the spray made me want to cough my lungs out. But I held the breath in. A sharp tingle raced through me, lifting much of the haze that had settled over my brain. All my various wounds, except for the ones on my arms, also started to tingle, itch, and warm up.

"You can thank Garren for all that stuff," Mela explained. "He was always paranoid. This is just one of the possible hidey-holes he put together. I kept telling him to put some rations or something in there too, but he always seemed to forget… dunno why."

"Don't care why." I groaned in relief, feeling more and more functionality return to my body. Temptation welled up in me as I eyed another inhaler. "You think I can get away with another, Amelia?"

The ripper leaned in, peering at the scroll she was using for the call. "Those look like high quality, very high quality, so… yes. Just one, though. Any more and you'll hurt yourself further. Then let me get a closer look at the stuff in that container."

I obeyed, because why the fuck would I not? I sure didn't know what half the crap in there was.

What followed was a quick lesson in first aid. I hesitated when Amelia ordered me to strip my clothes off so she could get a good look at me, but eventually obeyed.

The sight wasn't exactly pretty.

I had bruises all over, and they weren't looking great. Rather than my regular old pale complexion, my skin was mottled from the fall, not to mention slamming into the building a couple times on my way down.

I also paused when I realized that the strips of grey flesh from my Stalker cybernetics had spread a little further. They stretched down my sides now, one even passing straight over a bullet wound that had clipped me. Interestingly enough, those bits of me were pretty much fully intact, including what should have been a hole in my side.

My back, too, while it was bloody and raw and had several stab wounds where something had clearly gone into me (had to feel that out, and it wasn't fun), was actually in better condition than I expected. Whatever had ended up inside me was not there anymore, which made me hope I'd fallen on top of some kind of broken furniture rather than injectors or what have you.

The bullet wounds themselves were mostly sealed already, tar proving superior to regular old blood when it came to stemming wounds. But they were raw and puckered. Pulling on them felt like being stabbed again and again.

Finally, my hands were… there, I guess. That's about the nicest thing I could say about them.

Four of my claws were missing, three on my right hand and one on my left. The cracks were jagged and horrible. Popping my claws up made me curl in on myself, grimacing in pain as they pulled at my eldritch flesh on the way out and caused tar to dribble from my fingertips.

Not that those were particularly whole, mind. It looked like I'd taken a cheese grater and viciously applied it to my fingers, palms, and forearms. Were my arms not cybernetics, I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to use them at all at the moment.

This all left me wondering about one thing as I swallowed pills, applied injectors, wrapped myself up in bandages, and rubbed ointment into my many, many bruises: how the fuck was I even alive?

I could understand why I hadn't bled out, at least. Tar really was superior to blood. Now that I'd gotten past the existential horror of the stuff, I was starting to prefer it.

The fall, though? Even with what I'd done to try and soften my landing, it should have damaged me way worse than this. Not to mention that walking at all afterwards was a minor miracle.

And then I had fallen again. Like a fucking dumbass.

A question tickled at my brain while I thought it all over.

"Hey, you two. How long was I out?"

"A bit over three hours," Amelia grumbled, looking distinctly unhappy. "I was calling you the entire time. Mela was literally just about to storm out of the building to try and get to you. Me too, if I'm being honest. We should have been there for you, Adrian. We could have handled things better together!"

I didn't say anything to deny that. Honestly, it was kind of arrogant of me to think I could just stroll into the slums and roll over everyone there.

What I was far more caught up in, however, was the time I'd spent with my lights out.

A bit over three hours. That was nowhere near enough time to even begin healing. And yet, though I'd felt broken in several different ways when I woke up, my body had cooperated with me immediately.

Even in that very moment, I was way more functional than I should have been. The various stuff I'd applied to my body on Amelia's orders was bolstering me incredibly fast. Oh, I wasn't about to go running off into another fight right that second, but I didn't feel like I had half a foot in the grave, either.

"Whatcha thinking about?" Amelia demanded, somewhat calmer now that she knew I wasn't about to die on her. "I don't like it when you go all silent like that. Every time you use your brain, you end up hurt somehow, so cut it out."

"You want me to think less than I usually do? In Zerx territory?"

"Yes. You should turn your brain off and listen to my every order from now on."

"Wooow, the mercs not enough drones for you?"

"I'm going to chain you up in our room. I fucking promise you that, Adrian."

"Kinky," Mela and I said together, making my adorable ripper flush.

Of course, Mela then had to go and ruin things.

"Listen, ya little shit. Go lie down in that bed there, and try to get some rest. Don't go out. Don't start shit. I- We're coming to get ya, got it?"

Did I get it? Could I let them put their asses on the line to pull me out of the shit I'd gotten into because of my own stupidity?

I shook my head.

"No."