Aaron forced himself to his feet and took stock of the situation. His right arm hung limply by his side, leaking blood from the two bite wounds. A bruise the shape of a monkey hand had was starting to form on his wrist. In addition, his arms were covered in small scratches. Probably not a good idea to let anyone see me like this.

Aaron poked them with his foot a few times to make sure they were dead, then began preparing to dispose of the evidence. He didn’t want his sister to come down for breakfast in the morning and see two mutilated monkey corpses. His muscles strained as he picked up the monkey with one arm and began carrying it. His destination was a ditch in the corner of the neighborhood. He and John used to play there all the time, mainly because no one ever went there. All in all, it was a good place to hide a body.

He tossed the body in the ditch and slowly walked back to his house. At this point, Aaron was dead tired. He hadn’t slept for over 24 hours and his arm was screaming in pain. He picked up the last monkey, ignoring his tired body. “Hopefully no one sees me, that would be awkward,” Aaron thought as he carried the last body to the ditch. He dropped the monster down next to the other one and kicked some dirt over their corpses in a crude attempt at camouflage. That should be good enough.

He dragged himself home and slipped into his bedroom unnoticed. Too tired to care how he would look in the morning, Aaron wrapped some t-shirts around his arm to stop the bleeding and then collapsed in bed. As soon as his head hit the pillow, he was asleep.

What felt like seconds after he laid down, someone knocked on the door. Aaron groaned. “Let me sleep more.”

“No,” John said as he kicked open the door. He froze as he saw the blood stained shirts covering Aaron’s arm. “What the hell happened to you?”

He brought a finger to his lips in the universal sign to be quiet. Aaron blinked, without realizing it he had used his right arm, his injured arm. “I went on an adventure,” Aaron said cheekily. “What time is it?” Aaron quickly opened his status screen and checked his Hp.

Name: Aaron Price Faction: Humanity Race: Lvl 2 Human | 65% Class: N/A Hp: 192/220 Sp: 210/210 Mp: 130/130 Strength: 9 Dexterity: 13 Agility: 10 Constitution: 10 Endurance: 9 Perception: 7 Intelligence: 15 Magic: 1 Stat Points: 1 System Credits: 22

“It’s around noon, I came here to tell you that lunch was ready. Next time you go on an adventure, invite me.”

Aaron smiled before nodding. “I’ll be down in a minute, I have to finish up something here.” John flashed a peace sign, then walked out of the room leaving him alone.

Aaron waved his arm around and was surprised to note that he could move it with only minor pain. If what John had said was true, then he had almost completely healed in under 6 hours. An injury like that would have taken at least a month in the old world to heal. He couldn’t rely on the rate of healing always being this high because he couldn’t rule out the possibility that sleeping changed the rate at which he healed. He grabbed a blank notebook and scribbled down his thoughts on the subject.

Deciding to stop procrastinating, Aaron walked to the bathroom and took off his shirt. He rummaged through the cabinets until he found a washcloth. He dipped the cloth in water and scrubbed the blood off of his body. It wasn’t particularly hard to wash the blood off of his body, though it did smell disgusting and almost made him throw up multiple times. Though he was able to clean his body, his clothes were a lost cause, they would have to be thrown away.

Aaron threw his shirt into a corner of his room and put on a fresh one. He then grabbed his notebook and sat down. He stared at it for a moment before pulling out a black pen and writing the words, How to Not Get Brutally Murdered in the Apocalypse, on the cover. Aaron chuckled, he was getting tired of almost dying so he decided to put tips on how to survive as well as things he discovered about the system in the notebook.

Rule 1: Don’t step on loud objects when sneaking up on someone

Rule 2: Never assume a monster is alone. Always check if there are more hiding somewhere.

Aaron snapped the notebook shut and walked downstairs into the kitchen. He was surprised to see that John and his father were at the table eating with his family. In the center of the table was a small portable radio playing the news.

“Hey, sleepyhead. How are you doing?” his mom asked.

“Fine. What are you listening to?” Aaron said as he took a seat.

“The local news has switched to broadcasting the news over the radio. Some pretty interesting things happened this morning.”

“Oh, what happened?”

“A mob nest formed in the city,” she stared at Aaron’s blank face in confusion. “Oh, I didn’t realize you didn't know what they were. Basically, they're fixed locations that spawn a certain type of monster. For example, down in the city, a skyscraper was turned into a mob nest, and it is creating monsters that can fly.”

Aaron grumbled as he grabbed a piece of toast. “Scary. How’s the emergency evacuation center holding up?”

“They’re doing fine, though they have received so many people that they may have to make a second shelter soon. I heard that the military is coming to the city to help.”

"There’s a base not too far from here. It’s probably only 30 miles west of here. I wouldn’t be surprised if they started to evacuate people to the military base. They have enough weapons there to fight off a small nation.”

Aaron choked on his toast as he heard the news lady say something completely outrageous.

“As long as they are careful and prepared, the average citizen should be able to deal with the random monsters that the system introduced, relatively easily. It is advised for civilians to stay away from monsters created by mob nests, as they are much more powerful.” Who did they think the average citizen was, G.I Joe? The average American could barely run a mile, how do they expect them to fight waves of monsters. He opened his notebook and wrote another line.

Rule 3: Don’t blindly trust what people tell you.

Aaron frowned, if he was being honest with himself, the enemies he had faced so far, with the exception of the monkeys weren’t very powerful. A kid could probably defeat a small amount of Fire Mice if they were able to think calmly. Maybe the newswoman was telling the truth? Maybe he was just weak?

Aaron clenched his fist, he knew the situation was only going to get worse. Criminals would be able to become more powerful by leveling up, possibly too powerful for even the police to stop. And the monsters would probably get stronger in the next phase of system integration too. He needed to get stronger to be able to protect his sister.

“Hey Aaron, wanna come with my dad and I, we’re gonna see if there are any supplies left at the store?”

Aaron looked at his little sister, then his mom. “Sure.”