Chapter 2

“Hey! Stop that!” I yell as I swat the angry wolf who decided to bite me. I manage to slap it right on the side of its head eliciting a high pitched yelp from it. Suddenly something large hits me on the stomach, making me stumble back and trip over the ankle biter. As my body loses its footing and my center of gravity shifts, I see what hit me. It’s another angry wolf, obviously mad that I punished ankle biter for being cheeky with me.

I hit the ground with a whump sound as I land on my back. Tackle mutt is on top of me now and shaking its head back and forth like its dizzy and I see ankle biter, well… doing its namesake with me again so I go to kick it with my free foot. These wolves are really getting on my nerves. How do I know they are wolves and not dogs or strange looking badgers? It tells me right above their heads of course.

-Wolf- Lvl 3

Neat. That’s tackle mutt by the way, ankle biter is level 2. Before my foot lands to punish him again my kicking foot and left wrist get tooth grabbed by two more wolves.

I think.

I think they are trying to hurt me. I can’t remember why, but I don’t like that at all. I feel… worried as the wolf on my chest lunges its maw at my neck. On reflex I try to stop it by grabbing it with my only free appendage, my right hand, but I’m slower than it and I feel a pressure around my neck. I try to push it off of me but I only have one free hand and the other three wolves have started to yank on my limbs, pulling me around and making it hard to orient myself.

Something happens and I feel pain, I think. The wolf biting my ankle has managed to bite through my skin and it hurts. They are hurting me now and it doesn’t feel nice. This must be why I didn’t like the idea of them wanting to hurt me.

My neck starts to hurt too and I panic, punching the wolf biting it in the side of the head. It whimpers a bit but keeps hurting my neck. “Ahhhh!” I scream as my punches continue to land on the level 3 wolf. It seems to agitate the other wolves more and all of their biting now hurts me. What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?

Power Attack.. and the next punch I land on the wolf travels further, going through its head and making a sickening crunchy squelch sound.

There isn’t a yelp this time, just blood and flesh in my face. It feels warm and wet, much better than sharp and hurting.

I try to Power Attack and punch the wolf biting and yanking at my left arm but I don’t get the tingle and it just lands as a normal punch. It didn’t work, but I’m less panicked now without the wolf on my throat so I continue to struggle. I land a solid hit and arm yanker lets out a yelp, releasing me from its toothy bite. The dead wolf that was on top of me slumps off as I grab arm yanker’s leg, pulling it closer.

I hurt a lot of places now but I start punching the wolf again once it’s near. Holding arm yanker, a level 2 wolf, I punch it again and again till it stops moving. It yelped and whimpered a lot but it’s not me and it hurt me. Now it’s dead like tackle mutt I think.

With both hands free now I manage to twist my body, pulling my right leg up, still attached to an angry bundle of level 1 teeth and fur. Not having any other options I can think of I hold it still and punch it till it’s dead like I did arm yanker. It took less hits than arm yanker, but now it’s dead. Good riddance unnamed wolf. Maybe they don’t get names until level two.

Ankle biter still insists on hurting me with his teeth. I pull back my now free leg and kick him right in his slobbery mug. It felt good finally being able to do it. I don’t know why. He yelps and lets go. Well, I say let go but he seemed to take a small chunk of me with him and it hurts much more where its missing now. I try to stand up but I can’t, my legs hurt to much.

I look over at ankle biter and see him chewing on that piece of me while growling and glaring at me. He seems surprised and spits out my chunk, yakking it onto the ground. He shakes his head in obvious disgust.

Well that’s just rude.

I glare back at ankle b- spitter and he lunges at me. When he’s within range of my prone form I swing my fist and land what I guess is a lucky hit. I hear a crack and the body hits me. Pushing it off works as it doesn’t fight back this time. Its body still with a tongue hanging out of its mouth. It’s obviously dead… probably. So my first attacker is finally the last one dead and as I lay down. Exhausted and in pain I hear a familiar sound.

Ding!

Fighter (Level up)

“That’s good” I tell Flatbox. It doesn’t respond. Typical.

-POV Jonathan-

(Last night in a town not so far away)

Woah… my mouth hangs open as I’m looking into the sky. There, in the night sky is a huge meteor’s flaming tail. It’s so bright it illuminates the bushes Cindy and I are fucking in like its midday. My head is turned to the side so I can see it and Cindy has stopped moving. If I had to guess I’d say she’s seeing the same thing as me and probably has a stupid look on her face.

