Amelia stared at the rectangular shaped box sitting on the top of the black coffee table.  It was a package.  She had found it outside of her apartment, right next to the door hinges.  It was an inconspicuous package, small in size and dull in appearance.  She would have not even noticed the box if the door didn’t collide with it as the she came in.  

On top of the smooth cardboard was a string of neat, block letters written in blue marker.  It read, “For Amelia Fujiwaki”.  

She was surprised then when she saw her name on the box.  She was not expecting any mail, and definitely not one dressed in such a strange manner.  She picked it up, and gently shook it.  The object within rattled against the sides.  She set the package back down.  

I feel like I shouldn’t open it, Amelia thought to herself.  It was an irrational thought, and she admitted it right after the thought flashed through her mind.  The package was obviously addressed to her, so there shouldn’t any problems if she took look at what was inside.  But, for some reason, the box and its enigmatic contents radiated a peculiar sense of discomfort that caused her to hesitate.  The more she stared at it, the more her dread increased.  In her head, the tiny package seemed to grow and loom over her.  This is ridiculous, Amelia decided, I’m having a staring contest with a box!  Why the hell am I afraid of it anyway?  It’s probably a prank from Darrell.  At this, Amelia's mind wandered to the jokes that her friend Darrell, had played on her.  In particular, she remembered the time when he sneaked a spider into her backpack senior year of high school.  She had freaked out when she found out.  

As she reminisced about the past, she moved toward her study desk to grab the pocketknife that was resting in one of the drawers.  After a bit of searching, she found it resting in the bottom drawer.  Picking the blade up, she moved herself back to the box.  Reaching it, she hefted the package up and sat down with it in her lap.  Placing the knife on the box’s edge, Amelia carefully made an opening.  Then, tracing along the side, she sawed the top of the box off.  Inside was a hunk of black plastic.  Amelia pulled it out and turned it around.  It was a hand-held gaming device, though it wasn’t a brand she knew.  This hurt her pride a little.  She had always thought of herself as a hardcore gamer, and though college has caused her to be unable to play as much as she wanted to, she made sure to be still updated about all the recent gaming hypes.  The console that she held was one that she had never seen before, either in real life or on the internet.  It was shaped like a Nintendo-3DS, but had a different button setup.  There was no brand name anywhere on the handheld.

Amelia examined the device thoughtfully.  This looks pretty legit, she thought, but who made it?  It can’t be from one of the major companies because I would have heard about it.  This might be from a third party developer then, but why did I get it?  She knew that sometimes companies release products early to famous internet figures as a way to market.  Video game companies are infamous of this.  But she wasn’t famous, she barely even used twitter.  Besides, the sketchy manner that the device was delivered made her doubt increase even more.  

As she pondered about the device’s origins, the screen suddenly flickered to life.  A message box appeared in the center.  “Are you Amelia Fujiwaki?”  Under the text was two choices, a “yes” and a “no”.  Now this is creepy, Amelia thought as she answered, “no”.  Even though the buttons were set up in a strange manner, her years of gaming experience allowed her to instinctively know how to manipulate the interface.  The moment she did so, another text box popped up.  It read, “Do not steal.  Do not lie.  Do not deceive one another. – Leviticus 19:11”.  

“What the fuck?” Amelia exclaimed in surprise.  “How did it know I was lying?”  The textbox with the question appeared again.  This time, she pressed “yes”.  The screen darkened momentarily.  A cackling skull appeared in the middle, and a “loading” sign rotated on the bottom right.  “A game?” Amelia frowned.  Seconds later, the words “Bloody Wonderland” smeared across the screen.  Below this, which Amelia assumed to be the game’s title, was only one option, “character creation”.  An arrow flickered beside it, waiting for Amelia to make her selection.  

