CHAPTER 3

The platform pushed upward for many moments before jerking to a stop. Cory stood in darkness until he began to make out the slightest contour of the area he found himself in. More spots of wall and floor began to come into his vision, their presence denoted by a slight blue hue. After a few seconds Cory stopped squinting and the room became more clear. Much like the old military night vision goggles detected and amplified light, Cory could now make out his surroundings. Instead of the military green, Cory’s world came through in fuzzy blue.

Night Vision, he thought, a wry smile cresting his lips. Whether a passive skill or a trait inherent to his new avatar, Cory didn’t care, he had Night Vision! It wasn’t perfect but it gave him the necessary spatial awareness required to soothe any rampant claustrophobia. He could make out that he was in a small dome, no more than ten feet high. The surface glowed a light blue except for a black hole on what appeared to be the other side of the igloo he found himself in. As he stepped towards the door-sized blackness the blue illumination followed; ending roughly fifteen away. He continued forward until he could make out that a tunnel was being illuminated by the blue particles. At the mouth of the cave, Cory reached up and ran his hands across the cold, uneven stone. Turning, he could make out the size of the entire room he had been hoisted into, but as he stepped into the tunnel the far wall fell dark. Curious, Cory stepped back in the room and it returned to full light.

Limited Night Vision, Cory murmured.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

The sound of skittering came to Cory’s ears. Though the sound itself was new, he would have sworn his ears twitched just slightly.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

This time his ears did twitch and the sound was coming from the tunnel.

Of course it’s coming from the tunnel asshole, Cory reprimanded himself mentally. It’s not coming from the fuckin empty room we just left!

Taking a deep breath and reminding himself that he was Just in some broken ass game, Cory stepped into the tunnel to find his way out.

It was slow going at first. He found that if he stood up close to the side of the tunnel, the rough contour and rocky crevasses could be seen clearly. Yet moving to the other side he could only make out that an obstruction was there. He walked forward and then walked backwards several times while watching the side of the tunnel to get a bearing on his sight. An outsider might think that Cory was preparing to charge and possibly tackle the side of the cave but lacked the necessary courage to attempt such a feat.

Finding his range, Cory felt better about placing one foot in front of the other. Though he couldn’t see far, he could see the ground. Pitfalls and trip wires were never eye level and falling up usually wasn’t a thing. Just in case though, he had unsheathed his sword and was holding it out in front of him like an unlit torch. It wasn’t long before he heard the skittering noise again but it was faint. As he journeyed the cave tunnel had been sneaking in an upward slant, the walls were getting noticeably closer and he could now touch the ceiling with his outstretched fingertips. Hoping that he hadn’t missed some alcove or ledge, he pressed forward.

The dry, dead air had begun to take on the smell of mold and after roughly ten more minutes of walking he could start to taste stale moisture. He would pause randomly to listen, and move on when nothing could be detected.

Eventually the slightest sound of a plinking noise could be heard. A few moments later he heard it again. After the fifth time he heard it he knew he was close. Hopefully water, he thought, noticing for the first time that he was a bit thirsty.

Rounding another corner Cory came face to face with… himself. Light had begun to illuminate from, “another goddamn mirror” Cory cursed, just as he had come around the bend. A small blank name template hovered in the open space of the mirror, pulsing with a slight plinking sound.

“What now?” He asked the mirror, annoyance evident.

“Who Are You” a magical voice chimed from everywhere at once.

“We’ve already covered that,” he replied while considering smashing the mirror with his weapon.

“Name Thyself” the voice whispered. A silver oval sat atop a small rectangular box that was adorned with illuminated carvings was floating in the open space. Inside the oval was what could only be described as a glamor shot of his avatar.

Username, Coy wondered.

Catching on to what was happening, he leaned against the tunnel wall to consider. For consistency purposes Cory had always stuck with one username. Well, it started off as a consistency thing but as the online world exploded with people, names became precious and changing them expensive. Naming conventions became an unforeseen issue as using personal names was generally frowned upon… for reasons. It had gotten unnecessarily worse before it got better.

There was finally a movement in the late 40’s that allowed for a one-time free name change that could be used after your twenty-first birthday. A large group of Users that had given themselves names in their teenage years proved to make finding a job difficult in their future. It was hard to take someone seriously named BroomStickDick8008. Likewise, regardless of education and experience, nobody was going to get medical treatment from someone called STD4u.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Naming things was hit or miss with Cory. It either came to him right away or required some elaborate, 4D venn diagram to really hone in on the proper moniker. Unwilling to let this drag him through some existential crisis Cory took a couple moments to ease his mind.

General claustrophobia from being trapped in the broken game, compounded by an ever shrinking cave system full of faulty, cryptic mirrors could take a toll on a man. Before Cory’s confusion and frustration could render him even more useless, he thought about the basics. Two basic, simple questions:

“What do I know? What don’t I know?” Cory whispered to himself.

Cory’s grandfather, Papa as he was called, had imparted this knowledge on him from an early age. He would say, ”When you’re stuck, confused or lost about anything? Anything! You hear, an-ee-thing,” Papa would punctuate.”You ask yourself two questions: "What do I know?” and "What don’t I know?” indicating with his hands as if one could outweigh the other. He would then kneel down to Cory’s eye level, and with a wry smile would finish, ”That’s where you start the search.”

For the longest time it was a confusing piece of advice but Papa was a broken record about it, so it stuck with him. It wasn’t until he was a bit older that he started to use the thought process and when it helped Cory hoped his face had the same wry smile as Papa had all those years ago. The only thing he said more to a young Cory was, ”So, my copious ball of energy, are we going to find a way or make one?”

