Chapter 11

Three days later—

The world was a spinning, incoherent blur of darkness and light. Krista’s body ached, her head throbbed with relentless pain, and her throat was so parched it felt as if it had been scoured by sandpaper.

She lay sprawled in Olivia’s lap, her limbs limp and unresponsive. Her thoughts moved sluggishly, like molasses, but one desperate need pierced through the fog: water.

Her lips cracked as they moved soundlessly, her mind screaming the word she couldn’t muster the strength to say. Water. It consumed her thoughts entirely, a singular obsession born of survival and agony.

Her eyes fluttered open and shut, the dim light around her flickering like a faulty bulb as she drifted in and out of consciousness.

Her vision blurred into shapes and colors that she couldn’t focus on. Then, suddenly, something shifted.

Krista’s mind filled with an absurd image—a search bar floating in front of her eyes, the stark white text field beckoning her. Without hesitation, her mind conjured the word: water.

Instantly, the search bar populated with images. Rows upon rows of bottled water, pristine and glistening as though pulled straight from an advertisement. The brands felt familiar—Aquafina, Dasani, Evian—each presented with a crisp, perfect label.

It was absurd, impossible, and yet her desperation allowed her to indulge in the fantasy. Her vision panned downward as if she could scroll through the page, and to her astonishment, she could.

Her thumb twitched against her limp hand, and the motion mirrored itself in her hallucination. The page scrolled, revealing more bottles, more brands, more salvation.

A weak, delirious chuckle escaped her dry, cracked lips. It was all so ridiculous—this phantom online store taunting her with the very thing she needed to survive.

“This can’t be real…” she rasped, her voice barely audible.

But even as she doubted, her mind clung to the image of a large bottle of Aquafina. Her vision hovered over it, and her delirious brain mimicked the motion of clicking “purchase.” She didn’t question how or why this was happening. Her thoughts were too scattered to make sense of it, and her body was too weak to resist.

As the Aquafina bottle disappeared, a new image took its place: a box of Quest protein bars. Her stomach growled faintly, a sharp pain twisting in her gut.

It was as if her body, deprived and nearing collapse, had found its cruel way of entertaining her—a last show before the curtains fell. Her lips twitched into a faint smile as she stared at the product image. “Sure… why not…” she murmured.

Then her vision dimmed, and her head slumped to the side as she sank into unconsciousness once again.

…

It couldn’t have been more than a few seconds before Krista jolted awake, a sharp pressure against her skin pulling her from the void.

Her breath hitched as her eyes fluttered open, and there it was: the same large bottle of Aquafina from her hallucination, cool and solid against her arm.

Her mind reeled, struggling to comprehend. “No… no way…” she whispered, her voice hoarse and cracked.

Trembling, she reached out to grab the bottle. Her fingers closed around it, and the sensation was too vivid, too real. The cold plastic, the faint condensation on its surface—it wasn’t a mirage. It couldn’t be.

Her shaking hands fumbled with the cap, twisting it open with weak, uneven jerks. The moment it came loose, Krista brought the bottle to her lips, tilting it upward in a frantic gulp.

The water was icy, crisp, and more refreshing than anything she’d ever experienced. It slid down her throat, quenching the fire within her.

The relief brought tears to her eyes, though she was too weak to sob. Her body screamed for more, but something else demanded her attention. Olivia.

Krista turned her gaze to her sister, whose face was pale and still. She gently tilted Olivia’s head back, pried her lips open, and poured a small stream of water into her mouth.

When Olivia didn’t react immediately, panic gripped Krista’s chest. “Come on… come on…” she whispered, her voice shaky.

A faint movement—a swallow. Then another. Slowly, Olivia’s eyes fluttered open, though they barely managed to focus. Relief coursed through Krista as she offered her sister another sip.

“It’s okay… just drink…” Krista murmured, though she wasn’t sure if she was reassuring Olivia or herself.

As she shifted to better support Olivia’s head, her hand brushed against something. A box. She glanced down, her breath hitching in disbelief. There it was: the Quest protein bars from her hallucination, tangible and undeniably real.

