As she carefully navigated her way out of the combat area, Tanisha tried to regulate her heartbeat. It thrummed in her ears, filling the night with the deafening pulse. “You cannot let yourself get so worked up over a game,” she said, scolding herself with a voice in mimicry of her mother’s. “Out here, in the dark, in the cold… you’ll end up dying of a heart attack. Or, worse, the flu.”
Tanisha chuckled at her own joke, but the humor was only skin deep. Her mind was a racing turmoil of chaos, praying that she’d been quick enough to take advantage of the bugged drops. Instead of bringing those thoughts to the forefront of her mind, Tanisha concentrated on the forest floor below her. It was either that, or she’d return her attention to the creepy fingers of shadow that ran up the gnarled tree trunks around her.
Her phone chimed, and Tanisha stopped so she could look at it. The screen stuttered for a moment, and her breath caught in her chest. After all she’d been through, if the app crashed, she’d just about die. She would lose all her progress, and maybe even have to redo the event.
If it wasn’t fixed.
Before Tanisha could get too worked up, the side of her screen flooded with multicolored text. Tanisha had never seen the drop list for any event or fight overlap the status bar at the top of the app’s screen. She stared in awe. There wasn’t any sorting to the drops, and she could see one of her prized purple-tinted Bloodthread amid a smattering of uncolored common items. They were little more than trash to her. But there were also a few blue-tinted rare items that she knew she could find a use for.
The rest of the drop list had escaped off the top of the screen when the list populated. Another line of text appeared below the drops, pushing the top item off the screen along with the rest.
Level up! Koest gained level 283!
Instinctively, Tanisha clicked on the prompt, going to the menu that showed her stats. The three herbs she’d gathered had pushed her Herbalism skill up to 92, and the resulting four points finished out her level. Leveling up had increased her health by 10 automatically, but her Stability, Hunger, and Stamina were flashing, waiting for her input. Tanisha didn’t hesitate between the three and poked her Stamina, allocating her 10-point level-up boost to the attribute. Stamina influenced how many activities she could complete in a day, and she hadn’t had a hunting season yet where she hadn’t run up against her character’s limits. She pumped it up at every opportunity.
With that handled, Tanisha clicked over to her inventory to see what the drops had included. While it had been unsorted on her screen when she received them, the drops were sorted by rarity now, with all of her more recent earnings at the top of the inventory. There was a faint shining outline around them, separating the new items from the old.
At the top of the pile were the garbage items—a lot of normal-quality wood logs and uncut stone, as well as a few clumps of fibrous grass. After that were the fifteen blue-item rewards, including a handful of crabstrosity shells and a few antlers that Tanisha would turn into arrows. Once her crafting slots weren’t occupied with completing her Yoichi Bow, of course.
After the blues were the three Bloodthreads, as well as two purple-outlined metal plates. They would be a significant amount of progress towards some extremely powerful armor.
But the real golden ticket, so to speak, was her single legendary drop.
Tanisha hesitated.
She’d never seen that icon before.
It had the familiar gold border, but the item icon looked like a little yellow cylinder. At first glance she thought maybe it was some ingot. But what ingot was round like that? Perhaps it was a material she hadn’t seen in the game before?
But after a moment, she realized what it was.
A scroll.
She’d never heard of a scroll in dARkness: Online before, and so she didn’t know what to expect from it.
Tanisha clicked on it to examine it, and to get a better screenshot to share on the Eris channel.
Scroll from Beyond. It thrums with power.
It had a “use” command under it, but the description was—as expected—not terribly helpful. Par for the course. The food items in dARkness had hilariously unhelpful descriptions that failed to indicate how much hunger they restored, but their description did include some vague terminology that set expectations for how they measured up in relation to each other.
She took a screenshot of the text, just the same.
When she posted it to the Eris drops channel, she added a comment to the image asking if anyone had ever seen one of these before. She hoped to get some information about what it would do. Not that anyone was paying attention. The channel was flooded with people posting their event drops as well.
Her next stop was the wiki for dARkness. The word “scroll’ didn’t pop anything out of the search bar, and Tanisha couldn’t believe it. She finished the entire item name and was rewarded with a nearly-empty page informing her that the article titled ‘Scroll from Beyond’ was not found. It also asked if she wanted to create a new page.
She stared at the blank page for half a breath. Tanisha had never gotten to add a new item to the game before. It was a prized opportunity, and she was one of the only people regularly in the top 10 on the leaderboards who had never had the chance. She expected that she’d be the one to add the first in-game screenshot of Yoichi’s Bow, but that article already existed with datamined stats. Created by PsiRaver, of course.
The Scroll from Beyond would be a brand-new page that would forever have “page created by Koest” at the bottom of it.
An honor.
Tanisha clicked back to the Eris channel and noticed there were a few responses to her posted image. Not many, of course, since it was nearly 11 pm on the West Coast and well into the wee hours of the morning on the East Coast. But every comment either echoed her question, asking what the item did, and Tanisha got a vindictive thrill that she wasn’t proud of when she saw one of the people asking was PsiRaver.
