It felt like a whole damn orchestra was performing in his head and the percussion section was using the inside wall of his skull as the drums, it was only when he reached full consciousness that he realized the distant groaning that he hears was actually coming from him, slowly thoughts rose up from the bottom of a swamp that was his mind and he tried to remember.

'What the hell happened and what he did last night to be in this state?'

“Ugg, where the fuck am I?"

He bent over and clutched his head, it was dark and the first thing he noticed was the smell, Iron and rotten meat, then he felt the soft wet thing he was laying on.

”Fuck.”

He tried to stand up but fell as he stumbled around in the dark, tripping over the bodies.

He got back on his knees and started crawling forward over the bodies, silently screaming in his mind.

'No. . No. . not again!'

He crashed into a wall headfirst and turned his back against the wall.

He slid down the wall and felt around till he found a rock to sit on as he tried to move a broken and torn up body away from his feet.

'Breathe in. Breathe out. In. Out. In. Out. Fuck it feels like somebody hit me with a two by four.'

He moved his hand around his head slowly, the whole right side of his head was swollen and tender.

Slowly he calmed down, reached out and started to think.

He felt fur.

'The bodies that I touched weren’t human, animals? But who would throw animals on a heap? And dear Goddess, so many.'

'Its dark, rough stone wall, a Cave? SHIT, it must be a lair of some animal.'

He nervously looked around in the dark, trying to see where he was and what kind of animal would store so many bodies.

Little by little his sight came clearer and he saw the faint outline of the bodies by the light shed from some glowing moss.

'Wait what? Luminous moss? Shit, as far as I know, there is no luminous moss in South Africa. Where the fuck am I?'

By the faint light, he saw that there was a whole pile of bodies and they were all different.

Slowly he followed the wall and crept around the pile.

'Shit, animals don’t store bodies like his, maybe one or two bodies for winter, not dozens. Klipspringers. Baboons? Dogs, Cats, Wait is that a lion? What kind of animal would hunt lions? Shit, this is strange.'

The animals are definitely African but the moss doesn’t belong here.

Cautiously he moved towards a dark opening and listened to see if he could hear anything before he peeked around the edge.

There were a long passage and three more openings.

The three other caves were also filled with bodies.

'This isn’t a lair, this is something’s larder.'

He slowly backed out of the last cave when there was a loud squeal.

“SCREEEA!” and something came hurling through the air at him,

.

.

.

.

He fought against the arms that encircled him as a bright light blinded him.

“Calm down Sir. . . I. Said. Calm. Down.”

He relaxed as he realized that it was a dream.

Opening his eyes he saw the red-headed woman sitting in front of him, she looked tired.

He tapped the soldier’s arms that held his arms against his sides, to show that he was ok now.

“Shit that was a weird dream.” He looked up at the glowing crystal on the roof.

'Damn bright, . . . . huh, I can see with both eyes again.'

He looked at the woman in shock. “I can see, and . . . . I feel great, no pain.”

She nodded.

“That took nearly everything I had, I will have to rest for a couple of hours before I can heal again.”

The soldier released him and moved back a little. “Yea this is Sheralee, she is our medic, and she healed you.”

“Healed me?” he remembered Frank saying. ’Magic mister, don’t you know anything? Magic is real now.’

He looked back at the woman, no. . . . Sheralee. “Magic healing?”

Sheralee nodded.

She tiredly took his hand that he reached out to her. “Yes, I got the gift, please call me Sher.”

He shook his head, as he shook her hand.

"Damn, Magic healing, what a crazy day this is. Thank you, Sher. . Or is it Dr Sher?”

She shook her head. “No, it is just Sheralee or Sher for short, no Doctor. I had a small aromatherapy shop in Worcester West, before the Mist Apocalypse, or Pulse, or whatever they are calling it. I received or awakened my life affinity and this spell . ”

'What?'

He shook his head. “Mist Apocalypse? When did this happen?”

They looked at him as if he had two heads.

