Doomsday Gluttony: I Level Up by Eating

Chapter 3

Ryatt’s POV

I pushed the heavy fire door open, the screech of metal on metal echoing through the silent, gore-streaked corridor. My legs felt steady. Too steady. I looked down at my forearms, watching the way the muscles flexed beneath skin that no longer looked like translucent parchment.

"Mutated," I whispered, the word tasting like lead in my mouth. "You integrated my death into your programming. That’s what you did, isn't it?"

I waited for a response, but the red screen remained dark. I pressed my palm against my chest, waiting for the familiar, stabbing hitch in my lungs. It didn't come. I took a deep, experimental breath. No coughing fit. No blood. Just a strange, buzzing energy that felt like a coiled spring beneath my ribs.

"Am I actually better?" I asked the empty hallway. "Or is this just a trick? Some kind of high before the end?"

I checked my pulse. It was slow, rhythmic, and powerful. For years, I’d been a walking corpse, and now, in the middle of a slaughterhouse, I felt more alive than I ever had.

"Answer me," I snapped at the air. "How much essence do I need? What happens if I can't find another one of those things in three days?"

A flicker of red light appeared.

[Essence requirement scales with evolution.]

[Figure it out, Ryatt Ducker.]

"Figure it out? That’s all you’ve got?" I hissed, stepping over a discarded IV pole. "You rewrite my DNA and then give me riddles?"

Silence. The system was done talking.

I started down the hall, my sneakers crunching on broken glass. The smell hit me first—a cloying mix of copper, bowels, and the sterile scent of floor wax. I turned the corner and froze.

The hallway was a graveyard. A nurse was slumped against the vending machine, her throat opened in a jagged V. Further down, two men in hospital gowns lay tangled together, their fingers locked as if they’d been trying to pull each other toward the exit.

"Jesus," I breathed, my stomach churning.

I walked toward them, my eyes scanning the carnage. Something felt different about the way I was seeing things. It wasn't just the gore; it was a pull, a faint static at the edge of my vision. I stopped beside a body in a lab coat—a doctor, his face frozen in a mask of pure terror.

The red screen flared to life, startling me.

[Corpse detected.]

[Would you like to extract an ability?]

"Extract?" I blinked, looking around to see if anyone was watching. "What is this, a hallucination? You want me to take something from him? He’s dead."

I leaned closer, focusing my gaze on the man’s stiffened hand.

[Extraction available.]

"Fine," I muttered, reaching out. My hand trembled slightly as I touched the doctor’s shoulder. "Do it. Whatever you’re going to do, just do it."

I expected a shock, maybe a flash of light. Instead, a cold, oily sensation seeped through my skin, crawling up my arm and settling into the back of my brain. I jerked my hand back, rubbing my arm.

"Nothing happened," I said, looking down at my palms. "I don’t feel any different. Hey! You failed! There’s nothing here!"

I waited, feeling like a fool standing over a dead man. But then, a thought surfaced. It wasn't my thought. It was a memory of the precise dosage of epinephrine for a cardiac arrest. I knew the exact angle to insert a chest tube. I knew the names of three dozen medications I’d never heard of before.

"I... I know medicine?" I whispered. "I know how to suture a wound. I’ve never even held a needle."

I moved to the next body, a security guard near the elevators.

[Extraction available.]

"Yes," I said immediately.

Another cold rush. This time, I felt the weight of a baton in my mind, the stance for a basic restraint. It was shallow, though. Basic.

"Not everyone has something good," I realized, looking at a patient who had died in a wheelchair. I touched his arm.

[No viable skills detected.]

"I see," I said, a dark realization settling in my gut. I stood up and looked down the long, body-strewn corridor. The horror of the corpses was fading, replaced by a cold, calculating hunger. "You’re not just bodies anymore. You’re... upgrades."

I moved with a new purpose. I wasn't just looking for an exit; I was hunting for value. I bypassed the elderly patients and the clerical staff. I needed something that could keep me alive outside these walls. 

I reached the lobby, and that’s when I saw him. Near the shattered revolving doors lay a man in olive drab tactical gear. His vest was shredded, and his face was a ruin of claw marks, but he looked different from the others. He looked like he had been a wall of muscle before the world broke. A black rifle lay just out of his reach.

I crouched beside him, my heart racing. "Please," I whispered. "Have something."

[Elite Combatant detected.]

