“Yes!” Dina hissed. “What are you waiting for? Open the door already!”

Despite her obvious excitement and impatience, there was an undercurrent of anxiety to her words, and I understood it too well. The vault door was unlocked, but I’d yet to open it. I didn’t feel prepared, but there wasn’t much I could do to help with that. I just had to… do it.

Slowly, trying not to make any more noise in case a creature was waiting behind the door, I pulled my rifle from my back before pausing again. I strained my ears, trying to pick up any noise coming from inside the room, but I heard nothing. That didn’t make me feel any better, though. It felt wrong.

Either there was nothing inside the room, which felt wrong given how difficult it was to open the door, or there was a monster. And if there was a monster in there, it hadn’t attacked yet. It was biding its time and waiting either until we opened the door to attack or until we were in the room and vulnerable. Both potentials terrified me. A creature that smart and cunning was not a level one monster.

But we weren’t on level one. Not really. We were somehow on level zero, a level that shouldn’t exist and never had before, and that meant we had no idea what to expect. How could we know what monsters would be waiting for us if we’d never been that low before?

There could be anything. Maybe none of the regular rules would apply, and there’d be something horrifying. The roar earlier and the laughter or whatever it was sounded bad. We’d obviously heard monsters make noises before; there were loads that roared, but none like that.

Goosebumps erupted on my skin, and I glanced behind me, checking the darkness. It felt like something was there. Something was watching us. Dina would have noticed it, though. If there was something out there, she would have seen it. She was still facing the rest of the lab with her back to me, but her head was moving back and forth as she looked between the darkness and the door, trying to watch both at the same time. She must have been getting dizzy, but she didn’t slow down.

I took a deep breath, trying to calm my nerves before clipping my torch to my rifle and raising them both. One of my hands reached towards the wheel again as the other tried to juggle holding the gun and being ready to shoot. It wasn’t working, though. The gun was too big, too difficult to manage. If I opened the door whilst holding it, I’d be unable to shoot anything that came at us. I knew Dina would be able to do it, but if it was big, it was too much of a risk.

“Switch places with me,” I breathed, gesturing to the door.

Dina glanced at me, confusion on her face. Her eyes darted between the door and me, trying to work out why I’d asked her to move before they landed on my gun, and I knew she understood. It was the same reason she usually opened the hatches in the storerooms. She preferred a smaller gun.

She nodded before shuffling towards me. We moved in a cautious dance, trying to make sure both sides were being watched at all times until we’d successfully switched positions. Suddenly, I understood why Dina had been looking around so much. I faced the darkness, watching it carefully, but most of my attention was on whatever was happening behind me.

I knew Dina wouldn’t open the door without warning me, but I needed to check. Whatever was in the room behind us was too exciting; it held too much promise, and that made it hard for me to keep my eyes away from it.

“Ready?” Dina whispered.

It didn’t feel safe to reply. The developers might have programmed the monster in the vault to attack as soon as we did. Instead, I just tightened my grip on the gun, checked for monsters approaching, and nodded. My heart leapt in my throat as I waited, looking back at Dina just as she reached towards the wheel. She paused for just a second, lifting her handgun and shuffling her feet slightly before yanking the door open.

A preemptive wince flitted across my face in anticipation of the noise it would make, but the door swung open silently, causing concern to rise within me. It felt wrong. I should have been happy that it didn’t squeal or make a lot of noise, but it just worried me. The door was too old, and the wheel had been so loud. I expected the hidden hinges to be rusted or for a bellow to come from inside the room, but there was nothing.

Maybe it was just a bug. That could be it. Ice Escape was glitchy sometimes. Perhaps when we greased the lock, the game assumed we also greased the hinges somehow? I wasn’t sure, but I tried to tell myself that must have been true, hoping that it would make me feel better. It didn’t, though.

And Dina’s silence didn’t help. She was peering through the crack in the door, her gun moving from side to side as she searched the room, but she was taking too long. Normally, if she went first when we were searching a new place, she’d update me quicker. Even if it was just to say that she wasn’t sure what she was looking at, she always said something.

