Cleared? Did Kimi defeat the boss in the Dungeon? That was insane. It’d only been five days since they first activated. Not to mention that name was different to the one who received the title for Dungeon 9. I guess they didn’t end up clearing the Dungeon. Did that mean… Did they die in the Dungeon? Ever since the disappearance of that man in the video, in the back of my mind it had always been a possibility. Dying in the Dungeons. Never seeing my parents again.
But there was that pull that made me want to step into the Gate anyway. Without it, would we still have such a dismissive attitude towards our own lives? I doubted it, but some people were carefree with everything they possessed, so some people would have still entered.
When the Gate had formed, it was instantaneous. Nothing, and then Gate.
“Well, that’s pretty serendipitous,” Jye said.
It was unnerving standing in front of one in real life. The videos and photos really hadn’t done them justice. The edges of the Gate blurred completely with reality, a distortion of our plane in whirling tendrils. In the centre it was not just black but a lack of existence. And something in my head was screaming at me to stick my hand right in.
“Are we ready to go in? Wren just joined our party. We haven’t practised with her yet.”
Axel shook his head. “We’re not prepared, but this might be our only chance to get titles.”
“I’m good to go,” Wren said, jutting her jaw forward.
Well, that made one of us. I was suddenly getting cold feet about this whole thing, even with my body slowly stepping towards the Gate despite my aversion. Jye made a considering sturgeon face and added, “I mean, what would go wrong?”
I stared at them. “There’s the obvious.”
The rest of the party gazed at me blankly.
Throwing my hands up, I elaborated, “We could all die?”
“Yeah, but what’s there really to live for?” Jye replied, laughing a little too much for comfort.
We really didn’t have the time to unpack that, but I left a mental memo to have a sit down with them later. It did make me reflect on how little I knew about Jye. In fact, I could probably list actual facts about them on one hand. Again, turning away from the Gate played in my mind. We could not go in. It was an option. And it was looking more and more like the preferred one. Especially with Wren to consider as well.
If the original Dungeon 9 title receiver had died in their Dungeon, what chance did a ten-year-old girl stand? No, that cinched it. We weren’t going in. This was a terrible idea. Maybe instead we could form some sort of shelter for those who were still resisting the effects of the Dungeon compulsion. We could make some sort of found community. Perhaps we could build a new world from the ashes of the old, and just forget the Gates altogether.
“You probably won’t forgive me for this,” Axel said.
Barely paying attention, I snorted. “There’s a lot I don’t forgive you for. What could possibly top the–”
Axel’s shoulder rammed into my stomach. It stole the rest of the words out of my mouth, and only an embarrassing heugh came out instead. As we hurtled to the floor, I took the brunt of his weight. We thudded to the ground. What little remaining breath I had in my lungs was squeezed out, me pinned under him. I gasped for air and breathed in a lungful of dust that our movements had kicked up.
It took a moment for me to process what had happened.
Axel had tackled me through the direct centre of the Gate.
We were in the Dungeon.
Unable to see anything from under Axel’s body, I floundered to get to my feet and pushed him off me. “What the fuck, Axel!”
~Gate 16 entered for the first time. Party Just Friends rewarded titles of Student~
As I glanced around, trying to take in my surroundings I realised Wren and Jye were here too, coughing into the kicked up dust. Had they stepped in after Axel’s attack? But how? It had literally just happened. And where was the dust coming from? Before coming through the Gate, we’d been standing on a cement driveway. Now it looked like we were… in some sort of ancient cabin? And our entire party had received the title. Student was the title for this Dungeon?
Oh, God.
We were in the Dungeon. We were all here. We could all die. Axel, Jye, Wren, Chrissie, Me.
Dead.
My throat began to close up, chest tight and collapsing into itself. Blood thrummed in my ears, through my veins. It was itchy, and hot, and I couldn’t… I couldn’t do this! Fuck, not now. Not now! I’d gone for a week.
The world started spinning. I struggled to fill my lungs with air.
Breathe, goddamnit!
