System Lost: My Own Best Friend

Everything hurts. Sharp twinges of pain in my side and shoulder throb with every stride, simultaneously hot and cold as the bloodstains spread beneath my clothes. My lungs burn, struggling to draw enough breath to fuel my desperate flight. My feet ache as they pound the smooth stone, but I can't afford to stop.

"What the heck is that thing?!" Allison screams.

I wish I had an answer. I chance a look back over my shoulder, but the thing—the Stalker—is still there. Still pursuing. I don't know how long it's been chasing us, but there's only one way to go, and I can't stop until it's gone. Even then—how would I know it's really gone? I don't want to think about it.

I just shake my head, unable to waste precious air on actually responding.

"It's so creepy," she mutters under her breath. "It reminds me of the [Angel]."

What? I can only raise an eyebrow at that, because I really don't see the connection.

"Too big," Maggie gibbers. "Dimensions. Doesn't fit."

"Maggie, are you okay?" Allison asks. "What happened to you?"

"S-sprained something," she slurs.

I furrow my brows. Nothing feels out of place, aside from the holes we're slowly bleeding out from or the fact that our body feels like it's one giant bruise. Then again, it's entirely possible that I just haven't noticed through the rush of adrenaline.

"Sprained what?" I manage to gasp between breaths.

"M-my, uh..." she trails off for a second, long enough that I start to think she's not actually going to answer. Then I wish she didn't. "Soul?"

As disquieting as that is, I have other things to worry about right now. The one silver lining in all this is that the Stalker isn't very fast. It's quick enough that I have to keep running to outpace it, but I can outpace it. The way it moves is strangely clumsy—extending its bizarre, spindly limbs forward and then dragging itself along by retracting them. Despite that awkward method of locomotion, however, it makes up for that by having a lot of those limbs.

I'm not sure how many. It's hard to count them because they keep retracting into its body, disappearing and reappearing as it trundles its way forward.

At long last, I spot an end to the tunnel, but my heart sinks at what I see. A giant pair of ornate double doors, so wide that they take up most of the tunnel. No handles or operating mechanism in sight. Whatever that gate is, it's not meant to be opened from this side. A dead end.

There's only one ray of hope. I don't see any hinges either, which means that if it swings open at all, it swings outward.

I glance back and see that we have a considerable lead on the Stalker, but it hasn't slowed down its pursuit. All I can do is try.

Reaching up to retrieve Nipper from his perch, I clutch him protectively to my chest as I slam into the door, shoulder checking it at full speed. My heart lifts when I feel it give, shifting open an inch or, so then sinks right back down into the pit of my stomach as some other force counteracts me, causing the door to spring back and slam shut again.

"No!" I cry, ignoring the stabbing pain in my shoulder and slamming into it again.

This time it refuses to budge, my feet scrabbling against the ground in a vain effort to find purchase.

"Fight," Maggie murmurs quietly. "Need. Fight."

"I can't!" I sob, shaking my head and gasping for breath as I struggle desperately against the door. "That thing will kill us before I can even get close!"

"No," she groans, her frustration bleeding through and compounding with my own. "Not that. Door. Fight!"

"What are you—?"

"The door, Vi!" Allison interrupts. "Your skill! Fight the door to protect us!"

"But it doesn't work like—"

"Can," Maggie insists. "Gotta m-make it. Force." She giggles incoherently. "[Strong Arm]!"

"Like Maggie showed us!" Allie explains. "Make the skill give you more! I think that's how she managed to jump like that earlier!"

The Stalker is catching up to us and I'm running out of options. I don't know how to do what they're asking me to. I haven't been able to sense or understand magic the way they do. All I know is what's real and right in front of me, and right now that's a huge door that's too heavy for me to budge and an extradimensional monster coming to devour me.

Maggie thinks I'm a stupid meathead, but I've always been a thinker. A nerd. I'm only the physical one because I have to be. Because someone has to be! I don't know how to fight, I don't know parkour, I've never run a marathon before and never wanted to, I hate fighting, I hate hunting, I hate this place, I hate being the one that has to shoulder every burden!

I don't feel the connection to my soul that Maggie and Allison do. I only have raw desperation, determination, and the conviction to force my way through even if it kills me. I won't let them die here! I will push until either the door breaks, or I do!