Time seemed to slow as I continued to wait for Dina to say something, trying to keep my eyes on the darkness. It would be the perfect time for something to leap out of one of the holes in the ground and attack us, and I knew that, but it was still difficult. I wanted to look away or to ask Dina what was going on, but I forced myself to wait. If there was a creature in there, speaking could cause it to lung.

Anxiety just grew in me, though. I could feel myself spiralling, but there was nothing I could do to stop it. Why hadn’t Dina said anything? There had to be a reason. It was a monster; it had to be. Maybe it was so big and scary that she was frozen to the spot, unable to move. Or perhaps it had already attacked her. Maybe it was so quick and powerful that it had pounced silently, and she was pinned to the door, fighting weakly as her life slowly drained out of her. I couldn’t see her face or her upper body. She was leaning into the room. She could have been coated in blood.

“So?” I asked as fear got the better of me. “What’s in there?”

“Nothing,” Dina said, sounding confused as she pushed the door open a little further, causing a soft squeal to come from the hinges. “I mean… not nothing. I think it’s an office?”

“Is that it?”

It made sense for there to be an office in the lab, but I was still disappointed. There was a lock on the door, and the door itself was so big. Why would an office need that? It seemed excessive. I’d been expecting it to be a lab with creatures locked away in cages or antiquated scientific machinery scattered around, full of things we could steal or chances to gain experience points, but an office wouldn’t have either.

Slowly, excitement started to creep into me, replacing my frustration. Actually, maybe an office was better. There could be loot and chests in there, something that could help us win the game. We didn’t have any keys or enough money to unlock a chest, but perhaps we wouldn’t need them. We’d already opened the door, after all. That could be enough. The chests might not even be sealed.

“Yeah. It… kind of looks like your mom’s office, actually?” Dina said. “Apart from… you know… the corpses?”

I felt my mind stutter to a halt.

“Corpses? What kind of corpses?”

There was a pause before Dina said, “Humans.”

A shaky breath slipped out of my mouth. We’d never found humans in the game before. Alive or otherwise. It was always just monsters. There were traces of humans, obviously. They were meant to be the ones who’d left all the weapons and collectables, but that was it. We never saw them. They were meant to be long since extinct.

“How many?” I asked.

“Two,” came Dina’s reply. “And they’re… pretty dead.”

Confusion washed over me.

“Is there more than one level of dead?” I asked. “I thought it was kind of a one or the other situation. Either alive or dead.”

A soft laugh escaped Dina, the noise somewhere between awkward and hysterical.

“I guess. They’re,” she paused, searching for the right word, “skeleton-y. Not quite fully skeletons, but… close enough. Actually, why am I trying to describe it to you? Let’s just go in, and then you can see what I mean.”

I paused. As much as I did desperately want to go into the office, the wrongness of the situation felt almost overwhelming. We shouldn’t have been exploring a biological warfare research lab, probably filled with unknown horrors; there shouldn’t have been humans there, and we should have been more prepared to face whatever creatures or monsters waited for us.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

It felt like nothing was quite right, and I didn’t know how to fix it or what to do, but it made me want to run. If we did, I knew we could probably get back up to the storeroom, and then we could just play the game like normal. We were meant to be focusing on killing monsters so we could beat the game, and we didn’t have long until school finished and the arcade was flooded with people, meaning that we’d need to wait our turn to play again if we died. We were just wasting time by exploring the lab.

But I couldn’t bring myself to go. Even though I knew fleeing would be the best thing to do, my mouth refused to form the words to tell Dina. The curiosity would be too much for me. If we left the lab before figuring out all of its secrets, I would spend the rest of my life trying to find it again. I don’t know why it mattered so much to me. It just did.

“Let’s do it,” I said instead. “Are you sure there’s nothing alive in there?”

There was a slight pause as Dina checked again, and I held my breath, trying to see if I could hear anything coming from inside.

“Nope, just two corpses, and I am… mostly sure they’re dead,” she replied, her tone a little too cheery. “I would say completely sure, but… I’ve played this game too much.”

