Amelia perched on the bench in the rented camper van, her gaze falling on the clean upholstery. It looked new, which was reassuring. Three more weeks in here with four other people without someone being murdered was going to be tough, but at least the van was clean. Her parents had paid for this entire holiday. They called themselves “comfortable,” but Amelia knew better. Her parents were filthy rich. They had made their money in banking and in flipping London properties, each in their own way selling dreams to people in debt.

Four other people. She’d long ago decided that her four “best pals” - as her dad had phrased it - were the four of her friends she thought could tolerate each other the best. Maria was just the sweetest person. Samuel was fun. Actually, yes, she might well be tempted to off Sam soon, figuratively speaking, of course. Kimiko was quiet, a rock on which Sam ran aground. Malik, the muse, always seeing beauty in the mundane. They’d met at the UCL Debating Society during their time at Uni. University College London, where the smart, but not quite the smartest, kids go. That was behind them now, at least for the next few months. The cage door had been sprung. They’d been flung out into the wild as newly minted graduates. And into this all expenses paid holiday, courtesy of Mum and Dad.

“Kimiko, are you ready yet? Let’s go!” shouted Sam from the front, leaning around, facing back. Sam in the driver’s seat, wheel in hand, brown hair flopping around his ears. The door to the bathroom, which Mel jokingly called “The Vertical Coffin,” opened as Kimiko stepped out.

“Mel, your turn?” she asked

“Nah, I’m ready to go. Sam, take it away!” Mel replied, efficiently using one breath to talk to two people and answer two questions.

“OK, South on the A66 to Keswick, then a right to Buttermere, isn’t it?” asked Sam.

“Yup, that’s right. But don’t go too fast. You went too fast yesterday,” replied Maria, her tone cautious.

Sam pulled out of the campsite on the Northern edge of Bassenthwaite Lake, one of the many lakes left by glacial meltwater in the Lake District. They trundled along the B5291, a narrow country road barely wide enough for their camper van and oncoming traffic, visibility limited because of the high loam walls on each side of the road and its sharp curves. A road made for horse and cart, now bursting with camper vans and bulging SUVs stuffed with sports gear and eager outdoorsy-folk.

The scenery was stunning. Veritable mountains soaring high, everywhere green, blanketed in grass and trees. The Lake District had once been England’s most remote and poorest region, the land too poor for anything but sheep, the mountains having nothing to offer except roofing slate, and in earlier times stone for axes. The rain had started up again. Rain was, of course, expected in the Lake District of England. Warm air, laden with moisture, swept in from the East on the Gulf Stream, drenching the Western British Isles.

“Left here, to Keswick!” called Mel as they reached the T-Junction to the A66. The peak of Skiddaw loomed high and mighty to the southeast, its bald, flat top dominating the view.

“Maria, are you going to start a Master’s next semester?” Mel asked.

“I don’t think so. Not unless I get a scholarship. I’ve looked around but I haven’t applied for one yet. I don’t even know what I’d want to do.” Maria replied.

“Oh, you can do anything! You always said you wanted to get into psychology.” Malik said, in an encouraging tone.

“Yes, well, psychology is really interesting. I touched on it during my social work studies. Lots of people getting NHS care have some kind of underlying mental health issue. But I’m not sure, maybe going really deep into is a bit of a distraction. I can’t really imagine it properly, what it would like to be a psychologist. Plus, I need to earn some money soon.”

Mel kept quiet. Of the group, she was the only one who hadn’t needed to take out a student loan to pay for tuition or living expenses, courtesy - again - of her parents. Reminding everyone of her privilege was never a great idea. She’d learned some hard lessons at Uni.

The rain had turned into a downpour, sheets of water whipping up and down the road. The wipers careened back and forth across the camper van’s windshield, dumping buckets of rainwater with each swipe.

“Anyway, what about you, Malik? What’s your plan?” Maria deflected.

“My tutor wants me to go to Edinburgh. She says that there is a fantastic course being offered in contemporary fine art. They also do a part-time course, so I should be able to work or even sell some of my paintings.” Replied Malik.

“Edinburgh! Do you even speak Scottish?” joked Sam. Of course he knew that the people in Edinburgh spoke English, but he’d been there once. He hadn’t understood everything that the locals had said.

“Uh, Scottish? No, I speak English and Yoruba, not Scottish…” said Malik. Malik’s family was from Lagos, Nigeria. They’d emigrated - some might say fled - to England in the 1990s. They had been strong and vocal supporters of Mashood Abiola, marking them as traitors to Abacha’s ensuing military junta.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“Ignore him, he’s pulling your leg! I’m pretty sure everyone can speak English there.” said Mel.

Malik looked thoughtful, glancing at Sam as if trying to understand why Sam had said that. He gave up, Sam was just doing Sam things.

“You’re going too fast!” exclaimed Maria, gripping the sides of her seat.

