It wouldn’t be fair to say Astrid panicked. ‘Panic’ implies having an over-the-top reaction to a situation resulting in bad choices; in a similar way the word ‘paranoia’ implies that you are wrong in believing that there is a conspiracy against you.
Astrid may not have been using the rational part of her brain in those moments of fight-or-flight, but it is not fair to say she panicked. Firstly, she was being chased by a wall of darkness, in a strange castle, with unsavory fellows as her only companions, and little-to-no memory of who she was. There is no such thing as an overreaction to a situation of this magnitude. Secondly, she made a good choice. That isn’t to say it was a good idea, far from it. Opening another door after an eldritch monstrosity crawls out of one is a terrible idea. But it wasn’t just any door. It was one she recognized, with her all-too familiar sense of déjà vu.
Gerald noticed Astrid reaching out for a green, dusty, and otherwise un-noteworthy door. “Keep moving” he chided her while attempting to pull her along.
Astrid would not move farther from the door, though she could hardly fight back against Gerald with her wounded ankle. Her every thought was consumed by this door. It spoke to her, though not with words or thoughts. It resonated with her soul.
It felt like home.
During their struggle, with Gerald desperate to get Astrid moving away from this dusty green door, Grant erected a series of ice walls between them and the darkness. He could not see the darkness, and so he erected walls reaching as far down the corridor as his waning strength could manage. The walls furthest away remained untouched as the ones closer began to shatter one after the other. Grant and Gerald could not see what was after them, but they certainly knew what it was.
“I can’t ‘old back a specter forever!” he shouted, while thickening the closest walls of ice. His muscles were tensed, and his breathing erratic. One hand was on the ground with a line of frost between him and his wall, the other helping him to stay balanced.
Gerald was nearly lifting Astrid off the ground as he pulled her away from the door. “There’s bad things behind these doors!” he said between his pulling and breathing.
The last wall of ice shattered. Gerald let go of Astrid, summoning balls of green light. Astrid fell forward now that no one was holding her back.
As soon as Astrid touched the door her sight went black. At first she assumed that the specter had caught her, until words appeared in her vision and implanted into her mind.
Admin Credentials Generated…
Initializing System Interface…
Astrid sighed internally, *this has got to be the weirdest version of ‘my life flashed before my eyes’ I’ve ever heard of. Though, I suppose when people actually die it’s pretty hard to figure out what they saw. Probably some other weird hallucinations before the end, plus I don’t even have a life to flash before my eyes!*
Admin Authority Authorization Requested…
Request Denied…
*Wow, even my imagination doesn’t think highly of me. Reminds me of that old mythology of people’s hearts weighed against a feather. Looks like my own conscience is working against me. Rude.*
Admin Privileges Set To 0…
Object Class Changed To “Admin0”...
*Can I please get a nice end-of-life hallucination? You know, one with more fun, maybe a little bit of a love story, some sun? Or, you know, ANYTHING BUT WEIRD COMPUTER BULLCRAP!*
Hello Administrator Astrid! This is an automated message. Error Code: ??????? Please contact support.
With the final words vanishing from her sight, Astrid’s eyes opened once again. Her hand was firmly on the brass handle of the dusty green door. The voice of Grant broke the silence.
“Are we- are we- are we dead Gerald?”
“I don’t feel dead.”
“Oh, you ‘ave a lot of experience, do you? Been dead before?”
“Grant, do I gotta teach you another lesson?”
“...I suppose you’re right. Dead probably don't feel alive, and I definitely feel like everything is still working.”
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
“Astrid, how about you?”
Astrid took a moment to respond. “I’m not entirely sure. Everything went black for a moment, then I went a little insane, but now it’s back and so am I?”
“Do you ‘appen to still see the specter?”
Astrid looked around and confirmed that she didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. “I don’t see it anywhere anymore.”
Astrid then attempted to open the door, and was immediately met with another message. This message appeared in the middle of her vision, though it did not black out her vision this time.
Access Denied To Admin Suite…
Admin Authority Required…
Astrid thought about telling Grant and Gerald, but decided against it. She still didn’t trust them, and also didn’t feel like stressing them out with her own mental breakdown right after that whole specter incident.
Astrid hopped back to Gerald, her ankle now slightly worse after this whole ordeal of running and falling once again.
Grant let out a sigh. “We may not get time off our sentences after this ‘orrible fiasco, but at least they won’t execute us for losing ‘er.”
Gerald glared at Grant, motioning for him to shut the hell up. Astrid was at a loss for words, digesting this new information. Grant and Gerald were prisoners of some kind. While that definitely explained a few things, it made her second guess her importance to whoever had sent them to pick her up.
“Anyway, what was a specter doing in this section of the halls?”
“That’s above my paygrade, Gerald.”
“They don’t pay us.”
“EXACTLY!”
------
The rest of the journey was uneventful, though walking on her injured ankle for so long only made it worse. By the end, she could barely walk.
Grant and Gerald had offered to carry her multiple times, but she denied them every single time. She remembered how they carried her the first time, and she did not want a repeat of that. Even though she couldn’t run, she still deluded herself into thinking that using Gerald as a crutch still gave her some level of freedom.
Astrid looked to her left, and saw another green and dusty door. It looked so similar to the last one. In fact-
She was surprised to hear another voice than hers and her two ‘escorts.’ A feminine voice spoke up from down the corridor. Her voice was filled with authority and cold rage.
“I think I have a few too many questions. It’s probably best to execute you two first, then ask questions later.”
Gerald let go of Astrid very quickly, stepping away from her with his hands raised and knees bent.
Astrid looked down the corridor and saw the woman who had spoken. She wore tattered brown robes, and held a staff of many colors. She was much taller than Astrid, and significantly taller than the two criminals who had led Astrid through the maze.
“I wouldn’t be completely opposed to that, but I really don’t know what in the world is going on. If you’re gonna kill them, could you ask your questions first, just to be sure? I don’t exactly trust them, but they did save my life at least once, so that deserves some consideration.”
Astrid tried to take a step forward, but her leg gave out. She cried out “Help!” to no one in particular. She stopped falling. The world around her froze in place.
/Help…
Authentication Tokens Available: 2 of 3
Admin Privileges: Level 0
Available Commands:
* Help
* RequestAuthorization
* RequestInformation
* SpawnMundaneObject
*What in the world is this?*
/RequestInformation “What in the world is this?”
Information Authorized: This is the help function, allowing administrators to see what commands are available to them.
Admin5 "Stephen" Avoid wasting auth tokens on the help function or pointless system queries. Most of this information can be found in your handbook, and the rest should be memorized or kept track of manually.
*What is going on?*
/RequestInformation “What is going on?”
Information Denied: Admin5 “Stephen” is now auditing you
*Wait, was that Stephen guy sending me the editorial note directly?”
/RequestInformation “wait, was that Stephen guy sending me the editorial note directly?”
Information Denied: Admin5 “Stephen” is now auditing you
Admin5 "Stephen" I’m looking at your records, and you haven’t even finished the orientation yet. That explains a few things, but opens up some other questions. Just don’t ask anymore questions to the system, okay? Just try to think of the word “exit” or “escape” as hard as you can, and I’ll come and find you to sort this out. Teamwork makes the dreamwork!
*Okay… Exit!*
Time returned to the world. Gerald caught Astrid, thankfully before her ankle was injured again. Astrid’s mind was racing, but she was starting to come to realize what might be happening to her. She had been teleported to some other world and developed superpowers!
Of course, these powers seemed like they had a few strings attached to them, but if this world was run by some kind of all-powerful computer-like system, admins had to be at the top of the food chain, right?
Astrid had never been more wrong in her whole life…