I couldn’t. Air creaked through me. Too many things were happening at once.
Out of my control, my knees buckled, and I sank to the ground. The Warhead. It would help, I just had to… Hands shaking, I reached for my pocket, but as I wheezed to breathe, my jaw clenched and locked. I couldn’t focus, couldn’t see, couldn’t align my fingers to get inside it.
I was so fucking useless. Defeated, I let my hands fall to the ground.
This was the best I could do?
Blackness was beginning to form in my peripheral vision, vignetting my sight. God, a black out? It’d been a long time since I’d fainted from one of these attacks.
The dust began to clear to reveal a frowning Jye. “What’s wrong with Lee?”
“Fuck.”
I was vaguely aware of Axel fumbling for something in his own pocket. In a flash, he was by my side, and had dropped to his knees next to me. His movement awakened a new cloud of dust, swirling wildly about us.
“Here.”
His hand approached my face and I used the entirety of my willpower to look at it. Pinched between his forefinger and thumb was the familiar sight of a Warhead. I couldn’t take it, my body not listening to me, limbs weighed down and chest constricted, the world beginning to fade, Axel grabbed my chin with his other hand. He squeezed.
My jaw opened in reflex.
Then the sourness of the lolly exploded over my tongue, shocking me from the grips of the panic attack. As the tartness spread through my mouth, tendrils of control sprouted throughout my body, grounding my mind. It began to pull all my senses back to my head. The world began to regain saturation, the blackness retreating. The muscles in my torso loosened, my lungs fully expanding with air. Tasting only sour, I found I could breathe.
“Look, I know you hate the green ones. Green apples are already sour, so what’s the point in having them as a sour lolly. I know. But beggars can’t be choosers, all right?”
I barely registered Axel’s words, but his voice and the flavour of the Warhead centred me.
“You’re lucky I kept those on me, you know? I’m an amazing friend. The best kind.”
Slowly, ever so slowly, my body became my own again. I wiped away the wetness from my cheeks. God, I forgot how awful the panic attacks were. I’d gone for so long without them before the Gates that I thought I was “cured” of them. Guess I’d just managed to bury them away.
A few moments passed as my party sat in silence. My breathing evened out and my heartbeat returned to normal. Everything was… It was all right.
“Are you okay?” Wren asked, her eyes wide.
I mustered what smile I could and deposited the lolly into my left cheek. “I’ll live.”
“So, like, is that a normal thing for you?” Jye asked.
Sighing, I tested my balance for a moment, then stood and dusted off my clothes. “Kinda?”
“Noted.”
Sometime after giving me the Warhead and me regaining myself, Axel had left the three of us alone and was patrolling around the room we’d arrived in. It was a large mostly empty cabin with rotting furniture and dilapidated walls. Spiderwebs decorated the rooftop, spiders concerningly absent. Everything about it screamed “forgotten.” Dust lined every surface, and simply moving brushed up the allergens. Had we been taken to a haunted house?
“The title’s pretty good,” he said as he neared us again.
It was very Axel of him to ignore what had happened post breakdown. It was also very Axel of him to not take the blame for it. Well, no one was really to blame for the root of my anxiety. Just bad luck. Taking a page out of Axel’s book I decided to ignore everything that had just occurred. Yeah, yeah, yeah, who cares about compartmentalising being bad for your mental health, Mrs. Brown.
I decided to check out the new title we’d all received.
Title: Student - Boosts all experience gain.
Holy shit, Axel wasn’t joking. This title was insane. The benefits of a permanent experience increase meant we had to do less to level up. As I thought about the levelling system, my menu screen loaded in and then expanded to reveal further information. Jesus christ, why didn’t it just tell us everything from the beginning? Though, I guessed infodumping was frowned upon in most games. Especially those without tutorials that you had to learn by doing.
On the new screen, underneath my current level was a progress bar with a few words below.
