004 -

The gun slips from his right hand. His grip on the edge of the cliff with his left hand also slips, and he falls with the dog still gnawing his hand with its wet teeth.

In panic, Thomas issues a specific command.

“Inventory! Box No. 2!”

It’s weird for him to issue such a command in that situation. But suddenly, a blue light appears in the air with some sparks of lightning, and a gun drops from it.

He grabs the gun, and points it so close at the dog’s belly. And then…

Bang, bang!!!

Two bullets are logged in the dog’s chest. They both fall into the river. Sadly, just like Thomas has worried before, his legs aren’t strong enough to help him to swim.

The strong current drives him downstream. Just by depending on his arms, he tries his best to get some air to breath.

After all the struggles, and once he manages to get his head to the surface, he sees the edge of a waterfall. It looks quite wild.

“Oh, God! Why do you hate me so much?”

Looking so resigned, he surrenders to his fate. In the end, he falls into the plunge pool, and disappears.

***

About several hundred meters from the waterfall…

Cough! Cough!!!

With heavy coughing, Thomas crawls toward the river bank. His head feels so light, but his legs are so heavy to move.

Once he reaches the river bank, he issues a specific command.

“Inventory!”

Soon, an interface window in the form of a blue hologram appears in front of him, a rectangular measuring 25 cm x 40 cm, with 40 small boxes in it.

All the boxes have icons of various kinds of objects, most of which are weapons and some tools for survival.

“Take out the items in the Box No. 8, No. 11, and No. 12!”

Out of nowhere, a blue light appears in front of him with some sparks of lightning. A box of red flares and first aid kid drops from it, along with a military knife.

He takes out a certain plastic bottle from the first aid kit, and pours a mysterious green liquid on the bite wound in his hand.

Csss!!! The bite wound sizzles as if exposed to an acid

Thomas groans enduring the pain. His breath is ragged, with his face pale, and his lips trembling from the cold.

He lights one of the flares, the only way he can think of to keep warm. Later, with legs he still can’t use, he crawls into the woods.

He continues to crawl, and crawls without a clear destination, until he finds an old cemetery.

“Oh, dear! Are you sending me to the devil now?”

The place looks deserted. It is almost dark soon, but it’s not going to deter him from entering the cemetery.

He is already like a zombie coming back from the world of the dead. And fortunately, he sees someone from afar.

“Wait! Is it really human? What is she doing in a place like this by herself?”

A ghost or not, he has to take the risk to approach that mysterious figure, hoping that she has a cell phone for him to borrow.

Yes, it is just a girl, and her face is freshly rosy to be considered a ghost. Looking like an office lady, she is currently wearing professional clothes, with white shirt under a blue suit and a thigh-length skirt.

Her brown thick hair is braided loosely, giving the impression of how hard her day was. Her deep blue eyes are sparkling, looking gloomy talking in front of her mother’s gravestone.

“It hasn't been a year since you left, but your husband has now started flirting with a woman. And I don’t like that woman. She is so annoying. I think she is only interested in dad’s money.”

“You’ve been here for months. I bet you've already made some connections with a few of the dead people here. Perhaps, one of them might be able to help me to...”

The girl suddenly turns silent. Weird sensations creeps the back of her neck. A breeze blows softly waving her hair as she feels the existence of something unusual.

She looks back, but doesn’t see anything or anyone.

“Moom? Is that you?”

She observes the woods behind her a bit more, until she averts her attention back to her mother’s gravestone. Right at that moment…

“Kyaaa!!!”

She is shocked by something crawling from behind her mother’s gravestone, and slams her purse on it while screaming in terror.

“No! Get away from me! Moom! Please! This is not what I’m asking for!”

“Hey! Calm down, would you?”

“No! Be gone!” The girl keeps hitting without the courage to open her eyes. “Go back to wherever you came from! I’m warning you, I can do an exorcism! You better not get any closer!”

“Oi! What’s wrong with you? I’m just a man!”

The girl opens her eyes, and immediately steps back out of fear.

“You lie! What kind of man are you, crawling out of the grave?”

It’s just Thomas, currently grimacing at the girl's ridiculousness. He looks baffled to find someone whose appearance look like a genuine metropolitan city girl, but her behavior is so rustic and superstitious like old-fashioned countryside woman.

He then climbs onto the girl’s mother’s grave, and lies there, looking so tired after everything he has gone through.

“Do you have a phone?” he asks.

“A phone?” the girl mumbles. “That’s right! I should call the police now!”

“Hold on! Wait! Not the police!”

Thomas crawls at her in a hectic way, making the girl so scared with his look. She steps back while rummaging her purse.

“I knew it! You must be a mountain bandit!”

“No, I’m not!”

“Then why are you so afraid of me calling the police?”

She takes out a phone. But sadly, she can’t make a call.

“My phone?”

Her phone has busted after she slammed her purse on Thomas earlier.

Thomas looks a bit awry. “Don’t tell me you can’t make a call!”

“You? It’s because of you!” The girl raises her purse, intending to slam it again at Thomas.

But then, she notices a knife in Thomas’ hand. Terrified, she gets away and accidentally steps her high heel on something.

“Kyaaa!”

She hits her hips on the ground. To make things even worse, she has just stepped on a snake, and…

“Aakh!”