Beep, beep, bee-e-eep…
"Warning! Life support system will run out of supplies in seventy two hours. I repeat, life support system will run out of supplies in seventy two hours."
The robotic voice disturbed the silence of a dark, half destroyed room, but, despite the warning, no one came… at least no one human…
***
"Warning! Life support system will run out of supplies in twenty four hours. I repeat, life support system will run out of supplies in twenty four hours."
"Critical situation! Contacting the technical support team… service unavailable. Contacting the server… service unavailable. Operating in the emergency mode, preparing the patient for premature awakening…"
The robotic voice disturbed the silence once again.
A huge three meters long and one and a half meters wide pod came to life and bright orange hazard lights lit up the room.
***
"Warning! Life support system will run out of supplies in five… four… three… two… one second… Initiating the premature awakening of the patient."
The protective shell of the pod swung open, revealing what was hidden behind the thick glass. Inside was a well built naked man with an abundance of hair on his head and face.
The pod was filled with green viscous liquid, but after a few clicks it was slowly sucked into a big tank behind the pod.
"Phase one complete. Moving onto phase two."
The robotic arm with an injector on its end came out from a hidden compartment of the pod, only to disappear right after injecting a bright orange substance into a man's forearm.
At first the patient didn't show any reaction, but after about a minute's time he suddenly went into convulsions and began foaming at the mouth and leaking pus from his nose and ears.
"Warning! Stopping of the treatment caused harm to the patient. Calling medical staff… Service unavailable. Calling emergency services… Service unavailable. Analyzing the situation… Analysis complete, temporary solution found."
The robotic arm appeared once again and injected the man with a dark blue substance this time, the amount of which was twice as much as the previous one.
The place of the injection immediately turned red, then the redness started spreading over the man's body and after almost ten seconds, now completely red man stopped convulsing, his breathing and pulse calmed down and his muscles relaxed.
The pod's pumps came alive and doused the unconscious man with clean water, washing off all the pus (and there was a lot of it) and the remains of the green substance.
The man suddenly opened his eyes and took a deep breath as if he was holding it all this time and almost died from the lack of oxygen.
"The patient was successfully awakened, starting the extraction procedure."
Ever so slowly the pod started moving into a vertical position. A metal construction, which turned out to be the staircase with handrails, moved up from the floor and aligned itself with the pod.
The glass shell opened with a hissing sound allowing the foul air an access into a previously sterile pod, which didn't go well with the patient. Dusty, stinking air threw the man into a coughing fit, forcing him to cough out the remains of green substance from his lungs. Each time he coughed a surge of pain went rushing through his body.
The man's body was stimulated after awakening which is why he was in an alert state. He tried to figure out his whereabouts but his thinking process was interrupted.
"Removing the fasteners… Writing a prescription… Giving out the medicine…"
As soon as the robotic voice finished speaking, the man fell from the pod down the metal stairs and onto the hard floor.
"Motherfucker!!!" The man swore viciously. He spent god knows how long inside that pod so naturally he wasn't able to stand on his own right after the abrupt awakening. Thankfully, he wasn't hurt that bad, just a few scratches and bruises.
"Ugh, that hurt like a bitch… Where the hell am I?" He overcame the pain and realized that it wasn't exactly what he expected to see after awakening.
"Calm down, Sergei, calm down. Take a deep breath…" The man filled his lungs with air following his own orders and started coughing again. "Ugh! What a stench! It's like a bunch of homeless people had an orgy here and died right after!!!"
"Wait a minute… How did I end up here?" Sergei tried to remember, but unfortunately his memories were fragmented.
He remembered leaving his office, being attacked, his security guards fighting back but ending up being killed in the unequal struggle. Sergei returned fire and managed to kill some of the assailants, then there was an explosion, a flurry of gunshots and pain… The last thing he could remember was a hospital bed and waking up once in the pod in this very room surrounded by doctors that were inspecting him. Only then it looked like a medical chamber, certainly not like a dark dusty basement of an abandoned building…
"Ha-ha-ha-ha! I survived, bitches! Ha-ha-ha-ha…" Sergei let out an evil laughter only to immediately start coughing again. It was hardly surprising as the room was covered with a thick layer of dust.
