struggling to take off the headset. “Rip, I
can’t seem to take it off.”
“Fine. Here, I’ll help.” Rip put his hands on
Mei’s head, where the headset should be. But
all he could feel was her hair. “Um . . . I can’t
feel it. Hang on.” Rip grabbed a clump of
Mei’s hair and started pulling.
“OW! Stop that!” Mei shouted.
“Almost got it!” Rip kept
pulling.
“Ow! Ow! I mean it, Rip!
Stop!” Mei said and pushed Rip
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so hard he fell down. “I don’t understand.
Why can’t I take it off?”
Rip moved his hands up and tried to feel
his own headset. “I can’t feel mine either.”
They stared into each other’s eyes,
suddenly very worried. Mei looked at Angela’s
wristband and then up at the sky. The sun
felt warm on her face. There was a breeze,
full of the scent of ash and wood from
Angela’s castle.
“It’s real,” Mei said.
“What’s real?” Rip asked.
“I don’t know why we didn’t work this out
earlier. This isn’t a game, Ripley. It’s real,”
Mei said.
“That’s nonsense,” Rip said. “It . . . it can’t be.
This is all just video-game code. It’s just lines
of 0s and 1s that draw and populate a video-
game world. It’s just gotten into our brain
and paralyzed us somehow!”
“Then why can’t we leave?” Mei asked.
“Why can’t we feel our VR headsets? Why
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hasn’t your mom come in the room to talk to
us? Think about it, Rip! We’ve been playing
this game for two days. Two actual days.”
Mei was starting to look a little panicked.
“We haven’t even gone to the bathroom!
Why don’t I need to pee, Rip? That’s really
weird!
WHY DON’T I NEED TO PEE?!”
There was an awkward silence. Rip looked
at Mei, who was slightly embarrassed.
PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT ! Rip farted.
“You can still fart,” he said.
“That’s gross.” Mei stifled a giggle. “And SO
not important right now!”
She took a step back, her expression
turning serious again. Mei was putting the
pieces together. The strange Clipboard Man.
The empty desks. The unusual VR gear. How
they could run about without bumping into
the walls of Rip’s bedroom. Something wasn’t
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right about this game, and Mei was starting
to get scared.
“It’s . . . it’s just great technology!” Rip said,
not really believing what he was saying. He
started patting down his body trying to find
some sort of switch or way to unplug. “We’re
being tricked! In our brains! This isn’t REAL!
We’re not actually HERE!”
“But what if we are?” said Mei.
There was a low rumbling, and then a long,
deep, bellowing laugh filled their ears. It
suddenly got very cold. Mei rubbed her arms
and shivered. Then it started to get dark.
Rip and Mei stood up and looked to the
sun. It was moving faster than before,
sinking toward the horizon. Turning day into
night. There was a howling off in the
distance, and Rip and Mei could see red eyes
bobbing up and down, getting closer and
closer.
The ground next to them suddenly exploded
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upward, showering Rip and Mei with dirt.
Little crabs with top hats came pouring out
of the hole, including Sir Crabbington of
Beachburry.
Standing with them was George the
Wizard.
They’re coming! We can’t
hold them off for long.
RUN!
all that
glitters
T
hey grabbed their packs and sprinted.
Well, Mei sprinted. The armor Rip had
collected was sturdy and strong—but it was
heavy too. He huffed and puffed under the
weight of it, holding his bow tucked firmly
under his arm.
Mei’s eyes scanned their surroundings. She
pointed. “There!”
Rip followed her gaze to a small, dark
cave that sat nestled in a
rocky cliff face. He nodded.
“Let’s go!”
When at last they
reached the yawning
mouth of the cave, the
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terrifying calls of night monsters could be
heard in the distance. This certainly wasn’t
the safest place they could be, but it would
have to do for now. The sky turned a
shimmering gold, and then midnight blue.
Moonlight flooded from above.
Their sturdy stone house was too far
away for them to get to in the dead of night.
Rip dropped his bow with a groan and put
his hands on his knees, panting, trying to
catch his breath. “What the . . . ? What is
going on? Did you hear that laughing? Who
was that?!”
“I don’t know, I don’t know!” Mei cried with
growing panic. “The sun barely reached the
midpoint, right? Why did it set so quickly? We
didn’t even get a full day!”