[______________________________]
0% completion towards next level
So nothing we had done had given us any experience. None of our training in the gym had counted even though we were using abilities. Not even entering the Dungeon had done anything. This system was really stingy with rewards. If practising didn’t give us experience it seemed like there was only defeating opponents. My stomach became a pit of tar. That meant we would have to… kill someone? Or something?
“Yeah, what an amazing title,” Jye said, sarcasm oozing.
Wren patted them on the back. “We get better experience gain.”
“My words stand.”
“Okay, it’s really good, yeah, but can we rewind for a second. How did you guys get here?”
I replayed the events in my head as I had seen them. The Gate appeared. I was thinking about entering, but then changed my mind. Axel volunteered us as tributes. At that moment, we had to have been at least a metre away from Wren and Jye. Axel wouldn’t have been able to drag them along too, unless he was lying about more than just his title. No, it couldn’t have been an ability. I would’ve heard the static. That meant something else had interfered.
“We went through the Gate…” Wren said, her brows pushed together in confusion.
Glad someone else was questioning this, I said, “Yeah, how did that happen?”
Jye scratched their jaw. “The second Axel tackled you through, a tentacle osmosised from the Gate and lunged toward us. Then we were here.”
“Must be a safeguard to ensure party members remain together,” Axel commented.
Then he poked the tip of his shoe through the crumbling remains of a wooden chair. His top lip curled in disgust. He was always a bit of a clean freak. “Looks like this place is empty and hasn’t been touched in a while.”
Despite me wanting to brush off what he'd just made happen, his reaction and calm behaviour rankled at me. I’d had a panic attack and he’d come out of it scot-free?
Pointing a justifiably angry finger at him, I said, “You… You stop talking. I’m angry at you.”
He looked like a cashier who was finishing up their shift only to realise a Karen was coming through with receipts in their hand. Was I just something he had to deal with? If I reflected on our relationship during the time we’d known each other, it made sense. He didn’t interact with me more than necessary unless I was in the path of some harm. Was me being in his party just an extension of that same thing? I guess maybe I felt that way towards him as well. Like a responsibility to remain his friend because of our parents.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Had our entire relationship been built on simply dealing with each other? God, that was too depressing to dwell on. My longest friendship was just two people bearing each other. How sad.
Jye cleared their throat. “I hate to interrupt whatever… this is, but shouldn’t we be doing something? Like what if someone else enters the Gate?”
The giant had a point. We had only been notified of the first people to enter each Gate, but since it hadn’t been them but Kimi who had cleared Dungeon 9, it meant that anyone could follow in after. But what were we meant to do in a dusty ass cabin? And better yet, how were we meant to get out?
“Something touched my leg!” Wren screeched.
She slapped at her legs in panic. All our eyes went to her feet, hoping to catch sight of whatever it was. There was nothing there. Her head snapped back and forth as she checked around her vicinity. Her eyes were wide and watery. The poor girl. She must’ve been imagining things. Man, this must be so scary for a ten-year-old. She spoke so maturely that I had started forgetting that she was only a kid.
Shaking her head, Wren said, “I swear. I swear there was something here.”
“Maybe it was some dust. We’ve been unsettling it with our entrance into here. Despite his appearance, Axel can sometimes be reliable. If he said the place is empty, it’s empty.”
He opened his mouth to reply, but I held a finger up. “Still not talking to you.”
Axel sighed. Yeah, now we were dealing with each other like we always did.
“What the fuck?!”
It was Jye this time. They’d squealed in a pitch I didn’t know they were capable of hitting. I spun around in time to see a shadow dash behind the broken down form of a bookshelf. Oh, shit. There was something else here.
I cast Axel an accusatory glare.
“I thought you weren’t talking to me,” he said.
Rolling my eyes, I gestured to the party to back off from the bookshelf. If the thing behind it was dangerous, it would be better for all of us to be further in range. Especially since Axel was the only frontline class we had right now. Without a word, they followed my silent command, stepping towards the front of the cabin.
Axel crept to the forefront of our group. This was similar to what we had practised in the gym. If he used [Ground Smash], we’d been able to stun whatever it was and maybe rush it. Damn, was shit about to get real?
