The sun was shining.
On the other side of the dungeon gate, it was 12 pm.
Adam was lying there, immobile on a bush.
Not one sound could be heard until,
[Congratulations, you have survived for 24hours. Only...]
"Shut up..." Adam said while slowly opening his eyes. "Agh.." he touched the top of his head with his right hand. It hurt, looking back at his hand, it was bloody. He was bleeding. 'I probably knocked my head while falling.' he thought.
"Wait...wait...falling?" He started to remember everything. He quickly got up. Got dizzy and fell to the ground.
[ Warning! HP lower than 5%.Caution....]
"Shut up! Where are they? Where did they fall?" He turned his head in every direction. Nothing could be seen except bushes, the rocky ground and the two cliffs encircling where he was.
[Taking a potion is highly recommended. You can buy one by...]
"Shut up!!! My god! Stop talking!"
[Would you like to mute the system?]
"Sure now shut the hell up!" Adam got back up. His sight was blurry. He noticed that he couldn't move his left arm. He probably fell on it. His legs were killing him. In any other situation, the pain would have been unbearable. But right now, he had no choice but to walk, looking for his family.
He looked at the bush that was in front of the one he fell on. There were blood marks. Adam's heart sank for a second. He checked on the inside of the bush, nothing. That's when he noticed footmarks. The person who fell got up and left.
It only took him five seconds after that to find everyone. They were behind a boulder closer to the cliff. There they were. Lying there cold, bloody and unmoving. Their beautiful blonde hair floating in a red pool of blood.
Adam's whole body was shaking. He couldn't take one step forward. Breathing was an impossible task. While his body broke down, his mind was racing.
' What is. What. Why. Where was.I should have. How did this? Why am I still? Why am I not? Why are they? This. This is. This is. It's him. His fault.My fault.The gods. The red sky.This world.Everyone.'
His mouth opened and closed many times. But he couldn't produce a sound. His whole being was doing its best not to collapse right there and then.
The only way Adam's mind found for Adam to stay alive and keep his sanity was to deny this scene. To deny what was in front of him.
'The gods are playing with my mind, right? This isn't real, right? How could it be? Just yesterday I was walking the twins to school, with not a care in the world. And now. And now. You expect me to believe this?' His breathing got heavier and heavier. At any moment now, he would pass out.
They were lying on their backs, the way they did many times. Every Sunday, the three of them would take a nap together. Just like then, the twins were holding their mother's hands.
'This is. They're just. They're just asleep, right? Just like I was a minute ago, right?'
He took one step closer. He could hear the beating of his heart going faster and faster.
He took another step and lifted his arm. He tried reaching forward but his hand protested. Trembling.
He shook each one of them.
"Come on now. You can't sleep here." Adam said.
"Hey. Wake up. Hey! Get up! HEY!" He shook them harder and harder.
No response.
"Please, please get up." He said weakly
His whole body started shaking again. He stood back and fell to the ground. His whole life crumbled in front of him in a second.
Once he couldn't deny this reality in front of him. His mind had to find another way to cope with it. To process this sudden change in his world.
The response that his mind found, was to run away.
His mind shut down. He couldn't think anymore. He refused to. The only thing he would think about if he did, was something he wanted to forget. He drowned that scene he saw. He drowned the emotions that were bubbling up. He drowned everything and ran.
He ran away. As fast as he could. As far as he could. He ran, and ran, and ran.
He kept running, silently, without one thought entering his mind. His sole focus was to run as far as possible. As if the scene he saw was a predator following him, and that the instance that predator caught up to him, that would make the scene real.
After 30minutes of running, a rock made him trip. He fell and rolled in the dirt many times before stopping. He got up. Then screamed as hard as he could. The pain he was suffering from was not a physical one. No. He couldn't even feel his knees that were bleeding from his fall, or his burning lungs. His mind made him numb. All pain was numbed by his mind to keep him alive. But the pain he felt, remembering that scene or his family, was far greater than any pain his body had the ability to numb.
He screamed and screamed as hard as he could, before passing out.
He slept for a while. His body and his mind both needed to recover.
If he hadn't muted the System, he would have seen many messages from gods and evil creatures. While he was asleep, the gods and angels could swear he looked like he was having the sweetest and most peaceful nap in history.
And it really was a peaceful nap.
He woke up 14 hours later. The sun was setting. He was surrounded by two cliffs.
As he opened his eyes, he rubbed his eyes and looked back at his hand. He was crying.