“Name Thyself,” the magical voice broke Cory from his nostalgia.

“Copious” he said with no level of uncertainty.

“Copious” he repeated, not waiting for the mirror to egg him on. A soft ping sounded, echoing down the tunnel. Ambient light pulsed from inside the mirror. Electricity raced through the empty expanse until it poured out of the mirror and down the tunnel he had been traveling. In a blink, the lightning particles returned, sucking wind and loose rocks with it. As the lightning and debris filled back into the void of which it had come, the mirror began to crumple into itself until it morphed and mutated into a shiny silver key, which quickly clattered to the cave floor. When he picked the key off the ground, the now mirrorless wall that blocked his path somehow shifted and moved, revealing a wooden door. Opening his interface he saw something new for the first time. There was a name at the top center of the otherwise blank window. Cory huffed and muttered, ”Kopius, with a K.”

The silver key was nothing special. No distinctive features or engravings, just plain, much like the wooden door now in front of him. Taking a giant leap in logic, Kopius placed the key in the keyhole and turned. The key blinked out of existence leaving glittering residue floating in the air, some clinging to his pale blue skin like a bunch of remora on parade. The door also… poofed; sending sawdust into the air. Kopius quickly moved the hand holding the tangled mess of a sword sheath to his nose but he was already sneezing. Then he was coughing as he tried to bat away the chemistry experiment gone wrong.

When the dust settled and his coughing subsided, Kopius could see a more open space; a small enclave with a sliver of light coming from somewhere above. Stepping through the space where the door had once been, Kopius tried to get an angle to the light source. He had a poor vantage point as juts of large rocks covered the small area. The ceiling was more jagged and shredded, headed in an upward angle but the source of light was past his view. More alarmingly though was the ticking sound had returned and now it was clattering.

Something moved quickly from between a crack of two giant boulders. When the creature creating the noise rounded the corner, Kopius froze. The wiener dog-sized monster had six short legs that came to points at the end, it bore a long forward snout with two pincers at the end and it was moving like a spider. Its mouth was just below the snout and three eyes on both sides of its head gave it a near 360 view.

In the low light his dark vision was faulty and he couldn’t make out all the details but what he could make out looked like an anteater with scorpion legs. Kopius tried to take a cautionary step back into the cave he had emerged from but–ever so gently–scraped the cave floor with his strap-on Birkenstocks. Rookie mov- was all the chastising he could manage before the beast turned and charged.

In an open area, with space to move, Kopius would have had some wiggle room to dodge this Dr Moreau reject; the cave he was in afforded no such luxury. Kopius did manage to juke the oncoming threat but was quickly thrown onto his back when his feet were pulled out from under him. He hit the ground with a thud, knocking some wind from his lungs. He held onto the weapon in his hands but the bundle was thrown, the sheath and blade clattering across the stone floor. Kopius tried to stand but his foot was wrenched out from him again. The damn thing has a tail too!!

The monster’s tail had been used like a whip to secure and pull his foot. The spider-wiener, as Kopius would later describe it, had jerked him back on his butt and turned. They were face-to-face, er, face-to-snout and Kopius got a close up view of the things ugly mug.

The snout sat below a set of 6 clustered eyes. Its mouth, lined with tiny spikes, dripped with saliva. Pincers, like wicked ant mandibles, writhed on both sides. Not waiting for this dog show reject to grow anymore bold, Kopius used his free foot and rammed his heel into the open maw of the monster. In the same motion he swung his sword hand down trying to sever the tail. It took several chops of his oversized butterknife until the tail cut loose. The monster screeches ripped through the tunnel. A moment later Kopius was the one screaming as the creature's pincers took a deep bite into his forearm, just above his wrist, and latched on. For the briefest of moments, eyeballs only feet apart, the two combatants sung the ballad of their pain to one another. Kopius was the first to stop screaming as the pain quickly fled and he could no longer grasp his weapon; his hand fully limp.

“Not today asshole!” Kopius yelled in half panic.

Realizing he was about to be paralyzed, poisoned or otherwise f’ed, Kopius spun himself to his feet and pulled at the pincers lodged in his arm. The spider-wiener tried jerking him back down but Kopius had his balance. The pincers were locked tight and the numbing sensation was growing towards his elbow.

With no small amount of terror, instead of trying to free the pincers, Kopius took a hold of the long snout with his free hand and twirled. Using his heels as a fulcrum, Kopius gave his best impression of a hammer throw spin before smashing the monster into the side of the cave. The hard outer carapace cracked against the stone and it fell to the floor on its back. The creatures' feet were flailing about trying to find purchase in anything and the pincers were no looser than they were before.

Kopius noticed, had the tail been attached, then this hell spawn would have been able to flip over with no issues. Not being one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Kopius quickly retrieved his weapon with his good hand and hacked at the pincers until it severed free. The creature muled and screeched, the sound was almost too much to bear. Not that Kopius had any sympathy for the beast, but that the cave echo acoustics were relentless.

His sword arm was limp and bleeding with the pincers still firmly lodged in place. It wasn’t in pain but useless otherwise. Not wanting any part of a surprise attack, Kopius reaffirmed the grip of his short sword in his off hand. As the legs of the monster danced to its own tune, Kopius located its face and looked at it in all six eyes before plunging his sword all the way to the hilt. The legs stopped moving. Kopius, exhausted, collapsed to the ground and rolled to his back. A blank notification window popped into his field of vision and he closed it.

After a few moments of catching his breath, he shadow boxed with his one good arm until he wasn’t sure if he was laughing or crying.