Switzerland was beautiful, or so I was told; me? I was too busy being bound to my bed by pain and weakness to fully appreciate the charm of the country. Now my visit and my life were coming to an end.

  Although this was to be my last day, there was little room for sadness or sorrow. That had all been processed and lived in the years of sickness. The cancer had (slowly at first, then faster and faster) taken my energy, ability to eat, to speak and left me with pain, frustration, and despair. A trade that sucked ass in amounts that was hard to fathom, and even harder to live through.

  As I was wheeled into the room where the capsule was standing. I couldn't help but think how much it resembled some futuristic VR full body interface, instead of the humane killing machine it was. They called it a Sarco. For me it was a promise of salvation. Looking at it brought a smile to my mind, if not my halfway paralyzed face.

  Besides the Sarco, there was the technicians and a doctor. There was a sad little sound system playing a selection of my favorite tunes. I had already said my goodbyes to family and friends earlier. After a few minutes I was moved into the capsule and the last checkup procedure began. The questions were easy, after all I had answered them a thousand times before and quickly, I blinked, grunted and moved my way through it all. At last, it was time to push the button.

  A soft click and a slight hiss of the nitrogen being released. Within minutes everything went dark and the pain, that had been my constant and unwanted companion for years faded away. With it all sensation and feeling of my body - Everything was dark and soon my consciousness would fade as well...

  …

  Anytime now…

  …

  Seriously? ”What is happening?” I thought, I mean don’t get me wrong, I am a fan of the pain being gone, but this is some bullshit! Naturally I had speculated about what would happen after I passed away, how could I not? Heaven, Hell, Limbo, Reincarnation, Oblivion all scenarios I had thought about. But this disembodied existence? I was not a fan!

  The darkness continued. Unimpressed, presumably, by my annoyance and coarse language. This continued forever or a second, time was impossible to keep track of without sensation. Finally, something happened!

  The first sign something was changing were the sounds – rustling of leaves, sounds of wind in trees, chirping, clicking and movement. Did someone put on the nature channel? Next came a sense of temperature and feeling. It was warm, humid and something hard and sharp was pressing uncomfortably into my back… my back? I could feel my body again!

  I took a deep breath and exhaled... Sweet Jesus that feeling of filling my lungs without effort! After just breathing in and out for a few moments. Moving my mouth and tongue, letting it dance over my teeth, sticking it out and wagging it around like a lunatic. Just luxuriating in the feeling of a functional, painless body! I finally opened my eyes.

  Looking around, I could see that I had woken up under a rather large tree. There was underbrush. Lots of trees and a lot of the ground was covered in something mosslike; with some white and yellow stones sticking out. It looked like a forest, but not quite like any forest I had ever laid eyes upon before.

  It was as if someone had typed in fantastical forest at noon in ChatGPT and brought that to life. The colors were too vivid! The details too sharp and everything looked almost like you would expect, but slightly off. Something was blinking in the corner of my field of vision. Any other time I would have freaked out or maybe examined the blinking. But as fantastical as this forest was, as weird as my ”resurrection” was or attention grabbing the blinking was?

  It all paled in comparison to having a functioning and painless body! So up I went. What followed might best be described, as a cross between dancing, jumping, shaking limbs in random directions. Just randomly spewing words, laughter and noises out of my, fully functional, mouth and vocal cords: ”The floor is yellow!” I bellowed ”The flooooooor is fuuuuuuuuuuckinnnnnng yeeeeeelllloooowwww!” One of the vocalization exercises I had used to try and stall the inevitable in the old life... My old life?

  Thats right, I had died! Now i was somewhere else… That thought gave me pause, and while still giggling and dance jumping it occurred to me that maybe; just maybe I should chill for a second and try to find out more about where I was and what had happened?

  Forcing myself to shut up and stop jerking around like a clown was hard. I was helped by a new growling sound coming from above me. As I looked up the only thing I managed to see, before it was upon me was something furry with teeth, a lot of teeth! Instinct kicked in and I got my right arm up to protect my, beautiful functioning, face! Just in time for the critter to sink its oversized mouth full of teeth into my arm. The impact knocking me on the ground. For the first time in two lives, I was under attack by a wild animal!

  Screaming and swinging my arm around trying to shake the monster off. I got a much closer look then I wanted, it looked like an oversized feral koala bear. Its eyes were orbs of pitch black with nothing but hunger in them. Its claws were made for climbing in the trees and didn't seem like too big a threat. It scrambled for a better grip on my arm, while its mouth tried to gnaw deeper into the fleshy parts of my arms!

  The blood was flowing freely, but I guess it was worse than it looked because, the pain was actually not too bad. I was screaming more from the shock and my free hand started to scramble over the moss covered ground to find something to defend myself with, not exactly helping me keep my balance.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  I needed something to beat that koala with and I wasn't too keen on feeding it my other arm as well. The feral koala used my poor balance to topple me, so I was now lying on my back with its mouth still clamped tight as a beartrap to my arm, but with its body on top of me and now I could feel those feeble claws starting to grind into the soft flesh of my stomach!

