The pain came before consciousness.
Steve felt as if his own body was wrong — too heavy, too hard, too cold. Something rough scraped against his skin. The smell hit his nostrils all at once, strong and nauseating. Iron. Blood. A raw, animal odor.
He tried to breathe deeply... and choked.
A metallic taste exploded in his mouth, making him turn his face and spit instinctively. The saliva came out mixed with red. His heart raced, but his mind was still slow, confused, as if he had woken up in the middle of a nightmare that refused to end.
Cold.
The cold pierced through his clothes, clung to his skin. Mud pressed against his back. Wet leaves stuck to his arms, his neck, his face. When he tried to move his hand, he felt his fingers trembling without control.
Where... am I?
Steve opened his eyes with difficulty.
Above him, there was no ceiling. No white walls. No artificial light. Only dense, twisted treetops, blocking the sky. The light filtering through the leaves was dim, greenish and strange. The air was heavy, alive.
His brain tried to deny it.
This isn't real.
This isn't real.
This isn't—
A sound.
Steve froze.
A wet crack.
Then another.
And another.
Something was chewing.
Slowly, with his entire body rigid, he turned his eyes — just his eyes — toward the sound.
A few meters away, with its back to him, there was a creature far too large to be human.
The skin was greenish, thick, stained. The back muscles moved grotesquely with each bite. Broad shoulders, long arms, bulging veins. In its right hand, something that looked like a primitive axe rested against the ground.
And between the creature's teeth... flesh.
Steve felt his stomach turn.
The sound of bones breaking echoed low, dry, like branches being snapped calmly. The creature pulled something forcefully and a louder crack sounded. A piece fell to the ground.
A human arm.
Steve's eyes widened.
The body was there, thrown like garbage. A man. Or what remained of him. Chest torn open, face turned to the side. The eyes... still open.
Empty.
Frozen in pure terror.
The final expression of someone who understood, too late, that they were going to die.
Steve felt something break inside his chest.
This... this isn't an NPC.
Air stopped entering his lungs.
His heart began to beat so hard that he was absolutely certain the sound would echo through the forest. Each beat seemed like a hammer inside his head. His hands trembled so much he needed to press them against the mud to try to stop it.
Don't move.
Don't breathe.
Don't exist.
If I move... I die.
The goblin — because now he knew, deep in his soul, that this could only be a goblin — continued eating, oblivious to his presence. It chewed calmly, almost satisfied.
Steve felt a strange pressure in his head.
Then, something blinked before his eyes.
It wasn't immediate.
It was... delayed.
As if it were broken.
Trembling lines of light appeared in the air.
[Initializing System...]
[Error...]
[Error...]
Steve's heart almost leaped out of his mouth.
No. Not now.
Please, not now—
The letters failed, disappeared, returned.
[User Detected]
[Class: UNDEFINED]
[Status: Unstable]
[Warning: Incompatible User]
The world seemed to spin.
Incompatible?
A new line tried to appear... and fragmented, like cracking glass.
[Limited Access]
And then... nothing.
The system simply died before his eyes.
Steve felt panic rise like a suffocating wave.
No class.
No weapon.
Nothing.
A light wind passed through the trees.
The leaves moved.
And then—
CRACK.
The sound of a breaking branch echoed too loud.
The goblin stopped chewing.
The silence that followed was worse than any scream.
Slowly... very slowly... the creature began to turn its head.
Steve felt the blood drain from his face.
No, no, no—
Time seemed to slow down as the broad snout moved, the nose dilating. Air entered forcefully into the creature's nostrils, sniffing.
Steve held his breath so hard his lungs burned.
Fear was no longer a feeling.
It was physical.
It was total.
---
The goblin sniffed the air.
A low, deep sound. The wide nostrils dilated, pulling air as if the entire world were a dish being analyzed.
Steve held his breath so hard his chest began to hurt.
Flee slowly?
Die.
Stay still?
Maybe...
The wind changed.
The leaves moved.
And then — crack.
Another branch.
Much closer.
The goblin turned its entire body this time.
The eyes found Steve.
For one eternal second, the world stopped.
The creature's gaze wasn't stupid. It wasn't empty. There was something hungry there, attentive... intelligent enough to kill.
The goblin opened its mouth and let out a hoarse roar, tearing through the forest's silence.
Steve broke.
He turned and ran.
His body moved before his mind. His legs sank into the mud, branches whipped his face, air tore through his lungs. Behind him, heavy footsteps crushed the ground, too fast for something that size.
A whistle cut through the air.
Steve felt the impact graze his face — hot pain, immediate. Something flew too close.
An axe.
Made of stone.
Blood ran down his cheek, hot, mixing with sweat. He screamed, but the sound died in his throat when his foot slipped on a wet rock.
The world spun.
Steve fell, rolling down the slope, his body hitting roots, stones, hard earth. Pain exploded with each impact until everything ended in a brutal shock.
THUMP.
A tree.
The trunk knocked the air from his lungs. His forehead hit, vision went white for an instant. Something opened on his face — hot, pulsing.
He lay still.
Gasping.
Then he heard it.
A heavy sound.
The goblin jumped.
The creature landed below with a dull thud, axe in hand. It sniffed again, nose almost touching the ground, pulling the scent like a hunting dog.
Steve dragged himself behind a rock, trembling, without a weapon, without a plan, without a reliable system.
The footsteps began.
One.
Another.
Each step made his heart race even faster, entering total panic.
The sound approached.
And Steve understood, with terrifying clarity:
This world doesn't want players.
It wants survivors.