A smile came to my lips, but it fell too quickly. I knew what Dina meant. We’d definitely sunk too many hours into it to feel confident that the devs wouldn’t bring zombies into it like that other horrible game on the far side of the arcade. We always avoided it. It was too scary. Not that Ice Escape was much better. It already had horrifying mutant creatures, after all. Zombies felt like a reasonable next step.

“Okay,” I said, adjusting my grip on the gun and stepping slowly to the side whilst still watching the lab behind us. “Let’s go.”

Dina glanced at me, checking to make sure I was in the right position to be able to step into the room without turning fully once she opened the door before cocking her head to the side. She touched my arm gently, pulling me slightly further over and nodded.

“Ready,” she muttered. “Three, two, one…”

The door squealed as she pulled it open, and we darted in. Hideous laughter erupted from somewhere outside the door, much closer than it was before, and I scanned the room quickly.

“Shut the door!” I ordered, lifting my gun and peering through the scope, preparing to fire.

Dina grabbed the handle on the inside of the door, throwing all of her weight behind it as she strained to pull the door. It was barely moving, though. It was stuck on something invisible, and Dina fought, her feet slipping against the plush carpet as she tried to get it closed.

“I can’t do it!” Dina cried as footsteps sounded in the distance.

They were getting closer and moving too quickly. And there was more than one creature. There were too many footsteps, too many feet for it to be a single monster. It was a whole pack.

“Keep trying!” I ordered, too scared to take my hands off the gun for even a millisecond in case they appeared.

“I am! It’s not moving!”

My breathing came in quick bursts as I glanced away from the darkness to look at the door. If it didn’t close, we’d be backed into a corner and forced to fight in a small room. That could be a good thing; it would be harder for something to sneak up on us, and there seemed to be only one way in or out of the room, so we could focus our attacks there, but there would be less space to fight. We’d be trapped in there with the creatures.

The thought chilled me so much that I slammed my gun against my back, not even waiting to make sure it connected to my suit before letting go and reaching for the metal bar that stretched the width of the door. A desperate sob clawed at my throat as the footsteps got louder, accompanied by loud, rasping pants, but still, the door didn’t move.

A shrieking cackle came from just outside, and I tugged again, knowing that we were seconds from death. A sharp snapping noise sounded as something broke, and the door suddenly slammed shut with such force that Dina fell, losing her grip.

“Lock it!” she screamed from the dusty carpet, and I looked around frantically.

“How?”

“There! On the right! There’s a bolt!”

My eyes searched for it as I clutched the metal bar, refusing to let go. Near the edge of the door was the thing she was talking about. It seemed to slot into the door frame, but it was too far for me to reach without letting go for too long, and I was too scared. The monsters wouldn’t be able to open it again. They were creatures. They probably wouldn’t even think to do that, but I didn’t want to find out.

Keeping my grip on the door, I edged towards the bolt. My palms were slick with sweat, and my pulse pounded in my throat as I quickly lifted one hand, reaching towards the dull metal rod. Time seemed to move in slow motion. I was forced to watch as my hand crept closer to its target, but it was too late. A slamming noise came from the door as the creatures finally reached us, followed by an eerie silence.

My fingers were just centimetres away when I felt it. The door shifted ever so slightly before the bar I was clutching started to slip out of my hand. I squeezed my eyes shut, praying to anyone who would listen that I’d reach the bolt before it was too late.

The heavy clunking noise seemed to echo around the small room, but I barely heard it over my panting. The lock was still clutched in my hand, but the door seemed to take on a life of its own. A whirring sounded, and I could do nothing but watch as metal spokes stretched out from the centre of the door and slammed into holes around the door frame.

“There’s electricity?” I managed to get out between gasps, trying to ignore the faint lingering aroma of death and decay.

“I guess so. Maybe we triggered something when we opened the door that restarted it,” Dina muttered as she climbed to her feet and wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand, trying to hide traces of her tears. “Doubt they’ll get in through that. What were those things?”

I glanced at her quickly before looking away again, trying not to show how much her reaction alarmed me. She didn’t normally cry. I’d seen her do it before, obviously, but never in the game. She must have been terrified.

