Chapter 5: Prey, Tell

Ash and Sander relaxed against the walls of a wrecked gas station, watching their campfire blossom with flames.

Since leaving New Cistern, they walked for nearly five hours. They wanted to get as far as they could, as fast as they could. While the sheriff and his officers would look for them, they wouldn’t pursue them beyond the boundaries of the township. It wasn’t worth the effort, even on horseback.

When they were escaping the police headquarters, Ash grabbed the canvas bag containing his possessions and slung it over his shoulders. Sander decided to steal a few items. He strapped on the Sheriff’s bullet-proof vest and seized the rifle, pocketing as much ammunition as he could carry. Before they left, Sander snatched the water canteen from the sheriff’s desk. It was half-empty, but it was enough.

Sander prodded the police door open with the butt of his gun. He peered into the open air, seeing if their escape would be noticed by passersby.

In a serious voice, Sander told Ash to follow. They had to be stealthy. The sun hung above them in the cloudless sky of the wasteland. No shadow would provide cover for their escape.

Sander moved with expert ease, slinking around buildings, avoiding potential witnesses. Since New Cistern was a small township, they left without much hassle. As they distanced themselves from the center of town, their cover became sparse. They needed to jog between shanty houses until they reached the far outskirts of the township. Only then could they walk main road without worry.

Strangely, Ash felt bad about escaping. When he entered this world, he had been thrown into a moral predicament. He had to fight Smiles -- perhaps, he even killed the man -- but it was in self-defense. This was different. He was breaking the law. He fled in the full knowledge of his actions. If he wasn’t guilty before, he was now. He should have just served his time in jail, even if his imprisonment was unjust.

The escape made him fugitive, an outlaw. He could never return to New Cistern.

He needed to survive, to learn how to survive. He had no choice. Sander’s words plagued him: There might not be respawns. Ash feared death in the real world, since he thought that death would be an eternal darkness, but to live here, in this false reality, a reality where violence was normal, he had to think about the possibility of death even more deeply. When he played a video game, he didn’t care about risk. He could enter a gun fight without concern. If he died, he just reloaded the last save. If he jumped from a ridiculous height and died, he could rollback time and rethink his strategy. Here, however, in this false afterlife, he needed to live a second life and avoid a second death. He had to be responsible, cautious.

As Ash and Sander hiked down the old asphalt road, they shared stories to pass the time. Ash spoke of his life back in the real world, and Sander told him tales from the wasteland. Surprisingly, after five years in-game, Sander only managed to reach level 7.

“Well, after the first few adventures, I began to investigate the nature of this game. I wanted to know what made this machine tick. You know, it’s like in the real world. You want know how to make money, how the political system functions, how you can improve your social status. In here, it’s no different. I wanted to know the game. I wanted to play the game effectively. I mean, what could near perfect luck do? It was question of experimentation, of ever-increasing risk.”

Ash listened intently. As far as he was concerned, this man was his mentor, his survival guide. He knew nothing of this world, this bland irradiated world. The semi-arid horizon stretched before him, a sea of dirt and sand punctuated with vegetation. Of all the worlds Ash could have chosen, he chose the one that looked filtered through sepia. Rather than the lush sweeping landscapes of a Fantasy RPG, he chose a never-ending landscape of post-apocalyptic brown.

“So, after a little adventuring, I decided to try my hand at the casinos,” Sander continued. “With a pinch of intellect and a heap of luck, I made a neat profit gambling. Of course, I had to make sure no one suspected me of cheating, or of anything that could get me banned from the tables. So, I only visited the casinos once in awhile. I just needed to milk my earnings and live a simple life. I was playing for the long haul. As far as I could tell, no one in this world died of old age. You just keep shriveling up until you disappear into another speck of dust.” Sander laughed.

Could it be true? No one died of old age in this afterlife? It would make sense in its own way.

“So, I spent my days talking to people, learning. I only needed enough money to afford the rent of a simple apartment and for the swill they call coffee. Or a bottle of hard liquor. Sometimes beer, but only if my stomach was really bothering me. Why spend my time running-and-gunning when I had no clue if I could respawn? Prudence, my friend, prudence is the virtue by which we should orient our lives.”

Ash chewed on this thought. His father often stressed this virtue to him. “Prudence,” his father would say, “is right reason applied to practice.” Ash remembered his father sitting him down and making him think through his actions. Even when choosing his courses for school, he forced him make a list of pros and cons. His father wanted him to develop a good mind, a prudent mind. When Ash made mistakes, his father tried to show him why he did what he did and how this experience could inform future decisions and avoid future errors. This constant analysis paralyzed Ash.

