by Ben Ormstad
Before entering, I flipped my head back and saw the demon had resumed its focus on Darius. The dude was a hero. No doubt. We owed him our lives.
“Still no time to waste,” Frida said and entered.
I silently thanked Darius once more and followed Frida inside. The corridor was draped in darkness now, since the demon had whiffed out all the torches on the walls. Its shoulders were so broad they had been torn from their attachments and littered the floor. I figured they would be useful later and picked up a couple.
+2 Wooden Torch (req. 1 Item Slot each)
Apply fire to light up. Can also be used as a very basic melee weapon
A jolt of surprise struck me when I realized the symbols covering the walls radiated a shining redness, as if activated. I was positive they did not glow earlier. Perhaps that’s how the demon entered the corridor, through a portal opened by the activation of the symbols?
It seemed legit.
But did that mean the daemonorgs were watching through hidden cameras and had unleashed the beast to stop us? Could they bring in more of them? How many did they have and was there a limit to how many they could bring through? My mind ached from the flood of questions.
We reached the middle of the corridor when my feet just couldn’t handle the strain anymore. Lactic acid washed through my thighs and shins and made my legs feel like boneless jelly. My pace slowed to an unsteady walk. At the end of the corridor, I longingly eyed the fluorescent light from the sterile hallway that came in through the half-open door. Bright beams enlightened the guards’ corpses in front of the exit. So close.
Frida stopped, came back and started dragging me. “Come on, Dex! Push yourself!”
A flush of anger spread in my chest. “I’ve done nothing but pushing myself ever since I got here. I’m a fucking noob and shouldn’t even be here! I’m done… I can’t–” I said through the uncontrollable breathing. “–can’t run anymore. Just… get to safety.”
“No, Dex, come on!”
In frustration I shrugged her off me. Pushed her away. Pointed to the bright light. “You’ll be safe out there. Guaranteed.”
She hit me, then coiled her hands around my arm and tugged at me. “I’m not leaving you.”
“Don’t be stupid,” I said and tried to pry her hands off me. “I’ll be right behind ya. You just go and keep the door open until I get–”
My sentence was cut short by Darius’ death. The detonation sounded muffled at this distance, but rapidly grew in intensity when the sound waves closed in and surged through the dark corridor. We both stopped and faced the direction we came from, hearing the demon’s growl drown in the roaring explosion. My body turned ice cold as I stared out into the prison floor as everything shook violently. Like slow motion, an enormous ball of expanding fire pulsed past the cells, framed by thick, black smoke enveloping the prison in muddy layers of dust, while the immense explosion tore down the ceiling and floors. The walls gave up and caved in like a gingerbread house destroyed by dynamite. The earthquakey vibrations became stronger as the gigantic fireball devoured everything we saw. At last, the fire climbed the steps and entered our corridor, filling it with waves of flames and smoke and impending doom.
“Get down!” I threw Frida on the ground, jumped on top of her – using myself as a living shield. We both screamed through gritted teeth as the entire world trembled around us. I closed my eyes and flexed all muscles when the heat washed over us, bringing pain and what I expected to be certain death.
-15 HP
-20 HP
-10 HP
-5 HP
-3 HP
-1 HP
When a seeming eternity passed and the rumbling nightmare calmed, I realized I’d survived yet another near-death experience.
Slowly, I dared to remove my hands from their protective position behind my head and neck. As I did, loads of fallen detritus and debris that had accumulated on top of me slid off and clattered on the floor. I groaned from stabbing pain in my back caused by larger pieces of sharp stones. With a grunt, I rolled over and away from Frida and landed on my back on the floor. It took immense willpower to lift my hand enough to grab her shoulder and wiggle it. “Still alive?”
She didn’t move.
I shook her harder. “Frida, you still–” I said and broke out coughing. Got myself under control and repeated the question: “You still alive?”
