Jose opened his status page and marveled at the information. What he’d achieved wasn’t quite the circuit he’d been aiming for but it was clear he was on the right track.
[Health: 335/335 Ether: 70/70
Level: 9
Soul: Ancient
Race: Sapient
Genus: None
Species: None
Strength: 20
Constitution: 23
Endurance: 23
Agility: 26
Dexterity: 19
Awareness: 19
Wisdom: 18
Capacity: 29
Free Points: 4
Skills: Strike, Volt-Gen, Bolt, Null-Bind
Passives: Flux-Bod, Ether-Cell, Crafting (Beginner)]
“The Ether Cell skill literally applies the 10% mentioned to wisdom and capacity, huh.” Furthermore, a new section was added for passive skills. “So crafting is a passive skill… Kind of makes sense; it’s something I would only need during crafting, though,” he pulled up its info to double-check it and found a new note at the bottom.
[Crafting (Beginner): Use mundane methods to craft normal items.
Note: This skill is passive and will automatically activate while crafting.]
“Nice,” he said, looking around. “I should probably start moving in the same direction they did; I don’t want to lose track of her. Going to have to work on the mind protection while I move. I’ll just have to keep my distance if I get too close before I figure it out.”
Applying his four free points, he brought everything above the twenty mark and closed his interface. Looking at the layout of the area, he planned to move in a northwest direction, skirting the desert and forest while he did.
He wanted to see if whatever was happening was more to the center of the desert or to the outskirts before running headfirst into a desert where food and water would likely be scarce. Not to mention that his enemy and quarry had headed directly for whatever lay in the northeast, and he needed time to prepare his defenses before seeing her again.
***
Surprisingly, Jose had reached the edge of the desert and forest without incident. He’d seen plenty of wildlife, foxes, snakes, scorpions, and hares, all of them normal. He’d even caught a couple of the hares and was getting them ready for cooking.
Jose dressed the hares at the edge of the forest, “This should keep anything picking up the scent of blood away from me.” He turned his attention back to the desert, “Maybe give it a few hundred feet before setting up camp and building a fire.”
He was excited about eating rabbit meat. “Not sure how this is going to taste, but any story I’ve ever read makes it sound tasty. But shit, anything fresh would by great right now. Been running on mostly canned and boxed foods for a few weeks now,” he added giggling to himself.
When he bit into the meat, Jose realized that in all his fighting, surviving, and foraging for supplies, he’d never once thought of acquiring spices. It made sense, of course, who would think to look for salt and pepper while trying to survive in a monster-infested world? Even without any seasoning, the meat was good. It was lean and gamey but also fresh and filling.
Full and emotionally drained from the anger that had been driving him for the last day, Jose retreated to the edge of the forest. He found a nice high tree away from the spot where he’d prepped the hares and climbed to a sturdy branch to get some sleep. He hadn’t yet seen any flying monsters, and aside from the Iron Lions, he also hadn’t seen any monsters that could easily climb trees, so this felt like the safest option for sleeping out in the open.
As an added precaution, he stoked the fire and filled it with wood so it could burn all night. He figured that between the fire and the smell of blood from where he’d prepped the food, they would serve as distractions for any monsters or beasts that were attracted to the area.
***
Jose woke with the sun, feeling well-rested and energized. He began his trek North, though he wasn’t entirely sure he still wanted to. ‘Is this worth it? Will I be able to get the skill back somehow?’ He mulled over as he walked.
An hour later, he began getting a weird feeling. The hairs on his neck stood on end, his skin crawled, and a sixth sense alerted him to something he couldn’t quite place. It was as if someone was watching him, and there was tension in the air. As if the feeling couldn’t be any weirder, he could also tell the direction it was coming from.
He’d decided to stick close to the edge of the forest, feeling this would give him the best chance of defending against any surprises. If a threat came from the desert, then he would have a forest and trees to help him defend or hide if need be, and if it came from the forest, he would have the open desert to disorient them.
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The feeling tugging at him was strongest from the desert to his left. He walked up a sand dune and, looking down, found what was emanating the disturbing feeling. It was a floating crystal similar to the Echo Shard he’d seen at the beginning of all this. The difference was that this one was more diamond-shaped and had a tanned-colored energy swirling within.
“Could this be another one of those Echo Shards?” Jose wondered as he began making his way down to it.
What were these Echo Shards to begin with? What had the last one shown him? Was it a dream, a memory, a literal echo of some distant past? He couldn’t be sure, but somehow, he knew it in his bones that they would lead to answers about how things turned out this way.
When he was five feet from it, the crystal surged and expanded. Jose stopped cold, weary of it, last time he hadn’t given much thought to what would happen should he touch an unknown item, but this time, he was much more cautious.
