[POV: David Wilson]

 

David took a quick step back from the window and felt his breathing going wild. Leaning against the wall, he let himself slide down it. He was taking in heaving breaths, as he struggled to control his asthma. Through his panic, a voice cut through his panic like a hot knife through butter.

 

“The undead are most commonly formed under the new moon. When the sun's purifying rays are unable to obstruct it, it shines invisible mana over Edea. This is what causes the soul fire to ignite in corpses.” The voice explained calmly.

 

David instantly felt his breath catch, as if he was being strangled and his eyes began to madly dart around the room. He had just heard the voice of the Machine Lord. For 30 years the man conducted one experiment after another. It was more horrifying than any movie or story he had ever experienced. The fear he had of the Machine Lord was almost carved into his very DNA. Seeing that the room was empty, he was finally able to breathe again.

 

“Walking Corpses have none of the intelligence that the original bodies had, they need to evolve several times for that to happen.” The Machine Lord continued. “They have a very weak sense of smell and sight, but they can detect the living if they are close enough. They mainly hunt by sound, staying quiet is important.”

 

David heard his voice again as if the man was standing right in front of him. This caused David to hold his breath, as his heart began to rapidly beat. A cold sweat began to trickle from his brows.

 

Thud... Thud... Thud...

 

Looking up David saw a large shadow pass in front of the door to his room. Then it suddenly paused just as it went past. David immediately lunged under the metal bed frame, moving close to the wall. David felt all of the hairs on his body start to stand up, he could hear a rasping sound coming from the other side of the wall as if it was scratching.

 

Thud... Thud... Thud...

 

As soon as he heard it continuing down the hallway, he breathed a sigh of relief.

 

“I need to get out of here.” David muttered this quietly.

 

Rolling from under the cot, he once again inspected the room. There was a set of drawers on one side of the room it looked like he had been in some closed hospital ward or an asylum. Every drawer was locked but David discovered that by interacting with it, he was able to understand the mechanism that held the drawers closed. There was a lock near the top that controlled a steel bar that blocked all of the drawers from moving.

 

“It has a flaw...” David muttered as he saw an issue with the lock.

 

David began looking around the room for anything he could use, his eyes traveled to the light on the ceiling. Looking outside, it was currently midday, so the undead would be weakened by the sunlight. Looking back to the light, he began to climb onto his cot. Reaching up, he began to inspect the covered ballast. Around the edge, he managed to find a loose clip and pull it from the ballast. The clip was a thin piece of metal that was half as wide as his little finger and just as long.

 

I don't know what is going on, but I can't afford to stay here and figure it out here!

 

David took a few deep breaths to steady out his beating heart and closed his eyes and meditated for a few seconds. While in this state, he noticed a weird sensation in his body, but he brushed it off as he felt more centered. Looking back up at the light, he carefully pulled open the plastic cover, reaching over and recovering a second clip that was much thinner than the first.

 

Perfect!

 

David took his hands away from the lighting fixture, letting the plastic shade hang by the hinges. It wouldn't be able to be closed without the pin in his hand. Using the thinner of the two pieces of metal, he began to put a wobbly pattern using the wire. It now looked like a snake that was moving instead of a thin metal wire.

 

Let's see if this works.

 

The information for lock picking was already streaming into his head, it felt like he had picked thousands of locks in his spare time.

 

“I was always obsessed with secrets, and those are often locked away.” The Machine Lord's voice lamented. “If it can be closed, it can also be opened again. This makes locks very boring and predictable.”

 

David had no idea if he was hearing the Machine Lord's thoughts, feelings, or memories. It didn't make any sense to him, nothing in the information he received from the Machine Lord had anything like this. It didn't feel like he was being answered, but more like triggering recorded messages, or memories.

 

Is this another one of his twisted experiments?

 

Hundreds of questions were flashing through his mind, and he could feel his breathing picking up. He immediately closed his eyes again and slowed his breathing. After a few moments, a determined expression appeared on his face, and he approached the lock. Looking at the lock he took the thicker piece of metal and added a bend to it.