The static of an ability being used zapped in my ears.
The floor did not shatter, to my disappointment. Which meant Axel had either activated [Intimidation] or [Thick Hide]. Annnd it also meant he’d immediately gone off plan. That’d figure.
Another tsss. He was using both of them? With the 10 mana cap of [Thick Hide], he’d only have 15 mana left, which drastically dropped the amount of [Ground Smash] he could use to only two times. To my left, Jye had drawn their knives. Though now that Axel was writing his own script they had no idea how to act. Standing behind them, Wren watched, her legs visibly quivering.
“Come out!” Axel shouted.
Was he trying to taunt it to reveal itself? It’d be safer than going in blind. But what if it didn’t understand English? What if it wasn’t intelligent enough to even comprehend communication?
My thoughts evaporated as the soft falls of footsteps sounded. From the shadows, a figure slowly approached. My heart was in my throat. Though it was hard to make it, it looked like… No, that’d be stupid. There’s no way what I was seeing was real.
Hiss!
A cat. There was a cat here. It looked like a common calico house cat. Its hackles were raised and its bright green eyes were wide in alarm. What the fuck was a cat doing in a Dungeon? Was it part of the experience? Were we meant to kill it? What kind of sick person would design this?
As it approached, I realised it was missing its tail. No. It had one, it was just shorter. It was a bobtail. It had been her favourite.
“Don’t go near it!” Axel shouted as he pulled the bat from his hip.
“Calm down. It’s just a cat.”
The cat came closer. Axel raised his bat. Wren clenched her eyes shut and Jye turned his cheek. What the fuck was wrong with everyone? Were they just going to…
“Stop!”
Axel ignored me, and the cat stopped moving. It’s back was arched in alarm, ears drawn back in fear, hackles raised.
“Axel,” I said in warning.
His grip on the bat tightened.
Fuck this.
It happened faster than we had practised in the gym. In an instant, [Channel] filled me with that river of limitless potential. Like a flame running through my veins. And then I borrowed from Axel. He’d never rescinded his consent.
Focusing my attention, I pushed the power down as I lifted my right foot. I kicked down. [Ground Smash] torpedoed through the movement, bursting into the floor of the cabin. Through the explosion, I heard multiple bursts of static. Wooden shrapnel went flying and the shockwaves knocked the rest of the party around. The dormant dust kicked up, blurring the room, masking everyone from my sight.
In the commotion, the cat fled with a yowl.
Axel fell to his knees. The bat tumbled out of his hand. Jye and Wren who’d been in range had to have been caught in the blast too. Through the dust I couldn’t make out if they’d been hurt badly. I hoped the damage was minimal. A throbbing migraine knifed into my brain.
My head felt like it was stuffed with wool, and as the dust settled a heaviness dragged down my limbs. My stamina was worryingly low.
“Lee…” Axel began as he pulled himself up.
Just Friends has earned 5 XP.
Oh, I guessed we didn’t have to kill things? I mean, technically our opponent had fled. So… we’d won this round of combat by default? My experience progression bar filled in slightly.
[|_____________________________]
2% completion towards next level
I did the mentals maths. So it was 250 XP for me to get to LVL 2. That was good to know.
Jye let out a groan of pain. Oh, fuck.
I turned around to check their status. Jye was laying on the ground, their arms wrapped protectively around Wren. They were both covered in the planks of the floor that [Ground Smash] had sent flying. I rushed over, and brushed the debris from their bodies. I couldn’t see any major injuries. In fact, they looked mostly unscathed. I stared at them in disbelief. Wren slipped out of Jye’s arms, and helped them stand.
“How are you okay?” I asked.
Jye grinned. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…”
They bent down and picked up a sizeable piece of plank debris from the floor. It looked like it should’ve weighed close to 50kg. But Jye lifted it like it was lighter than a feather. As understanding dawned on me, my mouth dropped open. I’d heard an ability be used during my attack, but this was not what I had been expecting.
“You can make things lighter too?” I asked, the relief causing me to laugh.
