Alex pulled the casque off his head and threw it away like it was made of snakes. Every nerve in his body was going haywire. His fight-or-flight response had kicked in at full throttle and now he was running on pure, primal instinct.

The memory of the horror and the pain was quickly fading, but his heart was still beating like mad.

It was so real!

How could it be so real?

He had to run.

He had to get away.

Alex bolted out of his room, startling Officer Carpenter who happened to be doing her rounds nearby. For a moment, they locked eyes. Then, quick as a cat, the grim-faced woman drew her gun and aimed it straight at his chest.

“Hey! Slow down there! Don’t make me shoot.”

Miraculously, Alex found the presence of mind to stop dead in his tracks and raise his hands in the air. Getting torn to shreds by ghosts was bad enough as it was. He’d rather not get shot at, too.

Carpenter got close, turned him around, slammed him in the wall face-first a bit harder than it was strictly necessary, and cuffed his hands behind his back. Alex didn’t resist.

“Wanna tell me what the fuck is wrong with you?” she asked as she dragged him back to his room. “Were you trying to make a run for it or something?”

Alex forced himself to breathe. He needed to calm down.

How was he going to explain that?

“I died,” he finally managed to say. “I mean, in Elderpyre.”

Carpenter rolled her icy blue eyes and visibly relaxed.

“Jesus Christ, already? Shit, Rulin, you must be even dumber than you look.”

Her giving him shit while he was still in shock was the last thing Alex needed. Trying to calm down was just about all he could do right now.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Happy thoughts, beaches and sunsets.

“I’ll remove these, but you better behave, alright?”

He nodded. She uncuffed him and he collapsed on his bed like a sack of potatoes. They sat there for a while, he on the bed wheezing, her hovering over him and looking very concerned and uncertain of what she was supposed to say or do.

A few minutes later, he was finally calm enough to speak.

“It was… so real, you know? I mean, even the pain.”

“Yeah, it’s a bitch,” Carpenter said and looked away. “You’ll get used to it.”

Get used to it?

His heart still hammered in his chest. His breathing was quick and shallow. He felt exhausted, and it was all he could do to keep himself from vomiting.

Get used to it?

Get used to what, being murdered?

Carpenter checked her watch and frowned.

“Hey. You’ll be alright. Look, I gotta move. I’ll drop by later to check in on you. If you need anything, pick up the phone and dial zero. Just don’t go all apeshit on me again, because I will shoot you.”

He nodded yes. Going apeshit would require a level of energy he simply didn’t have, anyway. He was dead tired, pun intended.

She gave him one last look–half concern, half indignation–and left, pulling the door behind her and leaving Alex alone.

For a while, Alex simply lay there and stared at the ceiling, processing what he’d been through, trying to empty his mind. The thought of getting hurt in Elderpyre had crossed his mind. Mortimer the bartender had told him it would be unpleasant. Well, ‘unpleasant’ was definitely an understatement. He’d never been disemboweled in real life, but he had a suspicion that it wouldn’t feel too different from what he’d experienced at the spectral hands of those apparitions.

Who’d have thought that the people who’d made Elderpyre would take the whole verisimilitude thing to such extremes?

Not Alex, that’s who.

By the time he finally mustered the courage to get up, it was already late in the evening. He was really thirsty, he realized. He couldn’t remember the last time he had a glass of water, grabbed a bite, or used a toilet. He’d have to keep these things in mind, log out of the game and take breaks.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

That thought gave him pause. Did he really want to log back in there–back where he’d just been killed? All the feelings, all the pain, all the fright was real. The shock was real. The trauma was real.

He took a leak, drank three glasses of water, brushed his teeth, and went back to bed. He was getting tired. He needed some sleep. Sleep was good. Sleep was nice. A chance to shut his head down and do a soft reset after all… that.

As long as he didn’t have any dreams, of course.

***

Mercifully, Alex slept through the night like a log. He woke up at six in the morning, got permission from some sleepy guard on the other end of the telephone line, and went to the cafeteria to grab something to eat. He was starving.

The cafeteria was empty this early in the morning, save from Bob the guard, who was hunched over a sudoku puzzle. He paid him no attention apart from a curt nod, so Alex went straight to the kitchen. He filled a plate with toast and hard-boiled eggs, grabbed a cup of hot black coffee, and started wolfing down his breakfast.

Now that the whole death-by-mist-stalker incident was in his rear-view mirror and already starting to grow distant, he found out he was no longer shocked or terrified by the experience.

No, his feelings were starting to change.

Alex was starting to get pissed.

How could anyone greenlight this kind of virtual reality experience?

It was traumatic, sadistic even.

Was it even legal? Wasn’t there some kind of human rights legislation in place that prevented this kind of thing? No wonder they were testing it on inmates and had them sign waivers, those bastards–whoever they were.

