1 Waking up is never easy (1/2)
Morning is for most people a time to welcome a new day in their beds with a casual yawn while opening their eyes and realizing there is another routine day in front of them.
Unless it was a weekend or a holiday that is the truth for most adults. They are happy to wake up until reality kicks in. The gloomines of reality is usually offset by the hectic workday which leaves little time to contemplate about the meaning of life or how you got at this point of your life. Those that are unhappy and still manage to contemplate on such topics usually also end their life sooner than those who don't.
For the protagonist of this story his morning began in an idyllic forest with lush tall trees over 50 meters tall. Birds chirping, bunnies hopping, deers prancing forest of fairy tales.
With the nearby brook's gentle sound of flowing water you could almost hear Edvard Grieg's Morning mood.
As our main character opened his eyes though he was not welcomed by the sound of a flute instead the buzzing of flies and screeching of two crows that were fighting for the rights of devouring the eyes of the corpse that was on top of him.
As he pushed himself from under the corpse the metallic scent of blood became more apparent mixed with the smell of broken intestines that left their home. The crows hastily retreated to a safe distance as their breakfast suddenly came back from the dead and wearily observed from tree branches a few meters away.
The corpse was quite heavy and our hero needed a lot of time to pull himself away from under it. His movements made the smells more prominent and he was retching even before he could crawl out. He finally managed to grab a tree root and pulled his legs from under the bloody corpse.
While breathing heavily he stood up and looked around. He saw then that this was not the only corpse. There were corpses all around him circling a depression in the ground which looked like a bomb exploded in it.
As he came to his senses a pain shot trough his jaw. He gritted his teeth but that only made the pain worse. Touching the right side of his face he noticed the swelling. He could not open his jaw for more than a few millimeters before pain assaulted him and shooting towards his brain like the worst headache imaginable. He gently used his tongue to check his teeth and they were the same number on both sides.
'Where am I? Who am I?' He yelled in his mind as he grabbed the sides of his head pulled on his hair with both hands.
He looked towards the nearest corpse and even with the face being in somewhat decent condition it looked completely unfamiliar to him. The man looked to be around forty years old with a crooked nose, wild long dirty brown shoulder length hair and thick lips.
He looked at this man's attire next and it was some kind of leather armour, with leather pants and shoes. He looked down on himself and other than the rusty dark red bloodstains his clothes were grey. He had a grey short sleeved top with grey pants both of which didn't even have hems on the openings and were crudely made. A string ran trough some holes in his pants that was tied in front was responsible for holding his pants up. He didn't even have shoes and by the amount of callouses on his feet he was probably always barefooted. He touched his crutch and noticed he was going commando. He didn't have any underwear on him.
On the right side of the body he suddenly noticed a sword.
'The man must have dropped it when the bomb exploded.', he thought as he noticed an empty scabbard on the man's hip.
As he reached for the sword and was about to take it into his arms it suddenly flashed with a green overlay. He didn't get startled by the green overlay but by the fact that after that happening the sword disappeared.
He looked around but there was no one to be found anywhere. While doing so he found some more weapons around the corpses. As he was trying to pick up another sword he moved slowly and when it flashed green again he saw a line of text on top of his vision.
It read: ”Place in inventory. (Y/N).”
This time the sword stayed in place as he contemplated. As soon as he reached the conclusion of yes in his mind the sword disappeared.
He was taken aback with what happened and looked around as if looking for someone who was pranking him.
As there was no one he soon calmed down.
He thought about what this inventory might be and a transparent grid menu surrounded him all of a sudden. All but two spaces that occupied the two swords were empty squares.
As he focused on the first slot occupying a sword the sword popped out. From a small image it enlarged itself to occupy half of his whole viewpoint. The other half had the sword's description.
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Item name: Common iron one-handed sword
Quality: Low
Durability: 9/10
Damage: 1-4
Special effects: none
Description: An iron sword product of a novice blacksmith.
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He looked through the description and somehow managed to close it although unsure how.
Checking the other one he saw.
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Item name: Common iron one-handed sword
Quality: Low
Durability: 7/10
Damage: 1-3
Special effects: none
Description: An iron sword product of a novice blacksmith.
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It was almost the same only a bit more worn out and had a duller edge. As he was looking at it he noticed an equip option popping up after a few seconds of his gaze being in one place.
He thought equip and suddenly he could feel the sword in his right hand and it plopped on the ground tip down while he still held the handle. He thought about how to close the inventory and it went away.
The sword in his hand felt heavy. Although it was specified as one handed he needed to use both hands to lift and swing it.
He gave it a couple of random swings out of desperation and anger of not understanding anything about his situation, which looked more like someone swinging a stick, before he felt out of breath and fell down on his behind gasping for air.
He let go of the sword and returned it to his inventory. As he looked at the scene around him he pressed his hands on his forehead and supported them on his knees.