Part 3

The figures started to exit the operating room.

Petrified, I made my character run toward the hallway door and sprint onto the second-floor balcony. All of the NPCs in the "MEDICAL" building were immobilized. Their bodies, however, swivelled on the spot, so that they were always facing me. Avoiding them, I ran down the stairs. I didn't know whether the five silhouetted monsters from the operating room were still chasing me. I didn't stop to check.

Hurtling across the main lobby, I weaved between the swiveling statues. They littered the waiting area and followed my every move with their empty faces. I reached the main hospital door, turned left, and tried to ignore the splitting pain in my sides. My "ENERGY" bar was rapidly draining.

I was surprised to find my house door unlocked, as I thought the game might lock me out and leave me to whatever twisted fate the NPCs had in mind. The second I was inside, I closed the door, selected the "Lock" option, and backed toward the kitchen. Multiple text boxes started to pop up, indicating that the five murderous NPCs were, in fact, at my front door.

"Let us in."

"Do you want to earn 5000 Tokens? Let me in."

"You can just let me in. Forget the others. 50,000 Tokens?"

Feeling utterly depleted and not yet brave enough to look at riprip78's message, I moved my character to the fridge and looked inside. Nothing. It was empty. Another punishment, I assumed. Instead, I filled up a glass of water from the tap, and both my "WATER" and "ENERGY" bars started to replenish. But I was so hungry. Then, a window popped up:

"For the sake of realism and immersion, certain food items are kept outside of the fridge."

Suddenly, there was a bouncing arrow over the fruit bowl on my character's dining table. There were still some pixelated apples inside. I ran over, selected "Eat", and breathed a sigh of relief as the ache in my gut began to ease.

Another pop-up window appeared:

"Uh-oh! It looks like your fruit might be moldy."

As my character bent forward and started to projectile-vomit a black substance, I felt an unsettled grumble in my real-life stomach. Fuck. I expected vomit, but I should've known that the grueling simulation would have something much more sickening in store for me.

I bent forward, mirroring my character's position. Feeling a blazing sensation in the back of my throat, I projectile-vomited a thick, black, gooey substance that looked identical to the one my character had just produced. Knees knocking together, as I trembled in terror, a second wave of black vomit, thick in consistency, flew from my mouth. This time, something horrific was moving in the black substance that was coating my computer desk.

Caterpillars. Hundreds and hundreds of caterpillars, wriggling and drowning in the thick, unidentifiable black bile that surrounded me. They had come out of me. Screaming at the terrifying sight before me, I was even more horrified to see the caterpillars slowly morph into black goo, much like my dad and Darcy. They became one with the evil substance that was dripping from my desk. The creatures unleashed a tiny chorus of haunting wails as they melted. As far as I know, caterpillars don't wail, but "The Real World" doesn't exactly abide by the laws of nature, whether in the game or reality. I was taunted by another pop-up message:

"Whoops! Just like the real world, you can't always trust fruit. It looks like some hungry little caterpillars found their way into your apples!"

With my sleeve, I wiped the repulsive bile from my lips and finally picked up my phone. I opened Discord.

riprip78: Firstly, don't delete the game. It needs to be destroyed with a ritual. We're not just trying to destroy the effigy. We're trying to sever the connection. I read your message, and I'm sorry for the late reply, but I've spent the last few hours developing a game extension for you. It's essentially a virus. Put the attachment in the main folder for "The Real World". I know you shouldn't download files from a stranger, but you don't really have a choice. Time is not your friend. You're gonna have to trust me.

ritual.gc

I asked him about the file extension. I'm not a tech whiz, but I'd never seen the "gc" file type before.

riprip78: It's graycode. Take a look in the folder for The Real World.

I did.

The Real World

• index.gc

That was the only file in the folder. So, naturally, I asked him about graycode.

riprip78: It's evil shit. Probably the worst kind of tech magic. I'd rather not talk about it. You shouldn't fuck with it. I've only ever programmed something in graycode once… Well, I guess I've now done it twice. Yeah. I don't know whether that ritual.gc file can help, but your dad didn't tell you anything about where he found the game or who made it. With the knowledge I have at my disposal, this is the best I can do.