"Ouch! Why does it hurt so much?" The man tried to stand up but couldn't, his legs were trembling, ribs ached and plus his head started pounding from a sudden movement. Only a splinter in his finger and a hemorrhoid pain were left to complete the picture.
"Well, this is not my first time up to my ears in shit. Let's remember grandpa's technique, shall we?"
The man sat down on the metallic stairs - thank god they weren't too cold or else poor guy would've frozen his butt off - and started rubbing his legs. His hands were a bit weak as well, but at least they were in a much better condition than his legs.
Thanks to the massage his legs turned red once again, warm and pleasant sensation began spreading through his legs below his knees and slowly but surely the pain vanished. When his legs felt better he started massaging his whole body starting with his neck.
An old Thai healer taught him this technique when he was a child, one could say that destiny brought the two of them together. First the little boy helped the old healer when he was in trouble, then the old healer found the boy beaten and half dead. He took care of him and taught him wisdom of life and a healing massage.
Thanks to the massage the boy survived countless of beatings, was able to recover and take revenge.
"Ugh… motherfu…" Sergei tightened the muscles in his legs and finally stood up. The first thing he did was to approach the window and open the blinds. Sunlight filled the room and temporarily blinded the man, whose eyes were not ready to this level of brightness after being in darkness for so long.
"A-a-a, crap! I knew it would happen! Huh? What the…?" His eyes finally got used to the light and he saw a city - namely an abandoned city. Quiet, soundless even, city. The roads were filled with broken and burnt cars instead of traffic… Some houses were destroyed, some burnt, but most of them were alright if only without any sign of life. At least the bombing theory didn't pan out.
"It feels like I'm in a movie "28 days later"." A scene from the said movie came into his mind - the main character leaving the hospital and seeing a dead city.
"Wait a second! Paris?!" Sergei spotted the Eiffel Tower in a distance and to censor it down, he was really surprised. "Project "Revival"?"
The memories of a tv show that he watched a few days before the attack resurfaced in Sergei's mind. On that show some experts were talking about the invention of the century - a medical nano pod. It was said that a rising French company successfully incorporated nano-machines into medical science. Their creation was said to be able to heal a person even if they were chewed and swallowed by a tyrannosaurus - well, in case, of course if it wasn't too late and the victim was showing any signs of life.
"Boss! You son of a bitch! How did you pull this off?!" Sergei was genuinely confused. He worked as an accountant in the biggest criminal gang in Russia, to be specific he was an expert on accounting, money laundering and investment. Thanks to him his gang became ten times richer just in a few years as he started working for them and grew from an unknown gang into the biggest criminal giant. His boss considered Sergei his second son and cared for him deeply.
"However… What the hell is going on here?" The room that he was in was in ruins, all of the boxes were cleaned out, equipment was either broken or missing completely, while what was going on outside was way beyond explanation. Sergei threw a glance outside once more and saw a huge crowd of wandering people. They didn't look good…
"Maybe I died and went to hell? Unlikely - it's hot in hell while my family jewels are almost completely frozen right now. And… why am I thinking out loud?" From the moment he woke up, the man was thinking out loud. It was a side effect of a brain damage - but he wasn't aware of that yet.
"The case of a patient 0001 is printed, the medication is prepared." The robotic voice came from the pod.
"What? I don't understand a shit! Speak normal language!" All this time the machine was speaking French while Sergei knew only English and Russian - he never acknowledged other languages even though he could've learned a few more without really trying if he wanted to. At least he believed so.
He approached the pod and saw a pile of freshly printed papers and a small container with ten vials inside.
"This is my case and this is my medicine? Fuck! Everything's in French…" Sergei felt a burning desire to destroy something… or to punch someone which was even better.
"And how am I supposed to carry it? In my ass?" He asked himself as he was completely naked.
