Two more Dire Opossums waddled out of the bushes ahead of them, blocking their retreat. One of them hissed, its mouth hanging open to display its long rows of needle-sharp teeth. The other fell over limp, its play-dead instinct still intact. These two didn’t look as sick as the others. Their white and gray fur was starting to fall out in clumps, leaving bare patches where sores were beginning to show. Unlike the ones Char had seen so far, these two still looked mostly like normal, if oversized, opossums. They didn’t have the lumpy tumors yet. Char made a note of the direction they had come from.

  She made a split-second decision. They weren’t going to be able to avoid this fight after all. The other opossums would hear the commotion. She leapt at the hissing monster, hoping to take it down before the unconscious one woke up. Her leap carried her almost completely past the creature. She was stronger than she had been, and still wasn’t accustomed to her new prowess. Instead of landing in front of the opossum, she went over it, her foot catching on its back, sending her flailing. She tumbled to the ground, face first. The opossum yelped in pain.

  Lulu rushed in, snapping at the beast and keeping its attention away from Char. With a groan, Char rolled over, spitting out leaf debris. She didn’t have time to berate herself for her miscalculation as the other opossum was starting to stir. She pulled herself back to her feet, wincing and trying to ignore the tearing pain in her ankle. Seeing that Lulu had the first opossum occupied, Char took two steps and swung the crowbar with all her strength, more than three times the strength she used to have, right into the skull of the opossum that had fainted and was now getting back to its feet.

  The skull split open like an over-ripe watermelon. Char swallowed back a wave of nausea at the gruesome result of her attack and turned toward the rustling underbrush that heralded the arrival of the other four opossums. She dismissed the kill notification as quickly as it had appeared, only taking a split second to note the creature’s level. Level 15. She’d been pretty close in her estimation. Another text box appeared and was shunted to the unread folder before she had a chance to glance at it.

  Lulu was darting in and snapping at the other Dire Opossum, trying to find an opening. The beast’s mouth was open wide, displaying its rows of needle-sharp teeth. Char scooped up a rock and threw it, not trying to cause damage. The rock bounced off the opossum’s rump, making it jump to the side and look back for the source. The distraction was enough, and Lulu took the chance. She leapt in and grabbed the opossum by the throat, shaking her head to keep her opponent off balance.

  The other opossums moved faster than Char expected. She’d only just started to turn back when one hit her, knocking her sideways. From there, the fight devolved into a confusing scrum. Char desperately swung her crowbar and kicked and punched. The four opossums mobbed her, scratching and biting at her. At some point, Lulu finished off the one she’d been fighting and came to help.

  Char’s new strength and speed kept her ahead of the monsters, but just barely. She soldiered through the pain and panic and just kept swinging. Wounds built up on her arms and legs, and the pain became a haze that threatened to blot out everything else. Blood ran down her face and body. She struggled to keep her feet.

  One of the opossums succumbed to a blow across its face, and another fell to Lulu. A kick sent one sprawling, giving Char a chance to finish off the third before it rushed back in. Lulu clamped her jaws onto its rear leg, slowing it enough for Char to land a final blow.

  When the last monster fell, so did Char. She landed hard on her butt, gasping for air, as her legs gave out from relief and exhaustion. For a moment, she was numb, left hollow as the fear for her immediate survival drained away. Then she started shaking. A tidal wave of emotion crashed over her as if to fill the void that the panic had left behind. There was some exhilaration and joy over having won and lived, but there was also fear and pain and disgust and frustration and grief all tangled up in a knot.

  She didn’t know what to do with it all. Tears washed clean streaks down her bloody cheek. She’d had a pretty good life. It wasn’t a great life; she’d been lonely and falling into a numb routine, but it had been comfortable. Now, though… what did she have to look forward to? More pain and fear, more fighting for her life? She wasn’t the type to roll over and die. She wasn’t going to give up. She wasn’t going to let the damned aliens beat her. She threw her head back and screamed at the top of her lungs. Taking that complicated knot of emotions, she bundled them all up and fed them to her anger, stoking the furnace of rage.

  Lulu howled along with her. Together, they announced to the world their determination not to be broken.

  It was cathartic. Char wasn’t sure how long she sat there wrestling with herself, but it was long enough for the adrenaline shakes to pass, and her wounds to clot and start to scab. With a start, she realized that she’d lost track of her surroundings. That could have been a fatal mistake if there had been more monsters around. She couldn’t let that happen again. Keeping her head clear and her emotions in check was a survival skill she needed to cultivate. Killing was going to happen, fights for her life were going to happen. She couldn’t let herself become a sobbing emotional wreck every time.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Time to put on your big girl panties, Char,” she muttered.