In a flash, Tanisha thumbed over to her browser and created the Scroll from Beyond page, uploading her screenshot as well as the drop source—the Stealth Challenge Flash Event—to ensure that no enterprising jerk stole her screenshot and robbed her of the honors.
She left all of the other fields blank, and when she hit the “update” button, they all filled in with little yellow “needs verification” triangles. But the bottom of the page had what she wanted. Just a tiny little note. Forever hers.
“Page created by Koest!” Tanisha shouted into the dark woods. She cackled and did a little dance in the seat of her chair. When she felt that she had sufficiently gloated to the grasping fingers on the trees, Tanisha cracked her knuckles. “Alright. Now, time to fill in the blanks.”
She tabbed back over to dARkness, where the scroll waited like a giant pulsing question mark. Her finger hovered over the screen for a moment. Should she press the button? She was in the middle of the woods, still. Perhaps she should roll her way out of the forest and head back home before exploring. As unlikely as it was, her shouts could have attracted attention, and it would be better for her to be somewhere safe.
Maybe she could even wait until the next day. It was still early enough that she could get most of a night’s sleep, if she took one of her remaining few sleeping pills.
And maybe the scroll would summon a massive enemy. It would be better for her to have her Yoichi Bow ready.
This was her moment, though. If someone else got the item, they could add all the details, stealing it from her. It would make her victory ring hollow in her heart.
Tanisha furrowed her brow.
She was going for it.
Without another thought, she hit the button.
Her screen froze for a moment, and then turned bright white, like one of those useless flashlight apps. Tanisha flinched back from the sudden light. But if flared even brighter—more than her phone should have been capable of. It matched, then exceeded, and even drowned out the light of her LED lamp.
The
device tumbled from her hand as Tanisha instinctively jerked away from it, as if expecting it to be too hot to hold. As it went end-over-end to the forest floor, the fingers of shadow cast off the landscape rippled and moved, and there was a sense of dizzying vertigo.
Combined with the spots on her vision from the sudden flash of light, Tanisha felt disoriented. Defenseless.
When the hands closed in on her shoulders, she screamed.
Her flailing arms caught nothing, though.
But nothing didn’t stop her from being hoisted out of her chair.
With a rippling scream far too high-pitched to be coming from her throat, Tanisha was thrust towards the ground.
Hard.
Before her vision faded to darkness, Tanisha saw that the things wrapped around her shoulders belonged to no creature, but to the shadows of the forest.
Chapter 7
There was sunlight on her face. But only on one side. The other was pressed into a pillow of springy dirt that smelled of fresh grass and morning dew.
Tanisha snapped awake with a start. Her eyes flew open and she jolted upright into a seated position. She looked around wildly, first out of instinctual fear of danger, and second to try and figure out where she was.
Something was wrong.
No.
Everything was wrong.
She still seemed to be alone in the forest. And that was good. It was full daylight, sure, and that meant that she had been lying there for at least five hours. But there was another problem. And a much bigger problem at that.
This wasn’t the same forest.
The ground beneath Tanisha wasn’t scrub brush and ferns below a nearly-enclosed pine canopy. While she hadn’t been able to make out many details in the LED-lit darkness, the tree tops had been well above her head, and there had been a smattering of fungus and fallen logs in the general vicinity of where she’d fallen.
Instead, this forest was deciduous. The ground was coated in a soft green grass that looked too perfectly manicured for the woods. There was no fallen debris, no rotting stumps, and there wasn’t even a leaf out of place. Everything looked manufactured. Perfect.
Tanisha had never seen a forest like this in her life, outside of the movies.
Wherever she was, she could only assume it wasn’t in the Pacific Northwest.
As soon as that mild panic set in, a second, concerning thought crossed her mind. Her chair was gone. As was her phone.
And what was she wearing? She had vague memories of leaving the house in leggings and a tee shirt, but here now was a traditional skirt and an off-the-shoulder top she didn’t recognize as her own.
Tanisha looked around desperately, thinking her belongings might just be a little farther away. Perhaps behind a tree. But the items weren’t visible from where she sat, and there were no signs of them otherwise.
She tried to remain calm, but her heart throbbed in her ears once more. Perhaps someone found her in the woods and drug her to safety, and they didn’t notice her phone. Or her very obvious wheelchair. But she had to get here somehow, and so she focused on trying to find signs of how she arrived. Footprints, wheel tracks, anything.
Nothing.
It was as if she had been dropped out of the sky, or the ground had been swept clean by time, elements, or a skilled hand. The first was impossible, and the second was just as likely. It hadn’t been long enough for her to be more than barely hungry. And there was no real wind to speak of here. Plus the ground was dry, other than the light dew that coated each blade of grass in a picture-perfect way.
That left just the one option: a skilled hand.
She could almost feel her eyes unfocus as she looked around at her surroundings. Panic was starting to grip her, even as she tried to force it down. She couldn’t deny that it seemed as if she’d been abducted and relocated to this weird… grotto.
Where the hell was she?
About a hundred feet behind her, there was a rock formation, almost like a natural wall made out of stone rising out of the greenery. In the opposite direction, the trees seemed to thin, giving way to a ravine—possibly a creek—surrounded by taller grasses.