Krista stared at the box, her mind struggling to reconcile reality with the impossibility before her. How…?

Her stomach growled again, pulling her out of her daze. With a shaking hand, she tore the box open, pulled out a bar, and unwrapped it. The faint smell of chocolate wafted up to her nose, too vivid to be anything but real. She broke off a small piece and brought it to Olivia’s lips. “Eat, Liv… please…”

Olivia’s lips moved sluggishly, her teeth barely managing to chew, but she swallowed the morsel with visible effort. Krista gave her more, bit by bit, until Olivia’s faint strength began to return.

Then Krista hesitated, her curiosity overcoming her hunger. She unwrapped a bar for herself, biting into it cautiously. The taste exploded on her tongue—rich, sweet, and unmistakably real.

“This… this is real…” she whispered, tears spilling from her eyes as she devoured the bar with frantic hunger.

The sisters consumed the entire box, alternating bites, their bodies greedily taking in the nourishment they had been starved of for days. They passed the water bottle back and forth until it was empty, leaving them both sated and trembling with relief.

As exhaustion claimed them once more, Krista laid her head against Olivia’s shoulder, her mind spinning with confusion and gratitude. For the first time in days, they slept—not in fear or despair, but with the faint hope that they might live to see another day.

11 hours later—

Krista's eyes cracked open to the otherworldly, orange-purple light of the morning filtering through the broken windows that are the gaps between the branches. For a brief, blissful moment, she forgot everything—the pain, the hunger, the despair.

Then reality snapped back, sharp and unrelenting. Her body ached as though it had been through a war, but there was something strange—her wounds, the deep gashes and stab that should have sealed her fate, no longer hurt.

She sat up slowly, her head still swimming with residual dizziness. Her hands instinctively moved to her abdomen, where the fatal stab wound had been.

Her fingers searched for the edges of the torn flesh, for the sticky, congealed blood that had been there for days. But all she felt was smooth, unbroken skin. Her breath caught, and she pulled her shirt up deep, dark red from her dried blood, revealing a faint, pink line—like an old scar—where there should have been a gruesome, gaping injury.

“What the fuck…?” she whispered to herself, her voice hoarse and cracked.

Her hands moved to her arms and chest, where she remembered the slashes from the sword. Each wound was gone, leaving only faint marks as if they had healed over weeks, not days. Her mind raced, trying to rationalize what she was seeing, but the logical explanations eluded her.

Her gaze shifted to the ground beside her, where the shredded remains of a Quest protein bar box and the ripped plastic of the Aquafina bottle lay discarded.

The sight pulled her memories from the fog. The hallucination. The vivid image of an online shopping website. The sudden materialization of the bottle and bars when she was sure she’d lost her mind.

Krista scrambled to her duffle bag, her hands fumbling with the zipper. She pulled it open, rifling through its contents. It was just like how she filled it—several 40mm grenades, one remaining fragmentation grenade, a couple of smoke grenades, several .45 ACP magazines for her 1911s, a few clean clothes and spare wakizashis. The MREs and water bottles she had carefully packed before their escape were emptied. She knew that Olivia must have been consuming them when she was out cold for days.

Olivia.

She turned toward her sister, still lying against the tree bark. She was no longer as pale, no longer deathly still. Her breathing was steady, her chest rising and falling in a natural rhythm. Krista moved closer, her voice soft but urgent as she shook Olivia’s shoulder.

“Liv… Liv, wake up.”

Olivia stirred, her eyes fluttering open with a faint groan. She blinked a few times, her gaze focusing on Krista. “What…? What’s wrong?”

Krista’s heart twisted with relief. Olivia looked far better than she had days ago, though the confusion in her expression mirrored Krista’s own. Without saying a word, Krista grabbed the empty box and bottle from the ground, holding them up like evidence in a trial.

“These,” Krista said, her voice low and serious. “Do you remember seeing these before?”

Olivia frowned, her brow knitting together as she examined the items. “No… should I?” she asked, her voice still groggy.

