Survival Interval: 448

Michael had closed the garage door sealing himself off from a half dozen angry wasps, but he would be lying if he said he felt safe. For one, it was very dark. Second there was a buzzing up somewhere in the building's rafters. Finally there was a moan from somewhere in front and a little to the right. He heard another scuffle off to the left.

Michael stood with his back to the garage door although not directly against it. The wasps stingers were basically as long as a pocket knife. Last thing he needed was for one to skewer him through the sheet thin metal door. He stood there staring into the darkness. Now that he was out of the sunlight his eyes were adjusting. Light streaked in from small cracks throughout the old warehouse. One shuttered window on the far side, was hanging diagonally on its hinges letting a good deal of light through. In another minute or so he would be able to see well enough.

The problem was no longer the wasps, although one had gotten inside. It likely had landed somewhere. Michael could no longer hear it buzzing around. Perhaps it was adjusting to the new environment just like him. Regardless, it should only be able to sting him once before he could deal with it. Of course the wasp situation could get a lot worse if more found their way through that broken window, Michael’s main concern was zombies. It was clear there was at least a couple in here with him. Even when his eyes adjusted, visibility would not be great.

Michael stood on guard against the darkness, but he could do something while his eyes adjusted. He had picked up a white drop meaning that he had a stat point he could allocate. Michael pulled up his interface. It was translucent and the light did not bother his eyes, meaning it would not affect his eyes adapting. He might not be able to notice fine details while his attention was on his screens, but any major movement should catch his attention.

Sure enough it only took a thought to open the white drop, even while he was on his status screen he had a plus 1 off to the side, allowing him to add one point to any of his primary stats. Michael tried to think about what would be most helpful right now.

His mad dash and fighting had burned him down into the low 70’s, but it was recovering just fine. As long as he kept his stamina near full even big fights should not be able to deplete him to zero. Neither did he need a point in strength. He might not be able to one shot a zombie every time, but he was managing.

His health rested at 70/100. It was good that the venom had only eaten an additional 10 HP after the initial 20, but a good minute had passed and it had yet to tick up. Did he have to find a potion, or rest before it came up? He was tempted to give himself 10 more HP by adding it to constitution, but he held himself back. Another 10 HP would not help him too much. Not when one wasp attack did 30 HP worth of damage. The zombies would likely do less for each attack, but once they had him in hand things would likely be over anyway.

Toughness would make him more resistant to damage. That might help more than a point in constitution. According to the encyclopedia entry, toughness also helped fight off poisons. Maybe not a bad idea. He could increase his reaction and lightness on his feet by throwing it into dexterity, or he could increase the speed at which he could move, by throwing it into agility.

In the end Michael went with dexterity. He would be better off dodging things entirely at this point. In the future, he might need to be tougher, but right now decreasing the amount of damage by a little bit would not be enough. Dexterity would increase his battlefield awareness, motor skills, and reaction time.

A crate crashed to the ground deep inside the warehouse. Several zombies moaned in response. The wasp that had landed in the rafters was irritated and instead of going after the responsible party to the loud noise, the wasp honed in on him. Michael’s ears and eyes had been scanning the area, and he had instantly gleaned the direction the wasp was coming from. A black shape blurred toward him.

Michael swung his bat slamming into the dark shape. The wasp was sent smashing into a metal eyebeam along the wall. Mark was hardly excited about batting the creature out of the air in the dark room. As soon as he made contact, a pulp-like substance splattered onto his face. Some went right into his open mouth. He spent the next few seconds hacking and spitting.

Michael had just been able to keep himself from verbally announcing his disgust, but the spitting and hacking had been too much. The sound apparently was quite enticing for the zombies. A chorus of moans spread throughout the warehouse. He had made the right call, not entering that warehouse earlier. He suddenly decided that his chances might be better out there with the wasps, or maybe if he was lucky the ones outside had flown away.

Michael turned and attempted to lift the garage door back up. He strained, but he could not move it an inch. What did the creators leave the door half open like some sort of mouse trap? Was he really trapped here in here? Please tell me they are not making changes to things in real time to keep him in a bad situation, Michael thought. He felt like a lab mouse scurrying through a maze trying to get the cheese, but the god-like creators kept shifting the maze to prevent him from getting out of the mess or getting the cheese.

Michael gave it another go. The metal groaned, like it was caught on something, so Michael gave up. Zombies moaned again in the darkness. It was like he was ringing the dinner bell. They were likely all making their way right toward him.

Michael moved left along the wall trying to move away from the point the zombies were all probably headed. He flashed his tactical map up. He was able to zoom in on the building and it showed where the exits were. Besides the line of garage doors along the wall he was moving across, there were only two main doors. One in the corner, right where he was headed. The other was on the far side of the room through aisles of crates and who knows what else.

The warehouse was large, but it only took Michael twenty seconds to close on the far corner at a fast walk. He was almost there, when a zombie popped out from his right. The zombie gave one excited moan. ‘Whack.’ Michael caved in the zombie’s head with one go. He might have been somewhat surprised, but he had been waiting on just such a thing. More blood splattered onto his chin and neck.

Disgusting…Michael thought as he continued forward. He was almost there. He came out into the open. Five zombies were standing in a huddle off to the right, but they were too late. Michael zipped toward the door and attempted to rip it open. It held fast. Michael frantically checked for a way to unlock the door. The five zombies, moaned excitedly as they lurched toward him. Michael pulled with everything he had once again, but the door held fast.

