Chapter 4: Time to Play - A Dream of Waking Life

Matt woke in a slumped position, arms outstretched over his legs as if he were a deactivated action figure. He found himself back in the dark cell with the naked people.

Shit! I’m back here. I fell asleep on the fucking bus.

But this time Matt remembered falling asleep. This time he knew it was only a dream, though that didn’t assuage the confused feeling that still lingered from his dreams to waking life and back to this dream.

I should warn them, Matt thought, remembering the giant creature that had pierced his skull last time.

“There’s a giant homicidal maniac standing right outside that door,” Matt warned simply, pointing to a wall indistinguishable from all the others without the count-down lights.

The others looked at each other and shrugged.

“Whole lotta killers out there, Loki,” Igwe rumbled. “Same as us.” The large man snarled with ecstatic expectation for the door to open.

“You don’t understand.” Matt laughed at the futility of convincing the others and almost resigned himself to the dream’s inevitable course. “When that door opens, there’s going to be a giant creature with blades standing there. It’s going to slaughter us all in the blink of an eye.”

“You think the Reaper is right outside already?” Mu asked seriously.

Putch grunted, discarding Matt’s words without a second thought.

“Fuck does he know?” Kartikeya scoffed. “He’s fucking with you, Mu.”

Mu let her body sulk and twisted her lips in consideration. “Are you…messing with me, Loki?” she asked innocently, avoiding the use of slurs.

She was beauty incarnate; every one of her features was implemented and designed to nano-perfection, and Matt couldn’t help feeling that he might lose himself to his desire for this dream woman.

She’s only that beautiful because she’s a character from a video game, Matt reminded himself. My video game. And this is a dream.

But the reality of his situation didn’t stop his dream body from producing hormones of attraction. He felt an intense urge to grab her hand and bring her close enough to kiss, but the shadows and the smell of cold steel and the knowledge that he was about to watch her die and then be impaled by the same dancing, murderous specter stayed his body.

“It’ll be right outside that door,” Matt warned, desperately trying to keep calm and serious despite being the only one in the room focused on covering his genitals with his hands.

A red light came to life at both ends of the wall, and the immersive reality of his surroundings injected Matt with the sudden recognition that this felt far too real to be just a dream.

This is more than just a dream, Matt gasped inwardly. This is...I don’t know what it is. But I know it ends horrifically.

Matt shuddered at the memory of being impaled by the Reaper’s dancing blade.

I could just get this over with...or…

Matt looked about the cell with forced confidence, allowing the ink-black shadows to claw at his periphery alongside his tangible fear of death despite knowing none of this could be real.

Or I could try exploring this dream that feels so much more than just a dream.

He gulped at the thought of having to face the bladed demon on the other side of the wall, but his curiosity had to be satiated.

I have to know what’s really going on. But I have to stay alive longer than the first few seconds.

“We should huddle up into one corner. Maybe we can trick it – make it think our room is empty,” Matt offered.

“Coward,” Igwe rumbled, and Putch grunted in pleasant agreement.

“It’s not a bad idea,” Kartikeya said, his eyes never leaving the lights on the wall. “If we want victory, we should gain it by any means.”

Putch rumbled in consideration, and Igwe gave a half-hearted shrug.

“It’s a coward move. But so be it. I’ll leave the strategy to you, Kart.”

Kartikeya winked at the large man, and the group walked over to Matt’s side of the cell.

Mu slid her hand into his and hugged his arm gently against her torso. Matt gripped back and audibly gasped at the warmth of her skin.

“I think it’s a great idea,” she whispered to him as the others laughed over some grotesque taunt at death. “Might as well be safe.”

The alarm bellowed a single note, and a set of yellow lights appeared. Mu gave his hand one last squeeze, then let go. She began chanting her words of magic, injecting resolve into her party. For Matt, it had a calming effect, and for the fighters, it gave them strength and fearlessness.

Thank you, Mu, Matt thought genuinely as he felt the fear fade from his every nerve; the welcoming softness of her palm was now the only thing on his mind.

Another pair of yellow lights appeared, and the group huddled closer to the inside corner.

The alarm bellowed a final time.

This might work, Matt thought with an ounce of actual hope.

The green light appeared. It was time to play.

The door lifted instantly into the ceiling, and the group pulled back against the wall in unison.

Kartikeya couldn’t help peering around the corner, but Putch elbowed him back against the wall.

“Damn it, Loki!” Kartikeya said, pushing away from the group. “You were fucking with us the whole time?”

Matt shook his head, nervous to leave the fickle sanctuary of the corner, but the others were already breaking away from him to find that there was no Reaper standing outside their cell.

Mu looked betrayed and glared at him for just a moment, then let her gaze fall away just as fast.

“I swear I thought it would be out there,” Matt said.

