"What in the fresh hell?" Kayn said as what felt like the worst hang-over of his life began to set in.
The words were raspy and hurt as they came out, eliciting the perfectly normal reaction of reaching for a glass of water on his nightstand. When the only thing his hand found was open air, his mind began to process other peculiarities. His mattress appeared to have been replaced with construction debris, and his fan was peppering him with what he groggily assumed was sand.
He opened his eyes and stared upward, but he saw the equivalent of diving in a murky lake. He wasn't wet, and he could breath, so that wasn't normal. After laying there for far too long, it finally clicked in his mind that he could be in legitimate danger.
With that, Kayn shot up to his feet, far too quickly, bringing along the rush of blood from his brain and sending it cascading toward his toes. He gripped his head for a moment as he tried to shake off the dizzy feeling, and then another thought dawned on him. This was certainly a day for discovery.
Naked. He was completely naked. As if to hit the thought home, a sudden gust tore past him, carrying with it another fist full of sand. He was then pelted with the sharp granules as he twisted and turned to place his back to the onslaught.
"Is this hell?," he thought to himself, "Or some kind of reincarnation?" his mind raced, but not quick enough to escape the snark that oozed from his pores, "Can I at least pick a different difficulty; at least give me third world conditions, a fighting chance, something better than this!"
[Syncing… Please wait. We appreciate your patience.]
The sudden and admittedly polite voice caused Kayn to jump. He spun around, his feet managing to find every piece of broken glass and jagged stone around him as he cursed in pain.
"Who's there? Can you help me?" he pleaded, still unsure where it was coming from.
[Vision: 8 %. Hearing: 12 %. Touch: 78 %. Prioritizing survival functions.]
"Survival functions? I'm naked in a sandstorm. Can we prioritize some clothes first? That's survival, is it not?"
[Negative. Vision now prioritized.]
The world snapped into focus all at once, and though this was a solid step up from his condition a moment ago, it gave him the ability to understand just how royally screwed he really was.
Collapsed towers leaned against each other like noble and majestic drunkards, supporting one another against gravity itself. Roads were graveyards of dust and bone fragments. A rusted streetlight lay bent across what used to be a crosswalk, its bulb long since shattered into a million pieces and blown into the wind.
[Environmental analysis: Complete.]
[Contamination level: Critical. Oxygen purity: Dangerous. Water sources: Nonviable. Civilian population: Terminated.]
"Terminated?" The word cracked in his mouth. "Like… everyone?"
The System didn't bother answering. Instead the wind shifted, carrying a wet dragging sound from the haze to the east.
[First hostile detected. Range: sixty meters and closing.]
A shape lurched into view, vaguely humanoid, but with an uncanny valley feel to it. As it slowly ambled forward, he was able to focus on the details that were obscured by the dust. One leg ended in a red ruin, jaw hanging by wet strings, the flesh about one good jostle away from sloughing right off.
Kayn's stomach flipped and he instantly tasted bile. He stumbled backwards, falling to the ground and gasping as he gazed in terrible awe at the large rod between his legs. The zombie was still a fair distance away, with no chance of closing the gap between them anytime soon, so he spared a few more seconds.
Delicately, almost reverentially, he reached down and brushed his fingers against the rigid cylindrical object, touching it, testing it. Shifting back a little further he began to tug at the thing, yanking softly but soon really putting his muscle into it. Kayn's fingers closed around a length of it as he gave it one last climactic show of force, and suddenly it came with tremendous force as the twisted length of rebar tore free.
[Combat protocols locked until first engagement. Manual engagement required.]
"Manual engagement? Like you want me to… Like hell I plan to–," he muttered indignantly, "Oh, this is a fighting thing. Hence the combat. Right," his words trailed off as he hefted the rebar like a caveman who'd discovered the club. "Nude corpse mutilation wasn't on my to-do list today, but, when in Hell I suppose."
The zombie was forty meters away and speeding up.
Kayn's pulse hammered in his ears as no amount of tight hearted banter was going to help him ignore the fact that everyone, including himself, were all wrong. The zombie apocalypse was not super cool. It stank, it scared the shit out of him, and his body was not reacting the way the wanted it to. It had no idea how to react. So he would have to wing it, or die.
"Any chance you unlock a gun if I ask nicely?"
[Negative.]
"Shield?"
[Negative.]
"Clothes?"
[Negative.]
This time he felt a small electrical shock in the back of his neck and he winced.
Thirty meters.
He planted his feet, raised the rebar like a baseball bat, and tried to remember what his dad taught him.
"Keep your eye on the ball," he whispered to himself, his gaze shifting downward and realized the creature not only had no intact genitalia, but–it was so much worse, comparable only to a void. He held back his vomit and focused on its head. It was all coming down to this one moment.
