Dust choked her. Jagged rocks screeched past, missing her head by inches. Lucy tumbled, her scream swallowed by the earth's guttural roar. One moment, firm ground. The next, a gaping maw of pulverized rock and ancient soil. The tremor ripped the world apart.
Her body slammed against something solid, then slid. Sharp pain lanced through her hip. She clawed at the crumbling shale, fingernails tearing, desperate for purchase. Below her, the slope fell away into a dark, swirling chasm that hadn't existed moments before.
Heart thudded against her ribs like a trapped bird. Every muscle screamed. She pushed, kicked, somehow found a precarious foothold on a slab of stone that groaned beneath her weight. It tilted, slowly, inevitably, towards the abyss.
Escape. That was the only thought. Forward, away from the yawning darkness. Away from the sickening groan of the fracturing ridge.
Suddenly, a blinding shimmer erupted from the new fissure. It wasn't sunlight, wasn't rock. A violet light, impossibly bright, pulsed from the depths. Something floated there, mid-air, defying gravity, oblivious to the chaos.
Eyes fixated. A crystal. Roughly cut, the size of her fist, yet perfectly smooth. It rotated slowly, catching the scant light, refracting it into a thousand internal rainbows. An ethereal beauty in the heart of destruction.
Moments later, a translucent panel flickered into existence before her. The same one from her dream. Or… was it a dream? It hummed, a silent frequency that vibrated in her bones. Floating inches from her face, it ignored the dust, the falling debris, the terror in her eyes.
"SYSTEM ACTIVATED," the text glowed in a soft, internal light. Then, a single, dominant option: "TRADE."
Her breath hitched. A system. Trading. Here, now, as the world fell apart around her? It felt impossible, a cruel hallucination brought on by trauma.
Yet, the crystal beckoned. Its soft, violet glow seemed to pull at her, an insistent whisper against the roar of the collapsing earth. Her hand, trembling violently, moved without conscious command. A primal instinct, deeper than fear, took over.
Fingers brushed the shimmering surface of the floating crystal. It felt cool, alive. A faint jolt, like static electricity, traced up her arm.
Instantly, the crystal dissolved. Not into dust, but into pure light, absorbed by the translucent interface. The "TRADE" option brightened, now displaying a new prompt.
"OFFERED: 1x Unknown Violet Crystal. Analyze?" A small 'Yes/No' appeared. Her mind raced, but only for a second. There was no time for analysis. She needed to move. Needed safety.
She ignored the prompt. Below it, a new section appeared. "AVAILABLE TRADES: (Showing 1 of 10,000+)."
Scrolling through seemed daunting. But her eyes immediately snagged on the first item, prominently displayed, almost as if it knew what she needed. An image of a knife. Not just any knife. Its blade held a faint, inner luminescence.
"RECEIVE: 1x Basic Survival Knife (Glow-infused)." A simple description. No stats, no complex details. Just a tool. A weapon.
A surge of adrenaline, cold and sharp, cut through her fear. A survival knife. Something tangible. Something that promised a sliver of control in this spiraling chaos.
Her shaking hand reached out again, pressing the 'Confirm Trade' button with a clumsy thumb. The interface pulsed, a swift, almost imperceptible transfer of energy.
Then, in the space where the crystal had been, a new object materialized. It was real. Solid. Heavy. Her fingers closed around the hilt of the knife.
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