Awakening

He had started to drift out of consciousness, the only things he was aware of were the bright moons and the reflection on the water. It was coming faster and faster, at the last moment, everything suddenly stopped. Like an eerie limbo where time stood still.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

When next he awoke, he was in a place he had never seen before. Black, spike-like plants covered the light-dark purple soil. It felt sickly and frail, but at the same time he got the sense that there was something in this dream-like land, something powerful, something he needed.

The sky shrieked. He looked up to witness a reddish, brown eye, a sun sundered, it was majestic. The sights unbelievable, one after the other, things that shattered possibility were occurring right before him.

It was all so foreign, the sky, the ground, the air. Beyond reason, beyond imagination, but it felt as familiar as the pain of biting one's tongue.

[ANalysis: inconclusIve. Subject state: ??]

The sounds reverberated like scraping glass. His head felt heavy and hot.

The wound oozed a black fluid, which fell upon the soil and expanded rapidly. It swallowed the plants, the ground and the stars, until only it remained. The darkness was cold and unyielding.

[Soul transference unsuccesful, aborting procedure. Attempting Isolation, Isolation failure detected.]

[...zzzsh... connection.... Undead]

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Blood, blood I need more blood. Blood, blood,..."

The crunching sound of bones interrupted the repeating mantra. He stood above a mutilated corpse. Blood was everywhere, on his hands, mouth and feet.

He couldn't remember how he got there, trying to do so induced migraine and discomfort.

-My head hurts, where am I-

He stood up to survey his environment. He was at the side of a big lake, surrounded by wildly disfigured and rotting corpses, which closely resembled the state of his own body.

-How... Did I do this?-

The pain momentarily paused before it begun once more. In that brief moment, he remembered the sounds.

-It said "undead". Was it referring to me?-

As if to answer his question an odd image appeared in his mind.

•Name:?

•Race: Undead Walker (Human)

•Level: 2

• Health: 0/0

•Mana: 10/20

•Skills:

Claw Attack

Devour

(Passive)

Decay

Corruption

Dark Blood

"What the fu-" The pain shot up his head again, only it was a magnitude stronger than before. He raised his arms to hold his head.

He wanted to scream, but no noise left his mouth as he once more entered a blank state.

-Blood... Blood... Blood. PAIN.-

A sharp, smarting sensation coming from his knee broke apart the intense trance. Turning to stare at his adversary, he found himself confronting a two-meter-high animal that looked like a bear with weird glowing nails and hard, scale-like sections on its chest and joints. The animal was bearing its fangs and before he could react, it threw its arm at him causing him to fall down from the massive impact.

-What is that, where am I, how did this happen?- He could not understand causation of what was happening. The shock, the pain, the hunger...

He shouted at the hulking creature and swiftly rolled to the side to evade the next attack. A slam with the entire weight of the animal would be fatal no matter what condition his body was in, much more in this decaying corpse. After the bear noticed it had struck the ground instead of its prey it tried to reposition itself for the next attack. But to its surprise, it felt a weight on its back and strong pressure on its neck.

The "prey" it had found in a weakened state had not only evaded it but was now fighting back.

In the next moments, the bear lost both its eyes and its neck had now been wounded.

-[Claw Attack] is stronger than I expected.- He thought to himself. The attack was indeed strong, to have damaged both the eyes and to have created a cut on the thick skin of the animal. It was a shallow cut, but enough of them could make the bear bleed to death before it would be able to finish him.

Unexpectedly the bear leaned to one side and slumped on the ground grunting and huffing before the fight could progress any further. It tried to stand up and ended up falling as it collapsed for a second time.

-Is that, the [Dark Blood]?- For some reason, he could somewhat understand the meaning of the words that appeared in his mind when he had tried to think about himself, he sensed that this was the effect of his second passive skill.

-What am I-

•Name:?

•Race: Undead Walker (Human)

•Level: 2

•Health: 0/0

•Mana: 3/20

•Skills:

Claw Attack

Devour

(Passive)

Decay

Corruption

Dark Blood

The bear could only watch, completely paralysed, as the undead approached it and lowered its body to catch one of its limbs

-[Devour]-

The undead human bit into the downed animal, its teeth tore through the flesh which was then quickly swallowed. Again and again, bite after bite the beast cried out from the pain of being eaten alive, before succumbing and dying.

He felt disgust by the texture and the taste, but he felt the need to eat.

More importantly, the noise the beast had made was bound to alert other, potentially more threatening creatures. Abandoning whatever was left of the corpse and changing locations was the better choice for now.

While on the move for a shelter the mind of the limping, bloodied victor ran through the information he had pushed back to deal with the dangerous encounter. Firstly he could not explain how or why he had been revived, as an [Undead Walker]. He could barely even remember what had happened before and after he had fallen into that portal, fragments of voices and images drifted in his brain. What was more concerning than anything else, was the fact that he could not remember his name.

