I’m not a morning person at all. It usually takes two alarms, a large cup of coffee or two, and a shower before I’m ready to function like a human being, but today the anticipation of seeing this upgrade had me out of bed and eating breakfast before I could register my alarm going off the first time. I left my bacon and eggs on the stove while I fetched my phone off its charger and dismissed both alarms. The battery decreased by 1% in protest, but I ignored it.

I scarfed down my simple breakfast in record time, gulped down both cups of fresh coffee, and skipped back to my room to boot up my MIND while nursing my burned tongue. It took ages for the console to wake up, and I had the visor on my head as soon as the LEDs turned green.

The darkness consumed my vision, and the boot-up prompt floated in the void.

Welcome back, User .

Launch Path of Exile now?

“Yes, launch!” I called enthusiastically. “Enough of the suspense!”

The system didn’t retort, simply zooming my vision into the floating text until my entire field of view was glowing white. It might have been my imagination, but I thought the transition took less time than before, as though the system could sense my impatience. Well, it doesn’t matter.

Abruptly, my whole body was hit with a wave of freezing water, as if I’d had a hose turned on me in an industrial freezer. My vision too, wasn’t fading into any scene unlike last time, and instead was splitting into thousands of bubbles that tickled my face. The air I was so casually breathing instantly liquefied and started to flood my lungs until I remembered to close my mouth. Ah fuck, I was underwater last time, wasn’t I! I had to reach the surface, NOW!

I thrashed desperately, overcome with panic at the thought of drowning within the first minute of the real game. Luckily, I wasn’t a half-bad swimmer even in real life, and was able to claw my way up to my first in-game breath of air.

Overhead, the storm was still raging in full force, throwing bits of ship and unfortunate corpses against jagged rocks and pelting them with icy rain and forks of lightning. The rough tide still threatened to drag me under, but a piece of the ship passed within my reach and I clung to it like a koala. Luckily, the ship was wrecked close enough to shore that the waves were all rushing in the direction of higher ground, so all I had to do was keep my head above water and let nature push me to relative safety.

After a short eternity of splashing, cursing, and spitting out disgusting seawater, I finally, finally felt sand under my bare feet. I was completely worn out from fighting the forces of nature, so crawling out of the water was an exhausting chore. The weather didn’t improve at all, and dawn showed no signs of approaching, but the solid, sandy beach was such an improvement over floating in open water that I collapsed face-down on the spot.

With a “ding!” a message panel popped up, tilted so I could read it without having to raise my head.

Your account has been upgraded. Please enjoy the enhanced experience.

Enhanced experience? Like, the experience points gained from killing enemies to level up? If that was the case, the upgrade was a total cheat. More likely, the upgrade just changed some settings to make the game a little more realistic. On that note, please turn down the physical exhaustion! I just woke up, but I’m ready to take a nap.

The shoreline of a hostile environment during a stormy night is absolutely the worst place to sleep though, so with a complaining grumble I pushed myself into a sitting position. Huh, the moon was really bright in-game, even in spite of the dense stormclouds. The moonlight was bright enough to illuminate the whole beach with a silvery-blue glow, clearly exposing all the sharp rocks I narrowly avoided, the sad remnants of the unnamed prison ship, some miraculously unscathed cargo, and more bodies than I cared to count. The vast majority of these bodies lay deathly still, but some still groaned and tried to move pitifully. One of the bodies, the one laying only a few meters from me, had some familiar scars on his bare chest…Calvin!

“Calvin! Are you hurt?!” I forgot my own tiredness in my worry. It was a stupid question to ask, considering the blood pooling on the sand beneath him from a gaping hole in his side, but he was the only person I’d conversed with in this place. “Hang in there!”

“Ah, girly…” Calvin coughed weakly. “So you were safe, that’s good…I knew you were a tough one.” More coughing, this time colored with blood.

“Why the hell would you worry about me?! Look at yourself!” I retorted instinctively, “I have to find some bandages or something!”

