I had been murdered by an actual truck, just like in some cheap light novel, reincarnated into another world, and I didn’t even get a t-shirt. Seriously. No underwear either. Unceremoniously dumped into a new world, and I was completely naked. I was also really upset.
One minute, I’d been walking across the street on the way home from work, head in the clouds about work and life and all the things I had going on. I’d looked up and seen a silver and red box truck roaring down the street, coming right at me, headlights blinding me, the driver not slowing in the slightest despite the red light and the fact that I had been in the middle of a crosswalk. In fact, from the sound of the engine gunning in that last moment, the truck had sped up!
There’d been a moment of terrible pain, gut-wrenching regret, and panic at what I’d be leaving behind.
The next minute, I was in an endless desert, with sand dunes, clear blue skies, and a sun that wanted to murder me all over again. The only saving grace was that I was at a round oasis about the size of an Olympic swimming pool, with a small ring of dark greenery around it: grass, palms, some bushes. Paradise right? No. There was nothing to eat, nobody around, bugs in the sand, and it was super hot during the day and super cold at night.
My name was James, who friends have described as “the nice guy who usually finishes last” and “the guy with the truck who will always help you move” as well as “the dude with the crasy hot wife who is SO out of his league!” and I…did not handle the transition well. Dying was very difficult to process.
I spent the first two days in shock, loss, and anger, impatiently waiting. I assumed, since I was awake and aware and this didn’t seem like some heaven or hell type place, that it was some kind of isekai thing happening, but if it was, it sucked. No sexy goddess descending from the heavens with an apology and gifts to compensate for screwing up. No OP skills. No stats page. Just abandoned, naked, at an oasis in a vast, empty desert with nothing but sun, sand, and tiny insects biting my most delicate bits whenever I sat down. BECAUSE I WAS NAKED.
I threw a tantrum, kicking a lump of garbage someone had left there, golden sand, and clumps of emerald-green grass. Assuming some kind of omnipotent god was responsible, I shouted up at the clear, light-blue sky, “If I ever find out who’s done this to me, I am gonna kick the deity right out of them!”
I quickly sunburned. Boiled lobsters looked less red than I did, everywhere. It was all I could do to try to find a shred of shade under the thin palms and follow it all day as the sun moved through the sky. But palm trees don’t cast a lot of shade. I was starving, too. But that didn’t matter because I was pretty sure the thirst was gonna kill me first. Going days without liquids, in that heat, on top of my trauma at being sent there, was causing me to spiral into madness.
The only water was in the oasis. It was super clear, but everyone knows you don’t drink unfiltered, wild water because you can get really sick. Animals and insects use it, leaving behind all kinds of bacteria and viruses. So I avoided it, hoping I might figure something else out.
So I sat in partial shade, burning to a crisp while I stared at a pool full of water I couldn’t drink, muttering, “Thanks, system or god or aliens who did this to me. Really helpful. Go fuck yourselves.”
When the next day dawned, I woke with the sun, because it was instantly bright and hot everywhere. I hadn’t figured out what to do about the water situation. No help had come along, no travellers had arrived. I looked in all directions, but it was nothing but sand dunes as far as I could see. So, on the verge of delirium, I did it. I knelt at the edge of the oasis pool with my knees in the warm water. I stared at the liquid with longing and dread. “It’s been four days, Water Anonymous, since my last drink, and if I don’t drink something, anything, I’m a dead man.” I plunged in and drank the water. I couldn’t help it. I was too thirsty.
I guzzled about three litres before I noticed the corpse rotting under the water.
Staring right up at me.
It scared the stuffing out of me. You never, ever want to look down into a pool of water and see anyone or anything staring back at you. It’s just wrong. Terrifying.
I later spent two hours reaping the consequences of drinking bad water. It was polluted. “Because F my life, right? I deserve this.” It started with cramps. Nothing too serious. Then it worked its way through me with dramatic speed. I barely got a hole dug in the sand outside the oasis in time.
By day five, I was running on fumes. I was starving so badly that I became lightheaded. I remained dehydrated. The dry air of the desert just yanked water from my body without asking because it did not care at all about consent. I knew I shouldn’t drink more of the water because some dead thing was lying at the bottom of the pool. But I needed to hydrate, so I drank it again, even knowing what would happen.
I spent the afternoon ensconced over a fresh hole in the sand, not feeling well at all. I put my face in my hands, wishing it all would end. “Maybe I’ll just curl up and die.”
I spent so much time out in the open desert, away from the shade, burning while squatting over my little latrine holes, that I dragged a few ratty old palm fronds out there to make an umbrella-type enclosure as shelter from the sun. I stood in the super-hot sand, looking down at it. “I have been sent to a new world, and the first thing I did was build a toilet. Behold, my grand empire. Gaze upon my works, ye mighty, and despair.” I sighed and returned to the oasis, where it wouldn’t feel like I was walking on a stove top. I needed to make sandals.