At first, the question mark made had made him confused, but when he tried to think of his name, he found that he could not. It was similar to trying to remember a dream.

He knew of details about his life, but he could not define any persons or places clearly in his mind. The longer he dwelled on it the more perplexed it made him. He continued wandering, searching for a suitable shelter.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Mes was a young, bright-eyed woman. A blessing to her small village, many would say. The "Little Lightning Mes", she had earned the nickname due to her energetic and always bright attitude.

She woke up with the break of dawn, boiled water and prepared food for herself and her two brothers. This was a special day, even more special than usual and she had no time to waste.

Mes had been the village's best hunter ever since she was young. Even the few travelling merchants that wandered this far had been impressed by her skills, to the point that she had been recommended to the "United Adventurers Association", the continent-wide organisation responsible for employing and overseeing individuals tasked with the culling of wild beasts, monsters and the exploration of ruins and uncharted lands.

Occasionally she would get the opportunity to be hired as a mercenary by adventurers, merchants and researchers that needed some extra muscle, or were unfamiliar with the rarely trod-upon parts of the forest.

The forest itself was not that extraordinary, if one were to overlook the lake that lied on the side of the mountain that separated this region from the rest of the human territories.

A combination of minerals, magic stones, which resided in the bottom of the water, and a small tint of the unknown resulted in the generation of incredible amounts of water and light attribute mana.

For most residents it simply meant that the environment made it easier for them to recover from injuries and slightly suppressed corrupted creatures and demon-beasts. From the view of a scientist, this was a phenomenon that they would furiously try to reveal the true nature of and seek to reproduce it.

Aside from the unnaturally high quality of mana, more accurately, a result thereof were plants that had been adapted to this environment. And Mes' new job had to do with procuring one locally found plant called the 'Moonleaf Flower'.

The Moonleaf grew in humid places with little to no sunlight and once fully grown its petals faintly glowed a white light.

The alchemist that had hired her had promised enough pay for Mes and her brothers to be able to move into a village closer to the nearest kingdom, to purchase a small house and ground for a farm. But in spite of all her excitement she would need to practice extreme caution.

The job this time was demanding enough to require not only her, but three other mercenaries or adventurers, her employer had informed her.

The difficulty of this assignment was not finding and harvesting the plant itself, but being able to incapacitate or circumvent its guardian. The Moonleaf attracted a very threatening species called "Bright-clawed Bears". The symbiotic nature of the beast and the plant clearly fascinated the alchemist, who had rambled a full candle's worth about the beast and the plant.

No matter how much it might have annoyed her, Mes could not show a hint of disrespect. The reward was too great and any mistake would mean having to remain in this poor village for gods know how long.

The blond, green eyed woman walked into the ale-house where she would meet her collaborators. Her green eyes immediately focused on the three men, the only people who were in the room this early in the day.

The two did not seem very competent and the swords they carried were poorly maintained. So Mes, having determined that they would not provide anything more useful than their bodies to use as meat-shields, dismissed them as soon as they introduced themselves.

The third one was a tall, well-built bowman by the name of Hazsho

-Look at those arms!- She thought, her attention grasped by the bowman's physique.

He was tall enough to be mistaken for a half - orc and his muscles were not the type that Mes would expect of someone who fought by keeping distance and killing accurately.

She did not expect his tone to be an elegant one, but everything about the man, to the way he walked was brutish. He had even challenged the two swordsmen to a two on one wrestle to determine the leader of their group. The fight was over in an instant as the swordsmen were defeated in one or two strikes each.

Mes watched in moderate interest as the men fought over something as meaningless as being the leader of a group of four complete strangers.

"Say, how come you're so good at fist-fighting if you're using the bow?" She had asked him, in curiosity.

"Missy, when ya got arrows as expensive as these, you can't simply use them on anything!"

He held up his quiver, displaying arrows with sharp, bright green, metal heads, that were adorned with swirling patterns. Mes had never seen that type of arrow before and she admitted that they did indeed look special.

"If I ain't got a target expensive enough, I'll just use this.", he said while letting down his quiver and punching the air.

She had no idea why a bowman would buy arrows too valuable to use, but she knew for certain that she fancied the man. If he planned to stay after the hunt she would not be opposed to showing him a good time for a night.

They stood in a circle around a map and planned their route. Mes had scouted the area beforehand, so they knew of multiple locations to search.

"Alright, let's get on and finish this before the evening comes!", she proclaimed as she led the way into the forest.

In a humid, small cave a lone flower had sprouted, from its leaves emanated a bright silver-white light, which softly caressed the surroundings.

Violent squeals came from the side of the gentle flower as the morning sun arose. Everything was died in red.