[Skill available for extraction.]

"Accept," I said, my voice cracking.

This time, the rush wasn't cold. It was a violent, searing heat that slammed into my skull. I gasped, clutching my head as years of muscle memory, range time, and combat drills flooded into my consciousness. I saw sights, felt triggers, and understood the mathematics of ballistics in a heartbeat.

[Skill acquired: Master Firearm Proficiency.]

I stared at my hands. They felt heavier. When I reached for the rifle on the floor, my fingers moved with a practiced ease I’d never possessed. I checked the safety, dropped the magazine, and felt the weight of the bolt—all in one fluid motion.

"Empty," I grumbled, my voice sounding like a stranger’s. I patted down the soldier’s tactical vest, finding three spare magazines. "Better."

I stood up, slinging the rifle. I spent the next ten minutes scavenging the lobby’s gift shop and pharmacy. I crammed protein bars, bottled water, and rolls of gauze into a discarded backpack.

"I have to keep the gauge filled," I reminded myself, checking the red status bar in my peripheral vision. "Survival isn't just about the cancer anymore. It's about everything else."

I pushed through the shattered glass of the entrance and stepped onto the street. The sun was obscured by a thick, grey haze of smoke.

"God," I whispered.

The city was a graveyard of steel. A bus had plowed into the side of a Starbucks, its windows shattered and stained red. Dozens of cars were abandoned in the middle of the intersection, doors hanging open like broken wings. I could hear screaming in the distance—thin, desperate sounds that were drowned out by the roar of a distant fire.

There were no sirens. No police. Just a group of people three blocks down, smashing the windows of a convenience store.

"Get out of the way!" a man screamed from the crowd. "It’s my turn! I have kids!"

"Shut up and grab the bread!" another voice roared.

I kept my head down, the rifle tucked tightly under my arm, hidden by the oversized jacket I’d pulled off a rack. I watched from the shadows of a bus stop. A man burst from the store, clutching three loaves of bread to his chest like they were bars of gold.

"I got it! I got—"

He didn't finish. A younger man, his face smeared with soot, tackled him into the pavement. They rolled in the dirt, punching and biting.

"Give it here!" the attacker shrieked. 

The man with the bread tried to kick him off, but a third person joined in, slamming a heavy boot into the man’s ribs. I heard the sickening crack of bone. The man with the bread went limp, his fingers loosening. The crowd didn't stop to help him. They climbed over his body, trampling his hands as they fought for the loaves he’d dropped.

"They're killing each other for bread," I muttered, my grip tightening on the rifle. "Just bread."

I felt a shift in my chest. A week ago, I would have felt pity. I would have wanted to help. But as I watched the man lie there, his chest barely moving, I felt... nothing. Just a cold, analytical observation.

"I can't help you," I whispered to the dying man. "I have no reason to. I’m just trying to stay alive myself."

I started to turn away, but then I saw his eyes. They were wide, glazed with shock, staring directly at me across the debris-strewn street. His lips moved, a silent, fluttering plea that I couldn't hear over the shouting of the looters.

Then, his head slumped. The light left his eyes.

I froze. My vision blurred for a second as the red text cut through the smoke.

[Corpse detected.]

I looked at the body, then at the mob of people just ten feet away from it. I could take his skill. I could see if he had anything left to give.

But as I took a step forward, three men detached themselves from the store entrance. They weren't looking at the bread anymore. They were looking at me. One of them pointed at the backpack slung over my shoulder.

"Hey! You!" one shouted, a crowbar in his hand. "What’s in the bag? You got meds in there?"

"Walk away," I said, my voice low and steady.

"He’s got a gun!" another one yelled, though he didn't back down. He looked at my thin frame, misjudging the strength the system had poured into my limbs. "He’s just one kid! Look at him, he’s sick! Get him!"

I didn't wait. I turned and bolted into a narrow alleyway, my new lungs pumping air with effortless efficiency.

"Come back here!"

I didn't look back. I increased my pace, navigating the trash and discarded crates with a grace I hadn't known I possessed. The realization hit me then, cold and sharp. The system hadn't just given me a way to survive. It had given me a way to thrive on the dead.

I looked at the corpses in the gutters as I ran. They weren't people anymore. They were opportunities. And as the thought solidified, a terrifying thrill ran through me.

A red notification pulsed, brighter than the rest.

[Warning: Powerful corpse detected nearby.]