“Panic will make you try some weird shit,” Jye said back.
“Yeah, and, dude, I’m sorry for the friendly fire. I just couldn’t…” The words weren’t coming out. Somehow saying it was harder than doing what I’d just done. I took a deep breath. “My sister loved cats.”
“Chrissie definitely would’ve done the same thing,” Axel admitted.
His face was covered in scratches from the [Ground Smash] and he was standing hunched over, gripping his side. Red had begun to form underneath his hand.
I stared.
No.
No no no no no!
What had I done?
Axel wasn’t meant to get hurt. He had [Swift Footed]! He could’ve gotten away from the attack. There was no way he should’ve taken any damage. Sick roiled in my stomach, sliding up my throat as bile. I was at his side before I knew what I was doing, pulling his free arm over my shoulder. Jye and Wren weren’t far behind me.
“Why didn’t you just dodge?” I yelled at him.
“I’m glad you think I’m that good.”
“You’re not looking too dandy, man. How much damage did you take?” Jye asked.
Together, we helped Axel to the wall, and he leaned against it with a groan. My brain didn’t know how to react. My hands shook. I’d done this. I’d hurt Axel. This was worse than being useless. God, I’d hurt my friend.
“I only took 10 from the [Ground Smash], but it’s this…” he gestured to the bloody spot on his side. “I think something pierced me. I’m losing HP by the second.”
Hands trembling, I lifted the bloodied shirt. Beneath was a stake-like piece of floorboard, poking out of his abdomen. Red, blood, it was blood, trickled down his stomach. I could taste vomit on the back of my tongue, but I swallowed it back down grimly.
“What… what do we do?” I asked.
Jye shook their head slowly. “Don’t look at me. I’m only CPR certified.”
“Axel, what do we do?”
He laughed again and the stake piercing him bounced with the movement. Blood spurted out. “Now you want to listen to me, huh?
The world started becoming blurry. “Stop fucking around! You’re gonna bleed out. Tell us. What do we do?” Oh, I was crying. My nose was running, and I had started to blubber. This was embarrassing. I wiped at the tears, trying to clear my sight.
“...pull the stake out,” Axel said.
In half a panic, I grabbed the edge of it, trying to take a firm hold, and then yanked. Immediately, the blood previously held back began to flow at a quickened rate, oozing out across his body. Axel screamed in pain, and he grabbed at my bloodied hands.
“I said don’t pull the stake out, you idiot!” Axel sunk to the floor. “Oh, shit.”
Party member Axel at critical health.
I could see that! He was bleeding out right in front of me. I tried to recall anything I could remember from movies, or shows about how to treat a stabbing, but nothing came to mind. The only thing was… pressure? Apply pressure? Lunging forward, I slapped one hand over the other and pushed down on Axel’s wound. He didn’t even have enough energy to scream even though I knew it was impossible for what I’d just done to be painless.
“I know you hate me, but actively aiding the speed of my demise seems a little cold-hearted,” he said with a croak.
“Stop talking,” I said, and it was suddenly more than real that my best friend was dying.
I hadn’t called him that since we were just kids. Hell, I hadn’t thought of him as my best friend since then. But that didn’t make it not true. For a second, as I kneeled there with my hands slick with blood, us as twelve-year-olds played in my mind. Just hanging in the local park, taking turns pushing each other on the swing. Chrissie had tagged along, as she always had. Axel pouting because I was paying more attention to her. He’d always been the jealous type, though when puberty hit him with the attractive stick, that focus has shifted to his other friend groups.
We’d been inseparable until we were thirteen. But then Chrissie… And I wasn’t the same after it. Axel had been too young to properly comfort a grieving friend. Anybody would’ve been. It’s never obvious how to act when your best friend loses their sister. He’d made one sincere attempt, but it hadn’t been enough. After that he pulled away entirely. It was not the right thing to do. But I guess he never really left, not fully. If he had, he wouldn’t be here dying.
I couldn’t do this.
I couldn’t be the reason why someone I loved was dead.
