Jamie's vision slowly sharpened, pulling him out of the haze of confusion and pain. He lay sprawled face-down on the slick, wet ground, the air thick with a foul stench that filled his lungs with every breath. Gritting his teeth, he shifted slightly, and a sharp, stabbing pain shot through his side. He reached down, feeling warm, sticky blood. A stab wound—deep enough to weaken him but not enough to kill.
He forced himself up, gritting through the pain, and took in his surroundings: dank, dark walls coated with filth, pipes dripping sludge, and a narrow passage extending into shadow. Somewhere in the distance, water echoed, dripping endlessly into the silence. Jaime watched something green drop down, sizzling as it touched the ground.
Corrosive? He shook his head, his thought, scrambled.
Status: Critical. Mission Objective: Escape.
The words chimed in his head, clear and unyielding. Escape. That seemed simple enough—but nothing about his surroundings looked remotely simple. He felt an eerie, disembodied sensation, as if he were inhabiting someone else's body. This wasn't Jamie Wentworth's world. It wasn't even reality. He was someone else now—"Ghost," as the prompt had said. Whoever, or whatever, that was supposed to be.
He steadied himself against the wall, analyzing the setting with clinical detachment, forcing himself to compartmentalize the pain.
"Crap, crap," He hissed out, his eyes narrowing at the pure filth around him.
First, he needed to understand his environment. That was Survival Rule #1. Looking around, he noted the sloping angle of the tunnel, leading upward. If there was an escape route, it'd be at the highest point of the passage.
Initializing tutorial level healing!
The system in his head chimed.
+1 heal. A bright prompt appeared in front of him. It kept appearing with each passing second. He figured it was like the system said.
"I'm…. Healing?" He breathed out.
But it was slow. "Too slow," he muttered, having a bad feeling in his gut.
If he was healing too slowly that would be bad because the mission would be to escape… Jaime still wasn't sure if it meant to escape the sewer like it said or the underlying meaning was to escape something in the sewer.
"Stop planting a death flag, Jaime," He gritted out, the healing wound still very much hurting him.
As he took a tentative step forward, his instincts flared. Something about this place was… wrong. The air itself seemed thick, alive with an unsettling hum. The deeper he ventured, the more he became aware of a faint, rhythmic noise—a scraping, almost like claws against metal, coming from somewhere further down the tunnel. He couldn't see anything, but the sound clawed at his nerves, primal fear rippling under his skin.
"Huh," He whispered.
He stopped, thinking fast. Rushing in blindly would be a death sentence, so he weighed his options, turning his mind to potential strategies. His father's voice haunted him for a moment: Work every angle, Jamie. Outthink the competition. Use their weaknesses against them. The words were an unwelcome echo that taunted him from time to time, but they held some truth here.
The mission is to escape, he reminded himself. He could use his environment, manipulate it to buy time if he couldn't overpower whatever lurked here. With a quick look around, he spotted several objects scattered in the muck—a rusted pipe, some loose bricks, even a shattered bit of glass. Not ideal, but maybe useful in a pinch.
He picked up the rusted pipe, testing its weight in his hands. The makeshift weapon was heavy and unbalanced, but it was better than nothing.
"Can I… use this?" He asked himself aloud wondering if he would have the guts to actually use it when it came down to it.
He adjusted his grip, trying to ignore the dull throbbing in his side, then froze as he caught sight of something shifting in the shadows ahead.
A figure slinked into the edge of the light—a creature, hunchbacked and grotesque, its skin a mottled gray with patches of fur and scales. Its beady eyes glinted as it sniffed the air, mouth twisting into a snarl that exposed rows of sharp, uneven teeth. An instinctual chill shot down his spine. This was no ordinary animal. It looked like something dragged from a nightmare, something distinctly wrong.
Alert! F tier dungeon crawler! Unmanned gate around!
Jamie's mind went into overdrive, analyzing the situation as quickly as he could. The creature was an F-tier monster, if he had to guess, likely summoned by whatever "gate" he'd heard about in passing from the returnees of the phenomenon. If this place worked anything like a game, these creatures were meant to prey on the weak—the wounded, the low-ranked. And right now, that meant him.
'Ah, bad, very bad, very very bad,' He chanted in his head, trying to think.
He forced his breathing to slow, controlling his pulse, and sidestepped further into the shadows, gripping the rusted pipe tighter. The creature sniffed again, growling low as it crept closer, following the scent of his blood.
Think, Jamie, think. He scanned his surroundings, looking for an advantage. He knew he wouldn't be able to outpower this creature in his current state, but maybe he didn't need to. Maybe he could use his mind, turn this place into a weapon.
The pipes. Some of them were connected, some dripping sludge, some leaking what looked like corrosive waste. With a bit of force, he could redirect it. The creature moved forward, its twisted face glistening in the sewer's dim light, edging closer as Jamie continued shifting back, luring it under one of the larger pipes overhead.
Just a bit further… His mind focused on the task, calculating angles and trajectories, visualizing every move before it happened. The creature hissed, lunging, and in a blur, he swung the pipe upward, smashing it against the larger pipeline.
A rush of filth and grime cascaded down, dousing the creature in a sticky, corrosive fluid that sizzled upon contact with its skin. The monster screeched, thrashing wildly, its flesh bubbling as it staggered back, temporarily blinded.
"Crap," He choked out.
But Jamie knew he didn't have long. He spun on his heel and sprinted down the passage, clutching his side as he ran. The pain was brutal as the wound was healing at snail speed, each step sending shocks through his body, but he forced himself to keep moving.
"Crap, crap, Jesus, f—fu!" He grounded out.
Every second counted. He could hear the creature recovering, its enraged howls echoing down the tunnel as it lurched after him.
Ahead, the path split into two, and without hesitation, he took the right fork, hoping it would lead him closer to the surface. The air felt different here, colder, with a slight upward incline. It was a good sign. As he moved, though, another sound reached his ears—low growls, the skittering of claws against the damp stone.
Another one. Maybe more.
Jamie paused, his mind racing, weighing his options. He couldn't go back; the creature he'd doused in sludge was surely recovering by now, and he couldn't risk facing it again. Moving forward was risky, but with his wound worsening as he wasn't letting the heal work.
Each step he took was taking a toll on the wound while the heal healed that toll he created yet another toll by taking another step.
It was the only chance he had. Gritting his teeth, he moved forward cautiously, pressing against the wall, his eyes scanning every inch of shadow.
The sewer ahead opened into a wider chamber, and his heart sank at what he saw. Half a dozen creatures just like the first one were scattered across the room, prowling in a loose pack. Some were sniffing the air, catching faint traces of him, while others snapped at each other, their eyes gleaming with hunger.
Jamie backed up slowly, trying to retreat without making a sound, but his boot scraped against a loose stone, sending it skittering across the floor.
Instantly, the creatures whipped around, fixing him with their predatory gazes. A low snarl escaped one, echoed by the others as they began to advance. Jamie's grip on the rusted pipe tightened, his mind already calculating escape routes, possible defenses, anything to buy himself another minute.
And then, just as the creatures drew closer, something strange happened. The entire world seemed to shudder, as if caught in a glitch, and everything froze. The creatures halted mid-step, their eyes blank, jaws locked in place as though time itself had stopped.
A prompt appeared in Jamie's vision, hovering in front of him:
Would you like to toggle character roles? Choose a persona to increase your chances of survival.