His mind had blurred into a grey smear with no edges. No vision, no sky, no dirt, no teeth. Just the dull throb of pain somewhere far away and a distant sound that kept intruding, thin and frantic, like it was trying to claw its way into him. A cat. Meowing. Screaming. He couldn’t connect it to anything that mattered. Even if he woke up, what was the point? Between a Rat King and a swarm that could turn the ground black, what was he supposed to do? He’d run. He’d fought. He’d watched Teddy get torn apart. If this was dying, then fine. He’d done enough.
Then pain slammed back in like someone had thrown a bucket of ice into his veins and his eyes snapped open.
He was on his side, face pressed into dirt that smelled of blood and crushed leaves. His ear rang. His throat burned from breathing through his mouth. For a second he didn’t remember where he was, then the memory came back in pieces: Teddy’s body hitting the ground, the Rat King turning, Miu charging, the world going black.
Ray forced himself up onto an elbow. The Rat King was still there, a hulking shape in the near distance, but it wasn’t moving. It lay on its side with its legs twisted at a wrong angle, too still for something that big. Rats crawled over it in a thick layer, feeding at its belly and spilling out of the clearing in jittery streams. The sight churned Ray’s gut, but the nausea got drowned by something worse, the cold burn in his veins that told him the poison was still ticking.
[LIFELINE ACTIVATED — 29 HEALTH RESTORED.]
[Skill: Lifeline has reached Level 2.]
Ray sucked in a breath and nearly choked on it. His body wanted air, his nose wouldn’t give it, and his chest kept trying to cramp shut like it was sick of him. He forced his status open because his senses were lying to him and the numbers never did.
Five minutes. That was all it took for the poison to finish the job if he stopped moving.
Ray.
Miu’s voice hit his head like a shove, raw with panic and strain. Move. Now. They’re coming. The small ones are coming.
Ray blinked grit out of his eyes and tried to find her. His neck protested. His ribs ached like he’d been kicked by a horse. He pushed up anyway, legs wobbling as if they’d forgotten their purpose. The clearing was chaos, not a battlefield so much as a feeding ground. Rats surged around the Rat King’s corpse in waves, some tearing at meat, others breaking away and spreading outward in a widening ring. Beyond them, the forest floor was starting to move again, patches of brown turning into writhing black.
Ray turned and saw Teddy.
Or what looked like Teddy.
A body lay crumpled near the edge of the clearing, torn and bloody, half-covered in churned leaves and dark stains. Ray’s mind tried to reject it, tried to argue with the shape. Teddy didn’t lose. Teddy didn’t fall. Teddy didn’t end up as something the world crawled over. But the body didn’t get up. It didn’t twitch. It lay there with a slack heaviness that made Ray’s throat tighten until breathing hurt.
“Miu—”
Later, she snapped, the word cutting through him. Cry later. If you stop, you die.
Ray’s jaw clenched so hard his broken nose throbbed. He forced his feet to move, but his eyes kept sliding back to the body like he could drag Teddy upright through sheer denial.
Then he saw something else.
A small vial had rolled free of the mess, glinting in the dirt as it spun once and settled. Glass. Sealed. Clean enough that it looked obscene next to blood and torn flesh. It had come to rest near Teddy’s hand, close enough that Ray could snatch it in one quick step.
Close enough that rats could snatch him.
Ray’s legs hesitated. One step. One gamble. The poison burned under his skin like a timer.
Ray! Miu’s voice cracked through the bond. If you die here, I die here. Move!
Ray swallowed hard and shoved forward anyway, because he couldn’t leave Teddy like that, not without taking something, not without doing something. His boots slid in blood-slick dirt. The smell hit him full force and he gagged, eyes watering. He reached down and snatched the vial, fingers shaking, and the moment it touched his skin his vision filled with a clean block of text.
====================================
Elixir of Life
====================================
Fully restores the body of any (F) rank being able to use potions.
Rarity: Legendary
Item Rank: F
Attributes:
- Cooldown: 1 month
- Repairs broken bones, regrows limbs and removes maladies
====================================
Ray didn’t slow down to think. He bit the stopper free, spat it, and drank while still moving, because thinking was how you died in this world.
