The drive was somewhat depressing, to say the least.
A while ago when I ran home I didn't notice it, but several buildings and houses collapsed leaving only rubble in place.
Sadly and trying not to see the surroundings, I turned my gaze to the sea.
At sea the ships searching for survivors had scattered, leaving only a few at sea.
A little further away you could see the aircraft carrier and her escorts that calmly floated in the ocean without being disturbed by what happened in my country.
wretches...
Getting those thoughts out of my head, I walked for a while until I saw a group of firefighters removing debris from a house.
I stopped for a moment and wondered if they really needed my help.
My indecision did not last long, decisively I went towards them and called their attention.
"Excuse me, do you need any help?"
I approached a firefighter in a yellow suit and asked.
"Huh? Hi… no need, thanks"
The fireman turned and gave me an appraising look, then thought for a moment and shook his head.
His refusal did not discourage me, so I insisted.
"I insist, I see that they lack manpower, I could help them, and anyway I am an inhabitant of this country, it is my duty to help them"
The firefighter narrowed his eyes and said slowly.
"Miss, I understand your feelings, believe me, we feel the same, but it would be irresponsible of me to send someone who is not prepared, I'm sorry"
The fireman shook his head as he spoke.
Hearing that brought me back to reality.
You're right, it may slow you down rather than help you.
At that thought I lowered my head.
Perhaps seeing my internal struggle the fireman sighed and spoke.
"The hospital is short of manpower, you don't need a lot of experience to help so you can go there"
You are right, in the hospital I can help!
"You're right, thank you"
I thanked the fireman and said goodbye.
Together with Rurik I went to the hospital where I was before and entered.
I looked around and the atmosphere was just as depressing as before.
With heavy steps I approached the reception and spoke to the lady who was there.
"Excuse me"
"…we have no records of…"
The lady was talking on the phone and when she saw me she raised a hand to tell me to wait.
"...It seems that she hasn't arrived at the hospital..."
"... yes, if we have records of him we will inform him..."
Listening to the lady's conversation, it seemed that a relative was asking about a possible patient.
And not just her, all the receptionists were on the phone and were talking about basically the same thing.
Wait a while until the receptionist hung up.
"Ready, are you looking for someone?"
I ask the receptionist.
"No, I come as a volunteer to help"
Hearing that made the receptionist's eyes sparkle and she put a smile on her face.
"I am glad that the young people help, if you want to help us go down this corridor and then to the left, there you will find a nurse with the last name Hernández, she will tell you what you can do"
"Good"
I said goodbye to the receptionist and started walking down the left corridor.
On the way, I had to pass dozens of relatives who were worried about the patients admitted to the hospital.
"Permission"
With my right hand I gently brushed aside an older lady as she walked by.
"Wow!"
Rurik followed me happily as he flicked his tail from right to left.
After a while I reached the crossroads and went to the left.
The place was deserted, it seems that it is where they keep material and other things.
"Excuse me"
I raised my voice a little trying to get someone's attention.
There was a sound and someone came out from behind a ledge.
"This place is for staff only, please get out of here"
A nurse with various tools and boxes in her hands spoke up.
"I'm looking for nurse Hernández"
"It's me, what do you need?
"I am a volunteer to help, they told me to meet with you to see how I can help"
The nurse stopped for a moment and smiled.
"Excellent"
He approached me and put everything he was carrying in my arms.
"Take this to operation room number 3, then come back so you can take more things"
"Good"
I didn't know the hospital very well, but luckily there are signs everywhere so I won't get lost.
With the things in my hands I left the place and, following the signs, I arrived at the operating room number 3.
For anything I ordered Rurik to wait and I entered.
When the doctors who were inside entered, they were surprised by my presence, but when they saw what I was carrying in my hands, they approached and accepted it with pleasure.
"Thank you so much"
"It doesn't matter"
I said goodbye and went back to nurse Hernández.
"Come on"
"Wow"
When I arrived, the nurse was giving some boxes to a boy about my age.
Looks like I'm not the only volunteer.
"Ready, what else can I take?"
I asked the nurse.
"This... this... and this, all to room number 1, room number 4"
"Good"
I left the place and with the help of the signs I reached room number 1.