I wished I could boil the water to kill the bacteria in it, but there were only a couple of dozen palm trees and some bushes around for fuel. Without the shade, I’d fry to death in the blazing sun since there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, ever. Not that I had any idea of how to make fire without matches or a lighter. No one born after 1990 had any sort of bush or camping skills that worked in real life.
An idea hit me. I figured I’d try to filter the water. There was all that sand, right? I made a cylinder out of rocks and dead palm trunks, about a meter tall. I filled it with sand and poured the water through, catching it with a fallen palm frond at the bottom. Of course, the water was brown and muddy, but…it seemed to work. A little. The gritty sand didn’t taste so bad. I went to the sand toilet somewhat less.
I spotted some kind of coconut or breadfruit thing hanging from some of the palms, each about the size of a 10-pin bowling ball. They were purple and hairy, like diseased rambutan. A few rotted ones were on the ground. They made durian smell like the world’s best perfume. It was a bit like the worst smelly feet with an undertone of HOLY HELL THIS IS STUPIDLY DISGUSTING!
But one fell out of a tree on day six. I had been desperate for food for a long time. I spent probably an hour trying to crack the stupid thing open on a rock. Finally did it. Inside was really gorgeous, pink and blue flesh with little black seeds like in a dragonfruit. I ate some.
Flaming diarrhea. It burned coming out.
I sighed in my new deluxe sand toilet, then moaned, “Fuck my life.”
The next day, I learned that there were scorpions in the desert. They were the size of chihuahuas. Their crab claws were as big as a child’s hands. Whenever they closed, it sounded like a pair of scissors snipping shut. That made my skin crawl.
Soon enough, I could tell that this really was some crazy fantasy or sci-fi world for sure. The lapdog-sized scorpions fired little lightning bolts out of their stingers with a crackling zap. And they really stung!
I did three laps around the oasis before the first one gave up chasing me. I was still naked, so I was flapping in the wind the whole time. Ever try sprinting in sand with a sunburned penis? Awesome good time. I prayed that whatever god had brought me there would get to experience the same.
Eventually, I escaped the scorpion. It wouldn’t come into the water to get me, thank cheeses sliced. So there I was, starved, thirsty, and treading water. I looked down.
I could see the corpse under me. It was still staring with sightless eyes.
Good times.
The next day, I laboriously hauled the decomposing body out of my only water source. Probably should have done that earlier. I barely had the strength to do it. It took ages to dive down and pull it out. To my surprise, but not really, the dead person wasn’t human. That made sense since I wasn’t on Earth anymore, or so I definitely reasoned. It was a lizard person dressed in loose, dirty white robes like one of those desert people back home, bedwetters or bedwins or something, I couldn’t recall their name. The robes made the dead guy heavy as heck with all that wet cloth, so I had to strip the corpse under water before I could even drag it up the bank.
Extremely hungry still, I gave some serious thought to eating the guy at one point. But the dead man was pretty rotten. So I decided to bury him out in the sand beyond the trees, away from my latrines. That took another age. It didn’t help that the annoying little electric scorpion kept popping out of the sand to chase me. If only I’d had the strength to throw the corpse at it.
Good news, though. I now had clothes. They were the clothes of a dead lizard person who’d been rotting under water for who knew how long. And that’s exactly what they smelled like.
I managed to make it to another bright dawn in the desert. Somehow, despite how sick they both made me, I was surviving on polluted water and poisonous fruit that smelled worse than I did. Maybe eating only a handful meant it harmed me less. The water filter seemed to be working a bit too. I only spent half the day squirting liquids in agony. But I remained in bad shape, still starving, thirsty, and dizzy at the slightest movement. My whole body was in pain from the nasty sunburn, my skin tight, and every movement was misery. I would have been constantly crying tears if I’d had any water in my system to spare.
Sand is about as pleasant a replacement for toilet paper as you’d expect. Got a bit raw down there.
But even more good news arrived!
The palm trees were home to killer tarantula-style spiders the size of my hand — NOT including their legs. Because giant scorpions weren’t enough of a challenge. Why not include something that suddenly drops out of the palm tree you were sitting under, wraps its hairy legs around YOUR ENTIRE HEAD and then proceeds to bite the back of your skull over and over? I managed to rip the infuriating thing off, which wasn’t easy because of course its legs have talons, and then I threw it on the ground as hard as I could, which did nothing and tried to stomp the assassin bug to death only for it crawl up under my brand new robes, which didn’t include underwear, and take another bite out of some really soft places.
I finally killed the thing, but was bleeding from places I’d really rather not be. Not to mention the wounds all over my head. I washed them in water that a guy had died in and rotted in. Super clean. I couldn’t wait to see what kind of horrible infection that led to.