The dream is different, Matt thought, unsure about the implications. Why did I expect it to be the same?

He wished he could convince Mu that his warning had been genuine, but it was no use.

“We’ve wasted enough time,” Igwe announced. “Let’s start looting.”

The others jogged out of the cell, leaving Mu and Matt to themselves. Mu cocked her head for him to follow.

“Something’s weird about you, Loki. I can tell when you’re just messing with us even when the others can’t,” she mused.

Matt nodded with equal frustration and relief. “I wasn’t lying, Mu. Last time the Reaper really was out there.”

Mu furrowed her eyebrows in consideration. “Last time? What do you mean?”

Cries of battle and desperation resounded from somewhere distant, injecting urgency into Mu and paralysis into Matt.

“It’s out there,” Matt said, and the thought of a blade passing easily through his skull made him audibly yelp.

Just a dream! He reminded himself, but everything felt perfectly real. There was no slowness or vagueness or detachment like a typical dream.

He held up his hands and did a reality check. They looked perfectly normal. He pushed against the cell wall, but it was perfectly solid. It was all exquisitely detailed – maybe even more real than the real world.

No! Matt insisted to himself. It’s just a dream!

Mu smiled serenely and uttered a few words, returning feeling to Matt’s legs. She took his hand and clasped her fingers through his. “The Reaper is always out there,” she said. “Always.”

She pulled him away from the wall, and together they ran toward the others. He felt totally unable to resist her.

As they ran, Matt noted that the expanse outside the cell felt remarkably familiar; he was the lead designer after all. A cubic area measuring two miles on each side was partitioned into hundreds of smaller cubes measuring an average of 100 feet on each side. The walls of the larger structure and smaller cubes jutted seemingly forever into the sky, disappearing in an area of impenetrable darkness two miles overhead. The smaller cubes were aligned so that they formed straight or zigzagging streets filled with blind spots.

Matt and Mu jogged down one of these streets as they caught up with the others, passing countless open and closed cell doors. Weapons and armor lay in wait behind the closed cell doors while the open doors represented cells from which other players had emerged. It was almost comforting to remember so much about the game, and Matt felt invigorated that the whole of his memory might return to him once he went back on his medication in the real world.

This is real, a detached part of Matt’s mind demanded he accept, and though Matt’s senses agreed, his rational mind knew better. Attempting to nullify his mind’s insistence that this was no mere dream, Matt reminded himself of the game’s mechanics. Every cell has a chance of containing varying equipment to help us survive against the Reaper and other players, he recollected as if from a rule manual. The objective of the game is to be the last survivor, no matter how close to death. A torso could win as long as it was still breathing.

You see? Matt insisted to himself. This isn't real. I can’t be inside my own video game. That’s not possible.

“Come on!” Kartikeya urged from fifty feet away, breaking Matt from his thoughts. Kartikeya, Igwe and Putch stood outside the doorway of another cell lined with golden lights.

Mu’s eyes lit up with exultant excitation.

“You found it!” she gushed at Kartikeya.

Putch grunted, and Kartikeya shrugged. “She found it. I’m just here for the spoils.”

“Hurry up, Loki!” Igwe grunted, looking up and down the expanse for others. “We won’t be this lucky for long.”

Matt hurried toward the door, but he couldn’t place the meaning of the golden lights.

“What is it?” he asked. In response, Mu soured and shook her head.

Putch flashed her teeth and grabbed Matt’s neck with scorpion-strike quickness. “Open!” she demanded.

What do they want from me?

“I don’t know what you want!” Matt told them, pleading with them to believe him so that Putch would release her indomitable grip.

This is real. This feels real.

Grunts and shouts of battle could be heard from somewhere in the distance, followed by screams and yelps of horror.

No! This is a dream. This is just a fucking dream.

“Kill me!” Matt told the group. “Just kill me and be done with -”

“– just open the door, Loki!” Mu said pleadingly from outside Matt’s field of view. He was still being held immobile at the neck by Putch.

What do they want? How do I open it?

“How?!” Matt pleaded. “Just tell me how!”

Putch grunted and threw him to the ground. Mu and Kartikeya shook their heads in disappointment, but Igwe offered him bellowing laughter.

“I respect you, Loki,” Igwe said. “You laugh at death. But damn are you an asshole.”

Igwe opened a tiny panel in the wall just beside the door that Matt had overlooked in his disorientation. There was a keypad and number pad below a monitor with text that asked a single question: Are you awake?

There were more screams from somewhere distant, but this time they were ominously closer.

Matt shook his head. Is it a riddle?

He typed yes and pressed enter. The door’s golden lights flashed a foreboding red three times then changed back to gold.

The others groaned, and Matt turned to see that Mu couldn’t even look him in the eyes.

“He wants us to lose!” Kartikeya suggested coldly.

