Jeremiah stared disbelievingly at the water where he knew the boat had been.
What am I going to do now?
Maybe I can swim.
That thought brought him back to the question of whether a gorilla-lion could swim.
A gorilla-lion?!
What the hell is going on here?!
A growl from the shoreline shook Jeremiah from his internal ramblings. He turned to see the gigantic monster standing at the other end of the dock, still on all fours. It appeared hesitant to step onto the dock.
Maybe it can’t swim! Jeremiah thought excitedly, though he wasn’t sure how much good that would do him. There was no way he could swim all the way across the lake.
Maybe it will forget about me and go away.
The creature roared and took a step onto the dock. The wood creaked loudly but didn’t break.
That was all the encouragement Jeremiah needed. He turned and dove into the water. He surfaced ten feet away and smashed his arms into the water as fast as he could and kicked as if his life depended on it—which it probably did.
He could hear the gorilla-lion roar as he swam but never heard a splash to indicate the monster had followed him into the water. He dared not look back, though, and swam at least a hundred yards before he slowed and looked back toward the dock.
Jeremiah stopped his frantic swim and began to tread water as he watched the beast pace at the end of the dock. Even at that distance, he could sense the monster’s anger.
The beast stood and roared, beating its chest furiously. It glared across the lake at Jeremiah and smashed its fists into the dock.
A telltale crack echoed across the mountain lake just before the end of the dock collapsed, dumping the gorilla-lion into the water.
The beast flailed its arms, trying to scramble back toward the shore. Jeremiah’s heart beat wildly, fearing the monster would somehow learn to swim, and then he’d be in for a lot of trouble.
He needn’t have worried. The monster thrashed around uselessly as it sank, leaving a puff of steam as the water snuffed out its fiery mane.
Jeremiah treaded water in complete disbelief, worried the monster would resurface nearby, but as the minutes passed, the monster never reappeared.
Another thought entered his mind.
What other monsters are out here?
Jeremiah was struck with fear, concerned with what might be lurking in the deep water below him, and began frantically swimming back toward shore. He angled himself away from where the gorilla-lion had sunk into the depths, just in case.
He was halfway there when a ding! reverberated through his head, the sound startling him enough that he took in a mouthful of water. As he sputtered and spit the water out, he noticed a blinking red light in his peripheral vision. Fear drove him on toward the shore before he could give the blinking red light any thought, though.
By the time Jeremiah reached the shore, he was starting to shake violently. Not only was the mountain lake very cold, the shock of what he had just experienced was threatening to overtake him. He collapsed on the shore and sat there with his arms wrapped around his knees. He looked around as he shivered uncontrollably, trying to figure out exactly what was happening.
He thought back to his flight from the militiamen and the bizarre voice that rattled his brains right before he blacked out. That was the point where everything seemed to go crazy. He wondered briefly if the weed he’d pilfered had been laced with LSD or some other hallucinogen, but as far as he could remember, he hadn’t actually smoked any of it before he had been discovered.
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If it wasn’t drugs, what was it. A brain tumor? He had blacked out suddenly. That wouldn’t have affected the other men though . . .
Unless he was still asleep, in a dream-filled coma or something.
Or maybe someone had slipped something into his drink at the bar earlier, and none of this was actually happening. He knew there were some pretty powerful drugs out there that made people see and think all kinds of crazy things.
That thought, for some reason, comforted Jeremiah. I’ll bet the militiamen were never even here.
He pushed himself to his feet and started to walk back toward the ravine, the shaking having mostly subsided. As he neared the place where he had seen the large beast attack the first man, he started looking around for any sign that a large mountain man had been there at all. It was hard to see much detail in the moonlight, but Jeremiah was sure that if someone had actually been there, he would find some sign.
After several minutes of searching, Jeremiah was about to chalk the whole night up to some bad drugs when he saw the gray head of a sledgehammer in the grass. He walked over and tentatively reached down and picked up the sledgehammer.
This doesn’t prove anything!
Then he saw a bloody, severed arm.
“Ahhh!” Jeremiah screamed, scrambling backward away from the grotesque limb, and he tripped over something in the grass. His butt thumped onto the ground, and he looked down to see what had tripped him.
“Ahhh!” He screamed again, even louder this time, as he saw a pair of bloody jeans and black boots, the mountain man’s lower body still inside of them.
Jeremiah scrambled away in a backward crab crawl until he was at least a dozen feet away. He collapsed onto his back, breathing hard, his body shaking violently all over again. As he lay there looking at the star-filled sky, trying to control his breathing, he noticed the blinking red light in his peripheral vision again.
What the hell is that?! Jeremiah wondered.
He was answered with another ding! and a message popped up in his vision as if he were wearing a VR headset or something.
>
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> You have defeated Level 26 Lionape. Experience points awarded.
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Jeremiah bolted upright, swiping at the holographic image in front of his face. It disappeared but was quickly replaced by another.
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> Ding!
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> Congratulations! You have advanced to Level 1.
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What the—?!
Jeremiah swiped at the air in front of his face again, only to get another message.
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> Ding!
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> Congratulations! You have advanced from Level 1 to Level 2.
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Jeremiah continued to swipe, and more messages continued to pop up until one announced that he had advanced to Level 10. After that, a different message appeared.
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> Da da ta da!
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> Congratulations! You are one of the first one hundred to reach Level 10 and have earned the status of Elite. Additional titles and rewards have been awarded. See status menu for more details.
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> Ding Ding Ding!
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> You have been awarded the title of Premier Elite as the first person to earn Elite status in this newly integrated world.
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“What the ever-loving—”
Jeremiah was interrupted by a blinding flash of light and a puff of smoke. When his vision returned, he was staring up at one of the strangest things he had ever seen—and he had just been attacked by a gorilla-lion with a flaming mane.
The creature in front of him was roughly four feet tall and had deep blue skin. He wore a black sleeveless robe that was cinched around the waist by a silver belt and had wavy black hair that brushed his shoulders. A conical party hat sat atop his head, cocked off to one side. There were several strands of Mardi Gras-looking beads around his neck and a half-full martini glass tilted perilously in one hand.
The blue man looked around in bewilderment. “What the . . . Where am I?”
He spun around in a circle and nearly fell over, spilling his drink in the process.
“Aw, dammit!” the man muttered as he stamped on the ground in frustration.
“I have clearly gone insane,” Jeremiah muttered.
The blue man whipped around as if noticing the man sitting in the grass for the first time.
“Oh, shit!”
Jeremiah could see some sort of recognition dawn on the strange man, who reached into a pocket and pulled out a small vial. He watched as the blue stranger popped the stopper free with his thumb and downed the contents.
The blue man shook his head for a second as if clearing away whatever cobwebs had previously filled it. Then he threw the empty martini glass to the side. When he returned his gaze to Jeremiah, his eyes were clear, and he was all business.
“Wow, that was fast,” the man said with a nod. “You aren’t even supposed to be done with orientation yet.”
Jeremiah looked back, bewildered.
“What the hell is going on?!”