“I’m not sure, but I think you’re right. They won’t be able to break in. This thing is locked,” I said, keeping my tone reassuring.

Dina’s eyes traced the back of the door, and she didn’t speak for a moment before nodding.

“I guess we’ll just… deal with them when it’s time to leave. Maybe they’ll get bored before then,” she said with a laugh that was too high-pitched.

“Yeah, maybe,” I agreed. “We should, um, probably… search in here.”

I felt awkward saying it. Dina was clearly scared and didn’t want to look away from the door, and I didn’t either. My back was to the room, which I knew was stupid, but for some reason, the creatures outside felt like a bigger threat than whatever was in the room. They’d pushed all other thoughts from my mind, and I barely even considered the fact that there could be another monster waiting behind us until that moment.

Slowly, I turned around, reaching for my gun again. Light appeared at the top of my vision, and my eyes darted upwards, staring at the achievement that spun lazily. The badge was so bright and shiny. It looked at odds with the rusted and ancient objects scattered around the room.

“Did you… just get a new achievement?” Dina asked.

I swallowed, my gaze flicking between the banner at the top of my vision and the room, barely taking it in as I checked for movement.

“Yeah.”

“‘Amelia’s final goodbye’…” Dina read out. “I don’t think I’ve seen this badge on anyone’s profile before. What do you think it means?”

Hesitating, I scanned the room again before focusing on the badge.

“I don’t know,” I said as my eyebrows pulled together. “There’s no further information on it. No mention of how to unlock it.”

“Huh… that’s weird.”

My eyes landed on the back of the room. A desk had been placed directly opposite the door, and one of the bodies was still seated in the high-backed chair behind it. Their skin was leathery, darkened by age, and a few hairs still clung to the hollowed skull. I forced myself to look away, but my gaze just found the other body. It had probably been sitting in the much smaller chair opposite the desk, but at some point, it had fallen or been knocked out. The body was face down, strewn across the floor, and even from where I was standing, I could see that its skull was shattered.

“Which one of those do you think Amelia is?” I asked, glancing between them.

Behind me, I heard Dina let out a shaky breath. Her eyes were fixed on the bodies, her expression scared. When she noticed me looking at her, she quickly forced a smile onto her face, but it wasn’t particularly convincing.

“I don’t know.”

Her eyes landed on the body behind the desk again, and I saw her swallow. She was scared of the bodies, I realised slowly. It made sense. That was why she was crying and didn’t want to turn around. She didn’t want to be near them or look at them. The creatures outside were horrifying, obviously, but the bodies… they were different. Death wasn’t confined to just video games, like the monsters. Maybe that was the difference.

Somehow, seeing Dina’s fear made mine lessen. I still felt it, but it was easier to ignore. I had to. She was scared, and that meant that I needed to step up and be a role model, just like I’d always been taught to do. If I seemed confident and relaxed, she would feel better too. It would remind her that none of what we were experiencing was real.

Plus, I’d seen a corpse in real life before, and I think that helped. Well, not real life, but in that world. When I had my placement in the hospital, I’d been forced to spend some time in the morgue. It had been difficult and intense at first, but I got used to it. The corpses in the room with us were no scarier than the corpses in the morgue. Of course, there was a chance they’d come to life and attack us, but that felt unlikely.

“Okay,” I said, my tone firm and even as I looked around the room at the shining collectables. “We need to search the room. It seems like there’s a lot in here, so we should take a side each. What do you think?”

Dina glanced at me, her posture straightening slightly.

“Yeah, that sounds good,” she said, her tone not entirely convincing.

It was stronger than before, though, and that was good enough.

“Great. Do you want to take the side you’re on, and I’ll take this side? Then, we can meet at the desk.”

Indecision warred on Dina’s face, but I knew she’d struggle with that decision. As much as she didn’t want to go near the corpses by herself, which she’d have to do, I knew she’d never suggest searching one side at a time. She was too impatient, and she’d get bored long before we got near them.

“Okay,” she sighed, her tone resigned. “But I’m not touching either of them.”

“Fine.”