I didn’t say anything. Even though I had seen him that night, I had also gone a full thirty-five days with only Killie and Daisy for company. And, perhaps, the alien overlords. They weren’t really company, though, as I always braced for an existential crisis whenever they showed up.

It didn’t take long for Theo to tear his gaze up from the ground and notice me at the bridge. He, too, seemed to freeze. The billions of questions in my mind froze as I just stared at him, then glanced at my completely full bar of sanity.

“So… I guess you’re not a hallucination,” I said.

The surprised look on Theo’s face relaxed. “No, I guess not.”

There was a beat of silence, then we both exploded with questions. I couldn’t hear a word he said as I tried to ask him how he got here, but we stopped talking again.

“Alright, okay,” I said, playing with a lock of my hair. “We’ll switch off questions. Might make things easier.”

“Fair enough.” Theo leaned against the bridge. “You first.”

At that invitation, all the billions of questions dropped out of my head. I scrambled for even one question. I lifted my shoulders, trying to hold back a sigh. “Do you have… any idea why we’re here?”

Theo shook his head. “No. No, I woke up with my memories completely gone.”

“Same.”

“Seems like I’m trapped in some sort of game.”

“Same.”

“I’m destroying all the monsters I can to level up my weapons and my stats.”

I blinked. “Uh… not same.”

Theo tried to smile, then turned his head just enough to see past me toward the house, though the smile dropped, as did his gaze.

Despite already taking my turn, more questions tumbled into my head that I needed to know. I used my thumb and bounced it over my shoulder. “Is that your childhood home?”

“Yeah,” Theo said.

“You said you forgot everything, though. Like me. How do you know it’s your childhood home?”

“On bad nights I get flashes of memories about…”

He trailed off, and considering what I guessed, I didn’t know if he wanted me to blatantly say it. His face said enough.

Theo instead glanced at the note on the bridge ground, reading it fast. “Wolf… there’s a wolf over there?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it usually leaves me alone, unless it’s nighttime,” I said, then glanced at my wolf timer. “As long as I’m in the house, it doesn’t attack me. It can, uh, stand up on its hind legs.”

Theo stared at me, trying hard not to react. “Wolf… on hind legs?”

“Like in that memory orb. The… monster you drew?” I asked.

This, finally, broke Theo’s attempt to not react as his eyes widened. “You get the memory orbs too?”

“Yeah. How do you get them?”

“Just randomly. I’ve been trying to track a pattern, but so far, I haven’t nailed it down.”

“Same.”

I had forgotten whose turn it was for a question, but we didn’t stay silent for long. Theo again glanced in the direction of across the bridge. “So… you’re cleaning it?”

“Yes, I am. Honestly, it’s a beautiful house. Very old.”

“Very dirty,” Theo said.

“Not much anymore. At least not on the first level. I’m quite proud of how much it’s improved.”

Theo seemed to flinch at a thought I wasn’t privy too. He rubbed his left temple as though that would suck it out of his head. “Um… I don’t… you shouldn’t be there.” I raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything. “Just, um… come over to my side.”

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I didn’t know why I felt so defensive, but I placed my hands on my hips. “And do what, exactly? All I have is an axe to chop trees.”

Theo didn’t look at me. He stared at the bridge floor, as though afraid to stare me in the eye, though he still did point at me. “It’s not safe there. Okay? It’s… it’s not…”

I sighed. “Look, Theo, I have to be completely honest. I figured out that was your childhood home a bit ago. Things are happening there, like ghost haunts. I’m assuming it’s… things that happened in that house when you were a kid. I thought I was supposed to figure out what happened to your family and that would be the end of this game. But then you showed up. There’s no way the alien overlords would have that as the end goal if I can just ask you-”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Theo said, his brows furrowing. “Alien overlords? What?”

I stared at him, once again reminding myself that I hadn’t actually talked to another human being in at least thirty-five game days. “Right. The alien overlords. It’s my nickname for the beings in charge of the game.”

Theo did nothing but stare at me. At first I wondered if I had broken him, but he seemed to shake himself out of it. “You mean the system?”

“The beings in charge of the system, yes,” I said.

He blinked. “You’re friends with the beings in charge of the game?” He shook his head. “You know what? Never mind. This does not actually surprise me.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m not friends with them. They keep saying how they’re a neutral party, and they’re kind of scary to talk to.”