Let's see, now where...
I looked around and the place was packed with people, so much so that it was hard for me to walk.
"Permission…"
As I could, I maneuvered until I reached room number 4.
I knocked on the door and no one answered.
Maybe they are busy.
With that in mind I reached out and opened the door.
The interior was just as you would expect from a hospital room, there were machines, a small armchair, a table, an air conditioner and a hospital bed.
It seemed that this place was already occupied since before the earthquake happened.
In the bed there was a slightly older man with a respirator and several cables, tubes and needles connected to his body.
The machines around the lord showed information about his current state, it seemed that he needed help from all of that to survive.
I carefully walked towards the table and left the boxes I was carrying in my hands.
I was preparing to leave when a beeping sound stopped me.
I turned my head and saw how one of the machines that displayed patient information began to speed up more and more.
The small needle that seemed to show the state of the patient's heart began to go up and down at high speed.
I'm no expert but I knew something was wrong.
I quickly left the room and yelled at the top of my lungs.
"Nurse! I need a nurse!"
Everyone in the room looked at me doubtfully.
Regardless of what people thought, I kept screaming.
"Nurse! The patient in this room has something wrong!"
I kept screaming for a long time until finally a nurse approached me.
"What's happening…"
"Come on"
Without letting her finish I took her hand and pulled her into the room.
When we entered the situation had changed.
It was no longer just a machine, now all the machines had gone crazy.
And the most important thing was not that...
"My God"
The nurse quickly entered and approached the patient.
For my part, I was shocked by what I saw.
"No, no, no, no, I'll be right back"
The nurse almost ran out of the room.
A second passed and my consciousness returned.
I approached the patient and carefully took her hand.
Despite my action, the patient continued to convulse.
Yes, at some point the patient began to convulse in a way that anyone would believe that he is in great pain and that he makes you wonder how a human can move so much.
One second… two seconds… Five seconds…
At one point the patient suddenly stopped moving and the surrounding machines made a screeching but understandable noise.
He was dead.
I forcefully squeezed the patient's hand and a couple of tears came out of my eyes.
It just can't be…
I was about to cry when a refreshing sensation invaded my body.
That made my eyes open to their maximum capacity and the tears stopped.
That…
A freshness that went from my belly and spread to every little corner of my body.
It seemed that a liquid was circulating throughout my body, cleaning my veins.
The sensation did not last long, but that short time was enough for me to want to feel it again.
At that time my mind cleared up and I stopped feeling sad for the recently dead patient, I just felt... pity.
With confusion I got up and looked at the patient for a long time.
What is this, it is as if the death of the patient no longer affected me.
Until a moment ago he was crying... I don't understand.
"Please come out"
At some point a doctor along with several nurses entered the room and told me to come out.
Without resistance I was dragged out by a nurse.
Even with confusion I looked at the now closed door where the patient was.
"Wow?"
Rurik seemed to have caught my mood because he used his head to nuzzle my leg and made confused noises.
That action made him smile and I leaned down to pat his head.
Yes... it's strange but it's not something that should affect me.
With that mentality, I went back to nurse Hernández and continued helping her for the rest of the afternoon.
xxx
It was night when nurse Hernández stopped me.
"Girl, you've done enough for today, go home and rest, I assure you that your work has helped us a lot"
She said with a smile as she handed me a couple of bills.
I, because of her, rejected them.
"My work was voluntary, there is nothing to reward"
I said as she stepped back a bit.
"If you say so, but I think this can help you buy food for that little friend"
She said, pointing at Rurik.
He is right.
As I was struggling over whether or not to take the money the nurse came up to me and put the money in my right hand.
"Go to rest"
Without waiting for him to say anything, he left.
I'm not going to say I'm not happy to receive money, but I really don't think what I did was worth anything.
Sighing, I called Rurik and left the hospital.
As is customary, I looked at the sea as I walked away and saw the aircraft carrier with its lights in the distance.
I'm going to get enough power to stop them...
While thinking that I arrived at the building.
I went up the stairs and got to my apartment, then I used the key and opened the door.
I'm hungry.
