Chương 3: Miracle Medicine

The white and blue chamber, made to resemble the feeling of playing in an open playground, vanished behind me. Boots clacked. Hanz shouted, and I ran. Being a district champion in sprinting had its perks. I entered the hallways identical to the ones from before. Soon I reached a crossroad and chose left, for no particular reason. After running for a minute, it was another junction. I chose left again.

I kept encountering more junctions one after another and chose random directions to make as much distance between us as possible. I did not stop until I was unable to run anymore. I breathed heavily, hands on my knees. I was covered in sweat, missing my air conditioner at home. I could not hear any more steps or Hanz spitting curses at me. I looked around, and it was the same hallway but missing the heavy iron doors.

You unlocked a new area Maze After being intruded by the cult that wanted to steal their creations, they decided to put some defences up. As a result, a maze was created. Recorded in the Akashic system in the year 13495. Fuck I took out my watch and snapped it open. 19: 13"Whoa, I ran for a solid forty minutes. Now, where am I?" I took out a piece of paper from my fanny pack, sweat dropped on its surface, eroding it a bit. I unfolded it five times before it opened up in its entirety.

It was a map I got from the riftpedia, marked with several legends on my own.

"So, I went left then left again then... I am lost." The rift I am currently in is called Life's Last Hope. Opened fifteen years ago, five years after the first rift opened, it was something completely new from the rifts seen before. We had no information on the creatures inside as they did not match any of our folklore, which all the rifts that time were based upon. But that was not the biggest threat; it was this maze. This gave the rift its silver rank. So, why was it later reclassified as a copper rank rift?

Because you did not have to do a thing to clear the maze. You just had to stay in one place. People used to grow paranoid and moved constantly, trying to find a way out, which they did after a week of constant movement. But you don't have to do a thing to actually clear it. I sat on the cold floor, leaning against the wall and waited for my escape ticket to arrive. My leg throbbed. Painkillers numbed the pain when I was running, but it had started to hurt again.

The hardened blood had broken apart, and the bleeding had started again, making a pattern of red on my jeans. Worst thing, I dropped the painkillers while running, and it hurt like hell.

"Fuck," I cursed at Hanz and my luck. With no choice, I waited, fighting the pain to stay conscious. It was 22: 03 when it finally arrived.

"Lalalala," Someone sang. The sound grew closer every second.

"Lalala," The pain had stopped bothering a long time ago, but I had lost a lot of blood, which was making me dizzy right now. I forced myself straight back up. Don't know since when I have been lying on the ground like a drunkard on the footpath. The sound grew closer, and I was finally able to see the person singing. It was a kid, around seven or eight years old. Black hair in two little pigtails, clutching a teddy bear with a missing eye. She was my escape ticket. My guide, which will take me out of this maze.

"Lalalala," She stopped right before me. This close, I could see her even better. Pyiari A girl who lives in Life's Last Hope's labs. They help her survive her illness. She likes to sneak out at night and stroll the facility. Recorded in the Akashic system in the year 13502 If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. Her cheeks were hollow, her hands bony with lots of injection marks.

Her eyes were tired but full of life, but when she saw me, they changed. She got scared.

"Um.. ahh…I was going to the toilet, I wasn't strolling. I swear."

"Don't worry Pyiari, I am not one of the doctors." Her eyes softened a bit, then brightened up, regaining the life they had before.

"Really, then you won't tell them that I was strolling outside at night? Not that I was doing it."

"Yeah, I won't."

"Yay!" She jumped up.

"Thank you, mister." She made a small celebration, then asked, "But what are you doing here?"

"I got lost,""Oh, good thing you encountered me. I can help you. I know every route."

"Thanks," I pushed against the wall and tried to get up, but my right thigh hurt so much that I almost fell, but caught myself using the wall.

"That's a nasty wound, mister. Will you be able to walk?"

"Yeah, I think so," A clear lie, I struggled to even stand straight.

"Mister, if you can walk for five minutes, I can take you to the lab. There are many medicines; something might be of help to you." Huh? What? This was never mentioned in the wiki. It wasn't in her script. Pyiari is a resident of the rift, or as we call them, an NPC. They work exactly as NPCs do in video games, following a set script. Her script is to take those who are lost in the maze out of here.

