Twitch POV
God, I need to get my fix were the only thoughts I had as I saw a screen.
(Available points: 30)
(Categories for dungeon: Speed, Balance, Attack.)
Smiling, I put ten points in speed and 20 in balance as I found myself on a bike with no handlebars with a nine-foot pole in my hands and a 19 foot wide path before me as the next message appeared.
(Notice once you begin pedaling if your foot or any part of your body touches the floor, the dungeon will be failed. To clear the dungeon, you must reach the end of the path. Failure to clear this dungeon will result in your termination from the life that you have known. Thank you for participating and I look forward to devouring your soul. )
The smile on my face couldn’t have been wider as I dismounted the bike, set down the pole, and started to look it over in great detail to make sure that it wasn’t a piece of junk. Besides the fact that it didn’t have any handlebars, I found that it was a normal bike with no gears. With that, I looked at the pole as I decided that it was pointless to use as I got back on the bike and started to peddle. I did a wheely, using the center of the bike frame as a handhold. As the bike was one where you could peddle forward or backwards, it was easy for me to control it like this, as I focused on pedaling and keeping myself moving. This was absolutely necessary, as I knew if I stopped moving, I would fall. Still, I laughed at the sensations as I moved forward.
That was when the first thick mustachio demon with an excellent handlebar mustache appeared before me and laughed back at me. Then another appeared on the other side. They both said, “no handlebars.” I quickly avoided them only for two more to materialize and repeat the same line as I started to laugh at them as all around me eyeballs came into existence followed by disembodied hands that seemed to want to knock me off the bike as I continued to dodge. Only now I was griping the bike with my knees as I used the back tire to bounce on while still doing a wheely as I really started to laugh when wrapping paper blocked the view of the path forward.
The fact that it had Santa on it made me smile as I broke through three layers of it. After that, I found that the path that I was on had a few turns in it. During these I drifted from the center of the path enough that I got my first real look at the nothingness as it called to me. I knew that all that waited for me was cash and more drugs once I got out of this dungeon, as that was my life. At least 20 grand would be enough for me to spend a full week partying and getting my fix, but for some reason, I felt that I would always have my fix if I fell into the nothingness.
Had it not been for the line of demons do-si-doing making me almost fall off the bike laughing, my mind might have lingered on those thoughts too much. Still, I managed to recover just in time for me to suddenly hear the sound of a record being scratched all around me, hindering my ability to concentrate once more. It was during this that a bunch of half put together remote controllers started to fall from the sky, creating hazards in the path that needed to be avoided. These were all simple ones that looked like they were for a TV or remote control cars, but they varied in size such that I believed that a few felt like they should have been gag gifts.
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Navigating this minefield wasn’t easy, but I did it. But the moment I was past them, I felt something appear in my mouth as I got another notification telling me to tie a knot in it. Thankfully, this was a party trick that I had mastered as I did it, only to find myself on a 19-foot wide boat all of a sudden as the surrounding waters rocked it slightly. If this wasn’t bad enough, everything around me was filled with colors and the sounds of birds as I continued to react to the motion of the ship. All of a sudden, I wished that I still had the pole that I started with, as I knew that it would allow me to stop moving relative to the boat. After all, I didn’t have anywhere to go, and I figured that I just needed to stay up until this portion ended.
Thus I was constantly moving in a circle as I tried to ignore the bright colors all around and avoid falling into the water as best I could. Though, as I did, so I found myself remembering one particularly wild trip a few years back when I had first started to experiment with drugs. Despite the fact that I woke up the next morning wearing a wig, lipstick and had a very sore ass, I had only dove deeper after that. While I wouldn’t admit it to others, part of why I was so desperate to enter the dungeon was for moments like this one, as I have actual clarity for a moment. I could see what I was doing to myself and for just a moment, I could see myself overcoming it all as I struggled to live. It had yet to stick the moment I left the dungeon, but I felt like one of these times it would.
One of these times I would face a real threat and end up either being scared sober for real or dying and I was just waiting to figure out which one it would be. Were it not for the fact that I used a bike to get everywhere already, I felt like that time would have been the time. Instead, I found myself laughing at how trying to show off to others had been enough for me to be perfect for this dungeon, as I felt the boat stop rocking. Ironically, this almost saw me falling of the bike due to the sudden change but as the colors faded and the first of the fireworks start to go off in the sky, I was able to find my balance as the Star Spangled Banner started to play and the boat returned to being the path that I had been on before once more.
Thus I started to move forward once more while I listened to the music play while feeling it was all a joke after what I had seen while living in Washington DC and dealing with reality. Money, money, and more money. That was all that our leaders ever seemed to care about, but I just shook that feeling off as I tuned everything out. That is until a platypus appeared before me and I went to dodge it, only it launched itself at my back tire. While it got thrown off rather quickly, my balance was thrown off as well and I could feel that despite elevating that stat, it wasn’t enough as the tire went flat.
A moment later, I felt myself falling to the side as I once more wished that I had the pole to delay things as I thought. Instead, the only thing I could think to do was to let the front tire fall first as I peddled for my life, to no avail. It was only a last second of thinking that saw me twisting and kept myself atop the bike as it hits the ground. I was alive, but trapped with no way out as I lay there wondering what I could do from that point on. I knew better than to try and right the bike as I thought about my life and laughed about the hopelessness of my situation. Though, one thought kept coming to the forefront of my mind as I realized that at least I would be sober for the rest of my life.
I stayed like that for well over an hour as I came to peace with everything and turned over as I gave my all as I tried to scoot the bike forward on its side. However, this failed as it hardly moved and I found myself falling into nothingness as the path below me vanished when my foot slipped off the bike and touched it for just a moment. Whether it was true that your life flashed before your eyes or not in that moment I was unsure as I starred up at the sky that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere and in the next moment I felt like I was being plunged into freezing cold water. The last thing that I thought was that at least I wouldn’t ruin anyone’s day when they found my body in a ditch somewhere.