In fact, Sam wasn’t speeding. "The vehicle was traveling at approximately 60mph, although any speed in excess of 30mph must be considered to be grossly negligent, given the atrocious weather conditions at the time of the accident." the forensic collision investigator would later note in their report.

Thick raindrops pelted the roof like an army of insane drummers. Sam’s knuckles turned white as he gripped the wheel, as the rain and leaves obscured his vision. The wind roared, yanking at the vehicle, threatening to rip it from its path.

“We need to pull over,” Mel yelled, barely audible over the relentless rainfall.

“This is insane!” Malik shouted from the passenger seat, clutching the door handle as if to anchor the vehicle to the ground. In the back, the three other passengers huddled together.

Suddenly, they saw a massive branch, ripped from a tree by the storm, hurtling towards them. Time seemed to slow as Sam’s instincts kicked in. With a sharp yank of the wheel, he swerved away from the branch, the vehicle's tires screeching in protest.

The camper collided with a low wall, the sound of crunching metal and shattering glass filling the air, the side door and roof lights bursting open. The passengers screamed, their voices lost in the storm's cacophony and the collision.

The vehicle thundered on, spraying stones and pieces of the bonnet and grille in a wide arc. The camper splashed into the lake, already tilted to its side, nose down. Cold water rushed in, giving the five companions no time to react, no opportunity to free themselves before forcing its way into their lungs as the van continued its descent to the depths of the murky waters.

Bright lights. Darkness. Repeat. Mel was conscious, or she was not conscious. She did not know. She existed outside of time, outside of space. Lights streaked passed her at incredible speed, millions of them, then swirling and turning and spiralling in crazy patterns. This lasted an eternity, or mere moments. She did not know, she could not know. She was everywhere and nowhere. She was seeing without eyes, moving without a body. She was overwhelmed, exhausted, exhilarated, and surely also dead. She gave up, her mind closing to all sensations, her will to continue exhausted.

Mel regained consciousness. Slowly, sunshine and the chirping of birds rousing her. Then, she awoke suddenly, panicked, eyes wide, clutching fistfuls of grass. She was lying flat on her back on the ground. Fighting the urge to scream, refusing the instinct to get up, Mel lifted her head looked down.

“Oh fuck!” She thought, realising that she was completely naked. Eyes going wider still she fought to remember how she got here. Blanks. Nothing. No memory of last night. No memory of getting here, and certainly no memory of getting undressed and going skinny dipping in a… grassy field? Nope, definitely not something she would do.

It was then that she noticed that there was a strong pounding in her head, like her skull was a bell and a clapper was oscillating from side to side, striking the bone and stirring her brain as it went. “Ahhh fuuuuck!!” she screamed, her body going entirely rigid and flopping back to earth as the pounding intensified, increasing in speed to reach a constant all round thrumming.

The brain smashing stopped, replaced in her mind’s eye with a wall of green text on a black canvas framed with a green border. It was all she could picture. Nothing else was conceivable with this wall of text. “What the actual FUCK!” She yelled in surprise. Her eyes were closed. How was she still seeing this? She opened her eyes. “Argghhh!” She moaned. The wall of text was still there, now slightly transparent, covering most of her field of view. Mel started hyperventilating, interrupting each breath with little squeals: “fuck… fuck… fuck… fuck…”.

Lying on the ground, her breathing slowing, her exclamations slowly trailing off. The wall of text was still there. “What is this even?” She thought, having found her centre, she’d started to actually _look_ at the window of text. It was indecipherable, Characters seemed to be arranged in vertical strips, all aligned to the bottom of the window. They weren’t characters she’d ever seen before. Mel had never learned Chinese or Japanese or any other language which might vaguely resemble this text. But this looked different still. These characters weren’t distinct, they flowed into each other. “What the…?” She exclaimed. The characters were actually moving, flowing into each other subtly, constantly morphing like water flowing. Despite the shock of not remembering how she’d got here and the residual ebbing pain in her head, she watched the text morph slowly. The sight was mesmerising. She’d never seen anything quite so beautiful.

The text slowed its transmutation. Mel recognised what was happening. The symbols on the screen were being translated into English. Individual letters emerged, then whole words, soon groups of words and then whole paragraphs stabilised as the translation process completed. This was the strangest translation Mel has ever heard of. Concepts, paradigms and her innate ability to reason had been accommodated during this translation. The information had been transformed not only into a language she knew, but into information her human mind could grasp.

Welcome to Elysareth, Traveller!

You are unnamed.

You are unaligned.

You have no class.

BEWARE!

Danger lurks.

Quest offered: Find your companions!

The Umpire offers you a quest: Reunite your party. Rewards: variable.

Quest offered: Get dressed!

The Umpire offers you a quest: Wear clothing of at least terrible quality covering at least 30% of your body. Rewards: variable.

Accept or decline each quest now.

“Oh shit what’s going on! Help!” Mel screamed.