Death: Genesis: An Isekai LitRPG, page 1
DEATH:
GENESIS
BOOK 1
NICHOLAS SEARCY
To my family,
thank you for all your support.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without prior written permission from Podium Publishing.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2022 by Nicholas Searcy
Cover design by Podium Publishing
ISBN: 978-1-0394-1844-8
Published in 2022 by Podium Publishing, ULC
www.podiumaudio.com
CONTENTS
1AN ORDINARY LIFE
2A NEW LIFE
3A WHOLE NEW WORLD
4ALLOCATION
5COMMITMENT
6GO BIG OR GO HOME
7DRASTIC IMPROVEMENT
8PAIN
9DESPERATE ESCAPE
10ONE IN A MILLION
11A SINGULAR PURPOSE
12A NEW SKILL
13LOCAL FAUNA
14THE EXPEDITION
15A CURE FOR MONOTONY
16THE BROOD MOTHER
17ABOVE AND BEYOND
18NO GRAY AREAS
19INEVITABILITY
20RAMPAGE
21EXPANDING THE REPERTOIRE
22EXTERMINATION
23UNTENABLE
24WARLORD
25COMPLETION
26GAINS
27KNOWLEDGE IS POWER
28RUINS
29BETWEEN TWO PATHS
30MAMA BEAR
31SOUL BOND
32TUA’TA’ALAR
33AN AUSPICIOUS MEETING
34TRUST
35PARTNERSHIP
36REASONS AND MOTIVATIONS
37NIGHTWEB RAVINE
38ASSAULT ON NIGHTWEB RAVINE
39USELESS
40A GRUESOME TASK
41SWARMED
42THE DRACHNID HORDE
43ATTACK ON THE DRACHNIDS
44SLAUGHTER
45SHATTERED
46INTO THE MAW
47THE DRACHNID QUEEN
48NEVER LEAVE YOUR FEET
49AFTERMATH
50REST THE DEAD
51LIFE AND DEATH
52A NECESSARY DISCUSSION
53BASTION
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
1
AN ORDINARY LIFE
Zeke Blackwood sat in the small room, staring at the floor as he tried to come to terms with what he was about to do. Sure, it seemed like the right thing, and objectively speaking, it definitely was, but that didn’t make it any less terrifying. In fact, it probably made it worse because that knowledge made him very much ashamed that all he really wanted was to gather his things and run far, far away. But as attractive as that might be, at least in the short term, he knew he could never bring himself to do it. He didn’t dare. After all, his little brother was depending on him to save the day.
With a sigh, he stood up and unbuttoned his shirt, then hung it in the small, wooden locker nearby. Next came his pants. Then his underwear. Everything ended up in a neat pile inside the locker. Before he knew it, he was slipping on the hospital gown and struggling to tie it closed in the back. With his limited range of motion in one arm, it wasn’t the easiest thing in the world, but after only a few minutes of struggle, he managed to get the job done. Not long after that, a nurse appeared at the door.
“You ready, sweetie?” asked the matronly woman. She was a bit portly, with a kind face and a comforting smile.
Zeke nodded, saying, “Yeah. As ready as I’ll ever be, I guess. How’s he doing?”
“He’s good,” the woman said, leading him to the next room. “He’s holding steady.”
“Good,” Zeke said, following her to their destination, where a hospital bed waited. He climbed onto it, stretching his long legs. It barely fit him. “I wish I could talk to him before I go under.”
The nurse frowned apologetically. “I’m sorry, but that’s not possible,” she said.
“I know” was Zeke’s response. He’d already said all the things that needed to be said, anyway. Anything else would just be an effort to delay the inevitable. He still wanted to talk to Tommy, though, if only to reassure him that everything was going to be okay.
Of course, there was no guarantee that Tommy would believe him. The kid was only twelve, but that was old enough that he could see the score. He knew that this transplant was his last hope. Without it, he would die. He still might not make it, even if everything went exactly according to plan. Things were that bad, and Tommy wasn’t so sheltered that he didn’t know that. He had lived a tough life, in and out of hospitals since he was born. He knew the odds better than anyone.
Zeke shifted on the bed, wishing for all the world that he hadn’t been put in this situation. After all, he liked having both of his kidneys. And he was deathly afraid of going under the knife. The last time he had, his life had been ruined. Who was to say this time wouldn’t be even worse? But Zeke had no intention of letting his little brother down, so the moment he’d found out that Tommy needed a kidney, he hadn’t even considered hesitating before he volunteered. However, just because he wholeheartedly wanted to save his brother’s life didn’t mean that he wasn’t incredibly afraid of doing so.
It made him feel like a coward. All his life, he’d taken his role as a big brother very seriously, and despite the fact that Tommy had always been sick, Zeke had tried to teach him all the things he needed to know about being a man. God knew their father hadn’t really made any efforts in that arena—especially with Tommy. For the most part, he’d been there, sure, but the moment the man had discovered that his youngest was defective, he’d lost most of his fatherly instincts. No—aside from their mother, Zeke was all Tommy had. So, every time the idea of just getting up and running away crossed his mind, Zeke forced himself to shove it to the side.
