James opened his eyes to complete darkness. He didn’t even remember losing consciousness. He had no idea what was going on. And he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. After what had just happened, why would he even need to know? Why didn’t the IRS storm the place? Why was his gut feeling telling him that something horrible had happened?
Also, wasn’t calling it a ‘gut feeling’ a bit na?ve, considering the floating blue box in front of him? Said blue box drew his attention before his thoughts had a chance to elaborate more.
This time, the blue box had no ‘System’ label, and it had appeared out of pure smoke.
What kind of rubbish is this? What do you mean by a ‘cheerful person’? I was just denied the chance of getting my whole life back! I was this close to making of all them suffer miserably—
“Yeah, sure. Cheerful as a cricket.”
The blue box faded into smoke. But there was a pause before it reformed from the same blurry fumes.
That went dark really, really fast.
“Sure, I’ll take out the guy. Or woman. I’m a feminist, you know.”
A part of James was telling him to focus on something else, on himself, his past, or what had happened in the morning. But another portion of him, stupidly, thought about Meredith. He had spent twice as much time investigating the company as he needed to ensure she had nothing to do with it.
However, his thoughts suddenly veered toward this spaceless reality The System threw him in. The blue box went up in smoke again and reformed before he could rationalize any idea. It was like a magnet, absorbing all his attention into a neon blue void.
“What?”
The blue box hovered in the darkness before him without giving him any other hints. Two times in a row, the blue boxes didn’t seem to have anything to do with the questions previously posed. Finally, he noticed a low buzz coming from the magical thing that had dominated his vision since he woke up. The blue box was literally buzzing, weirdly enough. Or was it weird? Was that really the weird thing about this situation? Wasn’t the weird thing currently existing as an incorporeal entity answering questions that the new alien overlords ripped off Pokémon Mystery Dungeons, modded by a disturbed teenager?
To save the Princess? What did that mean? Was it asking if he would save actual royalty or a woman in distress? James pictured Kathy as the Princess and suddenly imagined himself as the Dragon spitting fire on said Princess and leaving a charred corpse behind.
But then, he imagined Meredith as his Princess. Meredith had always been cold, but she had also helped him survive in the company. Meredith had stuck her neck out for him a couple of times when he had messed up some deals, taking the fall for him. Once, she almost promised to write him a letter of recommendation. But they both knew Alan would have fired her immediately and called everyone in town to discredit him. As far as James knew, Meredith was one of the few in the workplace to have refused the CEO’s sexual advances; she came from a family that not even Alan was ready to mess with, apparently. Although, it seemed that was not enough to leave her with complete freedom to help him. Not that James knew much about Meredith’s family; the woman never told him anything about her personal life.
They would never get that high-school, dreamy love that Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens had, that was sure. But when he pictured Meredith in the garments of a Princess, with a tiara on her head, and a benevolent smile, he couldn’t bring himself to answer ‘No.’
“Yeah, I’ll save the Princess,” he sighed.
The smoke quickly reformed as another blue box.
“Only for the Princess,” James quipped before even thinking about a serious answer.
But the blue box went up in smoke, nonetheless.
“Shit, what? What happened?”
This time, a red box appeared. It pulsated with a red, ominous light, giving him the chills. The world seemed to zoom in on the box as if the red rectangle was becoming bigger and bigger with every passing second. He tried to look away, but he couldn't. It was as if the box was holding him captive with its red, unavoidable light.
Suddenly, the light became too much, and he felt his head starting to pound. James squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out the light, but it was no use. As a final, desperate measure, he tried moving around, turning away, but he only felt his consciousness slowly fading. James felt his mind go limp as he lost control of his life. He could feel himself being pulled toward the light, and despite his protests, he couldn't resist. He felt himself being consumed by the light, and then everything went black.
A new red box appeared – one of the last things James knew he would see before disappearing forever into oblivion’s embrace.
However, a part of him, something buried deep down in his soul, woke up. James heard a bestial roar as he had never heard before, not even in the best movie theater. The sound shook his very soul, traveling from bone to bone, rattling his rib cage.
Rib cage?
James’s body suddenly materialized, floating in the darkness, and a door appeared in front of him.
