Build-A-Harem- The Island Collection

by Zachariah Dracoulis

  “Where we off to?” Jesse asked as I walked towards the jungle without saying a word.

  “Going to find some sunflowers or daffodils or…” I trailed off as I tried and failed to think of a third kind of yellow flower, “I don’t know, yellow flowers, and I’m guessing it’ll be easier to find them in the jungle than on the beach.”

  “Heh, suppose that makes sense.” Jesse agreed before catching up as fast as his legs would allow, “And I’m guessin’ that’s not what Cassie’s after, yeah?”

  “She wants a hammer,” I replied with a nod, “but I don’t think that should be too hard to knock over.”

  “It’s weird how easy this is, huh?” Jesse chuckled, “Don’t get me wrong, there’s definitely a level of difficulty in this world, but it must be pretty damn handy to be able to just open up a little menu and go ‘I’ll get that specific thing and they’ll be happy’, right?”

  “Oh yeah,” I let out past a sigh as I thought about all the hoops I used to have to jump through, “makes for a much better player experience. Granted, I always tried my best to be a good listener when I was on the surface, but that only gets you so far when someone’s really ticked off.”

  “True that.”

  I’m not sure why, but that response, that agreeance of what it was like on the surface world, it triggered a burst of curiosity from me.

  Problem was I was still a bit mince-mouthed, so instead of asking something reasonable or gently nudging the conversation in the direction I needed to get the answer I wanted, I simply blurted out “How would you know?”

  Unsurprisingly and completely justifiably, Jesse was thrown off by the sudden almost accusatory question, but he was quick to regain his composure.

  “Neural net,” he said flatly, “like I mentioned before. Remember? You got kind of confused by it?”

  “I know all about the neural net,” I scoffed defensively as if he’d somehow offended me, “but it’s still a bit weird to hear you talking about the real world like it’s… I don’t know, it’s the same thing as religion to me I suppose.”

  “Oh please don’t tell me you’re one of those annoying atheist-types,” Jesse groaned as we got into a thicker part of the jungle, “there’s a lot I can put up with, but if you’re goin’ to start compl-”

  “Dude, trust me, I’m not like that,” I chuckled, remembering the kinds of people who loved to jump on the ‘Gods not real’ train whenever the opportunity presented itself, “I’m an atheist, yeah, but I ain’t about to begrudge anyone who chooses to have faith in… whatever.”

  “So what are you saying then?” Jesse asked after letting out a somewhat thankful sigh.

  “I’m saying that it’s weird to have you talk about the real world like it’s a definite thing,” I replied, ducking under a particularly low-hanging branch as I did so, “Hell, half the time I’m not even sure.”

  “And what has that got to do with religion?”

  “The fact that some people out there talk about it as if it’s a hundred percent a thing,” I said as I recalled all the times I’d been told I was going to Hell by my bible-thumping grade school teacher, “it’s cool to have faith, but those folk who act like their religion and evolution are on the same level… It just irks me is all.”

  Jesse went ahead and let that hang in the air for a few seconds. That or he got distracted by something in the jungle and kind of forgot I was there, but he eventually let out a curious little sound.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jesse replied, clearly knowing, “I guess I suppose that’s the difference then. I know there’s a real world, otherwise mine wouldn’t exist, which is probably the same way a lot of those religious people feel.”

  I would’ve liked to have been able to think about that for a bit longer, but before I could say anything I’d reached what passed for a destination.

  Well, I say ‘reached’ when I should say ‘walked right into’ courtesy of Jesse’s existential and deeply yet simply profound point.

  “Now those are some pretty flowers,” Jesse joked as I stepped backwards and out of the forest of six-foot-tall stalks I’d just walked into, “you reckon Fern’ll wear one behind her ear?”

  I gave him a somewhat amused look then rolled my eyes before turning my full attention to the flowers.