Her lanky body twitched. She gasped for air, rolled around and crawled up in a semi-sitting position, elbows leaning on the cracked floor. In the darkness, I barely made out her silhouette and the long hair clinging to her face and running down her shoulders and chest.
“Was worried you’d disappeared on me for sec,” I said and smiled despite the pain hurting every inch of my body.
As if she hadn’t noticed I was even present, she jerked in surprise at the sound of my voice. Crawled further away. “Wh-what?”
I sat up, leaned against the wall. “I’m glad you’re alive.”
She sighed, relieved. “Dex.”
“Yeah,” I whispered. “We survived, both of us. I don’t know how, but here we are.”
Rubble scratched on the floor as she pushed herself closer. Put a hand on my leg. “You saved me.”
“Uhm,” I said. “If I was religious, I’d say God saved you… and me.”
“Are you hurt?”
“Yup, pretty damn bad. 16 HP left. You?”
“Not too bad. I still have 75 HP left.”
“Wow. Impressive.”
“As I said, you saved me. Again.” She squeezed my leg softly. “Looks like the hallway out there still has working electricity.”
I turned my head toward the tiny speck of fluorescent light streaming in from the white hallway. The door was almost closed by debris piled up in front. I nodded to myself. “We can make it.”
“Yes,” she said. “Indeed, we can.” Somewhat unstable, she used the wall as a crutch to stand up straight, before helping me up as well. “How’s that?”
“Good enough,” I said, wiping a hand across my face. Drew a deep breath and ignored the stuttering vision caused by the low health. It reminded me of annoying lag, as if playing the game on a low-spec computer.
The end of the corridor couldn’t have been more than about ten or fifteen meters away, yet I had no idea how long we took to get there. Every inch of the claustrophobic, small space was filled to the brim with broken pieces of fallen walls and fragments from the ceiling which had caved in multiple places. Still, the symbols glowed red, still intact. Even the symbols on jagged parts of the wall laying on the floor were glowing. I kept my attention as focused on the environment as possible in case a portal suddenly opened and introduced a new destruction-thirsty beast.
When we finally reached the door and bathed in the fluorescent beams of light from the other side, we had to remove the pile of dirt and shit blocking the entrance to open it wide enough to squeeze through.
Back in the white, sterile hallway, we closed the door shut and collapsed on the floor. I didn’t even bother to worry about whether or not more demonic guards arrived, and leaned against the crates I opened the first time I passed by. Frida took a moment to check her stats, so I intended for the notifications log to display what had been withheld during the battle:
*
Killed 8 Daemonorg Grunts – Level 2
+160 XP
*
What, that’s it? I thought, but remembered I’d received the stash key from Darius, and I’d picked up ammo, machetes and… consumables! another thought interjected. I devoured all.
+40 HP
It bumped my health up to 56, which was a radically better state than barely scraping by in the sub-twenties. Immediately feeling great from the disappearance of pain and vision stutter, I shook my head at the lameness of not remembering it while we struggled through the corridor.
Note to self: NEVER forget MedKits, Consumables or other health-giving items. They’re too damn important.
Hesi
tantly, I checked how the poisoning was holding up:
Character States
— Poisoned : 03:07:11 until dead
The countdown timer never stopped, but at least I still had three hours left. Without Frida’s help I’d be dead in half an hour. I closed the stats screen and stared right into her smiling face.
“You look better now,” she said with her soft, comfortable voice.
“Feel better, too. I’d completely forgotten about the consumables I picked up earlier. How ‘bout you?”
She held her hands up, studying them from all angles. Petite fingers with long nails painted azure blue, matching her eyes. She clenched her fingers into a fist. Then opened them again. Nodded. “I feel good. There haven’t been any ability upgrades for a while, but I can’t shake the feeling something is brewing.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Like what?”
“I don’t know exactly, but it’s like I’m starting to feel a kind of energy-surge tingling in my hands,” she said, then shrugged. “Or, I don’t know if it’s in my hands specifically, but it feels strongest there.” She bumped her fingertips of the opposite hands together multiple times. “It’s as if the energy is stimulated when I do this.”