Krista set them down in front of her. “They weren’t in my bag. I packed exactly three MREs and two water bottles, and they’re all gone because I know you must've eaten them when I was out. But these—” she motioned to the box and bottle—“these weren’t part of it. So tell me, Liv, how the hell did they get here?”

Olivia stared at the items for a long moment, her mind slowly catching up. She looked up at Krista, her face a mixture of bewilderment and curiosity. “Are you sure you didn’t grab them by mistake? Maybe—”

“I didn’t,” Krista interrupted firmly. “I would’ve remembered packing a giant bottle of Aquafina and a box of protein bars. This doesn’t make sense.”

The sisters sat in silence, the weight of the unexplained pressing down on them. Olivia was the first to break it, her tone hesitant but thoughtful. “Okay… hear me out. We’re not in our world anymore. This place isn’t Earth. What if… what if you have some kind of power?”

Krista stared at her, incredulous. “Liv, no. That’s insane. This isn’t a comic book, or some isekai anime bullshit. We’re not superheroes. I’m not a goddamn mage or something. This is reality.”

Olivia tilted her head, undeterred. “Is it, though? Look at where we are. A completely alien world, nightmarish monsters that look like something out of an old MMORPG with blood as hot as boiling water and the stench worse than the average Louisiana swamp, and you’ve been stabbed, slashed, and left to bleed out for days in a world with three moons, orange-purple skies and barely alive forest, and somehow you’re still alive. And now, these things”—she motioned to the items—“show up out of nowhere. You think that’s normal?”

Krista opened her mouth to argue but stopped. Her mind flashed back to the hallucination, the surreal image of the website, and the moment she thought she clicked “purchase.” A cold shiver ran down her spine.

“I…” Krista hesitated. “I saw something last night. It felt like… like an online store. It’s stupid, I know, but it was so vivid. I was delirious, I thought I was imagining it…”

Olivia’s eyes widened. “And then those things showed up? Krista, you need to try it again. Just… just humor me.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Krista sighed, rubbing a hand over her face. The logical part of her wanted to dismiss Olivia’s idea outright, but there was no denying the strangeness of the past 24 hours.

Reluctantly, she closed her eyes, focusing on the image from the night before. She pictured the search bar, the rows of products, the absurdity of it all.

To her shock, the interface materialized in her mind once more, clearer than ever. She opened her eyes, half-expecting the image to vanish, but it didn’t.

It was there, hovering in her vision like a hologram or a video game UI. Her pulse quickened as she scrolled through the products, not with her hands mimicking a mouse but with her mind.

“Well?” Olivia said, waiting in curiosity. “What did you see?”

“It’s an… “ Krista blinked for a moment, staring into the distance as the UI moved with her sight’s focus. “…online shop interface.”

Olivia raised a brow. “Amazon? Walmart? eBay? AliExpress? Costco?”

Krista shook her head. “No. It’s… different. The UI is white and red, no page name, no watermark, and a search bar. Just products arranged in 6x4.”

Olivia tilted her head in curiosity. “What about tabs? Categories? Sort function? Anything that resembles our websites back home?”

Krista nodded, swiping the page in her head. “Yes, yes, and yes. Alphabetical, they have their own art. No profile section, no settings, not even any kind of online wallet or cart.”

Olivia’s eyes moved left to right a few times, wondering what to do. She turned her head back to Krista. “What about purchases? History? Wishlist? Favorites? Is there a customer service function? What about live streams? Recommended products? For you page?” Olivia listed off function after function to Krista, her eyes bright and interested. “Tell me everything.”

Krista focused her mind, clicking tabs after tabs. The UI moved and activated a function every time she thought about an action. “Well—” she began. “—there is a last purchase and last seen history, the wishlist is also there, so are favorites. No customer service button. No live feed page, but the recommended products were displayed on the front page.”

“Huh…” Olivia muttered in interest. “Is the 1.5 liter bottle Aquafina in the purchase history?”

