Do Over

Eric woke with a gasp as his body arched in pain. He caught himself quickly enough that he only whimpered slightly in pain.

Once the ordeal had passed, he lay panting quietly on his bed, listening for any signs of movement while sweat seeped into his sheets.

Other than the sounds the nocturnal insects made, there was the faint rustling of leaves and Ken's light snoring.

At that moment, Eric felt an emptiness that wouldn't leave him. He had survived so long and the attack that killed him was supposed to destroy it's target's very soul. Why did he still loop.

If it were 27 or so deaths ago, he might've rejoiced at the chance to correct his mistakes however he had been dying and waking up at exactly 10 pm on the 17th of March, 9 days and 2 hours before the blasted meteors started falling, since order went to the dogs and chaos' reign began.

In some lives, he had managed to survive despite being nearly as weak as an unawakened person. There were times, he had even managed to meet the creators of the virus and he had learned just how other races viewed humans.

After he had recovered, Eric left the room. He hadn't seen the streets outside his home in 15 years. He had also not seen streets untouched by the undead scourge in that same length of time.

After going through the very same contents of the fridge nearly over 20 times, he could pick out the beer he had hidden behind several cans of soft drink with his eyes closed. He chose to sit in his usual seat by the windows so he could stare out at the reflection of the moon in the water.

He took a moment to untangle his hair. It would have looked eerie to anyone who saw how the strands of his hair moved as if each of them had a mind of their own. With every strand cooperating, he was done in a matter of seconds.

By the time he had a finished all his beer, he had made up his mind. If his theory was right and he truly developed a new ability every 10th death, he should have developed a third ability. Depending on what ability that was, he would modify his plan later on but for now, he would get his family as close as possible to one of the bases he had been to.

The ability revealed itself to be a 2×5 grid inventory, it would stay in the periphery of his sight as a small 1cm box if he didn't focus on it. If He had things in the boxes, An image of the item would show itself in the mini inventory. He experimented with it a bit more and found that he could store anything, even uncontained fluids as long as he wanted it.

By the time he was done, half an hour had gone by. He hadn't messed around with the heavier stuff as that might make more noise than he was comfortable with.

He returned to his room after checking on the twins then he made sure Ken was still under his covers and got onto his own bed.

Despite how peaceful it was, Eric feared sleep. If it were up to him, he would stay awake, out of reach of nightmares which were twisted amalgamations of his experiences.

When he closed his eyes, sleep eluded him but he kept up the effort. The apocalypse would bring an end to regular sleep schedule until he found a safe zone.

Of course, some might say that he could go on ahead to a safe zone since he knew their whereabouts but he had already gone that route and he had learned that personally learnt that most safe zones were only safe because someone had taken action to make them safe.

The rest tended to be in places with few resources and thus were torn apart by internal struggle.

Eric was pulled out of his thoughts when he realised that the feel of his mattress had changed. He opened his eyes and was met, surprisingly with clear blue skies and a sun which spread its warmth to everything it touched.

"Is this my ability?" he wondered aloud. The looper looked around and found that the new area bore similarities to a higher space ability. "No it can't be. I only get 1 ability every 10 deaths. Right?" Eric was confused about the situation.

"It might be like the hair thing." Eric muttered, recalling how his second ability- he was using the term very loosely- had made his hair a symbiotic existence that could take on the properties of a metal as long as Eric dipped a part of the hair into the molten form of the metal.

Eric startled when he received signals from his hair warning him of a possible hostile approaching his position. He followed the directions to find... a rabbit?

Eric had no time to think as the small mammal was hurtling towards him at speeds that would put an athlete to shame.

The young adult stood his ground and positioned himself as if to catch the rabbit. When it pounced, horn aimed at the human's chest, Eric dodged and grabbed it's hind leg before shaking it vigorously to make it light-headed.

With the rabbit secured, Eric fought the urge to study it right there in order to find a safer spot than standing in the middle of what looked to be a clearing in a rather dense forest.

Considering his options, Eric checked his inventory. He could still access it but apparently, he couldn't put the rabbit in it so he held it's mouth open and stuffed his finger down it's throat where he opened the inventory and sucked away the rabbit's air.