He did have the most peaceful sleep in the world. He dreamt of his mother. Of his siblings competing to help him make breakfast. His old reality had become a lost dream.
Those dreams were extremely sweet and warmed his heart. Which only made waking up to reality and remembering the scene he saw earlier much more painful. He got up, looked in the direction where he came from. And started running away again. He ran for two hours straight, before falling to the ground in exhaustion and sleeping.
He slept for 1 hour, got up and ran again.
He spent 3 days that way. Sleeping, running to exhaustion, sometimes screaming to the top of his lungs and sleeping again.
That was the only way his mind could find to make him deal with what he saw. That way was to make it feel like a far and distant event.
After three days, Adam forgot why he was running all this time. All he knew was that he never wanted to go back. He never wanted to go back to where he was running from. Just looking back made his heartache. He decided not to think about it. To never think about it again. He instinctively knew that, not dealing with the monster that he was running away from, would one day come back to bite him. But for now, he was okay with that.
He walked and walked. At one point he even started getting hungry. But he continued walking without looking back. When he felt hungry, he slept. When he felt tired, he slept. When he remembered unpleasant memories, he slept. Sleeping kept him alive. It was also the reason he was able to function without eating or drinking water for so long. Although function might be a stretch. He would walk for 20minutes and sleep for 30minutes. This cycle kept him alive, and allowed him to move forward.
When he woke up from the fall from the cliff, 24hours since the beginning of the dungeon raid had passed. He spent 3 days running and half a day walking. He had spent 4days and a half in the dungeon now.
It was only then, after 3days and a half, that he heard a sound that was oh so pleasant to his ears.
The sound of flowing water.
As soon as he heard that sound, he ran towards it. It was in the same direction he had been running and walking towards this whole time.
After running for 15minutes, he found a beautiful small lake surrounded by many flowers and exotic plants.
Without thinking for a second, he jumped into the water headfirst. The water was cold and pleasant. He stayed in there for about 5minutes. He drank as much water as he could before lying on the ground next to the lake and sleeping.
Upon waking up, he noticed many things.
First, most of his injuries were healed. He could even move his left arm a little bit. The injuries on his knees had completely recovered and his head was no longer bleeding.
The second thing he noticed was that the cliff where he had jumped from was no longer there. While he was running and walking, the cliff's edge was getting lower and lower until it could no longer be called a cliff. This meant that Adam had been reconnected to the forest.
He noticed that the forest was only about 100meters away from the small lake.
The third thing he noticed was that the cliff opposite to the one he had jumped from was still there. But he couldn't continue going forward. He could see that the cliff was closing off the way. The shape of the cliff was that of the left half of a ∩ . It was directly connected to the forest as if encircling it. This whole time, he hadn't noticed that the forest was uphill. There was also some sort of cave about 150meters away from where he was standing.
The fourth thing he noticed was that he still had his bulletproof vest on. It weighed about 10kilograms (20lbs). No wonder he felt so heavy all the time. He also still had his military knife in his sheath hooked to his waist.
He had spent 4days and 19 hours inside the dungeon.
Adam drank some water before getting up and going closer to the cave.
As he got closer, he noticed that there were 5 goblins lying in front of the entrance, asleep. He thought about going back to the lake but then decided against it. If he entered the forest, he would be in even bigger trouble. If he stayed next to the lake, these goblins were bound to wake up at some point and he would then be prey to them, especially if he was asleep. He could also go back where he came from. But upon looking that way, his heart sank.
'Yeah. No way am going back. I'd rather die than go that way.'
It was decided. He was killing those 5 green monsters.
He knew that goblins were stupid and weak on their own. He also had noticed on his first day inside the dungeon that their senses were dull. Even when they were about seven meters away, goblins didn't notice anything. And now they were sleeping in front of him. He was also pretty confident that he could take them one-on-one.
The goblins were positioned far from each other. Each one was about 15meters away from the other which was obviously good news to Adam.
Indeed, if they were closer to one another and one of the goblins ended up waking up all the others, Adam surely wouldn't manage to escape unscathed. But now, there was some distance between them, he was sure he could outrun them if he had to.
He walked towards the goblin that was the furthest away from the cave entrance. The closer he got from it, the more disgusted he was of these vile creatures.
Their bodies looked very weird to him. They were short and had very skinny limbs. Their torso and waist were both extremely narrow and yet they had a disgusting gut hanging. They were hairless except on the top of their head where 2-3 hairs could be seen. They had sharp nails on both their hands and feet. Their teeth, while sharper than those of a human, were completely yellow. A lot of teeth were broken or missing.