Krista bored her eyes at the purchase history page, nodding her head. “Yep. It is.”

Olivia tapped her fingers against each other, smirking in thought. “Do me a favour. Click the bottle again.”

“I can’t believe this,” Krista muttered under her breath. She selected the same large bottle of Aquafina, her eyes looking over a button labeled “purchase.” With a deep breath, she pressed it.

There was no charge, no confirmation page. Instead, a bright shimmer appeared a foot above her outstretched hands, and the bottle materialized out of thin air. It fell into her arms with a soft thud, its weight pulling her slightly forward.

The sisters stared at it, their expressions frozen in identical shock. “What the fuck,” they both said in unison.

Krista turned to Olivia and lightly smacked her wrist. “Language! You’re fifteen!”

“Krista, you just summoned water out of thin air!” Olivia shouted. “What the fuck am I supposed to say?!”

“Not that!” Krista snapped, her voice cracking. “I don’t care if it’s weird, you still can’t—”

“Krista,” Olivia interrupted, her grin wild and unrepentant. “What the actual fuck.”

Krista opened her mouth, then closed it, glancing at the bottle in her hands. Finally, she sighed, shaking her head. “What the fuck…” she muttered.

Olivia’s laugh echoed through the forest, weak but filled with joy. “Oh, so you get to say it, huh?”

Krista glared at her sister, unable to suppress a faint smirk. “Shut up. Just shut up.”

Krista stared at the empty bottle of Aquafina in her hands, her mind still spinning from what had just transpired. Beside her, Olivia’s face lit up with unrestrained excitement, her exhaustion seemingly replaced by a boundless surge of energy.

“Krista,” Olivia began, her voice trembling with a mixture of wonder and mischief, “do you realize what this means? You—my sister—have an OP isekai power! This is insane! You could summon anything!”

Krista groaned, already dreading where this conversation was headed. “Liv, stop. We don’t even know how this works, let alone how it’s possible. Besides, water and protein bars are one thing—this isn’t some wish-fulfillment anime.”

“But it is!” Olivia countered, her enthusiasm undeterred. “Think about it! You could summon stuff to keep us alive, or—” Her eyes sparkled with an idea. “—you could summon something to make sure we don’t almost die next time. Like… a big gun.”

Krista raised an eyebrow. “A big gun?”

“Yeah, like a machinegun or something!” Olivia said, bouncing slightly despite her still-recovering strength. “You know, like that Browning you used during the SWAT shootout? I thought you… loved that thing.”

Krista’s face twisted into an incredulous frown. “Liv, that thing weighs eighty-nine pounds—not counting the ammo box—and could dislocate shoulders if fired from the hip. I can’t lug that around while carrying you. It’d be ridiculous.”

“But—”

“No.”

Olivia pouted, crossing her arms. “Come on, sis. Just humor me. See if you can do it. Pleeease?”

Krista sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Fine,” she relented, her tone dripping with annoyance. “But just to prove how dumb this idea is.”

Closing her eyes, Krista focused on the mental image of the online store. It appeared just as vividly as before, and she typed Browning M2 into the search bar. The screen blinked for a moment before displaying bold, unmissable text:

Prohibited Item.

Krista frowned, opening her eyes to the real world. “It didn’t work,” she said simply. “The site says it’s a prohibited item.”

“What?” Olivia leaned forward, clearly disappointed. “Why would it do that? That’s so stupid! Ugh, fine, try something else. What about a Barrett M82? You know, that big sniper rifle with the massive rounds? It’d be so cool.”

Krista shook her head. “Liv…”

“Just try,” Olivia insisted, grinning. “You might as well see if it works.”

Reluctantly, Krista closed her eyes again, typing Barrett M82 into the search bar. Once again, the screen flashed the same bold text: Prohibited Item. Opening her eyes, Krista gave Olivia a deadpan stare. “Nope. Still prohibited.”

“Okay, fine,” Olivia said, undeterred. “What about a flamethrower? Rocket launcher? Like the M202 Flash from that one Schwarzenegger movie. Or a minigun! Or—”

“Olivia!” Krista snapped, glaring at her sister. “You’re throwing out the most ridiculous requests. None of that stuff is practical or realistic.”