This world sucked.
I didn’t have to wait long. By the next day, the wounds were very itchy.
My sunburns hurt like hell on fire. I wondered how the desert creatures survived and realized that they hid under the sand. The scorpion had been hiding that way before I had come along. So I buried himself as well under some wet sand to get away from the sun. It was much cooler, and I felt like an idiot for not doing it days earlier.
There were no spiders that day. But I still considered burning down all the trees just in case there were more, even if it meant losing all my shade and food sources. Because screw spiders with a leg span like an umbrella.
That evening, I saw the scorpion watching me from across the oasis. Just eyeballing the hell out of me with its dozen eyes glinting in the setting sun with promises of murder. Because that’s not creepy as can be, right?
I barely got any sleep that night because of that electric demon. Scorpions are nocturnal. I kept waking up, afraid it was stalking me. I huddled in my hole in the ground, hoping to avoid it. And any friends. The exhaustion and pain seemed never-ending. I was so tired of this trial.
Day eleven turned out to be a day of glory and death! Not my death, though.
I shouted up at the sky in triumph, “Muahahaha! Suck it, isekai world!”
I’d wondered if the dead guy had had anything else on him, so I’d taken a dive in the oasis. Rooting around in the mud at the bottom, I’d come up with a spear. A freakin’ spear, baby! It was nothing special, just a plain wooden shaft and triangular bronze head about the length of my forearm, probably cheap army issue or something.
Guess who took that spear and showed that lightning-throwing scorpion from hell who’s the boss? Hint: it wasn’t Tony Danza. Guess who danced all around the oasis like a lunatic, making all kinds of noise, taunting it until it came up out of the sand in an explosion of rage and lightning, expecting to kill my sorry butt only to get a face full of sharp bronze? Guess who stabbed it in the face until it had no face?
I screamed at it, which was probably reasonable given my unhealthy emotional state at the time, “Stupid, faceless, lightning bitch who kept shooting lighting bolts in my ass. Yeah, that’s who’s dead. BECAUSE FUCK YOU!!!”
But wait. It got better.
We’ve all seen pics of people eating weird stuff. We’ve all laughed at the idea of eating a scorpion. Well — I finally did it.
There was a big, flat black rock on the edge of the oasis that sat in the sun all day long. It got super hot. If you splashed some water on it, it hissed and popped like a frying pan.
I cut the stinger off the scorpion. I didn’t think it was poisonous because the stinger wasn’t actually a barb, just a tiny quartz-like crystal, but why chance it? I tried to clean it; took some guts out. I had no idea what was edible. But I was so hungry, I’d eat just about anything. I fried the scorpion on the black rock for a good long while until that thing turned black too. I’d rather eat charcoal than get yet another bacterial infection. Not like I’d had enough of those, right?
I sat and bit into the crunchy specimen. It tasted like half-burnt seafood chicken. Yep, really disgusting. I sighed.
“I miss my wife’s cooking.”
I woke up with severe cramps in the middle of the night. Explosive conclusion to the scorpion saga.
The next day, a growing stench drifted on the wind. The patch of desert I’d been fertilizing was really starting to smell. “I hope that isn’t going to attract any nasty monsters or something. Doom flag. Because I hate myself.” I decided to start digging latrines a little deeper from then on.
Then — the impossible happened.
I killed another scorpion and levelled. Level 1. Stats appeared in some kind of menu that I assumed only I could see in the air in front of my face.
Written in blood. That boded well.
- Strength 12
- Speed 14
- Health 15
- Mana 8
- Intelligence 13
- Penis Size
Yeah. Penis size. I wasn’t going to think about that last number unless it got bigger.
Levelling. I couldn’t believe it. It was just too stupid for words. The world actually had a video game system. No joke. I’d levelled up. How idiotic was that? Where would that even come from? Why would a world have a video game system governing people? Like, who had come up with that? It was nonsense! Life shouldn’t work that way! What dopamine-addicted, game-obsessed loser had forced the whole world to have levels and skills and crap?
This surely raised a whole slew of problems. Like disparity from unfair levels, abilities, and powers. As if capitalism wasn’t bad enough, now we compound that with levels, stats, and skills? Imagine evil dictators with super high power levels and selfish billionaires with OP skills.
Tyrants probably ran wild in this world. Murder-hobos everywhere. You couldn’t tell me that if you gave people super strength and speed and crazy magic skills, a bunch of them wouldn’t abuse the hell out of it all the time for personal gain. It was probably pure chaos out there. Assuming there were other people out there. It was entirely possible that I had been sent to a barren planet with nothing but electric scorpions and assassin spiders.