“Wait, you don’t know about the Apocalypse or the Awakening as some people call it? Where have you been the last eight days?”

Shocked, he stared at them.

“What do you mean by ‘eight days’?”

Sher leaned slightly forward and placed her hand on his forehead. 'An Apocalypse happened and the question he asks is why he missed it.'

He felt a warm glow travel from his toes to his head and back into her hand.

She looked tired but assured him that running her mana through him takes nearly no mana, and she found that there was nothing wrong with him.

“Strange, you must have really hit your head hard and it caused amnesia since your body is healed, there must be something else blocking the memories of the last couple of days, they might come back, maybe tomorrow or maybe next year, the mind is strange, and I’m no Doctor.” She gave him a sad smile.

He thanked her.

“Shit an Apocalypse, really? An apocalypse like in Mad Max? But with magic?”

The soldier took his jacket off and rolled it as a pillow for Sher where she leaned against the wall.

“Rest Sher, we will try to figure out where we are and how to get out of here.”

She nodded and took his hand. “Thanks, Joe, I touched that and just clicked ‘Yes’ to get us away from the rocks.” She pointed over his shoulder.

Louie turned around to look behind him.

“What the . . . . ” There was a slight blue shimmer in the air that covered the whole . . . . Tunnel?

He realized that this was the blue light he saw before he was hit in the head by a rock.

“We are in the Huguenot tunnel?”

He walked forward and stretched his hand out to touch the shimmering light.

“What is this light?”

“STOP! You don’t know what it is, it might burn your hand or even kill you.”

He nodded as he lowered his hand.

“Joe right? I heard Sher call you Joe?” Joe nodded.

“Thanks, that could have gone really bad for me. My name is Lewis, Friends call me Louie.”

He looked around and spotted his staff that was actually an antique window opener with a brass hook at one end, the kind he remembers he used in school and church when he was a child and went to pick it up and walked to the light.

He reached out and touched the light with the staff, there was no flash of light or any indication that it was harmful.

After a moment when nothing happened, he shrugged at Joe and reached his hand and touched the light, which turned out to be some kind of energy field.

He snatched his hand away from the blue light.

There was a blue box floating in front of his eyes, no matter how he moved his head or his eyes the box partially obscured his vision.

The requirement for entry; Party not exceeding five members, Level 5 -10.

Dungeon level 5 Instanced. Blue. Mechanized. Challenge.

The dungeon must be cleared before the party can exit.

300 Days till Dungeon break if not cleared.

“What the hell.”

Welcome adventurers

For being the first Party to brave a Dungeon, your Party receives the title of,

Dungeon Pioneers.

The title Dungeon Pioneer will grant your Party 25% experience gain, 25% gain in loot quality and loot drops and 25% faster regeneration while fighting inside a Dungeon.>

Dungeon Quest

Clear the Huguenot Tunnel of Dungeon spawn to reset the Break timer

000\103

Reward:

1000Gold Rounds, 3000 Exp, Personal weapon per member of the party, Access to the Vendor

Failure

Death = Trapped in the Dungeon

“What’s with the blue boxes?” he concentrated on what was written in the blue box.

“Damn it says we are in a Dungeon.”

Joe spun around and looked warily down the tunnel while clutching what looks like an extremely sharp wood axe.

“Shit, a Dungeon?” When everything seemed clear he relaxed a little.

'Huh, where did he get an axe from?'

“You really don’t know anything about the apocalypse?”

Louie shook his head and Joe pointed to the opposite wall at a spot next to a door that indicated it was a public restroom.

“Let’s sit over there and try not to wake her, she worked hard this morning.”

Louie took a peek behind the door to make sure that nothing was hiding there.

They sat down next to the door against the wall, but Joe kept his eyes on Sher while now and then glancing down the tunnel, to make sure everything was still ok.

“Ok, I will start from the beginning. Last Friday, not yesterday the Friday before that, everybody received a blue box that stated that Gaea was not happy with Humanity and that SHE was going to change things.”