 

The bigger piece of metal would be used to add tension to the lock, then he would use the wavy piece to pick it. A lock was always tubular and used pins to keep it from turning. These pins had cuts separating them into two parts, and the key raised these pins to the correct position that the pins were able to separate into two parts and allow the cylinder to turn. Normally these pins had all kinds of different machining done so they would get stuck if you moved them wrong when picking.

 

There is no way this should work in a lock used in a hospital!

 

Using the tension tool, he fit it into the top of the keyway and began to apply firm pressure to it. David then inserted the wavy piece of metal into the keyway and began raking it backward and forwards into the lock. The pins kept clicking, but nothing was happening.

 

I was right, there was no way thi-Click! What the fuck!

 

David felt his mouth drop open, and he had to struggle not to drop his pick or tension tool.

 

A lock can be opened this easily?

 

David had wanted to prosecute criminals ever since he was a child, his favorite characters were always attorneys. This had started with his father's love of crime scene investigation shows. His parents had been very strict in his upbringing, so he was only allowed to watch what his father did. This confirmed that the information in his head was real, lock picking was something that he had no idea how to perform before awakening here.

 

Opening the lock fully, he opened the first drawer. What he saw was a valuable treasure to him.

 

“Inhalers!” He whispered happily.

 

These were all medications that were required for him as a patient. There were two main medications prescribed for Asthma, Albuterol, and Levalbuterol, David had no idea what the difference was between them. Grabbing the two boxes of inhalers, he pulled them both out of the packaging then realized he had no pockets in his current attire. David tossed the empty boxes onto the ground and placed the precious inhalers onto the countertop.

 

The rest of it is over-the-counter pills, I can't afford to have this rattling around when I am trying to escape.

 

The cotton had been taken out of the bottles allowing the pills to move freely in the bottles.

 

No antibiotics, but fever reducers are handy.

 

David took over the over-the-counter pain and fever reducers and poured it all into a single bottle, the pressure of the pills made it completely silent, and it was close to 700 of them. The next drawer held paperwork, this was something David had an interest in but just not right now. The file was large and close to several hundred pages in all.

 

I have quite the file here...

 

The final drawer carried plastic gloves and protection equipment, this was completely useless to David. If you died to the wounds inflicted by an undead you had a chance to become one of them, but it was more likely for them to take your soul. The eerie blue flames that burn in their eye sockets are the source of their life. They are spiritual entities called “soul fires” that will animate dead bodies and they will also evolve the corpse if they have consumed enough souls and other soul fires.

 

Reaching forward for the two drawer cabinet, he pulled them both open since they had also been unlocked. The one thing that made David nearly cheer, was seeing a blue tote that was used for shopping that had drain cleaner in it. The other thing he saw that was promising was a small bottle of bleach. David grabbed the plastic bottle and stuck it inside of the tote, he then stuck his inhalers and pills inside of it with the drain cleaner and bleach. He finally put in the thick file and the blanket from his bed.

 

Thud... Thud... Thud...

 

David stopped and listened to the sounds through the wall, it sounded like the large creature had entered a couple of rooms away from him.

 

It's evolved a few times...

 

Behind David, his luck was running out. The calling light that David had pulled pieces out of was being shaken by the creature's steps. This caused the glass rod to fall out of position since the pin that held it was being used as a lockpick.

 

Crash! Shatter!

 

David looked back in time to see white glass flying around the room from the light falling to the floor and shattering.

 

RRROOOOAAAAARRR!

 

David began to hear the large creature ripping through the walls from the room it had entered, it was going to destroy its way to him. David didn't have time to curse his luck, he could only turn his attention to the door. Hopping across the floor to avoid the glass, he immediately placed his hand on the doorknob to feel the lock.

 

This lock was much better than the one on the cabinet, but David still realized this was something he could get through. Taking his improvised lock rake, he turned it around in his hand to the straight handle and bent a slight hook to it. Squatting down he applied tension with the bar, then shoved the pick in and began lifting the pins.

 

Come on... Come on!

 

Cold sweat was pouring from his brow, and his eyes were twitching. If he had a free hand, he would be pumping his inhaler like a bellows into his mouth. That is how much asthma medicine he felt like he needed right now in this situation.