Oh yeah, I recalled the lizard guy. I guessed there were people. Couldn’t wait to get my ass handed to me by some pissant narcissist with a temper and higher levels. Yay.
I also got a skill: [Lesser Resistance: Disease].
That…was pretty cool, actually.
The next day, aware that I was in a world with a game system, that this was like some anime, I had a lot of really important questions on my mind, and they just kept tumbling around, over and over:
Did it list penis size because I was a guy and had a penis?
Did women have a stat sheet that listed boob size?
Or did everyone on the planet have a penis?
My wounds hurt. A bunch began leaking dark yellow pus from my head, face, neck, and yeah, more tender places. All were definitely infected. I had a runny nose and aching muscles, so I probably had a fever. It was fine, though. I’d just pop over to the hospital and then the pharmacy, all handily provided by a universal health care system. Some antibiotics would clear it right up.
Oh, wait. I couldn’t.
BECAUSE I’D BEEN BLOODY ISEKAI’D. IF THAT WAS EVEN A WORD.
I was so sick of the situation. It wasn’t fair. Why was life so often so unfair?
Being isekai’d wasn’t even the worst thing that had ever happened to me, just the second.
The fever got worse. The next day, I could barely do anything all day. I just hid in the damp hole, in the shade of the palm fronds, willing myself to get better while my mind wandered.
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
“Seriously, does everyone on the planet have a penis?”
And, thanks to the fever, I began hallucinating or remembering.
Cerise and I argued today. I don’t even know why. Stupid stuff. And…hell, I know it’s my fault. I just couldn’t stop myself. She’s so beautiful and wonderful, the light of my world, and I hate looking bad in her eyes. So I tried to defend myself, argue out of it, even blamed her at one point for something not even true.
I’m so ashamed of myself. I love her so much. Why can’t I just be honest with myself? With her? Admit when I screw up? I’m so scared to apologize, even though I know I should, that it’s the right thing to do.
I don’t deserve her love. Never have. But seeing the look on her face and the pain I’ve caused, I’ve never felt so worthless. I need to be better. For her. Or my love is a lie.
Another scorpion found me. It crawled by, seemingly unaware of me entirely until I saw it, flinched from within the hideout, and the palm fronds over my head rustled. I barely had the strength to kill it. Got a fresh electric burn on top of the sunburns. Awesome.
Maybe because the system had kicked in from levelling, I could now see phantom numbers when I fought something. It was just like in video games nowadays, because it wasn’t enough to see someone getting hit or maybe some blood and gore, they had to flash endless numbers on top of the action too. Because…gamers were all math nerds? I’d never understood it.
My numbers were super impressive. Like:
1111122111211
I stared at the dead bug long after the numbers had faded away. “Please tell me that there’s a way to turn that off because it’s very distracting.” Eventually, I just shook my head and flicked the dead thing away with my spear in disgust.
I decided I was just gonna stay in that damp hole I’d dug, buried in sand, palm fronds over my head, until I felt better. I was too weak from the fever to eat or drink anything.
I was definitely dying.
A thought slipped into my syrupy brain at some point, and I darkly chuckled to myself. “Heh. I’m already buried. If I die, I’ll have dug my own grave. Literally.”
The fever grew worse. I started talking to the air:
“There were potatoes on the barbecue. I asked because Sasquatch said so.”
“Do you feel like Marly isn’t always bright red?”
“I hate Mondays. No, seriously, potatoes.”
“I’m falling! I’m done now. Holy crap, that was scary.”
“We need to seriously consider better security, or all the Batmans are gonna steal the potatoes. All the Batmans.”
At one point, it seemed like a really smart idea to lick the pus.
I licked the pus.
The pus was gross.
Something foul began stinking up the hidey hole. I pinched my nose, grossed out. “Did someone mess themselves?”
I looked down. “Oh, that would be me. Heeheeheehee.”
Lost, my mind scattered all over the place, I drifted back in time. In a way, I was lucky because I recalled one of the best moments of my life in shocking detail:
Cerise, I love you so much. I’m sorry I’m not good with words. I wish I was, like, a poet or something. I wish I could share just…how big this feeling is. It’s like my chest is going to explode and swallow me whole. Ok, that’s stupid, but I made you laugh, so that’s a win, right?
You’re the most beautiful woman in the world. You’re fun and kind. So patient. Wise. I’ve never respected anyone so much.
I never knew happiness, real happiness, until I met you. Every day feels more fun now. Even when you’re not by my side, I’m thinking about you. All the time. The world literally feels more colourful. You make me more positive. More hopeful about the future. Thank you for that. You’ll never know how grateful I am.
I don’t know why you’re marrying a lump like me, but I swear, I will always love you and honour you, and do everything I can to make your dreams come true.
