After the fight with the Gluepanzee, I was a bit exhausted. Well, more than a bit. I was already exhausted by the time I’d left the SIPC building, the constant adrenaline burning me out. Now I was just fucked and badly needed to rest so I could gather my strength and get my damn head together, if that was even possible in this place. I suspected my mind would never be right ever again.
Despite killing the Gluepanzee, the degenerate bastard had also gave me a beating in the process. Checking my Health Bar, I saw it was depleted halfway. I’d also damaged my hand punching the monkey’s skull, despite the chain wrapped around my knuckles, which were now bloody as hell.
The left sleeve of my denim jacket was also now covered in glue, as well as half my hand. I guess I’d have to wait until it dried before trying to peel it off. Meanwhile, it seemed like half the insects in Limbo had gotten stuck in the glue. My arm now looked like a nightmarish bug zapper’s greatest hits collection. Iridescent wings, twitching legs, and bulbous eyes were frozen in a grotesque mosaic of entomological suffering. It was as if I’d dipped my arm in the world’s most messed-up lava lamp, complete with writhing, six-legged accessories. If there was an award for “Most Disgusting Fashion Statement in Infernum,” I was pretty sure I’d just clinched first place.
But on the upside, it appeared I’d leveled up my skills a bit, which was progress, I guess. My Transformers tee was at level 2 now, and various fighting skills had apparently increased as well. I was too tired to read all the accompanying notifications, so I just skimmed most of them. From the monkey’s body I got a bag of glue (because why not) and two monkey steaks, which I’m sure would taste just delicious—like old boot leather marinated in Evo-Stik.
Before heading off, I brought up the map and located my Safe Circle. It didn’t seem that far away, so I started heading toward it. The place had a bed, and that was all I needed right now. A slug or two of whiskey and some blessed oblivion sounded real good to me.
“What did that monkey ever do to you?”
I spun around at the sound of the voice, bloody right hand raised as I prepared to defend myself. But I lowered my hand when I saw who the voice belonged to. Standing there in tight black jeans and a halter top with a checked sleeveless shirt over it, was an Asian girl with long black hair that framed a face that said, “I can kick your ass and look fabulous doing it.” She was Chinese, I think, but spoke with an English accent. In her right hand was some sort of stick that had black ichor dripping from it, as if she’d just bashed some creature’s brains in with it. The girl was petite, even for a Chinese girl. But she was wiry, and I could tell she could handle herself. When you’ve been in the fight game for as long as I have, you learn to size people up quickly.
An info box appeared above the girl’s head.
Contestant Annalise Law
Level 2
Race: Human
Class: Unassigned
“That monkey was a glue sniffing degenerate,” I said, relaxing a bit when I realized the girl didn’t intend to attack me. “It also tried to kill me.”
“Yeah,” the girl said, glancing at her stick for a second. “Every damn thing tries to kill you around here.”
“I guess that’s the game, huh? I mean, they’re all mobs.”
“No shit. I got the orientation same as you.”
We stood in awkward silence for a moment, sizing each other up. She didn’t seem as dazed and confused as most of the other players. In fact, she seemed right at home in this place, and I wasn’t sure whether to be admiring of that or scared shitless. For the moment, I remained neutral. “What’s that in your hand?”
“A stick,” she said, as if it was obvious. “What’s that in your hand?”
“A chain.”
After staring at each other for a second, we both smiled and then laughed, which helped to break the tension between us.
“I’m Kade, by the way.” I knew she could see my name from the properties box that was probably hovering over my head, but I was trying to put her at ease.
“Annalise. I’m sure you can see that.”
“Which way you headed, Annalise?”
“No idea. Toward my Safe Circle, maybe?” She gestured vaguely in the direction I intended to head. “I think it’s over that way somewhere, according to my map.”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“I think mine is as well. You wanna walk with me? At least we can team up if we get attacked.”
Annalise eyed me for another minute before nodding, obviously deciding she could trust me. Though maybe trust was the wrong word in this case. Tolerate was probably more like it. Or perhaps “temporarily align with for mutual survival while constantly watching for signs of betrayal.” Yeah, that felt more appropriate for the situation we found ourselves in. We were both human, after all, and humans had a tendency to form alliances. It was in our nature.
“Okay,” Annalise said, cautiously walking toward me. “But I should warn you, Kade. If you try anything, I won’t hesitate to bash your skull in with this stick.” She held up the hard looking stick, which still had skull fragments sticking to the gore. “We clear on that?”
“Crystal,” I said. I was starting to like this girl.
