Hal blinked away the blurriness in his eyes. He held his head with both hands, trying to will away the head splitting migraine he was suffering. Pushing himself up into a sitting position, he took in a deep breath.
“What the fuck. How much did I drink last night?” He grumbled.
Looking around, he grew concerned. He was no longer instead of his studio apartment. His queen sized bed, with its cheap single tone bedspread, was gone. Replaced by a military cot without a covering in sight. His apartment’s walls, adorned with movie and game posters, were now nothing more than bare silver metal. None of that bothered him as much as the size difference.
Instead of seeing the less than spacious 500 square foot of his small studio apartment, he was now sitting in a rectangular room that was roughly six by eight feet. Taking deep breaths, he tried not to panic. There were no windows or doors in the room, but there was a small rectangle at chest height on the wall opposite the cot.
Leaping to his feet, he walked over and examined the room’s only stand out feature. The rectangle was only slightly larger than Hal’s hand. It was recessed into the wall, black, and appeared to have light coming off it. Hal nervously poked the rectangle, but nothing happened. Thinking it might be a palm reader, he placed a hand against it. Again, nothing happened.
“Hello?” He called out as he continued to look around. “Is anyone there?”
Whoosh. A large square, the size of half the wall, sunk inward and vanished to reveal the hallway outside. Hal nervously approached, and without sticking his head out, looked down the new hallway. There were small signs posted evenly throughout the wall. They had writing on them, but nothing Hal could make out. He reached out to grab the side of the opening in order to climb out, but his hand hit something hard.
“What the hell?”
He felt around the opening and even though he could see out into the hallway. It felt like the wall was still there. Frustrated with the unknown situation, he punched the seemingly open hole. For just a brief moment, Hal saw the opening shimmer red before he pulled his hand back in pain.
“Ow! Ow! That was stupid.”
“Yeah it was.” Another man answered from somewhere down the hall.
“Hello!?” Hal replied in a scream of half-panic and half-shock.
“Hey.” The man answered.
Hal smiled. “Oh, thank god. I thought I was alone or maybe dreaming, but the pain in head and hand was too real to be a dream. I…”
“Calm down, dude. What’s your name?”
“Henry, but everyone calls me Hal. What about you?”
“I’m Rob.”
“Soo…” Hal took a deep breath to calm his nerves. “Where are we, and what are we doing here?”
Rob chuckled. “No idea. I was hoping you could fill in some of the blanks. Last thing I remember, I was dozing off watching TV in my recliner.”
“I was having a few after work beers and…” Hal searched his memories for anything. “A light… I remember a bright light.”
“Hmm. I remember seeing something bright too, but I thought it was my TV.”
“I wasn’t watching…” A buzzing dull pain hit Hal in the head, forcing his undamaged hand to it. “I wasn’t watching… Ah! Do you feel that?”
“Yeah… What is it?”
Hal responded through gritted teeth. “I don’t know.” He tried responded more, but the pain intensified.
Stumbling back, he fell onto the cot. The pain continued to grow and his vision was getting blurry. He screamed out in pain when the pain suddenly vanished. Text appeared in the center of his vision.
⌿/⟒⏃⌇\ [⏃:⏁⊑⋏
Automatic Translator Enabled…
Processing…
A turning black cog filled with a spinning nebula filled his vision. The letter ‘C’ faded into view before the cog and the letter ‘G’ appeared after it. It read as the word ‘COG’ with the ‘O’ being replaced with an actual cog. The word shrank and flew upward to the top-most center of his vision. Once it stopped moving, another message appeared. This one was being automatically read aloud in a male’s voice. It sounded like someone from one of those late night infomercials. The overly friendly, awkward, and condescending type.
The Coalition of Galaxies, or COG, welcomes you! COG are the gears of the galaxy!
You might be confused about what you’re doing here, but COG is here to help you.
The messaged scrolled on its own as the voice read it aloud.
The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
You have been selected as one of your planet’s representative in this year’s main event. The great COG arena! What’s that you may ask? The great COG arena is the largest and most watched event of the galactic year. More than 90% of all known sentient life takes part and/or spectates the event. It’s a death battle lasting 100 rounds, each taking place in a different simulated battle environment. And guess what? You’re a combatant! Congratulations!
You will soon be transported to your first match. Round 1 is to weed out anyone who doesn’t perform to COG standards. We can’t put on a sub-par show after all. We have standards. Because of this, you will fight against other combatants from your own home world in an environment you should be familiar with. No need to drop you on a simulated alien world and add to your confusion. That would be nonsense.
“This is all nonsense!” Hal protested.
If you win this round, you will earn 10 arena points. These points can be used to purchase anything you think you’ll need to help you continue fighting. These can be things such as room upgrades, armor, weapons, skills, abilities, and spells, just to name a few. I do have to warn you, though,
The next message was read quickly. It reminded Hal of those terms and conditions that were read at the end of commercials for elderly medication.