“Talk… to?” Theo just kept staring at me. “I’m sorry, you’ve talked to them?”

“Don’t you?” I gestured toward the monster side. “Don’t you die over there?”

“Yeah. Yeah, actually, a lot.”

“And don’t you ever end up in some sort of white room and talk to one of the beings?”

Theo stared at me like I had grown a third ear. “No!” he finally said. “I just… wake up again at base camp after losing a day.”

It was my turn to give him a long, hard stare. “You mean you don’t have a conversation with the male? You don’t… they don’t ask you if you want to give up?”

“No,” Theo said.

Despite the obvious changes in our gaming preferences, this change seemed significant. Theo was playing a game. I was getting to know the people in charge of the game. There had to be a clue there.

“Have you tried getting to know them?” I asked.

Theo snorted. “I didn’t try because I didn’t know.”

“Well… you should.” I didn’t understand why I felt so deeply about this. It was odd to me that the alien overlords would take an interest in me and not Theo. I needed to figure out why. “Maybe talk to them or something.”

“Talk to them? How?” Theo asked.

“I usually just talk to the sky.”

Theo gave another snort then shook his head. “I don’t know, Quinn. I’m fine just killing my monsters and getting stronger.”

I gave a defeated sigh. “Don’t you have to-do lists you need to complete?”

“I mean… before in the tutorial I would have words appear to teach me what to do. But it’s pretty much just grinding as I get essences to make my weapons more powerful and make myself stronger.” He patted his stomach. “I’m level twenty-three, and I’ve got some pretty powerful weapons at my disposal.” He pulled out a crossbow and a sword. “Still kinda mad I don’t have a gun, though. Gave up thinking I’d get one. It’d probably be too easy.” Theo replaced the weapons in the pocket dimension he must have received, too.

“So… you just kill monsters? And get stronger?” I didn’t want to be jealous, but I started to feel it. That was more the games I was used to. Not the killing, but a slower pace. An overall objective that I could choose to do if I wanted to. Not a list of things I needed to do out of a sense of self preservation.

“Well, I mean I do have a goal.” Theo glanced over his shoulder at the monster side of the river. “It was in the tutorial. An evil sludge monster is taking over the land and corrupting all the monsters, making them stronger. I’ve got to level up and destroy the monster before it destroys everything. It’s already starting to corrupt some of the lesser monsters.”

“Oh,” I said. “You mean the demon monkey? Is that the black stuff I saw on it?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s getting those monsters. Those things are hard to track. Then they drop out of the trees,” Theo said.

“But… them. You’re talking about them. Right?” I asked.

Theo again looked confused, leaning against the bridge and folding his arms. “Them?”

“Yeah. That’s what the sludge monster is called on my side. They come and attack every so often, hitting the house hard. I have to build a fence and do a number of other things in order to prepare for their attack.”

Theo’s eyebrows shot up. “You… have a pattern? A pattern of when this sludge monster attacks?”

“Yeah. At least on my side there is. It’s on the calendar back at the house. Speaking of…” I pulled out my to-do list. “I have a list of things I still need to do. And four and a half days left to do it.”

Theo walked over to get a better look at the list. He shook his head. “This is… crazy.”

“I know.” I wished Theo had more answers. But I didn’t really have answers, either. Just more information for him to get stronger. To play the game. “Do you think there’s a way to get out?”

Theo paused, then shrugged in a noncommittal way. “Honestly…” I stared at him, waiting for him to continue, even though I saw the answer on his face. “Is this really so bad?” he finished.

Everything inside me froze. “Yes, Theo. This is bad. Your killing monsters. I’m being haunted by your past, for whatever reason. We had a life before. A family. Probably jobs.”

Theo rolled his eyes. “Look at us, Quinn. We’re in our early twenties. We probably had some lame fast food job that doesn’t pay well. We were probably in college or something.”

“Yeah, but whatever it was, it was our life. We’re still leaving something. Despite the alien overlords’ insistence they’re a neutral party, I don’t like that I can’t remember a lot of our old life. We’ve got to figure out how to get out of this game, and our chances are better if we’re working on this together.”

Theo took my to-do list, reading over it and turning it over to see if there was anything else. “Have you ever considered that maybe there isn’t a way out of this?”