As we walked down the stairs, Zahra filled me in on her adventures while I was stuck in stasis. She had gone up to the upper floors after the green check mark appeared over the hospital. When she looked at her map it now showed the entire building, and along with the blue dots which littered the first floor. On the positive side, all the red dots had disappeared. Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to find much, including the loot from the Salamander guys. Nearly every room on the 3rd and 4th floors had been completely destroyed by the bear, including the patient beds where we were set up. She did, however, get good luck seeing outside the windows.

  “It looks like the reason it's so dark outside is because of this smog. On the first floor it's basically black smoke, covering everything. But up on the higher floors, it's more like a yellow-ish green that lasts for about a mile in every direction. But you can see through it a lot easier. Besides that, there were huge smoke clouds rising up all over the city. I couldn’t see what caused it, but I could see a massive fire burning somewhere to the East. Maybe Hollywood, it wasn’t super close. Either way, it looks like no one’s coming. I’m sure people are surviving but… it's getting quieter out there.”

  “That could be a good thing, maybe people are doing a good job hiding from the monsters. Or, they could also be waiting for the class selection before moving.” I tried to believe my own words. Things had changed so rapidly from the attack, whatever caused it must be more powerful than we could imagine. But Zahra and I had also changed. I needed to know what my stats actually meant, but it was going to be hard to figure that out in the hospital.

  Zahra didn’t respond, but I could tell from the tension on her face that she felt the same. Nice words didn’t help anymore. Not when dealing with the end of the world. I tried to push the negativity out of my head as we moved onto the main floor.

  Immediately, I was assaulted by the familiar hospital smell, maxed to 100. It was like a Bath & Body Works for blood, puss, and shit. I scrunched my nose as I was reminded it could be a whole lot worse. Gurneys lined the walls of the hallway towards the main reception, each one containing a body under a white sheet, sometimes two. The smell was especially bad as we passed them, but I kept my head forward as one of the operation rooms to our left busted open, a surgeon in full scrubs with blood covering his gloves as he ran in the same direction we were, yelling “I need a tourniquet! He’s bleeding out!” I continued walking forward, towards the small chatter I could hear around the corner, but Zahra stopped me.

  “Wait. Shouldn’t we try to help out?” I paused and looked back.

  “How can we? It looks like there's no electricity. I would also not be a good nurse.”

  “I mean, fair. If only we hadn’t received a potentially magical item that restores health.” I raised an eyebrow to that, but took the Urisflay leg out of my inventory. There was an option at the bottom to Use, which probably meant we didn’t have to eat the thing unless we cooked it.

  “That could work. I just…” My voice trailed off, full of hesitation. We had no idea if these items even worked that way. And… selfishly I wanted to hold onto it. We had only found one healing item so far, and it wasn’t exactly easy to do. What if we couldn’t find any more, and needed it later? But when I looked up to see Zahra’s eyes, I realized that didn’t matter. We needed to save who we could when we could. I sighed and Zahra cracked a smile as we pushed into operating room 3.

  It looked like the surgeon had been the only medical profession tending to the very young boy on the table. A woman, probably mid-30s, stood over the table, her red hair and face caked in grime and dust, broken by clean lines where tears had run down her round cheeks. She was short and curvy, only reaching about 5’2. She was wearing dress pants which had been torn and ripped, as well as a blazer which rested on the ground beside her. As we walked towards her, we also saw the boy on the table.

  He was no older than 12, with curly red hair and freckles. The boy was silent, unconscious due to his injuries. He was also stiff, and I noticed the familiar stab wounds from the Salamander’s paralyzing spear. The reason for the tourniquet was obvious. His right leg was completely mangled, like it had been crushed by some powerful force. Bone and skin merged together from his knee down to where his foot should be, but it was gone. It looked like they had attempted to change the bandages on the leg and the stitches had ripped out, causing blood to flow out from the wound. The kid was as pale as a ghost, with every splurt of blood making it worse. The woman turned to us, her eyes intensely questioning what we were doing here. I remembered that we also looked a bit… different at the moment, but before i could say anything, Zahra spoke.