“This isn’t fair! It’s bugged or something,”
cried Rip, pulling the helmet off his head. “Now
what?!”
Mei was hurriedly digging around inside her
backpack—trying to muddle her way through
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the jumble of miniature items inside. “Should
we try and build a wall or something?
Barricade ourselves in?” she wondered. “Aha!”
Mei produced a large wooden torch, from
which flames sprung to life when she
removed it from the bag. She lifted the torch
high, examining the roof, walls, and entrance
of the cave. It was dull and dark, although it
seemed as if large blocks of stone had been
purposefully hacked from the walls.
“Wait a minute . . .” Mei studied the walls
carefully. “This isn’t a cave . . .”
“It’s a mine!” Rip finished the sentence for
her. “I wonder if this was Angela’s.”
“Should we check it out?”
Rip looked back over his shoulder, taking in
the sight of the ruined castle, the smoke, the
ominous night sky outside. Somewhere, a
terrifying howl rang out.
“If we stay here, we’re done for anyway.”
Rip pulled the helmet back onto his head and
equipped his bow, his expression grim
through the metal grill of his visor. “Let’s
keep going.”
By the light of Mei’s torch, they ventured
forth into the blackness. The torchlight
flickered across the ceiling, casting strange,
dancing shadows as the tunnel began to
slope gently downward.
“Rip,” Mei spoke softly, her expression
solemn. “Do you think . . . Angela is . . . dead? I
mean . . . I know
the game said she had
reached the end of the line . . . but you don’t
think that means . . . for real, do you?”
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Rip shuddered, remembering the sight of
her belongings just sitting there in a heap on
the floor. “I . . . honestly don’t know.” He
watched Mei’s shoulders slump as she
trudged on ahead of him, resigned. “Hey,
listen to me.” He spun her around to face him.
“We’re going to find a way out of this. We
have to. This . . . whatever this is . . . it started
as a game. There has to be a way out of it. If
there’s a bug or something that’s stopping us
from getting out—there’ll be a way around it.
Some kind of . . . ‘reset’ button. For all we
know, we could just be sitting in my room
right now, and my mom is about to walk in
any minute and take our headsets off and
offer us that snack she promised!”
Mei perked up a little at the thought. “Do
you really think so?”
Rip shrugged. “Sure!”
“Seems weird that she hasn’t already. I
guess time must move a lot faster here.
Feels like we’ve been here for days. But that
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can’t be right . . .” Mei’s dark eyes were
thoughtful, distant. She turned to resume
their descent into the mine. “Hey!” she said
suddenly. “Look at this!”
Mei hurried down the sloped pathway to
where one of the crumbled, blocky walls of
the tunnel had been hollowed out into a little
alcove. Cubes of stone in various sizes were
stacked all over the floor. She lifted her
torch and peered carefully into the recess
of the rock wall. Something glittered.
Rip caught up behind her and squinted over
her shoulder. “Is that . . . what I think it is?”
A smile spread across Mei’s face. “You
betcha. It’s . . .”
“. . . diamond!” they both said
at once.
Mei wedged the torch into a
chink in the tunnel wall and
pulled a sturdy pickaxe from
her backpack.
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“Rip! Let’s grab some. This stuff is
invaluable when it comes to crafting!”
Rip nodded enthusiastically, slinging his
bow over his shoulder and pulling out his own
pickaxe. They both began chipping away at
the rocky alcove, revealing block after block
of glittering diamond. Pale, luminescent light
shimmered across their faces as they lifted
each precious cube from the mineshaft wall,
carefully loading them into their packs.
After a while, the small alcove had grown
into the beginnings of a separate tunnel. But
the diamond, it seemed, was in limited supply,
and no matter where they aimed their
pickaxes, the mineshaft now only yielded
stone.
Mei huffed with exertion. “I think that
might be it,” she said.
“Yeah,” Rip agreed, “diamond is usually
pretty rare in games like this. But we got a
decent haul!”
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They both grinned. It felt good to have
something go their way at last. With this
material they could make extremely powerful
weapons and armor—maybe even items with
magical properties!
“We should get going,” Rip said, gathering
his things.
Mei was pulling on her pickaxe. “Hey!” she
grumbled, “my pick is stuck!”
“It doesn’t matter. We can make you a
shiny new one out of diamond! Let’s just go.”