“So, anyway,” Sander continued, “I had no worries. I had a guaranteed income with blackjack. I just needed to be happy with a fake life surrounded by fake people. Actually, coming to think of it, it’s not too different from the real world!” Sander laughed to himself again. “Sure, on occasion, I left the city to do some hunting, or try my hand at crafting something new, but life was easy. Why work when you don’t need to? I probably grew bored of this safe living, so I decided to shake things up. These years have been nothing more than a tidal wave of conversation. It sucks that these people didn’t exist. I mean, what’s the point of getting to know someone when they are simply programmed? It meant nothing if they died. What’s the point of crying over a few blocks of code?”

Sander kept quiet after this. Undoubtedly, he was struggling with these questions in silence.

“Water!” Sander broke the silence. He spotted a handpump beside the concrete ruins of a house. He ran to it and started to crank the handle. After several jarring creaks, the pump produced a steady stream of clean looking water. “Drink up,” he said, as he tossed Ash the water canteen. Ash took a sip of the lukewarm water and felt like spitting it out. Sander had placed his own face under the stream from the pump and filled himself with fresh cold water.

Ash dumped the water from the canteen and refilled it. He felt more comfortable drinking from the container than splashing his face underneath like a happy dog.

“When you’re done with that, fill it up to the top. We don’t know the next time we’ll get access to something as wonderful as this,” Sander said.

After another hour on the road, Sander decided they were far enough from New Cistern. “Alright,” Sander said with a sigh. “It’s going to be dark soon and we need a good place to rest. Lesson One: Making a fire out in the open like this will attract raiders or some nasty critter. We need to find a place with coverage. Keep your eyes peeled.”

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Ash scanned the horizon as they walked, distracted by the rumblings of his stomach. Reality or not, Ash started to ache with hunger. Making things even more unpleasant, Ash picked an avatar with a serious smoking habit. In the real world, Ash had never even touched a cigarette, but, now, he felt the constant craving of nicotine. He tried stopping himself, forcing himself to quit, but the thoughts became overwhelming. He gave into the temptation, pulling the lighter from his pocket and lighting up a cigarette. He hated how good it tasted.

Ash began to realize how close the relationship between body and mind was. They continually acted upon the other. His mind had to shape his new body before his new body would reshape his mind.

Sander suddenly stopped.

“Vultures,” he said, pointing to a circle of black birds in the sky.

Ash became mesmerized by the circling creatures, descending upon a distant carcass. As the two of them went to see what they were eating, the outline of building came into view.

“Looks like shelter to me,” Sander said. “And food, if we’re lucky.” Sander shifted the rifle into his hands. He remained alert, in case of an ambush or attack. It wasn’t likely, given how flat the horizon was. Only a few hills in the distance gave the land a sense of character.

Sander shooed the vultures from their meal, but sighed with disappointment. “Pronghorn Antelope. Long dead.”

Ash had never seen such a creature. It looked like some sort of prairie deer, one that was maimed and mutilated.

“See here, shotgun blast,” Sander said, gesturing to the creature’s chest. “Someone definitely killed this beauty and took what they could. Must be a pretty skilled hunter to get so close without startling it.”

Ash noticed one of the hind legs were missing. Someone must of have killed it, cut off as much as they could carry, and left the rest to the wilderness.

“A lot of wasted meat,” Sanders said, despondently. “It must have died two or so days ago. You can tell by the swelling. And how much has been eaten in these parts,” he said, his eyes assessing the damage. “It’s too risky for us to take and eat. We’re going to need to hunt our own prong. We can bring the whole animal into that structure and make ourselves a nice little fire without much trouble. We’ll eat like kings. For a few days, if we do it right.”

Ash saw a small herd of pronghorns in the distance. The two men discussed their course of action. They decided that they would search the building, an abandoned gas station, and, if everything was clear, they could leave their stuff inside and focus the hunt. Then, they would need to gather enough to start a small campfire.

When Ash entered the gas station, he tried to observe every detail. The store shelves which once held an abundance of snacks and beverages had been all looted. Nothing worthwhile remained. Discarded wrappers covered the floor. Each of their footsteps seemed to cause a crunch that echoed throughout the structure. Ash looked up. The ceiling was half-destroyed, with long electrical cables hanging to the floor. He thought he heard a rat move among the ceiling tiles.

“It ain’t much, but it’ll do,” Sander said. He swept a bunch of wrappers with his foot. “We’ll leave our stuff here, focus on the pronghorn, and cook ourselves a tasty meal.”

Ash slung off his canvas bag and emptied his pockets. With some difficultly, he resisted the physical impulse take the pack of cigarettes and his gold-plated lighter. He threw them on top of his bag. At least, this way, there would be less distractions while hunting. Plus, he only had seven cigarettes left. He had no clue how to get more and needed to make them last as long as he could. Maybe, he would be forced to quit smoking by running out and being unable to buy more.

“I’m ready to go,” Ash said.

The two of them entered into the open.

“What’s yours Guns?” Sander asked Ash.

“35.”

