Ugh! Carl groaned as he wiped his face due to the drowsiness he felt; the memories of what happened were a little hazy as he pinched his eyebrows in deep concentration, trying to remember at least the smallest details to explain what happened to him.
*Growl!*
His stomach, which growled, caught him by surprise as he looked at his belly, to the back of his palms, before touching his face in astonishment. Carl felt the thumping of his heart, the rise and fall of his lungs; even the quiet noise of his breathing became ear-deafening. "I'm. I'm alive," he burst out in joy, leaping and dancing around the bedroom, which wasn't his.
The only problem he had was his pale skin and sunken flesh that exposed his bones almost as if he hadn't eaten for months. Luckily, he was still human. "I think?"
The only thing he was wearing right now was a white tank top that had been stained with dirt and orange-brown leather pants with muddy shoes still on. His clothes almost brought back a memory but that was also interrupted by his growling stomach.
"I need food..., anything before whoever owns this place gets here," making his way downstairs. It took him a while before finding the kitchen in the big house the hunter owned, and in the hallways that Carl had to cross were hanged heads of deer, lions, and other animals. Looking at the animals caused Carl to have headaches, but he left and never thought of it, still looking for the kitchen.
"Finally, the kitchen!" He yelled making his way to the fridge that had juice, some bread, and other stuff that could feed Carl for days. Opening the bottle cap for the juice, Carl gulped it all down only to feel more hungry; he almost threw up, but he still felt hungry. The hunger, the insatiable hunger that led him to start biting his arm, although his skin was too thick for his teeth to chomp off.
He was able to regain some sanity and check for frozen meat as he greedily ate it without caring for safety reasons. The meat that could last weeks was gone in the blink of an eye. With nothing proper to eat for him, he started biting his arm to no avail, which he was only able to delay due to him biting down on his lips.
*Squeak!*
*Squeak!*
*Squeak!*
A squeaking sound came from within the walls as Carl's head turned aggressively in that direction, "A rat!" he said with a wide scarry smile showing all his razor-sharp teeth which were akin to fangs, and a crazed look in his eyes that were glowing red as blood trickled from his mouth due to the intensive lip biting he was doing to suppress the hunger.
Charging at the wall at speeds that were almost impossible for even a trained athlete to follow, he smashed his hand through the wall to accurately catch the rat.
Staring down at the rat while it tried to wriggle its way out of Carl's grip, only for him to tighten it.
*Crack!*
The bones in the rat's body were shattered along with some of its meat, but Carl still consumed it, licking his blood-soaked fingers greedily, not wasting a single drop of blood.
The live meat that he consumed brought him to his senses. The thought of eating a rat wasn't new for him, but eating raw meat nauseated him. His inability to puke made him feel even worse. Wiping his tongue with his hands while slowly licking a few stains and enjoying the scent of blood that got stuck to his fingers.
Realizing what he was doing disgusted him even more. A disturbing feeling as if he wasn't himself. This feeling was different from when he was a deer or even when he was dead.
"Wait... I was ... Dead?" It all came rushing back to him the hunter pointing a gun at him, to meeting the observer.
"Arrgghh!" He screamed as the knowledge flushed back in at once, making his head feel as if it was splitting in half and repairing itself over and over again, knocking him out unconscious.
"Ugh! Again?" he asked himself after waking up after being knocked out for hours. Carl managed to regain his balance perfectly, he hurriedly searched for a mirror going upstairs, and he found one at the end of the hallway.
He looked at his reflection silently, without uttering a single word. He already knew about the pale skin situation and the sunken flesh, but his face was the hunter who killed him, although malnourished, and his black eyes had a blue iris with a vertically split pupil. This look was far from human or deer it was a complete monster.
*Ding!*
[Congratulations. The host has unlocked the Wendigo system]
[Calculating achieved karma into karma points]
[Stats Window]
[Wendigo LV: 1 (0/1000)]
[RANK: Rank 1, Low Tier]
[HP:(100/100) | MP:(5/5)]
[STR:19|AGI:19|VIT:20 |END:20|
Bonus stats: 0]
[TRAITS: Regeneration(f) / Hunters Intuition(f)]
[Skills: none]
[Karma store | | Inventory]
[STATUS: ]
Carl stared at the strange hologram window that appeared in front of him as he tried to touch it, only for his hands to pass through. His reflection didn't show the strange "stats window".
"Maybe I'm hallucinating?" He thought to himself, trying to take his mind off the floating blue screen hovering above his head while inspecting all the details of the screen.
"Am I supposed to trust this strange system that appeared out of nowhere, and why did it even appear?" These were the questions that Carl asked himself, but he never got the answers as it was just silence.