My eyes fly open at the shattering sound. There is a bright light in front of me, and I struggle to make out the image on the computer screen,—my brain hasn’t caught up yet. There is the brown puddle on the white, tiled floor under my desk. Coffee. Cold coffee. The mug must have slipped out of my hand. I need more. He’s going to kill me if I don’t get this done in time. Asshole!

I stumble to my feet, reaching out to grab the wall of the cubicle. The office is dark and it’s hard to find a handhold. The flimsy employee-of-the-month plaque immediately gives out as I attempt to steady myself. Should’ve known that was going to happen. My manager is as cheap as they come, and loved making a big deal when he gave that to me. I’m surprised that he hasn’t sold my office chair yet and replaced it with a folding one. That man would do anything to save some money, including delaying my performance review. Not that I’m going to get anything out of him—he’ll find a way to say that my performance is merely adequate, so he doesn’t have to give me a raise. Yet he’s the one the company trusts with their finances and resources. Nope, screw that guy.

My hands flail until the right one finally grabs the edge of the door jamb. After managing to steady myself, I open my office door and I’m immediately hit by bright lights.

Someone else is here.

Most people don't stay this late after work. They have a life. No one should be here. I ignore whoever is here and head to the break room. I can see remnants of the people who work here as I pass each cubicle. Photos of loved ones, quirky decorations that make them feel they are different from everyone else, and forgotten jackets, scarves, and gloves.

A giggle draws my attention to the break room. A short, curvy girl is fighting with her brown hair as she exits and I recognize her immediately. Jessie. Her blouse is untucked, a few of her buttons are undone, and her breasts are almost popping out. I can’t help but stare.

"H-hey!" Her pitch is high and her eyes grow wide.

“Hi." My throat is dry and my mind is trying to decipher her tone—trying to make sense of what she is doing here.

"What are you doing here so late?" she asks.

"Gordon has me chained to my desk. Said he'd only let me leave when I'm done with the new assets for Gungho Raiders. You working with your assets too?”

I get a nervous half-smile and she tugs at her pencil skirt, trying to twist it around the right way. She doesn’t take the bait.

"You're working on the new update." She talks a bit louder than she should, and it echoes through the near-empty office.

“Yeah. Are you okay?”

I'm interrupted by heavy footsteps coming from the break room. We both look that way at the same time. Out strolls Trevor, fiddling with his zipper while he's walking. Her face turns red.

Come on, Jessie, you can do better than that! At least find a guy who has a little discretion.

“Um," she starts. "Please don't say anything to Gordon about this."

"Of course not." I turn and walk straight back to my office, shaking my head.

What I wouldn’t do to be the one in the break room with Jessie. Instead, I’m back in my office with my mess all over the floor. I didn’t even get my coffee. I can’t see all the pieces of the mug in the dark, but a few stand out. One piece is inscribed: “Top-performing,” another has: “2021,” and a tiny piece says “dev.” Something twists in my chest. I was excited to receive that mug, but seeing it shattered on the floor is a good reminder that my job doesn’t really matter.

It’s just another mess to clean up now. The job and the mug.

I forget about the coffee and get back to work. If I leave it long enough, will it dry up? I try to focus on the one thing keeping me in this chair—a beautiful two-handed claymore that is almost ready to be added to the game. It’s moments like these that make me proud to be a game developer. The only silver lining in this sea of storms. When I look at it, I remember why I took this job in the first place. I mean, how could I not be proud of this thing? Just look at this baby: its shining silver blade, the dark green cross-guard decorated with emeralds, a pommel with fiery red rubies, and the light brown leather hilt that just begs you to hold it.

A yawn forces itself out of my mouth. My eyes droop a little more, and if they were any heavier, they’d drag me through the floor. This is how my boss likes to see me. Overworked, sleep-deprived, and zombified. Human rights be damned. If I could manifest that claymore right now, it’d be a different story.

I can’t stay awake any longer, and I let my eyelids close. I can see myself wielding the blade, standing on the other side of his desk and bringing it down through the wood, splintering the dark walnut. In my dream, he leaps from his chair and squeals like a child. It brings a smile to my face.