Twenty-Five meters.
Any moment now, it would be in the perfect position to strike.
Twenty meters.
Kayn groaned and it was all he could do to not relax. He was in a great position, and who knows what would happen if he ran toward it in some grand heroic charge.
Fifteen meters.
"Oh for God's sake, can you pick up the pace?!" he bellowed in frustration, but it merely responded with weak groan and swipe of its mangled hands, still a solid three car lengths away.
Ten meters.
His shoulders hurt and he let them fall to his side, staring unamused at the once menacing unknown threat.
"This is depressing. Just stay there. I'll come to you," Kayn took his next steps, careful to not step on anything sharp. He made his way about five meters from the zombie when it lunged. It caused him to jump back and let out a less than masculine yelp, but the only thing the zombie got for its effort was a mouth full of gravel as it fell to the earth like a sack of dried twigs.
Kayn grimaced as he stood over the thing that flailed around, trying to get back to its feet, or to get to Kayn's feet, probably both. He raised the weapon into the air and moments later, the rebar connected with a sickening crunch that vibrated up his arms. Rotten flesh and brittle bone gave way. The zombie folded, twitched once, and lay still.
Kayn stood over it, somehow disappointed that his first life-threatening experience was so… Lack luster.
[First hostile eliminated. Sync progress: 68 %. Neural calibration in progress.]
"Sixty-eight percent?" he questioned dismissively. "I just killed a corpse with a metal stick, while naked, and you give me a C-minus?" He honestly had no idea what 68% meant, but he was annoyed with this voice, and figured that killing a zombie should get him something cool. Sure, the fight was the equivalent of pushing an elderly man down the stairs, but that was a zombie. An honest to god, real, unliving, unbreathing, zombie!
[Insufficient data for grading. Additional engagements required.]
Another wet dragging sound, followed by more of a… slapping noise?
Kayn spun around to find two more shapes coming toward him. He hadn't even been aware of them until he heard them, and even then it send chills down his spine to know that it was their footfalls that gave them away. They didn't moan endlessly like on the television shows. One limped out of the dust, fresher than the first, with almost a spring to its step. The other still wore the shredded remains of a business suit, tie flapping in the wind. The undead hedge-fund manager actually had a spring in its step, not literally, but it was picking up speed.
[Second and third hostiles detected. Range: twenty-five meters. Recommend immediate engagement.]
"Recommend this." Kayn flipped the empty sky the middle finger. "You couldn't have started me with a tutorial zone full of slimes or bunny rabbits?" His mind turned to thoughts of a famous British comedy troupe and quickly changed his mind. "Maybe not rabbits."
[Negative. Real-world calibration required.]
'Wall Street' as he had opted to nickname the business zombie, was now in a full blown sprint. In less time than he would have appreciated, the zombie lunged for him.
Kayn ducked while teeth snapped the air where his throat had been a heartbeat earlier. He drove the rebar upward under its chin. Bone shattered as the rebar impaled skin and then skull, causing the monster to go limp on top of him.
The other one was faster than his very first encounter, and he found himself tossing Wall Street to the ground to pull his weapon out of the corpse. It took a few tugs, but the weapon came out less than clean, and he hefted it again to fight his next opponent.
It too came in for a lunge, but lost its footing and the yellowed rotting teeth it had prepared for Kayn's throat were now flying at a surprisingly somehow less desirable location. His manhood cowered in fear as he acted purely on reflex. With one swift kick, he placed his foot through the zombies skull and felt whatever brain matter had remained, crushed between his toes.
Throughout the rest of Kayn's life, he would never recount this part of the story. The part where he flailed his leg around in a panic, still white knuckle gripping the rebar while his off hand swatted at the air hysterically. Add in a stream of vomit and some ugly crying, and eventually he managed to get his foot out of the gore of the zombie he defeated that morning.
[Hostiles eliminated. Sync progress: 89 %. Combat protocols partially unlocked.]
Kayn leaned on the rebar like a cane, legs trembling so hard the metal rattled. "Partially unlocked? How did one kill get me 68, but two more significantly strong enemies only get me 21%? Mind you, still naked here."
[Neural optimization nearly complete. One final calibration recommended.]
He barked a laugh that turned into a cough. "Let me guess. Another zombie."
The System was quiet for a long, terrible beat.
[Correct. Elite variant detected. Sentience probability: 11 %. Recommend extreme caution.]
"S-Sentience? They can be sentient?" No jokes for that one, this revelation opened a whole new can of worms. If that were the case, he might be in a Resident Evil variation, instead of the standard trope. The implications… Well, he didn't know what they were, but they were bad.
