Darkness.
Then, pain. A blinding, white-hot agony that lances up from his ankle.
Alex drifts in and out of consciousness, his face pressed into the cold, red dust. The world is a blurry nightmare of bobbing torchlight and the guttural, baying howls of the hounds.
They were on him. This was it. The end of a very short, very stupid adventure.
'Sorry, Sarah,' he thinks, his mind hazy.
A shadow falls over him. He sees the silhouette of a cannibal, a crude spear raised for the final blow.
"SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHIKKKKKKK--!"
Then, a sound. A high-pitched, chittering shriek that cuts through the night, alien and wrong.
The cannibal looks up, his face a mask of sudden confusion, then terror. A dark shape, impossibly fast, blurs out of the darkness.
It is all legs and angles, a nightmare insect the size of a wolf. It slams into the cannibal, and the man's scream is cut short with a wet, crunching sound.
"AHHHHHHHHH---!!"
"Kill it, kill the mutant quickly!!!"
More shouting. Panic. Another man screams.
The chittering rises in a fever pitch, joined by the sounds of a brief, brutal skirmish. The torchlight scatters as the hunters becomes the hunted.
Then, silence. A profound, ringing silence, broken only by the sound of something dragging a heavy weight away into the gloom.
Alex is alone. He isn't saved. He was simply… overlooked. A scrap of meat left behind while a larger predator claimed its kill.
The sheer, brutal indifference of the wasteland washes over him. This world didn't care if he lived or died.
That thought, more than the pain, jolts him back to full, terrifying awareness.
"Move," he gasps, the word a prayer to himself. "Move or die. Simple choice."
He pushes himself up, his vision swimming. His ankle is a wreck, a swollen, useless lump.
He uses a discarded cannibal spear as a crude crutch and begins to drag himself forward, away from the sounds of the feast that was meant to be him.
Every step is an agony. The memory of the knife sliding into Scab's gut plays on a loop in his mind.
The smell of burning flesh. The look in the man's eyes.
'That person isn't you,' he tells himself, his teeth gritted against the pain.
'That guy from Earth, the one with student debt and a girlfriend he loved. He died in the attic. You're someone else now. You have to be.'
Thirst claws at his throat, a dry, rasping fire. He needs water.
After what feels like an eternity, he stumbles upon a small, stagnant puddle in a depression between some rocks. The water is black and oily. It stinks.
'Can't drink that. Might as well just lie down and die.'
His eyes scan the area, desperate. He spots it. A single, perfect drop of dew clinging to a strange, metallic-looking leaf on a thorny plant. Hope, fragile and insane, sparks within him.
He focuses his will. Analyze.
[Object: Stagnant Water. Properties: Contamination (High), Dehydration (Negative), Toxicity (Moderate).]
It's poison. As he thought.
He shifts his focus to the dewdrop.
[Object: Dewdrop. Properties: Purity (High), Hydration (Moderate), Minerals (Trace).]
Just as he looked at the properties of both, an idea struck him. One that came to life form pure desperation of Alex.
'Extract 'Purity' from the dewdrop.' Alex commands in his mind.
[Attempting to Extract Concept: Purity...]
Success!
[Concept: Purity (High)] has been acquired.
Fortunately, he was able to successfully extract the 'concept' he wanted to, excitedly he cups his hands, scoops up a small amount of the filthy puddle water, and holds it before his eyes.
It's a gamble. This is not a weapon. This is something else. This is changing the rules.
'Integrate 'Purity' into the water.'
[Attempting to Integrate Concept: Purity...]
The water in his hands shimmers with a faint, blue light for a split second. The dark, murky liquid swirls, and the sediment seems to simply... vanish. The foul smell dissipates. What's left is a handful of crystal-clear water.
Integration Complete.
[Object: Water. Properties: Contamination (Neutralized), Purity (Moderate), Hydration (Positive).]
He stares, his mind reeling at the implication. He hasn't just filtered the water. He has fundamentally altered its properties. He has imposed his will on reality.
Without hesitation, he drinks. It is the best damn water he has ever tasted.
"Let's go, I can only continue forward!"
The small victory gives him strength. He binds his ankle tightly with a strip of cloth torn from his shirt. He has to find shelter. A real shelter.
Against the dim glow of a broken moon, he sees it.
A skeletal finger pointing at the sky. A tall, derelict communications tower, standing alone on a distant ridge.
High ground. Defensible. Walls.
It is his only hope.
The journey is a grueling hell. He drags his broken body across the jagged rocks and red dust, one agonizing step at a time. The tower is his entire world, a distant promise of sanctuary.
He finally reaches its base, his body screaming, his energy gone. A high, rusted chain-link fence surrounds the compound. The gate is secured with a thick, heavy chain and padlock.
He doesn't have the strength to break it. But he doesn't need to. He still has a concept stored from his first escape.
He places his hand on the rusty padlock.
Integrate 'Rust'.
The lock crumbles into a shower of reddish-brown dust in his hand. The gate groans open.
He stumbles inside. The base of the tower is a small, windowless concrete bunker. A fortress. The door is a slab of thick steel. It will hold. He is safe.
As his hand reaches for the handle, ready to force the door, he hears a sound from inside.
A sharp, metallic click.
'Ting--!"
It is the cold, unmistakable sound of a rifle's safety being switched off.
He freezes, his hand hovering in the air.
A voice, sharp, steady, and female, cuts through a small, shuttered slit in the door.
"Take one more step and I'll put a bullet through your skull. Who are you, cute fella~?"