My wedding vows. We’d kissed after, and I’d cried. I remembered that, and for once, I hadn’t cared if anyone had seen me because she’d been grinning and crying too, and I’d been so stupidly happy. The honeymoon sex was like starlight cocaine on steroids.
I woke up in the cooling desert evening, sweating like a pig and stewing in filth. It was hard to think straight. Everything hurt. My stomach felt like it was gnawing away at me from the inside. I was thirsty, dizzy, and light-headed. I was pretty sure I’d been out of it for a while because of the fever, but I didn’t know for how long. Had it been hours or days?
I weakly crawled out of the hole and drank from the edge of the pool. I just lay on my stomach, face in the water, making a bit of effort not to drown but also not entirely caring if I did. I knew I had to drink slowly or I’d probably vomit it back up. Not that it would matter because I’d just be on the sand toilet later. Again.
My whole body was in pain. I was exhausted. On an intellectual level, I knew this is when we’re at our worst and we think our darkest thoughts. But at that moment, I thought about just letting myself fall into the pool. Killing myself. Maybe that’s what had happened to lizard dude. Emotionally, the lure was strong.
But then I thought about what Cerise would think of that if she were looking down on me. Of me giving up like that. She’d be so disappointed in me. What kind of way is that to repay her love and faith in me? I hated myself for even thinking of suicide.
I dug a fresh hole on the edge of the water. It took forever because I was so weak. Crawled inside with my spear and pulled the palm frond over my head again. At least if the infection and fever killed me, it wouldn’t be my fault. I drifted off again, into dreams or sleep, I wasn’t sure.
A scorpion woke me in the middle of the night. I must have heard it feeding on another one nearby. Couldn’t recall how the dead one had gotten there.
The new one heard me or saw me move. Scorpions seemed really alert to movement or vibrations. Lightning bolt to my face. I stabbed once, missed. Lightning bolt to the shoulder. Could barely see anything, even with the blanket of stars overhead. No moon that night. Just kept stabbing with the spear, feeling weak. Eventually, I got it.
I must have collapsed and gone back to sleep for a while. Woke up with the sun up. The older dead scorpion was looking iffy, but I took the new one over to the cooking rock and baked it or fried it or whatever. Ate it. My head was so foggy, I couldn’t really think straight. I cooked some of the stinky fruit too. Pretty sure it had gone bad, but I was too weak to care. I think cooking it or maybe letting it rot weakened the poison because it hurt less going through me later.
Food gave me enough energy to filter some water. I did that a couple of times before I was just too tired to move anymore. I crawled back into the dirty hole I’d been in, still sick.
This world sucked.
At some point, I started singing,
Jingle Bells,
Batman smells,
Robin laid a potato.
Catwoman hissed
Ivy and Harley kissed
And Joker needs more ammo
Potato!
I woke up late one morning. I felt absolutely spent and weak, like a half-dead kitten that had been stepped on. But the ache in my muscles was gone. My head felt clearer. The fever had passed.
[Lesser Resistance: Disease] had probably saved my life. Maybe having system skills wasn’t so bad.
When I crawled out of my hole, I realized I’d levelled up. I was level 2. My health stat had gone up. I didn’t know if it was because I’d survived a fever or if levelling up had caused the fever to stop. But I feel better. Relatively.
My full-body sunburn was peeling, and the electric burns stung. The sores were still leaking pus and stank, so I forced myself to open them up and clean them out with sand and water. I cooked wet sand on the hot rock to hopefully disinfect it first. I thought that passing out from pain only happened in the movies. Turned out, it was a real thing. Hooray for new experiences.
I glanced up at the sky. “Wow, whoever put me in this position, if you’re listening, I’m so grateful. You should come on down so I can thank you. Permanently. With my spear up your ass.”
Hungry, I went hunting. I managed to bag another scorpion and cooked it before the sun went down. The next day, I’d try to get another stinky fruit down from a palm. Without getting a face full of assassin tarantula. Or more flaming diarrhea. Hopefully. But too tired to do more, I went to bed again.
Alone in the desert with nothing but the stars, it was very peaceful. This was more nature than I’d had in a long time. I’d been here a while, and I was still alive. I hadn’t given up. No matter how much it hurt, I hadn’t given up. I would be someone Cerise would have been proud of.
It had been a while since I’d been anything like that, but I was finally doing it.
Even in the face of all this adversity, I was holding onto that promise.
Unfortunately, the next day, I was so exhausted and miserable that my thoughts turned dark again. It was hard to believe I’d been in that oasis for nearly a month. How. Why?
Why did life keep throwing these wicked curveballs? Why did they always have to hurt? If they were gonna murder me and send me to another world, why couldn’t it have been filled with beautiful women in bikinis and fewer monsters? Coconut rum and cola always on tap at my house, and free Hawaiian pizza for life?
