The Twilight Strand (Act 1)
Salt. All I taste is salt. It stings my mouth and burns my eyes. My head is still reeling, but I slowly pull myself up to my knees, and then stand on wobbly legs to survey. In front of me looms a towering jagged wall of rock, sharp and forbidding. My skin shivers at the cold waves that lap about me, and my attention is drawn to a rough piece of wood lying on the beach nearby. It's no broadsword, but it'll do, for now.
With nothing but the open ocean behind me and the cliff wall ahead, I make my way down the sandy beach, looking for some sign of life. It finds me instead, bursting out of the sand all around and assailing me with a barrage of hard projectiles. These missiles impact against my skin and burst apart into fragments of sand and some sort of repulsive, viscous goo. They do their best to evade me, dodging back and forth in the sand, but I catch them and smash them flat. A little further down the beach I encounter a new menace, a pack of lurching apparitions stumbling through the waves towards me. They are undoubtedly men, but their days among the living are far behind them. I can smell them on the sea air well before they are upon me, they reek of seaweed, brine, and the rot of countless years under water. The drowned men's stiff limbs carry them slowly across the sand, and I'm able to evade them effectively, keeping my distance from their groping fingers long enough strike them inert.
I make slow, steady progress along the shoreline, gathering roughshod equipment as I go. The rising sun reveals something intriguing in the distance. I squint my eyes through the rising haze. That is definitely some sort of wooden structure up ahead! And if my eyes don't deceive me, there is a white flag fluttering. My heart soars at the sight of this, my pace quickens despite the fatigue. But things are never so easy. The drowned men's stiff limbs carry them slowly across the sand
It looks like one of the other zombies at first, at least from a distance. But as the creature grows nearer, it is obvious that it is gigantic, nearly the height of two men! It moves with a terrible, lumbering speed, every step bobbing a huge, rusted sword that pierces its breast. As it draws close, I smell its awful stink, and see that others must have tried to kill it. Its body is riddled with arrows, some poor soul's vain attempt at resistance. Regardless of how terrifying this monster appears, it stands between me and the encampment ahead. It has to die, again.
Though the rotting giant is menacing, it's surprisingly vulnerable, albeit quite tough. We battle for a time, and though it strikes me with a few heavy blows, I am soon driving it backwards. Just when I think I have the monster defeated, it lets out a horrible bellow, and jerks the great blade from its chest. It attacks with renewed fury, sending me scampering, and only through some luck am I able to avoid grievous injury. I spend a while doing little more than evading certain death, dodging around behind rocks and ducking blows from the monstrous thing that persues me. Finally, with exhaustion gnawing deep into my tired legs, I spot an opportunity, and with a final burst of strength, I sprint past the huge Zombie into the relative safety of the wooden barricade in front of the beach encampment. My enemy tries to follow me, but the passageway is too narrow. I am safe, for now.
I lean against the hard driftwood wall, ragged breaths tearing through me, and I watch with astonishment as my pursuer slides the sword back into the gaping hole in its chest. It gives me one final, hungry look, and then it lurches away back down the beach, no doubts awaiting the next person foolhardy enough to engage it in combat.