The first day was the hardest. They oh so often are. My wounds were brutal, far more brutal than I realized. I was lucky to be alive. The rat I’d eaten didn’t sit right, not at all, but I didn’t ck for a toilet. The river was right there, though s about falling over were definitely had. As was making too muoise.

  I collected and drank as much water as I could. I also finally stripped out of my Gi and underwear. Being nude in a sewer was immediately a horrible idea and feeling but the grime was so much that I had holy started to feel weighed down. That split moment of slowness could actually kill me, so, the clothes had to go.

  I tossed them, carefully, dowuhe toad had e from. Walking towards it, I noticed a wide brang turn, making the room lead down into a much more expanded area. It looked like someone had seen the rest of the sewer and decided “Why not bigger?” A whole massive floor all covered with a thin thing of water, with varying amounts of water flowing from holes on the side. It boggled my mind tinuously but I wasn’t about to learn anything by staring.

  Hopefully though, nothing would e through there. Hopefully, the toad would see my clothes and make a sound that alerted me, allowio run. Hopefully, I wouldn’t die of parasites, iion, or disease. Lots of different hopes there.

  The water didn’t get me , not nearly. It did get me mildly less awful and that already felt like a god send from heaven. ing my wounds was a bit too little too te but I’d take it. Carefully looking over my body, the worst by far was actually my stomach. It had nasty puncture wounds from the giant rat’s teeth and a massive bck bruise that hurt unlike anything I’d ever experienced.

  Everything hurt, all the time, stantly. A lot.

  I was not happy when I learhat pissing blood was my new regur.

  That was only the beginning of the many, many problems I had.

  But! I could remember my family happily now and that was holy, probably, well worth the trade. I’d have done anything before to have the kind of lightness I felt now. Being this broken was holy pushing it but well, it would all be worth it in the end.

  My head felt woozy, my body felt sid cold and hot, parts of me were broken and I’d only barely missed having any signifit broken bones by some sort of miracle. The toad had only, probably, left me alone because it thought it had killed me with those two moves. My froh were ruined, my lip torn, my hair a grimy mess, and the only parts of me miraculously mostly undamaged were my legs and babsp;

  In other words, I was good to go.

  Colleg and drinking water was easy now. I just had to be absolutely certain there wasn’t a toad and then leave as soon as I had my fill, while keeping my ears active and listening. The slightest twitch of anything unusual would have me moving. I could theoretically throw a big rat into the water et lucky with a horde via alligator but aoad would kill me.

  When I wasn’t getting water, I was getting rats. This was both easy and hard. Rats traveled in packs or hordes. The sewer was also filled with them and they weren’t shy about trying to kill you. I avoided multiple big ones, by the grace of finding out they had terrible eyesight. The path between my hole in the wall and the water was being scarily dark from all the bulbs I was breaking but it had to be done.

  The rats didn’t like the dark but they’d go in it. I’d seen another horde while silently traveling around the tunnels. I had to. I o map out the area, figure out the prey and the predators, and make do. I hadn’t been chased but I was quickly hating the dark. It felt dangerous. It was dangerous. But necessary.

  Actually getting sis to eat sucked. It sucked a lot. But they truly were everywhere. Just not he alligator river. I failed more times than I succeeded, before I finally figured out that pying dead was a very viable strategy.

  Eating them was worse. It was rarobably riddled with parasites. I choked and threw up more than a few times. I had no way of making a fire and no idea how to. I was really praying for the best but on the lookout for anything that could make heat.

  There was nothing, of course.

  The tunnel probably led somewhere useful, but toads were that way. At least one and that was ooo many. The turn in the big room probably also went somewhere but the idea of running into anything I didn’t already know about was horrifying.

  I o be better healed and stronger before that.

  And speaking of… I had something I’d almost fotten about till I had started removing clothes.

  My Vambrace. The one Master had gifted me. A look at it proved shog.

  [4.12]

  I had grown stronger. By a lot. That was from one fight, one run, and one ass beating. A was over a fifteen pert increase. My growth had been higher past [2] but that was ridiculous. I made it a point right then and there not to look too much at that feature of my Vambrace. It would corrupt me. I rength and power but I could already imagine myself having [5] and thinking that was enough to fight a toad.

  It wasn’t.

  Best to tinue assuming I’m weak and desperately try to gain power then think I’m strong enough or let my mi clouded by pride.

  That wasn’t the only useful feature the Vambrace had however. I was in a life or death situation and any tool was going to be used right now. I’d have even taken a gue the extreme stigma people had about them. The tool of cowards and oppressors, useless past a certain power level. But still, I’d have taken it immediately.

  I shook my head. My thoughts were still blown to pieces at the best of times.

  The Vambrace had video calling, which I’d immediately tried only to get no signal. Which wasn’t really surprising. It also had access to the i, but also again, no signal. I robably pretty deep underground then. The power level reader was ighough it was amusing that it, of course, went both ways. I could read others, not that I o. My eyes had been cursed sihat fateful day to always see power levels.

  The vambrace also came with music, ignored. It could take photos and videos, which was useless to me. And it could store information, which was finally the first useful aspect it had. Notes alone would’ve been good enough but a drawing app on it let me actually make a real map. That was invaluable.

  The sed best thing, was the fshlight.

  It turned out that rats had terrible eyesight and didn’t do well against a suddenly bright light.

  And so the days tinued on and on.

  *****

  A week ter, the first real problem started rearing its ugly head. I was sick. Really sick. Deathly sick. But there was no medie down here, no healing, only me.

  I did as best I could, stayed quiet as best I could, but my body still shook like a leaf and I fell in and out of sciousness with a high fever more than a few times.

  My fidence waned, hard, in my tinued survival. I even thought about trying the toad path or the right path to find some way out but I khat was hopeless. I just had to tough it out. Siess didn’t st forever. My body would adapt, adjust, break the fever, and then I’d feel like shit but I’d manage.

  Or I’d die because it killed me.

  The iion didn’t help. Having a bunch of open wounds in a sewer was bad for health. I ockmarked and parts of me had strangely gone green. That robably bad. The abscess and pus were pretty awful though. The high fever that felt like my brain was burning aing helped take my mind off it though.

  Catg rats became strangely easier. They took one look at me and thought I ractically already dead.

  While fair, that seemed pretty rude.

  The siess only got worse and worse and by the end of it, delirium started smming into me. I lost track of time pletely. Seds felt like hours, hours like days, and days… I don’t know.

  It was all a horrible blur. There was fightiing. Running. I ate a dog sized rat. Puking. I fell into the water with alligators ohink somehow. All bad.

  Finally, after who knows how long, I realized I was sitting down.

  The pain had also receded by a massive margin. My mind was ing back. The crity of it at least. It took a few more days before my mind truly cleared up at all, but when it did, I nearly burst out ughing. It was only the hard fought desire to stay alive that stopped me.

  I was alive.

  I wasn’t well, not at all.

  But I was still alive.

  My wounds had healed up enough. However long it had been in that horrific state of delirium, I’d made it. Somehow. I could’ve sworn I’d spent a week uo move at one point there but time ractically an illusion without having a sun or a moon. It could have been only an hour or it could have been a month. There was just no way of knowing.

  The important thing was I was alive and well enough. My body felt… awful, terrible, and still broken. But I could at least throw a fist again. I’d put it at even odds I could beat that giant rat again.

  I smiled a broken smile.

  I wasn’t going to get out of here without growing stronger and those big rats? Well, those were just pung bags in disguise.

  It was time to get strain.

  Warix_Viviana