How had this even happened? Evolution wouldn’t have produced a game system. There had to be some entity behind it. Had they been responsible for bringing me here, too? This all has to be someone’s idea of a sick joke, right? I hoped it wasn’t going to be like this forever.
I was grateful that I still had my own body and mind and stuff. I mean, thank sucking spice I hadn’t reincarnated as a baby in that oasis. I’d have been spider food on day one.
Now that the fever was behind me, and with Cerise on my mind, I took stock of the oasis, trying to be more proactive about surviving instead of just wallowing and reacting to things in a bad way like a child. Even though she was long gone, hopefully to a better place, she was still the reason I wanted to be a better person.
Since the water in the oasis never went down despite evaporation, I guessed it was a spring, the water constantly coming up from underground. So I had unlimited water. Even if it gave me the shits. I had a very limited supply of partially poisonous fruit which gave me the flaming shits. And scorpions which gave me explosive shits.
It was a really shitty oasis.
The limited food wouldn’t last forever. Assuming the dysentery, the heat, the deadly monsters, or depression didn’t kill me, I was going to have to find a more permanent food source. I hadn’t looked beyond the immediate surroundings, hadn’t gone more than ten paces past the trees and greenery of the oasis. It looked like the endless Sahara out there, just golden sand as far as I could see. But I needed to explore. Maybe there was a road nearby. Maybe the desert wasn’t as empty as it looked. Maybe, just over the horizon, was a fabulous city of gold filled with generous genies with huge boobs and Vegas-style buffets.
No. Turned out, I was the buffet.
I went exploring in the dunes. Those scorpions were everywhere. They must have been active during the night because during the day, they were lying in wait under the sand, tail poised to strike, lashing out with lightning at any tremor. Then they would burst out from under the sand, claws snipping and snapping, trying to cut your toes off.
After that happened three times, I started sweeping the ground around me with the spear whenever I moved. I covered about a quarter of a circle going around the oasis, staying fairly close. By the end of the day, I’d killed seven of the critters. Made me wonder.
If there were that many chihuahua-sized scorpions around, what were they all eating?
I knew what I was eating.
Fried scorpion. And lots of it.
That night, I stayed up late. The stars were gorgeous. There wasn’t even the faintest hint of artificial light in any direction, which made me think there were no urban centers anywhere close. Which meant I was probably in the middle of nowhere, which tracked for my situation so far.
Because I needed all the challenges I could get. Life had been an absolute paradise so far. I didn’t feel at all like my years back on Earth had involved me constantly getting punched in the face, spit on, and kicked while I was down. Why wouldn’t it be more of the same in a different world? If I had a Luck stat, it would be -5.
I tried to take a few hours, just staring up at the sparkles in the sky, trying to appreciate it and let go of some of the anger that seemed to be my primary emotion since I’d arrived. I didn’t like being angry, didn’t want to be. I wanted to be happy.
I used to be happy all the time. When I’d been married to Cerise. Before she’d died.
It was easy to look up to that endless expanse and feel tiny, even insignificant. The galaxy was a sight that had been so normal for millions of years on Earth, but had become so rare. Maybe this world hadn’t suffered capitalist-industrial selfishness to the same degree. Yet, anyway.
Being up late let me see how the desert came alive after dark. Like a…metaphor of some kind.
All kinds of insects appeared. Where they had been hiding during the day, I had no idea. I saw rodents skittering and jumping. Huge gray moths fluttering by. The meter-wide tarantulas descended from the trees to hunt. Looked like they hid under palm fronds during the day and murdered things at night. They seem to be arch enemies of the scorpions. The two appeared to engage in some never-ending blood feud once the sun went down, eating each other. And their own kind. Out on the sands, it was an all-out war.
I hunkered down in the oasis pool, water up to my shoulders, a good three paces away from the shore, avoiding the hell out of that horrifying nonsense.
The next morning, I was dining on blackened scorpion when movement in the sky caught my attention. I looked up and saw a very large vulture circling right above me. A vulture. Scavenger. They eat the dying and dead.
I tried not to take it personally.
But it probably knew better than I did, and I was probably doomed.
Eventually, the vulture must have had enough of circling overhead. It decided to land on the other side of the oasis. It just sat there on a dusty beige boulder, staring at me the same way that evil scorpion had earlier. I’d have gone over and shown it who’s boss, but the bird was about as tall as I was. Its claws left scratches on the stone. That great, hooked beak could probably tear my throat out.
So, the vulture, that’s who’s boss.
Got me lickin’ my lips and thinking of fried chicken though.
I tried to kick that idea out of my head. I was way too weak to fight a bird as big as I was. One that was a little wary but obviously not scared of me from the way its eyes just bored into me all day. The second I got injured or sick again, that thing was going to bury its face in my guts and eat them while I was still breathing. Probably peck my eyes out like picking cherries off a cake.
