“Right… So… You can see some kind of… Dimensional cracks in space…” Frank was slowly recapping the situation while still staring through the portal into the Golden Woods.

I nodded.

“Or rather… You have always seen them… But somehow, only now you found out… what they really were…?” He finally moved his eyes from the portal back to me.

“I didn’t want to get close to them before. They… shock me.” I lifted up my hands ever-so-slightly, letting them see the slight burns.

As I said that, realization appeared in Casey’s eyes. “Is that… why… in the gym hall…?”

I nodded again.

“There’s a portal in there too. And it always shocks me whenever I run by. And sometimes… that just knocks me out.”

Casey’s eyes glanced at my injured fingers. Then back at my face. She didn’t say anything but I could see the gears turning inside her head.

“Oookay then. I think I need to take five. I didn’t expect for this to actually be all fantastical and supernatural.” Frank began pacing around the room, watching the opened portal from all directions. “You sure turned the joke around on me there, buddy.”

“And you’re saying they are all over the city…? Or even all over the world…?” Casey approached the portal like a wild cat approaching an offered can of sardines.

“I… well, probably. You know I never traveled much.” I shrugged.

“This is so weird…” Frank murmured, still circling around the portal. “It’s just see-through from behind, like a one-way mirror… How the hell…?”

“So… where does this one lead?” Casey turned to me.

“Rogue Life Online,” I stated. The two froze again and stared at me. “It leads inside the game world.”

“Holy… shit. So the game world was real all along or something like that?”

“Or something like that… yeah.” I nodded.

The two stared at me in shock.

“Well now… Things are finally starting to make sense,” Frank started. “Never mind, this makes no sense at all! Why the heck do you have a portal into the game world right here in your room?!” He threw a wild gesture toward the portal.

I managed to awkwardly shrug. “Beats me. All I know is that it’s been here ever since I can remember and that it always leads to the same place even if I close and open it again.”

“Right… So you want us to help uncover this mystery, I take it?” Frank tapped his chin.

“Well, uh, that too. We can also just hang out in the game world. I wasn’t lying about the fantastical adventure, you know?”

“Wait,” Casey interrupted us. “How long has the game been out for again?”

A moment of silence, followed by Frank whispering, “Oh shit.”

“Five years…” I finally answered.

“So you’re saying that the game has been out for five years, but this portal has been here since you were a little kid?” She glanced through the portal again. “Then that means the world has always existed, but… The company that made the game found a way to cross over to that world somehow? Using a video game?”

I scratched the back of my head. “That’s one of the things I was trying to figure out. Why they would do that, what their deal was… I still don’t really know. I only discovered this whole thing like… four days ago or something.” I took a breath. “What I do know is that for some reason, the people in that world really behave like NPCs… But then revert to normal people when I interact with them.”

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Both of my friends were frowning at this point.

“Okay… So, theory number one.” She raised her index finger. “It was always a real world and the people making the game actually made some kind of world-invading device rather than a game. And then they somehow enslaved the entire world and forced them to be NPCs?”

“That’s, uh, insane,” Frank said, baffled. “Even more than it already was.”

“Y-yeah… it does sound ludicrous when you put it like that,” I added.

Casey nodded and continued. “ Theory number two.” She raised her index and middle finger. “It was originally just a game, but you going in there is slowly turning it into a real world,” Casey stated.

“Which is impossible because the portal has been here for way longer,” I finished for her.

She shook her head. “Not necessarily. What if the portal simply wasn’t connected to anywhere before that? You never tried opening it before the game launched, did you?”

“Well… No, I didn’t,” I admitted. I’d never thought about it that way. But it would also make sense in a way. Hadn’t Elyssa said something about gaining intelligence after meeting me? Didn’t that imply she’d never had that intelligence to begin with? I had to ask her more about her past…

“Riiight… So either the devs are insane evil godly creatures controlling the entire world… or these portals allow you to give NPCs sentience,” Frank summed it up.

We stood there for a moment, processing it all.

“Okay, what the hell?! You promised us a fantastical adventure, not an existential dread adventure!”

I had no idea what to say to that, so I just awkwardly shrugged again.

“You’ve been inside, right?” Casey asked and I nodded. “More than once?” Another nod. “And the devs still don’t know about you?”

“Well, I don’t know? Probably not? They haven’t done anything yet. And I’ve already visited a city.” And almost put up an announcement to alert them.

“Right. So… If theory number one is correct, it’s safe to assume that whatever they used to turn everyone into NPCs isn’t active anymore.” Casey gestured at me. “You don’t seem much like a pre-programmed robot to me.”

“Uh, thanks?”

“Which doesn’t mean they can’t use it again, so we should be careful if we go inside.”

“Right…” I nodded and recalled my first venture into the game world. “We can stick to mostly out-of-bounds areas. Less chance for players to see and report us.”

“Yeah, that seems smart,” Frank said.

“Still… Theory number one doesn’t explain what the portals are and why they exist,” Casey said and then looked at me. “And why only you can see them when they are closed.”

I shifted uncomfortably under my friends’ gazes.

“Neither does theory number two, actually…”

She was right, of course. Even if we found out the truth about the game, the other world, and the devs, that still left the question of the portals unanswered.

A knock on the door lifted the tension in the room. I hadn’t even noticed the vacuum cleaner sound had stopped at some point.

“Uh, enter,” I said, before realizing the portal was still open.

I whirled around, grabbed the edges, and slammed it shut right before the door opened. I turned back to the door and hid my scorched hands behind my back.

Mom peeked out from behind the door and glanced over us. “Hey kids… Something wrong?” She frowned.

“Oh, uh, it’s nothing. We were just, uh, discussing strategies. About the game, you know?”

“Alright… Well, I’m gonna go to the supermarket. We’re out of milk, and I need to buy some fresh veggies. I’ll make some lunch once I return. Be good in the meantime, alright?”

“Yeah, alright. Sounds good.”

“Thanks, Missus Chrona!” Frank said, somehow managing to transform back into his carefree self.

“Bye then! I’ll be right back, Renee,” Mom said and closed the door.

A moment of silence followed.

“Sooo… I take it you haven’t told your mom about the portal thing.”

“Yeah, I… I didn’t want to worry her more than she has to.”

“Well… fair, I guess,” Frank said before turning to the closed portal. “It’s surreal how you just… clamped that space shut. It’s like it was never there now.”

“It still is there, right? You can see it?” Casey asked.

“Yeah, and I can open it again.” I nodded.

Once again, she looked at my hands, this time with a frown. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. If you keep opening and closing the portals, you’re going to be crippled for life.” She then looked up into my eyes. “Or rather, why don’t you use rubber gloves or really anything other than bare hands?”

…

Huh. Somehow, that had never occurred to me. Was I stupid?

I recovered after a moment and said, “Oh, uh. I don’t think I need to worry about that for now.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, still frowning.

“Oooooh! I get it!” Frank shouted before I could answer. “Healing magic! Right?” He pointed fingerguns at me.

“Well, healing potions.” I nodded. “Those can help me recover. But I also have another way to make it so the portals don’t shock me in the first place.”

“Oh?”

I nodded to myself, closed my eyes, and… transformed. As always, it felt odd yet comforting. As if impurities were being cleansed from inside me.

Once I opened my eyes, I had a strange sense of deja vu, looking at my friends’ wide eyes and gaping mouths.

It took a good while before they recovered.

“Oooh… I get it…” Frank said. Slowly and robotically. “So that’s what the experiment is about.”