Scrubbing furiously, I am trying desperately to remove the blood from my hands. This is the third time I have washed my hands and although the water is no longer died crimson, I can’t get the image out of my head.

Stopping my actions I grip the sink edges tightly as I start to dry heave. Finished removing my stomach’s contents, I spit out the rancid taste that came up and I grimace after realizing the wasted food.

Washing my mouth out I stare as the water swirls around the drain. “Focus, losing control won’t help the situation.” Psyching myself up, I dry my face and hands off as I move to exit the bathroom.

Stepping out I scan the room and take note of all the survivors.

Matt and a middle aged man, who I presume to be the manager here, as well as two cooks from the kitchen, are currently stacking tables and chairs to cover all the windows. The loud crying of two children is coming from a nearby corner as their mother tries desperately to comfort them. An old married couple is tightly holding onto each other’s hands as they are sitting quietly in a booth. A lone young woman is sobbing and rocking herself back and forth beside the checkout counter. Lastly, is the couple from outside that Matt had helped to bring in.

Including me there is only thirteen of us. The majority of these people will be useless if we are attacked again. Shaking my head I decide to focus on what can be done right now.

Kneeling down beside the injured man I have to forcefully remove the girl’s hands from his shoulder. She tries to protest but with a strong command and reassurance that I was going to help she reluctantly releases. Her delicate fingers move to tightly grip the man’s other arm instead.

Working quickly I retrieve the scissors from my first aid kit and cut away the fabric from around the wound. I flush with sterile water and apply a topical antibiotic to hopefully prevent any infection. Packing the wound with clean gauze, I apply enough pressure until the bleeding stops and then cover it with tape.

“Go grab me a table cloth.” The girl pauses, but a nod from her boyfriend convinces her to leave his side and do as I said. She hurriedly returns with the cloth and I begin working to make a sling for the injured arm. Finished with my work I hand over some painkillers and anti-inflammatory medicine to the man.

“Thanks.” The man responds after swallowing down the pills. Inquiring with a gesture towards my recent work, he asks. “You a doctor or something?”

“No, I just teach Survival First Aid.” I give a quick answer as I begin packing my supplies.

“Than…Thank you.” The girl is trying to speak, but her body is shivering too much to be clear. “If it wasn’t for me, then… then…he,” sobbing loudly she struggles to get her point across. “John….he…this wouldn’t …”

“Rachel, look at me.” The man, John, moves his good hand to gently raise her head until their eyes meet. “It’s okay, the injury is not that bad. But I would gladly take the attack again as long as I get to see your beautiful face.” With renewed water works, the girl moves in to tightly hug her boyfriend as the two share a moment.

Giving them some time together, I move over to a nearby table and set my gear down beside the looted weapons, three spears and four daggers. Pretty dismal amount, but I will take what I can.

Having finished the reinforcements Matt, along with his help, comes to join me. He introduces the manager by name as well as the two cooks. I give a curt nod towards the three before speaking to Matt. “How well do you think the barricades will hold?”

“The doors are really sturdy and not made of glass, they should hold up well. The windows are a different question. They are high enough so that those green...”

“Goblins.”

I cut into Matt giving my thought on what those creatures were. “I’ve been thinking and those bastards fit the descriptions pretty well.” The other three attempt some rebuttals and complete denial of this possibility, but Matt jumps in to keep the peace.

“Regardless of what they are…” pausing he looks to make sure everyone quiets down. “Until we know otherwise, goblins will be a useful term to keep us from getting confused.” Seeing no disagreement from anyone he continues from his earlier explanation. “Anyways, the windows are high enough to keep the goblins from climbing through but we would still have to watch out for something being thrown at the top and breaking in.”

Nodding my head I begin thinking about further preparations. “Hmm, we need to find out how much food supplies we have…”

“Wait a minute, I don’t mind us barricading to keep those things out, but you can’t just take food as you please. I am responsible for this business and I won’t let you steal.” The manager coldly looks my way.

“Fine, then I would like to purchase all the food in this restaurant.” Pulling out my wallet I slam my credit card on the table while staring back daring him to say anything else.

Huffing out an okay, the manager turns and sends the two cooks to do a complete count of food. “Anything else you want to purchase?” The condescension is heavy in his question.

