Chapter One

Did You Know Guns Can Open Isekai Portals?

It had been three days since Alice Merryweather had last taken her medication, and she felt fantastic.

"Those doctors were all such worrywarts!" Alice exclaimed. A deep laugh tickled her belly and startled the stranger standing beside her. "I'm one hundred percent! Nay, Alice is one hundred and fifty percent! But why am I saying this all out loud?"

The city around her was busy with bodies, but a circle of empty sidewalk surrounded her like a concrete halo. It was almost as if these strangers felt uncomfortable because of her excited outbursts. It was almost as if they were frightened by the black-haired beauty talking to herself as she waited for the crosswalk to turn green.

"But I'm not talking to myself!" Alice said quickly... to herself. She started to walk away in a random direction. "I'm just thinking out loud. And even if I was talking to myself, it's not because I'm some looney. I just have no friends. Who else am I supposed to talk to? I should find a friend."

It had been three days since Alice had been booted from the Facility. The doctors in their fancy lab coats and reading glasses and dirty shoelaces had mumbled about budget cuts and a whole bunch of other hooey. They had tossed her onto the curb without as much as a kiss on her right cheek. She was not entirely sure, but she could vaguely remember several patients waving her goodbye from their cell windows.

"That's right! I already have friends. We've just been separated," Alice said, nodding her head emphatically. "But if I were to return to the Facility with a heavy brick and some moxie, I could lead a little jailbreak! I'd have my friends back and... and..."

Alice came to an abrupt halt beside a sordid alleyway. She stroked her chin thoughtfully as she stared down the narrow stretch of concrete. The way was flanked by garbage bins and dumpsters. She continued to scratch herself in thought.

"I'm actually not sure if I had any friends back at the Facility," Alice mumbled to herself, her cheeks red with embarrassment. Rather than waving goodbye, the other patients may have been shaking their fists in violence.

Alice turned and began walking down the alleyway.

"I mean, there was Theresa, but she belongs in that place. Talk about crazy..."

The alleyway seemed to stretch into infinity. The city's many inhabitants had stacked trash can on top of trash can such that the towers of waste seemed to touch the sky itself. She lifted the lid of one bin and was rewarded with an oily pizza box from Jumbo John's Pizzeria.

"Bless those picky souls who don't eat the crusts," Alice said with a bright smile as she looked inside the pizza box. A wide circle of uneaten pizza crusts promised a hearty lunch. There were even some unfinished slices with bits of cheese and tomato.

Despite her petite frame, Alice loved to eat. She carried the oily Jumbo John's pizza box in her right hand and shoveled slice after slice of cold pizza into her insatiable maw. She continued down the alleyway, but the many trash cans and dumpsters were stacked so high on top of one another that they nearly blotted out the sun. It was hard to tell where she was going.

"I suppose if I broke into the Facility, I could at least share some of this with Theresa," Alice said as she looked down at her Jumbo John's pizza box.

Theresa had always been a pizza fiend. She had even attacked Alice with a spoon that one time. Never mind that Theresa had said it was fine if they split the last slice...

"Forget Theresa!" Alice said in a rush of frustration. Her left eye throbbed at the very memory of Theresa's assault. "She can rot in that place for all I ca- "

The words died in Alice's throat as a shape emerged from the shadows. She had thought she was alone, but a tall man bled into sight almost as if he had walked through the brick wall that flanked the alleyway.

"Oh." Alice's eyes flicked up and down the stranger. Her face twitched in irritation, and for one brief moment she was paralyzed with indecision.

The man wore a wide-brimmed hat with a pointed end. A faded brown dress covered him from head to toe, though Alice wondered idly if robe may have been a better word. His left hand was gnarled like an old oak tree, and it clutched an ornate walking stick. Once more Alice wondered if staff may have been the more appropriate word.

"You're a wizard, Harry," Alice mumbled to herself. She laughed nervously and turned around. "Maybe Jumbo John's pizza has a special ingredient. Or maybe I'm just having an episode."

"Alice Merryweather..."

"Definitely an episode," Alice said in a rush of breath. She looked over her shoulder, but her feet never stopped moving. Oddly enough, the hallucinated wizard was nowhere to be seen.

"Oy!" Alice loosed a started shout as she thumped into something heavy. She turned back around and expected to see a trash can clatter onto the ground...

...but instead she saw the wizard.

"Alice Merryweather," the visual disturbance said with a gravelly voice. That was what the doctors back at the Facility called them anyway. Visual disturbances. "We meet at last..."