“Neither is summoning water from thin air, El Pollo Loco,” Olivia quipped, smirking. “Come on, just one more. Please?”

Krista groaned but complied, searching for the items Olivia rattled off. The results were the same every time: Prohibited Item.

“Are you done?” Krista asked flatly, her patience wearing thin.

“Not yet!” Olivia said, grinning. “Try something simpler. Like a Glock 19, the 9mm variant. It’s a super common pistol. Maybe that’ll work.”

Krista rolled her eyes but focused once more. To her surprise, when she searched for the Glock 19, the screen displayed an image of the pistol with an “Purchase Now” button. She clicked it, and the handgun materialized in her hand with a solid weight, its metal frame cool against her skin.

Both sisters froze, staring at the weapon in disbelief.

“What the fuck,” they said in unison.

Krista set the Glock down, rubbing her temples. “This is getting ridiculous. Liv, I swear to—”

“Nope!” Olivia interrupted, raising a hand. “I’m not done yet! Try a shotgun. Actually, three! A Remington 870, a Benelli M4, and a Spas 12. Let’s see if this works.”

Krista’s eye twitched. “You’re being oddly specific, Liv.”

“I’m a nerd, sis. Humor me,” Olivia replied with a grin.

Krista sighed deeply, focusing once more. The first search, for the Remington 870, succeeded. The shotgun appeared before her, and she handed it to Olivia, who barely managed to lift it in her weakened state. The Benelli M4 and Spas 12, however, returned the same Prohibited Item message.

Olivia frowned, her brow furrowing as she pumped the fore-end. “Huh. That’s… weird.”

“What’s weird?” Krista asked, setting the guns aside.

Olivia tapped her chin thoughtfully. “It’s like the summoning logic is super specific. You can get the Glock and the Remington, but not anything bigger or fancier. Why? The shotguns I mentioned all chambered with the same 12 gauge, just different purposes and clearance.”

Krista shrugged. “No idea. Maybe it’s just random.”

“No, it’s not random,” Olivia said firmly. “It’s probably tied to what’s available in the real world. Think about it—California’s gun laws are super strict. The Glock and the Remington are common and legal, but the others? Totally banned. Even in other states, most of those are restricted to military use.”

Krista scoffed. “That’s a stretch.”

“Is it?” Olivia challenged, crossing her arms. “Think about it, Krista. Your power—whatever it is—might be tied to the rules of our old world. If that’s the case, you’re limited to summoning stuff that regular people can legally own.”

Krista stared at her sister, then glanced at the Glock in her hand. Her lips pursed, and she let out a soft, exasperated laugh. “So you’re saying my superpower is ATF-compliant? Great. Just great.”

Olivia grinned. “Hey, it’s still better than nothing.”

Krista rolled her eyes, but a faint smirk tugged at her lips. “Fine. But stop asking for flamethrowers and rocket launchers, okay?”

“No promises,” Olivia teased, leaning back with a triumphant grin.

Krista leaned back against the cold, cracked tree bark, the Glock and Remington now resting beside her as Olivia’s mind raced with ideas.

Krista felt a strange mix of exasperation and amusement at her sister’s relentless enthusiasm for testing her newfound “superpower.” Still, Olivia’s theories were oddly compelling, even if they were grounded in the logic of video games and fantasy novels.

“So,” Olivia began, her voice breaking the silence, “we know you’ve summoned five things so far: two big bottles of water, the protein bars, the Glock, and the Remington. That’s five.”

Krista nodded, glancing at her hands as if to make sense of how she had pulled it off. “Yeah, five. What’s your point?”

Olivia cupped her chin, her brow furrowing as she pondered. “I’m trying to figure out if there’s a daily cap. If there is, we need to know what it is. No power or ability is ever without cons and drawbacks. You haven’t felt any sort of warning or hit a wall yet, right?”

