Rebekah was overly accepting of my condition, a condition that I considered a huge red flag. I was ‘different’ now, so it begged the question: was she aware or unaware of what it meant? Her personality made it so that it could be either.

  That was something that I had noticed over these months: your class selection was more than just your skills, it reflected your personality or at least some fraction of it. As a healer, she was more altruistic and understanding. She was giving, so the possibility she understood the implications but chose to give me grace anyway, was high.

  “I don’t know what it means yet, but it isn’t definitely bad.” It was bad, definitely. At the very least I had lost what would be considered my humanity. On the bright side though, maybe this would lead into a much stronger version of myself.

  “Definitely.” She spoke with an honest smile, and I couldn’t help but wonder if that was just naivety speaking.

  “I wanted you to get in touch with Thomas if you can, with how few healers we have it’s important you two are on the same page.”

  “Is it about the raid?” she asked.

  I could only skirt the truth so much, crunch time was coming. “It’s likely we’ll make an attempt.” It seemed the events of the world ebbed and flowed. I could feel we were at the precipice of a cliff, but once we overcame it there would be some reprieve to recover. The harshness of this trial exceeded my expectations completely, and now I was reconsidering my steps.

  Time was short and there was no guarantee the auction house would provide any benefit at all. It was starting to seem putting any resources into it was a mistake. This was probably where my game knowledge was actively hurting me. Not many games had permanent death and I personally had no experience in such a game.

  Rebekah seemed nonchalant about the raid, “Alright, I’ll find Thomas.” She added, “Take care of yourself.” Her apathy wasn’t that uncommon these days. The horrors of everyday life had done permanent psychological damage to all of us. It was easier to feel as little as possible than to toil in uncertainty and worry.

  “He may still be sleeping but mix in with the others, any cooperation helps.” I hollered at her back. She raised her hand to wave and kept walking without turning back, and it was only after I was sure she was gone that I continued with what I was doing.

  In the middle of yesterday’s panic, it was unclear how I had dealt with the man holding me hostage from behind, it could have even been perceived as one of my own summoned warrior’s bones coming from my shadow. It was still somewhat of a trump card in bad situations. That attack was a small bit of deterrence against a potential sneak attack.

  Still, regardless of the pain it caused I needed to train the skill, and that was something that required me to go hunting. Without potions or healing being a viable way to recover my health, I’d be relyingon only natural regeneration and my own leech through my undead. I also wasn’t entirely comfortable with people seeing my bones burst through my flesh. I wanted to… portray at least a little bit of an outwardly human appearance.

  Already my outward appearance was inhuman when wearing my equipment. Outside of my hands and the flesh of my neck, I was covered in a black garb from head to toe, and the skeleton mask definitely gave off an otherworldly feeling. Fortunately, I only needed to wear equipment during actual encounters and not training, so around the abode I was mostly unencumbered and normal looking.

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  Even the downsides of the gear were just my personal complaints. It was a bit suffocating and hot to wear, and the weight difference was immediately noticeable. But all in all, was a no-brained trade-off for the added protection.

  In fact, outside of the abode I had spent more time wearing my gear than not. Only once we received the protection of the abode did I dare to remove it so freely. I suspected that might not be the case for much longer.

  Bone armor crawled along my skin as I moved towards the road. The uncovered neck and hands that revealed I was still human were quickly covered in interlocking bone. The pieces fit together cleanly like a spine, allowing decent flexion and maneuverability despite the rigidity.

  I felt safe—no, safer. Safe was slowly disappearing from my vocabulary these days. Potential attacks were too varied, the amount of threats wereunknown and, as I saw yesterday, could even come from within. It was hard to not think in that direction, but betrayal was a very real possibility.

  My feet stepped off the roadside dirt and onto the asphalt and for a moment I felt that time could have turned back. The morning air while humid was crisp with a tinge of earth mixed in. Solid ground firmly supported me, and it was easy to imagine with eyes closed that my truck was just a few feet away. Today… I’d drive into work for my 9 A.M. shift as I always did.

  Could that be my life again at the end? Whomever or whatever they were… could they send me back? Would I even want to go back? I couldn’t even tell what I wanted anymore. I started walking the road slowly while taking in the scenery, an attempt at washing my mind of the endless hypothetical scenarios that plagued it.

  Lucas had said two or three miles up the road was an area that had active ghouls and zombies, low level fodder for our standards. They were level six or seven now, which did push the bar upwards for those simply scraping by, and made for good practice dummies. I also had something else I wanted to test with them, more than one thing even and it wasn’t combat related.

  The thought made me feel a bit queasier with every step, and despite my attempt at eliminating the what-ifs with the morning scenery, it was impossible to do so. Was I even human anymore? Was I not a monster, and if not, becoming one? What even differentiated me now from the things we considered NPCs?

  I eventually spotted the marker a few hundred meters in the distance. It was an old speed limit sign, except the metal bar had been twisted like a pretzel in an in-human way. Lucas’ handy work and a good enough indication I was where I needed to be.

  Lucas had said if shit hit the fan, it was as good as any spot to relocate, and I could see why just peeking down the dirt road. The entire route in was fenced 5 ft high with brand new mesh, probably to keep in farm animals, and the area of land was huge. It had the infrastructure to start something if that ever became an option again.

  There was even a lake on property, and a well too. Lucas had warned me to stay away from it though, in his words “There was something six- or seven-foot-long swimming just beneath the surface, enough to cause lines to appear on the water but we couldn’t see anything.” I would probably be fine, but there was no reason for me to explore the lake. I wasn’t gonna push my luck.

  Despite the new fence, Lucas had said that near the back of the property it had been completely breached and there was a large amount of undead activity, and that was my goal. It was hard to find the courage to jump the fence and make my way down, but I did it anyway.

  I couldn’t help but think that living in a place like this would have been marvelous. The leaves rustled with every gust of air and the road was like a cool tunnel. A tire swing swirled back and forth at the head of the road, as if a child had just gotten off of it, called in by his mother for some fresh lemonade or maybe lunch—as if life was not the cruel joke it now was.

  It was a sobering sight to see the hundreds of zombies and ghouls that now over-ran the property—the impending doom that swallowed me as I approached them. Whatever happened… it felt as if my life was over. These two polar opposites were all the proof I needed that life couldn’t return to the way it once was.

  And yet I still convinced myself to take those steps forward into the tide of undead.