“Wait, Gaia? Like in Gaia the Earth Goddess? The personification of nature and everything around us, That Gaia?”

Joe looked sad as he nodded, “Yes, that Gaea, but the box spelt it Gaea, not Gaia. Anyway, there should still be a copy of it in your Reports.”

“Reports?”

“Ahh, you don’t know, ok, first say ”

“Oookay. . . .” He nearly hit his head against the wall as he jerked away from the notifications in bold black letters in front of his eyes.

“What the fuck?” he shut his eyes while he silently freaked out, taking a couple of deep breaths he grabs a hold of himself and calmed down. He opened his eyes.

'Shit, I wasn’t imagining things, it’s still there.'

STATUS Name: Lewis (Louie) Porren Race: Human (Male) Lvl 9 42850 – 102400=lvl 10 Class: Seeker (1) (35%) Sub-class: (Exterminator) (1%) Titles: Jack Black Brodifacoum Affinity: Darkness Statistics Health points (HP) 252 Mana points (MP) 135 Stamina (SP) 288 Critical Hit Chance: 4%

Attributes Strength: 5+9 Agility: 5+5 Constitution: 5+9 Perception: 5+9 Intelligence: 5+2 Willpower: 5+3 Charisma: 5+0 Luck: 2+0 Free attribute points: 18 Skills Level Progression Wu shu: 3 45/100 Improvised weaponry: 9 25/100 Glacial Rage: 5 75/100 Regeneration: 7 85/100 Meditation: 0 10/100 Survival: 6 35/100 Poison resistance: 3 35/100 Cat`s eye: 2 15/100 Senses: 3 15/100 Class Skill Proficiencies Level Progression Investigation 3 15/100 Tracking 4 25/100 Intuition 7 55/100 Analyze 4 10/100 Spells Level Progression Improvise 1 05/100

“Damn, it’s a Stat page and a HUD, like a video game, Heads Up Display.”

“Yes, but there is no respawn, no extra life, you die and you are dead permanently, that sucks.”

Louie shook his head. “Nope that’s life, this is not a game, the rules might have just taken on a game-like quality, but it’s still life, just think if nobody died permanently, what a mess we would be in, there are about a 130milion babies born every year, if nobody died then that amount would skyrocket, overpopulation, world hunger, just think.”

They both looked sombre. Before Louie smiled

“Damn. We got game stats, just like in The Sleeping Dragon books.”

Joe gave him a puzzled look.

“What?”

Smiling Louie replied. “It’s one of a series of books I have read, it’s about seven friends that get transported to a reality where there are magic and game-like rules.”

“OOH, you mean LITRPG books, I love that genre, but we are getting off-topic, press on ”

He smiled as Louie tried to press the status tab, “No you must do everything with your mind, just imagine yourself pressing the Status button.”

The status screen was replaced.

“Status, Inventory, Journal, Quests, Reports.” He read out loud.

“Yes there, Huh, What? Did you get a Journal tab? Ok later.” Joe shook his head.

“Click on reports. The first one should be the announcement from Gaea.”

“Combat Log . . . Activity Log.”

“What? You got two tabs under Reports, Strange everybody I know only got Reports and that is that.”

Joe gave him a strange look and scratched his head.

Louie clicked on activity log and watched as his HUD started generating report after report, he started scrolling back.

“It should be there, it’s the first one.”

Louie perked up as he found it and clicked on it. “Found it. Shit. . .” he started reading.

Sitting there in shock he read the announcement over and over.

It has been several thousand Rotations since humans took over the ruling of this world and I am not pleased with what you as a species have accomplished.

In an attempt to rectify this abuse, the following actions will take place. Note that all living beings’ have been given a system interface as Mana was released.

1. All manipulation of the elements through machines till now, will cease to function.

2. All chemical reactions created by humanity till now will be neutralized.

3. All weapons and materials of destruction will be neutralized or removed.

4. All non-functioning material will be degraded and be reabsorbed into my beings.

5. Due to overpopulation, all living being will be split between the 8 planets, and living beings including Fauna and flora will be transformed to survive in those biomes.