First of all I took out some food and put it on Rurik's plate for him to eat.
After that I went to the fridge and took out some ingredients to make something to eat.
A while passed and my little plate of food was complete.
I walked over to my plastic table and sat down on a chair.
Little by little I was eating my food.
While I was at it I saw the doll from before and took it.
I gave it a little command and put it on the table.
In a fun way, the doll began to dance with a series of movements impossible for a human.
"Hehe"
While I was at it an idea came to my head.
Nowhere does it say that the puppets have to have a human form…
With that idea I got up and went to my room.
I rummaged through the closet drawers until I found a small toy car.
I went back to the table and put the little cart on the table.
With a small command I ordered the car to go around the ragdoll.
As he wanted, the car began to move despite not having an engine or any help.
This is fun.
Over the next few minutes I picked up various things and began to make them move on their own.
What I was able to learn from this is that it doesn't matter if the object isn't made for what I ordered it to do, let's say a rag, I ordered it to walk and it used its four corners to move in a similar way to a spider.
The table was full of objects moving in funny ways, which amused me a lot.
"Wow"
It seems she wasn't the only one enjoying the view, Rurik used his nose to touch a spinning book while he wagged his tail.
At that moment a funny idea occurred to me.
I manually controlled the ragdoll and made it jump on Rurik's head.
"Wow!?"
Rurik was surprised and tried to back off.
"Hahaha"
The doll began to follow Rurik as he fled.
It was like this for a while until my head hurt a little.
It seems that controlling the puppets manually consumes a lot of mental strength.
Although something strange was that before, my head hurt after just one minute, but now I was able to play for five minutes without getting too tired.
With that in mind I opened the menu and my eyes widened.
Do not tell me that…
>Name: Sarah<
>Level: 4<
>Experience for the next level: 11,095/70<
>Class: Puppeteer<
>Skills<
Control (Level 4)
Creation (Level 4)
Command (Level 4)
My level increased for some reason to 4.
While I was thinking about what happened, I remembered the feeling I felt when that patient died and I connected the dots.
So that refreshing feeling was me leveling up…
It seems that I get experience even if I don't directly kill the person or animal...
Knowing that made me sigh with relief.
So I won't have to kill, just touching the being at the time of his death is enough.
While I was thinking about that, I looked at the description of the skills.
>Control<
You can manipulate your puppets at will, the higher the level you can control more puppets and, consequently, be more powerful.
>Creation<
You can make a puppet that will obey you, the higher the level you can create the more number of puppets.
Limited for the moment to no more than forty kilos of weight.
Currently limited to 10 puppets.
The rate of improvement weight and number of puppets changes every 10 levels.
9/10
>Command<
You can give orders to your puppets and make them comply without you having to watch them all the time, the higher the level the puppets will obey more difficult orders.
Only the creation skill changed the description, it seems that now I can make puppets that weigh forty kilos or less.
And about the fact that the weight and number of puppets will increase every ten levels... I can't imagine how it will scale.
What I can know for now is that to go up to level two it took ten experience, for level three I have to assume that it took thirty experience and for level four it took fifty.
If level five occupies seventy I have to assume that the levels go up in a staggered way.
If so, I hope it doesn't take more than a thousand experience to go up to level ten.
But it says that the upgrade rate changes every ten levels… what if it's the same with experience?
Well, I can only know the truth by getting more experience.
At that moment I thought of something and took the rag doll to the kitchen and opened one of the drawers.
Same as before several cockroaches came out.
I gave the doll a small can and ordered it to kill one of the cockroaches.
It cost him but in the end he ended up killing one of them.
Expectantly I opened the menu.
>Experience for the next level: 11,096/70<
As expected, if the doll kills something I still get experience.
And what if he's just touching something that dies...
At that moment, a sinister idea formed in my head.
Well I'll find out tomorrow.
With that in mind I took the plate to the kitchen and washed it, then went to the bathroom and brushed my teeth.
When leaving the bathroom, I turned off all the lights and went to the room.
I'm tired.
Without changing my clothes, I turned off the light and jumped into bed.
"Wow"
Rurik jumped on the bed and stood next to me.
Good evening Rurik...
In no time I fell asleep.