After the rage had subsided, he could think a little. Zane quickly made his way back to the driver's side of the car and got in, locking the doors, twisting his neck trying to see everywhere at once. As he was doing this there was a loud, high-pitched Ding! sound, making Zane jump in his seat and smack his head on the ceiling of the car. He cursed, rubbing his head, as a glowing blue notification appeared in his vision.
[System Initialising]
Welcome, ZANE RIDER.
Congratulations
You have reached level 1.
System is still initialising for Earth
Current Stats
Strength: 6
Dexterity: 5
Constitution: 6
Intelligence: 4
Wisdom: 7
Charisma: 7
You are level 1, and you have obtained 3 XP(experience Points)
You have a Title
First Blood!
First to kill a Dungeon Defender on planet EARTH
(+1 to all Stats per level until level 10)
Please select where you would like to spend your 3 SP
Skills
Basic Item Appraisal
Zane blinked at the glowing screen in front of him, his brain still foggy from the adrenaline and pain in his leg. The car was quiet now, the only sound was his quickening breaths and the pulse thumping in his ears. He rubbed his eyes, half-expecting the screen to disappear, but it stayed there, hovering like some digital apparition.
Level 1? Dungeon Defender? This wasn’t real. It couldn't be.
But there it was.
He quickly scanned the stats, his head still spinning. Strength, Dexterity, Constitution... all these numbers meant something—something important. The question was: what did he do with them? His mind raced through possibilities.
The title “First to Kill a Dungeon Defender on Planet Earth” had to mean something, right? Zane ran the numbers in his head, trying to make sense of it all. Three points for leveling up, but the title granted him an extra 6 XP per level? That wasn’t too bad, considering everything that had just happened. He shook his head in disbelief.
Still, the real kicker was his stats. His Intelligence was sitting at a measly 4, and the realisation made him groan in frustration. “I can’t believe my Intelligence is only at level 4.” He rubbed the back of his neck, biting back a laugh. “No wonder it takes me forever to learn new things.”
But then his eyes drifted to his Wisdom stat, sitting at a solid 7.
“That’s the real reason,” he muttered to himself, tapping the steering wheel. “Wisdom is what keeps me from making dumb decisions… most of the time, anyway.”
He leaned back in the seat, glancing at the system screen once more, still in shock at how everything had changed so fast. “Well, at least with my Charisma and Wisdom both at 7, I always sound like I know what I’m talking about,” he said, adopting a mock-serious tone. “It’s like having a PhD in Bullshitting.”
The laugh that followed was cut short by a sudden throb of pain from his leg. Zane winced, his hand instinctively reaching down to the wound. His pulse hammered in his ears as he thought, Yeah, shit, that’s not a good wound.
His leg was already stiffening, the blood staining his pants and making his foot feel like it was sinking in a puddle of lead. He needed to act fast.
Then, a thought struck him like a jolt of electricity. Constitution, he mused. That’s what makes you harder to hurt and quicker to heal? well in the old D&D games it does.
He glanced back at the glowing system interface, his fingers twitching above the screen.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“Well, shit. Might as well give it a go,” he muttered, tapping on the Constitution stat. The system accepted his choice, and the small number next to it ticked up.
Zane could almost feel the change as soon as he confirmed it, a slight warmth spreading through his body. His vision sharpened, his pulse steadied, and the pain from his leg seemed a little less overwhelming, though still present.
It was a start.
The floating blue text now reads.
ZANE RIDER
Titles
First Blood!
First to kill a Dungeon Defender on planet EARTH
Skills
Basic Item Appraisal
level 1.
Current Stats
Strength: 7
Dexterity: 6
Constitution: 10
Intelligence: 5
Wisdom: 8
Charisma: 8
Zane sat in shock and mild pain in the driver’s seat of his vehicle, staring at the message floating in his vision, waiting for it to disappear.
It didn’t.
The silence in the truck pressed down on him like a weight, broken only by his own ragged breathing.
“Well, shit... now what?” he muttered just to hear human words. Hearing his voice calmed him down a bit, so he decided to keep talking out loud.
“I could just finish driving home and deal with it there…”
Quickly followed by another emphatic: “No! I can’t see shit with this crap in my face.”
And so, he started what would turn out to be one of the weirdest conversations he’d ever had with himself.
“Close. Minimize. Diminish. Curtail. Abate. Exit. Egress. DISMISS! Fucking shutdown!” he finished with a shout.
Nothing happened. The floating blue text remained.
With a frustrated pant and a huff, Zane muttered, “Wait... do I even know all those words I just said?”