6. After seven of this planetary rotation, instances will appear to help strengthen humanity and cull the weak, grow strong to survive.

7. All planets mass and size will be adjusted to fit what I think is suitable for living beings.

8. After two rotations of this earth around this sun, there will be gates connected between these biomes to facilitate travel.

9. After seven rotations of this earth around this sun, gateways between other systems will be opened for travel.

10. Humanity has turned into an disease and were killing me, no more, now it is humanity’s time to fight to survive, grows strong and shows you are worthy to live here. The system will initiate in ten seconds. 10. 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1.

“Well fuck me.”

“Jip, it has been a bad eight days. No electricity and water, everything stopped working, no vehicles, no firearms, though that can be seen as a small mercy.”

“What No Guns? Is that why I saw you have an axe?”

Joe's axe appeared in his hand.

“No. There are still guns, but they don’t work anymore, or put it like this, gunpowder doesn’t work any more, we even took it out of the shell and tried to light it on fire, but it’s inert, might just as well be sand. Then there were the deaths, planes falling out of the sky, we saw one fall and went to see if we could help, but nobody was alive, strangely there was no fire because the fuel didn’t burn. Runaway trains, Hospitals without power, think about respirators, pacemakers and none of them works. And the worst is the animal mutations and spawns, from what we saw the old age homes and hospitals took it worst, the vermin mutated like hell and beasts nests appeared all over.”

They sat in silence as they thought of the tragedy that struck the world.

He swiped the message from Gaea away and thought about what this meant and all the people that were going to die and all that have already died.

“Damn, you know how many times I thought that the world needs a big tragedy?” He saw the shock on Joe`s face as he thought he was crazy.

“We as humans would have destroyed this world in the next hundred year, Men and women were trying but ultimately they are lazy, Humanity as a whole were not willing to change to save the world, they were all thinking of the money they were going to lose with such a big change, and then the world itself stepped in and took over.”

He scratched his head, “I wonder what changed, what made her step in now and take control, why now, why not sooner?”

“It might have been the Mist, the moment that the boxes started there was a bright light through the mist and then there was the message from Gaea. Not long after that, all the mist disappeared. And before that, there were those reports of the mist having strange effects on human minds. A lot of people used to believe that Gaia exists but was asleep, maybe believing in something made it so. Shit does that mean that Christianity will have a real God now and what about the other religions and their gods?”

Louie shrugged. “Well I’m a pagan so yea, but you mentioned a Mist? What Mist?”

“You don’t remember the Mist?” Louie shook his head.

“Damn, that’s not good.”

Louie looked slightly worried. “Tell me about the Mist.”

He thought for a while. “No Louie. . . . I think you should tell me what date you think it is.”

Louie was really worried now. “Well with the eight days I lost it should be about the seventeenth of November 2001.”

He saw the shocked look on Joe’s face.

“It’s not the seventeenth?” Joe shook his head.

“It’s November?”

“No.”

“It is 2001?”

“No, Sorry Louie, it's the tenth of January 2021.”

Louie was frozen in shock.

'No fucken way. . . 20 years? There is no fucking way that I’m fifty years old.'

“That’s impossible, I'm only thirty, I was born in 1969, there is no way that I lost twenty years, and do I look like I'm fifty years old to you?”

He jumped up and started freaking out as he walked to and throw.

“Shit! .Shit!. .Ok, I can handle this, SHIT!!" He screamed at the roof of the tunnel.

“Breath in, Breath out, Just relax, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in . . . . Goodness, love, happiness, Sunshine. Breath out . . . anger, hate, RAGE, let it go. In. . . . Love. . . . Out. . . . Hate. In. . . Out. . . In. . Out. .”

'Use your mind, Louie. You are here now. Can you change the fact that you somehow travelled twenty years forward in time?'

'Nope, not now. So it won’t help to freak out, do what you can. Gather information till things change and then see what you can do about getting back to 2001.'