“No!” Mei replied firmly. “We don’t have
enough to waste it on tools! We have to save
it. Just help me with this, would you?”
Rip rolled his eyes. “Fiiiine.”
They both took hold of the pickaxe handle
and pulled with all their might. It seemed
wedged in hard, but with their combined
efforts, it came free at last. The pair
tumbled backward as the pick fell from the
wall, along with a cascade of stone blocks.
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“Phew!” Mei panted, dusting herself
off. “That was tough. And, hey—look at
this!”
She held up a small disc of
bronze metal. They
both studied the
object intently.
“What do you think
it is?” Rip wondered,
peering at the strange
markings that were
etched into one side of the
treasure.
“The markings make it look like it’s a piece
of something larger. Like a small plate,
maybe? Or a medallion?”
“Well that’s probably important. When are
medallions ever not important?!”
Mei laughed. “Well, we won’t know what it is
for sure until we find the rest of it. Should
we keep looking for more pieces?”
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Rip was no longer concerned with
the medallion, however. His eyes were
wide with panic as cubes of bright blue
water began filling the hole behind Mei
where the pickaxe had just been. Water
blocks were flooding the tunnel at an
alarming rate.
RUN!!
web of
worry
“D
on’t stop!” Mei yelled as she and Rip
clambered and stumbled upward.
The mine was crudely dug, and it was a
challenge to not trip over stray squares
and rough steps. “This mine is terrible!” Mei
complained. “You never build in one direction
like this! It floods too easily!”
“Obviously!” Rip said. “But perhaps now is
not the time for analysis, Mei! Just keep
moving!”
Rip did his best to keep up. His armor was
slowing him down, but there was no time to
take it off. The sound of raging water was
deafening now.
Rip shot a glance behind them. Cubes and
cubes of water were tumbling toward them,
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swallowing up the mine below. The water was
forming a sharp, jagged wave and it was not
slowing down. Rip was scanning the walls for
an exit, some way to escape the cube
tsunami, but nothing revealed itself.
Mei was also trying to come up with a plan.
They couldn’t dig left or right—the water
would find its way in and they’d drown. They
couldn’t dig down, it would fill up instantly
and they would drown. They couldn’t dig up,
there was no time to start building. And even
if they did, they might be trapped beneath
hard materials they couldn’t get through, or
just run out of air before they could dig a
way out.
It struck Mei that maybe in this world,
she didn’t even need air! But she couldn’t
exactly test that theory. For now, all she
could do was keep climbing and running, and
do her best not to drop her torch at the
same time.
Then she saw it. A bright square in the
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distance. It
was the
opening. They
were going to
make it.
Mei smiled
and looked back
at Ripley. “Rip, I can
see the entrance!
Come on!”
But Rip had stopped
running. There was
terror in his eyes. “No, we can’t!” he said.
“Look again!”
Mei turned. The light square was moving.
It was coming toward them, fast. One
square quickly turned into two. Then into
twenty. The squares had eyes. They had
teeth. They had legs. EIGHT legs. The bright
squares were giant spiders, and they were
also on fire!
“Rip! What do we do?” Mei cried.
“Look, shine the light here!” Rip shouted.
Mei waved the torch in Rip’s direction,
revealing a vein of yellow within a partially
dug-out wall.
“Is that what I think it is?” Mei said.
“It’s sulfur,” Rip replied. “Give me the torch!”
Cubes of water were now bumping and
dissolving into their legs from behind. The
wave was almost upon them. The fire spiders
were covering the mine walls in front of
them—they’d reach the two of them in a
matter of seconds. Mei threw the
torch to Rip.
“Stand back!” Rip said.
“You’ll blow up, Rip!” Mei yelled.
“It’s OK!” Rip lowered his helmet’s
visor. “I’m geared for this!” He
thrust the torch into a section
of sulfur.
The vein lit up in a chain
reaction along the wall, then
violently exploded in a flash of
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white. Rocks and dirt flew
out of the wall, obscuring
Ripley completely.
The ground beneath Mei
dissolved. Mei screamed as
she fell through the cave
floor in a shower of dirt and
sand. She grabbed wildly for
anything she could get a hold
of, but she was in a cascade.
Mei fell for a few moments
more and was suddenly
halted in midair by what felt
like a hammock. She covered
Pixel Raiders #1: Dig World Page 7
