Beside the mall, there was a stadium. Next to the stadium was a gym. Then came a sports complex. Encased between the sports complex and an electric station, there was a building. The board beside it reads ‘War Memorial Site: Field Hospital’. At the door of the Field Hospital, statues of soldiers trailed out.
The forerunner lacked a leg. The second mad has his hand stretched up, bidding something. The third man had a burned face, his ears in cotton shrouds. He held the collar of the second man, lest that person collapsed from his confusion of legs. The person at the back lacked his right arm. He held himself straight, a knifed apple on his left hand. I stood, looking at the knifed apple. My name was Ashen Spines. I could see the four statues, clearly. I lifted a stone from the ground.
A man with brown hair stood in front of me. He had a spiteful smile on his face. “Congratulations, you’ve won this round. However, if you ask my opinion, Abeism and socialism are more likely to succeed than your struggles,”
“You are lying. I control myself better now. Who are you?”
“I’m someone looking for clout. You know, that instant gratification thing.”
“It does not make for conversation.”
“No, that’s wrong. You are the demon.”
I threw the stone I hold across the street. “It does not matter.”
With power and rebellion always came the deception of personality.
<
***
‘A journey of a lifetime begins with a single breath.’
One breath. Two breaths. Ten thousand breaths.
I squinted at the description.
The mass of the katana was 1.3 kg. Its form was a single line. I wondered why I am looking at this description. I could see no katana around.
I squinted at the notification as well. It had a blue background.
I prefered black background user interfaces. ‘Life of no legacy’. That was a meta-oxymoron. Clearly this world’s system, which greeted me, was meant to be a legacy.
‘Either this world is real and the slightest action leaves behind a temporary legacy, or I’m living in a black box simulation, unaccessible to outsiders,’ I thought. “Does this world have gods or system administrators?” I said, out loud.
I looked around. I was in a mostly deserted field. I sneezed. In the distance, I noticed a half-buried corpse. There was nothing but bones left of it. From the faded clothing, I could tell it was a man. To my left, there were red slimes hanging out under a tree. They had dark red lanterns on top of their bodies. From afar, I almost thought one of them looked at me. This particular slime went on to grow limbs, and wings. It took flight.
The slime left behind a trail of smoke in its path.
Was that an alien?
Another slime bounced around to a pond. It was a clear pond. My eyes followed the slime. Once the slime got wet, some of its redness dulled out. It bounced to the other side of the pond and attacked a stone.
That was actually another slime.
I gazed at the slime. The title maked sense to me then. ‘These must really be some aliens,’ I thought. The flighty alien appeared above the rock slime and roasted it. The rock slime glowed red. It did not budge. The flighty alien roasted it to cinders.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Then, the flighty alien left. The red slime remained there for a while. The red slime constrained itself and flexed some fat layer of fiery brilliance. Was that supposed to mean something? The earth absorbed the cinders. Some plants grew. After a while, small rocks appeared. I guessed it was worth its luck. The red slime missed a step as it bounced about the pond and fell deeper. As it remained in the depths, it disintegrated. I would disintegrate too if this world became a black hole capturing me, one day.
Just like a huge ball of ideology. Or maybe, I would just fall into acid, compared to the fire slime falling into water. I realized I just wanted to convince myself I was no different from the red slime or the alien. ‘That’s dumb,’ I thought.
A crow came down to the baby rock slimes. It pecked at a few, and then took them for a flight. A slime popped out of the ground in front of me.
I looked at my wear. I had a linen tunic. It was white. I had some shorts on. I looked around. There were a few pebbles lying about. There were shrubs sparsely spaced about. I looked up. It was cloudy.
What was I supposed to do?
The slime bounced forward, and hit me. A notification appeared in front of me. There was a green bar. It indicated a value of 100/200. The value remained in my field of vision, to my top left. I retreated a few steps.
That was sudden. I ran in the opposite direction. I saw another slime in front of me. This one was of a green color. The one chasing me was a rock slime. I looked behind. Both slimes were slow. My health points got back up to 106.4/200
I lifted a pebble and threw it at the rock slime. The slime’s health points appeared. It looked full. I threw a few more pebbles. After about five pebbles, I found I had chinked away a small portion of its health. Consecutive values of [-0.5] appeared over its body.
I felt something latch onto my legs from behind. I looked down. I saw vines. I stretched my legs, and the vines breaked. It took away 10 points of my remaining health. ‘That should have been minimal damage’, I thought.
I ran to the rock slime’s left. The grass rustled as I moved. The air was hot and moist. I diverted my attention to the green slime. I threw pebbles at it. This one lost more health per hit. Each hit displayed a value of [-2]. By the fifth hit, the green slime was down to two thirds of its health point.
That was encouraging.
I threw more pebbles, circling the slimes. The rock slime decided to shield the green slime. It was stronger. Why would it do that?
The rock slime’s guard was easy to dodge. I kept attacking the green slime.
The green slime turned yellow. It looked dried up. It took [-2.5] damage for two consecutive hits, before I registered only [-1] per hit. I held back another throw. The slime had less than a third of its health points now. I noticed the now-yellow slime had a vine attached to the rock slime. Why though? I took out another chunk of the rock slime’s health points.
The green slime spreaded out a web of vines in my general direction. Orange flowers bloomed and exploded. Then, some yellow wisps were launched onto me. These sizzled and exploded. I got seven of these and lost a total of 35 health points.
The smell was putrid. It burned my nose. I jumped back. The smell did not register as damage. The green slime meant business. I was down to 87/200 health points. I had a good health regeneration rate, it seems.
I took some distance. I staggered about some knots on the grass. These knots seemed alive, when I broke them. I lost ten more health points. They must have originated from the green slime.
I kept running. Did the rock slime have similar abilities? I hoped it did not.
The sky cleared up slightly ahead. While I ran, I felt something hot braze my legs. It took away forty of my health points.
That was not much fun. A glance to my left told me it is a red slime. I sped up.
I had 67.8/200 health points. I saw more slimes about.
I took a look, and I took some seconds to catch my breath.
I had now formulated a plan: I ran towards the pond and got in. I waited for the slimes. They seemed to be taking their sweet time. I recovered about forty health points.
I tapped on the rock slime.
And it could power up that greenie slime.
I figured I could either kite or single-target the mob behind me. I laughed. An upper hand would be awhile. I looked behind. I saw a fire slime. I ducked.
Fire brewed overhead.