Water.
It was the most basic element of life, yet Kaelen stared at the plastic bottle in his hand as if it were a holy relic. The condensation was cold against his palm, a sharp contrast to the feverish heat building in his wounded leg.
He had just turned trash into treasure. No—he had turned code into reality.
He wiped the last droplets from his cracked lips and tossed the empty bottle aside. The initial shock of the miracle was fading, replaced by a cold, calculating logic. The panic was still there, buzzing in the back of his skull, but the "Admin Interface" seemed to suppress it, forcing his brain to prioritize data over fear.
He focused on the blue text hovering in the upper right corner of his vision.
[ USER STATUS: KAELEN ]
[ LEVEL: 1 ]
[ AUTHORITY: 5 / 100 ]
[ CONDITION: CRITICAL (BLEED) ]
"Authority," Kaelen muttered, testing the word. It tasted metallic.
It wasn't magic. It was currency.
He had gained 10 points for deleting the Hollow. He had spent 5 points to restore the water. The math was brutally simple. In this deleted world, survival had a price tag, and his wallet was almost empty.
He looked down at his leg.
The adrenaline from the fight was gone, leaving only the throbbing, sickening ache of the injury. The rebar had torn a jagged path through his calf muscle. Blood was still oozing, soaking his sock and leaving a dark, wet trail on the grey concrete.
He needed bandages. He needed antibiotics. He needed stitches.
And most importantly, he needed the System to fix it.
If I can restore a crushed bottle, can I restore flesh?
He gritted his teeth and placed his glowing hand over the wound. He focused his will. Fix it. Restore me.
[ TARGET: HUMAN TISSUE ]
[ STATE: LACERATED / INFECTED ]
[ ERROR: INSUFFICIENT FUNDS ]
[ REQUIRED: 50 AUTHORITY ]
Kaelen flinched as the red text burned his retinas.
"Fifty?" he choked out. "You want fifty points for a leg?"
The System didn't answer. It just hovered there, indifferent.
Fifty points meant five kills. He had to hunt down five more of those glitching nightmares with nothing but a rusted pipe and a limp.
He looked at the Authority counter: [ 5 / 100 ].
He couldn't afford to heal. He was broke.
"Okay," he whispered, forcing himself to breathe. "Okay. If I can't fix the leg, I fix the bleeding. Manual repairs."
He needed gear.
He looked up. He was standing in front of what used to be a "Quick-Stop" convenience store. The glass front was gone—erased into jagged pixelated edges. The sign above the door flickered, the letters Q--CK ST-P buzzing with static.
Inside, the air smelled of rot and ozone.
Kaelen tightened his grip on the iron pipe and limped inside.
The silence here was heavier. Dust motes danced in the pale, shadowless light filtering in from the purple sky.
He stepped over a pile of grey ash near the counter—likely what remained of the cashier when the deletion wave hit. He tried not to look at it.
He scanned the aisles.
"Food. Medicine. Anything."
The shelves were a disaster. The "Deletion" seemed to have targeted organic matter first. The fruit aisle was a horror show of black sludge. Apples and bananas had dissolved into tar. The bread aisle was just piles of grey dust inside plastic bags.
System Logic, Kaelen realized. Complex biological data is harder to maintain. It got wiped first.
But the processed stuff? The chemicals?
He kicked aside a pile of debris and found a can of peaches under a collapsed shelf. The metal was dented, the label faded to white.
[ ITEM: CANNED PEACHES ]
[ STATE: EXPIRED / DAMAGED ]
[ COST TO RESTORE: 2 AUTHORITY ]
"Too expensive," Kaelen whispered.
He only had 5 points. Spending 40% of his net worth on a snack was suicide. He needed to save every point for the wound.
He moved to the back of the store, toward the pharmacy section.
This was what he needed.
The shelves here had been looted, probably in the first few hours before the silence took over. Empty boxes littered the floor. Someone had been desperate.
But hidden behind the counter, kicked under a metal cabinet, he saw a white box.
A standard industrial First-Aid Kit.
He reached for it, his heart pounding. He dragged it out and flipped the lid open.
His heart sank.
Empty.
Just a few wrappers and a used alcohol wipe.
"Damn it."
He slammed the box shut, frustration boiling over. "Useless!"
But as his hand touched the red cross on the lid, the blue text flared to life.
[ ITEM: FIRST AID KIT ]
[ STATE: EMPTY / DEPLETED ]
[ AUTHORITY ACTION AVAILABLE ]
[ COMMAND: RESTORE TO FACTORY DEFAULT ]
[ COST: 15 AUTHORITY ]
Kaelen froze.
He stared at the text.
Factory Default.
If he restored the box, it wouldn't just fix the plastic latch. It would revert the object to its state before it was opened. It would refill the contents. Sterile bandages, antiseptic, gauze, tape. Maybe even painkillers.
It was a loophole. He wasn't restoring the items individually; he was restoring the container's history.
"Fifteen points," Kaelen calculated, his mind racing. "I have five. I'm ten short."
He looked back at the entrance of the store.
Outside, the bruised purple sky was darkening. The "System Pylons"—those massive floating towers in the distance—were pulsing with a rhythmic, menacing red light. Shadows were stretching across the street, lengthening like claws.
The Quest log flashed in his mind: [ SURVIVE THE NIGHT ].
That implied the night was worse. That implied the things in the dark were hungrier.
SCREE-CH.
Kaelen stopped breathing.
He heard it again. The sound of metal grinding on bone.
He crouched low behind the counter, ignoring the scream of protest from his leg. He peered over the edge.
Across the street, emerging from the static fog, were two shapes.
Hollows.
They were sniffing the ground, their inside-out bodies glistening in the dying light. They moved with that terrifying, jerky lag—teleporting forward, freezing, snapping.
They were tracking his blood trail.
Kaelen looked at the iron pipe in his hand. Then he looked at the empty first aid kit.
The math was cruel.
He needed 10 points to heal.
Each Hollow was worth 10 points.
He needed to kill one of them to afford the medicine to save his leg.
But there were two.
"High risk," Kaelen murmured, his hand trembling as he gripped the pipe. "High reward."
If he stayed hidden, he would bleed out or they would smell him eventually. If he fought, he might die instantly.
He looked at the Authority counter. [ 5 / 100 ].
He looked at the empty kit.
"I'm not dying in a convenience store," he hissed.
He stood up.
He didn't wait to be found. He tapped the iron pipe against the metal counter.
CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.
The sound rang out like a dinner bell.
Across the street, the two Hollows snapped their heads toward the store. Their white, void-like eyes locked onto him. Their jaws unhinged, leaking grey smoke.
[ QUEST UPDATE: ELIMINATE HOSTILES (x2) ]
[ REWARD: BONUS AUTHORITY ]
Kaelen stepped out from behind the counter, limping into the center of the aisle to give himself room to swing.
"Come on," he said, his voice steady despite the fear clutching his heart. "I need your points."