As much as incredulous Rob tried to convince himself that what he was seeing didn’t resemble a children’s playground, he couldn’t stop drawing the comparison.

  Before him, in a clearing, the corpses had gathered in alarming numbers. Yet they weren’t behaving like the vile, despicable creatures they were, no, not at all.

  Instead, they acted like… damn little toddlers.

  When one hears about corpses refusing to stay dead and moving like the living, one would expect scenes of carnage. Shambling hordes laying waste to everything in their path, they were meant to be doing creepy things. They were supposed to be savage, malevolent, dripping with malice.

  Not this…

  The wretched things were an insult to the entire undead race, crawling and rolling on the dirt in pitiful confusion.

  He almost laughed more than once as he watched their disgusting yet strangely comical antics.

  A cluster of them was tangled in a knot of limbs, pushing and clawing at one another only to twist themselves up even tighter. Others rolled and crawled over each other in mindless circles, endlessly tumbling across the ground.

  “Pfffhh.”

  Rob couldn’t suppress the snort that escaped when he caught sight of one corpse trying in earnest to crawl backward—by threading itself between its own legs.

  “Sorry,” he whispered, as a ripple of reproach stirred deep within his heart.

  A faint pulse of irritation came as a response to his apology.

  “Well, I didn’t mean to speak aloud,” he said aloud.

  Now he could really feel the scolding hot anger burning deep in his chest.

  To change the subject, Rob gestured hastily toward the outskirts of the clearing.

  “Look. This one’s far enough.”

  Of course, Hewas lying. The corpse had crawled only a small distance away from the others. Rob leapt from his hiding spot toward it nonetheless.

  As he reached it in two jumps, Rob couldn’t help but notice the flames of anger within him settling into dull helplessness and resignation.

  Ashamed of himself, he frustratedly grabbed the wretched corpse, hoisted its flailing body, and vaulted back.

  The stupid corpses didn’t even notice him until he was already gone. Still, they stirred and turned angerly, as if they meant to chase him down.

  He wasn’t impressed. They had scared him sheetless the first time they did this. But now he didn’t fear their clumsy rage. They had no chance of catching him with their awkward, half-rotted limbs and their immature ways of moving.

  Besides, they would forget about him soon enough.

  After a few more jumps, Rob reached a spot close to his chasm. There, he carelessly tossed the corpse to the ground and crushed its skull beneath his heel, killing the beetle inside in the same motion.

  As he watched the crushed creature release a luminous fog that coiled and shimmered into the shape of an energy card, Rob sighed and tried to placate the annoyed bird inside him.

  “Well, you can’t really blame me for laughing,” he said. “Didn’t you see how that moron looked?”

  Rob chuckled again, the ridiculous image flashing back in his mind.

  The bird, however, was not amused. A flood of contempt, scorn, and disdain came from its end.

  It was furious—and Rob knew exactly why.

  “I know, I know,” Rob responded, raising his hands in half surrender. “We’re hunting. We’re supposed to be all sneaky sneaky and quiety quiety.”

  He sighed. “I’ll keep it in next time. Promise.”

  With a small gesture, He summoned the new energy card and trudged back toward his training ground.

  “But come on, little bird,” Rob said playfully, half smiling. “You don’t have to be that serious. If it weren’t for the risk of being buried alive under their numbers, we’ve got nothing to fear from those idiots.”

  And just like that, with those few words, the calming bird burned again with a fire of fury.

  “Okay, calm down, calm down,” Rob relented. “I promised you I’d gather cards one by one, didn’t I?”

  He had been hunting for what he would assume to be days. There was no way to know in this nightless world. Initially, he was extremely careful, not wanting to find himself surrounded or in a precarious situation due to his ignorance of this place. He bided his time before acting. He located the nearest gatherings of corpses, watched them extensively, and only after he learned all there was to know about them did he truly begin the hunt.

  His plan was the most primitive hunting method in any world: he would wait for one of the corpses to distance itself from the others, swoop in quickly, and snatch it before fleeing away. The reason he didn’t kill the disgusting thing on the spot was that Energy Cards took some time to coalesce, and the corpses weren’t polite enough to let him stand around collecting his spoils.

  “Look what we have here. This one’s a 7. Good enough, I think,” Rob said, unsatisfied.

  His starting plan was just that—a starting plan. Especially since the corpses proved so easy to hunt, Rob couldn’t help but feel he was running out of time, and gathering cards one by one was far too ineffective.

  Therefore, after five or six long trips like that, Rob began to grow restless. Plenty of bold ideas started to worm their way into his mind. He wondered if he could bait ten or fifteen corpses away from a gathering and make quick work of them.

