by Ben Ormstad
Through the abating smoke, I saw the remaining three cages were dangling back and forth on the opposite side of the circular platform. The Ball-Buster grenade destroyed the bridges that connected them to it, and now they hung there, separated, with no way for the spiders filling them to pass over.
How was this amount of damage even possible from a mere grenade? This couldn’t possibly be the same grenade the guard almost killed me with back at the cell, could it? It would’ve shattered the entire room. But then I remembered the Ball-Buster’s description text warning about their poor manufacturing, which would introduce randomness in the amount of damage they caused.
Next thing I knew, two of the other cages’ chains snapped. Spider shrieks ululated like alarms as they plummeted and splashed into the lava.
“Time to move,” I said to Frida – or maybe just myself – and rushed the bridge, running across it. Darius was badly hurt from spider wounds and whatever else he’d experienced prior to this. He limped as fast as he could in front of me, steadying himself on the steel wires. Grunting, he made it over to the circular platform. He turned to help us over and yelled: “Dex!” Then pointed to something behind me. Simultaneously, I registered a ripping sound from behind.
The chain…
The thought stabbed my gut with a flash of panic. The ripping sound increased and ended in a loud, metallic snap!
A falling sensation came next, as nothing held the cage up anymore. This is the end, I thought and, without knowing what I did, I used all my power to throw Frida over to him. He caught her hands as the bridge dropped; forcefully dragged down by the weight of the falling cage behind me.
I fell.
My hands stretched up toward Frida’s dangling legs, before Darius pulled her over the ledge and onto the platform. My entire existence comprised the extremely real sense of falling clutching my stomach. Dozens of spiders shrieked behind me, all knowing their end was nigh.
No, a thought said. Not after all of this!
Roaring in a sudden burst of outrage at the unfairness of the situation, I pressed my hands forward and clasped my arms around the edges of the bridge flying past me on the way down.
“Aaaaaahh,” I screamed at the top of my lungs, squeezing the bridge so hard I felt skin on the inside of my arms rip open. Flesh tore, blood spilled out and painted the rusted metal plates red. As my falling speed slowed somewhat, I wrapped my legs around the sides of it, too.
The second I broke my fall and just hung there, feeling nothing but pain in arms and legs, a loud snap cracked underneath me. The cage had stretched the bridge to its limits. Now the weight of it snapped the bridge’s hinges. As I heard the cage splash in the lava below, the incredible force flung the bridge upwards like a slingshot. I was nothing but a lightweight pebble caught amid these great natural forces. Utterly powerless, the pressure shot my body up with the far end of the bridge. Air swooshed in my ears and the world flipped upside down as I lost my grip.
For a split-second everything was weightless.
The following instant, I once again fell, but this time in an arch. Bracing for impact – wherever or whatever it would be – I closed my eyes, curled up like a ball and cursed the ingenious assholes who’d developed this virtual reality.
Somewhere far away I heard Darius’ deep voice yell. It quickly increased in intensity, until my body crashed into something mildly soft. Darius’ voice screamed right behind my head and I realized the bridge had thrown me all the way up and back onto the platform. Darius dampened my fall. We both slid backwards, pushed away rubble and stone fragments before a large boulder-like rock stopped us.
Getting to my senses, I coughed heavily. Blood spurted from my mouth and covered my bleeding legs. My lungs felt ripped to shreds. I winced at the pain as I pushed myself off of Darius. Turned and grabbed his hand, pulled him up. It looked like a meteorite had crushed him.
“Thanks,” I said hoarsely. “Think you just saved my life.”
“I’m…” he began, then clutched his chest and coughed. His brown eyes looked at me through the messy strands of blond hair hanging down his forehead. Smiled despite the pain. “Simply returning the favor.”
“Here,” I said and helped him to his feet. That’s when I noticed my vision was flickering from the damage received. Quickly, I checked my remaining health.
12 HP
“Shit, dude,” I said. “I’m soon dead. Twelve HP left.”
