SAVE POINT 55

Loading Inside The Game Code...44% [Pro-Tip: Turn Phone Sideways To View Map]

[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1102021402707628096/1113272656104525976/497e2e6f-e8b5-4374-be7b-c45361499853.png][https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1102021402707628096/1113272655785775174/bb621746-9061-43ba-8bfc-7a9646c9bf23.png]

Rosabella

I crawl into the dark hole ledge Dormouse has opened with the sinking realization that I may never come out. The ledge floor is hard and presses against my knees and calves. Almost immediately I'm forced to duck. The place is claustrophobic—a square tunnel not much larger than a ventilation shaft with black walls. I hear a crumbling sound behind me and whip around to see—

My exit.

Disappearing.

Earth and Prickgada's loft crumpling out of sight and into darkness behind me. I'm in The Game code now. I have to find Goran, or we all die—he'd seriously kill me, all my friends and the world my parents loved just out of spite? ...So much for protecting me.

More of the same, cramped, coal-colored tunnel stretches behind me too.

Which way to go? How am I supposed to find Goran and, when I do, how am I supposed to be able to take him down when I can barely sit upright in this space?

I reach back, my fingers curling around the dagger at my belt. I'm gonna have to make this up as I go along. I can't let Goran destroy The Game world. I can't let him take literally everything from my parents. This is for them.

And my friends.

And me.

I can do this.

Gritting my teeth, I use my elbows and knees to crawl forward. The sides of the crawlspace are smooth for my stomach to slide on but hard and polished—pressing against my skin like solid granite. It's hard to find any handles here. I have to rely on my bodyweight alone; there's nothing to grab onto! I heave myself forward, peering into the darkness up ahead. ...Where do I go?

***Tunnel Map Unlocked From the Outside***

Thank you, Dormouse!

***Will You Take The Map?***

[YES] / [NO]

The buttons hover, neon and floating in the air.

Freaking yes! Yes, I will take the map! I jump at the chance, pressing the 'yes' button and swiping sideways to bring it up. A digital map pops into view, and my jaw drops as I scan the myriad of twists and turns.

[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1102021402707628096/1115634270917103676/mipui.png]

This place is a maze! How the heck am I going to find Goran here, much less navigate—

That's when I notice two markings on the map. A red circle and a green diamond. What do those mean? I squint at the location. Actually, it kind of looks like the green one is...

I look both ways down the black hallway stretching in both directions.

The green diamond looks to be placed exactly where I am. ...So, does that mean that the other marking—the red circle—is...could be...

...Goran?

One way to find out.

My heartbeat quickens, ramming in my ears and chest as my eyes trace a pattern on the map to the red dot marker. With renewed determination, and biting my lip against the discomfort of each movement in here, I crawl forward, sliding under the electric wires which tangle overhead and—goddamn!

Ick.

I go face-first into a million tiny fibers. I swat them away with my hand still clutching the dagger, but not before the skin of my cheeks begins to tingle and smart. I blink down at my hand and blade, seeing shining lines there as my fingertips and the back of my hand start to burn—ach!

My heath bar appears, lowering slightly from the contact as I struggle to get the sticky fibers off my hands—an enormous cobweb?

The interwebs Dormouse has warned me about. What else had he said? Bugs. Something about killer bugs in the software. My fingers tighten around the leather-wrapped handle of the dagger as I wiggle forward, ducking under more webs. The things are everywhere, coating the ceiling like sweeping white, woven canopies. ...Worse than a bad haunted house, but no one's decorating for Halloween. What kind of giant bugs would leave webs like these? I'm not sure I want to find out.

If I can get to Goran and get out of here—

That's when I hear it.

A scampering.

A million, stiletto legs tittering against the hard rock of the narrow hall, and it's coming—

It's something huge coming for me.

A furry leg rounds a corner ahead—

I freeze.

I don't have time to scream; I don't have the room to run. The world turns in slow motion as a mammoth spider with enormous, black-gray-and-brown bristled legs blinks at least twenty, bulbus, yellow eyes at me.

Not in a curious manner, like two different species examining each other for the first time, no.

The eyes narrow like—like it's starving and has finally found food.

It rushes towards me—it's million legs scrabbling—it's hideous, hairy body nearly blocking all of the tunnel forward.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Fear laces through my veins like a familiar poison but there's nowhere to go.

Slick, straight walls.

I try to scramble backwards, but I'm too slow—

Or the spider is too fast.

It charges.

This time, I do scream.

As bristling fur meets my arms. As sharp teeth dig into the skin of my stomach.

Pain rips through me.

"Shit!" I yell, attempting to kick the pulsing body off me.

Any terror that'd overwhelmed me just minutes before has transformed into pure rage. Pure anger. Vibrating through my body in a jolting hum that makes me quick. I bring the dagger up swiftly and not at all mercifully as I slash.

As I hack at the beast's legs—body—

Anything I can cut.

Anything I can hurt.

That isn't me.

That will save me.

This is survival. Raw. Rugged. Nothing I'd ever wanted but something I most certainly had to have. To know I was strong enough. To know I could hold my own when push came to shove.