"And what asshole decided to put a bat in my pod???" The man grumbled looking at the bat that almost became a reason he hurt himself. When the pod opened and he fell down, he noticed that he was holding a bat, so he had to twist in the air to minimize the damage.
"But… thank you, whoever you are." Sergei smirked. He was butt naked in another country and some weird shit was going on around him… But he felt safer with the bat even though it would've been better if it was a gun.
The naked man wrapped a piece of cloth that he found nearby around his feet so he wouldn't accidentally hurt himself if he stepped on a piece of glass or a sharp rock.
He felt much better and could move without any pain. The papers, the medicine and anything else that he found useful was put inside an improvised backpack that he made using dirty and tattered sheet.
He opened the door and saw a big hallway. There were no dead bodies, no stretchers scattered around - only traces of blood and broken doors could be found on his way. Colorful posters and sometimes paintings were hanging on the walls. After peaking inside a few rooms Sergei realized that the hospital was completely ransacked - or at least the part of it where he was at the moment…
"Huh?" Moving down the hallway he noticed a door that was still intact with a chair under its handle - which was obviously done to keep someone locked inside.
"Nah, I'm outta here!" After silencing a tiny voice in his head that kept nudging him to find out what was behind the door, Sergei quickly walked past it. To go there meant finding something that would definitely come to bite him in his naked, frozen ass. However it seemed like his poor ass wouldn't be able to avoid the adventure that came looking for it, as the door next to him made a screeching noise and slowly started to open. Sergei instantly froze on the spot and held his breath.
A doctor came out of the room. Well, he used to be one at least, when he was alive, while now he was missing half of his face and inner organs, but he didn't look like it bothered him much.
After seeing the state of the doctor and remembering the crowd outside and the state of the city in general, Sergei finally put together the pieces of a puzzle…
"Don't look at me, please, don't look… Fuck!" The naked man begged without taking his eyes off of the half eaten doctor.
It was obvious that Sergei wasn't yet used to the fact that he was thinking out loud all the time - the doctor clearly heard him and slowly turned in his direction. Doctor's eyes were empty akin to those of a dead fish, but Sergei was sure that the thing could definitely see him! And he was right: upon spotting his prey the doctor growled and charged at his patient, clearly exited about upcoming examination and tests…
"The hell are you so fast?!" Sergei cried out. He counted on it being slow like any classic zombie should be, but this one turned out to be quite fast and crushed all his hopes. The zombie was of course slower than a human, but if the victim loses their focus it can easily catch up.
The hallway filled with the sound of breaking bones as Sergei dealt a crushing blow to zombie's head with a bat. Zombie fell on the floor while human felt a piercing pain in his shoulder.
"Fuck… It hurts!!! Stay down, you hear me? Stay down… please!" Despite his pleas the ex-doctor slowly started getting up from the floor.
Sergei hit the doctor in the head, then again and again. He put not only his own force into this attack but his weight and the gravitational force as well. In his current weakened state Sergei could've probably had his ass kicked by a fifth grader, let alone a living dead.
"It fucking hurts!!! You are lucky, you piece of shit! You witnessed a minute of my shame! If I was in a better shape I would've killed a dozen more like you without breaking a sweat." The man cursed at the body with a shattered skull that lay at his feet. Ever since childhood he would relieve some of his stress with cursing. Some people drank from stress, some gambled, while Sergei cursed.
"Ding!" The man heard a weird sound in his head.
CONGRATULATIONS ON JOINING THE GAME OF SURVIVAL. YOU KILLED A ZOMBIE WITH A SYSTEM WEAPON AND AS A REWARD YOU RECEIVE "LEVEL 1" AND ONE RANDOM REWARD. GOOD LUCK!
"What the… Ouch!" The flow of information explaining how to use the system painfully entered the man's brain. A healthy person wouldn't feel anything, however Sergei wasn't healthy, he wasn't healthy at all. Even loud noises caused him severe headache at this point.
