I guess I wasn''t as well-hidden as I''d thought. Sounds of screaming came from behind me as I raced along the road toward the town. It couldn''t be much further now. Less than half a mile, for sure.


    Bullets cut the air around me, but I wasn''t hit. Not that I’d have felt it, but the red splatters of blood didn''t appear around my vision again, so I must have been good.


    I looked over my shoulder after a few moments and noticed in amusement that we all seemed to be running at the same pace. My legs weren''t wounded, and apparently neither were theirs. As long as I could outrun their bullets, I would be fine.


    A notification appeared in the corner of my vision.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="text-align: center">RUNNING DEPLETES HUNGER! Hunger 38/50</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Shit. I needed to keep an eye on that. All my walking had drained my hunger far more than my starting supplies could account for. I hopes running didn''t take too much more out of me. It''d be a shame to outrun my pursuers and then die of hunger in the wilderness.


    It began to rain, and I hoped that would impair the aim of my pursuers. Though, now that I thought about it, they didn''t seem to be doing much shooting. They could probably have had by me by then, but their leader must have told them not to waste bullets. Maybe they just wanted to talk.


    I wasn''t going to risk it, and so kept right on going until I saw the town ahead. I leaned into my run as much as I could, hoping there was some kind of super running speed in the game. Maybe I was going faster, but it was probably just a trick of perception.


    As the rains pounded ever harder around me (I felt mildly cold and wet, but it was a disconnected feeling) I staggered past the first buildings of the town and started yelling for help.


    There were no answers, nor anyone on the streets at all. I stopped and caught my breath out of habit, thought I really didn''t feel that winded, as I looked around and saw not a single light in any of the houses. The stores appeared decrepit, their windows boarded up or shattered. Mud ran underfoot and the asphalt of the road appeared heavily broken in places. I walked through an alleyway and came upon an old concrete lot filled with broken-down, rusty cars.


    This was a ghost town. I realized I was no longer being chased, and spun with my back to the brick wall of the alley. Why had they stopped? I needed to pay much more attention to my surroundings. The lack of stimulus in this game would be the death of me.


    I opened my status screen. My Dry was completely depleted, and my Hunger was down to thirty-eight.


    That didn''t look good. I pulled my knife out and after a moment''s thought wielded my empty Makarov in the other hand. My pursuers didn''t know I was out of bullets, after all.


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    Fatigue washed over my body. It didn’t feel natural. Every muscle ached dully, like I needed a good stretch. That must be the game''s half-assed representation of exhaustion.


    I staggered through a different alley than the one I had used to approach the car lot, looking for a building without a boarded-up windows I or door I look look in.


    There, across the street. It looked like a squat, two-floored apartment. I checked to make sure my pursuers weren''t following, and dashed across. The door opened with a cracking sound. I searched the ground floor, but there was nothing of value anywhere. Not that I''d expected anything, but it was worth a short. After that I crawled carefully up the stairs.


    The second floor was less damaged than the first. Some old furniture sat around, somewhat moldy but in a game like this I really didn’t care. I sat down on a bed and opened my status menu, watching my Dry rating slowly crawl up. I still couldn''t do anything about food beyond eating what I already had.


    The chocolate bar and water were tasteless, but they increased my Hunger meter, so it was all good. I stood and edged close to the window of the small bedroom, peeking out. There was movement in the street below, and I held my breath.


    Maybe it was why the others hadn''t followed me.


    A monstrous insect stalked lazily down the street. It was longer than a greyhound bus and at least as tall. Its abdomen was black and bloated and covered with rain-sodden coarse fur. Its many legs rasped the ground as it passed, loud enough for me to hear from yards away and through glass. Mandibles underneath its head twitched incessantly, looking like little gloved hands scooping air into a lamprey’s maw.


    The head made me cover my mouth for fear I''d vomit. It looked like the bulbous head of a bald man covered in blotchy boils, but with something like a metal mesh frame digging out from under his skin underneath one eye. The head was much smaller than the rest of the creature. Its lower jaw had dislocated and torn away, and hung by a strip of rotting flesh from one cheek. A barbed tongue snaked out from the mouth and twitched like a snake''s.


    The bug—it could only be that—moved without purpose , but I felt that at any moment it would turn and see me, and that there would then be no escape.


    Remember the pheromones, I thought to myself. I have that perk. It won''t touch me so long as I stay far away and remain still. Just be calm.


    And it didn''t attack me. It remained outdoors, turning and grabbing onto a building face with one of its spongy feet. The weight of its abdomen cracked a glass window as it bounced along the face of the building, crawling higher and higher. Finally it hauled itself to the building’s upper lip.


    The bug spread a pair of leathery wings that seemed to peel from its body like a scab from an infected wound, and then the creature was flying away in the rain.


    I remained where I was for a long time, and didn’t move.