And it comes to that.

I shove the beast backwards, twisting myself so I'm away from it and it's forced against the hard wall.

It screams, trying to reach for me with its wildly waving, bloodied limbs—clacking it fangs like it'd love to take another hunk out of me as its yellow eyes swivel in a million directions.

No.

I won't give it the chance. The Game world and my friends and I are on the line. Anything in the way of me finding Goran is going down.

And I bring my knife down.

Hard.

I sink it into the spider's flesh—watch the thing wriggle and protest as blood squirts onto my arms and into my eyes. ...And I wonder if it's bad that I don't feel anything this time. I don't feel bad for this life taken as the thing slowly stops wriggling.

And shutters into death like a place it didn't want to go.

It was him or me, and, as I draw in a hissing breath and bring a hand to the searing bite in my side, I realize just how close it was to being me. My palms are slick with blood and the wound pulses like a stabbing knife.

Damn, it got me good. Dormouse had been right about the killer part. If there's more of these things, I better find Goran fast.

I bring up the map again, trying to memorize the pattern in my mind.

"Second left, left, right," I whisper to myself like a kid trying to remember the answers to a test. But these answers are important. These answers mean the difference between life and death.

Goran better be at the end of this treasure hunt.

I press a hand against my side to support my wound and drag myself forward with the other, biting through the stabbing pain, even as I feel the stamina draining out of me.

More dark tunnel passes as my limbs and lungs complain.

Here's the second left. Just a little further.

Around another corner...

I lug myself on, breathing heavy and bringing up the map again with a swiping finger to ensure I'm going the right way. I'm—Wait, I don't understand. It looks like—like I'm standing right on him. My green diamond hovers right over the red circle icon.

I squint into blackness, my eyes sweeping—

"Mmmhhh!"

My muffled cry.

As a hand comes from behind my head and clamps over my mouth. Fear drenches me in utter panic. And I've never been surer that it's Goran, even though I kick and squirm, trying both to see his face behind me and escape his iron fingers—

I found him.

But he found me first.

Shit! He's going to kill us all! He's going to—

"Quiet!" Goran's voice hisses in my ear.

Definitely Goran.

"Are you trying to die?!" he snarls, still in a whisper.

I fight him (and his hand on my mouth) harder; my hot breath makes his palm stick to my cheeks even more. "You're so insistent on trying to kill us—" I growl back—although my squeaking stutter barely sounds threatening.

"Be quiet, will you?!" Goran insists.

His grip grows tighter—hurting now. I cry out.

Why is he being so mean? Tears smart at my eyes, threatening to spill over and race down my nose to land on his huge fingers there. He killed my parents. He's been trying to force me to live with him in NYC. What is his problem?! Then, I hear it.

A hundred, scuttling legs.

One of those damn spiders. Very close.

I freeze, my body going limp and ridged in Goran's hands at the same time.

My blood runs cold.

With fear.

Should I use it as a distraction to get away from Goran? Should I try to make the creature come this way?

Self-preservation, it seems, wins out because I suddenly can't make a peep. I can only watch, holding my breath in utter terror, until the beast's hairy body scurries out of sight around a corner.

And, then, I can breathe again.

And, then, Goran releases his hand. His fingers immediately snap to my forehead and my bloodied side as though he's a doctor examining me, "Rosie, are you okay?"

I recoil from him, my brow scrunching up. "What is wrong with you?" I spit in disgust, "You're trying to destroy The Game? Kill us all?!"

"Oh no, no," he waves his hands in the air.

And, for a second, I think this whole thing—everything I've thought up until this point—could just be some sort of a big misunderstanding. For a second, I slip back into that longing to trust him...trust Goran. His face is so open...so—

"I never want to kill you, Rosie," he says, "I'll prove it to you." He places a thumb on my forehead before I can open my mouth to protest, and a warm, blue glow pulsates in front of my face.

***Immortality Cheat Code Utilized***

Neon letter bounce between us.

Oh my gosh, he just—

Goran just—

I can exist now outside of The Game even if he destroys it? My head feels light with shock and surprise.

"Rosie, I know this is hard for you to understand," Goran speaks into my face like I'm a child he needs to squat down to address, "But The Game has been nothing but trouble for you—for us. We're better off without it."

And it's all clear again.

Clearer than a glass windshield on a sunny day.

Because he holds up his right hand and, tight in his fingers, is a kill switch—the kill switch Dormouse had warned about. The toggle switch that can destroy The Game and all of my friends with one flick of Goran's tiny finger. Panic surges through me as he moves his other hand towards it.

"Wait!" I sputter, "Please wait!"

"Don't make this any harder than it already is, Rosie," Goran warns, speaking like the good parent he definitely isn't, "It's over. Just me and you, in New York City—"

"I'll go!" I choke on the words—on my frantic tongue. My eyes are wide, as are Goran's which meet mine. "I'll go with you, I swear! I'll do whatever you want. Just don't destroy The Game. Don't—kill my friends. Please."