***

“Yes, yes, yes! Come to me. Come! To! Me! You’ll all be sorry. No one crosses me.”

The voice invades my dream. Her voice is shrill and piercing. I try to open my eyes, but I can’t. I can’t move or see or do anything. All I can hear is the voice.

"No! Please, spare us! Please, I beg you!"

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

"I have a daughter! I'll do whatever you want! Please, don't kill me!"

"Silence, you pigs! It is an honor to be sacrificed for the greater good! Filth like you don't deserve anything other than death."

I can see them, but only in my dream. It feels real, but everything is wrong, and my brain can’t keep up. I can see everything—everything! Everything around me in all directions is in my field of vision. It makes me dizzy, and I almost pass out. It’s not a dream. This is different.

And I’m not me. I try to look at myself, but I can’t. I can only sense that I’m there, and it drives me crazy. Each time I come close to understanding what the fuck is going on, the rug is pulled out from under me. It’s like there is a carrot dangling in front of me, and no matter how fast I run, I can’t grab it.

I’m dwarfed by huge trees that have a thick dark canopy. There’s still a noticeable chill that somehow flows through me. I see the men begging for their lives. They're scruffy and dirty but they are in much better shape than the dead scattered on the ground. The woman stands over them. I try to make out her words, but my brain is still trying to make sense of everything. All I can hear is one word—sacrifice.

“Stop." I shout, surprising myself.

I’m disorientated. It feels like I'm not even really here. Like I'm missing from reality. I try to focus on what is happening in front of me, blocking everything else out, but it’s useless. There is no front anymore. There’s just me and everything around me, and it all floods my senses at the same time.

"I will deal with you, my pet.” It's the woman again. “I did not expect this, but it does not matter."

I am fascinated by everything around me, and there is a nagging feeling within that I should do something, that I’m being lured into a trap, but I can’t look away.

The woman starts chanting and moves around me like water swirling down a drain. Her voice is enthralling and seeps into my mind. I can feel her inside me—blindly reaching, then gripping, and finally digging like fingers burrowing into mud. I start to pulse, and I can see and feel a deep blue haze of light around my form. Tiny arcs of lightning shoot through me. The booms that precede them seem to cheer her on.

I focus on her as she dances around me. As she moves, her cloak flutters in the wind. The white dress below hugs her body, and my eyes trace her curves. No, I don’t have eyes, do I? I can feel her curves in my mind. At the hem, her lithe thighs beg to be touched, and as she takes another step, the dress lifts a little, and I want to see what is below, but the opportunity is gone as she turns her back to me.

I am entranced. Is she a witch? Is she casting a spell on me? Or are my urges getting the better of my senses? I want nothing more than to take her—even with the men around, begging for their lives. But I can’t take her, I’m unable. I’m not… human.

I look into her eyes to see if she notices my stares. Her golden eyes bear an intense stillness as if she is the one in the trance. She doesn’t blink. Her lips move, uttering silent words, and she dances around me. The more she chants, the deeper she burrows into my will and the more she corrupts it.

I want her, I want to make her mine, but I don’t like the hold she’s taking. I am forgetting who I am. I don’t even know what I am. Or where I am. I try to shake my head, to rub my eyes, to scream out, but I am not me anymore. I’m floating without form or shape, a mind in a cloud of gas.

No! I can’t speak out loud, she has too much control over me. I scream it into her mind. No! Begone from here! I bring her to a halt. She reels back, confusion on her face. Defiant, she starts to chant and dance again, this time faster, willing her way through.

No! You can’t have me! I start to push her out but I can feel her mind linked to mine. I reach into her. The more she chants, the more she cements my presence in her psyche. My will into her being. I can see she does not notice. I am stronger than she is.

The woman’s eyes start to droop and her movements become sluggish. She seems undeterred until she stumbles and finally clings to a tree branch. Her left hand moves from her temple to her forehead and then to her chest. She can’t see what I see, but she feels it. Her next words are faint. A weak whisper.

