CelestOS: Hostile life form detected. Risk of Red Resin infection: moderately high.

  “Only moderately?” Ethan said as he barely brought his axe up in time to stop it. The weird, vine-covered squirrel-rabbit thing slammed into him like a sack of wet gravel. It was fast, faster than he expected.

  He staggered back under the force, his feet slipping against the loose gravel and stones of the riverbank. The axe head caught between the beast and his face, but the monster flared its blood-red vines, which lashed out like striking snakes.

  Ethan ducked and dived, terrified of any of the vines hitting him, as one nearly clipped his cheek. He threw himself sideways as he tried to break contact.

  Ethan hit the ground hard, landing on his side with a hard thump that rattled his bones. The holes in his suit provided little insulation against the pebbles now biting into his skin, and his fingers fumbled for the axe only to have it clatter out of his reach. Panic exploded in his body as he skittered backward, looking side to side only to watch it fall toward the river.

  [HP: [■ ■ ■ ■ □ □ □ □ □ □] 39%]

  He kicked frantically, boots scraping for purchase. The thing was already on him again. It didn't so much pounce as pour itself in his direction, its vines acting almost as if they were a vat of cooked spaghetti. They slithered low to the ground before rearing up in a horrifying mockery of a marionettist and his puppets. All at once, a dozen thorny strands lashed down. One of them looped around his ankle and jerked.

  Ethan screamed more in rage than fear as he shouted, “Back off!” before kicking the thing square in the gut.

  The impact sent the creature tumbling end over end, limbs and vines flailing in every direction, a flash of blood-red fur and tendrils. It struck a boulder with a satisfying crunch but was almost unfazed as it immediately got back to its feet. The movements were jerky and unnatural, like it had forgotten how to be a squirrel or rabbit or whatever the fuck it was.

  Ethan staggered to his feet, chest heaving, his vision swimming as if he were the one who had been thrown against the rock. His ankle throbbed too, but he didn’t have time to focus on it. Instead, he needed to find his axe.

  He spun around like a dog trying to see where the axe had disappeared to, but his diversion was what the monster had been waiting for.

  The thing shrieked and bounded back on him, trailing new strands of vines that seemed to now be sprouting from all over its body. It struck with ferocity, causing Ethan to fall backward, slipping on the rocks. Luckily, though, he spotted the axe.

  It had slithered toward the edge of the river, its handle barely snagged between two rocks, the blade hovering just above the rapids. An inch or two more, and it would have been swept away by the current.

  Ethan moved toward the riverbank, narrowly avoiding the creature's vines. He rolled once, almost falling into the river himself, and grabbed for the handle. The current roared in his ears as if it were trying to outdo the monster, but he picked up the axe and swept to his feet in one fluid motion.

  Just as he got to his feet, the ground exploded beside him. The creature landed with a sickening thunk, spraying rocks into the air. It hunched lower, its body flexing unnaturally, limbs jerking as if yanked by invisible wires. Where fur had once covered its body, slick vines of Red Resin now covered its entire form like some kind of overgrown plant. Its face, though, had changed the most, as its mouth practically split open into something new.

  It no longer looked like a rabbit or a squirrel or anything natural. Its mouth was a spiral that twisted wider and wider than before, revealing concentric rings of teeth like a meat grinder from hell. It bared them all at once without a sound.

  CelestOS: Mutation detected. No matching data available. Celestitech recommends keeping all limbs outside the creature's mouth at all times.

  It lunged.

  Thinking quickly, Ethan grabbed a rock from the ground and hurled it at the open maw with everything he had. The rock flew clean and true… until the thing snapped it from the air with sickening precision, teeth clamping down and cracking the stone like an egg.

  With a grotesque retching sound, it spat the shards at his feet.

  “Well, that’s just rude.”

  It came for him faster this time, but Ethan was ready. He planted his feet, adjusted his grip, and swung his axe dead center for the beast.

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  The blade struck with a meaty, splintering crack, burying deep in the side of its face, slicing through a layer of vines and shattering teeth. A literal geyser of black-red sap-like blood burst from the wound, covering the axe blade.

  He braced his legs and held his breath, staring into the creature’s twisting mouth. Please stay down, he thought. Please, just die already.

  The thing wailed, not like a woodland animal, but more like the moaning and creaking of damaged wood. It thrashed, vines flailing in all directions, some snagging loosely against his suit. The jolt of impact rang up Ethan's arms, stiff and vibrating like an overloaded tension cable. He nearly dropped the axe right there, but he redoubled his grip. It felt more like chopping a tree than putting down a wild animal. A diseased, twitching tree with teeth. Which gave him a probably stupid idea.

  Now was his moment. He just needed to treat it like a tree.