  “Is he your son?”

  The woman looked between the two of us, wiping her face and taking long, deep breaths to regain her composure before answering. Her voice was a higher pitch than I expected, hoarse from crying, but still distinct and clear.

  “He is. But why are you here? Can you help find a tourniquet for him, please! He's losing too much blood”. Zahra grabbed the leg out of my hand and moved over to the table.

  “What are y-”

  “We got this off of a monster as a reward, it says it can heal him if we use it. Another item from this game gave me my leg and arm back, and same for Levi here. It helped us, and it might be able to help him too.” She opened her map, showing the room we were in and the two blue dots for the mother and son. She clicked on the dot on the table, and a name popped up.

  William Presley, Level 0

  Status: Critical Health. Paralyzed

  Everyone in the hospital was level 0. I had to think that would change after class selection. The woman nodded and took a step back from the table, fresh tears streaming down her face as she watched Zahra intently.

  Zahra brought the leg and lifted it over the operating table and above William. We watched as another text box opened in front of her. Use item? She clicked Yes and the leg instantly disappeared from her hand. Blue particles of light began to flow out of her hand towards William, and into him. We watched as his leg began to reform in front of us, bones cracking and snapping into place and skin reforming overtop. It reminded me of how aggressive my older sister had been dressing up her dolls as a kid. Half the time, she would rip their clothing out of frustration, but she always had more toys arriving to supplement. I wish she had been here, at the very least she would have spare clothing to put on.

  While we couldn’t see his health, some colour returned to his face. His mother leaned over him, crying beginning anew, but this time I could tell she was happy. Zahra turned away from her and to me mouthed “THAT WORKED?!”, her face a mixture of surprise and amusement. I nodded back, looking back at William. His condition read Stable, but he was still paralyzed.

  I guess that we have to find a separate answer to these status conditions. They’re dangerous. His breathing was steady, and his wounds had completely closed. His foot was still gone, but at least he wasn’t dead.

  Damn. If only he had been in our party when I accepted that symbiote. I’ll have to keep a lookout for any other ones we find just in case.

  The woman thanked us and introduced herself as Tanya Presley and her son William. They had been in the hospital when everything went to shit. William had Spinal Muscular Atrophy, a neuromuscular disorder that caused destruction of muscle, and he had an appointment to receive a spinal injection of a drug that helped slow the disease’s progression. Unfortunately, that was the least of our problems now. They had barely survived when a small horde of Salamanders rushed into the building, and William was brutally maimed.

  God damnit. Was life not hard enough for these two? It was all so unfair. How were we supposed to survive this?

  Tanya thanked us again, but my thoughts were already consumed by this new anxiety. Zahra said we would look out for any healing items that could help, and we continued on our way. 30 seconds later we saw the surgeon rushing back to the room, tourniquet and bandages in hand, but we didn’t try to stop him. It would have been too hard to explain, and he was sprinting.

  We turned into the general reception area, which was full of makeshift cots and people milling about. The floors were a mess with debris and blood, but there was a janitor trying to clear a small space. He had already cleaned out the area where people were sleeping, although there were still large chunks of debris and broken walls around. We passed a large piece of concrete, fallen from the ceiling above.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Wait a second. The rock had to be at least 200 pounds. How strong am I?

  I leaned over, feigning like I dropped something in front of the rock. I gently dug my fingertips underneath it, and tried to lift. I was shocked when it actually shook a bit, although I could tell it would take a lot of energy to lift the whole thing. There was no way in hell I would have been able to move the chunk at all before, so I was definitely stronger than when I was sick. Hell, even when I was healthy I wouldn't have been able to do that. I got back up and continued following Zahra towards the main reception, where a circle of healthcare workers were speaking with a few other people. I recognized the voice of Dr. Hekla attempting to deescalate what was turning into a frustrated mob.