He seemed to relax as he walked back to the wall and sat down next to Joe.

“Ok, I can’t do anything about the missing twenty years at this moment, so I have to keep a clear mind because it looks like we are in deep shit here, and that’s all that matters. The here and now.”

He took a deep breath and turned to the wild eye, Joe.

“Sorry about that, but this is some crazy shit.”

“Nope, that’s ok. . . Take your time, I’m sure I would also freak out if I were you.”

“Thank you. . . Sigh, I have anger issues and I realized a while ago that it never helped to stay angry, it just aggravates the issue, or depressed or like now, to freak out, because it doesn’t change anything about your circumstances it only changes how you feel. So the best thing to do is handle the situation that we are in now. So tell me more about this mist and apocalypse.”

Joe relaxed and started to talk about the mist and the apocalypse.

“We are, . . . were, I don’t know anymore, from the 43 South African Brigade at Wallmannsthal. One Lieutenant, one Sergeant, five corporals and a hundred and fifty troops. We were on our way to Cape town for the new year opening of parliament parade, we had just gone through Worcester, when the Apoca . . . . Let’s just call it the blue pulse, or just the pulse, struck and all our vehicles just died on us, then the boxes appeared and all hell broke loose.”

“First thing that changed was the mist, it was just gone, like in POOF, just gone, then an hour later the earthquakes started, the earth moved like waves on an ocean. . . . I can’t imagine what the cities look like, all those high-rises."

He shook his head. "Nearly a whole day the ground shook and nature changed, you could literally see the trees and plants grow, Worcester is in a semi-arid region, not any more, it’s a jungle out there now. It was right before the earthquakes that we saw the plane go down, one of those big British airway busses. It was right after that the first attack started, Rats, big bloody Rats, the smallest was the size of a Jack Russell, the biggest one a German shepherd. We all had our rifles and the officers had with them four crates with cartridges. It was quickly brought out and distributed while we fought the rats, of course, that’s when we realized that our rifles could just as well have been a metal stick.”

He took a big breath, for a moment he was lost in his memories, then he shook himself and went on telling his story.

“I was near the tailgate of the truck and I spotted a wheel spanner, so I grabbed that and started laying into the rats. I had killed thirteen of them by the time they broke and made a run for it.”

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"The damage was done, we lost the Lt, two corporals and thirty-five soldiers, mostly due to the poison, the bloody rats had an

attack. Some of us had gained a level or two, the rats gave twenty in experience each and it was just after that when one of the guys found the status tab and then we gamers started working things out, I got the skill. After a while, the sergeant ordered us to pack up and move back to the closest town, which was Worcester. We of course had our inventory now so we all store our rucks and weapons there.”

“Yea, I saw the inventory tab. How does that work?. . . Sorry go on with your telling, we can go back to the inventory later.”

“Ok. Well, we started moving back to Worcester, it was hell, we had trouble walking as the ground was shaking. The rats showed a degree of intelligence as they started snipping us, darting in from the forest and hitting those that weren’t paying attention to the surroundings."

"We were an army with weapons that didn’t work, some of us had stuff that we could scavenge from the broken down vehicles like my tire iron. A truck tire iron makes a great mace-like weapon, good for cracking skulls, and the rest used their rifles as clubs. We made it back to Worcester but quickly saw that the town was trashed, there were mutilated and torn apart bodies everywhere, we found that it was a lost cause since a huge Rat Nest has spawned in the Mountain Mill Shopping Center."

"The Sarge ordered us to ransack the Builders Express across the road and we weaponed up with garden tools. We fought the rats while scouring nearby sections of the town for survivors and then retreated to the Shell Garage next to the N1, we decided to gather as many survivors and shopping carts and provisions as we can while holding up at the Shell Garage."

"Due to the poor area right next to the garage, we found some skittish horses in one of the stables in town, God knows why they didn’t change but thankfully we could use them to pull two trailers that were modified by three brothers that worked at a fabrication shop. We used that to transport all the scavenged tin foods and water. We also found Sher hiding near the garage the third morning. She has been sneaking around trying to help some old people that were trapped in a bank. She led us to the bank and we got them to the garage. Sher realized that as long as a person is fed then their natural health regeneration will heal most minor wounds."

