Down the Rabbit Hole

“Fuck!” John screamed as he began pacing back and forth while talking to himself. “None of this makes any sense. The day I awaken with magic powers, Meadow disappears, and magic seems to have something to do with it.”

‘Today started out so awesome. Why did something need to put a dampener on my excitement?’ He slumped against the wall and stared at the distortion lost in thought. ‘It should have all been simple. I rush over to Meadow’s because I spent the last of my money on a game. Then she mocks me in some way, probably calling me immature.’ A light chuckle came out as the scene played out in his mind. ‘After school I come back over to tell her about these powers and we run experiments together.’

He pushed himself up and started to walk toward the closet. ‘I don’t have any time for “what ifs”. I came into the house after expressly being told not to.’ John slowly extended his hand toward the barrier. ‘I need to look at everything from a gamer’s perspective entirely. A quest came up when I wanted to check the house. From the terms of the quest, it should have been completed once I cleared this room. Instead, I find this barrier here. I probably need to check out this barrier to complete the quest. Hopefully, this leads me to Meadow or at least gives me some clue to her whereabouts.’ He stopped hesitating and touched the barrier.

New Skill unlocked: Enter/Exit Barrier
This skill can be used to enter or exit barriers.

The notification came up as he looked around. ‘Did it work?’ He doubted himself for a moment, everything seemed the same. When he took a step forward, he felt something beneath his foot and looked down; lying on the floor were some spent bullet casings and a pistol. He jumped back to get a clear view. ‘Those weren’t there a second ago. This must be inside the barrier.’ Observe revealed nothing out of the ordinary about the items. ‘Did Meadow come in here to use her mother’s gun to defend herself?’ She showed him Ruth’s gun once when they were younger; he was mad at Meadow because they were both punished severely for touching the weapon even though he never did.

“Meadow, are you in here?” A shuffling sound could be heard downstairs. Nervously he descended the staircase, hoping to find something once he arrived at the sound's point of origin. ’Those sounds seem to be coming from the kitchen,’ he assumed as he proceeded toward the room while taking in his environment every step of the way. He was a bit confused when he noticed the barrier’s living room was completely untouched compared to the one in reality. Thoughts of the discrepancy were pushed to the back of his mind as he entered the kitchen.

Before him were five weird looking rabbits. The creatures had white fur, their eyes had a light blue glow to them, and each of them had giant, razor-sharp buck teeth and a large mouth to accommodate them. It seemed like the creatures were devouring the room itself. John quickly used Observe on one of the rabbits.

Scavenger Rabbit
Level 4
Hungry

‘Yay, hungry rabbits, this seems like it’ll be a nuisance.’ It was at that moment he locked eyes with one of the creatures. It seemed to be sizing him up. Suddenly the creature lunged at him. He fell backward trying to avoid it. An intense, searing pain hit him like a ton of bricks. “Ouch!” he yelled. John opened his eyes and saw the feral creature’s blood soaked teeth digging into his right shoulder; it was making a slurping sound. “Get off!” Awkwardly he swatted the creature away with his left hand. Even though his blow was weak, it sent the small creature headfirst into the nearby wall.

He noticed some numbers at the bottom of his vision. The attack from the rabbit had cost him 5 HP and sucked 2 HP/MP from him twice. ‘I already lost a fifth of my health from that one attack, and that thing seriously drained my MP as well.’ He had hurt the rabbit for 8 HP. ’At least I know I can hurt it, but there are five of them in total, so they’ll drain my HP quickly if I don’t do something.’

A shrill scream came from the rabbit he’d knocked off himself, his fresh blood leaking out of its mouth. As John pushed himself up, he noticed there were now ten glowing blue eyes staring at him. All five rabbits lunged at him together. His throbbing shoulder was a reminder of how the teeth of the feral beast easily dug into his skin. He crossed his arms in front of his face to protect himself, subconsciously hoping this would prevent the rabbits from harming him.

New Skill unlocked: Steel Skin 20 MP
Hardens your skin, making you more durable and increasing the damage of physical attacks using your body.
Duration 30 seconds
Cooldown 2 minutes

He felt a weird sensation similar to light pinches all over as the rabbits gnawed and scratched him. Nothing was penetrating his skin, but each attack was still dealing minuscule damage. The creatures whittled away 10 HP from him in the 4 seconds since they had pounced on him. ‘Yes, I’m alive. I need to hurry while the skill is active. If I don’t retaliate, these things will kill me.’

He decisively slammed his right arm that had a creature gnawing on its wrist into the wall beside him. The creatures, while deadly, still had the physique of a rabbit, making them incredibly frail when pitted against a human, even one as weak as John. The **** caused his wrist to rip through the mouth of the creature, its blood splashing all along his arm as it dropped lifelessly onto the floor. He ignored the notification that popped up along with the damage numbers to focus on survival.

John jumped back a step to separate himself from the remaining rabbits, and three of them were dislodged from his body while one of them held firm with its teeth wrapped around his left leg. He slammed his other foot as hard as possible onto the head of that rabbit, smashing it in. Blood and brain matter stuck to his shoe.

Two of the rabbits lunged at him simultaneously from the front and back. He successfully knocked the one from the front away from him. The other rabbit clung to his back while failing to bite into his neck. He was reaching behind himself to try and remove the creature from his back. Suddenly, his vision was blocked as a rabbit took advantage of his distraction to pounce onto him. The creature was wildly scratching all over his face when a nail connected with one of his eyes. “Fuck!” he screamed out as the **** pain caused him to shut his eyes and violently jerk backward, falling on the rabbit that clung onto his back, killing it.

John balled both hands into fists and slammed them together on the rabbit that was on his face. The creature spit up blood all over his face. “Yuck!” He heaved at the sight of the disgusting innards as he wiped them off with his left sleeve. He looked around for the remaining rabbit as he stood up, quickly finding it getting up from where he had just swatted it to during its last attack. John jumped toward the creature and kicked it as hard as he could into the nearest wall. The rabbit's body wiggled a few times before it broke down into white particles, leaving behind a pile of money. All signs of the rabbit bodies vanished, even the blood and guts that were on him and his clothes.

"At least I'm compensated for fighting with killer rabbits for my life!" He shouted the last word while catching his breath. He stared at his remaining 9 HP. ``I can't believe I survived.' His adrenaline finally waned as he looked to see what the other rabbits had dropped for him. There were four more piles of cash, one of which had a knife with an ugly blade shaped like the creatures’ buck teeth. He collected the money and knife while he checked his notifications.

Achievement unlocked: First Blood!
Kill in the Abyss for the first time.
Reward 50 Exp

Achievement unlocked: First battle
Survive your first combat situation.
Reward 100 Exp

When he saw his money increase by $95, his adrenaline waned and he was reminded why he came here in the first place. ‘Meadow couldn’t have survived here with those things.’ John started to frantically search the house for a second time. Once he reached the gaming room, two new notifications appeared.

Quest Complete: A friend in need
Reward 150 Exp

Level up
+5 Stat points