There’s a bright flash and after my vision clears up I see the slow meteor has exploded into tons of new burning tails in the sky. It’s beautiful.

I nut in Cindy, too awed by the sight to remember to pull out.

She doesn’t seem to notice.

We are in a park on a hill overlooking the town, so our view of the spectacle is unhindered by buildings or other town clutter. Suddenly one of the pieces is headed towards us and we both shriek like little girls. Cindy falls off me just as it hits one of the towns buildings and I hear a loud crashing sound, followed closely by a more muffled bang coming from the direction of the original meteor.

“Shit!” I yell. Looking back at where the piece crashed in the town, I think it was my friend Jeff’s place. I hurriedly stand up and get my pants back on, reaching to help Cindy do the same. “We need to go home.” I don’t think she saw that it hit her boyfriend’s house. We start to hear sirens going off from emergency vehicles as we get back to my car.

I manage to drop Cindy off at her place before getting back home. It was Jeff’s place that got hit. Drove by it between her place and mine. There isn’t even a house there anymore, it and most of the yard is just a hole. It looks like construction, but on fire. I don’t think the rescue workers are going to find anyone.

Back at my house my parents give me a big group hug. Jeeze, this is why I can’t bring friends over. It feels nice and warm though. I only cried a little bit ok?

I tell them what I saw and we turn on the TV to watch the news. Turns out the falling stuff is causing chaos pretty much everywhere. The debris from the original chunk got shot around the globe after exploding. A lot of scientists are on different news outlets saying the footage we have doesn’t make sense. I knew it looked like it was going too slow.

In my bed that night I can’t get out of my head how glad I am that now Jeff doesn’t have to find out about his girlfriend and me.

I’m a bad friend to a dead man.

I get woken up by my parents telling me I have to get ready to go to the store with them. Apparently people are panic buying everything at our local supermarket and we have to make sure we have toilet paper. My family already has food stores just in case, Dad watches a lot of those prepper shows. “We need paper for the john Jon” he puns my name at me. “Shut up Dad.” I roll my eyes at him, he’s used that same joke every time he’s bought toilet paper.

When we get to the store it’s like Black Friday but with alarms going off. People are rushing into and out of the store, the ones coming out don’t always look like they paid for stuff. They have these manic looks on their faces.

Mom screams pointing at something behind me. I turn around and see… zombies? They are attacking an old lady as she gets out of her car. I watch in horror as obviously dead looking people pull her out of her car. They are basically wearing torn rags for cloths, their skin is gross, pale and bloody. Definitely zombies. Just as the biggest one is going to bite a chunk out of poor Miss Hammer, the screams go quiet and the world freezes. Not like cold freezes, like everything stops moving freezes. I can’t move either, I’m forced to look at the paused horror scene like from some movie.

Ding!

- You are alive -

I see a blue screen pop up in front of me, like when my computer asks me if I really want to install that porn game that may have a virus.

- Status System Unlocked -

- Hint for new players: Think Menu to access -

Definitely sounds like a video game but the frozen zombies make me think it’s not going to be a porn one. Just as one box goes away, another one pops up in its place.

- Welcome to life -

Then I hear the screaming again and see the zombie bite that chunk out of Miss Hammer. I play games so I’m ready for this. I think Menu like the pop-ups told me.

Ding!

Choose a starting class

-Fighter- For those who want to fight with their body.

-Thief- For those who want to fight with tricks.

-Healer- For those who want to fight with help.

-Mage- For those who want to fight with magic.

Looking over the choices it’s easy. I think Mage.

Ding!

Of course, who doesn’t want magic? To throw fireballs and lightning from my fingertips!? Damn, even with the zombies I’m excited. I look back at my folks and Dad has a smile just like mine. He was a big D&D nerd in high school. Mom actually got back in the car and locked the doors. Women.

I think Menu again.

Ding!

Menu

-Status-

-Class-

-Skills-

-Quest-

Nice! I think Status.

Name: Jonathan Cornton

Age: 18

Race: Human Class: (1)Mage Level 1

Health:60 Mana:70 Stamina:50

Strength:5 Vitality:6 Endurance:5

Dexterity:6 Intelligence:7 Wisdom:7

I hear a loud wumph sound and look over to it startled. All I see is a red car flying towards me like it was thrown. I hold out my hands in a vain attempt to block it and then…

Ping!

Jonathan Cornton Died

-POV End-

Opal is very vain. Probably