Kyle had a tough time getting to sleep, but he had an even tougher time waking up. As soon as his eyes opened, he felt a gust of cold wind blow at him, and he shivered. He desperately reached out to grab his blanket, his comforter, his anything to protect himself, but everything was gone.

He reluctantly opened his eyes, but only for a moment before he quickly shut them. His tiny glimpse of his surroundings revealed that he wasn’t in his home, surrounded by all the comforts of modern living, but actually in a shallow cave, nowhere near his cotton bedding or soft mattress.

He rolled onto his side, leaning against his forearm, and felt the stone floor underneath him. It, like the air around him, was cold and unforgiving. He felt pieces of the stone press into his skin, the uneven ground hurting him. With a loud sigh, Kyle observed his surroundings in greater depth.

The cave was only about ten feet deep, seven feet high, and four feet wide. He laid with his head toward the deepest part of the cave and only a foot from the wall, where the stone face suddenly shot upward to meet the ceiling. From inside the cave, Kyle saw several large tree trunks past the cave mouth. Wherever he was, it was inside a cave inside a forest.

Welcome to the world of Teyrdas. You are about to begin a quest of epic proportions, fraught with peril. To help you in your quest, you will be given access to the Temporal Shop every seven days.

Just as Kyle gained his bearings, a floating screen of text knocked him back out of it. The words hovered against a dark-blue background, and did not change until he read them in their entirety.

You gained 658 Credits.

A random amount of Credits - between 1 and 1000 - have been added to your account. Spend your Credits at the Temporal Shop to help you survive and thrive on your way to completing your quest!

The new words hovered in place for exactly as long as Kyle needed them, and then they disappeared, as if they never existed at all. But, they did exist, and Kyle read them all.

His mind was thrown into overdrive. The boxes of text looked like the user interface from a videogame, but he wasn’t sitting at a computer monitor; he was laying in the back of a shallow cave.

Then, it occurred to Kyle that he must be having a dream. Of course, it seemed so simple now that he thought about it for a few seconds. How else would have spontaneously appeared in a mysterious cave or see videogame status screens? With newfound vigor, Kyle stood up and walked to the cave mouth, where a scene of untouched wilderness unfolded before him.

It was like nothing he had seen before, but it wasn’t outside the scope of a dream. Since he must have been in a dream, Kyle stretched out his arms as far as they would go and willed himself to float into the sky.

He wanted it to happen, but it did not. For a few more foolish seconds, Kyle stood at the cave mouth trying to float into the air, but he never moved. Instead, he lost himself in the scenery below him.

The trees were all 20-25 feet wide and at least a hundred feet tall. They had about 30 feet of height below the cave Kyle stood in, and another 50 feet above the cave before the started growing branches, which blocked most of Kyle’s view of the canopy. Sounds from small critters and chirping birds could be heard from the cave mouth, and thick foliage covered boundless life on the forest floor.

Something about the untouched vastness filled Kyle with a sense of peace. The absence of civilization was apparent on the plants, which all grew wild and uncontrolled.

Kyle lowered his arms and backed away from the cave mouth. As he backed away from the forest, he brushed his fingers against the cave walls and felt their rough texture. He thought back to the first message he received, which told him something about a world…

Welcome to the world of Teyrdas.

Just as Kyle began to recall the box of text, it appeared before him, again, but with only the relevant parts showing. Kyle read it and recalled the subsequent boxes of text, and left him wondering how to use his Credits and the Temporal Shop.

Temporal Shop | Credits: 658

A new box of text appeared in front of Kyle, but it had very little substance. Other than displaying how many Credits he had, it showed nothing else. He expected the Temporal Shop, which was supposed to help him somehow, to have things like swords and guns in it.

Temporal Shop | Credits: 658

* Sword: A steel sword of excellent quality. 500 Credits.

* Gun: A 45-caliber handgun with 7-round capacity. 7,800 Credits.

For a few seconds, Kyle could only look at the updated box of text and contemplate what was happening. He had thought about having a sword and a gun in the shop, and there they appeared a moment later. He thought about it for a while longer and sat on the cave floor. The boxes of text were mysteriously illuminated no matter where he looked, so Kyle didn’t have any trouble reading them inside the dark cave.

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After a few minutes of thought, Kyle added a few more guns to the shop.

Temporal Shop | Credits: 658

* Sword: A steel sword of excellent quality. 500 Credits.

* Gun: A .45 ACP handgun with 7-round capacity. 7,800 Credits.