  “Look, we have had no communications from our superintendent or the state, and nearly every technological device has stopped functioning. There is good reason to believe these messages were legitimate. No one who’s left has come ba-”

  “How much food do we have? I have two children to feed and the cafe will only last so long. A few stronger people should go out and see if they can find supplies. There’s a Ralph’s a block down the street that we could get to and back easily.” The point came from a retirement-aged woman. She was bald, but had the kind of stubborn confidence on her face to pull it off.

  Dr. Hekla stared at her, his arms crossed. “Mrs. Sharpe, please calm down. We don’t know if the smoke or gas outside is poisonous. We’re lucky it hasn’t seeped into the hospital.”

  The disgruntled woman retorted, “don’t you have oxygen tanks? Why don’t we use those?” She crossed her arms as well, mirroring the surgeon. His eyes were bloodshot, and he had huge dark shadows under his eyes.

  “We need to save that for any of the patients with respiratory distress. Plus, we have no idea that would work, and we would be risking the lives of whoever went. Our best bet is to wait until after whatever this ‘Class Selection’ is, and then make plans after. I won’t risk more lives for the chance that we may succeed. End of discussion.” He and the few remaining aides left, moving towards the children’s hospital and cafeteria, where I could see people were already sitting down waiting for breakfast. Mrs. Sharpe followed them, but after a few more comments she just sat down with the others. Most of the people were old, sick, or family members and caretakers.

  Whatever this game or invasion thing is, we’re still in the tutorial. Albeit, a shitty one at that. Everyone was safe here, but we had no idea how long that would last. We watched as the staff got breakfast together, Christian and Sayde both there, although Christian had a sling over his arm. They were restricting people to half an item, warmed up over a small trashcan fire. There was still frozen food, but the easy-to-eat things had quickly disappeared. If this is what breakfast looked like, I was scared to see what would be served later. There just wasn’t enough here.

  Very few people had paid us attention as we walked around, a benefit to the early morning and the exhaustion of the people around me. Surprisingly, they hadn’t done much to the entrance, besides make it a tad smaller with some piled up desks and cabinets. It wasn’t guarded, and no one was around the area that we saw. The door’s glass was shattered, letting in the warm Spring air, but none of the gas. I motioned Zahra into a side room to discuss my crazy idea. As I began to ask her if she would be okay adventuring out, she said,

  “Soooo should we take these new bodies for a test drive?”

  I laughed. “I guess we had the same idea, huh?”

  “Yup. Us and that Karen are the great minds that think alike”. I groaned, still smiling.

  “I’d prefer to not be compared to someone who pissed off Dr. Hekla, but whatever. I say we try to make it to the grocery store, taking some food with us if we can. If it's too dangerous we can turn back, but we should see if it's possible to send people to loot it. But first, we should see if we can survive the smog. Either way, we need more information as to what is going on out there.”

  With that, we slipped out through the front entrance, a single person’s raised voice fading behind us as we plunged into the smog.

  Higher the risk, the more generous the reward.

  The System’s message resonated in my head as we walked out into a transformed Los Angeles. The shattered-glass doors opened, and I could barely see 5ft in front of me with the thick smoke. The circle garden that separated traffic had completely withered away, the crunch of dead flower heads and stalks against our feet broke the silence. Although we were both bare foot, we were both a bit surprised at how easy it felt to walk around. We left the hospital and turned left at the intersection. As we got closer, it was clear that nearly half of the buildings had been completely destroyed. Some had burned down recently, while one was currently burning and crumbling as we scurried past. But most had been destroyed by some sort of massive force from above, crushing it entirely and causing it to collapse over. As we walked towards Ralph’s, we both had our status screens pulled up, waiting for whatever effect the smog had to appear. After a few seconds, it did.

  Debuff - Smog of the Swamp King

  If you have the misfortune of getting this debuff, you have entered the territory of the Swamp King. When this creature creates a nest, it not only spawns most of the monsters in the area, but it also creates a dense, slightly poisonous cloud. It won’t kill you right away, but it would be wise not to stay in it without purifying magic.

