“Something’s not right,” Albert says.

“No shit Sherlock,” I reply. “What gave it away?” The air smells of bleach. My health bar isn’t dropping, so it’s got to be safe, but how much more until it turns poisonous? The road isn’t as deteriorated on this side of the line and the vegetation doesn’t seem to be overtaking everything. The buildings look fine, except that no signs are legible.

“You guys okay?” Deloy asks, “Al sounds weird.” His voice is distorted. He sounds as if he’s further than three meters, and the pitch’s off, deeper. There’s also a vibration in it that makes me think of someone speaking through the spinning blades of a fan.

“He sounds fine to me,” Terry replies. “You’re the one sounding off.”

“It’s got to be the air,” Hanz says.

“Maybe you should come back then,” Deloy says.

“We aren’t taking damage,” John says. “We’re not getting debuffs. So it’s not dangerous. I say we go and investigate.” The others agree, so I’ve got to go along.

No, you don’t.

Shut up.

I start walking, and before I know it, me and John have taken point. Albert and Hanz are at the rear, with Terry between us. He looks around in awe. How is he not worried about what this means for the rest of the world? Can it spread? Why is the system doing this?

“Terry, you know of any game where the world’s this different?” Hanz asks.

“Sure, it’s common. They’re used to represent different factions or races. In some game, the goal is to keep from being overwhelmed by that other biome, or to retake the world.”

“So, this is something we might have to fight?” John asks.

“I don’t know. Not all games have it spread. It could just be a mark of another group. But like you keep reminding me, this isn’t a game. Unless the system tells us the reasons or the rules, it’s impossible to say.”

“You haven’t asked?” Al says.

“Yeah, but it’s not telling.”

“Guys,” Hanz says, sounding scared. “Look at your Attributes.” A look over my shoulder shows him to be staring in space, eyes wide, mouth agape.

“What the hell?” John exclaims. “Terry?”

“Don’t ask me. I have no idea.”

Attributes

Strength: 32

Dexterity: 15

Endurance: 18

Intelligence: 13

Charisma: 10

Aether: 48

Health: 17

“Everyone has a drop in their Endurance and Health?” John asks.

“Dropped by half,” Al answered.

“Aether’s doubled, though,” Terry points out. “I think it’s to represent a magic rich environment.”

“Then why the drop physical stats?” John asks.

“Yeah, this feels more like the rules have just been changed for the sake of changing them flipped than trying to represent anything,” Al says. “Maybe it’s the air?”

“Where’s the debuff then?”

Okay system, what the fuck are you doing?

No pop up.

What are the rules here?

No response.

“Can anyone get the system to talk?”

“I can see my sheet,” John says.

“But is the system answering your queries?” Terry asks.

“Maybe we should turn around,” Hanz offers, “we only have one magic user, the rest of us are physical.”

Wimp.

“I’m range,” John points out. “And mana is what powers my bullets.”

“A few of my class abilities are boosted by magic,” All says.

John looks at me.

“I’m not magic based. I’m a brawler. But my strength isn’t affected, and the armor’s still good.”

Al chuckles. “We need to find you something that fixes itself, the way you’re always getting hit and getting it damaged.”

“Maybe we should have someone make him a full plate,” Terry said. “Being the team’s paladin and all that.”

“I’m no paladin.”

“Guys, are we turning back or not?” Hanz asks.

“I’m good to keep going,” John replies. “We just have to be more careful. If you’d rather go back, that’s fine.”

Idiot.

“I’m not scared.”

“I’m not saying you—” John pauses. “How about we all take a page out of Chuck’s book and only listen to what is said, instead of adding meaning to it? This isn’t about proving who’s the strongest or bravest. This is an expedition and I want everyone to come back. That means each of us needs to decide if we’re going to be good in this new environment.”

You’d think he’d be smart enough not to want to push on.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

Can’t you make up your mind? You call Hanz a wimp for wanting to turn back, John an idiot for wanting to continue. You just like bitching, don’t you?

He’s a wimp for admitting to being afraid.

John’s looking at me.

“I’m good.”

See, you aren’t admitting to being afraid.

That’s because I’m too dumb to know better.

