Ross walked down the warm beach sand, having left the harbor to explore the boundaries of the beach. He marveled at the realistic sensations; the sand felt grainy and warm under his toes, and the ocean breeze felt refreshing and real. Or so he assumed; he'd never actually seen a real ocean or beach in person.

You hairy rodents know how to pull off a decent VR setup, I’ll give ya that, he mused, taking in the beautiful scenery.

Suddenly, he paused his sightseeing as a faint melody and what sounded like singing drifted from nearby.

“Huh, seems I'm not the lone jerk around here,” he muttered to himself. “Might as well see what all the fuss is about.”

He roamed briefly before locating the music's origin at the beachfront. The silhouettes and flickers of light, probably from tiki torches and bonfires, clearly indicated others were there.

Gotta wonder if these guys are actually here or just part of the program, Ross pondered as he began his walk toward the assumed beach party.

As he approached, the scene sharpened into focus, revealing various furry creatures dancing around a bonfire, moving rhythmically to music from percussion and wind instruments. Ross kept moving closer.

He was soon approached by a small bipedal creature with the sleek profile of a mongoose, yet unmistakably alien looking, its large eyes warmly inviting him.

“Hey there, newcomer!” It greeted him with a high-pitched, welcoming tone. “Don't be shy! We'd be delighted if you'd join our merry gathering!”

Ross responded to the joyous invitation with an excited change in posture and expression.

“Hell yeah! Now we're talking my language!” Confusion soon marked his tone and expression. “Uh… what exactly are we celebrating?”

“The joy of being alive!” it replied happily. “Every moment's a treasure, so why not party? Come on in!”

Ross's tone swiftly reverted to its ecstatic state.

“Looks like some of you oversized fleas aren't total buzzkills after all!” The large fruit buffet quickly captured his attention, and he approached it eagerly.

The wooden buffet table, holding the fruit, was noticeably shorter than Ross, reflecting the shorter stature of the furry creatures who surrounded it. The array of fruits, diverse and exotic in shape and color, looked delicious.

“I'm gonna eat this. That cool with you, shagbag?” Ross asked one of the nearby creatures.

“By all means!” the creature replied in a welcoming manner, its gaze friendly and eyes sparkling.

Ross eyed the buffet again and grabbed a fruit shaped like a pear but dark purple. “This isn't some kind of alien drug fruit, right?” he asked, glancing at the creature, sounding suspicious.

The petite mongoose-esque alien let out a chittering laugh.

“Our fruits are purely for nourishment and pleasure, nothing more.”

Ross turned his focus back to the fruit he held. Will I even be able to taste this? he mused. Only one way to find out. He bit into the fruit and started chewing.

“How's it treating your taste buds?” the mongoose alien asked, his voice expressing genuine curiosity.

“Eh, not bad,” Ross replied. “Has a pineapple thing going on.” Not wanting to finish, he turned and tossed the rest into the ocean.

“Delightful! Your enjoyment warms my heart.” The creature paused. “Say, fancy shaking your tail with us?”

Ross's expression shifted to one of uncertainty.

“Well, to be frank, dancing isn't exactly my strong suit...” he admitted awkwardly. “Like, a six out of ten at most.”

“That's not a problem,” said a second creature, a friendly looking female, who introduced herself as ‘Mungo’. “Just tune into the rhythm and let it lead you”

“Uh, if you say so…” Ross moved to join the others at the center of the dance area, and the music and partying picked up again.

It didn't go particularly well.

The furry creatures danced gracefully, their bodies seemingly in tune with the music. Ross meanwhile just flailed his limbs around like a robot suffering from critical systems failure. He could’ve sworn a few of the creatures were chuckling at him, though the music's loudness made it ambiguous.

The spectacle of Ross's awkward dance attracted growing attention, prompting several of the creatures to stop partying and stare.

An accidental collision with another dancer brought Ross’s dancing to an abrupt end, sending the other partygoer tumbling onto the buffet table.

The music halted and all activity ceased; eyes turned instantly to the chaos Ross had caused. The buffet table lay overturned, with smashed fruit strewn around, drawing confused and mildly irritated glances.

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“Shit, man… you still breathing under all that fruit salad?” Ross asked, watching the creature labor to get up, its fur smeared with the remnants of the buffet.

“All's well,” it replied, though the tremble in its whiskers, snout, and voice barely masked its irritation.

Ross laughed at it.

*****

“Quite the oddball, isn’t he?”

The unexpected question caused Zelana to shift her gaze from the viewscreen toward the speaker.

One of her research assistants, a petite female Mevik with brown fur clad in a lab coat, stood nearby, clearly intrigued by the livestream's contents.

As expected, Zelana mused irritably upon seeing the speaker’s race.

“Is this considered normative conduct?” the assistant asked.

“Clearly abnormal,” Zelana replied after a pause, her ears slightly pinned back, mildly irritated by the unprofessional question not to mention interruption.

The naïve assistant noticed Zelana's annoyed body language and returned to her passive demeanor.

Zelana returned her focus to the simulation livestream.

Although the assistant’s observation was clumsily put, Zelana admitted it was near the truth. Despite this, much of what she'd observed thus far looked promising within the context of the situation. Excluding the unfortunate fruit incident, the specimen showed friendly and sociable traits, albeit with notable clumsiness.