“Open this damn door!” He screamed amidst the eerie silence.
James felt the diseased energy burning his skin, but he didn't care. He had to get out. He had to get away from the red light that was consuming him. James’s body was racked with pain, but he ignored it. He pulled on the door handle with all his strength, but it didn't budge.
It was a solid block of ebony, covered in gold on the borders. A white, marbled door handle rested quietly while James clawed at it for his dear life. The handle was piercingly cold, contrasting strongly with the burning sensation engulfing the rest of his body; even though the cold provided him with some relief, the door did not move.
And again, James felt the cryptic energy from the innermost recesses of his being erupt. This time, his voice overlapped with the primal force coming from his guts, joining it in a deafening roar.
“OPEN THE GODDAMN DOOR!”
At this point, he realized that the roar he just felt did not just shake his soul. James could feel his soul and something else inside of it. A blinding rage percolated from the ethereal plane down to his being and empowered his limbs to yank the door open.
And suddenly, a blinding light assailed him.
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A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
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James found himself suddenly wearing a heavy full suit of iron armor. It wasn’t particularly good-looking, but it would certainly help him survive whatever was going on.
“Who the hell is Sir Butterscotch?”
After another flash of blinding light, a massive equine figure appeared beside him. He was the color of hardened, glazy caramel and with the power of a newly found sentience. The creature had a white spot on his left eye. There was a saddle on his back. The horse was also wearing some heavy armor.
“You?”
The horse seemed to be saying with his eyes, ‘Pardon me, do I know you?’
“I’m James, from the jousting ground,” he briefly raised his helmet slightly to let the horse see his face. “And why am I talking to a horse, anyway?”
The horse scowled and neighed at James, clearly disappointed, rolling his eyes to the blue sky above their heads.
Wait, blue sky?
James looked up as he repositioned the helmet on his head, realizing they were on top of a hill he had never seen before.
Several other bundles of light appeared all around, just like when Sir Butterscotch had materialized. The lights left behind nearly all of his work colleagues who had been present at the meeting, including the CEO. And then a few more people from their company, like Javi. Everyone had a blank expression on their face, but they sighed in relief when they realized they were all in this together. James, on the other hand, didn't find that comforting at all.
Before anyone could react, The System delivered yet another message.
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“9,925?” James murmured while looking around.
Sir Butterscotch, the horse, was staring right ahead, eyes fixed on nothing in particular, most likely pondering the blue boxes. Could a horse understand what they said?
Despite being the only animal around, Sir Butterscotch didn't act like one. Unlike some others.
“OH-MY-GOD! WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?! WHAT WERE ALL THOSE QUESTIONS?!”
Kathy's shrill voice frightened even the horse. Both James and Sir Butterscotch turned to face the woman, who was now dressed in robes and wielding a staff.
The witch became a mage? James mused.
“Calm down! People!” Alan began issuing orders right away. He was dressed in leather armor with iron plaques strewn about.
A normal warrior?
James tuned out Alan’s voice, trying to focus on their surroundings. The group began chattering in a confused manner, going nowhere with their elucubrations. And the CEO was clearly trying to take control of the situation out of rank and authority, maybe convinced they were still on Earth where normal rules of civilization would apply.
He had to stay vigilant. Almost a hundred people had died in barely five minutes. So even though everyone was acting as if they had simply gotten the wrong delivery from the Chinese restaurant, James had one word engraved in his mind.
Tutorial.
If this was supposed to be a tutorial, they were there to learn something. And that meant they were being prepared for whatever was going to come next. Even though he was no great survivalist, he knew that water and food would be an issue too soon for his liking. Then would come diseases and wounds. Not to mention The System saying ‘your planet,’ implying many others were ready to meet and greet the Humans. Or maybe conquer them. If Humans had never been kind to each other, why should alien overlords be?
James looked at the countdown: ten days sounded like a long time only if you didn’t consider yourself a guinea pig for whatever entity had just decided to radically reshape Earth while Humans played Bear Grylls in World of Warcraft.
“If we all pull our weight, we can survive whatever this is! It looks like a nerds’ game, and that’s why I’m sure it can’t be that hard!” the man laughed raucously.