Zeke knew that the fear was rational. Healthy, even. It wasn’t like it was a split-second decision; he wasn’t saving someone in the heat of the moment. That would’ve been better. Easier. Rather, it had been brewing for months, while Tommy had been waiting on the transplant list, while he steadily got worse and worse until their mother relented and allowed Zeke to make the sacrifice for which he’d volunteered in the very beginning. Ever since then, the fear had all but enveloped him. What if he died? What if Tommy didn’t make it? What if he someday needed the kidney he was giving up? A million different scenarios, each worse than the last, had flashed through his mind. For weeks it had been like that, slowly eroding his confidence. Gradually smothering his courage. And by the time he’d trudged into the hospital to make good on his offer, he felt like a weakling. A coward. A selfish and terrible person. It made him sick just to remember the doubts that had assailed him during that period of weakness.
But he was here, wasn’t he? That had to count for something. Even if he wasn’t the courageous savior he’d always imagined himself to be, he had at least shown up. Not everyone could say that. Not even their father, who should’ve been the first in line.
He shook his head, dispelling that line of thought. He didn’t want to think about their abusive, deadbeat dad. Not now.
As those thoughts flowed through his mind, the nurse set up an IV, then started a saline drip. Over the next hour or so, various doctors, nurses, and anesthetists stopped by to assure him that everything was going to go perfectly. He nodded. He smiled. He tried to put on a brave face. But he knew they could all see through his useless attempts at courage. He knew they could tell just how terrified he was.
None of them were worse than his mother, Janette, who came by about twenty minutes after the nurse started the IV. She asked, “How are you holding up? Do you need anything?”
Zeke shook his head. “I’m fine, Mom,” he replied, glancing at his mother. She was a small woman, thin and a bit ragged around the edges. But that was to be expected, given everything she’d had to deal with in her life. If it wasn’t enough that she’d married a loser like Zeke’s father, she’d also been forced to deal with a child who’d skated from one illness to another, never once getting better. The fact that she was still standing was a testament to how strong she really was, regardless of her frail appearance. “How’s Tommy?”
“He’s good,” she said. “Scared. He keeps asking about you, too. You know he appreciates what you’re doing, right?”
Zeke nodded. “I know,” he said. “I had a long talk with him last night. Can you believe he actually asked me not to do this? He still thinks the transplant list will come through.”
“It actually could,” Janette said.
Zeke snorted in derision. “You know that’s not true,” he said. They’d actually bumped Tommy down a few tiers because of what they considered genetic defects. As if he had any less of a right to live than anyone else. He knew the administrators were simply doing their jobs and giving replacement organs to the people who had the best chance of living through it, but reason didn’t really stand a chance against his love for his brother.
“Yeah, probably,” she said. “I just wish …”
She left the statement hanging in the air. Zeke knew what she would say. He’d thought
If it were, Tommy wouldn’t be waiting on his big brother’s kidney, just for a chance at a few more years of life.
“Any of your friends come by?” she asked.
Zeke shook his head. “No,” he said. “I talked to a few of them yesterday. It’s fine. They all wished me luck and said they were praying for me.”
That wasn’t entirely true because the only friends Zeke really kept up with were the ones he played video games with. Most of them had no idea who he really was, much less that he was about to undergo a very dangerous surgical procedure. It hadn’t always been like that, but after high school, he’d lost touch with most of his old friends as they went on to college or jobs or whatever other big plans they had.
“Well, that’s good,” she said, patting his arm.
They talked about small things for a few more minutes until yet another nurse came by and told Janette it was time for her to go back to the waiting room. After a tearful goodbye, she assured him that everything was going to be fine, then left Zeke alone with his own thoughts. Inevitably, and mostly due to his mother’s mentioning of his friends, they went back to why he’d put his life on hold.
The simple fact of the matter was that he had no idea what to do going forward. Once upon a time, when everything had seemed so clear, he’d had everything planned out. He’d been a hard worker. He had been dedicated. But after one little accident, his dreams had been shattered, and he’d scarcely had the time to wrap his head around it, much less pick up the pieces of his life plan.
As he lay there, waiting on them to wheel him back to the operating theater, Zeke’s mind made a beeline back to the day the course of his life had irrevocably changed. The car had come out of nowhere, sideswiping his truck and pushing him off the road. Later, he would be told that his truck had flipped six times, but all he remembered was a cacophony of noise, metal grinding against metal, shattering glass, and his own screams. After that, he’d blacked out, and when he had finally come to, it had only taken one look at his mangled arm to know that his days as a baseball player had come to an end.