  They were pretty, as far as flowers go anyway, like giant dandelions but with these vibrant pink under-petals and a few antenna-like stalks coming out from the middle.

  “I’m sure she’ll find some way to enjoy them,” I said to myself more than Jesse before raising my palm to the one closest to me, “besides, might be cool to find out what I can get from them.”

  Then there was a problem.

  “What’s happenin’?” Jesse asked as I tried and failed to scan the flower for a third time.

  “I don’t know, it’s just not…”

  That’s when I realized where I was going wrong.

  “Ah,” Jesse let out after I’d taken my first swing at the flowers with my axe, cutting through two of their stalks with ease, “too big.”

  “Too rooted,” I clarified as I scanned the first flower and unlocked a recipe for a very yellow flower crown, “I reckon it has something to do with stuff that’s actually built into the ground or… like, I don’t think I could vacuum up this whole island or the ocean, but a handful of loose dirt or a cup? Easy.”

  Jesse chuckled a little at that while I took a step forward and another swing, “It’s cool to hear you starting to come to grips with the game mechanics.”

  “Heh, yeah, took me long enough.” I joked before scanning another three flowers, “But yeah, it’s all starting to make sense.”

  “It’s funny that, isn’t it?”

  “What’s that?” I asked, chopping down some more flowers as I did.

  “The click,” Jesse replied, “that moment when you realize you’ve actually started to get the hang of the game and all its little intricacies.”

  “Yeah, I suppose,” I said, turning to face him as I got ready to take a hopefully cool-looking blind swing, “spending most of my young adult life gaming probably helped a bit there.”

  And then something… bad happened.

  Very, very bad.

  So bad, in fact, that Jesse’s face contorted into a mix of disgust and unease.

  “What did I hit?” I asked fearfully, the blade of my axe still wedged in whatever it was that had made the crunching and shrieking sound when I’d swung.

  “Well…” Jesse trailed off, struggling to find the words, “it wasn’t a big flower, I can tell you that much.”

  “I’m sure you can tell me a whole lot more than… that…” I practically hurled out as a whole lot of something warm and sticky started to pool around my ankles.

  “Okay, fair point,” Jesse replied, trying his very best to speak past his still mortified expression, “but I don’t want to…”

  That really wasn’t the answer I wanted, mostly because it meant that I had no choice but to slowly turn around like I was the soon to be chased white chick in a horror film.

  “Oh… oh no…” I groaned as I finally saw what it was that I had hit.

  It was like a bee, a really big bee, if bees had axes in their heads and secreted a sickly green-yellow viscous liquid from around said axe.

  “That’s… that’s less than appealin’, yeah…” Jesse added, apparently having decided that instead of offering any kind of support or, you know, a bucket, he was going to simply spout off a live commentary.

  Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t got an overly weak stomach or anything else, but that giant dead bee was just about the most disgusting thing I’d ever seen, and I used to watch the crap out of those pimple-popping videos.

  And then I realized what the best thing to do was, the only real solution actually.

  “Did you…” Jesse muttered confusedly, “did you just scan that thing?”

  “Yep,” I replied, successfully maintaining my c
ool as my axe swung down beside me after being freed from the head of the bee, “got some cool stuff too.”

  “Real-” Jesse started then stopped, killing the relief I’d been feeling.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked as I turned to face him with my axe at the ready, not bothering to hide my newly revived anxiety.

  “Do you hear that?” he replied, tilting what I assumed was one of his ears to the sky, “That sort of… buzzing sound?”

  I was really hoping he was just being a douche, but then, pretty much as soon as he’d uttered the word ‘buzzing’, I couldn’t not hear it.

  “So, and this is just me spit-ballin’, I think it might be really good idea for us to start runnin’ away.” Jesse suggested as he slowly backed away.

  “Yeah, yeah I’m thinking that too.” I replied, joining him in his slow-motion retreat, “I’m not a coward or anything though.”