While a few women started laughing at his idiotic antics, others were still in distress. More than anyone else, the Wicked Witch of the West, the 3Ws, was looking around, almost hyperventilating, clearly lost. It was as if she was looking for someone in particular.
Kathy looked at James for a second, confused, chewing her lips. Lost, she hesitated for a second before switching targets.
“ALAN!” Kathy lunged, leaving the staff behind and tackling the CEO. She had never shown that level of familiarity with the man in the workplace. But it seemed that the current events showed what James had suspected for a long time: that Kathy was yet another woman in his company sleeping her way to the top.
James looked at his hand, taking the plain sword the system had given him for a swing.
“Mh,” he took a better look before noticing something at the corner of his eye. “What the hell—”
The blue box suddenly moved in front of him.
“What? Leader? Are you joking?” James swore.
He heard a snort. Not a Human one. He turned to see a smug expression on the horse’s muzzle.
But before James could do anything, Alan called for a gathering.
“People! Please, let’s try to make sense of this absurd situation!”
James ignored those morons and looked at the death count he had already seen change in real-time. For the time being, he had to ignore the horse and the idiots.
Good God. Almost a hundred people have died already. What the hell? But if the spawn was random… it would make sense. They most likely ended up right in front of a monster. And group or not, they would croak if they were not ready. This is some sick videogame-like scenario. Fuck. All those weird signs today… Mikey didn’t spike my coffee, did he?
“First, we are not in Illinois anymore!” Alan started explaining the obvious.
“Toto, I have a feeling that we are not in Kansas anymore,” James added with pointed sarcasm.
“Jimmy? Jimmy! Is that you?!” Alan said with glee in his voice. Probably the first time that the man had been happy to see his employee.
At first, he appeared perplexed until he realized what was happening -- the System had automatically put James' helmet on, and they couldn’t see his face, having only an armored man and a grumpy horse to make sense of.
James fidgeted with his hands around the bucket helmet, clearly having a hard time moving with the heavy armor that had magically appeared on him. He slowly removed the helmet. He tried shaking his body a little, trying to assess whether his phone was with him. But it seemed his entire outfit, even the gambeson under the armor—everything was different.
Once his face was in the open, he saw the man sigh.
“James! Thank God!”
All of the women seemed unsure whether to be happy or not. Kathy, suddenly removing herself from Alan, breathed a sigh of relief. Then, a woman with a ranger outfit, resembling a hooded version of the LOTR Elves, approached him.
“Mer’?” James asked, uncertain.
Meredith took down the hood and nodded with gravity.
“Do you know what’s going on?” she asked him.
“No. But this does feel like a game.”
James sneaked another peek at the Tutorial Info blue box, unhappy with the change.
“A deadly one,” James added after assessing that dozens of people had already died since his last look a few minutes ago.
“James, Meredith! Come here; it’s time to make a survival plan!” Alan motioned for them to approach the others.
As they did, Sir Butterscotch cut in front of James.
“Is that horse yours—”
Sir Butterscotch stopped dead in its tracks, turned his big head to stare at Meredith with contempt, and spat on the ground.
“That’s your answer,” James grimaced, sheathing the sword he had been holding.
The group started discussing useless things like the why and how, the when and where. In the meantime, James just stared at the Tutorial Info box. It was continuously ticking down.
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Almost two hundred people had died in fifteen minutes. But finally, the death count seemed to slow down. James also finally heard the only thing he was interested in.
"So, what do we do?" Kathy inquired, her eyes puffy. She'd already lost it.
“I think—” James tried to speak up, but Alan cut him off.
“Ladies, please! Listen to your boss! We can probably think of this as some sort of a special retreat! It’s all in our mindset! Have you ever read Marcus Aurelius? He said: ‘The night is darkest just before the dawn. And I promise you, the dawn is coming.’ Isn’t that what our current situation looks like? So we must proceed with a fearless heart and face whatever this new world will throw at us!”
James softly snorted.
One of his most outstanding achievements at work was taking quotes from Batman and spreading them by telling the self-entitled douches he worked with that they actually came from philosophers. Someone had even started a philosophy reading group at the office, where they mostly read Tim Ferris. Of course, ‘reading’ meant taking a 5-minute summary from an app and pretending they actually read the whole thing. It was perfect because not one person ever read the whole book — that made everyone feel like they had scammed the system, making them feel like geniuses.