"…It's a little unrealistic…" He didn't mind zombies, but was really baffled by the fact that he would get experience for killing them and after leveling up he would receive stat points, which he can later use to strengthen his body - that was the knowledge that he received along with the pain.
DO YOU WANT TO RECEIVE YOUR REWARD? YES/NO.
Another message appeared in front of his face. An attempt to press the word "Yes" with his finger was unsuccessful.
"Yes," Sergei thought out loud once again. The message vanished and in its place appeared an endlessly spinning roulette. The roulette had only six icons - a book, a sword, a potion, a dollar, an exp and a red X.
"Stop!" The roulette halted its pace and in the end the arrow slowly reached the X sign. Sergei started sweating profusely - he didn't know what the X sign mean, but his naked ass could feel that nothing good would come out of it.
"Please, please, please!" He prayed to god who he never believed existed. But whether it was his fate or the god took pity on him… With the last push the arrow moved from the X sign to the book icon.
CONGRATULATIONS! YOU LEARNED THE SKILL "HAVEN". THIS WORLD IS DOOMED, BUT PERHAPS YOU COULD STILL SAVE A PART OF IT IN YOUR HAVEN. SHOW US AN EXITING GAME!
"A skill? Like in computer games?" He mumbled observing the words in front of his face with astonishment.
The sound of a breaking wood suddenly reached his ears.
"What the…? Holy!" The door behind Sergei broke into pieces and from behind it appeared a huge two meters tall and very scary zombie! And behind it were ten more basic ones. It looked like someone was too loud while talking to himself…
"I'm out!" Despite the pain Sergei sprang to his feet and bolted.
"Argh-h!!!" The big zombie growled in annoyance.
"Gah-h!!!" Smaller zombies joined him, showing a united front.
On his way Sergei met a lot of other zombies, but every time he managed to run right past them before they had any time to react. The only thing they could do was growl after his rapidly fleeing naked butt.
"Stairs! Where are the stairs? Frenchmen, you bastards, where did you hide the stairs?!" Sergei was running around the floor, cursing French people, architects, god, devil, even his life safety teacher who never taught him how to survive a zombie apocalypse! "Stairs!" He exclaimed happily.
The human ran towards the ray of hope that he finally spotted in the distance, but… Suddenly a cabinet flew past him and hit the wall with a loud bang. The giant zombie threw the furniture aiming at the human but fortunately its aim was way off.
Only two meters of distance and the sturdy looking double doors that needed to be pulled to enter were the only things that separated him from the stairs.
"Ha, those stupid zombies will never be able to open them," he thought while running to the door.
Next moment Sergei cried out from a sudden pain. It felt like a thousand needles pierced his head at once, causing him a huge pain and forcing his body to crumble onto the cold floor.
The man squeezed his head and curled up into a ball. The excruciating pain had him grinding his teeth.
Meanwhile zombies were rapidly approaching, ready to sink their teeth into his sweet flesh.
"Haven! Activate the Haven! Hide in the Haven!" Sergei remembered the skill and desperately tried to activate it, while powering through extreme pain. However it turned out to be hard to find the key phrase.
"Enter the Haven!" Zombies were almost on him when he finally found the key phrase and was immediately teleported from the hospital to a meadow in the middle of the forest, where he finally succumbed to his pain.
It wouldn't have happened if he was given the time to look into the description of his skill, but life is an unpredictable thing and as the saying goes - "shit happens".
After an unknown amount of time, Sergei finally opened his eyes and realized that it was a bright sunny morning.
"Achoo! Ouch!" The sneeze sent a sharp pain through his head and ribs, but it was enough to clear all the sleepiness away.
Only God knows how many hours or maybe even days he spent sleeping on the cold ground, but his family jewels were completely frozen. The sunlight warmed up his frozen butt but the man was still cold and even the warm breeze made him sneeze uncontrollably.
