"Riiiiiight, just as I suspected then…" I stare at the now revealed message through the swirling red-tinted haze that permeates every inch of this twisted mirror of reality.
"I have no idea what the fuck is happening," I note the message in the relevant notebook and scowl at my chicken scratching handwriting like it owes me money. 21/05/2036 16:30. The exact date and time I carved into the plastic table of some random child's bedroom, I converted into my makeshift lab, purely because it had a race car bed, and I took it as a sign to run unethical, hidden experiments. Because why not?
But what's the problem with the date and time I wrote down appearing, I hear nobody ask? Well, that's because I wrote in the original dimension. On the 20th of May. A full 24 hours ago. And yet! It has only just appeared! I've spent the last 6 days trying to figure out my powers in secret from the rest of the group, creating knives from the accused fusion of the red miasma and steel, eating metal and forcing my frail body to adapt to the lack of oxygen, cuts, burns, acids and blunt trauma.
But I understood fuck all about how any of it worked, it just did. And that pisses me off. How was I going to exploit things if I couldn't figure out how my otherworldly gifts work, or even more damning, how to make them work consistently? What do you mean by time in the spirit realm was 24 hours behind? Changes in the spirit realm don't affect the physical world, but time flows 1.5 times slower or faster than the physical dimension.
The ringing from the 10-minute egg timer snapped me out of internal musings and prompted me to pop back into the physical world and check the watch left on the carpeted floor. 14 minutes had managed to slip by, meaning I wasted 4 minutes, overshadowing the 3 minutes I gained on my last set of experiments. Did it make sense? No. Did I know how to exploit this potential time dilation? Also, no, and that was a problem. World-ending catastrophes were on their way, birthed from the minds of twisted Gods, and the best I could do was melt some metal and talk mad shit at people to buy some time.
I rub my armoured hands over my face and fall backwards from my seated position onto the blood-stained carpet, my weighted armour making a dull thud as it hits the floor, causing the air to be expelled from my lungs and for my unwilling undead guard dog to roar from somewhere downstairs.
"Now isn't the time, lab assistant 04," I mumble through the fury and screams of my early warring system, I trapped downstairs by melting the first couple of steps. The weighted armour was great at pushing through my limits and making use of my near limitless stamina, but it sucked at staying under the radar with its clunky design. But what did you expect from a body suit made from liberated exercise weights, leather biker jackets and rubber resistance bands?
It was ugly as sin, but it did its job just fine. The combined total of 40kg and resistance bands on areas I needed to make flexible pushed me well past the brink of exhaustion, all while the leather trapped heat and made me sweat like a pig. It has done wonders for my body after the week's intense exercise regime, but I couldn't wear it much around the others before they started to question how I could keep going for so long. But that didn't stop me from wearing it constantly out of view when I was on my 'scavenging runs', even if it was a pain in the ass to keep getting changed into the cluncky thing.
By now, 04 had stopped trying to find the tasty human that dared to hide from it and went back to shuffling around the closed loop of jammed doors and melted walls I had made for it to watch over. Initially, I hadn't bothered with the extra security to such a high degree. However, after narrowly escaping an encounter with the military, which was trying to conscript anyone and everyone into their ranks and/or questionable safe camps after they declared martial law a few days ago, I realised I needed to fully embrace my paranoia. Which, as I'm sure you can imagine, has done wonders for my mental health.
Anyway, the soldiers barged into the house I was in, like loot-hungry goblins, just as I was finishing an experiment on the effects of the toxic rose-tinted blades I had developed on the unwilling lab assistants 01 and 02. While the rose metal blade could cut through the third set event's mutated chicken with ease as the wounds worsened through mere contact with the toxic miasma, killing 01, it had no additional effects upon the undead, leaving a pissed off 02 with a large gash along its bound arms for the looters to deal with as I slipped in the spirit realm to make my retreat.
Only to stumble across yet another discovery. The undead had souls; the fact almost broke me as the images of my parents' dismembered corpses flooded my mind until I took a closer look. The soul, or at least what I assumed was a soul, attached to 02 and other undead I have tested, screamed in anguish. Its blood red form was tainted with sickly green veins pulsating throughout its incorporeal body. It was knotted and squished, distorted and broken, screaming and struggling to escape the undead body that housed its tortured existence. It gave no indication of understanding me or even acknowledging my existence. The only thing that seemed to stop their pain was to kill their host body in the simple fact that once the pale blue souls of the soldiers came into the room and killed 02. Its soul simply disappeared, with only a barely visible shadow smeared across the floor showing where it thrashed around moments earlier. Whether or not it went to a better or even worse place, I had no idea, but I hope the souls of the undead I was putting down were better off for it.
