I felt a pull in my entire body before I was in a free fall. It was gone in a second, and Theo gripped me tightly as my legs decided to take a moment to remember how to function.

“It worked.” Theo sounded relieved. “You’re here!”

I opened my eyes, blinking. The sounds came at me all at once, like an entire forest was alive. I looked around. I didn’t realize Theo’s place was so out in the open. I didn’t know why I was imagining some sort of bat cave, but the thought was there.

A hammock was tied against two trees. There was a fireplace in the middle that had become embers. I saw a table of some sort that looked like a workplace where Theo upgraded his tools. On the other side was a large treasure chest.

“It’s so cozy,” I said.

Theo snorted, sitting at the table. “It does what it needs to.”

“What’s in the chest?” I asked.

“Oh.” He stood back up to open the lid. I saw a ton of jewels and gemstones inside. “It’s essentially my storage unit. I’ve gotten a few charms to upgrade it.” He gestured to the contents inside. “This is my gemstone storage.” He closed the lid and pressed a button before opening the lid again. I saw a lot of metal, wood, and coal. “This is my resource storage.” He closed the lid and pressed the last button. “And this is my weapon upgrade storage.”

I chuckled at his happy face. It was good to see him so happy, even if I didn’t understand it. Well, actually, I partially understand the need to upgrade a storage unit as much as possible.

Theo stood up again, wiping the black liquid from his ears before pointing around him. “There’s four torches in the ground that give a protective barrier against the monsters.”

“So, stay among the light and I won’t get eaten?” I asked.

“Yeah. Something like that,” Theo said. “Though the monsters around the base camp are pretty low level. You could probably get them with your level two axe, there.”

“It’s a level two?” I asked, pulling out my axe.

“Yeah. Pretty basic.”

I shook my head, smiling. “I’ll have you know this thing can drop a tree with losing only using up six percent of my stamina, and it gives me seven whole logs for it. Sometimes eight.”

Theo chuckled. I shook my head again as I moved over to his hammock. There was a pillow and sleeping bag inside.

“I used to just sleep on the ground but upgraded to a hammock. Dropped the amount of corruption coming into me every night by a good ten percent when that happened. It was nice,” Theo said.

I ran my hand over the bark of a tree. “Good. I’m glad you found something to help.”

Theo sighed, sitting back on the chair. He was wiping his face a lot, and I didn’t notice just how much of them Theo was leaking until I saw him pull back both hands covered in them.

“I’m not crying,” he mumbled. “It just won’t stop… leaking. From my face.”

I couldn’t help it and chuckled. “It’s alright, Theo. Go ahead and leak.”

He snorted, which caused more of them to come out of his nose. His face turned red as he covered his face. “This is embarrassing.”

“I’m not judging you, Theo. You know that, right?” I asked.

“Doesn’t matter. I’m judging myself.” He had a slight smile on his face as he shook out his hands, droplets of them leaving his hands. He then focused on something in his vision. “It can keep leaking as long as it wants, though. I’m losing about a percent every minute or so.”

“Good, good.” I didn’t know where to sit, so I sat on the treasure chest. “What do you think our life is like right now? Back home? Do you ever wonder?” I asked.

“I hope we’re not high schoolers anymore,” Theo mumbled. “We shouldn’t, right? We’re too old to be teenagers.” He crinkled his nose. “I feel like we escaped those years.”

I chuckled. “Yeah, I guessed I was at least in my early twenties. I think our high school life is behind us.” Theo let out a huge sigh of relief. I raised an eyebrow. “Do you remember high school?” I asked.

“No. Dread for high school is universal, though, right? I can’t be the only one.”

I chuckled, placing my arms against the treasure. “I hope Brenda and Doug are still alive. I do feel quite the connection to them. They’ve been getting older in those memory orbs.”

“They were so kind. Imagine raising another two kids after all your kids left the house,” Theo said.

I shook my head. “We were incredibly lucky to end up with them.”

“We were,” Theo said.

There was silence again before Theo stood up. “You better get back if you want to be in the house before the wolf comes.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” I said. “I was planning on sleeping here.”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Theo watched me, confused. “Here?”

“I’ll do my own sort of experiments. I want to see where they come from on this side of the river. How they enter your head. Figure out if there’s a way to lessen their effect.”

Theo raised an eyebrow, but shrugged. “I guess we can see if you wake up in that house. That’ll be good to know. If you do end up waking here, you could stay here so you’ll be away from…”

The creep. The creep outside my window, watching me sleep. Theo’s dad.

“Yeah. I guess we’ll see,” I said, wanting to change the subject.

Theo seemed to think the same thing, because he pulled out his chainsaw and set it against the table, starting to fiddle with it.

“So there’s three more ghosts?” Theo asked.

“Yeah. I tried talking to the kid Theo last night, but he wasn’t listening to me. I… I think it’s got to be you. You talking to all those ghosts.”

Theo stopped tinkering with his chain saw, shoving both hands in his hair. “Yeah.”

He was back to saying that phrase with little emotion to it. “Theo?” I asked.

He just shook his head, glancing above him in the trees. “I’m… tired. I think I’ll go to bed.”

“Okay,” I said.

Theo got up, not looking at me as he got into his hammock. He grabbed his pillow and sleeping bag, tossing them on the ground near my feet. “That’s for when you’re ready to sleep. I’ll be fine in the hammock.”