The elixir hit like heat. Not gentle warmth, not a slow knit of flesh, but a violent rush that snapped his focus sharp. His lungs opened. His broken nose popped back into place with a sickening click and air poured through his nostrils like he’d been drowning. The poison didn’t vanish in a dramatic wave; it got pushed back, smothered, as if something stronger had stepped in and told it to shut up. His muscles stopped screaming for a moment, replaced by a buzzing clarity that made the forest look brighter and the blood smell sharper.
[Body +1. Nice. Keep chugging miracles and you’ll end up a potion addict.]
Ray almost laughed, and it came out as a wet cough that hurt his throat. “Oh, shut up,” he rasped, though his voice came weak and shaky.
He forced his status open again, needing the anchor.
Then his foot caught something and he almost went down.
A strap.
Ray’s fingers found it by instinct as he stumbled, and his heart lurched when he realised what it was connected to. A small sack, half pinned beneath Teddy’s torso. The strap was buried under torn cloth and blood-dark leaves, and when Ray looked at it properly he saw the edge of the bag crushed under weight, dragged through dirt like it had been dropped in the middle of the fight and forgotten.
Rats were already shifting. The skittering sound surged closer, swelling into a hiss of movement that made Ray’s skin prickle.
Ray grabbed the strap and yanked. The sack resisted, stuck under Teddy’s body like it didn’t want to come free. Ray planted his feet, pulled again, harder, and the bag tore loose with a wet rip and a heavy thud that nearly dragged him forward. It wasn’t heavy like stone. It was heavy like it was full of things it shouldn’t be able to hold.
Ray stared down at Teddy’s ruined body again and something inside him caved. His mouth opened and nothing came out at first, just breath.
“I’m sorry,” Ray said finally, not loud, not brave, just honest.
Move, Miu hissed into his mind, the edge back in her voice. Now.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The ground behind him started to blacken with motion. Ray shoved the sack over his shoulder and ran.
Branches slapped his face. Roots tried to hook his boots. The forest wasn’t a path; it was a series of choices you made with your ankles and lungs and the fear pounding behind your ribs. Ray vaulted a fallen log, clipped his shoulder on a trunk, used the impact to pivot, and slid down a muddy incline on purpose because he could feel the swarm closing and he needed the drop more than he needed clean footing. Behind him the skittering became a roar, not one creature but thousands, the sound of claws on leaves and dirt filling the woods like rain.
Miu, where are you? Ray pushed into the bond, panic scraping his throat raw.
Ahead. Her voice came strained. I’m ahead. Don’t look back. Don’t— Ray, don’t look back.
Ray looked back anyway, because grief wanted proof and his body didn’t know how to obey that kind of command. The clearing was gone behind trunks and brush, but the swarm wasn’t. It poured between trees in surging lines, splitting around obstacles, reforming, climbing over itself, swallowing anything that slowed it. It didn’t move like a single mind. It didn’t need to. There were simply too many bodies, and bodies were enough.
Ray ran harder until his lungs burned and his calves started to cramp.
The sack slammed against his ribs with every stride, jerking his shoulder and stealing speed. He tightened the strap with numb fingers and risked a glance down, then nearly tripped when a window snapped into existence at the edge of his vision, tethered to the sack like it was part of it.
====================================
Small Spatial Sack
====================================
A small sack, with the ability to spatially store items.
Rarity: Uncommon
Item Rank: F
Attributes:
- Store up to 6 different items.
- Single item types stored can be stacked up to a total of 64.
Slots Remaining: 1/6
====================================
Ray didn’t want to read. He didn’t want to see loot while he was running for his life. But his breath hitched when he felt the truth of it, not as exposition, just as an instinctive understanding. There were things in there. Real tools. Real chances. The elixir had bought him a reset, nothing more. The chase was still on.
He forced his focus into the sack and the contents unfolded in his sight, one after another.
====================================
Iron Sword
====================================
A sword of basic craft. No special traits.
Rarity: Common
Item Rank: F
Attributes:
- Physical Damage +6
====================================
====================================
Crude Blowgun
====================================
A poorly crafted weapon. Pair with darts.
Rarity: Novice
Item Rank: F
====================================
====================================
Basic Feathered Darts x 27
====================================
A poorly crafted weapon. Pair with darts.
