---Richard---

  Richard awoke in the middle of an empty town. He could still feel his skin melting and peeling off his chest, could still feel his own hands plunging the tip of a knife towards himself.

  He had gained tons of stats – more than needed by a huge amount but…he didn’t think he could continue mutilating himself anymore not with undeadened pain.

  Taking the time to read his last few achievements – they weren't leaving until he finished – Richard stopped when he noticed a message formatted differently.

  R. That's the big boss huh. Guess I did break some things huh?

  Wandering through the empty town was eerie. All the buildings were husks of themselves - still brightly painted but missing food and weapons and furniture.

  It was less fun than it sounded. Richard peeked into the Inn moving through the empty wooden room and checking behind the counter. A single coin sat behind the counter but no achievement popped up when he picked it up.

  Continuing on Richard found the room he had briefly been given the day before – 201 – and stepped into the empty area.

  His hammer lay in the middle of the floor instead of leaning against the bed where he had left it.

  "Guess he decided to bring this with me huh."

  Picking up the hammer, Richard left – wandering through the town peeking into buildings and finding nothing to loot. Once he reached the gate he could see what looked like a sea of curling tentacles.

  Everything outside of the town was changed – the bright field was full of slimy spiked grass that waved back and forth seeking and stabbing at the air.

  In the distance the barrier lay, same as before but now it looked cracked. Like a glass pain that had been hit by a thousand chucked rocks it held but reluctantly.

  "Do I want to stay here? Say fuck you to the great R in the sky and not leave?" Richard asked directing his question towards the nearest tentacle grass.

  "There doesn't seem to be any food...and I can't gain any achievements so there's no point grinding anything...feels like the only option is to just be a good little boy and follow orders huh." sighing Richard checked left and right and then started running towards the distant barrier.

  The grass attacked his body barbed tentacles slashing at his back and side and trying to trip his legs.

  The attacks slid off his skin – shredding his jumpsuit but mostly leaving his skin unharmed.

  Doesn't seem too bad?

  A particularly fast-looking slash pierced his back slightly making Richard wince.

  Jinxed it. Had to jinx it.

  Pressing forward Richard endured a storm of blades mostly unharmed, his back stinging but otherwise unharmed.

  Reaching the barrier Richard leaned into it and passed through – without a ripple.

  He stepped into nothing.

  The moment the tips of his eyes passed through everything went dark and the moment his back foot came through after him everything faded – the slight sting from his back disappeared and his senses muted.

  Richard stood in darkness drowned by the scroll of a system message. It appeared he had done…well? The game seemed to have approved of his actions so far.

  It ended by giving me a choice…I guess body?

  Making his selection a new panel appeared below detailing another choice.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Richard stared at the two options for a moment trying to figure out if he cared and by how much.

  “How do these work?”

  He asked after a moment waiting to see if someone would respond.

  …Only silence met his question.

  …yeah figured that was the case.

  “Which works better with my current stats? Which is less painful?” he tried again.

  Another pause met his question but this time the options updated slightly after a few seconds – new words pushing into existing lines.

  Hah! It responded this time… I’m spending too much effort on this. Both seem fine – I hate how convoluted the stats are anyways, the first option lets me ignore them and just raise the three all together…Or I can go 'all in' defense and try and become a hydra who can regrow his head.

  After selecting the option a final pair of panels appeared briefly flickering into view and then fading even as he read them – as if impatient and showing up solely due to formality.

  As if feeling himself from the outside, Richard held a mass of swirling potential in his focus. “Free Stats”. He had chosen to generalize his body due to convenience… but only in name.

  It only mattered when he flung more defense into it.

  A thought and the potential shifted – overlaying itself over his entire body and beginning to sink into him as it got harder to direct.

  Letting go of the defense stats Richard pulled the less focused potential and willed it to do the same.

  All in defense let's go!

  His consciousness faded.

  “Hey Dicky, hand me the fun bag – I’m going to shove it down his throat.

  “You getting turned on by the idea of shoving shit down someone’s throat Mike?”

  “Don’t talk back, you know what I mean.”

  Richard’s friends had cornered the transfer student and were in the midst of giving him a “bad day”.

  It was just a minor prank – the fun bag they had made was a cocktail of laxatives and LSD – but Richard was loath to waste it this way.

  “I told you, I made this because I wanted to slip it into the teacher's coffee machine. I had a heist all planned out and you are wasting it.”

  “This twig gave us extra homework, acted like a know it all and hit on Tracy in the middle of class. He obviously deserves it much more than our bumbling teachers.”

  “Simp.”

  “Someone help me hold him down.”

  “Prank's less funny when you force it into him instead of tricking him…”

  "Dicky are you helping or not? Want to eat trippy shit instead? Stop whining and get over here."

  Richard found himself wincing slightly as he watched his younger self. He was an unwilling participant sliding the serum down Basil's throat. Back then he had felt like this was a waste. Now remembering…reliving it, Richard found himself wincing again and again.

  He wasn’t proud of this. Not like all the other pranks he had done, Those had been funny. This was just…

  The scene played out, his whole shitty crew waiting for the LSD to kick into effect and pushing the poor kid into the cafeteria.

  Basil ran across the room panting eyes darting back and forth before climbing up onto a table and kicking lunch trays about.

  Mike laughed beside him, collapsing to the ground as he watched the transfer student kick and stamp people's lunches before suddenly dropping to the table – his face turning red as he vomited and convulsed.

  “…I think he’s overdosing bro, that was meant to fill a whole coffee machine not a single boys throat.”

  Mike sat up and squinted watching carefully before climbing up and patting Richards's shoulder.

  “He’ll be fine… Should be fine. Don’t worry about it. Let’s take the rest of the day off.”

  Come on mini me, Grow a spine and fuck up those 'friends' of yours. They deserve it so much more than him.

  Do it before they leave your life forever and remain a bad memory.

  Please.

  The scene jumped forward. Richard was held against the wall by two lanky gangsters beating him again and again. But now he was less a bystander, each hit sinking deep into his flesh. He was reliving the pain personally.

  “Think it's funny to drug our lil bro don’t you?” Gangster1 spoke while grabbing Richards's throat and holding his arm back.

  Gangster2 was silent, simply punching every single visible part of Richard’s body, meaty fist bruising his chest and arms and legs and face.

  The beating continued for what felt like hours before a single unidentified pill was pushed down his throat and everything began to fade.

  The last words the gangster spoke were something Richard didn’t remember happening the first time around. Gangster1 spit onto his face and whispered. “Karma’s a bitch isn’t it.”