Not again.
So, I held down firmly on Axel’s wound and hoped and hoped and hoped. I wasn’t religious, praying would mean nothing, so I begged whatever forces of unpredictability that reigned in the universe to turn the odds in our favour. Maybe that’s all religion was. Putting a face on chance.
“I’m down to 2 HP. The bleeding isn’t stopping.”
I focused on Axel’s face. His eyes were watery. The usually healthy tan he had was pale, ghostly, and his lips had a blue tinge. He attempted a smile. It was wrong. Axel wasn’t meant to look like this.
“You gotta make sure you survive this thing, okay?”
“The Dungeon?” I asked, my voice barely making its way out of my mouth.
“This whole thing. You gotta win. Promise me. No matter what, you’re going to win.”
I scoffed through my tears. “Only you would have the audacity to think you could win against an apocalypse.”
His weak grip found my arm, and he squeezed it. “Promise me.”
“I…”
If I finished that sentence, it would be goodbye, I knew. He was barely holding on. If I promised him, he would let go. But he was stubborn, too stubborn to give in before he heard my words. If I could keep him here for even a moment longer, he would never hear those words from my lips.
“1 HP,” he said, and his hand on my arm slipped off.
“I’ll make you a promise.”
I met his fading gaze.
“I promise you’ll be here with me when we win.”
His eyes shot open for a second, and his laugh turned into a sputter. “That’s new.”
His breathing had weakened, chest rising and falling almost imperceptibly. Axel’s eyes began to close. I could no longer see through my tears.
“God fucking damnit, absolutely fuck this shit, this is the most fucked up thing, after I swore I wouldn’t… Fuck me.”
Both me and Axel’s focus shifted to the sailor’s language coming out of the ten-year-old girl’s mouth. She had approached us both, and was standing by our side. Axel clearly wanted to make some sort of comment, but lacked the bodily control to do so. It might’ve been for the better.
“I didn’t want to do this. I don’t even trust you. But I can’t watch two grown men cry. It’s embarrassing. Goddamnit, and this was meant to be my hidden ace,” Wren continued, muttering under her breath.
I heard the static of an ability being used. What was she doing? As a Scourge, she would only work with debuffs. It didn’t make any sense. Then again, she’d never explained how she’d ended up alone in Woolies. I had assumed she would in time, but maybe this was the reason why.
A soft green glow emanated from her, and then focused on her right hand. What the hell was happening? There was no way an ability called [Imperil] or [Death Mark] looked like this. She glared at me.
“Move your hands.”
I stared at her incredulously. “This is the only thing stopping him from dying right this second.”
“Yeah, but I gotta touch the wound for this to work. He’s gonna die in the next couple of moments anyway. Your choice, buckaroo.”
Axel’s eyes finally closed. He was directly on the brink. Jye, who’d been quiet the entire time, chimed in, “She’s got a point.”
“Why don’t you stick to the whole mute act, man?” I spat back, already feeling bad about it as I said it.
They held their hands up, and stepped further away.
Wren’s eyes were on me. Jesus christ. What should I do? Did Wren have the ability to save Axel? My hands were covered with Axel’s blood. Figuratively and literally. Maybe this was the universe’s answer to my pleadings.
Please let that be the case.
I retracted my hands, and watched as the blood flow immediately increased, no longer impeded. Wren’s glowing right hand went down. A bright warm light encompassed the skin beneath her hand, so sharp that I couldn’t stare directly at it, but I forced myself to not look away. If this was Axel’s last moments alive, I would be there to witness them. He deserved so much more, but this was the least I could do.
Time passed, but I lost all sense of it.
Finally, the light faded.
Wren’s face was drenched in sweat, and a distant look was in her eyes. She had the kind of eye bags that resulted from days without sleep. When Wren spoke, her voice was dry, cracking. “I think the wound’s been closed, but I can’t use [Healing Hand] anymore. I’m completely out of mana. You better take care of this body. Fuckers.”
And then she fell into an unconscious heap next to Axel.