“Alan, don’t you think that, at least for the first few hours, we should be cautious? Maybe even bunker down here? We could dig a small trench that would help us face any monster. We really don’t know anything about—”
“Oh, come on, Jimmy! I hear a chicken, ladies! Bwak-bwak!-Bwaak! I’m sure it’s going to be a piece of cake!” the man went over to James and put an arm around his armored shoulder. “If you only knew all the things I had to go through to get to the top of this company, Jimmy-boy, you would follow me through anything! You have a real warrior in front of you, trust me!"
The group started discussing in which direction they should go. It might have even been a good idea if only they had a landmark to refer to or really any hint from The System. Currently, it looked like a few women were trying to guess their position based on the sun. It was just pure genius at work, really.
And the more they talked, the more Alan took the opportunity to sound smart and take the lead. He was now giving another speech on morale, trust, and team building. The only problem was that they weren’t at a fancy restaurant, pretending to like each other to get through the night.
Christine, James’s ex, looked at her once-had-been-boyfriend with big, doe eyes. She even tried to get closer to him while Alan rambled on about wild berries and edible roots he had seen on National Geographic. In response, James had switched to Meredith’s other side, putting the woman between him and his ex. Christine pouted and walked back to Kathy’s side, clearly unhappy with how the clumsy approach had gone.
“Okay, okay, I can still see some fear. Listen up, ladies, I once hunted lions in Africa! I know I shouldn’t be saying this because it’s illegal and whatnot, but my old man taught me that sometimes men have to make their own rules and that we have to face the wildest beasts to temper ourselves. That safari taught me more about business than any Master’s degree could!”
There was barely any pushback at that revelation. James not only felt like Alan had already boasted to most women here in a flight of drunkenness or in bed about his hunting exploits, but he was also reminded why Alan was the CEO; his father was the majority shareholder of a massive multinational conglomerate with many corporations underneath it. Even if quoted, the mattress business was, interestingly enough, one of the smallest ones. The bigger branches were managed by actually capable people, and Alan had gotten his piece of the pie in the form of something that could fail without actually impacting the bigger company that much.
James had once thought that it would be a blast if he could prove himself in the mattress company because one day, he might have enough credentials to work at the bigger firms that were part of the conglomerate. That would have been a huge win for him.
Sadly, everyone knew how that story went.
“Well, Jimmy, are you ready to see how real men handle trouble? Haha!”
“Alan, are you sure you don’t want to approach things with more caution? No one is really a warrior here.”
To be honest, one part of him wanted to face these new challenges, to feel the adrenaline rush of a real battle. However, he was not naive enough to do so while ill-prepared.
“Come on, Jimmy! We have weapons, numbers, and – I don’t know about you – but I also have skills! If this is some kind of a game scenario, the best thing to do is become stronger!” Alan declared. He unsheathed his sword to make a point, clumsily wielding it around.
I’m so damn glad I spent all that money on medieval weapon lessons. Go figure why they would cost more than a Zumba class, huh, mom? Well, that’s your answer. Now, go wield your stupid pink dumbbells against the famished monsters.
Alan started swinging his sword wide, leaving him completely open to any attack. The ladies still applauded the foolish display, though. Anyway, if they had to fight monsters, thrusts would be far more effective. But sword fighting wasn't where James shone. He was primarily a jouster, though he was also proficient in many other medieval weapons. It had always been his hobby. He was skilled with maces, axes, and swords. Swords more than any other weapon, save for lances. The System had not yet recognized his proficiency with maces and axes, but he was confident he could learn the relative skills if he so desired.
“Everyone in favor of trying to hunt some of these so-called monsters, then?” Alan smiled, carefree as he had always been. It wasn’t like people had just died in troves, and they might be next. In fact, James had only speculated that most died because of their spawn point and being unprepared. For all he knew, they might have died because the monsters were simply terrifying and unbeatable.
James looked at the crowd of scared women and a bored horse. What karma could he have sown in his past life to deserve this?