COG is not responsible for any harm, dismemberment, pain, death, or any other result of bodily, mental or spiritual harm from your participation in the great COG arena. Any items, skills, abilities, spells, room upgrades, or anything else purchased with arena points are still the sole property of COG. The participant agrees to forfeit any and all of what he or she gains during their participation, with the express exception of any galactic credits earned. Arena points may be converted into galactic credits during the event at a varying rate based on the use of this service. The participant agrees not to pursue any legal action in any recognized COG court for any of the events that are about to unfold. COG agrees to pay the winning participant 1% of all their total earnings. These earnings derive from bets made for or against the individual, any sponsorship fees paid, advertising, and merchandise licensing. Ticket sales, paid-per-view fees, concessions, and all other fees are not applied to the total earnings calculation.
The voice actually took a breath after getting through the complete message. When it continued, it was back to its normal infomercial voice.
Wow. That’s always a mouthful. Now, please take a moment to review your status page while we arrange transportation for you to Round 1. Note: After Round 1, you will become eligible for sponsorship bidding. What’s that? Don’t worry about that because you're probably going to die. Good luck!
When the message faded, a screen containing information about him replaced it. It had a lot of confusing information on it that Hal did not understand. He waited for a few seconds for the voice to read the information, but when it didn’t, he started reading it himself.
Henry Walker
Species: Earth Atlantian
Current Level: 1
Attributes
Body: 3
Mind: 4
Spirit: 2
Abilities:
None
“None of this makes any sense.” Hal stood and walked to the opening in the wall. Angling his mouth toward Rob, he shouted, “Rob! Did you get these weird messages, too? Something about an arena and the COG?”
“Yeah.” Rob shouted back. “Not sure what’s going on, but I can see a timer in the top of my vision now. It’s counting down. There’s about five minutes left.”
Hal looked up and saw the timer. It was right next to the COG logo and had four minutes, twenty seconds left. There were other icons in his vision, but they were all faded and hard to make out. He tried focusing on one that looked like a backpack but a warning message appeared infront of his status sheet.
Error! Inventory screens will become available after Round 1.
Inventory screens? Hal waved at the message and it vanished. He did the same for his status sheet. Once his sheet disappeared, an icon of a human body appeared. Focusing his vision on it caused his status sheet to reappear. He spent the next few minutes experimenting with bringing the screens up and sending them away. With a little experimentation, he discovered he could resize the screens and even move icons around. There wasn’t much to look at, most of the icons giving him errors that they will become available later.
Without realizing it, the timer had reached ten seconds. Not knowing what was about to happen, Hal wanted to shout another message to Rob, but another message popped up and was read by the same male voice.
Welcome participant, Henry Walker, to Round 1. There can only be one winner of this round. Good luck and remember, COG are the gears of the galaxy!
A flash of light surrounded Hal, blinding him. It faded a moment later, and he now found himself standing in a large, sand filled roman arena. Looking around, he stood out like a sore thumb. The entire area had been transformed into a Roman atheistic, but his clothes remained unchanged. He was still wearing his loosely fitting star wars themed pajama pants with matching t-shirt.
“What the hell is going on?” Hal called out as he continued to look around the massive arena.
There was a table on his left displaying roman themed weapons and armor. A variety of swords, shields, helmets and even a few different sized bows were available. They were all in rather poor condition. Hal was far from an expert on metal conditions, but he was smart enough to recognize rust and the clear signs of abuse and neglect.
Across the open expanse, Hal could see someone standing on the opposite side. The figure was moving closer to him, so Hal jogged forward. It didn’t take long for the person to become identifiable as a man. Hal slowed his advance when he noticed the sword in the man’s hand. The man slowed to a stop when he was about twenty feet away.
“Umm… Hi.” Hal said.
“Hal?” Rob replied.
“Rob? Is that you?”
Rob nodded. “Yeah. Looks like we were both transported to the same place.”
“What do we do now? I mean, the messages said we had to…” Hal’s eyes dropped to the sword in Rob’s hand. “Listen, we don’t have to listen to some weird messages in our heads. There has to be some sort of logical solution to what’s going on here.”
“Yeah. Yeah. No reason for things to get out of control.” Rob replied, but he didn’t let go of his weapon.
“Lets look around for a while. Maybe we can find a way out of here.”
Hal and Rob began exploring the surrounding area. After fifteen minutes, the announcer’s voice range out across the arena. It was loud, and he sounded annoyed.
Ug. This is worse than watching paint dry. You’re currently the worse rated channel on the COG Arena network. Fight each other already. What? Still don’t want to? Fine. How about a little motivation?
Gates outlining the walls of the arena rumbled and rose. Lions the size of minivans charged outward. They were attached to large chains that vanished into the darkness of the rooms they out of.
“What the fuck!?” Hal ran to the center of the arena, away from the lions. Rob was there waiting for him. He took a swing at Hal as he approached. “Woah! Calm down.”
“This isn’t personal, but I’m not dieing for you, Hal.” Rob said apologetically.
“Just calm down.”
The voice called out again, moaning in pleasure.
Mmmmm. That’s what daddy likes. Now fight!