Nar came to with a gasp.

  With his pulse beating in his temples, he looked around him.

  Where was he?

  Who were these people, laying on the floor in front of him?

  Slowly, his sense of self pieced itself back together.

  Crystal.

  Goodbye.

  Party.

  Yellow.

  B-Nex.

  Climber…

  He sat against the wall. Next to him, a red, glistening dark splatter slowly dripped down its length.

  What in the pile was that?

  He swallowed, still breathing hard, pushing down the all too familiar metallic taste on his tongue.

  Was that the Pressure?

  If it was, Crystal Almighty have mercy on them! He was certain he had been about to die!

  He wiped his mouth and chin and gaped at the mixture of blood, sweat and bile that marred his sleeve.

  Crystal Almighty…

  He looked up, searching for the others. They were all still down.

  Are they… No, they can’t be… They can’t…

  He forced himself onto his hands and knees and crawled towards the closest person.

  Tuk was drenched in sweat. An inaudible moan escaped his bloodied lips and his face was furrowed in pale ashen pain.

  Alive! Thank the Crystal! Nar thought.

  The whole brush with crushing, burning death was quickly making him very pious.

  He crawled past the trugger and checked on Kur next. He too was breathing. His chin was a bloody mess, but the party leader was alive.

  Cen suddenly sat up, inhaling as if her life depended on it.

  “Ah!” Nar gasped, falling backwards in fright.

  She screamed, her hands frozen in front of her face.

  “Are-Are you okay?” Nar asked.

  Cen peeked from behind her hand, her fingers stained with dark gray blood.

  “N-Nar?”

  Nar gulped. “Yeah. I was… You were… Everyone was down!”

  Cen looked around her, taking in the downed party.

  “Mul!” she screamed, as soon as she saw her bloodied brother.

  She tried to stand up and tumbled forwards.

  “He’s fine!” Nar said, not actually sure if her brother was in fact fine. “Everyone's fine. I think.”

  Thankfully, Mul chose that moment to wake up.

  “Holy fuuuuuuuuck,” he breathed.

  “Mul! Are you okay?” Cen asked.

  “I-I think so…”

  One by one, the rest of the party woke up, bloodied and frightened out of their minds. Gad was the last one to come to.

  “I hope that wasn’t the Pressure,” Tuk whispered, staring wide eyed at the stains around them and on them. “We just walked out… We haven’t even done anything yet!”

  “Nar, keep an eye out behind us,” Kur said, rubbing his eyes. “And Gad, you…”

  “I-I’m on it!” the tank said.

  She forced herself onto her knee, but from her swaying, it was clear she wasn’t going to get up anytime soon.

  “Please, sit down. I only meant for you to keep an eye out front,” Kur said. “Everyone, just calm down. Let’s just get our breath back for starters.”

  Gad grunted and sat back down with a sigh of relief.

  Nar, who had crawled back to his original spot, peered behind him.

  I really don’t like that, he thought, staring at that impenetrable darkness.

  A window popped up in front of him.

  “Gah!” he flinched.

  What in the…

  The window flickered in and out, and the words changed.

  “What in the pile is happening?” Mul asked.

  “Just read it for now,” Kur replied.

  The window flickered again.

  Sweat pooled over his forehead while Nar read the explanation.

  It was a lot to take in, but he found that it was straightforward enough. Keep his HP above zero, don’t get his head smashed in, and everything would be alright. Right?

  But how do I look at it?

  The words changed.

  “What in the pile…” he whispered, as he scanned the words.

  Source? Energy? Skills?

  The attributes he knew about. Somehow, he even understood what [Constitution] and [Strength] meant.

  Speaking of swinging his sword however, he suddenly remembered the weapon.

  With rising dread, he felt the floor around him, his eyes still blocked by the window’s text.

  His fingers brushed against something cool to the touch and he gently followed along the blade, down to the sword’s hilt.

  With a breath of relief, he pulled the sword up to his chest, hugging it.

  The window decided that he had enough time to read the information before him and disappeared.

  In its place, another one popped up, together with other, newer things.

  What’s this now?

  Nar frowned. What do you mean by…

  The window blinked off and another one, much narrower, showed up.

  Nar was stunned for a moment.

  This is… Me?

  Another window popped up next to it.

  Both windows disappeared, replaced by another one.

  Nar felt a sudden rush of warmth deep inside his skull.