* Smaller Gun: A .40 S&W handgun with 7-round capacity. 7,100 Credits.

* Smaller Gun: A .380 ACP handgun with 7-round capacity. 6,400 Credits.

* Smaller Gun: A .22LR handgun with 7-round capacity. 5,800 Credits.

The three smaller guns were easily added to the shop, but they each had the same name. It wasn’t a big issue since the descriptions were right next to the name, but it was something to think about.

Temporal Shop | Credits: 658

* Sword: A steel sword of excellent quality. 500 Credits.

* Gun: A .45 ACP handgun with 7-round capacity. 7,800 Credits.

* 40-Caliber Gun: A .40 S&W handgun with 7-round capacity. 7,100 Credits.

* 38-Caliber Gun: A .380 ACP handgun with 7-round capacity. 6,400 Credits.

* 22-Caliber Gun: A .22LR handgun with 7-round capacity. 5,800 Credits.

Once again, the simplicity of changing the contents of the shop pleasantly surprised Kyle. He then tried to edit the price for the guns, but they would not change. He needed something cheaper to use as a weapon, but not a sword. Over the course of several minutes, Kyle added several ranged weapons to his Temporal Shop.

Temporal Shop | Credits: 658

* Sword: A steel sword of excellent quality. 500 Credits.

* 45-Caliber Gun: A .45 ACP handgun with 7-round capacity. 7,800 Credits.

* 40-Caliber Gun: A .40 S&W handgun with 7-round capacity. 7,100 Credits.

* 38-Caliber Gun: A .380 ACP handgun with 7-round capacity. 6,400 Credits.

* 22-Caliber Gun: A .22LR handgun with 7-round capacity. 5,800 Credits.

* Air Rifle: A 1,400 FPS, .177 pellet rifle. 2,100 Credits.

* Air Pistol: A 510 FPS, .177 pellet pistol. 1,000 Credits.

* Crossbow: A 370 FPS crossbow. 3,200 Credits.

* Bow: A 310 FPS compound bow. 3,600 Credits.

* Really Cheap Gun: Honestly, it’s a piece of shit. 1,700 Credits.

* Zip Gun: Accuracy = None. 350 Credits.

* BB Gun: A 350 FPS, .177 pellet rifle. 400 Credits.

Only having 658 Credits didn’t give Kyle much to work with, but it was enough for a zip gun or a bb gun. The description on the zip gun didn’t look good, and Kyle had never used a zip gun before, so he purchased the bb gun and hoped for the best.

He had used one when he was a child - more than ten years ago - so he wouldn’t be a complete novice when it came to using one, unlike with a zip gun. In fact, Kyle only knew about zip guns because of old movies he watched, where poor thugs would build zip guns themselves.

-400 Credits

Another box of text flashed in front of Kyle, and the familiar shape of a lever-action bb gun fell behind it. The wood and metal body clanged on the cave’s stone floor, and Kyle leaned forward to pick up the bb gun. As he leaned forward, the Temporal Shop screen disappeared, somehow having sensed that Kyle didn’t want to see it anymore.

The bb gun looked exactly like the one in Kyle’s memory; it even had the Red Ryder logo on the stock. Kyle’s adult hands wrapped around the bb gun like his childish hands could not, and he cranked the lever with ease. After checking the safety, he aimed the bb gun outside the cave mouth and pulled the trigger, causing a small change inside the bb gun to happen, but for no bb to fly out.

The bb gun didn’t have any bb’s inside it, of course. Kyle brought the Temporal Shop back up and added a 4,000-count bottle of bbs for 180 Credits, which he then purchased. This time, instead of letting the bottle of bb’s fall to the ground and possible break open, Kyle reached out his hand, and the purchased bottle of bb’s appeared in his open palm.

He now had only 69 Credits, but that didn’t worry him. Kyle set the bb gun on the ground and poured a handful of bbs into his hand, which he then placed into the bb gun’s bb holder. As he remembered, the bb gun had a capacity of around 600 bbs, which took several minutes to fill. Once the bb gun was full, Kyle stood with it and walked to the cave mouth, pointing the bb gun into the forest beyond him.

In one fluid motion, Kyle cocked the bb gun and pulled the trigger, sending a .177-caliber bb through a low-hanging leaf. The cold air, the cave’s hard floor, the cave’s rough walls, the bb gun’s knockback, the dull puff of the bb gun firing, and a sharp pang as the bb hit the leaf: Kyle felt them all.

He began to think he wasn’t in a dream.