He coughed again. “Yeah, I’m at nine.”
“We’re not even out yet,” I said and looked over at Frida who sat by the bridge leading to the exit platform, leaning on the railings. Her condition wasn’t any better than ours. I let my eyes strafe over this once circular platform, but now ravaged beyond recognition by the Ball-Buster grenade. Most of it was just a huge, smoking crater. How it hadn’t broken apart entirely, I didn’t know, but I felt gratefulness tickle the back of my brain.
Of the five cages that surrounded it less than three minutes ago, fully intact, only one cage still clung to its ceiling chain. The corpse-spiders hadn’t chewed through it yet. They were busy munching on the dead bodies inside. The bridge hung slack, pointing to the lava below.
A deep rumble vibrated through the broken platform. Dust puffed out from widening cracks. The fractures rapidly grew in size and multiplied like a growing web of veins.
I looked back at Darius. “Can you move?”
A defiant smile grew on his dry lips. “I’ll do what I have to.”
“All right,” I said, went over to Frida. Each step I took sent waves of hurt through my mashed up legs. As I grabbed her arm and lifted her, the wounds on the insides of my forearms stretched open further. The pain felt like knives cutting me. Blood poured out and colored the stone tiles dark red. It didn’t matter. We had to get out before the remains of the platform shattered, and before more spiders came – or daemonorg guards or whatever else kind of craziness.
I shifted my weight and took Frida’s other arm as well. She groaned from discomfort, but helped me carry her by wrapping her legs around my waist again. “Hold on tight.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“I’ll go first.” Darius checked his weapon, entered the bridge back to the exit and limped ahead. The back of his uniform was ripped and exposed a large part of his back. Actual bones were visible in the deepest cuts in his back. I considered offering him my MedKit, but shit… I didn’t know the guy. He could kill me and strip me of all possessions as soon as we got out of here. Same with Frida. I didn’t have a clue who they were.
Besides, I sure as hell needed it for myself.
I looked away from his flesh wounds and focused on avoiding the purple spider-slime-stuff smeared all over the bridge. In the space between the rusted metal plates, I saw the boiling lava a hundred meters down. None of the cages, bridges or spiders that had fallen into it were visible; it had devoured all. The lava ate everything indiscriminately. If I slipped up now, both Frida and I would join them. A dry click came from my throat as I swallowed. Cleared my voice, said: “So, how’d you wind up here, anyway?”
Darius’ graveling voice answered: “Long story short – mission gone wrong. Got caught by a group of daemonorgs after I rescued Frida.”
“Your mission was to rescue her?”
“Naw, was actually finished doing what I came here for and on my way back to base, but then she suddenly appeared outta nowhere with a horde of daemonorgs after her. I saved her and decided to assist her a little longer… and the rest is history.”
“You’re a Battle-Marine, correct?”
He turned for a second and threw me a glance. “You have to ask?”
“I…What do you mean?”
“You don’t recognize my uniform?”
“Uhm, no.”
“Ah, I see now,” he said, nodded to himself and continued limping onward. “Not bad.”
I understood nothing. “What?”
“So this is your first quest, like, the absolutely first one – not jus
t this time around, but ever?”
“Yeah, I’m a level 1 Battle-Marine. So?” My eyes flickered from his wounded back to Frida’s closed eyes. Her head leaned against my left shoulder. For the moment she looked peaceful. Sort of.
“Shit, son,” he said. “You’re a total noob, yet the way you just fought all those corpse-spiders and rescued us… damn. I was certain you’d been playing this game for quite some time with a different character or some shit.”
I almost laughed. Shook my head. “Nope. Just spawned less than an hour ago. First time ever playing.”
Yet again he turned to me. Wiped blood from his brow and stroked the blond hair back over his head. It shone like gold in contrast to his dark skin. “Who the hell thought it was a good idea to place a newborn noob in a daemonorg prison-lab?”
“Uh, a prison-lab?” I said, shrugged. “My merge-assistant told me everyone gets assigned random introductory quests.”