"Where am I? Is this my Haven?" He picked himself up with a grunt and looked around. He was on a green meadow in the middle of the woods. It was a small clearing somewhere around 1000 square meters or so. (*10760 square feet). The forest was neither thick nor thin and mainly consisted of deciduous trees such as poplar trees, birch trees, even some weeping willows here and there. Also a few spruces could be seen in the distance.
Nearby he spotted a tent and a hammock hanging between two poplar trees. There was also a table with a laptop and a radio on it under a small canopy. The devices were connected to the battery which was charged by a small solar panel nearby.
Near the tent was a mineral spring, the water seemingly surged from the ground forming a small pond. On the other side of the meadow he also found a bottomless pit. It was literally bottomless - the curious naked man threw a stone inside and didn't hear a sound even after a minute. The pit wasn't really small either, two meters in diameter give or take.
"Not bad! It's suitable for garbage disposal and…" His planning was cut short by his growling stomach. It was roaring like a hungry lion demanding being fed. "I'm so hungry… hopefully there's some food here somewhere."
Sergei looked around his small campsite while giving his stomach a rub.
"A basic survival kit…" A small box was found under the table, inside it were ten cans of spam, five liters of water, a bucket, a flashlight, a hunting knife, a Swiss knife, a lighter, a hatchet and a folding shovel.
After a quick break, during which he destroyed one can of spam to sate his hunger, Sergei turned on the laptop. The laptop came to life with a loud sound of a fan and in two minutes the screen lit up with Windows XX logo. It was a first time he saw this version.
"What a junk… Looks like it's straight out of a museum…" It was his first time seeing such a weak "windows" and such a slow laptop.
There were a few icons on the desktop: the infamous "Internet Explorer", an envelope like icon "surprisingly" labeled "Mail" (a number 3 could be seen in its right corner indicating that he had thee new messages), an Excel document named "Balance sheet" and a "Store" icon.
Sergei clicked on the "Mail" icon and as expected there were three new messages waiting for him, themed "Welcome!", "Report of Receipt" and "Level up". He clicked on the first message.
"Subject: Welcome!
Congratulations on receiving your own personal haven. This haven is beyond space and you are its king and god.
Your real world is on the brink of destruction and can't be saved, but if you work hard and don't die your haven can turn into a real world. Everything is in your hands!
Your haven is 1 acre in size at the moment (10 000 square meters). You have a few means to enlarge it, one of them is with the help of the "Store".
You will get experience points for bringing here the items from the real world and when your experience reaches the top your haven will level up. With each new level the capabilities of your haven will increase as well. You can also gain experience points by bringing survivors, but beware - you are not immortal even in your own haven…
Addendum: if you bring several identical items - XP will be awarded only for the first one."
"King and god, huh? Sounds good. What's next?"
"Subject: Report of Receipt.
The haven received 30 vials of the medicine "Apulin Z-10", for bringing a new kind of medicine, your haven receives 10XP. You can analyze "Apulin Z-10" in a lab and it will become available for purchase in the "Store"."
"Subject: Level up.
Congratulations! Your haven leveled up. As a reward you received a bag of "Special Potato" seeds and a small field. You can get your reward from the "Delivery" app."
"Potato seeds? Are you kidding? Do I look like a farmer? And do potatoes even have seeds?" He closed an app but couldn't find the "Delivery" app anywhere.
THE SYSTEM IS UPDATING. WE APOLOGIZE, BUT YOU CANNOT USE APPS DURING THE UPDATE.
CURRENT PROGRESS 0%
Sergei waited for the system to update. Five minutes later.
CURRENT PROGRESS 1%
"Are you kidding me?!"
NO. IF YOU WANT A FASTER COMPUTER AND TO SPEED UP THE UPDATING PROCESS, BUY A NEW COMPUTER FROM THE "STORE".
Sergei was at a loss of words. At a loss of censured words to be exact. But he took a deep breath and eventually managed to calm down. He wasn't the type to be provoked easily.
He stood up and approached the tent as it was the last place he hadn't inspected yet. It was a one-person tent and there was only a sleeping bag and an oil lamp inside. Finding nothing of interest the curious man decided to go explore the forest.