One second I gripped the rock in my hand, and the next, it vanished beneath my fingers. I skidded down the cliffside, the sharp edges and rough rock rubbing my fingers raw, but it slowed my descent just enough. While the initial height was nearly three stories tall, potentially enough to kill me, I’d caught myself a little over halfway down and skidded the rest, landing harshly on my feet. The impact jarred me from my knees to my shoulders. It took a few seconds for the pain to die down, and I used the time to find a much larger group of people, a city, to the north. Recovered, I sprinted back into the woods and followed the treeline, making a beeline from my pursuers. I sprinted along the grass and the roots, which gave me a grip and prevented the knee aches and exhaustion running in the sand could cause. The trio of player killers dropped off behind me, presumably searching for the discarded belongings that would have been left behind if a character died in-game.

The [Do you wish to begin the tutorial?] window still hovered in front of my face. Confident I’d left the player killers in the dust, I halted, considering my next steps. This question hadn’t appeared when I’d played Zenith Online as my character, Blaze, as the game had been set up to slowly lead you through the various mechanics. It felt significant that the prompt had opened up here, now, after the strange messages earlier about converting data.

I tried not to think very hard about the logistics of the entire matter, but I couldn’t help myself. The books we interacted with read the same, regardless of how much we interfered. If, as it appeared, those had been actual players in Zenith Online, then that threw my worldview completely off-kilter. Would players report seeing a “Hayden McCarthy” NPC running around? Worse, would someone I know spot me? But how did that work with multiple servers?

And, for that matter, how does a real person end up in the bits and bytes of a video game?

Thinking deeply on it, the last question was probably the easiest to write off. In actuality, there wasn’t much of a difference between the logic of books and games. The book's story was determined by the words written on the page, dictating the movements of the characters, the surrounding, and the story's progression. While appearing as an entirely different product, a video game was much the same. Character movements, plot progression, and surroundings were predetermined by words on the computer, also known as programs.

So that part, at least, made as much sense as world traveling did, which is to say, not much. However, my presence in this world was a far larger and worse problem. It wasn’t quite the same as any web novel, manga, or story that Ember had relayed. My consciousness wasn’t stuck in my player character’s body–the still-healing mark from the bullet on my arm was a reasonably good indicator that this body was my own. And, it wasn’t as though I ended up in the world that inspired the game or a world that worked just on game rules. The tainted red names, outfits, and behavior of the three I’d met were neon signs indicating I was actually inside the video game.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

And so, though the potential benefits were fast, I didn’t want to start the tutorial. The potential dangers were equally vast, and I didn’t want it to end in the same manner my first attempt at playing video games had. I’d improved rapidly because I was used to typing–but would my physical abilities hold up to par in a digital world where players were superhuman?

…perhaps I was being overly cautious.

My rapid footsteps slowed as I noticed an oddly shaped item pop into the horizon ahead, behind the tutorial window that still hovered before my eyes. I slipped deeper into the forest, wary of encountering other player killers at this stage. The shape grew more distinct as I grew close, turning from an indescribable blob of ridged and rounded edges into a molten metal aircraft carcass. Lying face down in the white sand was an unconscious man with long, curly dark brown hair and tanned, or perhaps brown, skin. A loose off-white shirt billowed over the brown, gold-trimmed skin-tight suit that clung around his wrists and covered his boots. A brown and gold helmet sat discarded on the sand next to him. The colors and depictions tugged at a strand of memory in my mind.

Scenes from the Zenith Online novel unraveled with the tug. This was the opening scene from the Zenith Online novel. Sinbad, a space merchant, had ended up shipwrecked on an island populated by exotic animals along with poachers and gangs who slaughtered newcomers who were unable to afford the proper tribute.

My shoulders relaxed minutely. Sinbad was strong and would be a useful companion until I reunited with Cove. And, if the past two worlds were anything to go by, spending time with the protagonist of the novel would inevitably lead to contact with the fragment.

I plodded over, the sand sliding from beneath my feet, aggravating my already aching knees. To relieve myself of some weight, I dropped Ani on the ground. He darted across the sand, skidding to a halt and sending a spray of sand that arced above Sinbad’s head, settling like snow on his dark locks.

I sighed and hastened my steps. Ani crouched down, his rear in the air. “Ani,” I warned.

He took it as permission rather than the warning it was and pounced on Sinbad’s back, battering at the shift rustling in the wind. Sinbad’s head tilted to the side, and a groan escaped his lips.

I crouched down in front of his face and gently shooed Ani from off Sinbad’s back. “Are you okay?” I asked the man. His eyelids fluttered, and he stared at me blankly momentarily. Once he fully registered my presence, he shot up into a standing position, towering above me.

He wavered on his feet, almost teetering over. I rose and grabbed him by the arm, steadying him. His hand drifted to his face, pressing against his forehead. “What…happened?”