“Not exactly. They’re semi-random. See, every new player gets assigned an initial quest picked from a pool of noob-friendly missions, in order to not wind up in brutal places like this facility.”
My stomach rumbled as a spike of fear hit me in the solar plexus. “Are you sure?”
“Am I sure?” He arched his eyebrows and laughed. “Yeah, pretty damn sure.”
So Lily was full of shit. But why? I felt my biceps twitch as I held Frida tighter to stop my hands from shaking. “I don’t understand,” I continued, “my merge-assistant assured me–”
A well-known clattering sound cut my sentence short. Darius spun around. “More fuckers,” he said and pointed at the last platform.
Corpse-spiders crawled up from the sides of the flight of steps leading up to the half-closed stone door. Fluorescent white light beamed out from the crack, like the heavenly light escaping the pearly gates. Or not. More death surely awaited on the other side.
“Get ready,” Darius said and steadied himself on the railings with one hand and aimed with the other.
“How much ammo you got left?” I said.
“Six bullets. You?”
“A full mag.”
“Good. Keep ‘em,” he said, swung his stick and struck it against the railings, sending waves of motion through the hanging bridge. “This will never run out of ammo.”
A visual memory of the cell I spawned in flashed in my mind. Unless multitudes of guards flooded the corridors right now, combing the area for the perpetrators who killed the prisoners and rescued Ahlyana, then we could return there for some time off. I didn’t know if that would count as a ‘resting place’ where I’d be able to level up, but worth a shot.
“If we make it out of here alive, I know a place we can relax for a moment,” I said to Frida.
Eyes closed, her beautiful face barely formed a smile. “Thank you… Dex.”
Darius’ handgun fired. A spider ten meters away painted the stairs yellow. Spot on. A skill I couldn’t even dream of at this distance – yet. The gun blasted once more, and he did it again; the next spider became a splash of yellow. The surrounding spiders dove to the side, shrieked and increased their speed. More and more of them crawled up from beneath the steps. After seeing them plunge to their deaths, I now knew they didn’t live in the lava. Thus, they had to come from nests inside the walls further down. Multitudes of legs and red eyes rippled down the steps and across the platform like a living carpet of death.
Darius blasted his gun again. Three consecutive precision shots picked off the three closest spiders. They advanced rapidly and had almost reached the outer edge of the platform where our bridge hung.
“Three bullets left,” he said, squeezed the trigger thrice and splattered the next three spiders. Failsafe aim.
I cursed under my breath. Increased my speed and caught up with him, ignoring the vomit-inducing rocking of the bridge. I placed my palm on his shoulder. Passed him the gun. “Dude, take this.”
He shook his head. “Naw, man. You keep it.”
“I can’t aim for shit unless the target is like two meters away. Take it.”
He pursed his lips, but accepted it.
“Wait a second,” I said, wiggled my hand into my jacket and equipped the last Ball-Buster grenade. “Got one more of these.”
A micro-expression twitched in his face. “The explosion might take out the bridge as well.”
Now it was my turn to give him a defiant smile. “I know.” I nodded at the spiders who had, in a matter of seconds, become a horde. “Got a better idea?”
“Shit, son,” he said, smirking. “Nope.”
“Hold on tight,” I said, withdrew my throwing hand and focused all my attention. Considering I hit too far left last time, when I aimed at the middle, I accounted for it and aimed farther to the right this time. I threw the grenade at the hungry jumbo-insects.
In a breathless moment we watched the deadly ball fly. The correction I’d made to the aim paid out – the arch was perfect. More or less exactly in the platform's center, right in front of the stairs, the Ball-Buster crushed a spider as it hit the ground.
I wrapped both arms around Frida, shielded her head and braced myself for what would come next. Darius crouched in front of me and clung to the bridge banister.
The grenade went off.