It had taken six surgeries over the course of a year just to give the thing 50 percent range of motion. So, the idea of throwing a baseball ever again was ludicrous. For most people, it would’ve just been a speed bump. After all, it was just a game, right? But for Zeke, it had always been more than that. Playing baseball had been his entire life. From the time he was five years old, he’d practiced almost every day—usually with his father playing a combination of coach, taskmaster, torturer, and drill sergeant. But one car accident, and all his hard work, all his time and effort, had been flushed down the proverbial toilet. In an instant, his aspirations of playing at a collegiate—or even a professional—level had ended. His dreams had been torn asunder. And without that driving him forward, he had no idea what to do with the rest of his life.
Even more than that, most of his friends had been other baseball players. They probably hadn’t made a conscious decision to stop hanging out with him or anything, but most of them were like him in that they lived for the game. And now that he wasn’t one of them, they’d moved on. Some had gotten scholarships to play in college. Others had gotten drafted into the major leagues. All except Zeke, who’d been left behind to wallow in his depression. It was disgusting, and he hated himself for the way he felt, but he couldn’t help it. He wanted to move on. He’d tried so hard to do just that, but it never worked.
“You ready, kid?” came a gruff voice, drawing him out of his reverie. Zeke looked up to see a bear of a man wearing hospital scrubs.
Zeke nodded. “I guess.”
With that, the time had come. Zeke’s stomach clenched as the burly orderly wheeled him through the hospital corridors. A dark premonition came over him as he imagined the myriad ways such a surgery could go wrong. But he blocked it out, instead trying to focus on his surroundings. The fluorescent lights. The antiseptic smell. The white tiles on the floor. He noticed a thousand little details he probably never would have before, all in an effort to distract himself from the fact that there was a very real chance he was seeing his last sights. In fact, the feeling of impending death became so strong that he had to constantly remind himself that he couldn’t back out, that he couldn’t abandon Tommy. If he did, he would never forgive himself.
Eventually, they made their way to the operating room. It wasn’t a big place, and it was jam-packed with hospital staff, all wearing scrubs and surgical masks. There must’ve been ten people there, scurrying around as they went about their various tasks. After a few seconds, he was picked up and transferred to another bed in the center of the room. Bright lights bore down on him as another man—the doctor who would be performing the surgery—said something to try to calm Zeke down. It didn’t work. By the time the anesthetist placed a plastic mask over his face, Zeke’s heart was beating a thousand miles per hour. Thankfully, that all came to an abrupt end when the anesthesia started to kick in. Darkness closed in around him, and all the while, Zeke comforted himself with the fact that he had made the right decision. Unconsciousness soon overtook him, and not long after that, he died.
2
A NEW LIFE
Zeke wasn’t certain of when, exactly, he died. Nor did he know why. But as he floated in nothingness, he knew that he was, in fact, dead. His life was over. And there was no going back.
It was a curious feeling, being dead, a consciousness floating in a sea of oblivion. He knew who he was, but he could scarcely remember any details. He was sure that he should be panicking, that he should want something to happen, to break the chains binding him to the void, but he was comfortable. Content. It felt like he’d come home.
For what could’ve been an instant or an eternity, Zeke floated in that dark contentedness until, suddenly, a white dot appeared in his mind. He had no eyes. No body. There was nothing corporeal about him. In fact, there was nothing physical about his existence at all. But the light, it defied all logic because it slowly drew closer and closer, growing larger all the while.
Zeke—or the entity that had once been him—grew to resent that light. It had disrupted his contentment. It had ruined his eternity. It had dissolved the nothingness. That alone was enough to make him hate it.
But what was he to do? He couldn’t stop it. He could barely string two coherent thoughts together, much less act. So, he merely waited, silently seething as the light drew closer. It might’ve taken seconds. It could’ve been eons. Eventually, though, the light was all Zeke could see. It enveloped him, forcing an awareness he could scarcely contemplate.
Then, suddenly, he was alive. No—not quite alive. He remembered that he had died. But he wasn’t completely dead, either. So, what had happened? In the space of an instant, he regained his awareness and physical presence. It was a jarring experience, to suddenly have a body again.
Zeke looked down, flexing his hands. He had fingers. Skin. He was whole. That was enough to send him into a panic all by itself, but as he looked around, that panic turned to existential terror. All he saw was whiteness. There was no floor. No ceiling. No earth or sky. It was just an endless white expanse.
“Takes some getting used to, I know,” came a voice from behind him. Zeke wheeled around, only to see an incredibly short, bearded man.
“You look familiar,” Zeke muttered, searching his mind for why that would be the case. Then it hit him—a memory of a television show he’d watched before he’d died. “Why do you look like Peter Dinklage?”
The small figure laughed. “That’s kind of on you,” he said. “Something about the way your mind interacts with this place and interprets the projection of my consciousness. I could explain it to you, but you’d probably fall asleep. Or your mind might explode. Either way, it’s probably best if we just skip past that.”