  ”Fuck! Am I going to die twice in one day?” I thought, while desperately trying to find something, anything to help defend against the stupid koala. My vision was starting to turn slightly red at the edges when my free hand grabbed onto something sharp and hard on the ground. At first it seemed stuck in the moss, but then it broke free with an odd squelching sound, and I held a yellow whitish bone with a jagged and sharp end where I had broken it.

  Without a second thought, I stabbed the little monster. The first few tries bounced of its hard skull and only dealt small superficial wounds. At the fourth stab, I struck gold! Or black as it were by hitting one of the eyes and I followed up pressing with all the strength I had left! Until the bone almost disappeared into the skull, like I was trying to do a reverse magic act. – the koala shuddered one last time, as the bone disappeared into its brain. It was dead and finally it released my arm.

  I was soaked in blood from me and the koala. My vision was now tinted like I was watching the world through red sunglasses, but I was feeling awesome! Maybe it was the adrenaline, but when that monster died, it was like a tiny stream of wellbeing flowed into me and also looking at my mangled arm I felt far less pain than I would have expected?

  In my postcombat haze, I finally acknowledged the blinking in the corner of my field of vision and this is where everything changed – yet again!

  By focusing on the blinking, I called up what looked like a transparent status screen, kind of like a HUD from a videogame – This was WILD!

  --- Initializing---

  ----Calibrating Body: Past Trauma detected → Converted to Trait: Lesser Pain resistance

  ----Anomaly Status: Resolved

  ----Location: Limbo

  Name: Mike Nielsen

  Level: 0

  Class: -

  Profession: -

  Race: HUMAN

  HEALTH: 5/10

  STAMINA: 10/10

  MANA: 0

  CONDITION: Bleeding

  Traits:

  Lesser Pain resistance

  Skill:

  Improvised weapons (Novice)

  Ok ok okaay okaaaaayy! First of all, I cannot believe that Litrpgs got it right! Oh man just wait till I share this at work... Michael would freak out! ahh fuck, so many things wrong with that, least of which was that I hadn’t been able to go to work for more than a year. Also, Limbo is probably not anywhere close to Earth anymore and oh yeah, I died…

  Was I even the same person as I had been? Ok, not the most pressing question right now, I would better focus on the basics – Like survival… I quickly looked at my arm, yup still lacerated and bleeding! Not as much as just a minute ago, so that was something, also I guess the muted feeling of pain was due to my lesser pain resistance trait.

  I ripped the arms of my shirt – the right one was torn anyway and while bandaging my wound I briefly wondered where these clothes even came from? They were coarsely made, but fitted perfectly and were comfortable enough; I guess whatever power or system had pulled me here, was not interested in me flapping around in the nude – Can not say I blame them!

  Ok, tending to my wound? check! I quickly focused on my status screen and saw that the Bleeding condition had ended, but I was at 4 hp now – wonder if there was something like health potions in this world or if sleep and food would be the way to regain health?

  Looking at the killer koala, guess I would find out if food helped, as soon as I figured out fire, skinning, and cooking… All with a serrated bone knife thingy. I decided to move away from the tree and found some nearby bushes. They would give me some shelter or at least early warning if something moved through them, and I started the work.

  I had never been an outdoor type, but I had read a lot of books (mostly fantasy), which meant that pretty soon I was absolutely nowhere with the fire, the skinning or the cooking, as it turns out reading about something in a story and doing it? Yeah, not the same, not at all.

  Turns out being a librarian and living in a modern society? Not the best preparation for basic survival in nature. But at least all the reading gave me some ideas to start off. Eventually I got a fire started and I managed to get most of the skin of the koala, it was not pretty, and I would not be using that mangled skin for anything. But I was now getting ready to cook the meat, already salivating at the thought of some grilled koala!

  As I put the meat over the fire, I hear a growling sound coming from deeper into the forest. At first, I can’t locate the source, but as the growling grows louder. I find that it comes from something that looks like a fox the size of a retriever, mottled fur and thin, maybe starving?

  It seems to be alone and unsure of how dangerous I am and only approaches slowly, while showing its sharp teeth in a snarling growl. I quickly grab my trusty bone and stand up, making the fox jump back a few steps… We look at each other, sizing each other up, me standing up and not backing down seems to have put a scare in the creature, on the other hand I only have 5 hp left (turns out it slowly regenerates over time), so I am not really looking for fights if I can avoid them.

  Looks like hunger might be stronger then the fear, the fox is approaching again and I quickly move so the campfire is between me and it, thinking fire might buy me some crucial seconds if it attacks.

  The fox appears to be a little skittish and stops when I move. I say, as soothingly as I can:

  ”who is a good fox monster? Yes, you arreeee, yes you! Are you hungry? Is my little monster hungry?”

  The fox stops growling for a second and tilts its head in an almost human way, almost like it is listening and then gives me a look, like it cannot believe what the stupid human just said to it!

  I use the break in the growling to bend down and take two of the Koala legs – Its eyes focus on the meat and a low growl starts up again – I quickly toss the legs as far as I can away from me and the fox stops growling, looks at me, looks at the fire and the sizzling meat and then takes off after the legs.

  I sit down with a sigh, I probably didn't make a friend. But I managed to avoid combat, at least for now, I would take that win!