  Concepts such as night and day, seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years and others exploded in his mind, and he squinted against the sudden discomfort and pressure.

  When it was over, he understood time like never before.

  My Crystal… How did we forget this?

  Nar stared at the shifting numbers.

  12:37:09 PM.

  It made so much sense.

  So much sense!

  How? How had he lived his whole life without knowing about this? How did the workers for that matter? How had everything devolved into A, B and C shifts? Into klaxons that kept track of their shifts, and down to the start and end of seasons being ruled by the Drop and Emptying of the pile?

  We have forgotten everything…

  He stared, in shock, at the clock.

  There could be anything waiting for them on the surface. The O-Nex and I-Nex could be anything and absolutely everything at all!

  For the first time since he had accepted the decision that he would be Climbing, he realized just how immense the unknown he was about to journey into was.

  The Infinite Nexus…

  He knew nothing about his destination other than that it was bright, more colorful and that it was there. He hoped.

  He knew nothing else.

  Shocked, he considered the new words before him.

  The window disappeared, and his UI went with it.

  Blank, Nar stared at the others, who reflected back the same looks of shock and confusion.

  “What in the pile was all that?” Mul asked, speaking for all of them.

  Nar’s head dropped, heavy. As if weighted by all the new knowledge he had been imparted with.

  Words, time, notions and concepts he would’ve never thought possible mere moments before.

  He understood it all, but at the same time, the knowledge tasted strange in his brain. New. Not quite his. At least not yet.

  “I think we should rest here for today,” Gad said.

  She was looking the worse for wear out of all them. She sweated profusely, and her breathing was ragged.

  “Yeah… I think so too,” Kur said.

  He was only faring a little better than Gad.

  In fact, now that he paid attention to his party, Nar noticed that some people, including himself, seemed to have taken whatever had just happened to them better than others.

  With Gad and Kur, Viy was also panting, and holding the sides of her face, as if to keep it from splitting in half.

  As for the rest of them, they looked wrecked, but nowhere as bad.

  “Are you guys, ok?” Cen asked, reaching the same conclusion as Nar.

  Kur nodded and winced, regretting the movement. “I’m fine. Just my head’s killing me. You guys are all… Fine?”

  Cen looked around.

  “I’m drained,” she said, frowning, as if tasting the new word that had just come out of her mouth. “But I’m okay?”

  “Same,” Tuk said.

  Nar nodded and Jul dipped her head.

  Mul snorted. “Ah! Weaklings!”

  Cen shot him a glare and he shrugged.

  “Looks like me, Viy and Gad didn’t take it so well,” Kur said. “Would you mind if we rested here for a bit?”

  “Of course not!” Cen shouted, before her brother could say anything.

  “Not so loud…” Jul whispered.

  The quam stared at the twin darknesses behind and in front of them with an anxious look, her antennae wiggling nervously this way and that way

  “Thank you,” Kur said, clearly relieved. “And yes. You’re right. From now on we should be much quieter and more careful.”

  Gad dragged herself to a wall and leaned against it. She tugged her shield tightly against her left side, and closed her eyes.

  Viy was already curled up to the side, passed out next to the tank.

  “Yeah… I think I’ll do the same,” Kur muttered, eyeing them. “Nar, Jul, keep an eye out will you?”

  “No worries,” Nar said.

  He wasn’t even sure if Kur had heard him. He had already drifted off.

  The others shared a glance, lost as to what to do now.

  Nar took a deep breath.

  It hadn’t been the start of the Climb he had expected. He had no idea what he had expected to be honest, but it hadn’t been this.

  This had been something else…

  Peering into the darkness ahead of them, he wondered what other surprises were waiting for him.

  He was outside everything he had ever known now.

  Everything would be new, surprising and dangerous.

  Yes, definitely dangerous…

  Those windows had mentioned pain, damage and death a lot.

  He hugged his sword tighter.

  Oh Crystal, have some mercy.

  He was definitely and quickly coming around on his whole anti-Crystal, Unclean attitude. And he noticed it.

  I’m not Unclean anymore, he told himself, pursing his lips. And he had to stop thinking like one if he wanted to make it.

  Fourteen years of rage and hatred or not, he had to let go of all of it. Make peace with it.

  He tasted bile at the back of his throat again, but he swallowed hard against it.

  I’m a Climber now. The past is in the past… he told himself, staring at the darkness ahead of him.

  The past is the past…

  Such is the way of fear.