Alice closed her eyes and walked through the hallucination.

Or at least tried to walk through the hallucination.

"I am not a cloud, Master Merryweather," the wizard said as Alice thumped into his chest a second time. "I understand your... concerns, but we do not have much time."

"You some kind of costumed freak?" Alice asked with a snarl. She threw Jumbo John's pizza box onto the alley floor. "You want I should bite your face off? Hmm? Get out of my way."

"You have seen strange things your entire life, Master Merryweather." The hallucination's voice radiated power. Alice took several steps away, suddenly unsure. "They made you think you were insane. They blinded you to the truth with their poisons. They kept you from your destiny."

Alice spun around, her face covered in sweat, and marched back down the alleyway. She refused to look over her shoulder, but simply stomped deeper and deeper down the seemingly endless stretch of concrete.

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"Master Merryweather, we are running out of time."

The visual disturbance stepped out from the shadows once more and blocked her way. Alice tried to speak, but her throat was as dry as a desert.

"I must teach you and then you must flee," the wizard said with gravel severity. "You are pursued."

And from within the man's faded brown robes, a black shape emerged.

"Oh..." Alice's eyes widened with a white fear. She took a step back.

"Do not be frightened," the costumed freak said as he waved the solid steel of a pistol in the air. "This is not what you think it is."

"Y-you can have the pizza..." Alice said, quiet as a mouse. She had thought this was a hallucination, but it turns out it was just a garden-variety mugging. "I only had... had a nibble..."

"You do not need to fear," the wizard said. "This is yours."

And Alice's mind went blank with confusion as the visual disturbance stretched out his gnarled hand and offered Alice the pistol.

"Take it," the wizard said softly. "Take it and fulfill your destiny."

The urge to flee was like a snake's venom pumping through her veins. She turned away from the armed phantom, ready to run away...

...but then a peppermint coolness filled the wet mush of her head. The icy kiss overtook the fear that poisoned her thoughts. It was almost like being submerged in cold water, and Alice felt her shoulders relax.

"Take it..." the wizard said, and she reached out and grabbed the pistol.

It was heavier than it looked, but it felt right. She was struck with the strongest sense of déjà vu as the wizard bowed his shadowed head low. Words were about to pop up. This was not the first time she had taken the gun.

[Alice Merryweather] acquired [Gun +1]

"Follow me," the wizard said, and he turned away from her.

Light seemed to return to the alleyway. She could hear the buzz of traffic and the human sounds of a city crammed full of bodies.

"And in a m-moment there will be more w-words..." Alice mumbled to herself. Because all of this had already happened.

[Alice Merryweather] acquired (3) Bullets

The impossible words appeared inside her head. It was as if they had been carved across the back of her eyelids.

"We must hurry."

Alice looked up from her confusion and found the wizard further down the alleyway. She did not remember him, but she was not afraid anymore. The peppermint chill from before had disappeared and with it all of her fear.

"Who are you?" Alice asked, and she hurried down the alley to where he was standing. "Are you my Hagrid? Am I a wizard?"

An oaken chuckle escaped the man's lips, and it was the only answer he offered. The click, clack, click of his walking stick bounced off the graffitied walls of the alley as he turned a corner.

Alice stuck her head around the corner and momentarily froze. The way led to a dead-end decorated with still more dumpsters and trash bins. Slouched up against one of the dumpsters was a bearded vagrant.

"I will show you the way this one time," the wizard said as he and his staff click, clack, clicked over to where the vagrant slept. "You must find Number Forty-Seven."

"Eh? What?" Alice frowned as the wizard stopped beside the bearded vagrant. "Is that some kind of... secret agent talk? Is Agent Forty-Seven my target? I thought that was a video game. Don't tell me it was based on a true story!"

"Ever the comedian..." the wizard said with another oaken chuckle, and his voice softened slightly as he continued. "You will not understand until you have seen the truth."

And Alice was overwhelmed by the same peppermint kiss from before. It did not tickle the mush of her brain, however, but rather the tips of her fingers. She lifted and inspected the pistol. A chill ran down her spine as she realized what she was about to do.

"That is not a gun," the wizard said before Alice could speak. Because she was going to shoot the homeless man. She had already shot him once before. "But you cannot understand. Pull the trigger, Master Merryweather."

"I d-don't suppose confetti is going to pop out," Alice said as she aimed the barrel of the gun at the bearded vagrant. She was consumed and comforted by the strongest sense of déjà vu as her finger tickled the trigger. All of this had already happened once before.