Adam took his knife into his right hand and was prepared to kill this monster. He kept getting closer and closer without making a sound, until the distance between his knife and the monster's neck was about 5centimeters(2inches).
That's when he slit the monster's throat in one smooth motion. Green blood began pouring out.
The goblin opened its eyes and raised its arms towards Adam for a second before closing its eyes once again.
It had died. And Adam had killed it.
' Am I not supposed to feel something?' He thought it was strange that he didn't feel anything special. No remorse, nothing. He actually felt good about it.
It was the first time Adam took a life.
As he looked at the dead carcass of the monster he had just killed, the monster that was alive just now but wasn't anymore because of him, he understood.
He understood that from now on, no one would take care of him. He understood that he could only rely on himself.
He killed three more Gobllins the same way he killed the first one.
Unfortunately, the last one woke up before Adam could slit its throat.
The goblin was about 10meters away from Adam. It slowly got up, yawning, before looking in front of it.
The goblin saw some sort of pale creature holding a knife, in front of the dead carcass of its comrade. It felt anger, but also fear.
Only when it noticed the look on Adam's face did the goblin take its trusty Crude Knife into its hand and started running towards Adam while screaming.
Adam's legs froze. He could not take one step forward or backward. He was all alone, and this creature wanted his death.
It was the first time he felt such intense bloodlust aimed solely towards him. He had no one to rely on, no one to hide behind.
Adam threw his knife towards the assaulting goblin, but his aim was terrible. The goblin stayed on its course, ignoring the knife that flew far above its head.
Only when the goblin was about 3meters away was Adam able to take two steps back.
The next instant, Adam raised both his arms to protect his upper body.
The goblin used all the momentum from its prior sprint and stabbed Adam's upper leg as deeply as it could.
Adam felt an insane amount of pain.
That pain was numbed by the adrenaline rush he was feeling and was transformed into anger.
Adam grabbed the goblin's weak forearm with both his hands and squeezed it with all his might.
He squeezed it with all his strength and lifted it. The whole monster was being lifted from the ground. Adam's eyebrow twitched.
The goblin screamed a scream of pain and fear.
In one smooth motion, using all his strength. Adam lifted the monster and slammed it on the ground to his right.
The Goblin's body made a semi-circular motion in the air before hitting the ground.
Tiny rocks flew from where the goblin had hit the ground.
It fell on its back.
Blood started flowing from beneath the monster as it threw up blood.
Adam was taken aback by his sudden show of strength.
'Was I always this strong? Or were these goblins Extremely light from the beginning?' He thought for a second, before looking at the dying goblin struggling to breathe.
Adam took out the knife that was still embedded in his upper leg, and proceeded to slit the dying goblin's throat.
He wanted to ease its pain and put it to rest. Although he wasn't sure why he was feeling this way towards a monster.
He kept looking at the monster, as blood continued to flow out from both its throat and its back.
Only when the blood stopped pouring out and the goblin's last breath was heard, that Adam screamed at the top of his lung.
He wasn't sure why he screamed. But something from deep inside him urged him to.
Was it a scream of victory? Or a scream of deep despair?
Even an outsider wouldn't have been able to tell.
It was that type of scream.
Adam was not a child anymore.
The child who entered this dungeon died along with his family. The kindness and naivety associated with childhood were also lost that day. From now on, he would have to kill in order to stay alive. That was the only way to survive in a world as messed up as this one.
He started to head towards the lake.
When he was ten meters away, his knees lost all their strength and he fell to the ground.
'What? What is... Oh, I did I lose too much blood. The lack of pain made me forget that I was bleeding...Maybe sleeping now would be.....' He passed out before finishing his thought.
He woke up one hour later. He felt refreshed.
Although his wound could still be seen, he wasn't bleeding anymore.
It hurt a lot, but the pain was bearable enough for him to walk.
He drank water at the lake.
Adam felt hungry. But that was not a problem for him. He was used to eating little quantities and more than once did he not consume food in the span of three to four days.
'I could just stay here for now. The goblins are no longer. That would be the safest course of action am sure.'
He sat down and started looking around him.
But, as soon as he looked in the direction where he had come from, the direction of the place he was running away from, he had this feeling.
This feeling that it was not enough.
This feeling that he had to go away.
Much much further than he was at the moment.
He decided to head into the cave.
Adam didn't know that but, between the forest and the cave, the forest was by far the safest option.