Exploding flames erupted and brought destruction upon the crawling arachnids. The ground shook as they shattered to pieces of juicy yellow and purple. Stone debris and spider parts flew in all directions. Likewise, those outside the immediate impact radius shot across the ground by the explosion’s force. Unable to stop the motion, they slid outside the edges and plummeted to certain lava-death. The vibrations reverberated through the ground and continued onto the hanging bridge, forcing us to hold on tighter as it rocked violently. The same vibrations shook off most spiders climbing up the sides of the platform. They squealed and fell like rag dolls.
Still, based on the last grenade, I’d expected this one to be a lot more devastating. This one seemed to be about as powerful as the one the guard threw into my cell. Which was perfect now, of course.
The smell of burned smoke again tickled my nostrils. I looked up and smiled at the empty platform and stairs, and the smoking crater in the middle.
“Grrreat!” Darius said. He strained to get back to his feet. Pulled me and Frida up with him. “Now, let’s get going before more of ‘em come.”
We crossed the bridge, limped across the platform and the cracked floor now loaded with dead corpse-spiders and their yellow blood and purple slime substance. Most of the human bodies that had been here blew over the edge by the explosion. Stone rubble cracked under our boots as we climbed the stairs to the stone door.
Darius grunted as he pushed open the heavy door. I squinted at the bright fluorescent light flooding from the sterile, white corridor.
I repositioned the grip I had on Frida so she wouldn’t slide down. She tightened her legs around my waist. I crouched and walked up to the door at an angle. Didn’t want to flash my entire body in the opening just yet. Peeking past the edge, I thought: How many guards await us in here now?
16
Luckily, no guards awaited us in the sterile, white corridor. As if the daemonorgs didn’t care at all about what had happened here. Good for us. I carried Frida and led Darius back to the first floor I spawned in. He commented on all the dead guards, impressed by my skills as a complete and utter noob – not to mention surviving a grenade attack, then being captured and dragged by my feet through the corridors and up a flight of steps like a bag of trash.
We backtracked to the cell where I found and stripped a dead prisoner of his clothes. The cell’s placement was optimal, as it was easy to pay attention to what happened in the hallway, with a decent view toward the sole entrance to the floor.
Exhausted, I put Frida down and collapsed on the ground beside her. Darius sat down on the opposite side of the corner next to us, leaned his head against the brick wall. The light from the torch cup outside the open door flickered in his sweaty
, dark-skinned face. Strands of blond hair hang across his forehead like a golden mop. He smiled. “Checked your stats yet?” he said, brushing the hair back.
“Actually, no,” I said and laughed. “Forgot all about it.”
He nodded, then shook his head softly, still smiling. “We made it. All thanks to you.”
I shrugged it off. “Coincidences, you know. Can’t control ‘em.”
“No, I mean it,” he said, leaned forward, hand stretched out toward me.
I grabbed it, shook it.
“Seriously, thanks,” he said. “Most noobs would’ve gotten the fuck outta there as soon as those corpse-spiders attacked.”
“Okay,” I said, grinned. “Have it your way, then. I’m awesome. I get it. I’m The Man.”
Our laughter filled the small cell’s atmosphere like a pile of comfy pillows. A welcome change from all the stress. Even Frida let out a short, sweet laugh. I hadn’t even noticed she’d awoken. I really wanted to level up, check my stats and manage my progress, but postponed it for another minute or two. Instead, I leaned over and helped her up in a sitting position, back against the wall. Wiped dirt off and cleared away the long, white hair that stuck to her face. Her crystal blue eyes glinted in the torchlight.
“How’s it going, Frida?”
She forced a smile. “I need… health. Only 2 HP… left.”
“Shit,” I said, then looked away from both of them while thinking hard about the MedKit in my backpack. Slowly, I had gotten a feel for Darius. He was a good dude. 90% certain. But he didn’t know her, either. She could turn out to be Ahlyana 2.0 for all I knew. Then again, what kind of person was I? What kind of person did I want to be in this world? More importantly, what kind of person was I in the real world? And was there even a difference? Did I want to be a bitch who didn’t help his fellow peeps when they needed him the most?