“Cool,” I said. “Probably a Warrior-Medic-thing, don’t ya think?”
“Indeed. It’s pretty exciting.” She smiled and tucked her hands underneath her thighs, crossed in a lotus position. White skin was visible through the ripped fabric of her tight-fitted, black pants.
I glanced at the polished steel door to the left. “So, how did you wind up in this godforsaken place? Did you randomly spawn here when you started playing, like me?”
“Not at all. I started in a sweet, little village where the residents barely even know of the daemonorg invasion,” she said, but then corrected herself: “Well, I shouldn’t say that, as most of Godmadriguhl is in some way tainted by Daemonorg’s presence. But these villagers still have healthy plants, trees and even a lake surrounding their little community – and they have never been attacked directly… as far as I know.”
“Sounds nice.” Although I enjoyed dark, grim and scary experiences when playing games, I couldn’t help but feel a tiny speck of jealousy at the thought of starting my OVERTAKEN ONLINE journey in a peaceful small town, rather than being thrown into a prison-hell full of demons. After all, this experience was way too lifelike to merely be categorized as a regular ol’ game. “So, why are you here?”
Half of her mouth smiled before she got to her feet.
“I mean, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“No, not at all,” she said and strode off toward the polished steel door.
“Uhm, okay?” I got up and wondered what had just happened. Decided to ignore it and pressed on: “You mentioned something about some other aliens right before the attack back in the cell. You’re training for something?”
She put her ear against the door and a finger on her lips, indicating I should stop talking. After a few seconds, she removed her head and said: “Yes, I’m training to become an Extraterrestrial Inter-relational Agent for the local Warrior-Medic guild.”
“That’s a mouthful!”
She smirked, equipped her machete and curled her fingers around the door’s slick, reflective handle. “EIA, for short. They recruited me a week or two ago… or however long it’s been. Time gets distorted in here.”
Did she mean ‘in here’ as inside OVERTAKEN ONLINE, or in this prison-lab? I re-equipped the last Daemonorg Light Handgun I had left, made sure it was fully loaded. Positioned myself to the left of the door while she stood on the right side. “What does an EIA do?”
“Interact and communicate with alien races,” she said and turned the handle. The fluorescent light reflected in the door as she opened it.
20
An equally sterile, white room the size of a regular office lay before us. Closed elevator doors at the opposite end with a screen above showing the number 6. Three lockers in reflective steel lined the left wall. A sign hung on the right wall, depicting a gun-symbol with a red circle around it.
In the top right corner of the room, a surveillance camera moved with a mechanical zzzzd-sound as I entered. Frida followed. Another zzzzd-sound came from the camera when the lens zoomed in on us.
She slid past me, ran across the white concrete floor and jumped toward the camera. With a clean swing of the machete she slashed the camera in half. Electricity sparked and the evil eye crashed on the floor, leaving only a broken piece of metal and a protruding cable in the ceiling.
“Well, they already know we’re here,” I said. “But smooth skills nevertheless.”
With a shrug she threw the long hair back over her shoulders. “They don’t have to know what we’re doing, even if they know our location.”
“True,” I said and inspected the lockers. My face and broad-shouldered body reflected in the polished material. Padlocks sealed each locker door. I grabbed one and tested its strength. Solid like iron. I hit it with the gun grip, hoping the weapon wouldn’t break easily. After a few more hard whacks aimed at the lock’s weakest point, it snapped. I grinned at Frida and tore open the locker door.
I took in the smell of leather and metal as I stuck my head in to get a better view of the contents. A gray leather jacket hung from a hook. I took it out and noticed cash, consumables and a box at the bottom.
“That’s too tiny for you,” she said as I held the jacket up in front of my chest.
“Of course, it’s for you.” I handed it to her.
