[System Start]

[Welcome to the Crimson Tower]

[User Registration Concluded]

[Processing Functions Limited]

The mechanical sentences rushed into Jude’s head, but this time they didn’t come with a headache. He and Iris had been kissing on that Brooklyn rooftop just a moment prior, but now they were in a sterile, futuristic chamber. The floor, walls and ceiling were white. The chamber was lit, but there didn’t seem to be a source of light anywhere.

“JUDE!!”

He was so overwhelmed by everything, thinking himself to be hallucinating, that only when Iris yelled at him did he notice that she was also there.

“Iris?!”

“Yes! You seemed so out of it… Where the hell are we?!”

“I… I thought I was hallucinating. Are you real?”

“I’m real! Look… I KNOW you have a history that makes you worried, but this is real. It’s REAL! Please… focus. And if and when we get out of here, you’re going to get yourself checked out.”

“OK… I’m sorry. It’s just us? Nathan and Angela?”

“They are not here. It’s just us.”

The brightness of the chamber started to increase, and both of them covered their eyes. When the light dimmed again, they saw a red humanoid being devoid of any features floating above them.

[Welcome to the Crimson Tower]

[User Iris Lee Registration Start]

Suddenly, an altar rose from the ground just in front of Iris. On it, there was a basin with a liquid.

[Please Drink to Continue Assimilation]

“What’s happening?” she asked both the figure and Jude.

[Please Drink to Continue Assimilation]

“I don’t think he’s gonna say anything else, and we are kinda stuck here, so maybe you should drink?”

“You’re just saying that because it’s not you!” she retorted, but she knew Jude was right, and more than that, the figure hadn’t even acknowledged Jude’s existence in the chamber. It was like the figure didn’t see him there. “Fine,” she relented and drank from the basin.

Iris’ body suddenly jolted straight, and her eyes rolled back into her head. It was the exact same thing that had happened to Jude on Christmas. However, once she came out of it, she didn’t pass out.

[Assimilation to the Tower Complete]

[Registration Complete]

[Initiating First Floor in Ten Minutes]

“TELL ME WHAT’S HAPPENING!” she yelled back, but the figure had disappeared.

Jude looked puzzled, while Iris stayed deep in thought for a few moments.

“This feels like a game…” he mumbled.

At that moment, Iris grabbed him and said, “You drink too!”

“What?! Why?”

“The thing didn’t even know you were here! I’m getting moved in ten minutes, but what about you? What if this is something you need to survive where it’s taking me? Us? I don’t even know if you are gonna go if you don’t drink it!”

“OK… OK, I’ll drink it. I mean, you seem fine…”

Jude took a step toward the basin, dipped his hands into it, cupping the silvery liquid in his hands, and drank from it.

[Processing Functions Partially Unlocked]

[Analyzing Attributes]

He didn’t tell Iris that he was hearing the mechanical voice of the red being in his head, at least that’s what it sounded like to him.

Once the ten minutes had passed, both of their bodies started shimmering before disappearing. When they reappeared, they were surrounded by thousands and thousands of people. They were in a massive underground cave that seemed filled to the brim with all kinds of people.

Before long, while everyone was still looking around, the red being appeared once again above them, but this time it was much larger.

[Welcome to the Crimson Tower]

[Trial 1: Survive 30 Days]

[Rules: Attacking Other Users Prohibited]

[Status and Abilities Now Active]

That was all the red being said before it disappeared again.

Jude and Iris were still coming to grips with what little information they had received when they heard a commotion coming from closer to the center of the throng of people.

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“Fuck you! You bumped into me!”

“Do you know who you are messing with here?! I’ll put you down, no problem!”

“I wanna see you fucking try. Ain’t nobody here to back you up!”

“FUCK YOU!”

“He’s got a gun!”

But as soon as people started screaming and trying to run away a large alarm sounded, and a notice blasted into everyone’s heads.

[User Violence Registered]

[Commencing Purge]

“NO! WAAIT--!”

“ARRRGH!”

For a moment, there was silence, but soon after screams came from every direction. The people close to the fight had been bathed in the blood of the infractors. Their bodies had been heated up from the inside until they exploded into a pool of blood and fat.

“I think we drank whatever they are using to do that…” Iris said in resignation.

Jude, however, had used the commotion to look around the room. The cave seemed to have multiple exits, but nobody had walked away yet. Because of the trial description, the likelihood that something vicious was out there through those exits was very high. Still, Jude knew they couldn’t stay there.

“We have to move,” he told Iris.

“Out there?!”

“Yes. There are too many people here, and eventually, we’ll need to eat and drink. We have to go and we can’t trust anyone else.”

“What do you mean?”

