In the spring of 84’ I lost my grandfather to a video game. Of course, I didn’t know that when the Middleton police questioned me on his disappearance. Twenty-one days. That’s how long it had been since anyone had seen him. I was away at college during the time finishing up my thesis on agricultural development in the Midwest. My schedule was filled with study sessions, group meetings and library visits. Lots and lots of library visits. The quiet, story filled walkways, made me feel uncomfortable. That silence had become all I knew for those three weeks. A silence I never realized had grown deeper when my grandfather hadn’t checked in on me.

I’ve lived with my grandfather, Conrad Forester, since I was seven years old. Having lost both of my parents in a car accident during a frightful rainstorm that unexpectedly cut through Colorado. In a single weekend they were gone, and I moved to northern Montana the day after the funeral. My grandfather picked me up in his old 71’ Buick Centurion. I distinctly remember its rusted mustard paint job and the missing headlight pulling up on a rainy day. Why does it always seem to rain at funerals. In movies and books there is always rain on tough days. My mom used to tell me it was God weeping with us. Well, he must have been sad the day of their funeral because it was down pouring. Since then, I haven’t enjoyed the sound of rain.

It was raining the day Officer Reynolds had contacted the school office and called me out from my class. “Mr. Forester, thank you for coming. Can we have a minute to talk?” I nodded and followed him quietly into an adjacent room to the front office. Rain continued to fall the entire time Officer Reynolds told me that my grandfather hadn’t been seen in almost three weeks. It rained the whole drive back home. Three hours through the wide fields of Montana. Three hours of endless rain and deep gray clouds. Three hours of dread filled thoughts.

Where was he? When did I see him last? He was healthy the last time I saw him. No don’t think like that. He’s probably still stuck playing games on that new computer of his. My thoughts cycled through every possible scenario I could think of. The voice in my head was so loud that I hadn’t even noticed that the radio in my car was off the entire drive home. Endless rain and endless thoughts.

I arrived back at my teenage home roughly an hour after sundown. The drive into Middleton had been awash in a light drizzle. The downpour had slowed down as soon as the lights of the valley came into view. I drove past the town gas station/liquor store Benny’s. Its bright red open sign continued to flash as if it was on its last legs. Memories of my grandfather buying me a cream soda and chocolate bar while he hefted a twelve pack, and an old hotdog brought a smile to my face.

My grandfather had to get a job after he took me in. His retirement benefits from the army didn’t exactly help cover the cost of a teenager. He began working at the local lumberyard as a team supervisor. He said he got lucky that he didn’t have to be out in the woods cutting down trees because his back would give out in one swing. Instead, he was in charge of hitting weekly quotas, filing distribution records, and all around drinking a cup of coffee in a long metal trailer stationed squarely in the middle of the yard.

Those he worked over treated him like a father. He always had everyone’s respect, and he respected everyone. His short, trimmed beard and bright blue eyes always caught everyone’s attention and if they didn’t then it was his wide brimmed fedora. People would refer to him as the retired Indiana Jones, but he would insist that they copied it from him.

Despite the old-styled clothing, the hunched shoulders, and senior coffee breath, my grandfather had become fascinated with computers. Something about them caught his imagination. As soon as he could afford one, he purchased his own home computer. From writing his own fantasy novels inspired by Tolkien to playing his role-playing games, Conrad Forester had become obsessed. “A new world to explore!” He had shouted when the screen turned on for the first time.

I wasn’t much of a computer guy let alone someone who would sit for hours playing video games. I enjoyed being out in the woods something I think grew inside of me when I would visit my grandfather at work. I’d get the chance to go out with the deforesters and witness them cutting down the trees. Something about being out in the woods and hearing songbirds and crackling wood always fascinated me. I decided to put that into a career and study agriculture. Logging was diminishing in northern Montana and farmlands were expanding in the 80s. I figured it would be the best of both worlds.

The front door to my old home was unlocked when I arrived. Officer Reynolds had been initially contacted by Sheriff Springfield about the disappearance. He also told him that they had already searched his house for any clues for where he might have gone. With the house cleared he left it unlocked for me and said that he would leave the keys on the kitchen counter. As he said I found the keys on the stained plastic countertop by an empty sink. I found that strange. The sink was never empty growing up. Neither of us liked to do dishes so they would pile up until finally we would both step up and work to clean the kitchen. A task that we mainly did to keep the summer flies out. During the colder months instead of cleaning up we’d order pizza and watch whatever the latest sci-fi movie was on the tv. He’d fall asleep in his recliner, and I’d quietly throw away our paper plates and napkins, store the pizza in the fridge and retire to my room. Those nights were the best. I missed those nights.