Rarity: Novice
Item Rank: F
Attributes:
- Physical Damage +1
- Successful hits will provide minor poison (1/min… stackable)
====================================
====================================
Minor Health Potion x5
====================================
Slightly heals the user. Speeds recovery of broken bones
Rarity: Common
Item Rank: F
Attributes:
- Health +25
====================================
====================================
Lesser Health Potion x3
====================================
Heals the user. Speeds recovery of broken bones.
Rarity: Common
Item Rank: F
Attributes:
- Health +25
====================================
Ray’s eyes flicked over the list and locked on darts. Poison. Teddy’s poison. Something small and cruel twisted in his chest, half grief and half gratitude, and he shoved it down because he didn’t have room for it yet.
A rat burst from the brush ahead, larger than the little ones, leaner and faster, its body low like it knew how to run prey down. It cut across Ray’s path, aiming for his ankles. Ray jerked sideways and felt claws scrape bark where his leg had been.
They’re cutting you off, Miu snapped into his head from somewhere ahead. Not the swarm. The fast ones.
Ray could hear it now too, the chase changing shape. Less roar, more rhythm. A pack, not a tide. Claws striking earth in staggered beats, close enough that he could separate individual pursuers by sound.
He didn’t stop running. He reached into the sack and pulled.
The sword appeared in his hand mid-stride, weight snapping into his grip like it had always been there. Ray almost stumbled from surprise, then tightened his hold and kept moving.
The rat lunged.
Ray swung on instinct. The blade bit through fur and bone. The rat hit the ground in two parts, twitching, and Ray didn’t even look at it as he sprinted past.
More rats snapped at his heels. He could feel the air shift when one lunged, the brush rustle when another tried to flank. Ray started making decisions with his whole body, not his brain. He slammed his shoulder into a sapling just to change angle, used the recoil to cut left, then vaulted over a rock shelf and landed hard enough that pain shot through his knee. He rolled with it, came up with dirt in his mouth, and heard two rats crash into each other trying to follow.
Seconds. He needed seconds.
Ray jammed the blowgun between his teeth, hands busy with the sword and balance. He fumbled a dart out with numb fingers, loaded it on instinct, and spat the blowgun into his palm as another rat burst out of the undergrowth.
Ray fired.
The dart punched into the rat’s shoulder. It screeched and stumbled, its stride going wrong. It didn’t die, but it slowed, and slowing was all Ray needed. He ran past it, used the gap, then fired again when another closed, the motion awkward and desperate, breath hitching each time he had to aim while sprinting.
Ahead, Miu sent, sharper now. Keep right. Don’t drift left. There’s a drop.
Ray didn’t question it. He cut right, boots skidding, and caught a glimpse of a ravine opening between trees. A rat behind him didn’t make the turn. He heard the yelp, the scramble, then a long falling scrape that ended in nothing.
Ray kept moving, throat burning, legs shaking. The forest blurred into repeating trunks and shadows. He stopped thinking in minutes and started thinking in breath counts. He had twenty-seven darts. Then twenty-two. Then fifteen. Each shot bought distance. Each shot cost speed. Each time he slowed to load, he felt claws closer.
He saw Miu ahead at last, moving low, fast when she could, limping when she couldn’t hide it. One hind leg was stiff, her stride uneven, but she kept going out of pure refusal. When Ray gained on her she shot him a look that was half fury, half relief.
If you slow down for me, I will hate you, she sent.
Ray managed, out loud, between breaths, “Not… slowing… for you.”
Miu’s ears flicked, like she’d heard a compliment she didn’t want.
They ran like that until Ray’s arms began to feel like rubber and the sword started to drag. His shoulders ached from the sack. His calves cramped. His breath turned ragged, but the rats didn’t stop. They didn’t tire the way humans did. They just kept pressing, testing, waiting for the moment his stride shortened enough.
Miu faltered once, caught herself, then faltered again.
You’re slowing, Ray pushed, fear sharpening the words.
I know, she snapped back, pride shredded by truth. I’m hurt.
Ray’s jaw clenched. He didn’t want to carry her. He didn’t want to lose speed. He didn’t want to make the choice. But his body made it anyway.
“Shrink,” he rasped, out loud. “Now.”
Miu hesitated for half a heartbeat, then her body tightened down, shifting into a smaller form that still looked like her but fit his shoulder. She sprang up and latched onto him. Ray almost went down from the sudden change in balance, then forced it, one arm wrapping around her automatically to keep her from sliding.
