Chương 20: The First Victory

Lloyd spun around sharply. And right in front of his face was that same corpse. Or rather — a living corpse. It came at Lloyd in silence, without a sound, without warning — simply emerged from the darkness and hit him with its full weight. Lloyd had no time to dodge or raise the knife — he simply felt the impact in his chest and lost his balance. They both crashed into the green sludge — heavily, with a loud splash that echoed through the entire tunnel. Sludge got into his mouth, his eyes, his nose.

Lloyd choked for a second — from the impact, from the smell, from the dark rotten mass forcing its way in everywhere.

"What the hell is this." The living corpse pressed down on top of him. Lloyd saw the face — that same face with the empty eye sockets, only now it was right up against his own. From the slightly open mouth trailed green mass. Teeth — yellow, darkened, crumbling at the edges — snapped centimetres from his neck.

The living corpse reached for him with everything it had, with everything that remained of it — with a dull, mechanical persistence, without malice, without emotion, simply like a machine executing its only programme. Lloyd pressed his hands against the creature's chest and pushed — with everything he had, feeling his fingers sink into something soft and rotten. The sludge beneath them gave no traction, offered nothing to push against. Slippery. Everything was slippery.

The smell — already unbearable — became ten times worse at this distance. Lloyd breathed through his mouth, trying not to think about what exactly his hands were touching.

"This is just a rotted corpse. Where does it get this strength if the muscles have rotted away." Teeth snapped right at his ear — so close that Lloyd felt the movement of air. He twisted to the side, lost a little more ground. Sludge crept under his collar, into his sleeves, everywhere. Then he gathered everything he had left — the last of what his strength could give — and pushed. Sharply, with a shout, putting his whole body into it. The living corpse flew back — for a second, just one second. One second.

Lloyd didn't think. His hand plunged into the sludge — where he roughly remembered the knife should be, dropped during the fall. His fingers found the handle — cold, slippery, but familiar. He gripped it and wrenched the knife from the sludge at the exact moment the corpse's head came driving toward his neck again. Lloyd drove the knife into the rotted neck. The corpse froze for a second. Literally one second — as though something inside it had stumbled, lost its rhythm. And then it continued.

The teeth reached forward again. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. Lloyd struck again. At the neck. At the face. At the neck again. He was shouting — not words, just sound, the sound that tears itself out when fear and fury mix into one thing. The knife went in and came out again, again, again. The green mass — the thing that served as the corpse's blood — sprayed in all directions, hitting his face, his jacket, his hair. Lloyd didn't stop. Couldn't stop.

Simply struck — over and over, until his arms began to burn from the effort and until the tunnel around him filled with nothing but that sound — dull impacts and his own shouting. And then — at some point — the living corpse stopped resisting. Simply stopped. Went limp. Became what it should have been from the very beginning — dead, motionless, heavy. Lloyd continued for a few more seconds out of momentum — then realised and stopped. He breathed heavily, with difficulty, gulping air through his mouth.

His hands were shaking. The knife was still clenched in his fist. His chest burned from the exertion. There was a ringing in his ears — not external, but internal, the kind that comes when adrenaline begins to recede and the body starts to register what has just happened. He shoved the body to the side and sat down right in the sludge. There was no strength left to stand. He simply sat. His entire face was smeared with green mass. His jacket, his hair, his hands — everything. It didn't bother him. Not at all.

On his face was shock — quiet, deafening shock of a person who had just realised they had survived. One second would have been enough. One — and Lloyd would have already joined this creature. Or perhaps repeated its fate — sitting against the wall in green sludge with empty eye sockets, while whoever came next walked past. The tunnel around him was silent. The green crystals glowed steadily and coldly, as though nothing had happened.

The sludge slowly returned to its usual state — the spreading circles from the struggle calmed, the surface levelled out. Somewhere in the darkness water dripped — methodically, indifferently, as though nothing had happened. As though it had always been this way here. As though the tunnel simply didn't care. Lloyd stared at the corpse for a few seconds. Then poked it with the knife — carefully, without unnecessary effort. Just to make sure. The corpse didn't react. No signs of life. None at all.

He wiped the green mass from his face with the back of his hand — a pointless gesture, his hand was just as filthy — and looked at what remained of the living corpse. Its face now had not a single undamaged spot. It looked even worse than before — though it was hard to imagine how that was possible. Lloyd got up. Slowly, with effort, leaning a hand against the slimy wall. Opened his backpack and took out a bottle of water — began washing the green mass from his face and hair, carefully, methodically.

The water ran out quickly, but he kept going anyway, until things were at least slightly better.

"What in the hell was that? Looks like I got the worst possible scenario for a green category dungeon." He smiled — crookedly, tiredly.

"Hah. My luck never lets me down." Zipped up the backpack. Glanced back at the corpse one last time.

"And that's it? Surely some message will come saying I killed a monster. Or at least some kind of reward." Lloyd sighed.

"The feeling that this was all for nothing." He checked himself over one more time — felt his neck, his arms, his sides. Nothing had caught him anywhere. Lucky. Swung the backpack onto his shoulders, gripped the knife a little tighter and moved on along the tunnel. Green crystals lit up ahead — one after another, indifferently and methodically. The sludge squelched underfoot. The tunnel stretched forward — just as dark, just as damp, just as utterly indifferent to everything that had just happened here.

The walls hadn't changed. The smell hadn't changed. Nothing had changed. Only Lloyd had changed. Slightly. Just a little.