"Something changed later and the sergeant decided that we needed to move out to Paarl where there are a lot of schools from which we could commandeer one and build it into a base. I guess it’s better there than in Worcester where there is a mountain between us and what might be left of civilization."

"After two more days at the Shell and preparing for the long march, we moved out towards Paarl. Most of us and the survivors were now armed with pickaxes, shovels and wood axes, anything that has an edge and can be used as a weapon. I practised and fought against the rats the whole way by swinging my new axe and I unlocked the skill, I don’t know what that means but I’m doing better with the axe than I was before."

"We decided, or the Sarge decided that it would be quicker to try for the tunnel than trying to fight our way around the mountain. We saw one or two of those creatures that the baboons turned into and they look like no joke. I’m now level three and the Sarge are level five. But most of the civvies are still level one or two, and those things are huge, like a Dr Moreau silverback from hell on steroids, and that is where you found us, trying to clear this tunnel.”

He shook his head. “The fact that this tunnel is now a Dungeon complicates things, now we will have to take the old road around the mountain.”

“Damn, that’s heavy. . . So what do you think. . . this pulse is responsible for the death of about eighty percent of the people just in Worcester?”

"Yes, it was early evening, most people were on the way home, so between the motor accidents the power outages, beast spawns and earthquakes, yea I don’t think humanity came out of this on top, I think between seventy and eighty per cent mortality rate, I hope for a smaller percentage, but I don’t think so. It happened all too sudden.”

They looked at Sher as she groaned and sat up.

Joe stood up and took her a water and health bar that he took out of his inventory.

“You feeling ok Sher, you were only asleep for . . . 2 hours? Huh, it felt longer”

“How do you know how long she was out?”

Joe looked at Louie. “Think South African time.”

A clock interface appeared in the right upper corner of his sight, it was small and fuzzy but as soon as he looked at it the numbers expanded and came into focus.

"Nice that will come in handy.”

“You can concentrate on it and an options panel will appear and you can set an alarm and it has a couple of other functions.”

“Nice, thanks.” Louie started going through his status screen, trying to understand all the functions.

After messing around with the functions of the clock a bit he noticed something strange.

“Guys, did you check out your clock, set its digital face to show seconds.”

“Damn, What the hell? Why are the seconds going so slowly?”

“I think it’s the Dungeon, time seems to move faster here than outside.”

Joe nodded. “I remember a couple of LITRPG books that I read about Dungeons that mentioned that some had time dilation abilities, I read one where a kid was walking through an underpass when it turned into a dungeon, he was trapped inside for a year and when he finally got out, not even a day has passed outside, this might be one of those time dilation Dungeons.”

“Shit. Well, we can’t do anything about that now, we need a way to get out of here.”

He went back and started investigating his status page

He concentrated on human and imagined right-clicking and an explanation popped up.

Race: human. The Humans of The Gaea system are the newest members of Humanity that have joined the multiverse systems; these Humans are known for their ability to walk many different roads on their path to strength and power, and their ability to learn nearly any skill set.

Next, he clicked on class.

Class: Seeker. A seeker is someone who is always looking for more, more knowledge, more power, more strength and different ways to reach their goals, seekers strive to know more to the point where they become restless and strive for exploration, they are defined by their curiosity. Pity those that try to impede a seeker in his\her search. Profession: exterminator: You showed no pity for those that stood in your way as a Seeker, just ask the Plaguebearer Tribe.

'Well, shit some of that is bad, but that will certainly help to find a way home. Next, HP' he thought about how he got the amount of 252.

Health points (HP): 252 = strength + constitution times level

Mana Points (MP): 135 = Intelligence + willpower times level

Stamina (SP): 288 = agility + constitution + willpower times level

The rest like strength and agility and constitution are all self-explanatory.