You’re not ready for this rollercoaster. That’s why you think you are here, is it not? To be taken for a ride? One filled to bursting with thrills, unexpected twists and turns! How about a loop that makes you throw up in your mouth a little bit? That’s what good rollercoasters do after all…

So why aren’t you buckled in?

Oakland Burns was buckled in, because he’s not a big dumb dummy, and he was having the time of his life! It really was the perfect reset after the rigors of university life. Spring break; A chance to go out with his friends to the nearest trademark-friendly amusement park, and convince Fig that she would indeed have a good time.

“I’M GOING TO KILL YOU ALLLLLLLL!”

And it was going very well. Oak laughed, and shared a grin with Toni to his side as they started their climb to the tallest drop yet. The anticipation grew as the cart chck chck chck-ed up the slope.

“Roy hasn’t said a word since we got on,” Toni said. “Look, his knuckles have gone white!”

Oak raised his eyebrows; she was right!

“Come, on fancy-pants, enjoy yourself a little!” He called to the back of his friend’s head. “Let out a scream on the next one!”

Roy cocked his head, and looked at Oak from the corner of his eye.

“Is that the normal reaction?” He said, strained.

“Yes!” Oak said exasperated.

The man relaxed—his tension deflating like a balloon sputtering about the office. Wait, that was too much release! Now Roy looked like he was taking a leisurely stroll through the park on a quiet fall evening. Oak opened his mouth to set his friend back on the straight and narrow—but Fig discovered something more urgent.

“FOR THE LOVE OF—!”

Right. The rollercoaster.

The cart tipped over the last curve, and dropped! Instantly the wind blew into his face, and his whole body squished as it pressed into the seat holding him in place.

“WooooOOOAH!” he screamed, fear and delight mixing in a confusing mess that on reflection could only be described as exhilaration!

“HUUUGHHH!” Fig screeched in tandem, along with Toni.

“Ooooh.” Roy said. Darling man, he really was trying.

What a wonderful chorus they sang with each other. It was times like these that made Oak feel alive. Not just this coaster, but the time he spent with his friends. He could honestly take or leave this amusement park, or any other high-octane activity. As long as he had Fig, Toni, and Roy with him, he was happy; Everything felt right!

The cart rushed to the end of the drop, and curved around to the right. Oak’s hands—held high in the air—flopped to the side, and hit Toni in the shoulder, then the cart careened to the other side and Oak got the same treatment from her. Next was the twist! Oak could see it coming just ahead of them! As he felt the torque throw him around, Oak let out a laugh that had more hysteria in it than was proper.

And then they kept twisting.

One revolution turned into two, and two to three. Wasn’t there only one twist in the track!? Oak’s vision swirled like a mirror had been grabbed in the middle then warped towards his face. Round and round they went, and yet there was no possibility of passing out and skipping this horrible trip. He kept screaming, but he was sure there shouldn’t be enough air, and he couldn’t hear himself or the others. Just a rumbling growl he could feel in his chest. Then he tasted cilantro.

What was going on!? Why couldn’t he move his head or twitch a finger or blink or look away!?

Directly in front of him, a volumen scroll unfurled.

[Hello Player! Welcome to the World of—]

“---AGHHHHH!” Finally, the tail of his captive scream burst out of him like a firework of fear, and distress. A wave of something viscous and shimmering black crashed into his face blinding him, while at the same time he fell on top of something tall, lanky, and fashionably understated.

“—OOH—eumph!” Roy belched, his real scream interrupted.

Oak heard nothing but the clatter of bodies falling to the floor, and wooden tools being knocked over, polysyllabic shouting and—

Krumph!

A door being kicked open hard enough to scatter wood splinters into the hall.

“Finally!” Fig cried, “I hate cramped spaces.”

“B-But, you were in this closet for less than ten seconds.” Toni pointed out shakily.

“Still too long.” Fig grunted.

Oak stumbled out after the girls with wiping away at his face, trying—successfully or so—to clear his eyes from the mystery gunk.

“Eugh, gross! What the hunk is happening?” Oak frowned. “Heck Humpry Howitser. Heeeeeell—o.” He shook his head, that was weird too.

“Yes, Oak, we hear you loud and clear.” Toni said flatly. “What the heck is on your face?”