*****

“At least no one's bleeding.” Ross paused momentarily, looking queasy. “Unlike that time with the kebab skewers.” The blank stare he drew from the creatures following his words led to an awkward pause. “Uh, any party games?” he asked eventually.

Mungo’s ears perked and swirled forward ecstatically in response to the suggestion.

“Oh! We could play Pomelo!” she suggested eagerly, her eyes darting among the others in hope of agreement.

“What da fuq is Pomelo?” Ross asked curtly, his face showing rude confusion.

Mungo explained to Ross that Pomelo was a type of ball game named after the fruit it used as the ball. The fruit’s soft yet durable texture made it ideal for this purpose. The rules were straightforward, with the game essentially being a variation of 'keep it up’.

“Mkay, that doesn't sound so complicated,” Ross said.

“Fancy giving it a try?”

“Eh, fuck it I might as well… not like that fruit's good for anything else anymore,” Ross replied, noting the messy pile of fruit in front of the broken buffet table, followed by a loud, snorting laugh.

His words caused Mango to exhibit second-hand embarrassment in her posture, prompting an awkward chuckle as she quickly suggested starting the game.

Unfortunately, Ross struggled with the fruit game as much as he had done with the dancing; he often missed catches, threw the fruit too hard, sending it out of bounds, and sometimes crushed it unintentionally with his strong grip, requiring it to be replaced frequently.

Their amusement at Ross's evident ineptitude was too much to hide, and he often overheard their chittering. At first, it didn’t bother him, but as the failures piled up, he found it more and more annoying.

“Maybe try aiming a bit lower than the clouds?” Mungo teased, after Ross propelled another fruit into the abyss, eliciting yet more teasing and chittering.

Ross stopped momentarily, his body language indicating growing irritation, then his voice took on a tone of passive-aggressive taunting.

“How about I aim for that smartass mouth of yours instead?”

Mungo's smile disappeared, and the others appeared similarly startled by the comment.

*****

Zelana jolted upright in her seat, her spine snapping taut. Her ears swiveled forward sharply, and her eyes widened, blinking rapidly in a silent display of alarm.

The specimen had subtly threatened physical violence.

She observed with growing apprehension, her eyes darting between the specimen and the NPC as the tense exchange unfolded.

*****

Ross couldn’t endure the mockery any longer and resolved to 'win' in his own way. He remembered his power to summon objects in the simulation and pointed angrily at the beach sand ahead, as if issuing an order.

“Give me a fucking weapon! And make it the ballistic kind!”

A rifle-like object materialized on the beach sand, and Ross swiftly retrieved it.

Mungo and the group watched him, more perplexed than alarmed, their bewildered snouts glancing at each other, uncertain of what he planned.

*****

Zelana tensed suddenly—her eyes shot wide, ears snapped upright, and her lips quivered. She blinked rapidly, a visible shudder rippling through her snout.

The shock wasn’t Zelana’s alone; the others in the observation chamber also appeared clearly taken aback by what the specimen had just summoned.

No… it cannot… she thought frantically, her eyes wide and fixed on the stream, refusing to believe what she saw even though the evidence indicated she was mistaken.

*****

“I'm not following,” Mungo said, her voice carrying a tone of puzzlement with a hint of uncertainty. “Are you introducing a different game?”

“Damn straight it's a new game!” Ross replied villainously. “It’s called ‘Who’s laughing now!’” Before anyone could react, his hysterical, villainous laughter filled the air as he fired over and over, reducing Mungo and the others to bloodied carcasses on the sand, transforming the beach into a violent scene of death.

The beach now fell to a haunting silence, broken only by the lapping of the ocean waves.

*****

Silence enveloped the observation chamber as no one could find words after witnessing the carnage; horrified, they kept their eyes glued to the livestream, unable to look away. That the violence had been performed on simulated NPCs only partially lessened the horror; simulated or not, they’d looked and acted real enough to evoke empathy.

As the initial shock subsided, some began to feel queasy, including the research assistant from before, who swooned and collapsed onto the floor with a soft thud. The rest appeared visibly distressed but coped better.

As a Langa, Zelana was more severely affected than most, yet she still managed to avoid fainting. However, her professional composure was shaken, and she fought hard to suppress her urge to retch.

“S-Stop the simulation immediately!” she eventually managed to assert, her tone as authoritative as she could muster.

*****

With nothing left to shoot, Ross walked over to Mungo’s mangled corpse, lying a few feet away in the sand, her torso riddled with holes and parts of the head missing. The others were in a similar condition. He nudged the limp body with his rifle’s barrel.

“Holy crap, this sim is next level!” he exclaimed, thrilled by the realistic gore. “Look at all that gory detail! Guts everywhere!”

Before Ross could further admire his work, the world around him flickered and the simulation abruptly ended. He found himself standing once again in the large chamber where he had started.

“Hey! What's the big idea?!” he said, clearly irritated at being pulled prematurely from the best murder simulator he'd ever experienced.

An unseen door whooshed open nearby, and several cat aliens strolled out, one clutching a straitjacket and another an injector device. Their postures and movements indicated displeasure.

Concern etched itself across Ross's face.

“Uh, we're all good here, right?”