  “1… 2… 3…”

  Rob counted under his breath as he swiftly descended the stair-like path down into the chasm. Then, with a puff, he landed feet-first at the bottom of the dark pit.

  “Yea!” He said, throwing his fist into the air. “This time I came three counts short!”

  Founding himself increasingly having to leave his training place to acquire Energy Cards, he began to devise little challenges along the way. One such challenge was to time how long it took him to ascend or descend the chasm wall—and try to get faster each time.

  And this time, he managed to descend three counts faster which was a great improvement, worthy of joy after his stagnant performance on the last few trips.

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  His celebration was short-lived, though. Before his hands were even halfway down to his sides, a cold spike of disdain stabbed him from within.

  The bird clearly wasn’t impressed. Its feelings said:

  “Useless. Why jump down like a monkey when you can just fly down?”

  “What a downer,” Rob clicked his tongue in disapproval.

  “If you’d agree to my suggestions, I could get better at using our powers—and then we could leave this accursed place,” he followed up, throwing the ball back to the bird.

  The bird, however, didn’t take the bait. It chose not to react and remained silent, as it usually did.

  If not for it taking the initiative during one of his hunting trips, He would’ve never imagined that it could actually communicate.

  And ever since then, He would’ve talked its ear off—if it had one. The bird rarely responded, though. It only gave him instructions during hunts.

  Noticing the bird’s interest in hunting, Rob decided to share his amazing hunting ideas, expecting the bird to be enthusiastic and thrilled to try them.

  It wasn’t.

  Not only that—it showed the opposite. The bird was adamantly against any idea of fighting more than one corpse at a time. Whenever Rob suggested otherwise, it would frantically send waves of danger and fear, urging him to be patient and stick to one at a time.

  And Rob heeded its advice.

  In the end, the bird was from this world, and he wasn’t. It was as simple as that.

  Therefore, He chose to remain on the side of caution.

  Yet, as the image of the blind boy waiting alone surfaced in his mind, Rob couldn’t help but whisper a few prayers.

  “I just hope I’m not already too late.”

  Sitting down, Rob crossed his legs and stilled like a statue.

  If anyone had seen him at that moment, they might have thought he was meditating. His hands rested calmly on his knees, eyes sealed shut. For a long while, Rob remained utterly motionless.

  Then, slowly, almost imperceptibly Rob began to levitate above the ground.

  He was training his magnetic push to enable him to hover midair. So far, he had managed little more than brief hops, popping up and down like a nervous bird. but remaining perfectly still, as if standing on solid ground, even for a second, was far harder.

  It demanded immense focus and flawless balance. Hence, Rob needed much time to learn how to do it, and do it well. And if not for realizing how essential this ability would be on his way back from the island, he probably wouldn’t have bothered to attempt it at all.

  Thus, He aimed to remain standing midair for no less than ten minutes before he could allow himself to leave this island.

  And because he wasn’t brainless, and preferred not to break his limbs before even attempting escape, Rob decided to take it easy and train in a sitting position first.

  “1… 2… 3… 4… 5…”

  Rob counted silently as he pushed gently and steadily downward.

  “19… 20… 21… 22… 23…”

  When he reached twenty-three, a bright, prideful smile found its way to his face. So happy and excited by the progress he’d made, Rob mentally jumped with joy.

  And of course, that broke his focus.

  He flipped over in midair and crashed headfirst into the ground, his butt sticking absurdly upward. He’d accidentally increased the magnetic force from his backside, sending himself face first.

  “Damn it, not this again.”

  Grumbling, Rob got up from the floor and rubbed his sore brow.

  Yet, as he swore and cursed, a grin spread across his face until it nearly split him in half.

  Any kind of progress made Him extremely happy. The faster he mastered and understood these fantastical powers, the sooner he could leave this graveyard, and the safer he would be doing so.

  So, with his spirit lifted and full of joy and vigor, Rob diligently resumed training until his energy ran out and he had to go out hunting again.

  ***

  “This is perfect,” Rob hissed, full of frustration. “Why don’t you understand?”

  Danger. Danger. The bird responded only with the constant pulse of warning, no matter how Rob shouted or reasoned with it.

  “What danger? Where is it? Can’t you at least tell me what you’re afraid of?”

  He felt like he was talking to himself, and for a moment, he believed he might truly be. He wondered if all those feelings and emotions weren’t coming from the bird at all, but were just fabrications of his own mind.

  He doubted if… they were just his way to cope with the crushing loneliness.

  “Can you please tell me why I shouldn’t do it?”

  No response, and honestly, Rob hadn’t expected any. It wasn’t the first time he’d asked these questions, or many others like them.

  He had pleaded, raged, even begged the bird to pull him back into that golden space where they had first met, to speak to him again. He’d threatened that if it didn’t explain the danger it kept warning him about, he would stop listening altogether.