Calvin caught my wrist before I could move. “Girly,” he rasped, “I’m not long for this world…” More painful hacking as he struggled to get the words out. “Listen to me. No matter what, don’t stop moving. If there are others--“ he cuts off for another bout of coughing.

“Calvin, stop! Whatever you want to say can wait until you’re patched up!”

“No!” he barked with sudden force, then collapsed with a wheeze. “Listen! If there are other survivors, from different ships, they--they’ll probably have set up a base. You comb this beach until you find them, girly. You’re tough, I know you can make it here.” His coughs were growing more infrequent, but that was only because his breathing was becoming shallower by the second.

“Alright, I’ll look! So you have to get patched up!” I desperately agreed. How could I not?

“Good…luck be with ye, girly. Live strong…” Calvin’s voice, once so strong and gruff, was nothing more than a gentle whisper. I thought he muttered something like “Amelie” after that, but I might have been wrong…and his breathing stopped.

“Oh fuck, no!” I screamed! “How the hell do I do CPR! Calvin!” I clutched ineffectively at his shoulders. They were already growing cold. “You’re supposed to be the Tutorial NPC, right?! You have to lead me to the safe area, right?!” I shouted at him, as though more decibels of noise would wake him up. “FUCK!”

The intense combination of the stormy sea and emotional shock made my stomach churn, and I leaned to the side to dry heave. He was only an NPC; hell, I’d only spoken with him three times over the course of six hours, but he was the first person I met here. He was a person, and he’d just died in my arms. Already his face was getting blurry…though that might have been tears.

I sat back onto my heels. It was obviously too late for me to help him, but it felt wrong to just immediately move along despite his final request. “Fuck,” I whispered to myself, “Get a grip. He said you were tough, so man up, girl…” It took me another minute to collect myself and climb to my feet.

Spitting out a sigh, I decided that it definitely would be best for my mentality to move on, literally. Just as I was about to step away, though, I heard something odd. It was like a quiet sputtering, sort of in-between a growl and a gargle. I tried to sharpen my hearing, and unconsciously turned back to face Calvin’s body.

The sputtering snarl gained in intensity. Did his hand just twitch?

While I was staring in a daze, Calvin’s body, gaping wound and all, jerkily sat upright and stood up. He--no, it--spun around to face me with blank eyes and bared teeth, and suddenly lunged at me with scraggly nails outstretched!

“SHIT!” I squealed, throwing myself backward and off-balance, landing on my ass. The nails flew through the space where my face was not two seconds ago, and I scooted away as quickly as I could without letting the monster out of my sight. “Not fucking cool!” I complained an octave higher than normal.

I tried to regain my footing so I could run away, but the instant I was upright the monster repeated its lunge and I ended up back on the ground. I was running out of space to retreat--the beach was crowded with debris and driftwood, and I soon found myself backed against a pile of sturdy crates. The monster steadily approached, gurgling sickeningly, dark blood oozing down its face.

I freaked out, desperately looking for anything that could count as a weapon. There were a couple pieces of driftwood nearby that were of a decent size, but they looked fragile and soft. Then, I noticed a stick of some sort leaning against the back of a crate, that seemed to be glowing slightly. Out of options, I scrambled behind the crate and grabbed the stick. It was a curvy shortbow, apparently also crafted out of driftwood, but it felt solid in my hands so I didn’t think too hard about its durability. There was a problem, though. A few, in fact. For one thing, I was holding a bow to face off against a monster…and I didn’t see any arrows. To make things worse, I had no idea how to use a bow effectively. “A curvy stick is still a stick, and sticks are for whacking,” I scowled. There was no rule that said there was only one way to use a weapon.