I tried to ignore it and spent the day circling the oasis again, palm fronds for a parasol, breadfruit husks for shoes because the sand was so hot, and my spear leading the way. The scorpions I uncovered slowed things down, but they were also going to be a steady food supply. And I didn’t hate the idea of there being fewer deadly creatures around. I’d been lucky as luck could be that nothing had killed me while I’d slept. So far.
I came across a rocky outcropping poking out of the sand, just out of sight of the oasis. It wasn’t large, maybe the size of a fridge. The yellowish rock looked crumbly and fragile. I approached, slowly feeling my way with the spear. Scorpions jumped out of the sand in numbers the closer I got to the outcrop. Weirdly, as my spear poked through the desert sand, it kept turning over detached claws, scorpion legs, and other body parts. I felt like I was traipsing through some kind of insect graveyard.
I kept going, curious about the outcropping. I figured it was probably nothing, but it was the only feature I’d come across so far, so I wanted to see it up close.
With the angle of the sun that morning, the craggy rock jutting out of the sand cast a shadow in my direction. I looked forward to some respite from the blazing sun. It was brutal. It would have been nice to do the exploring in the dark of night, but after seeing how the desert came alive under the stars, the sun might have been the lesser evil. At least I had clothes now. They were nasty against my sunburned skin, but would prevent further burns. And cancer. Just my luck, I’d get super skin cancer out here.
Would [Lesser Resistance: Disease] help with that? Dude, I sure hoped so.
Feet sliding through the superhot sand, clumsily protected by the breadfruit husks, I probed the edge of the shadows.
Sand exploded in all directions, not once, but twice, as the first buried scorpion triggered another right next to it.
I dropped the parasol so I could get both hands on the spear. Sunlight flashed off the bronze spearhead as I stabbed at both creatures. Luckily, they were as distracted by each other as they were by me. No loyalty for their own species, they snapped one claw at their brethren while they skittered forward to attack me at the same time. I hastily backstepped as I fought them off. I should have looked where I was going.
A burst of sand sprayed me from behind. Another scorpion appeared at my heels, so close that I stumbled overtop of it before I could stop myself.
A little lightning bolt hit me in the balls.
IN THE FUCKING BALLS!!
Screaming in pain, I rage-stomped the scorpion several times, cutting my feet, then jabbed the spear into the nearest attacking scorpion, nailing it right through the back.
The third critter curled its tail. Light flashed.
It hit me right between the eyes. Hate filled my soul.
Screaming, I clutched my face with one hand, blinded and stumbling about. With my free arm, I slashed in all directions, feeling the spear tip hit the scorpion and knock it about, but knowing I probably hadn’t hurt it much.
Without realizing it, I wandered closer and closer to the rocks. I stepped into the shadow. Something below crunched like breaking celery.
My foot sank calf-deep into the sand, causing me to lurch. I felt the sand rapidly slipping away, slipping down into the ground, draining. Had I stepped in quicksand or something? Furiously blinking my teary eyes, I tried to see what was going on while also pulling myself out of there.
But it was no use. There was more crunching. The ground was sinking faster than I could escape.
Then a hole opened up underneath me. I sank into a pit deeper than I was tall. It was completely in shadow. Must have been some kind of hollow space under the sand for some reason, like a bubble, and I’d popped it.
Panting, I stood there as the sand around me slowed to a trickle. I stood in a pile of it. Of sand, shards of what looked like dirty broken glass, and a dozen half-buried lightning scorpions that had been buried under the surface of the sand in the shadow of the rock until I’d disturbed them all. My stomach turned ice-cold. I swallowed and tightened my grip on the spear.,
Then I blinked and wiped away a few more muddy tears from my burning eyes.
There was a cave before me in the newly exposed rock that had been hidden until now. The outcrop above had been nothing but the tip of the iceberg.
From inside the dark cave, a metric ton of shiny little eyes stared back at me.
“So, I guess this is where all you little bastards are coming from, huh? Fuck me.”
The scorpions in the sand and cave came at me en masse.
Adrenaline hit me. Lots of panic, too. I wildly slashed and jabbed every which way. Scorpions big and small, from the size of mice to the size of cats, scampered over the sand, claws snapping and tearing chunks out of my legs. They climbed up my white robe and tried to swarm me. Lightning hit me from all angles, so much that it didn’t just sting something fierce, it left me paralyzed for seconds at a time, flopping around like a dying fish.
It would have been over in a minute or two, but the sudden swarm turned on itself as well as me, becoming a frenzy of all-out destruction. Because scorpions are highly individual predators, always ready to destroy their own. Like corporate executives.
I screamed until I no longer had breath to do so, all my energy devoted to killing the little monsters while trying to back away. One died. Then another. Scorpion guts began flying, almost as much as I was shedding blood. I speared two more, my lungs rasping from the effort.
