"Holy shit!" I said. The zombified angel's head snapped towards my direction and made eye contact with me. Its wings began to flutter in a jerking motion. I looked to Jay and then at Church. "Get him inside, now!"
"I can't physically do anything in these moments, Max. I'm sorry." She was calm and standing over the unconscious body. I let out an irritated noise and ran up to Church, threw my hands under his armpits, and dragged the man to my doorway. The creature's wings were now flapping at a higher speed, and they were loudly humming. I struggled with getting the body through the door when I realized the thing was about to attack at any moment. I dropped Church with a thud, and his head bounced against the door. A health bar appeared under his name, displaying Health: 8/10. He took two damage from that? Before I could react to damaging the stranger by accident, the angel bolted at me with the speed of a racecar. It hit me like a train, and I flew through my entranceway and bounced against the far wall.
Holy shit, it hurt so much! I looked at my display screen, and it showed that one hit dealt twelve points of damage, leaving me with only six health points. I could see spiderweb cracks all over my bones. The angel was now standing over Church, and its rotting jaw was opening impossibly wide. It was going to eat him?! I tried to stand up quickly, but it hurt badly. My bones made their popping noises, which did not distract the soon-to-be feasting creature. I looked around and saw a table nearby where I kept the contents of my pockets after coming home. I quickly dug through the contents, looking for my pocket knife. I finally found it, leatherbound and sheathed. I grabbed it and tossed the covering to the side before charging with the blade raised. The angel's head turned quickly to look at me as I did, and I began to yell. Its wings once more began to flutter, this time revving up much faster.
At the same time as it took off to collide with me again, my foot landed on my knife's sheath, causing me to slip and fall on my ass. As I fell backward, the angel flew right over me. We briefly caught a glimpse of each other. Its eyes were rotting jelly, and it smelled so damn awful. The speed it was flying at was too fast, and it couldn't stop fast enough in the short length of my entranceway., It flew smack dab into my wall, headfirst. I heard a sickening wet crunch from the crash. I looked back to see that it had fully smashed its head into the wall and was stuck standing upright. There were large chunks of gore on the ground, and it was embedded in my wall. It took me a moment to catch my breath as I looked around. Jay was still standing out on the porch. Patti had come to stand between me and the angel now. Church was still out cold, but he had not lost any more health points.
I was breathing hard when Jay walked up to me. She said, "It's not dead yet. It will take some time to regenerate, but it will come back."
"How do I fucking kill it, Jay?" I asked.
"You're going to need to set it on fire," she said.
"Okay, fine. I'll set it on fire, but I think I'm dying here! I took a lot of damage and everything hurts." I was looking at my pinky bone, and it had gone limp. I showed it to Jay, and she leaned down to look at it.
"You'll regenerate a health point a minute naturally. We can buy some health potions later. You'll be okay as long as nothing else attacks you."
"Let's fucking hope there's not any more out there! And how long until it comes back?" I pointed at the mess of gore on the ground.
She said, "Soon enough."
We, and by we I meant me, spent the next few moments regaining our composure. I think my tailbone was broken, and it hurt like hell. I took another two points of damage from slipping onto my ass, leaving me with only four health points. I dragged Church to the couch, and I pointed at him as I told Patti to watch him. She sat down and stared at the young man. Next, I dragged the angel out to my yard and scooped up as much of its head as I could. I went to my garage and found some lighter fluid I had from an earlier cookout. By the time I had done all of this, I had healed ten points. I returned outside to drench the container's contents upon the body when Jay stopped me.
"Before you do that, Max, we need to talk about your class. It's important."
I just stared at her. My class? Skinrunner? I was on autopilot right now and forgot this was even a thing. It's not every day you have an angel zombie try to kill you. She kept staring at me as if waiting for a response. I finally nodded at her to say something.
"Your class is a Skinrunner. I would have told you all of this earlier, but I know you weren't up to it. We don't have that luxury right now, and this is the time to tell you. This class allows you to change into other races and classes, but to do that, you… uh… You have to…"
I just stared at her. "I have to do what, Jay?"
"You… have to eat some of that skin," she said as she pointed at the corpse.
I blew up at that. "I have to eat some fucking skin, Jay? I am cannibalizing people now, is that what you're saying?"
"No, of course not!" She paused for a bit. "It doesn't work on real people, Max." She paused. "This thing isn't real, so… it's not actually cannibalism. Just, kind of gross though."