She, and Fig crossed the distance and began scrubbing away with their sleeves. Well, Fig’s sleeve, and Toni’s jacket. They tried to be gentle, but three pairs of hands in his face was too many. He battered his friends away, annoyed.

“I got it, I got it!”

“Looks like ink,” Fig said, then frowned at her wrist. “It’s going to stain my shirt, isn't it.”

Roy got to his feet and joined the group in the hallway, dusting his clothes with his hands as he stepped.

“This is not how I thought our second night of holiday would go.”

“You can say that again,” Toni said. “Did everybody see that parchment that came out at the end?”

“Yeah, before I got hit in the face with that ink shi-llac. What exactly is going on? Where are we?”

“Somewhere fancy, just look at this staircase—and the wallpaper!” Toni scuttled to the banister and looked around her with a critical eye. “It’s such a lovely green! These are good patterns too, though—hmm--”she squinted at a tucked away corner. “It’s peeling a bit, there. Roy, do you recognize what time period this was from?”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Oak walked passed as Toni moved closer to inspect the flaw. Up the wide stairs, set into the wall sat a huge stained-glass window. Peering through it’s warped colors and textures, Oak saw miles of farm plots rolling across the land, each filled with crops. Oak frowned. Those looked just about ready to harvest. In early spring? It didn’t make any sense.

“So, we’re in a dream, right? Or hallucinating… Roy, what was in those chocolates you handed out earlier?”

“Hmm?” The man in question looked up from where he and Toni were studying the corner trims with consternation. “Nothing unusual… they were normal, common treats.”

“Common in Switzerland, perhaps.” Fig grunted. “I’ll still remember how good those were when my ashes are buried on the moon.”

Roy winced. “Be that as it may, there shouldn’t have been any hallucinogens. Whatever is happening or whenever this is, I don’t think it’s because of something we ate.”

“Hypnosis then?” Oak asked weakly. His friends shook their heads. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Then what is going on!?”

Distantly, a single chime rang out in the air, followed by the low thunk of heavy wooden doors closing.

“I think we are trespassing.” Fig said quietly.

Oh. Crap.

Instantly, All four of them burst into a sprint up the stairs.

Thumpthumpthumpthump

Oak darted to the left, and followed the floor runner down the hallway until he skid to a stop in front of a flight of stairs that went up a turret, and a small rope cordoning off the next wing of the manor. He ducked under the rope, and made it six steps before his foot cracked through the floor, and he went tumbling down, breaking floorboards beneath his body.

“Oak!” Fig shouted, and ran straight through the rope barrier. She only made it three steps before the floor creaked ominously underfoot. She stumbled to a stop, then backed up slowly with a scowl on her face. “Funking rich people.”

“Hey…!” Roy said, wounded. “I mean—yeah, can you believe them?”

Oak moved to stand, but the splintered floor shifted dangerously underneath, and he froze.

“Take it slow!” Fig called. “Spread your body weight—like you’re on thin ice!”

“Considering how his last date with Becca went, he should be practiced by now.” Toni chirped.

“Now,” Oak growled, “Is not the time.”

He spread his hands and feet wide to find more stable ground. Finding it, he worked his way backwards in a spider-walk that made his muscles burn. Oak dared not slide his body, lest he slowly impale himself with a thousand wood-rotted splinters.

Fig let out a laughing grunt “It’s always time to make fun of you. You were basically sculpted by Michelangelo himself.”

Roy piled on.“Except Michelangelo liked men and Oak doesn’t, so can you really call him perfection?”

“Oh, that was amazing! You’re getting better!” Toni gave Roy a cheering high-five.

Oak pulled himself up to his feet. “We’re in the middle of trying to escape!”

“Aha,” Roy began, a finger pointing to heaven in a stately fashion. “But then why are you taking so lon—”

“Later later later!” Oak yelled and pushed his friend back the way they came, making him stumble.

Down the hall they sped, then down the stairs—

Thumpthumpthumpthump

Up the other side—

Thumpthumpthumpthump

And to the other wing. There was another flight of stairs for a turret, but thankfully the next hall had a rug running down its length, and wasn’t blocked like the last one; It wasn’t likely to kill them.

“You know,” Toni puffed. “Where are all the paintings?”

They came to a halt next to a heavy-set door that—unlike the ornamented, yet thin entrances down the hall—was likely to lead outside. As Oak heaved one side open, he gave Toni a quizzical glance.