  “No, no, of course not,” Jesse emphatically agreed, “it’s just that we’ve got what we came for.”

  “Exactly,” I practically whispered as I struggled to hear the sound of the fast-approaching bees over my own voice, “we’re just being pragmat-”

  I was frozen stiff, my eyes wide open, my lungs and heart constricted in terror.

  “Heh,” Jesse nervously chuckled, “I hate to be cliché… but there’s one right behind me, isn’t there?”

  I couldn’t open my mouth, it had fused shut due to how hard I was biting down, but I did manage to swallow hard and push my chin into my neck.

  “That’s a nod then?” Jesse asked somewhat coolly.

  Again, I couldn’t move so good, so I just went ahead and pushed my chin even further into my neck, my axe falling to the floor as my grip failed me.

  “Alright then,” Jesse sighed with a much better nod than I could muster, “I guess all there is to do is… Run! Run, run, run!”

  I definitely didn’t need to be told twice, and was already hammering my way deeper into the jungle before Jesse had even finished the first ‘run’.

  It wasn’t so much that I wanted to abandon him or anything, I was just confident in his ability to survive and…

  Okay, fine, I was scared of a bunch of really fucking big bees, alright?

  Damn, always with the judgement…

  CHAPTER 9

  Boy did I run.

  I ran and ran and ran until my lungs felt like they were filled with burning lead and my feet like they’d been dragged across a bunch of Lego.

  And then I ran some more.

  The island wasn’t big, I knew that, but with all the turns and pirouettes and zig-zags I was doing I’m pretty sure I could’ve run for days without ever getting back to the shore.

  I didn’t have to run for days though.

  I don’t like to admit it, but I don’t even think I had to run for more than ten minutes before I was positive I wasn’t about to be attacked by bees that fully justified a Nicolas Cage-style reaction.

  However, that’s when my other problems became apparent.

  I’d lost Jesse, I had no idea where the shelter was, and my brain was starting to hurt pretty damn bad with all the random little influxes of pop culture reference and general real-life memories.

  “You’re fine,” I told myself before flopping down on my ass, “you’re not lost, you’re fine. Wheezing, sure, but fine.”

  I knew what I had to do, other than regulate my breathing of course.

  Step one was to figure out where Jesse ended up. As sure as I was that he would be fine, there was a large part of me that didn’t just want to leave him to fend for himself.

  Step two of what turned out to be a two-step plan was to simply use the Toolbox to figure out where I was on the island.

  Well, I say ‘simply’, but the truth was that I knew step two was reliant on the Toolbox having a map that wasn’t just a bunch of shapes across what I was pretty sure was a massive world.

  “It can suck up trees and giant bees,” I said before chuckling a little at my rhyme, “I’m sure it can tell you where you are on the island.”

  I think that’s right around the time I added a third step, which was to stop talking to and about myself in the third person before running into any of my friends.

  After a few minutes of heaving I’d worked down my heartbeat to a more acceptable pace and started walking, making sure to stop every couple of feet or so to listen out for incoming bees, but eventually I was pretty sure I was definitely in the clear and not about to walk into them.

  With that fear out of the way, I actually really started to enjoy walking through the thick, slightly darkened jungle, which was weird for me seeing as I’d never really been what you’d call ‘outdoorsy’.

  I enjoyed going for walks to the local lookout when I was a kid, but that was mostly just to get away from the guys who used to pick on me and then later so I had somewhere private and romantic to take girls. It never got me laid, although I did get my fair share of make out sessions up there.

  Anyway, the point is that I was enjoying my quiet time in the foreign jungle, marveling at the Avatar-esque flowers I passed and smiling with awe whenever I’d notice a vibrantly-colored lizard or small dinosaur-like birds.

  I hadn’t really given the place a whole ton of time up until that point, mostly because I just saw it as some random island, but as I absorbed every little detail around me I started to realize just how much I was taking it for granted.

  Then I saw a small pond.