I had no idea why the 24-hour time distance didn't affect the souls moving through the space, but so far, the time difference only appears to affect the physical manifestation of the spirit realm and not the spirits themselves. Something 03 helped me test while I was trying to figure out if I could affect the souls in any way. But no matter what I did or tried, the souls were untouchable, even in the spirit realm.
Now, obviously, I have no experience with ghosts, souls, or spirits. Who would? But ghost books and the like suggested that salt, iron, silver and lavender affected evil spirits, so I figured it was worth a go. But so far, only salt has reacted within the spirit realm when the simple act of bringing it out of my inventory caused half my body to be trapped within a strange glass-like substance that I couldn't affect with my powers.
A few hours of rigorous testing later showed it to be some type of solid translucent energy that formed from the reaction of the toxic red mist in the spirit realm and the simple table salt I found in a kitchen. It only lasted a few minutes, if that, but the possibilities were intriguing and led me down a rabbit hole of design sketches and prototypes that resulted in 03's early demise when a forcefield blade pierced its skull.
Still a better death than 05 and 06, a small rat-looking dog on death's door that struggled to breathe, despite the set event that caused global animal mutation, and an actual rat I caught in a baited cage trap. They helped me discover I can take living creatures into the red-tinted world for a quick little holiday. Emphasis on quick, and I definitely wouldn't recommend it as a vacation destination from the way 05 died in writhing agony, blood pouring from every orifice as its body started to rapidly decay in puffs of red mist. It appeared that the miasma, or maybe the realm itself, killed anything without my abilities, and from the way a gagged 06 died, it had nothing to do with my ability to breathe anything.
Annoyed I couldn't bring others with me for an emergency retreat, but unable to stomach any more animal testing, I temporarily closed that avenue of growth and gave the next trapped pet, a small white Rabbit I named Twitch from its erratic jumping, to Mia to join her hive mind as one of her 'pets'. Given its nocturnal nature, enhanced hearing, and Mia's mind now running through its fluffy brain, Twitch made for an excellent nighttime burglar alarm, allowing everyone to sleep through the night. Or at least the others did. I spent the nights trying to stay awake for as long as possible, exercising and practising with my states of matter ability so that I didn't have to hide from a curious rabbit.
That, along with the days spent scavenging, training my other abilities, fighting the dead and learning to fight and spar with the group's combined knowledge of self-defence techniques, made me a very busy boy. I was often sleep-deprived and on the brink of muscle failure, even as my stamina kept up with my insane schedule. Luckily, everything I consumed became the very thing my body needed. I gorged on metal, fueling my mortal coil with all the protein, vitamins, carbs and minerals needed. And while I didn't have proof, I believed in the phrase 'You are what you eat', and if I had to choose, I would flesh made of iron and steel. But the real enabler for my glorified self-harm rush to madness was the healing of Ella. She allowed everyone to push their bodies as far as they could, every hour, every day, while being in tip-top shape.
The adaptive bodies showed their true worth as they developed more muscles, our skin began to resist slight cuts, and we became faster and more flexible. Even my frail frame was showing improvements, although I wasn't taking to the technical aspects of martial arts and regularly got my ass beat by anyone with a pulse who I couldn't just stab. Something about "being uncoordinated" and "thinking too much", according to our resident expert, Noah, with his black belt in karate. But that wouldn't stop me from pushing forward; I would survive and be free to explore this new world in all its wonders.
A scowl flashes across my face, and I heave my armoured body into a seated position. Checking my watch, I plan out my next half hour before I have to start making my way back home in time to help prepare for the first actual event that begins tomorrow. Or that's what the last message said when it stated we will soon enter the 10 week "tutorial stage". I shake the wayward thoughts out of my head and look over at my notebooks filled with compiled notes on potential events, prototypes and power usage for a few moments before deciding what to work on next. "Silver it is then."
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I stand up and go over my collection of weird shit I have found from looting houses, including a skull-shaped whistle that sounds like a scream when blown, an originally blunt butterfly knife, and a little toy that vibrates and jumps when a mechanism is turned. I've already mapped and drawn out the Aztec death whistle for future use, along with how the different mechanical mechanisms work from the toy, so my last point of interest was an intricate silver teapot that looked to be some family heirloom with a coat of arms and what looked to be a rich mahogany handle.
