A clunk next to Rosalyn told her that she’d dropped her stick. Part of her wanted to scramble for it, but another part knew it would be futile. No amount of confidence or adrenaline could defend against these things.

They were everywhere. And she’d been wrong. They could get through the trees. There were so many of them, so close together, that she couldn’t really tell what shape they were or whose tentacles belonged to whom but what was clear was that she was fucked.

She knew it was okay, that this had been the plan, right? That she’d go out in a blaze of glory, and wake up safe in her bed, or her desk, or wherever the hell she’d fallen asleep.

That didn’t negate the fear from being right smack in front of these things. She could barely breathe from the stench, and the air tasted viscous, thick. Something brushed the back of her leg and she whirled, kicking out, in probably the worst roundhouse she could have possibly managed. She lashed out, punching something squishy, and then screamed when she couldn’t wrench her arm back.

The things tittered, a wet, clicking sound that echoed from all directions. She couldn’t see faces or mouths, just shiny black flesh, slick gyrating leather, slapping her body until she couldn’t move anymore, they were so tight and squeezing and ohmygodicantseemybody...

She looked up at the night sky, struggling to breathe through the stench, pretending she was anywhere else, anywhere in the world. “Itsokayitsokayitsokay,” she whispered, choking off a strangled sob as the monsters squeezed her tighter, the tittering and clicking rising in volume as if they were excited. “If I die, I wake up.” The words were like a prayer, and tears streamed down her face, betraying her utter fear. This was all too real, so fucking real, the terror was justified with just how visceral, her bones creaked with the pressure around her, pain sparking through her body and seizing her lungs. “If I die, I wake up,” she gasped, before a titter sounded far too close to her ear for comfort.

Instinctively she jerked away, but couldn’t actually move, and her neck tweaked with the motion. Before she could process that, the gooey limbs curled around her slender throat and then white-hot pain exploded in the base of her skull, like a thousand daggers plunging into the bone at the same time. She barely had time to imagine a massive maw filled with razor sharp teeth consuming the ragged remnants of her brains before there was just...nothingness.

Rosalyn gasped, her mind reeling, arms flailing. She whipped around in the darkness, blind, swatting at herself. But the monsters were gone.

“Oh thank fucking god,” she breathed, and her eyes fluttered closed.

KCxbone: This isn’t funny anymore Rose.

She shrieked, opening her eyes again, and as she adjusted, she realized what she’d been denying in her shock. She was still in the woods. She could still hear the rustling of the leaves, feel the rough ground through her slippers—my slippers?

“Like I...” she choked on the words, on the implication. “Like I respawned.”

She was standing, which should have been her first clue that she hadn’t been sleeping at home in her bed. Even if she’d passed out at her desk, she would have been sitting down, drooling on her keyboard. But this was the same forest. The same sounds...that same scent.

Her heart pounded in her ears as she felt up the back of her neck to where she’d felt that massive pain. They’d crushed her body, squeezed the air out of her lungs, and bitten into her fucking head. The monsters had eaten her. And she hadn’t woken up. This was either some groundhog day bullshit dream, or she had to face reality. The completely insane reality that she was stuck inside of the video game.

“Bravo,” someone said.

The deep drawl made her leap clean in the air, and Rosalyn whipped around, clutching her chest as her heart thrummed triple time.

A tall figure stood shrouded in the shadows, menacing and all-consuming. They clapped, a sharp slap that sounded big somehow, as if the palms smacking off of each other were larger than human hands.

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“That’s a neat little trick.” The figure clapped again, a slow, sarcastic sound, and took a step towards her. “My pets are still tearing your body to ribbons, yet here you are. All. In. One. Piece.”

She opened her mouth to respond, but no sound came out. What was she going to say? This was all too much. It was too much to process, even if she weren’t beneath an umbrella of impending doom. And those things were his pets? If he was strong enough to rule over them, she wasn’t sure she wanted to stick around.

“One of my babies was trampled trying to get to you,” he said, and though it came out in a sort-of hiss, it sounded more petulant than angry. Somehow it was more terrifying this way. “He was one of my favourites. I called him Pinky.”