  Almost immediately it became clear that it wasn’t any old pond, and not just because it seemed to be the only thing the sunlight was reaching through the thick canopy. It had this weirdly inviting blue sort of glow about it, and as I got within about twenty feet of it I started to notice little flecks of white popping around the top like fizz at the top of a soda.

  I wasn’t focused on the white flecks for long though, no, I became far more fixated on the gorgeous set of crossed legs that were resting and lightly kicking in the water while whoever they belonged to laid on the ground, my view of her being blocked by the large palm leaf she was using to keep the sun off her.

  “Hello?” I called over, wanting to announce my presence early so I didn’t get kicked in the face, “My name’s Dax, what’s yours?”

  Instead of using words, the woman simply uncrossed her legs and wove me over with one of her feet, all without sitting up.

  Naturally, I accepted the invitation, and walked towards the water, prepared for the worst, most freezing experience of my life.

  But it wasn’t.

  Though it certainly looked like the water I’d seen in a bunch of half-watched arctic documentaries, the pond was by far one of the warmest, most relaxing bodies of water I’d ever been in.

  Seriously, it was like stepping into a hot tub, a chest-high, magical hot tub, sure, but a hot tub nonetheless.

  “How long have you been out here?” I asked as I crossed the distance between us at a leisurely pace.

  Again, the woman didn’t respond.

  “Not much of a talker, are you?” I chuckled once I was close enough to touch her legs, “Reminds me of someone else on the island. Well, someones, but you know what I mean.”

  Yet again, the woman did not speak, although she did start to lightly trace my arm and chest with her foot, beckoning me closer.

  I’m sure you’ve realized by now that from time-to-time I’m not the best with words or questions, so it should come as no surprise that instead of asking something like ‘Are you on your own here?’ or the slightly more relevant ‘Do you smell fish?’ I went ahead and decided to pursue an odd query.

  “Where’d you find a razor here?”

  That may seem like an odd question and, again, I’m aware that there were a few other things I should’ve been asking her, but her legs were clearly recently shaved, and it wasn’t like there was a pharmacist nearby.

  I fixate on weird stuff, okay?

  Anyway, unsurprisingly, I didn’t get an answer.

  Surprisingly,
she sat up.

  Now, I’m not the type of person that typically does a 50s B-grade style horror scream, but what was revealed when she pushed that leaf away with the top half of her body got one out of me anyway.

  “Fish!” I practically shrieked as I stared on in stunned terror at the reverse mermaid’s massive yellow single eye, her fish mouth at the top of her head opening and closing in a horrifically squishy way.

  I don’t know what godless demon created that beast, nor do I know why it decided to have the fish half of its body turned sideways on top of the legs instead of having its belly run along the front of it, but I didn’t care, I just wanted to run.

  Running turned out to be harder than expected in chest-high water though, as proven by the fact that the reverse mermaid was already standing at the edge of the pond before I’d even gotten halfway to the other side.

  And then it dove in.

  Okay, so maybe it flopped in, and maybe it was slightly comical, but I was having a really hard time seeing the humor of the situation given that, you know, I was either going to be eaten or… worse.

  I managed to get out of the water, just barely, and, like an idiot, stopped and turned around about ten feet away from the water’s edge to see if I was being followed.

  Thankfully I wasn’t.

  The reverse mermaid, for whatever reason, had begun to swim around the edge of the pond like a goldfish in a bowl, paying next to no attention to my stupid, gawping ass.

  Then it stopped and went to the bottom of the pond where it disappeared from view.

  “Thank God…” I muttered with a little laugh as I caught my breath.

  My relief was premature though and, as result, gave the fish monster all the time it needed to launch itself out of the water and land on the shore with its feet at a shoulders’ width apart, whatever counted as shoulders for a fish anyway.

  We were frozen in time.

  It was staring at me with its one visible eye.

  I was staring at it with… well, both of my eyes.