He fumbled a potion free with his other hand, the motion clumsy while running, and shoved it toward her mouth.
“Drink.”
Miu bit the neck of the vial and swallowed.
Don’t drop me, she sent, tight and immediate.
Ray’s laugh came out ugly and breathless. “Wasn’t… planning… to.”
Carrying her wasn’t just weight. It was commitment. If he fell now, he didn’t just die. She died too. That thought kept his legs moving when his body tried to quit.
Eventually the sound behind them shifted again.
Less.
Ray risked a glance back and saw it. The forest behind wasn’t black anymore. It was scattered motion. A pack now, not a tide. A dozen, maybe. Still too many. Still enough to kill them, especially if poison started stacking again, but at least it was visible. At least it wasn’t the whole world moving.
They’re choosing us, Miu sent, voice low. The best ones. The ones that don’t get tired.
Ray swallowed. “Great.”
His darts were down to single digits. His breath came in hard pulls. His pace was dropping no matter how much he hated it.
He didn’t make it to a village. He didn’t make it to safety. He made it to a wall.
A rise of stone where the forest thinned, a rough rock shelf with a narrow gap between boulders. Enough cover that the rats couldn’t fully circle without climbing and slowing. Enough that they had to come at him from the front.
There, Miu sent. Back to stone. No circle.
Ray drove for it, boots sliding on loose gravel, and slammed his back against the rock as soon as he cleared the gap. He set Miu down and she shifted her size on instinct, staying compact and ready.
The rats hit like knives.
Ray’s first swing took the head off one clean. The second split another down the ribs, but it still clawed at him as it died and pain flared across his forearm. A third rat darted in low and bit his calf. Ray stabbed downward, felt the blade catch bone, and tore it free as the rat went limp. Teeth stayed buried in him for a heartbeat before he kicked it off, and that heartbeat felt like a year.
Miu darted in and out, snapping at faces, raking claws across eyes, forcing angles so Ray didn’t get hit from both sides at once. She wasn’t killing fast. She was buying time, and Ray turned time into bodies.
Ray fired the blowgun once, twice. A dart hit a rat’s shoulder and it stumbled. Another took one in the neck and it veered off, coughing and shaking, poison doing its work too slowly to be comforting. Each shot slowed Ray too, and the pack punished any hesitation with another lunge, another scrape, another bite.
Ray’s grip started slipping on the sword hilt. Sweat ran into his eyes. His arm began to feel heavy in a way that wasn’t just fatigue. Poison was building again, cold under his skin. He could feel it spreading as his breaths came faster.
Miu lunged, took a rat by the neck, and ripped. It died, but the motion pulled her into range of another bite. She twisted away at the last moment, fur tearing, and the pain she sent through the bond nearly made Ray flinch mid-swing.
Stop getting hit, Ray pushed, more fear than anger.
Stop being slow, she shot back, and even in the middle of it he heard her trying not to sound scared.
They were going to lose.
Ray knew it in the way his legs started to tremble. In the way his sword swings got narrower. In the way the rats began to press closer, reading his exhaustion the same way predators always did.
Then the air changed.
Heat. Sudden and violent.
A fireball arced over the rock shelf and slammed into the ground a few metres out, detonating into flame that turned two rats into burning screams. The remaining pack froze, heads snapping toward the source.
A second later a wall of fire rose between Ray and the rats, a clean line of flame that held steady.
Ray didn’t relax. He didn’t even have the energy.
He used the second he’d been given and yanked a potion free, downing it in one swallow. His status climbed a little. Not enough to erase poison. Enough to keep him standing.
A few rats tried the flames anyway, driven by hunger and instinct. Their fur charred. Their bodies smoked. They came through half-blind and shrieking, and Ray killed them on reflex, blade rising and falling because his mind couldn’t handle choice anymore.
Then the pressure broke. The rats backed away. Fire was another bane to rats. The light and heat.
A voice came from the top of the rock shelf, husky and amused, like this was an interruption rather than a massacre.
“Well,” she called. “Ain’t that a sight. Thought I smelled something stupid.”
Ray tilted his head up, sword still raised, chest heaving. Heat shimmer warped the air, but he saw the outline of a tall figure on the ridge.