“Close, but not as good as me. Mine’s 36. I’ll make this shot even without my heaping good fortune.”

Ash became disenchanted with Sander’s continually stories of luck. The man kept speaking of it with an element of superiority, as though hitting blackjack on the velvet green was his life’s accomplishment.

“That’s alright. I can do it,” Ash said. He felt the need to prove himself.

Sander shrugged and gave him the rifle. They stopped their approach, and got down to their knees. The herd of pronghorns grazed in the distance, unaware of their fate.

“If we get any closer, we might scare them off. You’re going to need to crawl and get a little closer,” Sander said.

Ash went onto his belly and crept as close as he could, trying to stay out of their eyesight. He carefully lifted the semi-manual rifle. Since Ash never shot a gun before, he relied entirely on the instinct of his avatar. Casper had nearly been born with a gun in his hand. It felt familiar. The stock melted into his shoulder with a friendly warmth. He chambered a bullet. Exhaled. Time seemed to slow down.

One.

Two.

Bang!

[Critical Hit]

A pronghorn fell to the ground. The herd scattered in a panic.

“Amazing job, kid!” Sander exclaimed. He ran to Ash, patting him on the shoulder. “What are you waiting for? Let’s bring that beauty in!” He said, jogging backwards with a big gin on his face.

Ash got to his feet with slowly. He felt awful, despite the pleasant glow of experience. The system rewarded his bloodshed with a small boost. Did this make him a killer? Did Ash lose his innocence? Hunters killed every day, but surely that didn’t make them bad people. Ash struggled with this sensation. It seemed so odd to have taken life so easily. The only thought that calmed him was the fact that this creature didn’t really exist. He only shot a jumble of pixels, segments of computer code.

He approached the body of the pronghorn.

“Thank you,” Sander said to dead pronghorn antelope. He stroked its fur gently. “What a beauty. Alright, Ash, you grab the hindlegs and I’ll grab the forelegs, and we’ll walk it over to the gas station.”

As they walked back, Ash confronted his new reality. In the real world, he had never killed an animal. In fact, Ash had never spent time outside of the city limits. In the technologically-infused city, he had neither the need nor the desire to hunt, fish, camp, or even walk in nature. He grew up in a forest of digital screens and neon lights, where hunting amounted to finding the right processor for his computer. Now, in this simulation, an open prairie of semi-arid wilderness, he had to understand the rules of survival. Luckily, his avatar had a long history of outdoorsmanship.

They returned to the gas station with their prize. Leaving the pronghorn outside, Sander began to gather materials to start a fire. A lot of dried shrubbery surrounded the station, which would make good kindling, but he need good firewood to keep the fire ablaze.

Ash stayed inside the gas station, struggling with his feelings. His back resting against a display door that once revealed dozens of sodas behind it. He sighed and pried of his boots. He had enough of them for the day. He removed his socks and rolled his pant legs away from his ankles. Ash stretched his feet out and wiggled his toes. He had never walked this long in the real world.

Ash tapped the back of his head gently against the glass door, trying to get rid of the small emotions that filled his mind. This day had been one of the longest in his life.

He pulled out the combat knife from his boot holster, turning it over in his hands. In a few minutes, they would use it on the pronghorn.

He looked at the blade and then at his hands.

“These are hands of a killer,” he said to himself softly. He heard the sounds of rats moving in the ceiling. Ash shivered. He needed a cigarette, so he knocked open the pack and plucked one out.

Six.

Ash blinked. He counted the cigarettes again: four, five. He looked at the one in his hand. Six. He stood up from the ground.

“Hey, Sander,” he called from inside the station.

“What?” came the response.

Ash wandered outside. He was impressed with the fire Sander had built.

“When you took my lighter, did you take one of my cigarettes?”

“Accusing me of theft now, eh?” He said with a devious smile. “Nah, I don’t smoke. Filthy habit. You should quit.”

“Well, I’m missing one.”

“It wasn’t me. You probably just counted wrong.”

Ash shrugged his shoulders and threw himself beside Sander. They both relaxed against the exterior wall of the gas station, their eyes filling with the crackling sparks of new fire.

“We should probably start cleaning the pronghorn”, Sander said. He struggled to break free from the allure of fire. “You still got that knife on you?”

“I left it inside,” Ash replied. “It’s by my boots.”

“You stay here, kid. I’ll get it.” Sander got up with a groan and entered the gas station. Ash continued to stare into the dancing flames. It captivated him.

“Hey, kid!” Sander called from inside the gas station.

“Yeah?” Ash shouted back.

“Come in here for a minute.”

Ash rolled his eyes and left the comfort of the campfire. He walked through the gas station door, his feet sensing every little thing on the floor. When Ash looked from the floor, he saw Sander with his hands in the air.

“It looks like we have company.”

A woman stood behind Sander. She had a shotgun pressed into his spine.