It most likely held significant personal and monetary value; it even had people's names engraved on the bottom. So anyway, I turned it into a shiv. Or more accurately, I melted the silver down, used it to coat a knife, and strapped my new, maybe ghost killer next to its brother, which was forged in a similar process but from a cast iron pan. Neither reacted to the red directly like the salt did, and I haven't found any lavender yet, so knives for what goes bump in the night will have to do. No idea if it works, but that's what testing is for.
I glanced at my watch and sighed. It was time to pack up and go on a little fetch quest to pick up a strategically chosen pet for Mia, but first, I had one last thing to do. Packing up doesn't take long, and within a few minutes, everything I wanted to take with me was on my person or safely stored within my inventory, allowing me to head off.
I popped into the spirit realm again and waited for another few minutes in a nervous mix of anticipation and fear. Waiting was never my strong suit, and the minutes seemed to drag on for an age. I sighed in defeat and walked to the broken window to use the pre-made climbing holds to scale down the two-story building. When I finally heard the chittering screams, I was beginning to equally hate and fear. I slow my approach to the glassless window and crouch down to avoid being spotted by the true monstrous inhabitants of the spirit realm. Looking over the windowsill, I see the monstrosity lurking atop a modest sized house across the road and two to the left.
It was a mass of twisted spiky flesh, 3m long and 1m wide, that seemed to unravel as it moved, leaving clear views through its grotesque body, only to knot back together again as it scanned the surrounding area. It looked like a distorted, lean, skinless humanoid that was dreamed up in a psychiatric ward with thin, elongated limbs, bulbous joints that oozed a thick, yellow pus. Yet most notable was its head, or more accurately, the chunk was missing out of it, leaving its one eye swimming in a bloody soup of dripping grey matter that leaked over the edge of the bowl its skull had become. But if the lack of a functioning cranium hindered it in any way, it didn't show it as it prowled across the rooftops on all fours with ease, its unravelling stretched limbs crossing the gaps between the houses like they didn't even register in what was left of its mind.
It was pure nightmare fuel, and like many before, it was heading straight for me. Likely drawn in from my many jumps between dimensions or perhaps even my life force, I wasn't sure yet. What I was sure of was that these wraiths called this reality their home, and they did not like my attempts at gentrification. The more I visited and stayed in the red hellscape, the more likely a wraith would come to say hello to their new neighbour. It just happened that this particular greeting was given with a lot of blood lust, claws and serrated teeth the size of daggers.
What's more, my own attempts at communication through exploding gas canisters, a thrown axe, and Molotov cocktails did fuck all. No scratch, no burns, not even a bruise on the spider-looking wraith with far too many fingers coming out of its eye sockets when I dropped a 20kg kettlebell onto it. Nadda, zilch the fuckers took everything like I was blowing them kisses in an angsty teen classroom and responded exactly how you would imagine, by reaching its clawed, decaying hand into its unravelling body, gripping onto its solid spine and launching it at me at high speeds. Or at least this one did, I didn't usually stick around for the others to retaliate.
Narrowly missing the bone projectile by diving to the side, I let the power within me surge forward, and in a practised motion, I melt a hole underneath me, letting gravity take me just as I grab the rope I would need for this little plan to work. I let a mad, panicked grin spread across my face as I landed on the strategically placed couch and mattresses that broke my fall into the living room below. Blinds drawn and breath held, I wait for the beast to come for me.
With my metaphorical finger on the trigger of my reality-hopping ability, I listen as the horrid screeching and sound of snapping ligaments fill the air as the abomination hunts for its prey. The sweet sensation of fear fills my body; my blood feels like ice despite my desperate heart beating for all its worth. The arm holding the rope begins to tremble, and my breath becomes rapid, but I don't dare blink as I stare up through the hole in the ceiling at the window, waiting.
Suddenly, the air falls quiet, and my grip on the rope begins to slacken as the world grows still. I try to adjust my weighed-down body into a more battle-ready stance, then just lying on my back, when the creature bursts through the window in a flurry of folded limbs, screeches and splattering grey matter that falls into my open mouth as the more rational part of me stares up agape in horror. 'Why the fuck did I think this was a good plan?!?!'
"Oh well, fuck it!" Without wasting another second, I pull the rope, causing the latch holding back the spring-loaded hammer to click out of place, followed by a large bang as the impact slams forward into the modified wine bottle with meticulously thinned walls.
At the same time, a swirling mass of whipping ligaments slams into the wall of the room above me with the force of a truck, its single eye spilling out of its skull in its frantic search for its next meal. We lock eyes, hate-filled hunger meets maniacal glee and fear. A barbed ligament strikes out towards me, quickly followed by a tornado of twisting sinew. But red turns to white in an explosion of shattered glass that allows salt to meet miasma, and the great beast is trapped within a faintly glowing formless structure, frozen in space, screaming bloody murder.
