The shock of cold water enveloping him brought Randall to his senses. All was murky blackness except for a tiny speck of light that flashed in the distance. His hair spread out in a halo around his head that swayed back and forth, at times blocking the small amount of illumination he could see. Randall kicked his feet, hoping that whatever was producing the glow was above the waterline. He couldn’t tell which way was up, and his lungs were starting to burn. He pulled with all the strength he could muster until his head popped out of the water.

He took a giant breath, inhaling some of the spray when a wave splashed over his face. He coughed and spit out the salty brine but kept his eye on the light for fear of losing it. He could see now the towering structure of a lighthouse, with a rotating lamp that spun around every fifteen seconds or so. The wind blew in gusts, creating whitecaps that obscured his vision. His mind reeled as he processed what was happening. How he’d ended up in saltwater was an enigma, considering his home in Colorado Springs was a thousand miles from the nearest ocean.

Randall swam towards the coastline, visible in the grayish light of predawn. He would make a little progress forward when the wave was with him then get pulled back almost to his previous position by the undercurrent as it retreated. He stretched as far as he could with each stroke, unsure if he was making any headway.

Waves crashed against the shore in the direction he swam. The minutes passed quickly, and his body began to ache. He was almost at the point of giving up, when a swell lifted him into the air, and he caught sight of the beach only a dozen yards away. With renewed vigor, he kicked his legs until his fingers brushed against the sand.

Randall crept up out of the surf, a final wave cresting and breaking on his back to roll him up the beach. He crawled forward until he passed the line of dead seaweed that marked the high point of the tide then collapsed on the sand. He coughed, and seawater came up from his lungs, turning the ground dark where it splashed in front of his eyes.

“Are you all right?”

Randall turned towards the voice, still coughing loud enough that he could barely hear someone running from farther down the beach. A woman in a sundress that shone pale in the dim light came into view as she crested a sand dune. She carried a small rattan bag in one hand and held a straw hat pinned to the back of her head with the other. Her bare feet kicked up sand as she rushed in his direction.

Randall rolled over onto his back and wheezed as he struggled to catch his breath. The woman approached and crouched next to him.

“It might help if you sit forward with your head between your knees.” She took hold of his arm and helped him to an upright position, rubbing his back as he spit out the last of the water.

“Thank you,” said Randall in a raspy voice.

The woman nodded in acknowledgment and asked, “What were you doing out there?”

Randall rubbed his head, which was beginning to ache. “I don’t know.”

The woman sat and folded her legs underneath herself, careful in how she arranged the long skirt of her dress as she did so. She opened her bag and removed a clay bottle with a metal clasp. She pulled the wire on one side, which flipped up, releasing a cork stopper, and held it out to him. “Are you thirsty?”

He waved the bottle away, but she didn’t move until he finally relented. The container felt cool when he grasped it near the bottom. He took a drink from the bottle, and nearly started another coughing fit. He’d expected water but was surprised by a creamy liquid with a hint of sweetness and a sour aftertaste. The bottle had no label, so he asked, “What is this?”

“Buttermilk,” said the woman, her tone apologetic. “Sorry if it’s not to your liking, but it’s all I brought with me.”

“No, it’s fine.” He took another drink, making sure not to show any reaction now that he knew what to expect.

He handed the bottle back to her, which she resealed and set on the sand between them. She stared out into the ocean, and he tried to study her face, but with the dim light and the wide brim of her hat casting a shadow, he couldn’t make out her features. She scanned the waves in front of them before asking a question.

“Were you coming here on the ferry? Perhaps you fell overboard.”

His headache was making it hard to think, and he struggled to put into words what had happened. “The last thing I remember was being in my room. There was a storm. I think lightning struck nearby, then I was under the water.”

The woman turned to look at him, excitement in her voice. “That must be it. The ferry usually comes into the harbor around dawn. You must have been swept overboard. Were you intending to disembark in Haven?”

“Haven?” he asked in confusion.

The woman laughed. “That’s the island we’re on. I’m guessing from your reaction that you were headed somewhere else.”

“I’m supposed to be at home.”

“The harbor’s not far from here. Are you feeling up to a short walk? If we hurry, we might be able to catch the ferry before it leaves. Otherwise you’ll have to wait until tomorrow morning for it to come back.”

As she was speaking, the sun peeked out from beneath the horizon, and Randall finally got a good look at the woman who had helped him. Her dress was light blue, and he stared at her face, certain he’d seen her before somewhere. The seconds ticked by without him saying anything, and she blushed before looking away. Her hair shifted with the motion, a long braid going down her back that reflected bright red as the sun hit it. It struck him all at once where he’d seen this woman, in the advertisement for Bit Farmer he’d received in his email.

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He stared at her in shock, but from all the sensory details he’d experienced since falling into the ocean, he was fairly certain this wasn’t a hallucination. Somehow, he’d been transported into the game.

The woman glanced at him and gasped. “You went really pale all of a sudden. Are you all right?”