Everything was so green, too. At first she had thought it was just the grass, but the leaves on the trees and the foliage in the undergrowth was all a sort of technicolor green she’d never seen in person. Every bush had a perfect polka-dot pattern of vibrant flowers, perfectly opened, or a neon-orange berry that looked to be the ideal ripeness, even from this distance.
But one thing there definitely wasn’t was another person.
Who brought her here? Why? What was happening?
The world spun around her, and she realized she was hyperventilating. Tanisha tried to get her breathing under control, but just the act of being aware of it made her hyperventilate more.
She didn’t know where she was. And she had no way of finding out.
Tanisha was an outdoorswoman, sure. But she was nearly helpless without her phone. She couldn’t figure out which way was north, but that also wouldn’t help her figure out which way would take her to civilization. Or where she’d get help. She didn’t know which way would only take her further into the wilderness. Or if the creek nearby would eventually lead to a larger river that she’d recognize. Because she didn’t know anything about where she was.
And all of this was culminated by the fact that she was doubly helpless without her chair. She would be forced to drag herself along the ground by her hands.
It was not an indignity she’d never suffered, but unless the nearest road was literally right around the next bend, she would be moving over rough and uneven natural ground for a long time, each step of her hands another chance to land on a stinging insect, a sharp bit of rock, or—as her memory reminded her—the shattered remains of a glass bottle.
A noise made Tanisha start and she whipped her head back and forth to find the source. It was a high-pitched whine. Close, too.
It took much longer than she would have liked to admit that the sound came from her own throat. A high keening that was unbidden. Unwelcome.
The world spun and then color faded from it. It dripped down to reveal a muted black and white that faded into television static at the corners of her vision. Nothing seemed real to her anymore, not even the feeling of her own fingers on her skin.
There was a loud click in her skull as she snapped her teeth together. She couldn’t have a full-blown panic attack. Not when she wasn’t safe. Which seemed incredibly contrary, but it almost made sense in her panic-ridden brain.
Tanisha shut her eyes and forcibly slowed her breathing. She sucked air in through her nose and blew it out through her teeth. The hissing noise she made was better than the high-pitched whine. But not by much. Her heart was still pounding in her ears, but the whistle of her breath between her teeth cut through the whooshing sound of her panic.
She promised herself that she would succumb to her panic as soon as she possibly could, but that she needed to be safe first. And safety meant being aware. Alert.
Somehow, it helped ground her back in reality.
When she opened her eyes, the world around her returned to its full technicolor spectrum. The storm of anxiety still brewed under the surface, but she no longer felt like she was mere moments from helplessness.
With the panic quelled, even if momentarily, Tanisha was able to focus on more important things. Namely the thousand questions that buzzed around her head, driven to urgency from the adrenaline that still pounded through her veins.
“Okay,” she said to herself, in a shaky voice. “Okay. We’re okay.” She repeated the words, again and again, to gain control. While she did, Tanisha found herself looking up towards the sky she assumed was hiding behind the canopy of various leaves. If she looked hard enough—tilting her head just right—she could see slivers of pure blue, like the color of faded denim jeans, unmarred by clouds. “This place is too perfect. Where am I?”
It wasn’t as if she was expecting an immediate answer to t
he question, but when the woods said nothing in return, Tanisha scoffed. “Fine.” She drew herself to a sitting position. “I just need to get my bearings. Just get my bearings and then I’ll get moving.”
As if in response, there was movement among the trees ahead.
It had looked like a bit of grass moving in the breeze, but there was no breeze. And it had been just a single patch. The grass wasn’t even really long enough to wave in the wind, either. Or tall enough for anything to hide in, unless it was something relatively small, like a snake or mouse.
“That’s… weird.” Tanisha squinted at the patch of grass, trying to ignore the wetness against her legs from the dew-moistened ground beneath her. But the grass didn’t move again, so Tanisha let her mind wander.
“Okay, so, to figure out where I am, I guess I need to figure out where I am.” The sound of her own voice was soothing, breaking up the absolute silence of the woods. The lack of birds, crickets, or any other noise—other than the gentle rumble of the creek—was disturbing her fragile calm.
But it was because of this silence that she was able to hear the rustle of grass again. Tanisha caught a glimpse of something vaguely brownish green, closer this time, just before the patch of grass fell still.
Was her mind playing tricks on her? Her heart still raced, so it was likely that adrenaline was still coursing its way through her veins. She might have been imagining things.
The next bit of movement came from in front of her, between the two previous patches of grass. She didn’t get a good look at the brownish-green figure before it vanished again, but Tanisha had seen enough to identify it. Even if her mind refused to parse it.
The creature was sizable, nearly akin to a large dog. It had a long tail behind it, with stubby legs that kept its body close to the ground. When visible, its skin had been a mottled hue of brown and green that blended well with the forest floor. Not nearly enough to explain its apparent complete disappearance, but almost. It was lizard-like in nature, with a lighter green frill around the sides of its blunt face, and skin that was mostly smooth with a shine of dampness to it.
Darkness Named Page 5