“Yes, I want you to take every pot and bucket you can spare to start filling them with water. Also, try to boil as many of them as you can to sterilize the water before storing it.” With a look of confusion I can tell the manager is about to ask another question so I reply before he can speak. “Clean drinking water, you don’t expect me to eat all that food without anything to drink do you?”

With dissatisfaction the manager turns to follow after the cooks to comply with my demands.

Shaking my head I can’t fathom the narrow mindedness of people. How much evidence do they need before they start preparing for a major disaster?

“You think things are really that bad?” Matt questions after the manager is out of ear shot.

“Yes I do….” Pulling out my phone I set it atop my gear.

“I checked earlier and my phone can’t get any signal to make a call. Furthermore I checked GPS and wifi and it seems all wireless communications are down. I’m not sure about land lines, but for now we are completely isolated from mass information sharing. Also, the creatures that appeared earlier are fueling some pretty scary notions of what is actually happening out there.” I hold nothing back as I fully share my thoughts with my friend. Of all the people here, he is the only one that I trust at the moment.

“So your first steps were to create a safe zone, stock up on food and water and then what?” I can see the gears turning in Matt’s head as he is mentally checking off what steps have been taken.

“Well, the next step would be for us to designate a leader…” My words are cut off as a scream comes reverberating out of the kitchen. Glancing at Matt for a second I reach out and grab a dagger before running towards the scream.

Stepping into the kitchen I duck around an island counter to witness the source of disorder.

Sprawled on the floor is one of the cooks with a look of extreme pain and terror as he is clawing desperately at one of his legs. Attached nearly all the way to the knee is what appears to be some kind of gelatinousness blue blob. Despite the oddity of this thing, what is truly horrifying is the fact that I can see the cook’s lower leg inside of the blob. The flesh is slowly disappearing in small chunks that simply float off and then vanish.

The manager and the other cook are uselessly cowering in a corner just staring at the scene.

Sneering at their cowardice, I run forward and stab down at the blob with the dagger in my hand. The blade effortlessly enters with no resistance. Retracting the blade I notice that there is no damage evident to the creature. I have to quickly step back as an oozing tentacle slashes at me in what seems to have been a counter attack. Once I am a few feet away the tentacle disappears back into the mass of gelatin.

Crap.

Realizing that physical attacks were not likely to work I scan the room looking for something to use.

While scanning I notice that Matt has followed me in and is standing aghast at the sight. Trying to ignore him, I continue looking around until my eyes land on an industrial fire extinguisher and an idea quickly pops into my head. “Matt, move to the other side and try to distract that thing for me.” I yell out to him as I am running to retrieve the necessary tool. I read the instructions quickly and I am soon moving into position to attack.

Matt has followed my command with prompt haste and is using a mop to smack the creature causing tentacles to swing out dangerously.

Moving in while it is distracted, I aim the extinguisher and let loose a torrent of chilling foam. As I had suspected, the tentacles soon slow down and the creature seems to be solidifying. After several seconds of constant spraying I stop to look at the results. Satisfied, I raise the extinguisher up and then bring it heavily down smashing into the frozen terror. The sound of shattering glass feels my ears as the floor is now covered in small frozen shards of the beast.

There is no time to celebrate our victory as the injured cook is yelling and crying loudly by my ear. Switching my focus over to his leg, well, what remains of the leg. It appears that a majority of the flesh was eaten away and bloody muscle is exposed in patch work patterns. I contemplate wither we should apply a tourniquet, but as I am thinking these things over I notice a small movement out of the corner of my eye.

Looking over I am horrified to realize that the shards have thawed out and are slowly moving.

Standing in shock I look over the entire floor and realize that ALL the shards are now moving. As if ants marching their way back towards a mound, the tiny little blobs are all headed towards the largest chunk. I concentrate on this one mound and notice that it is different than the rest, for in side is a small marble sized object. A realization hits me as I move to stop another assault from this blob.

Blasting it again a second time, it only takes a few seconds to freeze this smaller scale blob.

Once frozen, I smash it apart and frantically start screening for the marble I saw earlier. Finding it I pick it up with a pair of tongs and drop it into an empty pitcher. Toying with the tiny terrors, my theory is confirmed as I witness their direction change as I move the pitcher to and fro. Understanding that this marble is somehow the control center I drop it down and quickly smash it apart.