It was all too much. With a defeated shoulder slump, he thought at the stupid blue words, “Just close, would you?”
A subtle “bop” noise sounded, and—miraculously—the words vanished.
The next thought! “Shit, how do I get them back?!”
After much experimenting, Zane discovered he could open, close, and even rearrange the text just by thinking directly at it.
He spent a bit of time fiddling with it, eventually shrinking the text down and moving it to the top right corner of his vision. That way, even if it popped back up while he was busy, he’d still be able to see it without it blocking his view.
With one last glance out of all the car windows, Zane checked to see if anything else had decided to surprise him. As far as he could see in the dark, there was nothing. Satisfied, he spent some time tying his jacket around the wound in his left leg. There did not seem to be as much blood in his seat as he thought there should be. With a prayer to no God in particular, he started the car, the familiar hum of the diesel engine a comforting sound in the quiet night.
Zane drove home slowly, his movements deliberate and weary. As he pulled up beneath his house, a rare sense of gratitude washed over him. He had cursed the local council many times for forcing them to rebuild after the floods twelve years ago, but sitting there now, he was thankful for their insistence on the Queenslander-style design.
The house, raised four meters off the ground on sturdy wooden stilts, had proven its worth. Not only did it keep their home and belongings safe when the river swelled, but it also kept the snakes out and allowed the cool valley breeze to sweep through.
After swinging open the door, Zane practically fell out of his Ute. With a weary smile and a slight limp, he circled the building, already scheming on how to keep those little green shits out of his home.
After limping up the stairs, Zane attempted to check the house for any intruders, only to realise there was no power-meaning no lights.
with much swearing and fumbling through the pantry, Zane finally found some candles and matches. The flickering glow cast shifting shadows across the room as he carefully searched the house for anything out of place.
His breath caught when he spotted bloody footprints in the hallway. Panic surged through him, his heart hammering as his mind raced through worst-case scenarios—until, after a long, agonising moment, realisation dawned.
They were his bloody footprints. His leg was still bleeding.
Exhaling shakily, he pressed a hand to his face, forcing himself to calm down. Aside from the power outage and his own trail of blood, everything seemed fine.
Exhausted and on the brink of dehydration, he made his way to the kitchen sink, eager for a drink. He turned the tap, and nothing.
Slap!
With a dramatic smack to his forehead, Zane muttered to no one in particular, “Of course the water pump needs power! Dahh!”
With a wobble to his steps Zane made his way to the fridge, after opening the door he just stood there. . . waiting for the fridge light to come on.
After what felt like a small forever his brain finally put it together “The powers out!”
He turned back to the bench, picked up the candle, and brought it closer to the fridge. The faint glow illuminated the contents inside.
“Why is it so hard to think? What is wrong with me?” passed through his consciousness like mud making its way through a sieve
No answer came.
On the top shelf, a three-litre bottle of milk sat untouched. His hand was halfway to grabbing it when another sluggish thought formed: “It’s warm. It’s off. Drinking it will make you sick.”
Zane froze, arm still outstretched, face twisted in devastation. His knees buckled, and he slumped to the floor aggravating the wound in his leg, and knocking over a stack of leftover containers. One burst open, spilling thick pumpkin soup across the tiles.
He didn’t notice.
Because his eyes had locked onto something else—on the bottom shelf of the fridge door, untouched and perfect, sat a full bottle of Coke.
With what felt like unwavering concentration, Zane slowly and carefully reached for the two-litre bottle of Coke. His fingers wrapped around the cool plastic, and he exhaled in relief as he successfully pulled it from the fridge door without dropping it.
Slumping back against the fridge shelf, he twisted off the cap and, using both hands, lifted the bottle to his lips. The first mouthful hit his tongue, and an almost primal satisfaction coursed through him. It was the best thing he had ever tasted—better than any meal he could remember. His body craved more. A lot more. . .
With a god-almighty belch, Zane let the empty plastic bottle slip from his fingers, his thoughts beginning to sharpen, quickening like a sluggish engine finally sputtering to life.
Bracing a hand against the floor to steady himself, he pushed to stand—only for his palm to slide through something warm and slick. A slow, squelching sensation spread through his fingers as he realized, too late, that he’d landed in the spilled pumpkin soup. His upper body tilted, his balance lost in slow motion until his head came to rest against his outstretched arm.
A quiet burp escaped his lips.
As he lay there on his side, the pool of pumpkin soup beneath him darkened, streaked with red as blood seeping through his makeshift bandage—the jacket tied tightly around his wounded leg.
His breath slowed. His body grew heavy.
His mind simply... stopped.
Darkness swallowed him whole.