“What… what did you do?” She collapses backward. Tattooed in the center of her chest is the outline of a blue cloud. It was not there moments ago. She is mine now. I watch the steady rise and fall of her chest as she lies on the ground, eyes closed.

The men get up off their knees. They look at me with wide eyes, and a great silence falls over the world. I wait for them to thank me for saving them, but that does not come. All I receive are wary glares, at first, followed by hateful stares. They brandish their weapons—they are afraid of me.

“The witch summoned a demon to kill us,” one of them says.

“It does not matter what she summoned, we must avenge the fallen!”

“Wait, wait, wait,” I say. I throw my hands up in the air in front of me, or I would have if I had hands. “Hold on. I’m not a demon. I want to help you. I just need to know what is going on.” I’m not in a dream, that much is certain.

One of them takes a shaky step forward. “Don’t listen to the demon. It will lull you with its words. We must kill it before it kills us. To me!”

The others are hesitant and fearful, but they move to the man’s side and inch forward. I don’t know anything about anything here, but I know that I don’t want to be attacked.

“Listen to me. I’m not your enemy. She is your enemy but she’s not a threat anymore. Leave and don’t come back. I don’t want to turn this into a fight. You’ve seen what I can do.”

I have no idea how I did what I did. I have no idea if I can fight. I’m almost one-hundred-percent certain that I’m a blue gaseous mass hanging in the air, and I’m starting worry that a strong wind is going to blow me away.

“We must take revenge on the witch. She summoned you to kill us—”

“I don’t know what is going on!” I shout. “Okay, she brought me here, but I took her down. Why would I do that if I was supposed to kill you all?”

"She sacrificed our friends to bring you here,” said the younger man at the back of the small group. He looked terrified. “Such dark magic can’t be trusted.”

They are afraid of me, but not afraid enough to run away. The fear reflects in their eyes, but there is anger and desperation there too. This world, wherever it is, is not like mine. They have to fight. They might not want to, but they have to, and that means that I am going to have to fight too.

The leader charges and slashes down at me with his sword. I slide to the left and his blade hits the ground, sending dirt and pebbles flying. He immediately recovers and slashes at me again. This time I lunge forward but that lands me in more trouble. One of the other men comes at me with a dagger. He swipes left and right and I have to dodge left and right. While I dance with these two bandits, I see three others running toward the witch, their weapons raised.

I don't know this woman, but she summoned me into the midst of this chaos, and we share a bond. I can’t let her get hurt. I fear that I will be hurt too. I tried to reason with the bandits, but they would not listen. I wish they would have listened.

As I rush to put myself between them and the woman, the three bandits strike at once—ax, sword, and hammer, all trying to claim the killing blow.

What I feel next is hard to describe. I have the sensation of all three weapons hitting me but no pain accompanies their strikes. Instead, a force ripples through me. A shockwave filled with residual heat and forceful pressure. It moves from my core out to the impact points where each weapon struck. It blasts from me, hurling the three bandits away. They grunt and groan as they land on the hard earth, skidding on their backs before coming to a stop. The leader looks at me, then to them, and then back to me. His face twists with anger and he lunges.

Was he expecting a different result to the others? With the leader charging from the front, the others come at me from all sides. They smash, slash, and stab only to be blown back as they hit me. They’re doing everything they can to get past me and to the witch. Even though I can see everything around me, it’s hard to keep up with their movements and I can’t be everywhere at once. After the first attack, I had hoped that being blown back repeatedly would wear them down. That’s not happening at all. Either the force is just a nuisance to them or they’re not going to leave without killing the witch. I won’t be able to keep up for long. And, the moment I lose focus, she’s going to be dead. And, what does that mean for me?

If this was really a dream, I would’ve woken up by now. My mind still clings to the possibility. I just can’t imagine anything else. Nothing else seems possible. But here I am, and my would-be killers are not in the mood to sit down with me and explain what’s going on. The only thing they want is blood. The only positive is that I don’t have any.

I need to figure this out.