"Wha?"

  Al looked around. It was dark.

  Where was he?

  What was with this place?

  He could feel more than see the things moving around there, at the corners of his vision. Yet, it felt...comfortable. Who slept with the lights on, anyway? And he was quite used to feeling like something was there in the dark. Watching him. Standing by his bed, or in the closet and looking at him. He had that feeling all the time! There was literally nothing to be worried about.

  There was light over there, but well, he didn't feel like waking up. No, he was just fine, right here, in the dark.

  Al yawned and then closed his eyes, rolling over and feeling like a blanket was back on him.

  Ah, hibernation.

  Al opened his eyes in a hospital. It was dark out.

  He felt like he was forgetting something, but he did feel quite well rested. That was understandable; when you were used to getting only five hours of sleep, any more felt pretty good.

  Existential Terror? A coma!?

  When had that happened?

  Al, slowly sat up, removing the breathing mask and little needles in his skin. He didn't like those.

  He could hear...well, nothing outside. And that? That was unnerving. Usually, there would be at least the sound of people talking. Of people walking by or driving by in their cars.

  Yet, now, there was silence. The lights were on. The lights were on, but, it smelled. Smelled like...blood.

  The other patients weren't talking and playing board games now either.

  The nurse hadn't come to check on him, but the machines were working...no, they were beeping now since he'd removed them. There was probably a proper way to go about things, but he felt perfectly fine and quite disliked having the IV tube inside himself.

  It was kind of bleeding now though.

  That was bad. If he recalled, the nurse would be wiping it with a disinfective and then bandaging it. He should probably do that.

  Looking around, the disinfectant bottle was where the nurse had left it from the first time, on that little medicine table and the cotton and bandages were there too.

  Idly, he listened to the slight sounds he made echoing. It was...cool. But strange.

  There should have been more than just the drone of machinery as background noise. What about that guy who was always cough - oh!

  There were footsteps!

  Somebody was coming!

  That was great!

  He straightened up where he was, on the bed and cleared his throat.

  The footsteps sounded strangely...heavy and unrhythmic. There were more now. Shuffling.

  What was that?

  Feeling his hairs stand up - possibly the cold, as hospital gowns were quite...breezy - he slowly got up, obeying his instincts saying not to make a sound.

  Al had known the importance of stealth from a young age.

  Should he...grab something?

  He looked around and aside from the IV stand, there didn't seem to be any obvious weapons.

  Not to mention, holding the stand when the nurse walked in would be...suspicious to say the least.

  He wanted to clear his throat, but the silence, broken only by the footsteps, the machines, and his breathing made him feel like he should be quiet...wait. Breathing?

  Now that he thought about it.

  He couldn't hear...breathing.

  Step

  Al found himself standing near the door, one hand on the doorknob, leaving it closed.

  They stopped.

  Now they would knock, right?

  Hahaha, he'd watched too many horror movies.

  Thud. Thud. Thump.

  Oh, and now there were more of them heavily hitting the door without making other sounds and more shuffling and walking noises from the hallway.

  Yep, they were just worried since he'd taken out the tubes and set off the machines. He was pretty sure in that one show he watched, that when the machines started beeping the doctors got an alarm too.

  It was fine.

  "Gruuaaahhh."

  Never mind.

  He was trapped in a silent hospital room on the third floor, probably alone - which was a classic horror setting - and now there was...something outside.

  Great. Just great. How could his day get any worse? Well, he hoped he hadn't jinxed himself with that, but...things were looking down.

  The only reason he wasn't panicking now was because Al had killed goblins. He'd always felt quite comfortable with fighting. The idea of sharing his pain with others felt nice, and watching it in anime had always made it seem as simple as dodge and hit.

  No, it was pain that sucked.

  Pain, and not having a weapon.

  The only good thing was that since the place was originally intended to hold him for questioning, the door was a heavier one. Sturdy.

  He was fairly safe for now.

  Well, the thumping said he wouldn't be.