The creature advanced again, not deterred in the slightest by my new weapon. I felt much more confident now that I wasn’t empty-handed, but there was no way I was confident enough to just run up and hit it. I’m not a thug! I lived too nice a life to know how to hurt people. The monster didn’t care about my hesitation; in fact, it probably appreciated the easy approach. I had no time to debate with my morals. Either I swung to kill, or my gaming session would be very short.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

“Guh, dammit!” I yelled, and swung the bow like a baseball bat at the monster’s head! It whiffed past, missing by a good three inches. Did I mention that I’ve never fought a person in my life? I almost cried with frustration when my attack didn’t faze the monster in the slightest. It just rattled at me and stretched out its nasty nails again, reminding me to keep backing away. At least now I was behind the small barrier of washed-up crates, and the monster had no idea how to overcome this obstacle. I was finally allowed some breathing room to think about the situation and watch the gruesome corpse shuffle ineffectively into the crates.

Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed another glow similar to the one coming off of the bow. To my left, poking out of a different crate, a raggedy leather quiver stained with seawater glimmered at me. With cautious hope, I picked it up, and sure enough there were about ten unbroken arrows inside it, after I shook out the shattered pieces of the more unlucky ones. Ten arrows was ten more than I had before, so I just shrugged the quiver over my shoulder and pulled one out. I must admit, I felt really cool with a bow in one hand and a sharp arrow in the other, facing off against a monster that didn’t know how to circumnavigate a box. Okay, maybe not that cool.

“Okay, lesson one in self-taught archery, starting now,” I instructed myself. Maybe I would pick up this skill faster if I took a teacher-like tone? Probably not, but there was nobody around to teach me, so I might as well. I’m a lefty, so it probably wouldn’t help much to think of archers in movies as examples, either. “Put stick on string, pull string, let go of stick,” I mumbled, following my own orders and gripping the arrow by the feathers -- they’re called fletching, right?-- and balancing the other end on the heel of the hand holding the bow. I pulled the string and arrow back together, tried to point the business end at the zombie, and let go! The arrow magnificently flew half a meter and dropped to the sand.

“Shit.” I reached for the arrow right as the monster figured out how to bend its knees, or at least fall over the obstacle in its path. “What a persistent bastard.” I had to abandon the treacherous arrow now that the monster could freely approach again, and we resumed our game of horrifying tag around the flotsam covering the beach.

For several minutes, the scene kept replaying; me backpedaling, the monster following, the surf pounding the shore while the storm crackled and thrummed overhead. I was starting to feel the chill settle into my bones, and the zombie was tirelessly shuffling in my wake. If I didn’t end this soon, I would slow down too much to continue evading. My fear of the monster began to fade, and was replaced with indignation. Who the hell did this shambling corpse think it was, raising poor Calvin from his death and not leaving me alone? It just kept up that annoying shuffling, kicking wet sand everywhere and constantly sputtering that wet growl! I got angrier and angrier at the sheer absurdity of this. I should have been travelling up the beach like Calvin told me to, joining the rest of the players and exploring the first safe town, but this stupid zombie just couldn’t take a break! It was high time this irritating monster learned to take “no” for an answer.

Just as I was about to charge the zombie head-on in a reckless bid for victory, the heavens above agreed with my sentiment and tossed out a lightning bolt that struck the wooden cargo boxes not ten meters away. The CRASH of the impact was temporarily deafening and blinding, but both effects quickly faded, exposing the sight of a large pile of wooden scrap burning to cinders on the stormy beach. The zombie, too, had recovered whatever senses it may have had, and was standing still for once, not turning its gaunt face away from the flickering blaze.

“You’re kidding. That’s too convenient!” I thought out loud. Setting aside the incredibly lucky lightning strike, the undead retained their classic weakness to heat here? Without any further hesitation, I rushed over to the fire and tried to grab a half-burned driftwood stick. It crumbled to hot ash the second I touched it, though. “No way, it can’t be that unreasonable,” I retorted at the scattering pile of dust, “Why would fire be an environment effect if you can’t utilize it?” I reached for another stick, and it pulled the same stunt as the other. The zombie was growling again, but it kept a safe distance from the fire. Apparently, I had a safe zone within the fire’s radius, but already the heavy rain was working on extinguishing the flames. 