This was one abnormally tall and walked with purpose. It was slow, but he couldn't tell if that was because it chose to walk slow. It walked upright with no real issue, head tilted as though it were regarding its prey carefully. Long dark hair still clung to patches of scalp. One arm hung shattered, but the other ended in fingers that flexed with deliberate care.
It stopped fifteen meters away and stared at him with milky eyes, but something told him those blind eyes could see just fine.
Kayn's skin crawled and everything told him to run. This one was different.
[Memory fragments may persist in elite variants.]
"The gears are still turning in there?" he whispered.
[Possible.]
The tall zombie took one slow, deliberate step forward.
Kayn raised the rebar, hands shaking. "Stay back."
It tilted its head the other way.
Then it opened its mouth and tried to speak.
"Essss," it was trying to say something, that or this was just wind escaping whatever was left of its lungs.
"W-What?" Kayne replied, taking a step back.
The zombie took another step forward.
"Cayyyyp," it rasped.
For one impossible second, something almost human flickered across its ruined face. Then the moment shattered as its gaze turned cold and it charged.
Kayn met it halfway, screaming rage and terror and grief he hadn't fully felt until now.
Rebar flashed as the first blow took it across the temple. The second caved the cheekbone. The thing didn't slow. It swung its good arm, fingers raking four burning lines across Kayn's ribs causing him to scream in pain.
He hissed and pivoted, driving the metal through its shoulder, causing ancient bone to splinter. It snarled, not a moan but a true animalistic snark, and backhanded him hard enough to send him sprawling.
He hit the dust naked and bleeding, releasing his grip on the rebar has his knuckles hit rock.
The creature loomed over him, head cocked again, almost… puzzled.
Kayn tasted copper. "Come on, you bastard. Finish it."
It opened its mouth. The croak came again, clearer this time.
"Essscaaape!" it howled, its features painted with agony as the zombie hesitated, eyes flickering.
Kayn lunged for the rebar as the creature resumed its assault.
He rolled to the side as the zombie pounced just where he had been laying. He shifted to face the monster and swung in a large arc, crashing metal against skull once more. Stumbling to his feet he took the bar and hit it again, and again, until there was nothing but a fine paste of human gore before him.
Kayn stood over the body, chest heaving, covered in blood. The claw marks across his ribs burned like fire.
[Elite variant eliminated.]
[Sync 100 %. Neural interface fully stabilized.]
[Welcome, User: Kayn.]
He stared at the corpse. At the long dark hair matted with gore.
"Please send me home," he whispered.
[Would you like to begin orientation?]
Kayn laughed until the laugh turned into a sob. He wiped his face with a shaking, bloody hand and left red streaks across the dust on his cheeks.
"No. You hijacked my brain, made me kill something that told me to escape, and now you want a fucking tutorial?"
[98.7 % of users who skip orientation die within the first 72 hours. We are legally obligated to mention this.]
"I'm not a user!" he roared at the empty sky. "I'm—"
[Identity confirmed: Kayn.]
"That's not what I meant!" He kicked a loose chunk of concrete so hard it felt like he broke a toe, and probably did. The pain was almost welcome. "I don't need your orientation. I need to know why that thing wanted me to live."
[Query: Invalid. Information restricted until orientation is complete.]
He stared at the endless ruin around him. Somewhere out there, thousands more of those things were waking up.
He looked down at his shaking, blood-smeared hands.
"Goddammit," he muttered. "You're manipulating me, aren't you?"
[Clarification: Incentivizing compliance.]
"Okay, smartass," he said, voice cracking. "That's one word for it."
He dragged the rebar across the dirt, leaving a red trail.
"Fine. If the tutorial keeps me from dying naked and insane in this place… hit me with it."
[Acceptance registered.]
The hum in his skull rose to a steady thrum that matched his heartbeat. Pale lines of light crawled across the ground, weaving into symbols that hurt to look at directly.
[Initializing user orientation. Loading: 1 %…]
Kayn tightened his grip on the rebar until his knuckles went white.
Screams echoed throughout the city, no longer human. He closed his eyes as long as he could manage before they tore open in fear as he assessed the area around him.
"Do it fast," he whispered. "Before I change my mind."
The light flared, wrapping around him like a living thing. Heat bloomed in his chest. Every muscle, every nerve, every atom suddenly felt like it belonged to someone stronger, faster, better than he was.
[Welcome to the System, User: Kayn.]
[Orientation commencing.]
For the first time since waking up naked in hell, he wasn't afraid anymore. He didn't have time for fear, but rage. Yes, he had time for rage, and he was certainly furious.