In a room filled with old furniture that had been covered in dusty white sheets, Ash found stairs leading downward. The room was across the hall from the kitchen, where he could smell cooking underway but saw no sign of any servants. The savory aromas of soup and fresh bread were so real they made his mouth water. Meals must be included in the Ruby Ticket package. How long had they been in the game? He was losing track of time.

When he spotted the stairs leading down into thick darkness, he took an oil lamp from one of the dusty tables and lit it, replacing the glass chimney carefully in its clips. Before going down them, though, he returned to the hallway and called, “Hey, Serena? James? Elwood?” No response. “Anybody?” Still nothing.

So he shrugged and started down the stairs, following the glow of his oil lamp and looking forward to a “Major Weapon Upgrade.”

The bottom of the steps opened into a cavernous space. Dingy, gray light filtered through three tiny windows along the long wall that corresponded to the rear of the house. Two rows of brick pillars supported the ceiling, where wooden beams thicker than ships’ masts supported the floors above. Several large shapes sat motionless in the shadows, their nature impossible to discern so far away. The light also caught the shape of wine racks, all of which looked empty. The air smelled of moist earth, mold, mildew, and…rotting flesh? He couldn’t be sure.

Then his ears caught a faint scuffling, snuffling, shuffling somewhere in the dark.

“Is someone there?” he called, lifting the lamp higher.

The feeble flame made deep shadows that merged with those from the wan light from the windows.

The flicker of lightning filtered through the distant windows. Damn, this was cool, real haunted house stuff. He caught a huge grin on his face, heart thumping. This was like the first uphill on a rollercoaster.

“Who’s back there?” he called again.

No reply, but the noises stopped. He held the lamp higher and walked slowly toward where he thought he’d heard them.

Then voice whispered from the darkness. “Over here.”

Why did that scene from the movie Predator suddenly jump into his mind, where the alien predator faked a friend’s voice to lure the characters into danger?

“Who’s there?” he said. “Gilbert?”

A dark shadow slid behind a brick pillar twenty feet away, unnoticed until its movement caught his eye, like a leg or a dark foot sliding out of sight.

“These kinds of shenanigans aren’t going to help your case,” he said. His hands trembled, making the shadows tremble with them. “Look, you’re not scaring m—”

A black shape lunged out of the shadows. Eyes the size of goose eggs caught the lamplight in the split second before the thing was upon him. Jagged yellow teeth trailed slaver from a gaping maw. He screamed and reflexively chucked the lamp at the creature like a basketball chest pass. The flame disappeared. Glass shattered. Something struck him hard in the chest, knocking the wind out of him twice, once when it hit him, once when he slammed onto his back. Gasping for air he floundered onto his belly, feeling solid blackness loom over him. Something cold and viscous dribbled onto the back of his neck, into his hair.

He yelped like a kicked puppy and scrambled away, feeling something tug at his coat.

Dry laughter rattled in the darkness behind him as he slammed into the stairs, tripping, stumbling, choking for air, bashing his shins against the wood corners as he scrabbled for the dim light above. Was it coming? Were those footsteps approaching?

An enormous, long-fingered hand grabbed his ankle and yanked him like a doll into the darkness and slammed him against a pillar.

Cold, fetid breath blasted into his face as something black loomed over him. He caught a glimpse of rubbery, purplish-black skin, sprouting tufts of coarse obsidian bristles. And the face! That face bent over him and clamped its fangs around his throat. He struggled and punched and kicked. He felt his flesh tearing, and a hot gush and then…

Everything went white.

* * *

Himura slapped his Big Red Stop Button again. “Goddammit, Eddie! Do you want me to feed you to our masters?”

In the basement of the creepy mansion in the Ruby Ticket holder’s game zone, Eddie stood frozen as a statue, held motionless by his gamesuit. “I’m sorry, boss! I got carried away. He was so scared and it was just so much fun!” His voice held a manic, quavering edge.

“If the players are actually harmed, we will find ourselves swarmed by police before we’re ready! If you touch another player before I give the goddamn go-ahead, I’ll feed you to the masters limb by limb, organ by organ, while you’re still alive.” Himura did not shout, did not froth, did not break anything, but he funneled every erg of his seething, lava-hot rage into this moron’s headset. The suit biometrics told Himura that Eddie believed him.