  But every time, the bird remained unshaken. It ignored his angry curses with the same indifference it showed his pleading and begging.

  “You know what? Damn you—and damn your danger. I’m doing it.”

  Rob didn’t wait for the bird to reply. The instant the words left his mouth, he acted.

  He landed before a crawling corpse at the edge of a cluster of the grotesque creatures. Grabbing it by its rotting arm, Rob vanished into the sky.

  Moments later, he reappeared in a desolate patch not far from the horde. There, Rob unceremoniously dropped the corpse, ended its miserable existence with a violent punch to the head, and caught the shimmering card that emerged.

  But instead of retreating to his usual hiding place, Rob returned to where he had taken the corpse. There, he stood once again before the cluster of the dead bodies, who, naturally, had already forgotten both him and their lost companion.

  Raising the card high for all of them to see, He waited, letting those wretched things fully feel the energy pulsing from it.

  Then He turned his back on the staring corpses and walked ahead.

  And before long, Rob got the reaction he wanted. The puppeteered corpses went into a frenzy.

  He could hear their clacking jaws and shrill screeches of hunger as they surged madly toward him. Rob didn’t see them with his own eyes but he could feel them through the magnet sense. Mindless and unstoppable, They rushed at him in droves.

  More accurately, they were coming for what was in his hand—the energy card. If He had learned one thing during his stay in this tomb of an island and all his hunts, it was that the walking corpses cared for nothing as much as those cards.

  Rob could come and go, killing them one by one, and they would try to resist him. they might even chase him for a while. But soon they would forget him entirely, returning to their crawling and fumbling as if he had never existed.

  Yet, the moment those mindless creatures caught a whiff of an energy card, they would transform from sluggish corpses into ravenous beasts. Perhaps that was their true nature: hunger and malice given shape. Monsters that existed only to consume and devour.

  He half ran, half leapt across the ground. He didn’t want to go too far from the berserking corpses, lest he risk losing their attention.

  He was luring them toward a surprise. one that would end in a glorious harvest of energy cards.

  Looking back, Rob saw that, unexpectedly, The horde was gaining on him.

  “They’re moving faster than I thought,” he muttered. “Wait—is that one actually walking?”

  Well, calling it walking would be a generous use of the word, but still, the thing staggered forward, rose, ran on wobbling noodle-like legs, fell, crawled, then rose again in a grotesque loop.

  “Never mind, we’re already here,” Rob said as a small rise that resembled a black hill came into view.

  Reaching it, he ran halfway up the slope, waited for the corpses to almost reach the foot of the hill, and then threw the energy card right into their midst.

  He watched it arc through the air, gleaming faintly, before landing among the advancing dead. Then he waited, his heart in his throat, for them to stop. If the stupid things didn’t notice the card and proceeded any farther, his entire plan would be wasted.

  Thankfully, they did. The instant the card struck the head of one unlucky corpse, the rest erupted into chaos. Just as Rob hoped and more, they turned on each other, clawing and snarling, wrestling the card from one another.

  Swallowing back the heart in his throat, Rob hurried to the top of the hill and slipped behind a huge white rock. There, hidden from sight, he allowed himself a quick, nervous grin. He rubbed his palms together in excitement until the friction almost sparked fire. Finally, when he could wait no longer, Rob decided to act.

  He took a few steps back, steadied himself, and charged straight into the huge rock.

  The rock was enormous. Not the size-of-a-person kind of large, but the size-of-half-a-house kind of enormous. and for a moment, he doubted if he could budge it even an inch.

  The old Rob certainly couldn’t have.

  But he was different now. He had gained a force of magnetism that mainly revolved around pushing and pulling against things far larger than himself. And although his arduous training in the last few days had merely scratched the surface of what he could do with such powers, Rob understood enough to know his limits.

  And Rob knew he could tilt this rock.

  And he did.

  He magnet-pushed against the ground with all his strength while pulling himself toward the top of the rock. As a result, his body slammed into the great stone, the full weight of his strength and momentum combining in one violent burst. The stone shuddered, then tilted—and with a thunderous roar, it rolled down the slope, crushing everything in its path.

  Rob didn’t see it through, though. Because of his final pull, he was almost glued to the rock’s surface, dragging him dangerously close to going down with it.

  Thankfully, his training kicked in at the last moment, and reflexively he pushed backward, launching himself into the air, landing hard on his back with a winded grunt.

  Rob shoved back so hastily that he didn’t had any mind nor time to holt his fall with another gentle push. And when he remember to do just that later, it was already too late.

  “oh, fuck!” he screamed, the back of his head violently hitting the ground with a bang before he lost consciousness.