“Uh, yeah,” said Randall, his mind reeling.

He had to get out of here, but how? When playing a game, there was always some way to bring up a menu. He swiped at the air with his hand, thinking maybe it was context sensitive but no menu appeared. He searched his pockets, but he wasn’t carrying any kind of input device like a tablet or controller. In fact, he had nothing besides the clothes on his back, which turned out to be the same ones he’d been wearing at home.

Maybe there was some kind of auditory cue. “Open menu,” said Randall, but nothing happened.

The woman watched him with concern. “Are you all right? Maybe I should take you to see the town doctor.”

“It’s fine. I just need a minute to think.”

Randall wracked his brain, searching for anything that might help him. Memories of what had happened in his apartment were now coming back. Had his neural interface overloaded in the power surge? And if so, what did that mean? Surely he was still connected to it, which meant he should be able to send commands.

“Close program,” he whispered so the woman wouldn’t hear him. “Exit. Log out.”

Nothing worked. With trepidation he considered one last option, although if it succeeded, he had no idea what sort of harm it might cause. Given his situation and the fact his brain had presumably been struck by lightning, he figured he didn’t have much to lose.

“Reboot system.” Randall cringed involuntarily but after five seconds, nothing had changed. His shoulders slumped in defeat. The woman still watched him with concern, and having no other ideas to try, he said, “Maybe we should go to the ferry.” Perhaps during the walk there, he could come up with some other solution.

“The harbor’s about half a mile from here,” the woman said as she stood up. “Although I still think you might want to visit the doctor.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Suit yourself.” She picked up the bottle of milk then scanned the beach nearby. “I lost my shoes as I was running. Could you help me find them?”

“Sure.”

He jogged up the side of the dune he’d seen her come over as she approached earlier. At the bottom of the hill on the other side, two leather sandals poked up out of the sand. “I found them,” he said as he walked down to retrieve the shoes.

“Thank you,” said the woman when he handed her the sandals. She set them on the ground and stepped into them. “The harbor is this way. We’ll have to hurry to catch the ferry before it leaves.”

She started off down the beach in the direction of the lighthouse, and he walked quickly to match her pace.

“So what’s your name?” asked the woman.

“Randall. You?”

“I’m Kate.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Kate. What do you do, when you’re not rescuing castaways on the beach?”

Kate laughed. “A little bit of everything, really. But if you’re asking about my job, I help my parents run a small grocery by the town square. How about you?”

“I program computers.”

Kate gave him a confused look. “What’s a computer? Some kind of machine?”

“You could say that. It adds numbers together and performs calculations on them.”

Kate nodded. “Oh, like a cash register. We just got one of those for the store last month. It makes totaling up customers’ purchases so much easier.”

Randall looked around, wondering if perhaps the world of the game was less technologically advanced than he’d realized. They’d almost reached the lighthouse, and he slowed down and examined it now that they were close. A squat windmill sat on top of the housing of the signal light, with a belt running from its base to a mechanism on the side of the tower. It was hard to tell from where he stood below, but he thought perhaps it was providing power to a gear that moved a giant curved mirror to project the light out to sea. His inspection of the lighthouse was interrupted by a gasp from Kate.

He hurried to catch up, and when he reached the crest of the hill where she stood, he saw what had caused her surprise. Below them stretched the harbor, a small cove with a wall of stones that acted as a storm barrier to protect any ships moored there. Unfortunately, the sea wall had been destroyed by the very same ferry they had hoped to find. It had dashed itself against the barrier, spraying large rocks into the harbor and leaving boards ripped from the bottom of the hull floating in the water nearby. The ferry had apparently pushed through the sea wall but sunk in the middle of the inlet. Its deck was visible a foot below the surface, with only the bridge, a part of a large paddlewheel on the side of the ship, and what looked like the exhaust pipe from a cast iron boiler sticking up above the water.

“Oh, I hope nobody was hurt!” Kate took off down a dirt path leading from the lighthouse to the harbor.

Several men and women stood by the docks conversing. They turned as Kate ran up and barraged them with questions. Randall followed but stopped near the bottom of the hill, unsure of how to approach the situation. After a minute, Kate returned to share the news she’d learned.

“They said the accident happened shortly before dawn. They heard the sound of something crashing into the sea wall, and when they came out to check, they found the ferry taking on water and attempting to limp to shore. The ferryman had to abandon ship before he made it all the way and nearly drowned in the surf before they could rescue him. He’d hit his head at some point and fell unconscious once they got him out of the water. They took him to the doctor’s office. Luckily nobody else was aboard when it sank.”

Randall stumbled backward and sat down heavily on a stack of empty crates. He’d hoped that if he got on the ferry and left the island, perhaps the game would give him the option to log out. With the ferry destroyed, the only other boats around were rowboats, and he guessed they wouldn’t be enough.

Kate’s eyes filled with distress at his reaction, and she asked, “How are you going to get home?”