If I had answered her question with 'yes, I will tell the doctors', then she would have run so fast that no one has ever managed to capture her. Then, stranded in the maze, I had to find my way out on my own. But this is different. She has never offered to take anyone to this lab, even when a person was on death's bed; she never offered to take them to this lab, she just spoke of. What did I do differently?

"Thanks, I think I can manage that." With great effort and using the wall as a support, I managed to stand straight. Dumping all my weight onto my left leg, I hopped.

"Great, follow me," she said, pointing forward. It was not five minutes at all; it would have been if I were able to walk properly. It took us twenty minutes, but we were finally there. Pharmacy Life's Last Hope is a pharmaceutical corporation offering the best medicines in the world. This pharmacy has all of its medicines, tested and untested, approved and banned. All of them. Recorded in the Akashic system in the year 13455"Mister," Pyiari said in a low voice.

It was hard to focus because of the blood loss, making the already low voice even lower for my ears.

"Mr. Orand will be inside. If he catches us, it would be bad. So, don't make any noise." Not having any energy to answer, I gave a nod. The door to the infirmary was a sliding one. Pyiari slid it open without a sound. Inside was mostly dark; only pale white lights illuminated the room in specific areas. It was filled with rows and rows of shelves, each with many cabinets. It looked like any typical pharmacy until I looked at the abomination sitting at the reception desk.

Orand the Opportunist Orand never let go of any opportunity he got. So, when he was given the opportunity to take the miracle drug and live for all eternity, he took it without a second thought. Recorded in the Akashic system in the year 13677 Its skin was covered with black sludge, which had dried off, and it had a disfigured body. Arms in the wrong direction, lower jaw missing, belly bulging out. It was so grotesque that I felt like puking, yet Pyiari was alright. The abomination not bothering her at all.

"He is sleeping," she said.

"Let's just find the medicine." We looked through the various shelves and cabinets, the medicines there were out of the world. Just reading their descriptions left me shocked. Whale's Salvate Named after the scientist Lenlin Whale. His brother bled to death; from that day on, he dedicated his life to finding a medicine that could close any kind of cut, no matter how deep.

Recorded in the Akashic system in the year 13396"Looks like this will work," I said, to which Pyiari looked back at me, then at the small bottle in my hand.

"Oh, I know this one, one of the kids was cut once, they fixed him by using this. This will easily fix your wound." How she said that the kid was cut once and was then fixed was a bit concerning, but at least I got what I was looking for. My blue jeans had gone completely red near the wound now. The blood had turned solid. I sat on the ground, leaning against the shelf and twisted the bottle open.

"Here," Pyiari passed me her teddy.

"Bite on Teddy's arm, I don't want you to scream and wake Mr. Orand up." How bad would it hurt? I took the teddy and bit its teddy arm and poured the salvate on the wound. It hurt, fucking too much. It felt like someone poured melting iron directly into it. If I weren't biting at the teddy, my scream would have surely woken Orand up. It kept hurting for a whole minute. My eyes were full of water, and the teddy had teeth marks now. Pyiari was more concerned about her teddy than me. At least the wound was gone.

Even the solid blood on my skin was gone. The wound was completely closed, as if it had never been there.

"This is insane,""Congrats, mister, you are healed now."

"Thank you, Pyiari." More than my own condition, I am fascinated by the medicines here. If I could take some out and sell them, I would be able to afford silver or even gold cards and go to higher ranked rifts. My hands reached for the shelves on their own.

"Don't do it, mister." I turned to look at Pyiari. She was clutching her teddy a little too hard.

"If you are thinking of taking medicines out of here, please don't. They will not be able to know if one medicine is missing, but if you were to take multiple, they will know. And when they come to interrogate, they are never nice." She was scared, not that fake scared that she was when she mistook me for a doctor, but genuinely scared. As if she had been interrogated before, and it wasn't a pleasant experience for her. I looked at the cabinets once again.

Surely they won't know if one more medicine is missing, right? Then I looked back at Pyiari and couldn't make myself take it. Even if people say that NPCs aren't real people. I was never able to bring myself to believe the same.

"Okay, I won't." I turned back to look where Orand was sitting, but couldn't find him.

"Looks like Mr. Orand woke up," Pyiari said.

"It would be bad if he catches us." My damn luck.