Blood curdling screams resounded so closely that the group could hear the ensuing spray of fluid against steel with each of the Reaper’s strokes.

Igwe shook his head. “Bastard,” he said, and he stretched his arms wide, preparing to wage battle without weapons against an invulnerable enemy.

“What am I supposed to say? ‘No?’ I mean, how else can you answer that question?” Matt urged.

“You know we can’t see the question, Loki,” Mu said grimly, likely already thinking of the best chant to help her group just accept their inevitable death.

“We should at least start running,” Kartikeya suggested. “This fool won’t open the door. We might still evade the Reaper. We might still win.”

Matt shook his head and input the answer no. The door flashed red three times then remained red.

“Motherfucker!” Igwe shouted at Matt.

Am I awake? What was I supposed to answer? Riddles on doors – that wasn’t part of my game...

The others, including Mu, abandoned Matt and ran fifty feet away to a cell lined in green lights. Igwe hit the cell door, causing it to lift on its own.

Matt forced himself to join the others, expecting the whole time that the Reaper would turn a corner and pounce on him in a heartbeat, but the screams seemed to be getting further away.

We evaded it, Matt told himself through a veneer of comfort that didn’t even last a heartbeat. For now.

The others hastily equipped themselves with armor and weapons lying in several heaps within the cell. Unable to totally dispel his fear and accept everything as a dream, Matt hastily rummaged through the items haphazardly strewn alongside the others. Matt found a cloak large enough to fit Igwe, and as he wrapped it around his body like a makeshift robe, Kartikeya went directly for a thin javelin that was more like a child’s toy in his grip. Igwe fitted his fists with what appeared to be brass knuckles. Putch inspected a large wooden bludgeon. Finally, Mu chose a satchel filled with throwing knives.

The others moved methodically in the foreboding silence, but Matt couldn’t help a nervous shaking in his hands as he frantically searched for a weapon of his own.

“Any weapons for me?” Matt asked, feeling silly now for caring so much about being naked as death inevitably hunted them down one by one.

“No,” Igwe announced simply. “Besides, what do you care? You won’t even do your job.”

My job?

“Opening cell doors, you mean?”

The others shook their heads in disappointment, still taking him for an insincere prankster named Loki.

“Let’s go,” Kartikeya announced. The others followed him down the hall, and Matt noted that none of the others had bothered to cover their bodies still.

“Why didn’t any of you take the armor back there?” Matt asked as he tightened the cloak around his body in a futile attempt at security.

“What’s the point?” Kartikeya called back. “It’s not real armor. That cloth and leather armor is only for half-wits who care about aesthetics more than glorious battle.”

Putch grunted satisfactorily.

Igwe stopped suddenly and held up a hand for the others to stop as well. They pressed themselves against the wall and listened, but Matt didn’t hear anything down the corridor that Igwe was presently peering at with incredible disdain. Cautiously, Igwe took a step toward the edge of the wall to get a look around the corner. Another step and he was close enough to risk a quick glance.

He turned slowly to the others.

“Nothing,” he whispered with a rumble. “I think we –”

A blade suddenly protruded from Igwe’s open mouth, spraying the others with shockingly warm fluid. An arm whipped around the corner, pulling the blade out of Igwe with a sickening crunch. Then, as if toying with them, the Reaper took one long stride into the open just as Igwe’s lifeless body hit the floor.

Matt braced himself.

Just a dream! It’s just a dream!

But the sordid glint of fresh blood on impossibly sharp blades filled Matt with engorging terror, and he couldn’t help but fall back against the wall, losing sensation in his legs and suddenly feeling anciently old. As he fell to the ground, he noted that the Reaper was covered in bloody gashes and tears from battle with other players, revealing that it wore a black suit and didn’t just have black skin.

There’s a living creature beneath that suit. Maybe it isn’t invulnerable.

Kartikeya and Putch charged fearlessly forward, and Mu backflipped to Matt, throwing several knives directly at the Reaper’s featureless head with perfect accuracy, an action that only angered it. She chanted words of strength that filled Matt with enough resolve to stand on his own two feet. The other two began hacking at the Reaper’s bloody limbs, and Matt thought that the Reaper might even be slowing down. Then, in a flash, the Reaper went from tired to tireless and diced Kartikeya’s and Putch’s bodies into a crimson cloud of death.

“Run!” Mu screamed at Matt, and the Reaper dove at them with its hungry blades outstretched.

Just a dream! Matt thought, desperate to override his mind’s insistence that he was truly about to die forever.

Just a dream!

He took Mu’s hand and pulled her to him, holding her tight and wishing he could make this singular moment stretch into eternity. Embracing Mu felt like home – it felt perfect – and it could have been were it not for the two-foot blade that skewered both their brains at once.