Something snaps within me. The world goes white and for a moment I think this is it, I've met my end. For just one tiny, blissful moment, the pain is gone. No aches, no pounding in my skull, no stinging in the soles of my feet. It's a moment that I wish could last forever, but then the world comes rushing back.

With a roar of effort, I push against the door. My feet dig furrows into the floor as the gate creaks open inch by agonizing inch. The stalker gains on us, but I don't have eyes for it, only the steady, painful march of progress towards whatever sanctuary awaits on the other side of this door.

I'm not going to make it. My progress is too slow, and the monster is too fast. I'm already giving everything I have, but I dig even deeper, push even harder. Sweat flows down my face in rivulets as I push our body far beyond anything it was made for. The door opens a hair wider.

Stolen story; please report.

The monster catches up to us, thrusting forward with one of its deadly limbs and stabbing me in the hip. A second attack punctures a hole in our pack, and a third pins our cloak to the door, only for the monster's sharp leg to slide off the door with a metallic shriek. Nipper spits a thick strand of sticky webbing at our assailant, but it vanishes in midair like the candles Maggie threw at it before.

There's no more time. With a final grunt of effort, I desperately push myself through the narrow opening I've fought so hard to create, praying that I'm not crushed or impaled before I make it through.

The door slams shut behind me with a resounding finality, and I sink to the floor with my back against it. I can hear the Stalker pounding and scrabbling against the other side, but I'm too worn out to move. Either I've made it, or we're dead. That's all there is to it.

"D-did we make it?" Allison asks meekly.

I glance down to take stock and make sure everything is still there. I don't remember doing it, but it seems that Nipper and our pack got through ahead of us. My knife is still in our belt, our food—what little is left—in our pockets, our glasses are in place, all of our limbs are accounted for...and the edge of our cloak is caught in the door.

I chuckle mirthlessly. "I think we made it."

My entire body is shaking as the adrenaline drains away, leaving sheer agony in its wake. Some distant part of me observes that I'm kind of getting used to the constant pain. Another part is quick to remind me that all the pain tolerance in the world isn't going to matter if we bleed out on the floor.

I heave a weary sigh and stare up at the ceiling. There are stalactites up there. Another cave, I guess. Somehow, I was hoping it would lead outside. No time for distractions, though. We can figure all that out if we survive.

"I really hate to do this to you Allie..." I start.

"I know," she sighs. "It's my turn, isn't it?"

"Yeah," I confirm wearily. "Sorry."

"Don't be," she reassures me. "We're all in this together. You and Maggie were amazing."

I smile and close my eyes, too tired to even worry about what will happen to us if I fall asleep. Then the pain slams into me like a truck, and I convulse involuntarily as I stifle a scream.

It takes me a moment to realize that I'm not under attack, I'm just not Violet anymore. Without her strength and her tolerance for pain, it's almost overwhelming. I can't believe she withstood this for so long! Now it's my turn, though, so I grit my teeth, permit myself a few delicate whimpers of pain, and sit back upright.

"I-I don't suppose either of you can help talk me through this?" I ask.

There's no response. Maggie and Vi are out. I'm on my own this time.

"Fair enough," I groan. "I guess you've earned a rest."

I think back to when Violet first awakened, and she walked me through treating our first stab wound. Now there's a sequence of words I never imagined myself thinking.

"Breathe," I remind myself. "In. Out. In. Out."

It hurts. Every intake of air sends twinges of pain lancing through my entire body, but I have to keep breathing. My hands are still shaking too much to do anything useful, so I try to distract myself for a moment by observing my surroundings while I slowly calm down.

It's...a cave. Fairly wide open and natural, except for the alcove that I'm in, with the doors. The first things that catch my eye are the lights. Dimly glowing lanterns light up the entire cavern, spread out for full illumination and particularly concentrated around this alcove. They don't have flames, nor do I see anything like a fuel or power source. Magic, I guess.

The second thing I notice is the statue. Set into its own alcove within the alcove, it's about ten feet tall and vaguely humanoid. Like someone started to carve a person out of stone and then just gave up after roughing out the top half. It reminds me uncomfortably of the [Angel], and by extension, the Stalker, so I look away. It's completely still. Just a statue.