I stare at the jagged prison flowing like liquid glass, before my eyes lock onto the grey, blackened, wiggling tendril mere inches from my left eye. "Fucker almost got me using horror film tactics, haha, I've got to up my game."
Yet despite almost dying and the gradually dissipating forcefield, my grin only widens across my face, as adrenaline mixes with fear to pump an exquisite cocktail of emotions through my veins and into my brain. My gauntleted fist closes around the withering tentacle while I grab the silver-coated knife strapped to my chest and slice it across the thick strand of sinew. To my surprise and immense satisfaction, the now glowing silver was able to cut into the wraith's skin; it was still tough like cutting an overcooked steak with a dinner knife, but it cut!
All at once, the screaming stopped, and I heard a wet, meaty slap from above me. I risk a glance up to see the eye forcing its way through the endlessly spilling grey matter, slamming up and down and spinning in an effort to burrow through its own brain to look at me. "I really didn't need that image in my head before lunch." I groan out loud into the silence of my now broken workshop.
Not stratified by merely making eye contact with me while I continued to cut off a part of its body, the creature howled in defiance, twisting and wiggling in place. It took me a moment to realise it was properly flexible enough to pull itself out of the small holes where the force field didn't quite get far enough to cover its whole body.
"Ah shit, could you be a good little spirited demon creature wraith thing and let me take a sample? It's for science, honest." I yelled up, all the while sawing at the sample I hoped to take back with me. Perhaps it could sense that this so-called science would be done to help me kill and survive more of its kind, or maybe it just didn't like the fact I was sawing off one of its fucking limbs while it was caged like a rabid animal. Who could tell?
Despite wanting to keep a wary eye on the cute little death machine of bladed tentacles that I'm sure would have done great in the porn industry, I had to look back down to my furiously sawing hands to find the source of the disturbing sizzling noise coming from my knife. "Oh great, it has acid blood, why wouldn't it be able to destroy the only weapons that can hurt it?" I moan out as more of the toxic green sludge pours from the open wound, burning through the knife and eating away at my thick armoured hand.
By now, almost half of the containment field had dissipated, and the wraith was beginning to escape through the increasingly large number of holes forming. My knife was mostly ruined, with the few scraps of silver left barely glowing against the beast's skin, while the stainless steel base underneath was starting to look like Swiss cheese. I changed my grip on the withering tentacle so that the acidic blood poured onto the floor rather than clinging to my steel fist.
My only saving graces were that I was immune to the pungent fumes from the chemical reactions and that the horror film reject was trying to pull itself out of too many holes at once, not understanding that it was holding itself in place by trying to go in too many directions. 'At least having half of a brain isn't just for show.'
I saw frantically, trying to cut and rip off the rancid flesh, knowing this was my best chance to gain a sample of the increasingly numerous and aggressive monsters. If I wanted to make the most of my abilities, I would need to know how to deal with the risks that come with them, and if they wanted to eat me, it was only fair they offer up a bit of themselves in return.
Finally, the last of the fleshy cords fray away as what's left of the knife cuts through the pale strands, leaving me with a nearly indestructible cord of sinewy flesh and a very pissed off monster that had managed to mostly untangle itself from the sprung trap. Not wanting to stick around to flirt with my new playmate, I wave a quick mocking salute and press the mental trigger to jump back to the physical world in one piece, leaving the ever-toxic mist and wraith behind. With a burst of relieved hysterical laughter, I crash back down onto the sofa to rest my racing heart and inspect my hard-earned loot.
Or I would have if 04 didn't choose that exact moment to knock down the door, screaming like a jealous lover catching me nakedly entertaining guests on our wedding night. I was mildly surprised the fused door frame couldn't handle the might of the 5'6 undead man with blackened, wiggling veins under pale translucent skin, but I didn't have time to dwell on such matters. I had a scout to catch.
While my surprise allowed 04 to step into the room, he didn't make it far before I unhooked the modified duel chamber spray bottle from my hip, aimed in its general direction and pulled the trigger. Salt and miasma-infused water collide mid-air to create a faintly glowing force field, stopping 04 in its tracks. "I suppose all good things must come to an end, huh, Assistant Zero Four? Oh well, lets just just make this quick so I can get that fucking Bird, she better not use it to spy on me." With a final nod towards my trapped wayward guard dog, I draw my axe and step forward to put it out of its misery.
