The low, wet groan came from his left.
Aiden's head snapped toward the sound just in time to see it, lumbering from behind a thick oak, skin gray-green and mottled, clothes tattered, jaw hanging slack as if it had forgotten how to close.
A zombie.
'No… not good.' His breath caught.
The thing locked eyes on him, or, well, whatever passed for eyes in a rotting corpse, and began its slow, deliberate march forward.
Aiden didn't wait.
His instincts screamed at him to move, and he listened.
He spun on his heel and bolted, legs pumping hard, heart hammering in his chest.
He wasn't going to be that guy, the one in horror movies who stands frozen until it's too late, or worse, trips over a rock because they waited too long to run.
But no, that cannot be him.
Not here.
Not in Minecraft.
His boots pounded against the grass and dirt as he weaved between trees, ducking low under branches that clawed at his hair, leaping over uneven blocks of ground.
His breathing was already ragged, but he pushed harder, feeling every jolt in his legs.
Then—
Growl.
This one was louder.
Closer.
He glanced right.
Another zombie stood between two birches, swaying in place, its head cocked unnaturally as it registered his movement.
For a moment, it hadn't seen him.
Then it did.
And it moved.
The first zombie was still on his tail, not close enough to attack him, but close enough to keep the tension tight in his chest.
Now a second was coming from the side, cutting off the path he'd been aiming for.
'Two zombies.'
Aiden swerved, nearly losing his footing as he tried to skirt around the new threat.
He didn't dare slow down.
Every muscle in his body was screaming at him to run faster, to put more distance between himself and those groaning monsters.
But then he noticed it.
The sluggishness.
It wasn't his imagination, his speed had dipped, his movements felt heavy, like he was running through water.
He clenched his teeth in frustration.
'This damn body…!'
It wasn't Zoro's fault.
In fact, Zoro's real body would have eaten this situation alive, sword in each hand, maybe a third in his mouth just to make a point.
No, this was Minecraft Zoro, and Aiden knew exactly why he was slow.
A faint, floating HUD blinked in his vision.
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🍗🍗🍗 O O O O O O O
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Three drumsticks of hunger left.
Out of ten.
Which meant one thing, he couldn't sprint.
Not anymore until he finds something to eat.
"Shit!" The word ripped out of him, loud and raw.
It all clicked into place.
He'd spent the entire day punching trees, building up nothing but exhaustion.
No food.
No rest.
And if this body had been hungry before he even got here?
That hunger had carried over.
Now he was stuck.
Two zombies closing in.
No sprint.
The slow dread that had been creeping along his spine all day suddenly bloomed into full panic.
If he didn't find food or shelter soon, this night was going to end exactly how every bad survival story ended, messily.