I take another breath, wince, and glance down at my hands. Still shaking like a leaf, but I think I can at least move my arms around. I pat myself down to check my injuries. It would be easier to describe what isn't hurt. It feels like every bone, muscle, and tendon in my entire body has been stretched out, pulverized, then tied into a pretzel.

The most pressing issues are the stab wounds, though. Three of them—one on my shoulder, one in my side, and one on my hip. The shoulder and hip ones feel shallow—relatively speaking—having been more or less halted by the harder bones and joints. The one in my side is bad, though. Nothing there but squishy organs and soft flesh.

There's nothing I can do if my organs get smashed or punctured, so I'll just have to hope it's a flesh wound. Honestly, I'm pretty lucky none of my other injuries have been fatal. If you can call it luck.

"Now the question is, how the heck do I bandage this?"

A wave of nausea washes over me as I speak out loud to myself out of habit, and I have to take a few seconds to get my breathing back in order. That's probably not good, huh?

I cast my gaze around, looking for...I don't know. It's getting hard to think. I've lost a lot of blood, I think. More than people are supposed to lose. I mean, people aren't supposed to lose any, but I mean that I should already be dead. Not that I'd know how much blood a person can lose, I just feel like there's more outside my body than inside at this point.

My eyes settle on Nipper. I think I called him a monster at one point? I feel bad for that. I've seen what a monster looks like, and Nipper's no monster. Just a weird animal.

"Don't suppose you've got any ideas?"

Predictably, he doesn't respond. He just wriggles around aimlessly, still looking a bit anxious though I really have no idea what makes me think I can read the body language of a worm. Probably the lack of oxygen going to my brain.

Although...his threads are coated in a sticky glue when he makes them. Glue that could...maybe bind my wounds shut? That sounds like a bad idea. He's also got anticoagulant saliva, which is the opposite of what I need right now. But...just because he spits threads from his mouth, doesn't mean they have his saliva on them? I feel like it actually does mean that, but my brain is getting foggier by the second and if I don't do something I'm actually going to die.

It's worth a try. I pick him up and without really thinking too hard about it, try to point him at the wound in my shoulder. Nipper wriggles around in confusion, and unsurprisingly does not cooperate. I give him a gentle squeeze and he stops writhing, but still doesn't produce any webbing.

"Come on little guy, I know you're clever, please figure it out..."

I squeeze twice in rapid succession, hoping that he can at least understand that I'm trying to tell him something. Nothing. I try again, and this time he actually does it! The spray of webbing isn't really enough to seal the wound on its own, but I quickly wet my fingers with some water from the waterskin and spread the glue-like substance over my bleeding shoulder.

"Yes! Good boy, Nipper!"

Even though we have precious little to spare, I feed him a bit of lizard meat as a reward.

"Now just do it again..."

It takes some trial and error, but eventually Nipper is able to learn that two squeezes means "webs please!"

By the time I get all three stab wounds patched up, I'm cold, clammy, and drenched with sweat. I feel sick, everything hurts, and I barely have the strength to lift my arms much less stand up. I slump over sideways and rest my head on the candle-burrito. It's warm to the touch, and while the candles are not even close to soft, the stack of them sort of conforms to the shape of my head.

I hesitate to call it comfortable, but it's the closest thing to a real pillow I've experienced in what feels like forever. I try to draw the cloak up around me, then groan in frustration when I realize that it's still caught in the door.

Whatever. I'm too tired to deal with it. I genuinely don't even know if I'm going to wake up at this point, but if I don't, I doubt it's the lack of a blanket that does me in. We did our best—all of us. Maybe it wasn't enough, but as exhaustion catches up and the darkness overtakes me, I let myself rest knowing that we did everything we could. Even the [World Engine] recognizes that.

I soothe myself to sleep with the words that hang in my mind. Proof of our efforts, no matter what else happens.

[Level Up!]

Unified Wanderers is now level 9.

Medic is now level 7.

Defender is now level 10.

Thrower is now level 10.

+8 Power (Magdalena).

+2 Resilience.

+4 Resilience (Violet).

+5 Ego.

Defender and Thrower have reached their maximum thresholds. [Upgrade] or [Fuse] the classes to unlock further progression.