Krista shrugged. “Not that I can tell. But honestly, this whole thing is so ridiculously specific and random that I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some bizarre rule about it.”

“Exactly,” Olivia said, nodding eagerly. “So maybe your limit is something simple, like ten items a day. We won’t know unless we test it.”

Krista sighed, running a hand through her hair. “Alright, fine. What do you want me to summon next?”

Olivia grinned, clearly relishing the opportunity to strategize. “First priority: food and water. If we’re really stuck in this world, we need to stay alive, and that means calories and hydration. Summon a bag of MREs.”

Krista raised an eyebrow. “A bag of MREs? Like the giant 50-pack kind?”

“Exactly,” Olivia said. “They’re legal, widely available, and packed with everything we need. Plus, one bag will last us weeks, maybe longer.”

Krista shook her head, muttering under her breath about how strangely logical Olivia was being for once. Closing her eyes, she focused on the online store and typed 50-piece MRE bag. The image popped up instantly, and when she clicked “purchase,” a heavy bag materialized in front of her with a loud thud.

The sisters stared at it, and Krista let out a low whistle. “Okay, that’s actually impressive.”

“See? I do have good ideas sometimes,” Olivia quipped, grinning. “Now, since you’ve summoned guns, we should stock up on ammo. Bulk some 9mm rounds and 12-gauge shells.”

Krista nodded, her fingers already typing. Two separate orders later, boxes of ammunition appeared beside her: one labeled 9mm and the other 12-gauge shells.

“That makes eight,” Krista said, her tone pragmatic. “What else?”

Olivia’s grin widened as she tapped her fingers against her lips in thought. “Okay, hear me out,” she began, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “We should try to see if there’s a loophole. What if, instead of summoning one thing at a time, you could summon a batch of the same item? Like… propane canisters. But not just one can—say, 20?”

Krista blinked, her brow furrowing in confusion. “Why the hell would we need twenty propane canisters?”

“Because,” Olivia said, her voice taking on a mock-professorial tone, “propane is highly flammable. One shot and whoever is near the can will go full Ghost Rider.”

Krista stared at her sister for a long moment, then let out an exasperated sigh. “Fine. But if you’re wrong and we end up with a useless pile of cans, I’m blaming you.”

Closing her eyes again, Krista typed portable propane canister x20 into the search bar. A moment later, a neat stack of canisters appeared in front of her, their red casings gleaming in the dim light.

Olivia clapped her hands together, her excitement palpable. “It worked! Oh my God, Krista, this is amazing!”

Krista picked up one of the canisters, turning it over in her hands. “I can’t believe I’m entertaining your ridiculous MMO theories…”

“And yet,” Olivia teased, “here we are.”

Krista shook her head, suppressing a faint smirk. “Alright, we’ve used nine. What’s next?”

“Nothing,” Olivia said firmly.

Krista blinked. “What do you mean, ‘nothing’? Don’t you want to push it to ten and see if your theory’s right?”

“Nope,” Olivia said, shaking her head. “We’re saving the last summon. What if something happens, like, I don’t know, another demon shows up? We need to keep one in reserve in case shit hits the fan again.”

Krista’s eyes narrowed, and she reached over to lightly smack Olivia’s wrist. “Language, Olivia! You’re fifteen!”

Olivia rolled her eyes, grinning. “Krista, you just summoned a bag of military rations, enough ammo to arm a small militia, and a pile of basically poor man’s incendiary grenades. I think we’re past the point of caring about my language.”

Krista glared at her. “Watch your mouth.”

“Fine,” Olivia said with an exaggerated sigh. “But you do realize how weird it is for you to scold me about language when you just muttered ‘what the fuck’ ten minutes ago.”

Krista froze, her face flushing slightly. “That’s different.”

“Uh-huh,” Olivia said, smirking. “Double standards, much?”

Krista groaned, rubbing her temples. “You’re such an ass.”

“And you love me for it,” Olivia replied sweetly.

Krista rolled her eyes, but the corners of her lips twitched upward. “Yeah, yeah. Don’t push it.”