Michael did not have time to swing his bat. The five came as one tight clump and they were upon him. He moved back along the wall he had just come. Another zombie popped out in front of him. Several moans behind it, clued Michael to the fact that it likely was not alone. Michael had no choice but to turn down the aisle. No longer feeling the need to be quiet, he swore openly at the creators.

As far as he was concerned they were directly tampering with things as he went long to paint him into a corner. In reality, it was ludicrous and unlikely since there were more than 3 million contenders in the mix. What were the chances that he was being watched by anyone?

He was just unlucky. Perhaps he was paying his dues for getting escorted by the beautiful female attendant. All of the contenders who had gotten someone far less desirable were probably rolling in green and blue drops without sweating a bit.

Michael’s mind was whirring in anger. As he sped down the aisles delivering a whack to any zombie who got in his way. It would be one thing if the aisles were neat and led in a straight line to the back wall, but instead they pointed in every which way, leaving Michael to try to figure his way through a maze. A maze, where options were taken away from him as clusters of zombies tried to figure their own way through the maze. The only difference was that he was looking for an exit, and they were looking for him.

Still, at this rate perhaps he would whittle down their numbers as zombies became separated from one another. He had already run into eight lone zombies. At least half of them were unlikely to get back up after the blow he dealt them.

A buzzing sound drew his attention to the open window. The wasps had found the broken shutter window. Could they not just give up? What persistent bastards. Michael found himself caught between two groups of zombies, after taking a turn down an aisle. Of course there would be a group of zombies in the aisle leading in the direction he needed to go.

Fighting did not even cross his mind. They would bear him to the ground and start ripping out his intestines. All sides were blocked by zombies or crates. The ground was wood, but it was solid. Guess up it is, Michael thought, scrambling up the sides of the crates. It only took him fifteen seconds to make it to the top of a stack of crates. The whole stack shook from the sudden addition of weight, but that was not the only problem.

Michael made it to the top to find several wasps already buzzing around his head. He swung at one missing, before connecting with the second that had made its move. The wasp was batted from the air, another instant kill.

The first wasp had snuck back in entirely too quickly. Michael felt a second sharp pain on his hip, but this time he missed the wasp as it dislodged. Michael’s HP dropped. If it was the same as last time, it would drop all the way down to 40 HP. It might have been due to being low on health, or it might be the second dose of venom rearing its head. Michael started to feel a bit woozy. His world was teetering, making him feel like a sailor on top of a small shift in rough seas. Which was not to far off, the stack of crates wobbled slightly exasperating the problem.

Not a great feeling when he was 20 feet in the air, with a wasp looking to pay him another visit. All while 20 hungry zombies moaned with their arms outstretched in his direction.

If he fell he was a goner. If the wasp got him again, he would likely still be done for even if he still had some HP. A third dose might send him over the edge. Another wasp joined the other one inside the warehouse, but he foolishly decided to come right at Michael. Michael’s world was a bit shaky, but how could he miss something so easy. The wasp was sent spinning over several rows of crates to land somewhere in one of the aisles.

The wasp that had gotten him earlier decided to make its move at this point, but Michael spun on it with an upward swing. The wasp was sent careening into the warehouse ceiling before it fell on top of a crate far away. Michael would have lost sight of where it landed, if another white glow did not appear over the spot.

However he had to spend a few seconds to stabilize himself before he could think about the sweet sweet stat point several aisles over. The stack of crates he was on were wobbling even more from his last few big moves. Things were not helped, by the adventurous zombies that had learned they could climb up crates. If they could directly reach the stack he was on, they would likely have toppled it over already. Michael did not have long, but he did have a few seconds.

The white drop would be only slightly out of the way. He could go and snag it, and then course correct right on to the final door. The most obvious way to get everything he wanted was to leap from the top of one pile onto another safely out of reach of the zombies. Since the drop was only two aisles over, it only meant two jumps. He easily covered the distance of the first jump. What he did not anticipate was that the force of his landing would cause the whole tower underneath to instantly teeter.

That was hardly a problem since the stack was quickly shifting towards his target. His feet left the crate at just the right moment. The whole tower was still one solid mass giving him something to push off right before the crates separated in the air.

Michael joyously landed collecting his drop, before the wood underfoot splintered. He found himself falling, hitting another crate. It splintered as well, falling again. Hit a third crate which collapsed from the force. Michael found himself sitting on top of the hard pavement. His HP was down into the high 20’s now, and he certainly felt it. He was slightly delirious and all banged up.

Lucky for him, adrenaline was taking the edge off. Somehow he had even maintained hold of his bat. Well maybe it was not so surprising since the shock had caused him to grip it tighter. However he was thankful he had. One more zombie sood in his way, but he cleared it with one powerful blow.

Now came the critical moment. He twisted the door and jerked it held fast, but then he realized it was a push door so he threw his shoulder into it as a horde of zombies closed in from behind. Light poured in as his feet hit pavement outside.

He found himself standing on a narrow road on the backside of a row of warehouses. In front of him was a several hundred foot across causeway filled with water at least more than a few feet deep. On the other side of the causeway were more warehouses, as the wharf district continued on. Upriver several hundred feet was a bridge, but Michael would never make it.

A quick glance behind him found zombies about to bottleneck through the single door doorway. Overhead of the warehouse were two wasps that spotted him immediately. They lifted off the roof. Damn it, he had only decided on one rule. Never go into a body of water, but now he found himself needing to break it.

But in his delirious state, he could not think of another option. His health would not suffer another sting. His SP was still half full, but there were still a good 20 zombies that would likely keep following him, even if he could manage the two wasps.

Yet the situation did not afford him more than a couple seconds of hesitation. Over the ledge he went. A moment later he slid down the steep cement wall and into the water.