As soon as I stepped into the light, my world exploded into a kaleidoscope of sensations. It felt like every atom in my body was being pulled apart, scrambled, and put back together again. The blinding whiteness gave way to a dizzying array of colors that swirled and pulsed around me, making it impossible to tell up from down.

My stomach lurched as if I was on the world’s most intense roller coaster. The air was sucked from my lungs, and for a terrifying moment, I couldn’t breathe. My skin tingled and buzzed, like I was being gently electrocuted all over.

Sounds assaulted my ears—a cacophony of white noise, distant echoes, and high-pitched ringing that made my head spin. I tried to call out for Annalise and Snuggles, but my voice was swallowed by the void.

Time seemed to stretch and compress simultaneously. I couldn’t tell if the journey lasted for an eternity or just a split second.

Then, as suddenly as it began, it was over.

I stumbled forward, gasping for air, my legs wobbling like jelly. The world slowly came into focus around me, the dizzying lights and sounds fading away. As my vision cleared, I found myself standing alone in what appeared to be a high school foyer.

The place looked like it had been ripped straight out of an 80s teen movie. Lockers lined the walls, their metal surfaces gleaming under fluorescent lights. Posters advertising school dances and pep rallies hung slightly askew. The linoleum floor was a checkerboard pattern of faded colors.

But something was off. The air felt charged, almost alive with an unseen energy. And where were Annalise and Snuggles?

“Hello?” I called out, my voice echoing in the empty hallway. No response. “What the hell is this?”

As if in answer to my question, a voice suddenly exploded into the silence—the system AI doing its best impression of a gameshow host again.

“Welcome, contestant, to ‘Detention Damnation!’ You’ve been enrolled in Infernum’s most killer high school, modeled on my favorite movie, The Breakfast Club!

“Your mission is simple: reach the principal waiting in the school gym within thirty minutes, or face eternal detention. But watch out! Principal Vernon has undergone some... modifications. Let’s just say he’s no longer satisfied with giving out detentions—now he’s after your soul!

“Navigate the halls, avoiding or eliminating the monstrous versions of your favorite Breakfast Club alumni. They’re not here to make friends!

“Remember, every second counts! Will you graduate, or become another lost soul in these haunted halls?”

After the announcement, a flashing red message showed up on my screen:

LIMBO TRIAL #1… STARTED!

Underneath, a timer started counting down.

29:59

Jesus, I thought. We’re really doing this, huh?

The theme of this Trial was probably no more absurd than anything else. Considering where I was, the theme could be anything and it would still seem ridiculous. Though it made me wonder about the AI itself. Was it really just a bunch of sentient ones and zeroes with a randomly programmed obsession with all things eighties? Would the next Trials of the Damned be themed around some other random thing? I guess it didn’t really matter. It was all just background noise, anyway. What mattered most was testing the players and forcing them to survive against ever increasing odds. But still, that AI… something about it made me think there was more to it. If I survived this stupid Trial, maybe I’d find out more about it.

In the meantime, I wondered where Annalise and Snuggles were. Since I was the only player here—as far as I knew, anyway—that had to mean this was probably some sort of pocket dimension or something. I mean, there were still over 3000 players left and they all had to be somewhere, right? So was Annalise and Snuggles in their own version of this Trial? Or where they doing a totally different Trial? I guess I’d find out after, as long as all three of us succeeded.

Glancing at the clock on my screen, I saw a minute had gone already. “Guess I’d better get moving.”

Mentally swiping the screen away, I grabbed the chain from my inventory and wrapped it around my right fist as I went about trying to find the gym in this school. I ran up the corridor I was in, and as I passed the lockers, things flew out at me, including books with teeth that flapped around me like demented, literary bats.

“What the hell?” I yelled, swinging my chain-wrapped fist at the nearest book. It connected with a satisfying thud, sending the tome spiraling away, pages fluttering. But for every book I knocked down, two more seemed to take its place.

I ducked and weaved, my fists flying in a frenzied dance. “Fuck you, Moby Dick!” I shouted, punching a particularly large, whale-shaped book out of the air. “And that’s for making me write that essay, Shakespeare!”

But the books were just the beginning. A locker to my left burst open, disgorging a tangle of gym clothes that writhed like snakes. The putrid smell hit me before they did, making my eyes water.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Oh, come on!” I groaned, trying to bat away the animated attire. A pair of gym shorts wrapped around my arm, its drawstring tightening like a python. I slammed my arm against the wall, feeling the fabric tear before I ripped the shorts off.

From another locker, a swarm of number 2 pencils shot out like darts. I raised my arms to protect my face, feeling the sharp tips scratch my skin. “Ow! Ow! Ow!” I yelped, each prick sending a jolt of pain through me.

I sprinted forward, trying to outrun the onslaught of school supplies gone rogue. A basketball bounced out of nowhere, slamming into my back with enough force to make me stumble. I caught myself on a water fountain, only to have it spray a jet of what looked suspiciously like blood directly into my face.

Sputtering and wiping my eyes, I ran on, putting distance between me and the angry mob of school supplies. As I rounded a corner, I saw a sign pointing toward the science labs. “Fuck it,” I said, sprinting down the corridor, leaving the fucked up locker mobs behind. But halfway up the corridor, I skidded to a stop when one of the classroom doors burst open, revealing a nightmarish parody of Brian Johnson, the nerdy kid from the Breakfast Club movie.