You wouldn’t believe the numbers just flying all over the place:
111221121212121111111221131131112211112
Did you see the threes? Must have crit those motherfuckers.
My excitement was very short-lived. With so little water and food over the past weeks, and the way it had been coming right back out of me, I was frail. I wouldn’t last long.
Then I levelled up. Level 3.
A burst of energy flowed through me. My stats flashed before my eyes, still in blood-red type. Not only did the max health stat go up, but I felt myself heal, and some of my energy was instantly restored. The many cuts on my arms and legs partially closed up. I wasn’t restored to full health, but it was still a boon.
I also felt more strength in my arms. My strength and speed stats had both gone up by one.
Trapped in a pit with dozens of scorpions and on the verge of death, I suddenly didn’t care about anything but this crazy feeling of rejuvenation and greater power. I cackled with glee. “Haha! Die die die!” I wailed all around me with the spear, smashing and cutting, insect parts flying, leaving dead things in my wake. I stomped and punched, heedless of the damage I was doing to myself just to stay alive, crushing anything in reach. I descended into a madness of pain and fear and desperation under a thin veneer of murderous abandon.
11111211222112121213312113211241212311
With increased strength, I was critting 4s now. Wow.
Soon after, I levelled up again to 4.
I gained [Passive: Second Wind] in the middle of the battle. A minute later, a fresh burst of energy infused me. Apparently, the new skill kicked in automatically. Well, yeah, it was listed as a passive skill. Duh.
More scorpions died.
Eventually, my body reached its limits, skills or not, and I slowed. But the number of scorpions dwindled as well. At some point, I speared the last of them and then fell back against the side of the sand pit, covered in gore, blood, and sweat. Tears, too, but let’s not mention that part. At least I hadn’t wet myself.
I couldn’t think. Couldn’t move except to heave in great lungfuls of air. Muscles trembled on their own from lack of oxygen. I had sand in my eyes, my mouth, and in every bloody wound. I might have given up and stayed there for a good long while, but that ominous black opening, that dark portal to hell where those scorpions had all been hiding, it scared the daylights out of me.
Achingly, I rolled over, belly against the side of the pit. Using the spear like a dagger, I dragged myself up the side, half-swimming through the sand until I was back on the surface. I saw the oasis trees and crawled forward. I left a trail of blood and scorpion goo in my wake.
I was sure that wouldn’t come back to bite me in the ass.
It took all day to recover the necessary strength, but after I returned to the oasis and rested for a while, I dug a bath next to the pool and scooped water into it. The water slowly drained away, but it was enough to wash the filth away and clean my many new wounds. I scrubbed them with hot sand and water from the stove. I’d probably experience a bunch of new infections, but what the hell. Washing might help.
That night, I didn’t have to worry about any spiders or scorpions attacking me in my sleep. I woke up once and heard a trauma-scary war zone going on in the distance, in the same direction as the pit I’d barely crawled out of. All that death must have drawn everything with an appetite in the region, and they were fighting over it.
I figured I was probably safe so far from the action. I went back to sleep, hiding under the sand near the water, palm frond over my head and spear in hand, as always. Careful not to move and draw any attention to myself.
I woke again the next morning, barely able to move. But I sluggishly crawled out of the sand and warily looked around.
The vulture was still there. Sitting on his rock. Looking at me. With those bloodshot eyes.
I glared back. I was really hungry for some grilled chicken.
Something to the side caught the huge, ugly bird’s attention. Its head swivelled in that direction. Eyes widened. It raised its wings in panic and tried to take flight.
A proper lightning bolt hit it square in the chest. Thunder cracked. Black and white feathers flew in all directions. The bird let out a horrid squawk of pain. It tumbled backward off the rock, scrambled up, and tried to fly, but it must have been in too much pain. It hopped away, screeching, trying to put palms and bushes between it and whatever had attacked it.
Breathing fast, I turned to look in the same direction the now dead bird had looked.
From out of the bushes at the edge of the oasis came a true monster: a lightning scorpion the size of a German shepherd. Each claw looked large enough to cut one of my arms clean off. The tail curled up as high as my chest, a glittering, clear crystal where the stinger would be on a typical scorpion.
I despaired. “There’s a momma lightning scorpion? You’ve gotta be kidding me!”
The scorpion turned on all six legs to face me. The tail twitched, and the tip glowed.
read that version of Ch 1 here. Honestly, I love that version because it allowed me to spread my creative wings and do something really different from what I usually do. And I wanted to do something different from the kind of thing people are used to reading because sometimes you need a refreshing change of pace. But I understand that this style is not popular. So, I edited it into a more typical chapter. Feel free to read both and share your own thoughts on which is better or more fun.