Bullshit, I raised you much better than that.

You fucking raised me to be terrified of you all the time. That kind of makes me lose track of what else should be scary.

“Hanz, I’m serious. If you don’t feel up to continuing, I’d rather you go back and protect the others.”

The orc looks at us. His shoulders slump. “Okay, I’m heading back. You guys be careful.”

We walk ten meters when Elizabeth reaches us. “They don’t need me if Hanz’s there,” she says, panting.

“Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” John asks.

“So long as we don’t have to run. I didn’t realize how much my endurance affected my stamina.”

I look at my stamina and health bar. Without numbers, it’s impossible for me to know how quickly they’re going to drain.

“Okay, we keep this at a walk, we remain alert and we stick together.”

We’re moving again.

Wrong direction.

Shut up.

If I ignore the way the grass is more gray than green, and seems painted on the ground, or how the trees are drooping and almost seem to be melting, it’s all relatively normal, if too quiet.

A strident screech sounds, coming from a few houses barely visible through the trees. No one asks to go investigate.

We pass a school, with buses lined up by the entrance. I tell myself that the movement I see in the window is my imagination.

We pass a medical clinic based on the ambulance parked in front of it. There’s an overturned gurney at the back of it.

“Should we check it?” Elizabeth asks.

“No, if there’s anyone, they’ll have gathered at the center of the city,” John replies. “It’s what they did in Harrisonburg, and based on what Chuck said, the concentration of people will help keep whatever this is at bay.”

They’re going by what you said?

We cross another line as we pass a plaza. The trees now look like they don’t have smooth angles. They are all sharp turns. Even the leaves look like blades.

“Anyone feel like we just stepped into a Picasso painting?” Elizabeth asks.

“Then I hope the people here don’t look like how he painted them.” Al gives a visible shudder.

We continue and come across another plaza and we freeze in place.

This one is populated by… something. A lot of them. Moving in and out of the buildings carrying bags and boxes, talking among themselves. There’s something completely banal about them, except for how they look. Bipedal, but hunched over. Not like hunchbacks, but more like their bodies are melting. Even what they wear gives that impression of being about to slide off their bodies.

The mundane air continues until one of them notices us.

Then, all hell breaks loose.

“Be careful not to kill them,” John warns as they rush toward us.

“Are you crazy?” I reply, bar in hand. I can’t read body language worth shit, but I can see the hate in how they scream as they are running toward us, their arms wide, fingers outstretched showing vicious looking claws. Those things don’t look like they’re about to melt off.

“We’re probably scaring them more than they’re scaring us, Let's just subdue them and get out of sight.”

“Going to do my best,” Al said, hefting his hammer, “but I’m not making any promises. That’s a mob. Those are never good to deal with.”

John fires three times and three of them drop. “Stun rounds,” he offers at the look Al gives him. “After those people where we picked up Deloy, I figured a way to stop without killing was a good idea.”

A wave of cold starts before us and washes over them. They stagger, a few drop to their knees, but the others are running at us again, looking angrier.

“I guess they’re resistant to cold magic,” Terry says.

“Stay close to me,” I tell him, and I don’t have the time to question where that came from. The first of those Melties are on us.

A sweep of my bar forces them to stop and back away. The one I catch in the side is sent tumbling back. I felt bones break, so they aren’t all melted stuff inside. Elizabeth is at my side, punching and kicking at them. Every time she connects, they fly back. Al is on my other side and winces anytime he hits one with his hammer and bones break.

I can’t sweep with them next to me, so I thrust with my bar. Gunshots and balls of ice fly between us and more of them drop or are sent flying.

“This way!” John yells when they are all on ground, unmoving or writhing in pain.

I follow him into a side street. There are houses on each side, but no one is outside. He leads us to a copse of trees hiding us from view.

“What was that?” he asks.

“A mob,” Albert answers.

“But those were people, right? I mean, definitely not humans, but—Sorry, not like us, but people anyway, right? They were shopping. Is the system putting in people now instead of just monsters?”

I look at Terry, who shrugs. “If this was a game, I’d say those were non-player characters, but those would just be part of the background. This is beyond anything I’ve seen in games. Unless we stepped into some large-scale player versus environment event.”