  Effect: 1% health depletion per minute in smog. When damaged, there is a 10% chance to be stunned for 5 (4) seconds.

  Zahra and I paused. Zahra showed me where my health bar was in the stat screen, and we both found a checkbox asking if we wanted health displayed on ‘primary view’. The health bar showed up under the textbox, although it was still pretty small. There was also a bar reading ‘energy’ but it was locked. After a few minutes, we watched the health tick down every minute, only to be nearly refilled at the same time. It looked like we could stay out in the smog for as long as we wanted, but I really didn’t like the second effect. If it was up to random chance… would that have anything to do with our luck stats? Our obnoxiously low, basically zero luck stats? I shook my head. This was rough.

  “We have to be quiet or stealthy. It's nice that we don’t have to worry about the smog, but I’d prefer not to see any of those salamanders again.”

  Zahra nodded. “Follow my lead. For some reason, my body feels really light.” She bent down into a quick squat and then leapt into the air a solid 6-8 feet, landing while perfectly bending her knees to muffle the sound. She stifled a laugh as I tried to close my still-open mouth. It looked effortless for her, reminding me of my sister’s competitive gymnastic events. I was always forced to tag along to her competitions and training as a kid. After her first class, she showed me how to do a cartwheel, although it took me a while. That had been fun, but it was my only positive memory from my younger sister. Mckenna got really good at gymnastics, competing internationally when she was a teenager. My parents loved it. When she completed the vault, she could get 8-10ft in the air with a running start.

  Zahra had basically done the same thing from a squat. It was impressive, and nearly super-human. The symbiote had impacted us both, and these stat increases and a real impact on ability. How high can these stats go? We need to find a way to increase them as fast as possible.

  I just hoped the symbiote hadn’t changed something I wasn’ t aware of. I still felt like me, just with a slightly different body. My head was more clear too, like before the cancer spread to my brain. No matter how I felt, catching my reflection in the glass we passed by still felt unnatural and wrong. My thoughts were distracted as Zhara paused in front of me, looking through a shop’s window. We were probably half a block from the grocery store, and we hadn’t heard anything dangerous nearby. The only signs of other people we had seen were a few turned over cars, but it was hard to see much of anything besides directly in front of us.

  As I caught up to Zahra and looked in the store, I followed her horrified gaze into the store. At one point, it had been a small consignment store, full of clothing and accessories. Now, it was nothing more than a dumping ground. Bodies littered the floor, some intact, others in pieces. A thick, green substance covered the corpses, and I was incredibly thankful that we couldn’t smell inside the store. I still felt my stomach lurch, hot stinging tears rushing to my eyes as the scene was burned into my head. There were two bodies of small children against the wall, with an elderly man sprawled in front of them.

  They were in pieces.

  I turned away, dry heaving as Zahra did the same. White foam hit the sidewalk as I wiped my mouth. My previous excitement evaporated. We were in serious danger, no, everyone was.

  “This is horrible. Why would they do any of this? This had to be those monsters, right?” I whispered to Zahra after she recovered. I could feel sweat starting to drip down my forehead. I took a glance around for signs of the thing that did this, but smoke covered my view. Zahra looked… angry.

  “Probably. It looks like we weren’t the only ones attacked. If this is happening all over the city, then maybe this is happening everywhere. We should keep going.” I could hear the emotion in her voice as she choked through her words. She was obviously worried about her family, and I couldn't blame her. But we had to stay focused on survival, whatever that meant.

  We continued onwards, finding a small break in the smoke as we crossed an intersection and the Ralph’s became visible. The sign had completely fallen off, broken in half in front of the doorway. The doors were gone, a massive hole replacing the entrance. The stone walls were crumbling in some places, whereas others had huge burn marks, like someone had thrown a massive firecracker at the front of the building. We cautiously moved towards the store, making sure to be as quiet as possible.

  We didn’t expect the sudden explosion barely 5ft behind us, sending us both flying as the rooftops broke out into growls, sneering, and screeching.