  Maybe the blue screens could help?

  Oh there were a lot.

  Oh well that was inspiring.

  Al was sure that had raised humanity's spirit in their struggle against...probably goblins and zombies.

  Oh wait.

  He had an idea about that, but...more boxes.

  Ok, now leaving aside what the classes were...that flavor text guy explained much. Much.

  It was actually slightly helpful to know he was stuck in hostile territory - enough to get a class option for it - which was interesting because that meant plenty of classes were only available if the environment favored them.

  Though he couldn't understand why carpenter was an option. The most he'd done in that field had been...maybe that one time trying to make a catapult in his high school physics class?

  Which was weird, because then why would soldier and guard show up? Unless they were super basic options that everyone got.

  Not to mention, the last few windows.

  That would definitely explain the silence and possibly zombies.

  "Urrraaaaaaa..."

  No, definitely zombies.

  So, if it was quarantined, was this a virus, and infectious somehow?

  That was pretty much zombie 101.

  For all he knew he was already infected...damn.

  Al closed his eyes and took a deep breath to clear his thoughts.

  Dwelling on possibly becoming a zombie was completely unhelpful. He just had to...stab them...somewhere?

  Ok, first things first, a class.

  There were only a few options but the choice was pretty obvious. It would have to be the Lone Fighter. It sounded kind of stupid, but ultimately, he needed a combat class and the Lone Fighter seemed to be made for his current situation.

  Concentrating mentally, he tried to 'select' the Lone Fighter like in novels and to his surprise...it didn't work.

  Feeling a bit stupid he quickly pressed it instead.

  'Yes.'

  Surprisingly, that one worked just mentally and he put his hand back down.

  This place did have signal, right? His data plan was crap.

  Al snorted and smiled a bit, cheered by his stupid joke.

  The hospital gown would protect him from absolutely nothing so the first priority would be to not get hit.

  Then, there was the issue of what kind of zombies these ones were.

  Were they the ones where you had to target the head? The heart? Or even a core that sometimes varied in location, from book to book, or worse, from individual zombie to individual zombie?

  And, even if he got the 'core' right, would it need to be totally destroyed to work, like making mashed potatoes out of their heads, or was a decent hit fine?

  The worst possibility was that these were the ones that revived after a while unless turned to ashes or just didn't die, and turning them to ashes only made them incapable of hurting you.

  Well, even worse was the possibility where they were created by some parasites that could infect him actively.

  He'd never really been a religious person, but for once, Al put down the IV stand and clasped his hands, watching the door that was starting to make creaking noises, praying that somehow, someway, he would make it out of this.

  The System chose that moment to finish updating.

  Seriously? The class started at 0 too?

  No, it made sense, but he'd been hoping it was the 0.1 that would apply and make him even a little bit stronger.

  The fact that that 0.1 had been moved over to his species column was quite interesting and all, but no, right now, the new window caught his attention.

  Oh, great. The flavor text...entity - who Al had decided would be called Bob from how on (it made him feel better about his situation and own name) was quite possibly hinting something here...and clearly had some sway with the System. It seemed Bob was the one who made this mission for him.

  Well. At least the difficult didn't say 'Impossible' or 'Nightmare' or 'Hell' or something. That would have sucked.

  He'd never even cleared something on Impossible before...except the ones where you could grind to victory.

  He wasn't sure if killing zombies gave levels though...

  Ok so basically, killing stuff without a mission didn't give levels? Maybe? Possibly?

  And there was a shop.

  Well, leaving money sitting around was only good if you were alive...and earning interest.

  It was time to see whether the shop had some dead-be-gone spray or something. Or dead-be-gone scented candles. He wasn't picky. Yes, either would be fine.

  "URRRRAAAGHH."

  At this point, Al had had enough of the background noise - which, at some point, had gone from creepy to annoying - and decided that if he was going down...it would be after he tried to smack them to death with money like a rich upstart.

  'Shop.'