This was some MK-Ultra level of fuckery.

Fuck Grimm and his infuriating smile, Alex thought. He wished he could take a hammer to it, leave the rich asshole bloody and toothless. See how smooth and charming and persuasive he’d be then.

He was still there, hovering over his third cup of spectacularly bad coffee and getting angrier by the minute, when Officer Carpenter walked in.

“Penny," said the other guard, greeting her with a nod.

“Bob.”

She grabbed some toast and coffee, walked over to Alex’s table, and sat across him.

“Seat’s taken," he grumbled, worked up by all his ruminating and kind of itching for a fight.

“Good morning to you too, Rulin," she said and took a big sip from her cup, not taking the bait. “I see you’re feeling better.”

“I wanna talk to Grimm.”

She scoffed.

“Yeah, and I want a French croissant and some joe that’s actually worth drinking, but you can bet your ass neither of us is going to get what we want.”

“This is bullshit. I didn’t sign up for this.”

Carpenter threw him an icy glance.

“I don’t know what you signed up for. I don’t really care, either. It’s not my job. I came over to see how you’re doing out of politeness. Seeing how you’re being an ass about it, though, I’m already regretting it.”

Alex got ready to spit out a heated response, but decided to bite it back. Despite her tough-nosed act, Carpenter had been decent to him–more so than she strictly had to. He had to give her that.

“Look,” he said, “I’m sorry. That thing… it did a number on me. There was this strange owl and this big stone monument in the middle of a forest clearing–”

“Christ on a cracker, Rulin,” Carpenter cut him short, rolling her eyes. “I told you! No Elderpyre talk. You may not care about your NDA, but I care about mine.”

“Uh… how’s your NDA a problem if I’m the one doing the talking?”

“Not the point! Anyway, look, I get it. It must have been pretty bad.

You startled the shit out of me, you know, bursting out of your room like a bat out of hell.”

“Sorry about that," said Alex.

“Nah, it’s alright,” she smirked. “Looking back at it, it was pretty funny.”

‘Funny’ wasn’t exactly the word Alex would use.

“Say, were you really going to shoot me?” he asked.

Carpenter let out a short, amused chortle.

“They’re only rubber bullets. They’re very unlikely to kill you, but they still hurt like a motherfucker. Boss man won’t let me use the real deal, no matter how much I nag.”

Alex didn’t know whether the woman was serious or just joking, but he made a note to actively try and avoid pissing her off in the future. He appreciated the fact that she was taking the time to check up on him, and she also seemed the wrong kind of person to get on the wrong side of.

“So, uh… ma’am? What happens if I don’t log back in? Like, ever?”

“Nothing,” Carpenter shrugged. She gulped down the rest of her coffee and stood up. “But what would you do, Rulin? Spend the day sitting around in an empty room? Playing backgammon with Bob over there? Knock yourself out, it’s no skin off my teeth. But really, is that what you want to do?”

Alex wondered, too.

He left the cafeteria, took a walk around the grounds of the Happy Motel to clear his head, then headed back to his room and slumped on his bed.

The memory of his recent death in Elderpyre was still vivid in his mind. Too vivid. He spent some time staring at the ceiling, the events that led to his death replaying in his mind. Could he have avoided it, had he been more cautious? Probably.

He had entered into an accord with that antlered spirit, trusting that their agreement would be honored. Instead, he had been outwitted and killed. It stung—not just the death itself, but the way it had been orchestrated. Flimsy as the reasoning behind the whole thing had been, the spirit had followed their accord to the letter, twisting its terms to ensnare him.

He had learned something valuable, even if it had come at a high cost. In Elderpyre, deals were only as trustworthy as the entities making them. He’d have to be more cautious, more skeptical from now on.

Just as he was about to drift into a fitful sleep, he heard faint footsteps echoing in the hallway outside his motel room door. Alex sat up, alert. The steps were slow and deliberate, stopping right in front of his door.

“Uh… officer?”

Nobody replied. Instead, he watched as a small piece of paper was slipped under the door, the motion careful and precise. Alex stood up, every muscle tense, and approached the door. He hesitated for a moment, then bent down to pick up the note. The handwriting was impeccable—almost too perfect, like a calligraphy typeface. The message was brief and clear:

"This is not a game."

Alex's stomach dropped. He looked around his room, half expecting to see someone lurking in the shadows. He rushed to the door, yanked it open, and peered outside. The courtyard was empty as usual. Whoever had slipped that piece of paper under his door was gone.

He retreated back into his room and sat on the edge of his bed, holding the note and reading it again and again. Unsure of what to make of it, he got up and cut a slit in the underside of his mattress with a flimsy pair of nail clippers he found in the bathroom cabinet. He carefully folded the note and slid it in there, ensuring it remained hidden but accessible.

This was not a game?

Yeah. No kidding.