Once destroyed, I am startled by a small chiming in my ear and a familiar plus momentarily flashing in my vision. My eyes widen at this experience and I quickly recall that this phenomenon had occurred to me earlier. New thoughts quickly enter my mind and a fiendish grin starts to grow on my face. Sadly, the yelling cook snaps me back to focus and I put my hopeful thoughts aside for now.

***

After working tirelessly, I have finally finished tending to the cook’s leg. There was not much I could do besides clean and dress the wounds to prevent infection. The only plus side is that the bleeding is pretty minimal so there is no immediate risk to life. However, with his leg the way it is he will not be able to move. Nor do I have strong enough pain killers to keep him comfortable, all the medicine I have can at best numb him a little.

As bad as his situation is the overall groups’ is even worse. The people were shaken pretty badly earlier, but now after witnessing someone nearly losing a leg from within our ‘safe zone’ their morale has plummeted. Grimacing I move away from the cacophony of worries and fears to a more quiet corner. Sitting down in an empty booth I feel lethargic after such an eventful day, yet there is still more to do and perhaps I will find some good news.

Calming myself, I recall the earlier experience of the chime. Add in the appearance of the goblins and what I have to assume had been a slime, my mind is moving towards one single truth. Trying to quell my enthusiasm, I quietly speak a single word.

“Status.”

Status Name Jack Race Human Level 1(+) Class N/A Titles --- - Health (100/100) Stamina (100/100) Mana (100/100) - Strength 11 Endurance 10 Perception 10 Agility 11 Intelligence 11 Wisdom 10 Charisma 10 Luck 9 Unallocated Points * N/A

With childlike wonder, I peruse all the information with great anticipation. A soft chuckle escapes my lips as the earlier fear now vanishes to only be replaced with excitement.

“Dude, why are you smiling like that?” Matt’s eyebrows are arched in confusion as he moves over to sit by me.

“I think I might have found out the best news for our survival.” Flicking my eyes away from the screen to stare at my friend, I can’t help but smirk. “When you were fighting the goblins earlier, did you notice any…notifications?” I carefully watch his eyes as he ponders my words until I see the lightbulb go off. “Now in games, how do you go about checking your level and attributes?”

He pauses to stare at me as he is internally questioning the seriousness of my implications. Very softly he speaks, “Status...” His eyes widen as the screen must have appeared before him. He turns to face me and we share a goofy smile between us.

Ignoring him for a moment I refocus on my status. I notice that my level is still at one. I am surprised by this because the notifications I had earlier made me believe that I had leveled up. Thinking about this, I see a plus symbol beside the Level. “Hey, do you see a plus symbol by the word Level?”

Matt looks his screen over a second before stating he does.

“Hmm. I think that we have to manually level ourselves up.” I think out loud.

“You’re right…I pressed the plus by Level and it rose to 2.” Reading quietly for a moment he then responds. “It appears I gained 3 points to apply.”

“Wait!” I stop Matt as I notice his hand moving towards the screen. “Don’t spend them. I want to do an experiment to see what effect each has. Do you see the asterisk beside the unallocated points?” Matt turns to look and soon nods his head. “Well I pressed it and it gave me the option to redistribute my attribute points however I want.”

“Wow, that’s pretty useful.”

“Yes and no, it gave me a warning that this option is only available once.” I pause to let this sink in before continuing. “I think that once this day ends then this option will be gone or worse after we close our screens is when the option goes.”

“I see. Wait...” With a look of realization he stares at me. “You said experiment….You are going to use yourself as a Guiney pig to see the effects.”

Nodding my head I confirm my intentions. “And I am going to need your help with this.” Pulling out my deadly pen and grabbing a napkin from the table, I begin writing down all my starting points. “If the numbers really represent our physical attributes, then reducing them will probably put me in a weakened state.” Pushing the napkin towards him for safe keeping, I continue my plans. “In case it is more severe than I am thinking, I want you to force me to place the points back the same.”

“This is crazy….do you really want to do this?” Matt worryingly asks as he picks up the napkin and looks between it and me.

Swallowing to try and mask my own nervousness. “It’s beyond necessary. If we are to adapt and survive, then we are going to need all the information we can get…” Pausing I raise my hand and begin the process of reducing all my points down to 2. I started to go for 1, but I’m not that brave. Sharing a nod of confirmation with Matt, I move to hit the accept button.

"Besides...what's the worst that can happen?"