I nodded, then waited to hear his heavy breathing as he gave into the sleep, but he didn’t. He was just lying there.

“I know you’re trying to sleep, but I’m just curious. Does the game force you into a sleep?” I asked.

Theo’s eyes opened and he stared at me. “What?”

“Forced sleep? The game? Does it ask you if you want to sleep and… then you sleep?”

Theo blinked at me. “I’m sorry, the game allows you to just sleep? If you ask it to?”

“Well, as long as it’s in the designated time. Like I have an hour after sunset or something if my to-do list isn’t done. But then… yeah. It usually lets me sleep.”

Theo kept staring at me, then grumbled about something that sounded an awful lot like, “Unbelievable.” He carefully sat up in his hammock. “No. No, the game does not allow me to sleep like that. Usually, I can’t sleep until my corruption is down to at least forty percent, and even then, it’s difficult.” Theo wiped the drained liquid off his face again. “Though there are times when I’m in the hammock that the corruption drains out of me faster.”

I stared at Theo. “Huh.”

Theo grumbled again. “You just can’t trust people who fall asleep fast.”

I chuckled as he situated himself again on the hammock. I remained on the treasure chest, glancing around. I hoped Killie was okay. I didn’t think about what me staying over here would do for her. It was a good thing she was unkillable.

I did some exploring, making sure to stay within the torches. Theo didn’t need to warn me twice. Considering how ridiculously noisy it was even at night, it was a wonder Theo got any sleep at all. There were shadows just beyond the torchlight, and I wasn’t about to step into them.

My brain was still on cozy mode. I was thinking about the trees I could chop down to clear out this space. To grow a garden or something. Maybe create more furniture. Despite how tempting it was, it was also not my place.

When I finished exploring, I crept back to Theo’s main base. He was asleep, one hand under his head, the hammock rocking in the breeze. Thin trails of them crept up the trees and scooted across the hammock to enter his face. I also heard the steady drip, drip, drip of them leaving his ears, nose, eyes, and mouth. It was such a strange sight. My cleaning clothes jumped onto my body and I reached forward, placing my gloved hand against them. The line stopped, turning into liquid and falling off the tree.

“Why doesn’t it affect me?” I asked the alien overlords. It was a question I’m sure Theo had too. “Why was this different for me? Why did it never enter my body?”

It will affect you. Just in different ways

“Different ways how?” I asked the words in my vision.

Keep doing what you’re doing, and you’ll see

I sighed. Once again, since it was words, I couldn’t tell if it was a threat or an invitation. Either way, this is what I told Theo I would happily do. Research what they did on this side of the river. I kept my hand against the tree, dropping them before they could get any closer to the hammock.

I did this, standing by the tree, for a solid ten minutes. I also placed my hands against the hammock, as they were coming from the other direction too. The more they could drip out of Theo with none coming in to replace it, the better.

It was another ten minutes before I got more words in my vision.

Warning!

Clothing corrupted too much with essence of them

Must repair one article of clothing to restore to full level

Cannot repair furniture until clothes are restored

I gave a slow nod of my head. I remembered this. It’s what I had to do when Theo vomited on me. The hair ribbon as part of my cleaning outfit turned slimy. I could feel it on my head, but I didn’t feel any of them enter my face, so it wasn’t getting me that way.

So, this is how it affected me. It would slowly erode the clothing I gained. The eventual conclusion of this was that it would keep going until I had no more shield left from them. No way to clean it off. Would it therefore start affecting me like it had with Theo? Maybe. Then again, maybe not.

It depends on the person. You, however, are not one of the people who are hurt by corruption the same way Theo is.

I stared at the words that appeared in my vision, then looked at Theo’s sleeping form. Theo, for whatever reason, had something in him that made the corruption enter his body. I didn’t have one. I wasn’t about to test it, though.

I waited there another half an hour. Until I got another notification.

Warning!

Clothing corrupted too much with essence of them

Must repair two articles of clothing to restore to full level

Cannot paint or restore furniture until clothes are restored

I sighed as my apron had slimy black stains appearing on it. I let go of the trees, watching their slow crawl toward Theo’s face.

Over a half an hour and half of my clothes got corrupted by them. Honestly, I was surprised I had this kind of patience. There wasn’t much else for me to do here. I couldn’t travel back to the house, even if I wanted to. I was doing experiments, and I had learned something.

Knowing I couldn’t do this forever was an important lesson to learn. I needed to make sure my battles were picked, and I was prepared to fight with Theo when I was fully prepared. Considering Theo was still self-conscious of how corruption hurt him, I wasn’t sure when that would be. I still had to give him gentle nudges that I didn’t mind the liquid leaking out of him or the occasional vomits. I hated that he felt like such a burden, but honestly, if the roles were reversed, I understood completely. For most of his life depression was hidden. Hidden to the point where I could only tell because I’d seen so many of the signs. Now, in this game, he couldn’t hide it from me even if he tried.

I spent another half an hour keeping them from Theo. Once my dress got sludge stains on it, I stopped. I wanted to see if there was any noticeable difference in the percentage Theo told me tomorrow. I then walked over to the sleeping bag and pillow, climbing inside. Words appear in my vision.

Would you like to sleep now?

Y/N

I smiled at the recent memory of Theo’s incredulous face at how the game could force me to sleep, and mentally chose yes.