Himura was finished playing by human rules with underlings who defied orders. In a few more hours, it wouldn’t matter anymore. Thanks to the throngs of players filling the building, the Resonator would soon reach “critical mass,” so to speak. He had been watching the gauges on the Resonator creep upward for weeks since the Castle’s opening. When it hit the red line, perhaps as soon as a few hours from now…well, best not to get too excited.

“Eddie, you will return to your ‘character’s’ program, yes?”

“Yes, Master!” Eddie said through a throat that the gamesuit had all but cinched off.

“You will not harm another player until I give the green light, yes?”

“Yes, Master!”

“You remember who your Master is, yes?”

“It is you, Master!”

“And I answer directly to the Others. Never forget that.”

“Yes, Master!”

* * *

Ash could breathe, but his limbs felt stuck in wet cement. He could see nothing except the white field before his eyes, but he couldn’t move his arms to remove his game visor. His heart’s triphammer beat made it difficult to breathe.

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

The white field resolved into text.

Ash Blackburn has been killed. Please wait while your character respawns.

“Do not panic,” his GM in the most calming voice. “Your character has been killed. You will respawn momentarily in one of the designated zones.”

He could feel himself being transported, had the sense of movement, but there was no sense of anyone carrying him or how it was happening, almost like crowd surfing at a concert.

“The game penalties for dying are: you lose half of your unallocated skill points, you remain in limbo for three minutes and return to the game in a designated respawn zone, and you suffer a Stability loss of ten points.”

Ash managed to summon his voice, and it was full of anger. “What the hell! That thing actually hurt me! I’m going to have bruises!”

“That cannot be. No Players may be physically harmed by any aspect of the—”

“Bullshit!” Ash yelled. “I can feel the bruises!” His voice was hoarse, and he could still feel the grotesquely long fingers wrapped around his throat, choking him with incredible force.

“Please, calm yourself. I apologize if the experience felt more real than you were expecting, but I can assure you—”

“Again, bullshit! You don’t think I know what a real punch feels like? Do you not have second by second records of what happened back there?”

“There are indeed system records, but I will need to place a request with one of our human facilitators. I cannot guarantee how long before you receive a response. They are very busy. I have logged your complaint, however, and we will be happy to discuss it further when your game session is concluded. If you prefer to wait until one is available, I can leave you in limbo until you are satisfied.”

“But you don’t know how long that will be?”

“Correct.”

He sighed, trying to calm himself. Yeah, his character was killed. But then he respawned. Just like he was supposed to. The game worked like it was supposed to. Could the realism of that physical contact be part of Ultimate Mode? He needed to get back into the game and tell everyone about what happened, in case they ran into the same critter. He couldn’t stomach the idea of any of them getting hurt, especially Ivy. Sitting in game limbo would not get that done.

“Fine,” he said. “Respawn me.”

At some point he had stopped being transported. The white field in his vision faded to black with an orchestral fanfare, then began to brighten again with the slow rise of ominous string music.

He was on his back. On a bed. Hovering above him was a beautiful face. Blonde locks and some darn sexy perfume. “Anastasia,” he said, his voice a croak.

Another figure hovered behind her. “Dude, you respawned! How the hell did you die so soon?” James said.

The wet cement around Ash’s limbs softened and disappeared. He could move again. James offered him a hand and pulled him unsteadily to his feet. His vision swam like he was looking through a fish bowl.

“Are you all right, sir?” Anastasia asked in her smooth contralto voice. She touched his face with a warm gentle hand. On his bare cheek, it felt like a wetsuit glove, but it was comforting and kind, nonetheless.

“You’ve got some secrets in this house,” Ash said to her, restraining himself from snapping.

“What happened?” James asked.

“I ran into some kind of…monster in the basement.”

“Wicked,” James breathed.

“Not wicked, mean as hell. Well, I suppose ‘wicked’ is the right word in the traditional sense. It tore me up and killed me. But here’s the really scary part. It hurt me. Like, for real.”

“No way!” James said.

“But—” Anastasia began, then clamped both hands over her mouth.

Ash took stock of his surroundings. A cramped, windowless bedroom, with a creaky spring mattress. Two oil lamps burned on a nightstand, casting dark shadows against the walls and ceiling. Ash tried to collect himself and get back into character, but the fight had felt so real, he was still shaken up. Or was the suit somehow feeding him physiological reactions? He shook his head and tried to focus.

