She spins herself dizzy searching for the owner of the voice. It sounds like it's all around her, over her left shoulder, to her right, below her feet, shouting in her ear, but there's no one there. It isn't simply one voice, but many overlapping, giving it an androgynous air and a scary sense of pressure. She's being watched.
She tries to wrap her head around it. Panic is simmering in her chest but after crying once, twice, maybe thrice now? She's out of anguish, especially when... she remembers. She remembers hearing these voices in the darkness before she woke. They were mutters then, all she heard was indistinguishable psh-psh-psh. So quiet and meaningless that she forgot.
I'm not dreaming, it was her first thought when the message ended. I may be hallucinating, though..
She slumps against the tree, facing the direction of Mister Fluffy's headstone and the sun slowly coming over it. This can't be real, she tells herself, It mustn't be. I can't be here, I have to- she starts, then stops. What does she have to do? She keeps looking at the sun as she tries to understand.
I'm being watched.
I'm in a 'game.'
I volunteered?
I made a Wish worth dying for.
I shouldn't be here. Not now.
The last thought is what surprises her. She didn't mean to think about it, she doesn't know where the sense of wrong comes from. But it's there and it isn't going away. She shouldn't be in some game, not now, there's something much more important she needs to be present for. Something very important to her. Something that makes her sad. She feels her chest tighten again, only now out of heartache rather than fear.
It hurts. It hurts. There isn't pain as she expects, but a dullness as she tries to remember. She remembers waking up, which couldn't have happened more than 30 minutes ago. She remembers being asleep, for how long she can't tell. However, it feels like she slept for a very, very long time, like she'd been dead for years before the voices came and went. She tries to remember being awake before then, and that's when the dullness starts to hurt. She cradles her head in her hands for a moment, ignoring the contrast of rough bones in her right hand and soft skin on her left hand.
She refuses to be distracted yet. Anything, please, I need to know, she grits her teeth as the pain surpasses the dullness, trying to crush her into bits. She screws her eye shut but through it she sees the soft orange of the sun bringing day to the graveyard, and hears her voice.
"I'm sorry," she says. She knows it isn't her inner thinking voice immediately. This voice sounds young and angry. She hears sorrow as deep as the ocean and a scorching rage punctuated with each syllable. She isn't apologizing.
She bashes her head into the tree suddenly. Her mouth opens to scream, but she doesn't make a sound. She silently wails as her skin begins to blister in large, right red spots, growing on every inch of her body in grotesque patterns. She smells her flesh burning and feels her left arm and left leg jolt over and over again, bones moving out of place as if pulled, vibrating out of control. Instinctively, she opens her eye to glare at the fully risen sun as it kills her.
[Danger! You are about to die!]
Words appear in her vision. She'd scoff if she wasn't soundlessly screaming. The feeling of being burned and torn apart wasn't enough that she was about to die, huh.
[If you don't want to die, move out of the way!]
She closed her eye. It was stupid advice. If she could move, she would. Even if she could move, where to go? The tree, despite its size, is useless as a barrier now. The sun is too low and too large to be blocked, it would take hours for it to rise high enough for the tree to give her coverage. By then, she'd be long dead.
[Lay in the shadows of the headstones-Go right!]
She can still see the words forming. The words almost don't make sense to her pain-fogged brain, but when they do, she tries. She tries with every ounce of autonomy left in her body to move, she manages a fall in that direction. The blisters react aggressively, squirming and crawling up to her head like a conscious infection. She cries out again. It feels like she's being eaten alive, she just- I can't- I can't- I ca-
[Keep moving!]
She hears the words this time. They sound as afraid as she feels, and loud. Louder than the sound of her bones breaking, louder than any pain she felt, grounding her for one second. One second for her to force her body to move again. Her eye is still closed, she doesn't know where she's moving, but she feels herself being directed. She gets one arm, the arm of flesh, in a position to push herself another inch. Her legs feel impossible to control, so she uses her toes. By wiggling and digging with them she scoots up a little, enough to reposition her arm, then pushes again. Her body writhes with unspeakable pain. She's being eaten alive, she's drowning in magma, she's being crushed by a candle chandelier and a wine glass case during an earthquake; it hurts like hell.
It hurts long after she pulls herself into the safety of a large shadow. She barely notices her success before she blacks out.
When she wakes up, the sun is above her, she can hardly see it between the tree's branches and leaves. The sunlight can't touch her to her relief and due to this barrier, it is no brighter than it was last night. She doesn't move for some time after she opens her eye. Her body is sore, but she isn't in crippling pain. The fact that she has to regain the feeling in her limbs to move is the only reason she doesn't think she's imagining being alive.
She shouldn't be alive. She wouldn't be if it wasn't for those instructions... Were they from 'them'? Why would they save me? She doesn't believe they would. They said it themselves: many Challengers will "fail and die" during Day 1. The sun must've been her first obstacle?
She's vaguely happy that she's alive, but the happiness is hollow. After the feeling fully returns to her arms, the words appear again.
[Congratulations Challenger, you survived First Sunrise! Your reward can be found in your System interface.]
System interface? She repeats in mild frustration. What nonsense is this?
A holographic screen appears on command.
[ UNDEAD SYSTEM
Level : 1 (0/50)
Health : 32/64
Mana : 0/0
Stamina : 5/24
Damage : 16
Skills : Undead Body, Death Perception, Nightwalker
Inventory : First Sunrise Reward, Challenger's Manual ]
Right, this is a game, she thinks. The screen is familiar to her although she isn't sure how. The title of it, UNDEAD SYSTEM, stands out like a beacon. She isn't surprised. They said she isn't Human, and she awoke in a graveyard with half of her body falling apart... The surprise is the usage of the word "undead" rather than "zombie." She is a zombie, isn't she? She even ate flesh.
She regrets thinking about the dog immediately. The thought triggers disgust in her, while simultaneously making her realize she has a craving for more. She refuses to think about it. In an attempt to distract from the hunger she ignores her skills and selects her reward.
[ First Sunrise Reward - Sun Cloak
A basic clothing item that is large enough to be worn by a male minotaur. The sun reflecting fabric prevents sun exposure. And it has a hood! ]
The cloak fell out of thin air when she was done reading. She collects it in her arms with an impressed expression. The cloak is beautiful. It is big enough to fit two of her, a bright yellow, with orange accents in the shape of small suns lining the ends. The hood is fur lined, the inside of the cloak is all black, and the fabric itself is as soft as wool. It looks and feels expensive, something that fills with an unexpected acceptance. Somewhat worth my almost-death, I suppose.
She can't move her legs yet, but she throws the cloak around her shoulders. Its size means it can wrap around her like a blanket. Exactly what she feels she needs.
It's after that she realizes, until she can feel and move her legs again, she's stuck here. She clutches the cloak. This is going to be a horrible game, she can already tell.
Even so, that taste of death... It frightens her. She doesn't want to die. She doesn't know what she wants, but anything outside of death will satisfy her. In order to survive, she has to know her weaknesses, right?
Yes, so, she selects 'Challenger's Manual' from her inventory.