Annalise kept her distance from me when we started walking, probably still worried I would try to attack her at some point. Physically, I could be quite intimidating. I was 6’2 and still carried a lot of muscle, despite not having trained much the last few years. The underground fights I did were training enough. I started martial arts when I was seven, so my body had been pretty well hammered into shape from all that training. Even if all I did was sit around for the rest of my life, I would still have that fundamental strength and fitness at my core. Not that there was much chance of me ever sitting around in this place.
Walking with Annalise, I tried to come across relaxed and easy going, as difficult as that was under the circumstances. Annalise walked like a lioness on the prowl, every step purposeful and measured. Her movements were fluid yet controlled, suggesting years of athletic training. Despite her slender frame, there was a coiled strength in her limbs, a latent power that hinted at more than just gym workouts. She moved with a natural grace, and her eyes never stopped scanning our surroundings, alert and wary.
“So,” I said after a few moments. “How’d you end up here then?”
Annalise frowned over at me. “Same as you, I expect. I died.”
“Well, yeah, obviously. But how’d you die?”
“I’d prefer not to talk about it.” Her face hardened as her gaze went to the ground for a second. Touchy subject, I guess.
“Wanna hear how I died?”
“Not really.”
“Funny story actually. I got shot by some asshole when I tried to stop him from raping a woman in a dark alley.”
“No shit? What happened to the woman?”
“She got away.”
“At least you didn’t die for nothing then.”
“Not how I’d put it. I certainly wasn’t expecting to end up in this shitshow.”
“I don’t think any of us were.”
“Did they tell you how long you were in the deep freeze for?”
“The deep freeze?”
“The Pit of Pending Perdition, I think they call it. Where they keep the souls on ice until they need them. Apparently I was in there for over a century. A fucking century. I still can’t believe it.”
Annalise was staring at me like I’d lost my mind. “I have no clue what you’re talking about.”
“Haven’t you? Your orientation officer didn’t mention—”
“No, they didn’t.”
“Damn. I guess old Grik was more talkative than most.” I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. We weren’t aware of being put on hold, anyway. To us, it just seemed like we came straight here. What year did you die?”
“1996.”
“No shit? I died in 2024.”
That made her stop for a second. “Seriously? You’re from the… future?”
“I guess, in a way.”
She shook her head and carried on walking. “Is any of this even real?” It wasn’t really directed at me, more at herself.
“About as real as the fact that this is all in aid of a damn reality TV show. A fucking gameshow.”
“I guess it makes up for that time I got turned down to appear on the Gladiators TV show.”
I snorted. “You auditioned for Gladiators?”
“The British version. I wanted to take on Jet, but never got the chance.”
“Well, you’ll get to take on lots of other… things here.”
“Things. Yeah. Like the drunk pig I bashed over the head with my Imp Stick.”
“Don’t forget the glue sniffing monkey I killed.”
She shook her head. “This is place is a joke. I don’t know how else to describe it.”
“It is what it is,” I said sagely, hardly able to believe the words coming out of my mouth, and neither could Annalise, going by the look on her face.
“I’ll never be that comfortable with being here.”
“Neither will I. I just didn’t know what else to say.”
As we trudged on, the fog cleared enough for us to see farther into the distance, and that’s when the landscape started to change. The endless expanse of ashen wasteland gradually gave way to more varied terrain. Rolling hills sprouted from the ground like pustules on diseased skin, their surfaces a patchwork of sickly vegetation and bare, pockmarked earth.
In the distance, looming against the blood-red sky, a city began to take shape as well. It was a nightmarish amalgamation of architectural styles, as if every mad dictator in history had collaborated on its design. Towering spires of obsidian and bone pierced the clouds, their surfaces writhing with what looked unsettlingly like faces frozen in eternal agony. Squat, brutalist structures squatted at their bases, oozing an otherworldly glow from countless windows.
The city was bordered by a forest of twisted, leafless trees, their branches reaching toward the sky like gnarled fingers clawing for escape. Behind it all, a mountain range rose, its peaks shrouded in roiling storm clouds that pulsed with unnatural lightning.
As we stared at this forbidding metropolis, I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were looking at a hive of scum and villainy that would make Mos Eisley look like a quaint bed and breakfast. The kind of place where nightmares went to retire and even demons checked their locks twice at night.
“What do you think lives there?” Annalise asked.
I shook my head slowly. “Nothing good, that’s for sure. Probably every kind of twisted creature this game can dream up. Power-hungry demons, soul-sucking bureaucrats, and if we’re really unlucky, maybe even lawyers.”
The city pulsed with a malevolent energy that seemed to reach out across the plains, beckoning us closer even as every instinct screamed to run the other way. I had a sinking feeling that our path would inevitably lead us there, into the belly of whatever beast called that urban nightmare home.
“Well,” I sighed, “I guess we know where the party’s at.”
“Let’s hope we don’t get invited.”