“What’s that?” I ask.

“Some games will have events that take place on the main map instead of within an instance like a dungeon. Then all the players get to fight the monsters around them. They’re usually special events and they’ll have a theme and a goal.”

“Could the goal be to rescue the people trapped in the center?” John asks.

“Sure. But anyone notice we didn’t get any experience points in that fight?”

“I thought it was because I didn’t kill any of them,” Al says.

“I know I did,” Terry says. “After they resisted the wave, I strengthened my attacks, and it overwhelmed whatever resistance they had. One ball went right through the chest of one of them.”

“Why do you think that is?” John asks.

“No idea. XP for kills is at the core of MMOs, and the system’s been following that until now.”

“Maybe this is based on accomplishing the quest?” Al offers.

“What quest?” Terry counters. “Unless only the team leader was informed, I didn’t get any quest notification when we came in, or since.”

I shake my head.

“It’s almost like there isn’t a system here,” Terry says.

“We still have our sheets,” Elizabeth says.

“Then maybe we just can’t call out to the system. I don’t know, it’s just odd that it’s not answering even basic queries.”

“Is there a point in continuing?” I ask. “If this is what Winchester’s like, going deeper just means encountering more of them.”

“I still think that if we reach the city center, we’ll find people,” John says. “There might not be a quest, but I don’t feel right leaving them here in the middle of that.” He motions around us.

“This has just turned into a stealth mission, then,” Al says. “We can’t afford too many encounters like that, and if they’re set up like a city, one of them is going to call their version of the police at some point.” He grins at me. “The two of us aren’t exactly suited for those.”

“We aren’t letting them go alone,” I counter.

Where is that coming from? They’re giving you the perfect out. Stay here and let them do the stupid stuff.

Terry’s the reason. I know it.

Not that I understand why.

“Okay, then we move slowly and carefully. Terry, you have any spell that’ll tell us if there’s people nearby?”

He shakes his head.

“Chuck?”

“The closest I have is my tracking skill. Maybe my perception one can help me notice stuff, but it’s not dependable.”

“Then we go slow.”

We stick to the back of houses as much as we can. John checks to make sure no one’s around, then we run through the backyard. One has a swing with toys strewed around. The dolls look so normal it makes me uncomfortable. Then I put that out of my mind as we cross the next backyard.

The street only has a few people on it, and we cross it without attracting attention. Half a dozen other backyards and then…

This time, the line follows the road down the middle. On each side, I can see it vanishing in the distance. On our side of the line, this distorted version of our world. On the other is… nothing.

The air on that side is green, but filled with static. I want to say snow, the way I used to think of it on the old TV sets, but there’s something that feels even more electronic here than there. It’s like whatever’s on the other side of that line was a digitized version of the world and got scrambled.

John pulls us back to the nearest group of trees.

“I’m not going in there,” Al states.

“What do you think that is?” John asks.

“Looks like the end of the world to me,” Al replies.

I shrug. This was beyond me the moment the system showed up. I’m just along for the ride.

“Have you guys noticed how things got more pronounced the closer we got to this point?” Terry asks.

“It’s been the same for a while,” I point out.

“Yes, but the stages made this more… whatever it is. First it’s just the air and the trees, then it was more of it, then the people, now that. Whatever is happening here. I think that’s the center of it.”

“So you think we need to find out what it is?” John asks.

“No fucking way,” Terry exclaims, then looks at his mother, eyes wide, and covers his mouth. “Sorry.”

She chuckles. “I think you’ve graduated to using profanity when appropriate.”

“But we should find out if there’s anyone alive in there,” John insists.

Terry shakes his head. “Look, I’ve never heard of something like this happening in a game, but if I’m going to keep that analogy going, that looks like a section of a game that got glitched bad. Like completely corrupted. If this was a game, I’d make sure I’d saved ahead of time. And then try it. But I haven’t come across a save-point yet, so I don’t think we should even think of setting foot across the line.”

John looked at the wall of green static, then nods. “Okay, we’re heading back. We keep our heads down and hope no one sees us.”

Do I have to say it? My father says, just before someone screeches in terror.