Shocked, I was thrust back from my chair and fell to the floor.

Scrambling around on the floor, I rolled around as I un-skillfully dodged lashes from the terrifying monster that was slamming itself around the office like a raging bull in a china shop.

Shakily rising to my feet, I frantically looked around the office space for anything to defend myself with. But I could not find anything. I picked up a piece of splintered wood and readied myself for the monster’s next assault, the heart beating in my chest about to explode.

Turning on whatever past for its heels, the tongue-monster— which was, literally, a giant humanoid tongue complete with its own razor sharp teeth— turned to me and charged. Without hesitation, I jabbed the piece of wood deep into its leathery skin.

But it didn’t wound it. The monster kept charging and it knocked me against the wall and slid me down the side to the other part of the room.

Shaken, I again righted myself and prepared for round two.

What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck can I do?! I shouted to myself.

“Bring up your Delvendive!” ME boomed.

I obeyed without hesitation and brought my hand up, pointing it toward the charging monster. Feeling an electrical charge around my hand which housed the Delvendive, a bright spark illuminated the room, forcing me to turn away.

Once the smoke and sparks had cleared, I saw that the monster was all the way on the other end of the office, quivering, howling, but more than anything, angry and confused about why its prey had suddenly turned predator.

Looking closer to myself, I now noticed something else was amiss. Dangling in the air between myself and the monster was a crackling web of purple. Splattered everywhere and composed of something that I would never know, the ‘web,’ for lack of a better fucking word, just hung in the air and extended itself in odd and misshapen directions. I couldn’t tell if it was still expanding or harmful to me like it had been to the monster, but I still— perhaps foolishly— approached what looked to be the center most node of the web.

Carefully gliding my finger along the node’s purple, crackling surface, it felt like nothing. Just smooth.

“Enter,” ME spoke.

I heard ME’s voice but I reacted more mechanically than I figured. I took my gloved hand and thrust it into the purple node, not caring if it was fried in the process. This was the closest I had to something shifting the battle in my favor and I had to flow with the punches.

With my fingers latching on to something with some heft, and no part of my hand actively getting deep-fried, I pulled out from the node an intricate— and long— dagger.

Howling in pain, the tongued-monster lashed itself toward me, desperate to re-assert itself, perhaps, that or it was hungry. But I didn’t let myself become the victim.

In one fluid motion, I swiped the beast with my new found dagger; but what happened when I swung at it was not just a simple act of self-defense. No. Nothing could be easy like that anymore. Instead, let me explain what I saw and felt.

As the beast hurled itself toward me— its grotesque form appearing larger than life in my partially-dimensional worldview, the looming nature of which made it feel truly on top of me— time seemed to slow. This temporal slowdown lasted for only a second, but it felt like longer, like I was in a martial arts movie; with time slowing, I brought my dagger in for that sweet slice— but at the last second before contact, something happened. I saw a shine. A shimmer. A gleam. All over the monster’s freaky body was a hardly discernable film. And though it lasted but a moment, I seized on the opportunity— something within me telling me, urging me to do so— and I redoubled my offensive attack, and instead of slashing at it like an amateur cosplayer dressing up as their favorite cartoon character, I bunted the monster’s attack and in the same motion stabbed the beast through its mid-section, sending it reeling.

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Wounded from my attack, the beast screeched in pain and fell to the floor. Slowly, it dragged itself away and back through the doorway that it had shattered.

As the beast left, I stared at it the whole time. I didn’t trust it to leave me be; but, at the same time, I didn’t trust my own intuition at killing it. I was just too shaken to do anything other than defend myself in a purely reactive way. But with the coast clear, I turned to Chippy, hiding under my desk. He scampered out and attached himself to my foot.

Catching my breath, I said, “What. The. Fuck. Was that?!”

ME answered me— and yeah, I was already getting tired of keeping the computerized name straight with the pronoun indicating me.But what could I do? It was its name? Regardless, ME gave me an earful.

“Answer: that was a manifestation of the Under-Reality. A poorly integrated super-normie which slipped through the cracks of proper acclimative practices. Alternative answer: it might have also been a properly acclimated super-normie which had been corrupted.” ME said.

Catching my breath, I said, “Come again?”

“Clarification: super-normies can be corrupted by the passage of time into monsters the like of which you just encountered. Before an entity becomes a super-normie, there is the possibility that they are corrupted into violent aberrations before their place in the Under-Reality is secured.”

I didn’t know anything about that process. Then again, that was no fucking surprise. No one ever told me shit. I was just here for the ride. I just worked here. But no more. Now was the time for answers.

“Hard Truth: you must hurry if you want to save Kush and Felix. If one corrupted entity exists, then there is a very high possibility that more exist.”

“Don’t tell me what to do. I’ve had enough of being told what to do!” I shouted back with more force than intended. “Every damn day it is the same. And it has been the same since I had the mispleasure of discovering this fucking world. Now, you are going to give me answers, buddy, or I am going to walk!”

A long passage of silence. Then, more silence. Finally, I had enough. I turned on my feet to leave.

But just like in the movies, just as I was about to walk out, I was stopped. ME was brought to the bargaining table.

“Statement: Marcus. Please, stop. I understand that you are upset and frustrated. Your life is changing and you are being made aware of things only imagined to be imaginary up to this point. But you have to understand this— there is nothing about your situation which is normal.”

I let ME’s words sink in . . . normal? There is a normal and abnormal way to understand the Under-Reality? I asked about it.

“Answer: Yes, Marcus. People are not typically initiated into the governing body of the Under-Reality when they still are among the living. There is a process and death is a major part of that process. And the process of you and Felix being bound to one another in a Pact. All of this is uncharted territory. You are being kept in the dark because no one knows what what it would mean to bring you into the light.”

Considering ME’s words carefully, I had to admit, it made sense. But I could only focus on the part of the explanation that factored on death as being part of the initiation. Which led me back to ME itself as an entity.

“Then what does that make you, ME?” I asked.

“If I told you, you would not understand. Not now. But I promise that I will tell you later. When you’ve been educated more.”

I didn’t buy ME’s explanation. I went to college. I knew what it meant for things to be ‘complicated.’ But, I recognized that there was something called give and take and seeing as how I did receive something of an answer regarding what that monster was and the process in which shit became that monster, I was mostly satisfied. For now, anyway.

“Okay, good enough. But don’t shut me out of this complicated stuff, alright? I’m not some dumb shit who can’t wrap his head around change. ‘Kay? I went from living an ordinary life to scurrying around with a dragon-cat-butterfly thing in a 2D world. I think I can wrap my head around convoluted bullshit.”

“Acknowledgement: very well. Then now would be a good time to teach you about something that I had hoped Kush or some other member of Full Time could have taught you. Seeing as how they are indisposed, I will have to do it.”

“See? We are getting somewhere, now. So, let me have it— what do you need to teach me?”

“Answer: I must now teach you the elements of Progress. Otherwise known as combat.”