 

Boom! Crash!

 

Hearing a wall shatter was a sound that David had never experienced before, the vibrations through the floor weren't very pleasant.

 

Shit! It knocked some of the pins loose!

 

The vibrations had caused some of the pins he had set to fall back into the lock body, David cursed all of the gods he knew of one by one as he heard the creature a room away from him and began tearing at the wall. It sounded like it was being torn apart by metal blades, almost like some kind of shears.

 

“The soul fires can not only evolve the host but also help it develop specialized weapons. These start as some normal mundane object.” The Machine Lords voice said in contemplation. “Look, Mother. Here it started with a gardening rake, and it somehow becomes this scythe in the end! I wonder if it is possible to take advantage of this phenomena without the biological element?”

 

David felt his surroundings chill when he heard that voice, it was more terrifying than the monster tearing through the walls to get to him. It also caused David's erratic breathing to still completely, and he went pale. David knew how he had conducted this experiment, he had killed thousands of people in the world of Edea and turned them all into undead. He then extracted their soul fires and began experimenting with them.

 

“Innocent? Guilty? These are moral creations that we used to separate ourselves from situations that we don't want to be involved in.” The Machine Lord said with a chuckle. “I broke through those borders and boundaries and brought everyone together during my experiments! I should be applauded!”

 

David was doing everything in his power to ignore everything around him, and focusing instead on getting the pins to bind so that he could open up the door and escape.

 

Boom! Crash!

 

Another wall fell to the ground and caused some of the pins to fall out of place, David could see this all with the mechanical sense he had developed. This time it was only one of the six pins that had dropped, and he only needed to set two of them to open the door. Pulling the pick back to the beginning, he continued pushing the pins up one at a time then going back to the start.

 

Growl! Screeeech!

 

David could hear it enter the room next to him, it sounded like it was dragging some kind of heavy blades behind it. He closed his eyes and focused on the lock and he heard it slice into the wall. The sound of the blades tearing through the plaster and concrete was grating but he finished picking the lock after its first swing. Turning his tension tool like a key, he twisted the door open.

 

I did it!

 

David silently cheered, as he stood up and pulled open the door. The creature was tearing at the wall but he couldn't afford to make any mistakes with his single life. Grabbing the blue tote with his salvaged good, he prepared to leave the room.

 

I have played so many horror games like this, but never in the first person without a shield!

 

Looking around the ward, he saw that only a few of the doors were closed. Claw marks covered the walls and floors and left lines dancing around on the walls. Blood could be seen from the various people that once occupied the ward. David silently stepped out of the door and closed it silently behind him. Unless it was storing them for food, then there wouldn't be smaller undead here. That was how most middle low-tier undead operated. Intelligence would not start to manifest until it became mid-tier at least.

 

David did not have time to look through the various rooms, the ward formed a perfect square with rooms on 3 sides and stairs in two of the corners. David was sprinting to get to the stairs and passed many rooms that were identical to his, many had dried blood stained on the walls. His bare feet were getting scratched from the rough texture on the floor left by the weird claws the creature seemed to possess.

 

The room was carpeted, but David did not have shoes. The concrete underneath the carpet was cut and jagged like rocks under his skin.

 

Boom! Crash! RRROOOOAAAAARRR!

 

David had made it down the stairs, but he didn't stop as he rushed straight for the open door that leads to the main control room. That was another wall he could place between himself and the creature, that was the only thing that mattered to him right now. Water, food, and shelter only matter if you are not being chased by a homicidal creature. David could hear the creature starting to smash at the closed door on the room he awoke in as David made his way through the open door and closed it behind him.

 

David took a minute to dig through his tote, and fish out an inhaler and take a puff of Albuterol. The broken leg he experienced seemed to have healed but it was causing him a lot of pain now that he didn't have as much adrenaline flowing through his system.

 

Food, water, weapon, and escape!

 

David started to look around the room he had entered, and suddenly sucked in a deep breath, his heart began to pound in his chest.

 

I'm fucked!