The entire house was quiet and cold. The heat had been shut off and every light in the house was off. At first, I thought that maybe the power company had turned off his electricity when the kitchen light didn’t turn on. My worries went away when the family room light flickered to life. It gave off that same familiar buzzing sound. It was missing something though. The sounds of my grandfather snoring. I went and sat on the flower-patterned couch and clicked the tv on. I wasn’t planning on watching anything, but I didn’t exactly know what I was doing there. Officer Reynolds said that the Middleton Sheriff would explain everything to me in the morning down at the station. When I pressed him for further information all I got was that the disappearance could be connected to other missing people in the surrounding regions. More than fifty people had disappeared in the last three weeks.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

I couldn’t sleep the night I returned home. I found a microwave meal in the freezer, one pound beef and vegetables with a side of brown gravy. I popped it in, grabbed a beer from the fridge and when it was done, I sat on the couch and ate it while flicking through the channels. It was deep into the night when I heard it. A high-pitched sound coming from the basement. It was a sound I didn’t recognized. I had memorized every creaking, groaning, and humming sound this old house made, and this was not one of them. It dinged again.

I pushed open the basement door and tried the stairs light. Nothing happened. I searched for a flashlight that I found in a drawer in the kitchen and returned to the stairs. Before I switched on the flashlight, I caught sight of something glowing far below. A slowly pulsating green light. Every time the light died down; I could hear the beeping sound. I switched on the flashlight and made my way down.

My grandfather’s office was very warm compared to the rest of the house. It was stuffy and smelled of dust. There were cardboard boxes scattered everywhere and rolled up newspapers against the far wall. A deep alcoholic scent permeated the air with an underlying tone of rotten food. A strange thought came to me that I would find my grandfather passed away at his computer desk but when I turned the flashlight to the other side of the room all I saw was an empty chair and a blank screen. I walked over to the computer and heard the beep sound again. It was coming from the computers tower. It was in sleep mode.

I wiggled the mouse, and the screen came to life. I had to squint against the sudden brightness. I turned off the flashlight and sat down at his desk. I didn’t know why or what I thought I would find but something told me I could discover something on his computer about what might have happened to him. I pressed enter on the keyboard and the screen turned to show a place to enter in login information. My grandfather’s name was present in the center of the screen, and it was only asking for his password. I didn’t know what it could be. I’d never used his computer before now.

I started to search his desk drawers to see if I could find something when I noticed a sticky note on the side of the monitor. I pulled it off and saw password: briarfield. I entered it in and the screen flashed to black then back on to a show his desktop. There was only one icon on the entire thing. It was some sort of game. It had an icon of a spell book pierced by a sword with the name Phyrelia: MUD.

I had never heard of the game before let alone why it was called a MUD though I had heard the term before back at college. Some of the other students in my department said something about a new MUD game that had come out recently and that they were hoping to try it out. This may have been what they were talking about. Knowing my grandfather he’d probably be one of the first people to try it out. I felt a sudden heaviness in my chest as I thought about the stories my grandfather had told me of his adventures in other games. I never really paid attention to what he said as I knew none of it was real. It was all fictional. He wasn’t some grand wizard on an epic adventure or an all-powerful druid conjuring lightning from the skies. I should have listened more or even played them with him. Heaven knows he kept inviting me, but I never cared.

I clicked on the game and was greeted with another login screen. This one was colorful, vibrant and decorated with swinging vines and animals standing like people all dressed in fantasy clothing. There was a raven firing an arrow from a bow. An otter slinging a fireball into the sky and a mouse tending to a flower. Across the center of the screen the title of the game was displayed in a large yellow font. PHYRELIA: Multi-User Dungeon.

The account name screen was already filled in with a name I had never read before, Cornelius. That must have been the name my grandfather had picked for his fantasy role-playing. I was never as creative as he was. I couldn’t think of a fantastical name to save my life. He had always been the one with the childlike imagination. Something I figured I lost after the death of my parents. I entered in the briarfield password but was greeted with an error message in red letters. Wrong Password. Crap!

I had no clue what this password could be. I tried looking around the computer and the desk for anymore sticky notes but besides several old beer cans, and a soiled paper plate, I found nothing. This was a waste of time. I don’t know why I was even doing this. I stood to leave but caught sight of another set of words that popped up under the login credentials entry. Create Account. I could have sworn that the option to make an account wasn’t there before. I sat back down and was about to click when I felt my eyes get heavy and my brain grew foggy. I needed to get some sleep not to play some random video game. Before I could leave another set of words appeared. Hello Miles, do you want to play?

All fatigue disappeared immediately as I stared at the blinking words below the account creation option. How did the game know my name? How did it even know I was here? Maybe it was a message that my grandfather left for me. Maybe he was counting on me coming back home and sitting at his computer. This could be a clue to where he disappeared to. I had to get the Sheriff here. He would want to know about this. The screen flashed suddenly and went dark. A single line of text typed itself out on the center of the monitor. Do you want to find your grandfather? Then play the game.

Someone was messaging me directly. Someone must have taken my grandfather and was taunting me. They had to have been monitoring the computer somehow. They were expecting me to show up. It could all be some kind of weird trap for them to kidnap me as well. However, if playing this game could give me any more information as to the whereabouts of my grandfather I had to take the chance. Besides what could someone do to me with a simple video game.

I clicked on the Create Account text below the message and then everything went dark. There was no light anywhere. Not a single dim glow from the computer screen or tower. No ambient light coming from the upstairs family room. There was only darkness. No, there wasn’t only darkness there was nothing. I couldn’t feel my body, my breathing, my heartbeat. There was nothing. I was floating in a vast abyss of emptiness that is until the words emerged before me.

[Welcome to Phyrelia Adventurer!]