“There are ways of killing people without direct involvement, and you heard what that thing said: Status and Abilities Now Active. Maybe I’ve spent too much time reading stories, but everything’s changed. I think we have powers.”

“Hmm…” Iris was pondering what Jude had said, but he kept going.

“We can check once we are away from everyone. Going is not safe, but staying is not safe either.”

“Fine. We’ll do as you say for now.”

They started moving in the direction of an exit. Jude and Iris had appeared in the outskirts of the group of people. Almost everyone still seemed perplexed by the deaths of the two men, so while keeping to the shadows, they were able to sneak away through one of the exits.

They had been walking through a tunnel for five minutes, and once they felt they were far enough away, they started talking again. They talked about what they had read and watched through their lives, stories and games about dungeon exploration, and wondered what had happened to NYC since in all those stories, some kind of cataclysmic event took place to instigate the events forward.

After half an hour walking, they came out into a densely wooded area. It was a forest, but the trees were gigantic. They tried looking up to the top of the canopy, but the trees went above the clouds. It was night, and the whole area was relatively foggy.

“This visibility is shit!” Iris said.

“We’re exposed. Let’s look for somewhere to hide,” Jude added.

They didn’t have to walk much. One of the trees was hollow. They could see the rotted carcass crumbling away, so they pulled enough pieces out of it for them to fit through. The tree was enormous, so the amount of space in it was equivalent to Jude’s room. It was dark in there, and they covered the entrance from the inside with dead leaves from the same tree.

“Let’s stay here for the night. We’ll go without food and water, but it’ll be better to find those in the morning,” Jude said.

“Yeah, I’m not in any hurry to find my way around in the dark.”

“Right… So, back to the whole status and abilities thing…”

“Yeah?”

“Did you perhaps hear a voice when you drank that liquid?”

“Aside from the red thing?”

“Yeah, something about attributes, maybe?”

“Now that you mention it, there was a voice that said it was analyzing something.”

“Hmm… same. Yours is not done?”

“I didn’t get any other notices.”

“I didn’t either.”

“I guess we wait,” Iris said. She leaned against Jude and added, “I’m tired.”

“Yeah… Me too.”

Half an hour passed, and when they were just dozing off, they heard noise from outside the tree.

“Where the fuck is this, man?!

“I don’t know. I was lit until I showed up in this empty room.”

“Same, man! It sobered me right up!”

“Right?!”

Then, they heard even more noise.

“Hey, you two! Wait up. Don’t go so far ahead!”

“Oh, my bad! We didn’t pay attention.”

“Let’s just make sure to stick together. It’s safer that way. We don’t know what’s out there.”

“You right. We’ll be careful.”

The conversation kept on for a while as they moved. It seemed like they were moving in a group of hundreds. The sounds of footsteps seemed endless.

Jude and Iris looked in each others’ direction. They couldn’t see anything inside that tree aside from the streak of light breaking the air coming from between the dead leaves, but they were both wondering if they should’ve joined the group of people that had passed by the tree.

An hour went by, and the silence was finally broken by screams in the distance. Voices that bellowed until they were choked out. It kept going all the while until they heard the running steps of people going back in the direction of the cave, not as many steps as before.

Jude took a deep sigh and said, “You sleep. I’ll keep watch. We’ll switch in a few hours.”

“How are you even going to tell the time?”

“Phones don’t work, right?”

“No, I tried mine in that chamber. Bricked.”

“Hm… Well, I have this.” Jude pulled out a pocket watch from his pocket. It was mechanical, so no battery or power was needed. They were still dressed in their New Year’s attire, but fortunately Iris had put her coat on not long after taking it off at the party. It had been very cold on that roof after all. “It’s a family heirloom of sorts. Well, I wanted it to be…”

“What does that mean?”

“I bought it hoping that I would be able to pass it on.”

“I don’t know about you sometimes,” she said with a smirk. “It’ll certainly have a lot of history now. ‘Kids, I used this watch when I was stuck in the carcass of a tree with a girl I just met when I was pulled into another world with god-knows-what kind of evils lurking in the night.’”

“I mean, wouldn’t that be something you’d like to receive from your ancestors?”

“You’re not wrong…”

“I know. Now, go to sleep. I’ll wake you up in a few hours so you can take over.”

“The intern life even out of the hospital…”

And so, Iris went to sleep while Jude kept watch. She slept for a few hours, and then he did the same, and they alternated that way until a few hours after morning break. There weren’t any other violent screams that night, but there was plenty of howling in the far distance. By the time morning broke, however, the howls had also stopped. The silence was only broken by the chirping of the birds and the sound of rushing water.

When they finally decided to head out, they knew in which direction they would go.