“Doesn’t give me much of a choice, does it?”  Amelia muttered.  From the badly pixelated effects, Amelia could tell that it was a very low budgeted game, if there was a budget at all.  Out curiosity, Amelia pressed the O button on the device, and with a bleep, the screen moved into character creation.  The quality of the image instantly improved, an adjustment that surprised Amelia.  However, what occurred next completely bewildered her.  “What the hell?”  Amelia shouted when she saw the pre-set character.  His voice quivered with a mixture of fear and confusion.  

The avatar displayed was female and was quite life like. It had black hair with streaks of golden highlights running down the side.  Its skin was robust, colored with a glowing, yellowish tinge.  This, mixed with its slight curvature of the eyes gave the avatar a slight oriental appearance.  Amelia turned the avatar to see its back, searching for a specific location.  

She found it.  On the back of the avatar’s neck, just above the collar bones, on the right, was a small, dark mole.  Amelia was flabbergasted.  The avatar was an exact reflection of her.  Darrell, you’ve really outdone yourself this time, she thought.  Amelia signed and threw the game console on the sofa beside her.  I need to give that asshole a piece of my mind tomorrow, she decided as she planned some extremely unpleasant words for his ear.  Just as she was fantasizing over her assault, the game device let out a series of frenetic and discordant noises.  Now what, Amelia thought as she grabbed the device in annoyance.  There was a single line of text on the screen, “Detonation stopped.  Countdown: 00:29”.  

“What?”  Amelia whispered.  She was perplexed by this development.  Another text appeared, “Warning: Do not let go of the device.  If you do, the countdown will resume and the device will self-detonate.”  Amelia felt her heart flutter.  Darrell wouldn’t be this much of a dick, right?  Amelia thought as she tried to calm herself down.  Her breathing became more ragged.  Is this really from Darrell?  Is this his prank? Would he do this?  Is there really a bomb in this thing?  I mean, if this is from Darrell then then there shouldn’t be a bomb.  The countdown will end and nothing would happen but if this wasn’t from Darrell…

Amelia did not want to finish the thought.  Shit, let me call him right now, she decided.  Making sure that one of her hand remained on the device, she reached into her purse which was sitting on the floor and pulled out her phone.  She dialed Darrell’s number, but there was no response.  “God fucking dammit Darrell, where are you when I need you?”  Amelia screamed at her phone.  Suddenly, she realized something that she hadn’t thought of.  “Darrell sucks with computers, there’s no way he could have programmed this,” she sucked in her breath.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

I need to go to the police, Amelia thought.  She quickly stood up, but before she could reach her doors, another text came up.  “Any interactions Amelia has with another person before finishing character creation will result in immediately self-detonation.”

You have to be fucking kidding me, Amelia cursed in her head.  Suddenly, her phone rang.  She glanced at it, and realized it was Darrell.  Amelia gritted her teeth.  She wanted to answer the phone, to ask for help, but fear drove her back.  She didn’t fully believe in what the text was saying, but she was never a big gambler, even in video games, and the possibility of her losing her life was too much a risk to take.  The phone rang seven times, and on the eighth, went into voice mail. The room was silent once again.

Amelia gazed at the gaming device, her hands held it in a death-grip.  “Why are you doing this,” she whispered, not expecting an answer.  To her shock, a text responded, “Entertainment.”

Amelia was stunned.  The device was talking to her.  “What are you?” she asked uncertainly.

“I am one of the GMs,” the text replied.

Amelia mentally face palmed.  Of course it wasn’t the device talking, you idiot, she laughed at herself.

“Why are you targeting me?  Why are you stalking me?” Amelia shouted to the device.

More text popped up, “Don’t be so self-centered, you’re not the only one in this game.”

“What do you mean?” Amelia asked.

The text responded, “I’ve already invited hundreds of others to play in my game.  Some rejected the offer and died, while others are enjoying themselves in the game.  You should honored, you know, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

Amelia snorted in disgust.  “I don’t want to play.”