I couldn’t grab a burning branch, the zombie wouldn’t approach the fire, and said fire was rapidly fading in the weather. What the hell was I supposed to do, then?! I couldn’t even shoot an arrow properly…

A crazy idea occurred to me. I likely wouldn’t be able to pull it off; hell, even if it did work like I envisioned it, I had just proven to myself that archery is a lot more difficult than it looks in the movies. But it was the best, if only, course of action I could take right now. I pulled another arrow from my quiver, and held the head of it in the fire. Instantly, the stone tip and wooden shaft caught the flame, and burned unreasonably brightly. The fire didn’t seem to be consuming the arrow, either, thanks to game logic, but I only spared a quick mental “thanks” to the developers before trying once more to turn this stupid zombie back into a corpse.

The first flaming arrow fared just as well as my first attempt, burying itself a meter away. I was able to pick it back up, and since the head didn’t even look smoky, I lit it on fire again and made another attempt. The second try did a little better, probably because I fired while holding my body parallel to the bow, but it still struck the beach a step in front of the zombie. It slowly glanced at the arrow, then back up to me, and growled out a mocking laugh. At least, that’s what it sounded like to me. 

I’m sure my face was twisted into a magnificent scowl as I pulled my third arrow from my quiver, lit it, and tried to aim. I mostly guessed where the thing was pointed by listening for the zombie’s undead chatter, since the fire on the arrowhead blocked my view. The arrow was loosed, and drew a flaming arc in the dark sky, and hit the stupid zombie in the shoulder! Immediately, the monster’s whole torso caught fire, and it screamed a raspy howl as its flesh charred and crumbled into ash. After ten seconds, nothing remained of the monster’s upper half except some exposed and blackened ribs.

The hips and legs fell over with a wet thud, and didn’t even twitch. For a few endless seconds, I didn’t dare move, just in case it was a bluff, but the waves continued to crash and the sky continued to rumble and the remnants of the corpse were as still as death. For the first time, I noticed that I was shaking all over, and my grip on my bow had tightened to a painful degree. The fire behind me was washed away by the rain, and all I could do was collapse to my knees in the bloody sand.

“I did it…” I whispered hoarsely. “I did it!” I cheered for myself, adrenaline and triumph making my tired voice crack. Laughing hollowly, I started to try to pull myself to my feet to move on, but my legs wouldn’t move. In addition, the unburnt crate I was reaching toward for support started to blur out of focus, swimming in my vision. Groping blindly, I managed to find it, and the moment my hand met the solid surface, I entrusted my entire weight to the splintery box as I broke down into wild sobs. My guide, my first and only friend, had just died not ten minutes ago, then his corpse tried to kill me. My sobs morphed and mixed with half-crazed giggles. It was just so ridiculous, so surreal, it was so incredibly absurd that it became impossibly funny. I laughed and cried for god knows how long, expelling my pent-up emotions and stress as I clung to the crate that had become my lifeline.

Eventually my mad outburst exhausted itself, and I just sat there in a silent daze. I still hadn’t left the area I washed up in, and the corpses of the sailors that I had been ignoring in my panic suddenly looked a lot more suspicious. I knew, logically, it was beyond foolish to stay here in this dangerous place, but my legs still stubbornly refused to move. “Maybe just a five-minute break,” I mumbled, slumping against the crate. I didn’t sleep, because the game system prevented rest in unsecure areas, but my mind went foggy and I entered a kind of trance while the storm continued to punish the sea, finally relaxing my frazzled mind. Everything that had happened so far was just too much to take in at once, and if I didn’t take some time to sort out how I felt about all these events now then I would completely snap. Yeah, the smart option is to relax right now. My eyelids drifted half shut, and I took my time weighing the situation and getting some much-needed rest.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Author here! Sorry this chapter was a day late, a lot was happening over the weekend and I tried to make this chapter a bit longer than the others. I thought the second half of this chapter would fit with the first, but now that I'm thinking it over it would make for a great Chapter Five on its own. Please let me know your impressions and thoughts!

Thanks so much for reading, and I hope you enjoy!

-Anya Lee (aka Doodlehero)