The facets of the diamond moved into the edge as it expanded, making a large outline; the center turned blurry as the facets moved away from it. An eight-foot-tall diamond-shaped entrance stood before him when it stopped. Whatever lay beyond it was blurry, as if he was looking into frosted glass.
He circled the strange item in front of him. No matter what angle he viewed it from, he saw the same thing. It was the strangest thing, how it looked the same from all angles, but at the same time, there was no movement. It was as if it created a tear in reality itself. As if he was looking at some type of optical illusion that wasn’t really there.
Tentatively, he reached out and touched the middle of the entrance. It was cool and wet to the touch. The ripples rolled out to the very edge before folding back in, disrupting the other ripples as if they were liquid in a cup. Looking down at his finger, Jose noticed it wasn’t wet. Whatever this was, it was not an actual liquid; it merely acted and felt like one.
The space called to him, and he yearned to find the truth of it. The Echo Shard had been something unique he knew, even in this new world, he’d not found anything else like it. Maybe, just maybe, this was just as unique?
‘This is a chance for a uniquely adventurous life,’ the thought lingered in his mind. He’d made promises to himself when he found out what this apocalypse really was. A chance… To start anew, to live the life he’d always dreamed of, to follow adventure where it would lead him. Would he be happy a week from now if he simply passed this by? A year from now? A few years from now?
NO! He would grow bitter and regretful of it. Just like he regretted not following his heart so many other times in his life. He’d grown up much too soon in life. Making himself responsible for things he hadn’t understood, for people that weren’t his responsibility, and now he was bitter for it.
His father had been a drunkard and an abuser, to the point where his older brothers had grown tired of it and beat the man within an inch of his life one day. He was gone the next day, disappeared from their lives.
The problem was that his brothers, little more than children themselves at the time, had gotten a taste for power and freedom beyond their understanding. Not long after, they took to the streets themselves.
His twin sister was nothing like him, where he was calm and introverted, she was chaotic and extroverted. Not long after his brothers had taken to the streets, much to his chagrin and against his many attempts to stop her, she followed.
His mother had been under the thumb of her family before his father and craved freedom denied to her from a young age. The moment she felt that freedom, she lived her life for herself and didn’t look back. In the end, it was left to him to raise himself.
The problem was that he was possessed of an old spirit, as one would call it. An older man in a young man's body. It made him too awake to the shittiness of life. He’d long since figured out that no matter how good one was, or how much good they did, life simply wouldn’t care, it would run them over just the same.
But he was much too young to make sense of it then. He took this to mean that he had to balance out life by being good, teaching others, and being an example. He was much too old when he realized the trap he’d set for himself; by that time, he no longer only had siblings to lead but also nieces and nephews. In the end, he resigned himself to the role he had saddled himself with so many years ago.
He hadn’t ever said any of that out loud to anyone, but he often found himself struggling with it. It was not easy being a ‘good person,’ especially for a man who never followed the crowd and always created his own path. For a man who had a code of conduct that he followed to a fault. Life had never been easy for him, but he acknowledged that it was because he simply refused to let himself be led by the hand.
He simply would not give in to the pressure of others and do the easy thing over the hard right. For so long, he’d refused to adopt the attitude that life was short and one had to make the most of it for themselves, damned who got run over in the process. But in the end, what had that gotten him? He was alone in the world, no one to grow old with, no one to share in his highs and lows.
But at least he played that good example for his siblings and their children, right? In the end, it hadn’t meant a thing; his sister still got pregnant while still in her teens. Their kids still lived the same lives, perpetuating a cycle of misery and poverty. No matter how much he accomplished, no matter how much of an example he was, no matter how much advice he gave. They all seemed determined to live lives wrought with misery.
Of course, they all still asked for advice, not that they took any of it, they all still turned to him in times of need, not that any of them showed any gratitude for the help. It had eventually burned a hole in him.
He didn’t blame any of them for his choices, he just simply wished that he could adopt the “live-for-yourself” mentality when he was younger, and living apart from the rest of them had been the closest he could get to that.
By the time he realized the truth, that nothing he did made a difference, he didn’t know how to turn his personality around, how to turn off his responsibility to others, and how to live for only himself and no others. So for the last fifteen years he’d basically lived the life of a hermit.
He followed his family’s lives on social media and would, on occasion, visit his nieces and nephews but aside from that he kept to himself unless one of them came to him. They all knew his address and phone number after all so nothing prevented them from visiting. Except of course, the fact that unless he was needed he was basically invisible to them all.
But, in this new life, he needed to hold fast to this new lease on life. He wouldn’t let go of his code and morals, but also, he wouldn’t allow himself to be cemented in a burdensome role such as a hero, or an example to anyone other than himself.