“You can see where they used to be up on the walls. Ghostly ovals and rectangles like that form after paintings have been hanging in the same place for years, preventing the slight difference in deterioration from open air.”

“So?” Fig asked, peeking outside.

“Sooooo,” Toni said. “Where are they? They were on the walls, and now they’re gone. It’s just weird.”

It was weird. So odd that they might have spent more time pondering it, if it weren’t for the bunnies. Bunnies you say? Yes, I do say bunnies because ‘bunnies’ was what the courtyard was filled with. Not to bursting, no—but like, four or five of them. Which might not technically fill a large, open-air space like this up very much, but it was enough to distract you, and Oak’s friend group.

Most were down below on the ground level, and up, near the door was one. They were each flopped on the ground, eyes closed, absorbing the warm, humid air. Sunlight streamed from above, and soaked into the vines and plants hanging from the roof, gentling a summer afternoon into a sleepy, little, rabbit scene.

“Oh. My. Goose.” Fig breathed. “They are so cute!”

“Goose?” Toni asked.

“Roy, tell me you know how to gain their trust!”

“Err… My experience with animals is more… equestrian.”

Everybody looked at him. And he panicked.

“I mean— it was very horsey!”

Fig scowled, then looked to Oak.

“You’re up.”

“What.” He said flatly.

“You see the white one with black spots—it’s the closest one.” She pointed. “Just mosey on down to the little guy, and give him your most charming smile. The one you give girls with huge tater-tots.”

Oak flushed, and took in a huge breath to chew her out for her disrespect of women—but she stuck a finger to his lips.

“Shush-sh-sh. You’re hot so it’s mostly fine. Toni and I don’t judge that much. Right Toni?”

The woman in question just raised an eyebrow. “Tater-tots?”

“See? So just lure him over so I can pet him.” She grabbed Oak by the shoulders, and pleaded with some phenomenal puppy-dog eyes. But as the resident expert on charm, and getting his way on aesthetics alone, Oak was unmoved.

“I see you children! Stay right there!”

Oh yeah, they didn’t want to get caught! A blond man in his later hrmnrmr-ies pointed at them from the ground floor. His shout startled the rabbits, and they leapt to their feet, and scattered. One bunny—white with black spots—dove away, directly into Fig’s arms!

“I’ve been chosen!” She crowed, and all five of them made like an overzealous chastity cage and bolted for the final time.

The other wing was rotted, and this one had no obvious way down that didn’t intersect with the stranger, so the only option was the ground floor. So they ran. Past the ghost-of-paintings-past, around the corner, through the hall, down the stairs—

Thumpthumpthumpthump

—and away from the ground floor courtyard.

Unfortunately for Oak and the gang, this manor was home to more than one person.

“Usk! Where are you? The west wing hallway is about to collapse in on itself!”

Roy stumbled to a halt, followed by Toni, Oak then Fig. The combined momentum of all four of them stopping on a dime transferred from their spry, young legs, into the rug at their feet. The ratty old, stitching hiding underneath the veneer of wealth tore like a strip of duct tape. And. They. Slid.

For just a moment, Oak and his friends rode the rug like a surfboard down a wave. And then they crashed into the wall.

“Beloved Developers!” The girl cursed and ran over to the comotion.

“Fuz!”

“Shark!”

“Dart-it!”

“Hank!”

—Oak and his friends almost-swore in an order of such profound satisfaction I didn’t have to think about it specifically.

In a tangled pile on the floor—not the fun kind—they groaned—again, not in pleasure. Oak had slight rug-burn on his cheek. Roy was somewhere at the bottom which, according to rumor, was his favorite spot, though he was cagey about the issue. Tony was wedged between Fig, and the wall, and Fig herself was relatively fine at the top of the pile. In her hands, she held the bunny at an awkward angle, trying her best to keep it out of harm’s way. She smiled in maternal relief that it was safe.

Then the creature opened its eyes. They were black, like most rabbits. But… uh… You might wanna look away from this.

The eyes came out of its skull. They unspooled thick cords of wet, pink flesh, like that of snails and slugs, if they were a krillion times more gross. The eye stalks lifted overhead, two—three times the height of the not-rabbit’s body. They stared down at Fig like god when she’s high—I mean—god on high.

“Whaaaat.” Fig breathed.

Then the thing bit her hand.