The teen had been transformed into a monstrous abomination. His body was a writhing mass of tentacles, each one tipped with various scientific instruments—scalpels, test tubes, and what looked disturbingly like a Bunsen burner. His head had swollen to twice its normal size, pulsing with an eerie blue light.

“Well, well, well,” Brian’s voice echoed, somehow nasally and booming at the same time. “If it isn’t another dummy who failed to complete his homework. Do you know what the mitochondria is? It’s the powerhouse of the cell! And I’m the powerhouse of this school!”

A tentacle whipped out, nearly catching me across the chest. I dove to the side, rolling and coming up in a fighting stance.

“Sorry, man,” I panted, “I was always more of a gym class guy.”

Brian’s eyes narrowed. “Physical education? How droll. Let me educate you on the finer points of anatomy... by dissecting you!”

Three tentacles shot toward me, their scalpel tips glinting in the fluorescent light. I ducked and weaved, feeling the air whistle as they passed inches from my face.

“Come on, Brian,” I said, backing up. “Don’t you want to talk about your feelings? Your dad’s expectations? Anything?”

“The only thing I expect,” Brian roared, “is your full participation in this experiment!”

A tentacle wrapped around my ankle, yanking me off my feet. I hit the ground hard, the wind knocked out of me. As I gasped for air, I saw a classroom door slightly ajar.

With a desperate lunge, I grabbed the door handle and swung it wide just as another tentacle came whipping toward me. The appendage sailed through the opening, and I slammed the door shut with all my might.

There was a sickening crunch and a howl of pain. The tentacle writhed on the floor, severed and oozing a greenish fluid.

“My appendage!” Brian wailed. “Do you have any idea how long it’ll take to regenerate that? The cellular mitosis alone will take weeks!”

Not waiting to hear the rest of his scientific tantrum, I scrambled to my feet and took off down the hall. Behind me, I could hear Brian’s anguished cries mixing with promises of revenge and a pop quiz that would melt my brain.

Fuck your pop quiz, I thought. I just want out of this damn school.

Speaking of which, the layout of the place seemed all wrong. There was basically only one way to go once I left the science block, and that was through the school library. It was almost like the show runners were forcing me to go through certain locations before I reached the gym.

With Brian coming up behind me fast, I had no choice but to open the door to the library and go inside.

The library was a twisted labyrinth of towering bookshelves that seemed to shift and move in my peripheral vision. Shadows danced across the walls, and an eerie whisper echoed through the stacks.

Suddenly, a figure materialized from the darkness. It was Allison Reynolds, but not as I remembered her. Her body was composed of writhing shadows, her eyes glowing orbs of white light. Her hair moved of its own accord, tendrils of darkness reaching out like grasping fingers.

“So,” she said, her voice a discordant whisper that seemed to come from everywhere at once. “Another one comes to disturb my solitude. Are you here to judge me too? To stuff me into another one of your neat little boxes?”

I raised my hands, trying to appear non-threatening. “Look, Allison, I’m just trying to get through. I don’t want any trouble.”

She cackled. “Trouble? Oh honey, trouble is all there is here. Let me show you my world.”

With a wave of her hand, the bookshelves began to spin, creating a dizzying vortex around us. Books flew from the shelves, their pages flapping like wings, forming a tornado of paper and ink.

“Shit!” I ducked as a particularly large tome nearly took my head off.

Allison’s laughter echoed through the chaos. “Dance for me, little puppet. Dance in the madness!”

I tried to move toward her, but the spinning shelves and flying books made it nearly impossible. A book slammed into my shoulder, its corner digging deep. I grunted in pain but kept moving.

“You know what your problem is, Allison?” I shouted over the din. “You’re so busy being a unique little snowflake, you forgot how to connect with people!”

Her eyes flashed dangerously. “Connect? Why would I want to connect with a world that never understood me?”

Shadows lashed out from her form, razor-sharp and deadly. I rolled to avoid them, feeling one slice across my calf. Warm blood trickled down my leg.

Gritting my teeth against the pain, I spotted a fire extinguisher on a nearby wall. With a desperate lunge, I grabbed it and turned to face Allison.

“Sorry about this,” I muttered, before unleashing a cloud of white foam directly at her.

The effect was instantaneous. The shadows comprising her form began to solidify, weighed down by the foam. The swirling vortex of books slowed, then stopped altogether.

“No!” Allison shrieked, her voice distorting. “You can’t make me visible! You can’t make me real!”

Of the dozens of books that had been swirling around her, one of them caught my attention. It was a small black book with no title or author name on it, but it had a symbol emblazoned on the front cover. The symbol was in gold, though I couldn’t quite make it out. For whatever reason, I reached out and grabbed the book, shoving it into my inventory. I had no idea why. The book just seemed important, though as soon as it went into my inventory, I immediately forgot about it.

Taking advantage of Allison’s distraction, I sprinted past her toward the exit on the far side of the library. As I reached for the door handle, I felt a tug on my jacket.

“Don’t leave me.” Allison’s voice was small now, almost plaintive. “Everyone always leaves.”

For a moment, I hesitated. But then I heard the sound of tentacles slithering from the direction I’d come. Brian was catching up.

“Sorry, Allison,” I said, yanking my jacket free. “But in this game, it’s every damned soul for themselves.”

I burst through the door, slamming it shut behind me. The sound of Allison’s mournful wail followed me as I ran down the next corridor, my heart pounding and my injuries throbbing.

Two down, three to go. And somewhere ahead, a monstrous principal was waiting. I just hoped I’d have enough left in me when I finally reached him.