My face went back to being expressionless, and I returned to spray the body with lighter fluid. Jay's hand caught my arm. She looked tired now. "Max, please. I need you to listen to me. It's weird, and gross, and I would hate it if that were my class too. But you chose this class, and you need-"
I cut her off. "I don't need to do shit, Jay. I'm not eating rotting skin. What the-" Jay cut me off.
"You need to shut up and listen. That thing almost killed you with one hit. One damn hit! If you weren't so lucky and had slipped, you would have died, and then that kid Church would have been eaten. You can't fight in your base form because it's useless. The whole point of your class is that you can change! This creature, while ugly and gross, is also surprisingly powerful for a starter monster. This also won't be the last of them. There will be more, and they will come for you. So you need to shut up and think for just a moment. You don't have to play the game their way, but if you don't take advantage of what is given to you, then there's no point in setting this on fire. You should just let it come back and kill you, because what the hell is the point? So think!" Jay kept her eyes on me; her tentacles were vibrating in anger.
I stood there and did as she asked and thought. She was right. I went on autopilot there for a bit, and that was always a bad idea, especially during this nonsense. I looked around at nothing as I thought, and I was struck by something she said. I don't have to play this game their way. Something about that made me feel better. I hated oppressive authority and had been to plenty of demonstrations in my day. I loved punk music, the styles and aesthetics, but it was the message. Fuck the oppressors. Anything to get their boot off of me. This was our life, we only had one stupid go on this planet, and I never took shit from people before.
I looked at Jay and felt calm. I knew I was stuck in this right now, and if I did nothing, I'd be signing my own death certificate. I nodded at her before kneeling down to the corpse. I looked at Jay one more time before I grabbed the limp arm of the zombie angel and chomped down hard. I ripped my face away like a craved lion after a hunt and began chewing. It tasted awful, like spoiled meat that was baking inside a dumpster for a week. The smell was just as bad. I swallowed the first bite, and I could feel something happening with my body, so I think it was working. I went back and tore off another chunk of flesh.
Jay's tentacles stood upright. "Holy shit, Max! What are you doing?!"
My chewing slowed down as I looked back up to Jay. With my mouth full, I said, "I'm… eating some skin?"
Jay's tentacles went to cover her mouth, as if she was about to vomit. "You only had to eat a small bit of the skin!" I let the angel's arm drop out of my hands, and I began spitting furiously. Holy shit, I think some of it was stuck in my teeth! I wiped my mouth and stood up.
"So, uh, did it work?" I said.
Jay nodded, still looking sick. I was going to ask about how the transforming thing worked when the body at our feet began thrashing around. Jay barely got the words out, "Let's burn this first, okay?" I picked up the lighter fluid, doused the monstrosity, and grabbed my Bic lighter from my pocket. I kneeled down to light the flame that engulfed the wriggling flesh. We watched it burn and writhe for a moment before it finally convulsed one last time. With that, I saw my experience bar fill up. It was now 80/100. That's a bummer, I thought. I was hoping it would at least be a whole level. The Vicinity button on my screen was now flashing, and I clicked it. It revealed the corpse had two rotten health potions, something called an Unholy Bible, and a note. I clicked on them, and they said they were transferred to my inventory. A new button appeared on my screen that said INVENTORY.
Jay turned and vomited a yellow stream that looked like letters from the Matrix, all digital numbers and letters. The puke seemed to disappear as it hit the ground. Her tentacles wiped her mouth before she said, "Sorry… sorry. I'm okay. Did you level up from that?"
"Nah, pretty close though. I'm going to need some more explanations on everything, though, Jay. How my power works is the biggest one. Then we're going to talk about something else which may not be in your manual."
"We've been trying to explain things to you, Max! And what's this something else you want to talk about?" She looked at me, studying me..
"I'm a Molotov cocktail, Jay. I don't know where to be thrown, but you're going to show me where."
Jay and I looked at each other for a moment before we were interrupted by Patti barking from inside my house. We both broke out in a run towards my front door, leaving the burning mess behind us. It had already started to smolder out into ashes. We went through the door and entered the living room to find Patti had cornered the now awake Church. He looked at us with a begging look, and I clicked my tongue to call for Patti. She came to my side at once, and Church slumped down, crying. I waved for everyone to sit, and I plopped down on the couch. It was time we figured some shit out.