  One last time, he adjusted his grip and swung like he was back in the forest. It was just as he expected; the skill module activated and empowered his strikes. He brought the axe down again and again, hacking through cartilage until what remained was a ragged, pulpy, twitching heap. The vines, though, didn’t give up; one particularly long one reached out and struck Ethan square in the head. He fell backward as the vines, too, gave up the ghost.

  Ethan hit the ground hard, the axe slipping from his fingers yet again as he landed in a sprawl. He lay there for a few seconds, thinking that this was becoming all too commonplace. He just breathed heavily, blinking, not quite trusting that it was over.

  [Combat 4 -> 5]

  [Forestry 3 -> 4]

  He could still hear the river, a steady roar somewhere behind the ragged thunder in his chest, and the soft pops of the resin blistering in the thing's corpse. Red vapor curled off the carcass as it cooked in the afternoon heat.

  Everything hurt. His back ached, his ribs throbbed, his ankle was like a needle of constant pain. His arms felt like he had just run a marathon handstand style. Above him, the sun stared mockingly as it turned to late afternoon. He was burning daylight with these constant delays and needed to be prepared for what would happen come nightfall.

  Then CelestOS said something that made his heart drop into the deepest pit of despair.

  CelestOS: Red Resin contact detected.

  Ethan sat up abruptly and just stared at her. “Wait, what?”

  His lungs locked as a cold spike of fear shot through his body, flushing out the last of his combat high.

  He looked down at himself—his gloves, his chest, his boots—and then he twisted awkwardly to check his hurt ankle. The monster's vines had been everywhere, writhing across him like an angry horde of snakes. He knew the vines had made contact at least twice, but he didn't seem to have any open wounds that he could see.

  “Where?” he demanded. “Where did it hit me?”

  CelestOS: Specific point of contact: Unclear. External contaminants present. Infection risk: Severe.

  That was not helpful.

  He turned, twisted, scanned his whole body again. “Well, what do we do about it? I'm not going to sit here and let myself turn into one of those things.”

  He felt sick to his stomach. Not infected, no, just overwhelmed. This day just wouldn’t stop wearing him down. He imagined the Red Resin seeping in slowly like an infected bite, inching its way closer and closer until a vine wrapped around his heart.

  “Please, CelestOS,” he said, “you owe me. There has to be a way to fix this.”

  There was a pause. A deliberate one.

  CelestOS: Initiating on-board sanitization protocol.

  “What sanitization protocol?”

  A low hiss answered him.

  A thin nozzle extended from CelestOS’s side, painted hazard yellow, with a label that said, “WARNING: DO NOT EXPOSE TO SKIN.”

  CelestOS: Deploying CelestiClean? rapid decontamination mist. Please remain still.

  “No—wait—don't you dare—”

  A jet of superheated, aerosolized cleaner slammed into his chest, face, and arms, finding every hole, every breach, every cursed seam in his suit. The heat punched through the fabric like a flash fire through tinder, searing across his skin.

  Steam erupted from his suit and skin.

  [HP: [■ ■ ■ □ □ □ □ □ □ □] 32%]

  “Ahhh! What the hell!” Ethan screamed as the mist continued to burn him.

  His vision swam. Every joint clenched. Somewhere in the haze of pain, he thought this must be what Celestitech meant when they claimed “mild discomfort during cleansing.” He imagined some corporate drone signing off on the design, sipping cheap coffee while reviewing a report labeled Acceptable Burn Rate. The air around him smelled like lemon disinfectant and ruined skin. He wasn’t sure if he was sterile or just halfway cooked, but the smoke rising from his arms felt like a pretty strong clue.

  CelestOS: Caution: Cleaning fluid is highly corrosive.

  The mist hit again, this time against his face, the sides of his legs, and finally his back. He collapsed to the floor as his legs gave out, unable to support his weight.

  CelestOS: Congratulations, you are clean.

  He lay there for a long moment, questioning his life choices, as every bit of his body twitched in utter agony. Smoke gently rose from his arms, his breath coming in hard, ragged gasps. His suit had turned a bright, stark white as the ‘cleaning fluid’ had bleached the fabric. The thorn bites on his right hand from earlier burned like he had just poured aftershave on a sunburn.

  “I'm going to die,” he wheezed, “from the cure.”

  Slowly, the pain faded to a dull roar, and Ethan got to his feet, using the nearby axe as a crutch to get up from the ground. He couldn't afford to waste any more time, which, of course, was the perfect opening for CelestOS’s usual antics:

  CelestOS: That would be unfortunate, but at least there is now a 0% chance of Red Resin infection. Would you like to complete a satisfaction survey on your experience with field usage of the CelestiClean? rapid decontamination mist?