She could not remember what would happen next, however.

Alice heard the familiar crack of thunder as she pulled the trigger. Her arm went numb from the force of the shot, but it did not take her by surprise this time. She smelled peppermint as the thunder softened and disappeared.

The bullet slammed into the vagrant's shoulder, and he woke with a horrified shout.

A cold dread filled her stomach. She had shot a man. She had shot a man. She was not even sure where she had found a gun, but she had shot a man. She had stopped taking her medication, and she had shot a man. She knew with a cold certainty that her life was over. She would not be returned to the Facility because she had shot a man. She would-

"Eh...?"

Alice's black misery ebbed away as a white confusion took hold. She looked away from the vagrant. She took a step back. And then another. She tried to turn around and run, but the visual disturbance grabbed her arm. The hallucinated wizard's grip was iron.

"Do not turn away from the truth."

The bearded vagrant's body was transforming. It was as if the bones beneath his skin had come alive like a basket of snakes. They rearranged themselves into a square frame as the man's skin was stretched taut and seemed to harden like leather. The patchwork collection of coats he had been wearing hung off the bearded vagrant's transformed body like flags...

...but the vagrant's body had disappeared. A tall oaken door stood in the middle of the alley. Dimly, Alice noticed that the number seven was carved atop the door's wooden frame.

[Alice Merryweather] found The Exit

"That is not a gun," the wizard said, and Alice jumped. The man let go of her arm, and she stumbled away from both him and the door.

"Wh-what is all this?!" Alice demanded. None of this tickled her memory. Her stomach churned with nausea, and all she wanted was to nibble on Jumbo John's pizza crusts. "Wh-who are you? Wh-where did th-that man go?!"

"This is your destiny," the wizard said with the same gravel severity as before. "You must find Number Forty-Seven."

"What does that mean?!" Alice demanded. She raised the pistol and pointed its smoking barrel at the wizard. "What is all of this?!"

"I wish I could tell you more, Master," the wizard said, "but we are out of time. You must escape through this door and then find the next one. Remember that you are pursued. Find the exit in each world. Find Number Forty-Seven."

It felt like hamsters were running circles around her head. Alice's thoughts were a tangled mess as she tried to digest what the possible hallucination was saying. If the pistol was not so heavy in her hands, she would have thought this was all a dream.

"You must flee!"

The wizard's shout cut through her frazzled thoughts. Alice felt a pair of hands grab her, and she was shoved violently towards the mysterious door. A flicker of annoyance bubbled to the surface of her thoughts, but then she saw them.

"I will keep them at bay, Master!" the wizard said. Alarm filled his every word as two men dressed all in white slowly appeared from either end of the alleyway. They wore long white coats that trailed after them like capes. Tall white collars and thick white spectacles obscured their faces.

"Beware the Men in White!" the wizard said, and he raised his staff high over his head. Bits and pieces started to chip away like old paint to reveal... the metallic sheen of a shotgun.

The wizard pumped the newly revealed shotgun and took aim at the closest Man in White. The eerie stranger did not seem at all alarmed by the metal death pointed at their obscured face.

"I said flee!"

Alice jumped and turned towards Door #7. Trembling hands launched for the doorknob, and more words appeared across the back of her eyelids.

[Alice Merryweather] activated The Exit

[Alice Merryweather] acquired (5) Bullets

[Alice Merryweather] acquired (1) Upgrade Component

Noise like thunder exploded behind her, and Alice tore open the door in panic. Her chest was heaving with confusion as she stared blankly at the revealed interior of a dimly lit... cathedral.

She looked over her shoulder...

...but the wizard had disappeared. The Men in White were gone. The alleyway and its many trash cans had even been replaced with ornate marble arches.

"Wh... what...?"

Alice spun around in confusion. The pistol was heavy in her hand, but that was the only evidence of all the craziness that had just happened. The mysterious door had disappeared. She stood in the middle of a somber hall.

"WHO GOES THERE?!"

Alice jumped as the cathedral filled with a riotous voice. Its silken frustration bounced around the inside of Alice's head like a ping-pong ball.

Deeper within the somber hall, a radiant woman appeared. Warm light seemed to seep out from her skin like sweat. Her golden hair burned like fire, and Alice knew with only one glance that she could not be human.

"INTRUDER!" the angelic creature cried out, their golden eyes alighting on Alice. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!"