James sounded skeptical. “Are you sure? I mean, this place is incredibly real.”

“It hit me! A gamesuit can’t knock you down like a football tackle!”

“I’m sure Anastasia would tell us if there was something dangerous going on.”

Ash gave James a withering look, then said, “GM, have you gotten the chance to review the game data from my character’s death?”

The GM said, “As I said, I will inform you when it becomes available. But I will remind you that it is impossible for a Player to be subject to physical harm—”

“Then how do you explain what happened to me down there?”

A pause. “I can’t.”

“Fine, but if it happens again, we’re gone, you hear me? I don’t want anyone else getting hurt.” He eyed Anastasia, who had been standing there mortified. She was either a fabulous actress or the game engine could create flawlessly convincing human expressions from nothing.

“How did you know I was here?” he asked.

James said, “There was this music, some sound effects or something, and a glow coming from this room. We were just down the hall. We came and found you here on the bed.”

Ash rubbed the soreness on his chest, on his throat. His voice felt hoarse. Maybe a change of subject would help him calm down. “So you two have been getting acquainted?”

Anastasia composed herself and reached for James’s arm. “Oh, yes, we’ve been getting on most splendidly.”

James patted her hand with what could only be described as a shit-eating grin. At least the kid was having fun. Ash had been concerned about that.

“So tell me you gave the monster a little smackdown,” James said. “What did it look like?”

Ash described it, as best he could remember, watching Anastasia’s reaction, but she offered nothing.

James asked, “Why didn’t you, I don’t know, shoot it?”

Ash flinched like he’d been hit in the face with a dodge ball. His character did, in fact, carry a gun. He signed again. “I…forgot.”

James laughed.

“It all happened so fast!” Ash said.

James laughed harder.

“This is all so real, I wasn’t even thinking of it!”

James kept laughing.

Anastasia said, “James, dearest, perhaps let us not be rude.”

On one hand, James was right. Ash’s character did in fact have a gun. He should have used it. But in real life he was not a trained combatant. He wasn’t a cop, or a soldier, or even a real P.I. He was not trained to go for his gun in an emergency situation. He was not expecting a life or death situation so early in the game. So much for that kind of meta-gaming. He was not about to let it happen again.

Anastasia said, “Please remind of your name, Mr….”

Ash cleared his throat and tried to get back into character. “Blackburn, Ash Blackburn.”

“Mr. Blackburn, may I ask you a personal question?”

“Sure, Miss Delacroix,” he said, making a point of the older custom of referring to people by their surnames.

“Are you and Miss Holliday…seeing each other?”

Beside her, James stiffened and did a double take, one eye narrowing with sudden jealousy.

The way she’d said it sounded very much like flirtation, even to a guy as flirtationally challenged as Ash.

Ash didn’t know how to answer. “Well, I mean, no, I mean—”

“I’ve spent nearly all of my life on this island,” she said, “if I’d known so many dashingly handsome men existed on the mainland, I’d have left here long ago.”

Ash felt himself blushing. He cleared his throat. “And the mainland would have been made more beautiful by your presence. I have no doubt both of us find you quite charming.”

James’ eyes flared with anger for a heartbeat, then he squeezed her hand possessively. “Oh yeah, super charming.”

Then Ivy appeared in the doorway. “What happened? I heard music.”

James turned to her. “Our fearless leader here got himself killed by a monster in the basement.”

Ivy stopped. “What? Really?”

Ash told her the story, relieved at being able to warn her. When he finished, he asked, “By the way? Where’s our friend Elwood? I hope he hasn’t met anything…untoward.”

Ivy squared on Anastasia. “And you know nothing of any monsters in the basement?” Was that a whiff of protectiveness in her voice? The intensity with which she studied Anastasia gave him a shred of hope that maybe he hadn’t already wrecked his chances.

“I assure you,” Anastasia said, “I do not. I have lived in his house my whole life and never seen such a thing.”

Ash found his head swimming with how convincing this actor was, momentarily dizzied by the question of what was real. It was so utterly convincing—maybe even more so after what had happened in the basement. He still felt a little shaky. In this moment, he felt like if he had removed his visor in the middle of that basement encounter, he would have seen the exact same monster.

Then a distinguished looking figure of Elwood Velásquez appeared in the doorway. “Oh, there you all are! Good grief, I’ve been looking all over. We need to talk.”