  Lulu was leaning against her and panting. She turned and scratched the pit bull behind her ears with one hand while checking her over with the other. Lulu’s health bar was at 63%, and slowly ticking upward, but Char was still worried about big injuries, or worse… signs of corruption. Lulu had to have gotten that green gunk into her when she was fighting. She had blood all around her mouth, red and green. Char was terrified that Lulu would get sick and turn on her. She couldn’t stomach the idea of having to put the dog down. The thought was painful, both for Lulu’s sake and her own. Despite all of her firm words to herself, she wasn’t sure she could do this if she were alone.

  Shaking her head to force away those thoughts, she checked her health bar. It was at 48%, and it must have been even lower at the end of the fight. An icy chill ran down her back at the thought of how low her health had gotten, and she hadn’t even realized how badly wounded she was. There had been pain, a lot of it, but no major wounds. Her arms and legs were covered with cuts and punctures, and there was a nasty gash across her stomach. She had to have lost a lot of blood.

  Her clothes had been reduced to stained rags again. She considered changing, but decided that, as long as the private bits were covered, she’d keep wearing these. No point in ruining another set when there were sure to be more fights ahead.

  “Ok, Lulu, keep an eye out while I read my messages,” she said, and mentally clicked on the flashing icon.

  Six nearly identical kill messages flicked by. These Dire Opossums hadn’t been juveniles. They ranged in level from 12 to 16, with most of them being on the lower end. She’d gotten experience, but not enough to level up. Her last level had come quickly, but up until this point, she’d mostly been fighting creatures that were a higher level. In this fight, the creatures had been lower than or equal to her level. “I must not get as much experience for lower-level mobs,” she mused aloud. “I wonder if I get bonus XP for fighting higher-level stuff, or if I was just close to leveling after the Matron?”

  Lulu’s ear twitched, and she tilted her head to the side as Char spoke. The gesture made Char laugh. “Yeah, I know. You don’t have the answers either.” She clicked to the next message and saw that her quest had progressed to 11 of 30 killed.

  The last message was one that Char had been hoping for:

  New Skill Learned

  Assess Foe

  Beginner

  You’ve figured out how to measure up your

  enemy before you rush into a fight.

  Knowing your foe is the first step toward beating them.

  It would need testing, but there was nothing nearby to use the new skill on. Hopefully, it would give her the level of whatever she was facing. After killing the Stalker, she was relatively confident in taking on something up to four levels above hers, as long as it was only one creature, but a bigger gap than that was more than she was comfortable with. As much as it was possible to be comfortable about going toe-to-toe with a fanged monstrosity that wanted to kill and eat her, anyway.

  Her titles had given her an advantage when it came to fighting up levels. Her stats were likely to be better than anything she faced at the same level as her, assuming the Aldevari had balanced out their “game”. What her status screen showed wasn’t just numbers. She could feel the changes in her. The strength and energy were amazing. Her senses were so sharp that, if she paid attention, she could hear birds hopping from branch to branch in the trees above her. The Pain Resistance skill was probably the only reason she was able to push through the agony of being sliced to shreds and still function. The pain wasn’t fun, and she couldn’t shrug it off entirely, but it was better than the alternative.

  “Pain lets you know that you’re still alive.” It was another of her father’s sayings, and she said it now. Lulu looked over at her, her ears perked up. Char smiled a grim smile and rubbed the pit bull's head, enjoying the feel of the soft fur. She couldn’t help but check her companion over again for any signs of corruption. Pulling a bottle of water, a bowl, and a shop rag from her inventory, she wetted the rag and wiped the blood from Lulu’s muzzle and face, then poured half of it into the bowl for the dog. The other half, she guzzled down herself. She tossed the rag and empty bottle into her inventory, frowning as they took up two of her limited spaces instead of stacking with the others.

  That made her wonder how similar items had to be to stack. The rag was wet, and the bottle was empty… but how did the inventory system know that? For that matter, how did any of this work? Was it magic, technology, or tech so advanced that it might as well be magic? Was all of this real, or had she been loaded into some sort of simulation? Why was it so much like a video game?

  When Lulu whined and pawed at her empty water bowl, Char shook away the questions and pulled out another bottle of water, splitting it with Lulu. As they drank, Char looted the corpses. She got a handful of copper and silver credits, and a [Flesh Affinity Stone].

  [Flesh Affinity Stone]

  Consumable

  Can be used in crafting, or absorbed to

  Increase a Domain Affinity.

  It had something to do with the [Flesh Domain Core] she’d gotten from the Matron, she was sure. It was the same color, but smaller, and where the core was faceted, this one was as round and smooth as a marble. She didn’t have any immediate use for it, though, so she dropped it into her inventory. There were so many things about the way the world had changed that didn’t make any sense. All she could do was keep surviving and hope she could find the answers before the mysteries killed her.

  “Well, Lulu, here's another saying that my Dad liked: What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Let’s go see where this green goo is coming from, and hope we get strong enough fast enough.”