“But there’s no choice,” was the replied.  At the same time, another message flashed on the screen.  “If the character selection is not done within two hours from now this device will self-detonate.”

“You bastard!”  At this point, Amelia was losing her temper.  Her fear of the unreasonable situation began to be washed away by the torrent of anger that was boiling up from her core.  “When I find you,” she yelled, “I am going to curb-stomp your balls until they break, you hear me?”

“What if I’m a woman?” the text replied.

“Well, ah, well, I’ll stomp your cunt!  It’ll hurt either way.  Did I mention that I’m going to be in my six inch heels when I do it?”  

There was a pause.  The texts stopped coming.  Amelia breathed out hard.  She slid into her bed.  The excitement had tired her.  It wasn’t a wise idea, she realized, insulting the GM when obviously he or she could make her life very miserable.  However, Amelia didn’t regret it.  She hated taking bullshit from anyone.  

Finally, the GM resumed the conversation.  “I like you, Amelia,” the text said.  “You are one of the more interesting ones. Finish the character creation, and I’ll give you a little gift.”

Amelia glowered at the message.  She started to something sarcastic, but thought better of it.  She didn’t have enough information.  All of her success, both in the real world and in the game world, was due to her meticulous planning.  She was a strategist, an observer, a planner.  That’s who she is and always will be.  And right now, her brains told her to play along until she could gather enough information to screw the GM over.  It would bad if she pissed off the GM too much when she doesn’t really know anything.

Thinking thus, Amelia went into the character creation screen.  A text appear in corner, “How mercenary.  I couldn’t get you to do anything until I told you that you could benefit.”

Amelia ignored the obvious taunt and focused on creating the most suitable character she could.  She had no desire to play the game, but if she does, she needed to make sure that she wouldn’t suck at it because she picked a build that didn't fit her.  This logic arose from both her pride as a gamer and the possibility that there could be a clue in the game regarding this mysterious GM.  

Amelia found that she couldn’t change the avatar’s appearance.  The choices seemed to be a decoration.  She shrugged.  If she has to play as herself, then so be it.  She was confident in her assets and was not shy to show it off.  The next screen was focused on choosing a class.  Amelia smacked her lips in pleasure when she saw all the available classes.  Whoever this GM was, he or she put some thought into the system, and that Amelia could appreciate and respect.  

Looking through the choices, Amelia immediately rejected all the warrior and rogue related classes.  Combat with brute strength wasn’t her thing, and she just never liked rogue classes for some reason even though it would fit her playing style.  Her sight settled on the mage classes, her eternal love.  It took her another half hour to finalize her decision.  The reason was that not only did each mage class have their own pros and cons, but each had sub-skills that allowed them to master skills outside of magic.  For instance, conjurers were basically monster tamers and illusionists, however, they also possessed a sub-skill that allowed them to have the ability to master bows and other projectile based weapons.  Amelia was quite surprised when she saw this.  After a little messing around, she realized that warriors could master any types of melee weapon whereas the subskill mastery that mages have was limited to only one type.

Amelia chose a warlock class.  It had relative high health and mana or soul, as the game called it.  Most of its powers focused on debuffs but it had some limited offensive spells.  The class came with a light weapon mastery subskill and Amelia elected for a short sword.  When she finished, a text box appeared asking her to confirm her character.  She selected “yes”.  

Suddenly, a blinding light jumped out of the screen.  Its intensity caused Amelia to shirk back and cover her eyes.  When she reopened them, she was not greeted by the sight of her familiar apartment walls but rather by an open, azure sky plastered with rolls of rolling clouds.  Her bed was nowhere to be seen.  Instead, she was lying on a field filled with slender blades of grass.  A gentle breeze brushed against her cheeks.  She sat up in a daze, unsure of how to respond to her situation.  She glanced at her hand that had held the game device, wanting to ask the GM about what had happened, but device had disappeared.  A blue text box suddenly appeared in front of her eyes.  It asked, “View tutorial?”