Only Survivors Give XP

Chapter 2 - The Medical District

Chapter 2 · 1,414 words

The threat-detection radius warned him before he saw it.

He was three blocks east of the ambulance wreckage, moving through what used to be the hospital's main campus. The grounds were a mess. Ambulances parked at odd angles, one flipped on its side, debris scattered across the walkways. He was using the service road that ran between the main building and the east wing, a route he'd walked a hundred times on foot when the ambulance bay was full.

The tingling started at the edge of his awareness. A tightening sensation, like the air pressure dropping before a storm. The boundary of the thirty-meter circle pulsed.

Something was ahead.

Nolan stopped. He pressed his back against the wall of the east wing and listened.

Clicking. The sound of claws on broken pavement, rhythmic and deliberate. It was coming from around the corner of the building, maybe twenty meters ahead. Within the radius.

He peered around the edge.

It was the size of a large dog, but it wasn't a dog. The body was wrong. Too lean, the spine ridged with something that looked like bone protrusions through the skin. Its jaw was elongated, teeth visible even at rest, and its saliva left dark streaks on the concrete where it dripped. It was hunched over something, a pile of debris maybe, tearing at it with mechanical efficiency.

Feeding. Not hunting.

Nolan pulled his head back. His heart was hammering. He had no weapon. The trauma shears on his belt were medical tools, not combat equipment. His class was Level 0. The System interface offered nothing. No skills, no abilities, no combat options. Just the class name and the threat-detection radius, which was currently pulsing a steady warning.

He couldn't fight this thing. He knew it with the certainty of someone who had spent two years assessing physical threats in emergency situations. This thing was faster than him, stronger than him, and built for killing. He was a guy with a torn first-aid kit and cracked ribs.

The service corridor.

The hospital's east wing had a maintenance corridor that ran from the grounds into the basement level, used for transporting supplies and moving equipment without going through the main lobby. He'd used it during a mass casualty drill last year. The entrance was a service door twenty meters to his left, past the corner where the thing was feeding.

He had to move quietly.

Nolan waited. The creature's feeding sounds were rhythmic. Tear, crunch, pull. It was focused on whatever it was eating. He timed his breathing to the sounds. When a particularly loud crack of debris covered his movement, he moved.

Fast. Low. His left leg complained but he pushed through it. Twenty meters felt like two hundred. The service door was a heavy steel fire door. He grabbed the handle, turned it slowly. It clicked. He pulled.

The door opened six inches. Enough. He slipped through, pulled it shut behind him. The latch engaged with a soft click.

Inside, the corridor was dark. The emergency lighting had failed. He moved by touch, one hand on the wall, his feet careful on the concrete floor. The smell was bad. Antiseptic mixed with something decaying, the sweetness of biological matter breaking down. He didn't think about what was decaying.

The corridor ran straight for fifty meters, then turned left toward the basement exit. He followed it, his breathing controlled, his ears straining for any sound from outside.

Nothing. The creature hadn't followed him.

He let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding.

The threat-detection radius was still active. He could feel it, a low-level awareness of the space around him. Nothing within thirty meters now. He was clear.

For now.

---

The pharmacy was half a block from the hospital's east exit. Nolan emerged from the service corridor into daylight and scanned the street. Clear. The threat-detection radius was quiet.

He moved fast, keeping to the edges of buildings, crossing open spaces in quick dashes. The pharmacy's front wall was gone. Whatever had happened here had blown it outward, scattering glass and shelving across the sidewalk. But the back half was intact. Shelves still standing, mostly. Supplies scattered but not destroyed.

And voices.

"Don't—"

Nolan froze. He raised his hands.

"Easy. I'm human. I'm a paramedic."

Three people emerged from behind the pharmacy's counter. Two men, one woman. They looked like they hadn't slept in days. The woman was holding a fire extinguisher. One of the men had his arm wrapped in a makeshift sling, his face pale and sweaty.

The woman lowered the extinguisher slightly. "You're alone?"

"Yeah. You?"

"Found each other yesterday." She nodded at the man with the injured arm. "David's arm is broken. We think."

Nolan was already moving toward them. Professional instinct overrode everything else. "Let me see."

David was sitting on the floor behind the counter, his right arm swollen and deformed at the forearm. Obvious fracture. Radius and ulna, both bones, displaced. Nolan knelt beside him.

"How long?"

"Since the building fell. Day before yesterday, maybe."

"Any numbness? Tingling in the fingers?"

"Some."

Nolan checked capillary refill. Slow. Pulse at the wrist was present but weak. The swelling was significant. This needed proper reduction and immobilization, not field splinting, but he could do better than what they'd managed.

He opened his first-aid kit. Two trauma dressings. He'd use one as padding. The gauze roll. The tourniquet wasn't appropriate here. He'd need rigid splinting material.

"Got any boards? Flat wood, metal, anything rigid?"

The second man, quiet and watchful, handed him a section of shelving bracket. It would work.

Nolan worked efficiently. Padded the arm. Aligned the bracket. Wrapped the gauze tight enough to immobilize but not cut circulation. David winced but didn't cry out.

"Keep it elevated. Don't use it. The swelling's going to get worse before it gets better. If your fingers go blue or you lose sensation, the wrap's too tight. Loosen it and re-wrap."

He finished. Stepped back.

Waited.

Nothing happened.

He looked at his peripheral vision. The System interface was there. Class, level, threat-detection radius. All unchanged. No notification. No XP gain. No adaptation offer. Nothing.

He frowned. Checked the interface again. Still nothing.

David's arm was broken. He was in pain. He needed medical attention. Nolan had provided it. By every logic he understood, this should have been a rescue.

But the System was silent.

He tried again. He pressed his fingers to David's wrist, checking the pulse. He looked at the injury, reassessed the splint. He waited.

Nothing.

The class didn't care about broken bones.

Nolan sat back on his heels. The three survivors watched him. They didn't know what he was testing. They just saw a paramedic checking a patient, which was what he looked like he was doing.

But he was testing something. And the result was clear: his class, whatever it was, whatever the System had given him, didn't respond to non-lethal injuries. A broken arm was serious. It needed treatment. But it wasn't going to kill David.

And the System didn't care.

"Thank you," David said. "Seriously."

Nolan nodded. "You need to get that looked at properly. X-ray, possible reduction. There might be a clinic still standing somewhere."

He stood up. His ribs ached. His leg was stiffening.

"What's out there?" the woman asked. "Do you know what's happening?"

"Monsters," Nolan said. "I've seen one. Big, fast, not interested in talking." He paused. "I'm heading east. Toward the school district."

"The school?" The second man spoke for the first time. "That area's bad. We heard sounds from that direction last night. Lots of them."

"I know."

The woman crossed her arms. "There's a group set up in the community center on Fifth. They've got people who've been mapping the streets, where the monsters are, which blocks are clear. If you're going east, you should know that Meridian Street is blocked. Completely. Something collapsed across it. And the park on Sixth. Don't go through the park."

Nolan filed the information away. "Anything else?"

"Water's running in some places. Power's spotty. Nobody knows who's in charge. Some guy downtown is handing out orders but nobody's listening."

He nodded. Route intelligence. Limited, but better than nothing.

"Thanks."

He turned to leave. The woman called after him.

"Hey. You're just one guy. You sure about this?"

Nolan didn't turn around. "No."

He walked out of the pharmacy and headed east.

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