Rosalyn wanted to laugh. That hysterical panic-laugh. Nothing about this was funny. The figure took another deliberate step forward, closer to the moonlight, and she nearly pissed herself at the closeness. But she couldn’t move. She was just as rooted as the trees, shock and fear freezing every muscle in her body.

Plus, where would she run to? She knew what waited for her out there. A clearing full of tentacle monsters still licking her blood from their teeth, that’s what.

Her mind reeled again, head spinning and light. “Is this actually happening?” she murmured, her vision coming in and out of focus.

“Oh, it’s happening,” the figure snarled, and lunged forward, fully into the ethereal glow of the moon.

His hood fell back, revealing an elongated face. His skin was a deep satiny purple, with massive round eyes containing bright red irises and inky slit-shaped pupils like a cat’s. Brutal horns jutted out from his temples, before zigzagging towards the sky like lightning bolts. He had a prominent nose and a terrifying mouth, curled into the most terrifying Cheshire cat grin, complete with pointed teeth.

Rosalyn swallowed hard, her throat dry as sandpaper, and a familiar scent wafted up to her nose. At the warmth spreading across her pyjama pants, she realized she’d actually pissed herself.

It appeared the monster realized it too, because he glanced down at her crotch with amusement dancing on his face, his thin lips curling into a nasty sneer. “Aren’t you a pathetic little creature.” He lashed out, a gnarled hand shooting from his robe, onyx fingernails as long as her thumbs as he flicked his wrist towards her.

Rosalyn flinched, expecting contact like a slap or for him to grab her, but instead wind whooshed past her ears as she flew backwards. All the air left her lungs as she slammed into a thick tree, and she tried to double over but found she couldn’t move. As she struggled to catch her breath, she tried to peel herself from the tree but an unseen force held her fast, as if she were wrapped in those monsters again, but without the squeezing. The only part of her that she could move was her head, and she tilted it forward to stare incredulously at herself.

It was a dizzying experience to feel completely bound but see nothing actively binding her. Everything was dizzying. She was finally able to take in a shallow breath, enough oxygen to keep her from passing out completely. As terrifying as this was, she didn’t want to be unconscious around this...whatever he was. The thought made her squeeze her eyes shut in terror.

The chat flitting behind her eyelids sent a wave of nausea through her, like motion sickness, and she shook her head from side to side, eyes opening again, still struggling to breathe and now not to vomit all over herself. “Please shut up,” she sputtered.

“Shut up?” the demon snapped. “You want me to shut. Up?”

Rosalyn’s heart skipped a beat. She’d been talking to her viewers, not him, and she had a feeling he was not someone she wanted to piss off. Her mouth opened and closed like a fish, unsure of what to say, how to defend herself. How could she explain who she was talking to? And should she? Or could her having a secret army in her eyeballs be an advantage somehow?

An advantage, she thought, her heartbeat finally slowing. I do have an advantage. If this is really happening...if this is real...then I know I’m in a game. I know that there’s a real world out there. He doesn’t. He’s just a dumb NPC that doesn’t know shit.

She straightened, or at least as much as she could being held by the unseen magic, and raised her chin. “Yeah,” she said, forcing as much firm confidence into her voice as she could muster. She had to treat this like a video game. It was a video game. Treat it like a regular day at the office. How would she parade around for her viewers, being all badass? “Shut the fuck up. I have questions.”

“Oh, you’ve got questions,” he drawled, dragging out the words, sarcasm sliding from his tongue like poison honey. “I’m the one with the questions, you tiny, pathetic little rat.” His brow tilted down, his entire face turning from amused to menacing in a split second, slicing through Rosalyn’s attempted brave face like a hot knife. “You’re going to answer my fucking questions, every last one of them. Because I can use any method I want to make you talk.” He licked his thin lips. “It doesn’t matter if you die.”

Her breath came in short pants, the terror bubbling through her veins like napalm.

He reached out slowly, his fingers seeking her chin, where he squeezed cruelly, digging his nails into her tender flesh. “I can come up with a thousand ways to kill you, horribly and painfully, and every time you die you’ll pop right back up here.” He leaned in as tears began to waterfall down her cheeks, mixing with rivulets of blood from the puncture wounds along her jaw. “So I can do it again. And again.”

Rosalyn’s vision blurred. It was too much. Everything was too much.

He clucked his tongue. “And again.”