She put it on, stretched out her arms and turned. It fit snugly on her upper body, as if tailor-made. She stood straight, pulled the zipper half-way up, leaving enough of it open to expose her dirty blouse and the cleavage. She tugged at the edges of the jacket and smiled knowingly. “How do I look?”
“Like a babe,” I said and couldn’t help but flash her a wide grin.
“And I got four more item slots as well,” she said, checking the outer and inner pockets. “Just think about it, I had super-nice clothes, thousands of cash, a bunch of useful items, plus MedKits. But the daemonorgs stripped both Darius and me of everything we had when they imprisoned us.”
“Too bad,” I said. “Maybe we’ll find out where they stored it and get it back to you.”
“I won’t get my hopes up, but sure. Anything else in there?”
“Yeah, cash, consumables and some kind of box.” I fished out the box, which glinted in a superimposed greenish glow, signifying its importance as an item. It had weight to it, and upon shaking it a bunch of stuff rattled inside.
“Scrap,” she explained.
“Scrap?” I opened the box and saw screws, bolts and other metal parts. “Oh, scrap! Like stuff we can use in trading and… stuff?”
“Yes, exactly like stuff and stuff, like, you know, like, stuff,” she said and giggled mockingly.
“Shut the hell up, girl,” I said and laughed. “I do me, you do you.”
She pushed me teasingly. “How old are you, Dex?”
Pretending to be serious, I narrowed my eyes and said in a deep voice: “You should never ask a big man holding a box of stuff how old he is!”
That made her laugh even harder. “No, but seriously, I want to know.”
“33.”
Her eyes grew wide and her jaw fell open. “Really?”
“Really as real can be,” I said, nodded. “And you?”
She glanced at the floor for a second. “Well, you know, I actually thought I was the oldest of us. 29…”
“Damn,” I said. “So we’re both too old to be screwing around, aren’t we?”
She covered her mouth with a hand and looked at the floor again. “I wouldn’t exactly say we’re screwing around or anything…”
This time I was the one to jokingly hit her. “I meant screwing around playing video games, dummy. Duh!”
She suddenly laughed out loud. “I just remembered Darius kept calling you ‘son’. Most likely, you should be the one to cal
l him that. What’s the probability of him being older than the early twenties? Hah!”
“Yeah, but since he’s got a lot more experience in OVERTAKEN ONLINE, I found it fitting. He plays his role nicely. Hope we get to meet up again sometime. By the way,” I said, changing the subject. “Your English is pretty much perfect, but I do hear a hint of some accent. Where are you from?”
“Usually people don’t seem to notice it at all,” Frida said, smiling. “But you’re right, of course, I’m not a native English speaker. I’m from Norway.”
“Wuuut – you’ve come all the way from Norway to play OVERTAKEN ONLINE?”
“Sure did.”
Scratching my head, I tried to visualize where Norway was located on a map of the world. I knew there was a cluster of countries way up North which formed Scandinavia. “That’s quite a trip to play a game, then.”
She laughed out loud. “We both know this isn’t just ‘some game’. This is more like visiting a different dimension altogether, and it’s totally worth it!”
“True, and cool to have ya here,” I said and smirked at her. “So, how’s life in Norway – is it as cold up there as they say?”
Smirking right back at me, she answered: “That depends how cold ‘they’ say it is.”
I shrugged, chuckling. “Shit, I dunno. Like the entire country is freezing like winter in Alaska, or something.”
“Weeell, I’ve never been there, so who knows, but considering movies I’ve seen from snowy Alaska, I’d say our winters resemble it a lot. Of course, it varies depending on where in Norway you live, as well,” she said, wagging her head back and forth. Then motioned with her hands to illustrate while explaining: “From the middle of the country and further north, you might see anywhere from minus 20 to minus 40 degrees celsius – or even less – in the coldest months. At the same time, though, it might only barely dip below 0 degrees in the most southern parts.”
