The smell of grass suffuses my nose, making me oddly reminiscent of waking up on that strange island. It feels like so long ago, but I know it has been a matter of hours at most.

I open my eyes to a bright, blue sky overhead, without a cloud at all in any direction. It appears to be daytime, and probably right around midday judging by the position of whatever star’s in the sky. I shake off the dazed feeling that always seems to set in when I get *moved*, but stop suddenly midway through getting up.

Around me, there are hundreds of people. All of them look to be in varying states of confusion, all races and genders, going on for as far as I can see. Admittedly, that isn’t very far because I appear to be in a small, grassy valley. Those that happened to land on top of the rolling hills likely have a better view…

All around me there are noises of confusion, excited speech, people fervently trying to make sense of their situation. I slowly get to my feet, concerned. There are way too many people here. Way, way too many. It’s rather... uncomfortable to suddenly find yourself in a crowd of strangers.

But at least everyone is in the same boat in that regard.

A notification appears:

[Welcome to the starting zone! Performing preliminary checkup…

Done! Biological inefficiencies found. Rectify? (Y/N) Cost: 100

Note! Seek shelter before accepting!]

[Prepare for population - 60… 59…]

Did I just get… scanned? What does it consider ‘inefficiencies’? But the counter is much more pressing. Something called 'population' is going to happen in 50 seconds, and judging by the fact that people are already here, it’s likely not going to be more humans appearing… so what will it be? They said it was going to be a test. I'm not betting it'll be friendly.

I run up to the nearest person “Hey, do you know what the ‘populating’ thing is?” but they’re distracted by something and completely ignore me. Another person, this time I’m not ignored but I get only a scared shake of the head.

30 seconds.

Hey, my clothes changed AGAIN?!

25 seconds.

But. These. Have. Pockets!

20 seconds.

I don’t like this. Crowds are a bad place to be when something unknown is happening, the panic will get people killed almost regardless of what happens.

15 seconds. I see mountains in the distance, high point of view and relative security. That way. 10 seconds. I start running. Dodging people slows my progress immensely. Left, left, right, right, trying to predict the meandering of tens of people every second to lose as little speed as possible, right, wrong.

I misjudge a particularly wayward trajectory and knock him to the ground, stumbling a bit myself. No time. “Sorry!” I call over my shoulder, trying to get back up to speed, but the momentary loss of sight runs me right into a particularly burly man who doesn’t even flinch as I bounce off him and onto the grass.

“Watch where you’re going asshole! You think you can just run around here without looking where you’re going?!”

“S-sorry! Sorry but I really need to go the timer-”

“Shut it-... what the fuck is that?” His tone goes from ornery to low and cautious in only a moment. Worrying. I scramble to my feet, the notification:

[Population Complete. Good luck!]

fills my vision.

Uh oh.

It disappears without my prompting, and a large mass hits me in the chest, knocking me right back down. At first I thought it was the man I ran into pushing me down, but the snarling mass of teeth and fury on top of me is no human. I see a flash of white and instinctively try to smack it aside.

*Crunch* fire lances up my arm, my left hand caught in powerful jaws. Eyes wide with terror, I freeze for a moment, but my attacker does not, shaking its head while still clamping down on my hand. The new bout of even more intense pain shakes me from my stupor and I shove my free thumb into the animals eye. Despite the situation, I can’t will myself to do it hard enough to cause real damage, but it does successfully piss off the animal currently mauling me, prompting it to bite down harder. This thing intends to take my hand. My life. What am I doing sparing it?

No.

Driven by pain and raw malice, I slam my thumb into its doglike face, missing the eye but gaining purchase to stop it from shaking further. My thumb moves toward the eye again, and, blinded by pain, my previous reluctance disappears, and I think nothing of destroying it. The animal screams, releasing my mangled hand. I grip it by the throat and slam it to the side, befor pinning it under my body. It struggles violently beneath me, covering me in scratches and snapping wildly. The animal is very doglike, but covered in something like scales instead of fur, and decidedly red in color. Its mouth is more pointed than a dogs, and the paws have much sharper talons than I remember dogs having. My grip around its throat is preventing airflow, but I need this over fast so I can heal my hand ASAP. Consequently, I don’t have another hand with which to do anything, so I have to rely on what I have. As its struggles become more desperate, I lean more of my weight onto the pin. The dog monster isn’t particularly large and my concentrated mass should be enough to mess it up in no short order. Its breath escapes under my weight, but it can’t inhale at all to replace it. Seconds pass, the struggles deteriorate… then nothing. As soon as it stops moving, I stand up, too caught up in my own fury and pain to think rationally. It takes a ragged breath as I reach a standing position, but never another after crush its neck with a stomp.

“FUUUUUUUUCK.” What a battlecry. Or, at least, it would have been if I could even hear it. Is something wrong with my ears? 'No', I realize as I look around and see the chaos I just went through reflected in hundreds of similar situations.

There… are bodies… everywhere. People in my situation just a hair too slow, gone in an instant. Some people are like me, beaten and bloody, but alive. Others look like they somehow got weapons and armor? But they’re taking on multiple monsters at once. Aside from the dogs, there are mobile slime balls and a larger class of dog monster, more akin to a wolf. I should help. My hand throbs. I survived, I should fight. With what weapon? I could use Energy to… to what? I can’t see any wayward weapons, everything has been snatched up by quicker thinkers or buried under bodies and viscera. I can’t heal other people in this madness, not that they’d even let me. I’m...useless…

I'm a healer and I can't help anyone.

I start running. Mountains, live to fight another day. A slime ball launches at me as I run past, latching onto my leg. I keep going, hoping the motion will fling it off, but my attempts become more frantic as my leg lights up like fire. They're made of acid?! I run harder, hoping it will get launched off by the force, but it's throwing off my movements. I use my good hand to scrape the slime off me, more burning, but I manage to remove whatever made it sentient and cohesive. A small nucleus-like thing. The rest runs off me like particularly painful water. My skin looks blistered and red. No matter. Continue. A frantic series of minutes pass with me ducking around, through, and even over combat in progress. Nobody had breath to waste to chastise me for my cowardice. My lungs burn, and my broken body shudders with every step as I barely hold it together.

I reach a particularly large hill that I do my best to run up, but my legs fail me after only a few steps. A blinking, empty bar at the bottom of my vision labeled ‘Stamina’ tells me why. I can only trudge, slowly making my way up the slight incline, always expecting another dog or errant swing to deal the final blow.

The sound of battle, death, and screaming slowly fades as I continue up the hill, and it takes until the grass ends for me to notice something is wrong. I actually look up for the first time since I started running only to find that this ‘hill’ was in fact the mountain I was headed toward the whole time.

Oh. Good.

I fall over, leaning heavily on the mountain to control my slide into a sitting position.

Good.

I can… rest.