Miu’s hackles rose and she moved between Ray and the fire line, even wounded.
Not human, she sent, immediate and sure.
The figure dropped off the shelf and landed on their side of the flames like gravity owed her favours. Tall. Lean. Scaled. A tail that shifted for balance. A staff in one hand, the tip still glowing faintly.
Ray’s first instinct was to Identify.
His vision flickered, then failed.
[Identify Failed.]
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “That ain’t nice,” she said. “No thank you?”
Ray stared. His brain tried to file her under elf, under beast, under anything that made sense. It didn’t find a folder.
“You,” he managed, voice scraped raw. “You’re a lizard.”
She barked a laugh. “You clearly ain’t from around these parts, mate. I ain’t no lizard.” She tapped her chest with the end of her staff. “Dragonkin. Proud ones. And you owe me one for saving your sorry arse.”
Ray blinked, then the shock hit deeper.
She was speaking his language.
“You’re speaking… English,” Ray said before he could stop himself.
The dragonkin woman’s brow furrowed. “English?” She rolled the word like it tasted strange. “No idea what that is. You’re speaking Dragon Tongue. Roughly, but I’ve heard worse.”
Ray’s mouth opened, then closed. His brain didn’t have strength for language debates. It barely had strength to stay upright.
He swallowed. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” she said immediately, grinning like she’d won something. “Name’s Layla.”
Miu hissed low.
Layla’s eyes flicked to the cat and her grin widened. “Nice cat you got there. Can I eat it?”
Miu’s thoughts hit Ray like a blade.
She tries, I kill her.
Ray tightened his grip on the sword. “No.”
Layla laughed like he’d told a joke. “Relax. Mostly joking.” Her eyes shifted back to the flames and the retreating rats. “Mostly.”
Ray didn’t laugh back.
Layla took a step toward the fire line, then paused and glanced over her shoulder. “You two sit. Don’t pass out on me. I’m gonna check if those things are circling.”
She walked through her own flames like heat was a suggestion.
Ray’s legs gave out the moment his adrenaline stopped carrying him. He slid down the rock face into a sit, sword dropping into his lap. His hands shook so hard the blade rattled against stone.
Miu pressed against his side, small and warm, body tense but present.
We’re alive, she sent, quieter now, like she didn’t trust words to survive being spoken.
Ray swallowed, throat burning. “Yeah,” he rasped, and his voice cracked on it.
The System chimed again, because thresholds had been crossed in the middle of running and blood.
[You have reached Level 8.]
…
[You have reached Level 10.]
Ray stared at the words like they were a punchline he didn’t understand. Level ten. He’d been seven. Now he was ten, and Teddy was behind them, and none of it felt like winning.
Another set followed.
[Skill: Identify has reached Level 14.]
…
[Skill: Identify has reached Level 16.]
Ray let his head thunk back against the rock for half a second, eyes closing. He felt Miu brush his mind again.
Do not sleep.
“I’m not,” Ray lied, opening his eyes.
Layla returned a minute later, stepping through the flames again as easily as she’d left, expression a fraction less amused.
“They’re gone for now,” she said. “Or they’re pretending. Either way, you’re not staying here.”
Ray stood slowly, legs trembling. The sack strap cut into his shoulder. His eyes drifted, unbidden, back the way they’d run.
Teddy wasn’t there.
Not in the trees. Not in the clearing. Just the memory of a body that hadn’t moved and the weight of the sack proving something had been real.
Ray’s chest tightened again, ugly and heavy. He didn’t fight it. He just let it sit there.
Miu leaned closer.
Later, she sent, softer. We survive first. Then we hurt.
Ray nodded once, because it was all he had.
Layla tilted her head, watching them like she was deciding what kind of trouble they were. “You got a name, human?”
Ray looked up, face dirty, eyes bloodshot, voice scraped raw by running and grief. “Ray.”
Layla nodded. “Alright then, Ray. Let’s move before the rats change their mind.”
Ray forced himself upright, sword back in hand, sack pulled tighter across his chest. He didn’t feel stronger. He felt hollow.
But he walked.
Because Miu was beside him.
Because Layla was ahead.
Because behind him was a cave that had taken his friend.
Ray didn’t say Teddy’s name out loud. He held it in his throat like a shard and kept moving. Rats could go fuck themselves.