I downloaded the file and put it into the folder.

riprip78: Okay. I developed a two-part ritual in graycode (it's based on stuff I read about destroying physical voodoo dolls, so let's hope it works for digital ones). Within the game, when you've installed my extension, you're gonna cleanse your character with fire, then you're gonna cleanse it with water. You won't have much time to complete the ritual. The entity is going to fight hard to keep you as its host.

The next pop-up window read:

"Extension has been successfully installed. Cheat code detected. Penalty for seeking help outside the simulation."

• "Break a leg (-10,000 Tokens)"
• "Lose an eye (+100,000 Tokens)"

I didn't have 10,000 Tokens. The game knew that. I told riprip78, hoping he'd be able to help me.

riprip78: Ignore its demands. Focus on the ritual. The installation of my extension must have actually worked. I told you that the game wouldn't give up without a fight. Just keep going. You should see the golden doorway that I created. Has it appeared?

Another pop-up window:

"Do not enter."

Suddenly, a pixelated golden doorway appeared in the middle of the kitchen. I was a little mesmerized by the sudden burst of color on my screen. The door oozed with warmth in the midst of that barren, black-and-white, outlined environment. Finally, I had found a slim spark of hope in the heart of such a dismal place.

My joy was short-lived, however, as the next text box violently displayed itself:

"Offer has timed out. You do not have 10,000 Tokens, so 'The Real World' has selected the only available option. Congratulations! You're about to earn 100,000 Tokens!"

• "Lose an eye (+100,000 Tokens)"

My body clammed up. Flooded with a feeling of revulsion, I started to notice a sensation at the back of my retina. It was a prodding sensation, as if someone were gently tapping a ball with a snooker cue. The gentleness quickly transformed to brutish thumping. I wailed in agony, clutching at my left eye with both hands and trying to stop it from being forcefully removed from its socket.

I could feel an excruciating tearing sensation. My phone was pinging with messages from riprip78, but I was flailing wildly on my desk chair, futilely striving to save my eye. I felt something warm trickle down my hands. Blood. It started to trickle down my face, too. Over my piercing screeches of agony, I could barely hear the squelching noise of my eye being peeled from its home.

Eventually, there was an unimaginably painful tug, and my left eyeball was suddenly in my hands. Half of my vision was gone. I tentatively lowered my palms and my eyeball cascaded into them. It swam in a murky river of blood, which was fed by a waterfall from my eye socket. I looked at the monitor with my remaining eye and saw my character clawing at his face in horror. I didn't think the silhouettes had eyes to lose, but perhaps I was wrong.

Another pop-up:

"Would you like emergency medical care to stop the bleeding for -100,000 Tokens?"

Twitching in a mixture of pain and shock, I shakily moved the mouse over to "Yes" and clicked. The dripping from my eye socket abruptly halted. Something had stemmed the bleeding. I did not dare look for a mirror to see how it looked. I thought I might pass out.

riprip78: Tell me what's happening. You need to go through the door! The entity will be trying to destroy my code. I don't know how much time you have.

I didn't need to be told again. I started to move my character toward the doorway. The game hurled numerous pop-up windows at me, obscuring my character's POV.

"All of your Tokens have been deducted."

"-50 'ENERGY'. Stop. You need rest."

"You will be penalized."

Pushing forward, as riprip78 had instructed, I flew through the golden door.

The chaos ceased.

The pop-up windows vanished, and the metrics at the bottom of my screen were suddenly full again. I found myself in a pitch-black void, lit by a circle of eleven pixelated candles. They ever-so-slightly illuminated my silhouetted character, who was mostly submerged in the darkness of the endless, empty landscape.

riprip78: Right, you're in the room I created. I included some code to keep your bars full for a little while. We need to be quick. Pick up one of the candles, and set your character on fire. This should, if I've developed it properly, cleanse your effigy (the character). The game will no longer have a link to the inside of your real body.

I immediately moved my character over to one of the candles. The option "Set self ablaze" appeared, but before I had a chance to click anything, a window abruptly popped up.

"Penalty."

Without any instructions or offers, the toll was extracted. My left wrist suddenly snapped backward. I yelped in pain, and one meager tear trickled from my remaining eye. I had nothing left to give. Even the horrifying torture was no longer evoking powerful reactions from me. I was gradually fading into the icy embrace of death.

My left hand was flopped backward over my wrist. It was completely incapacitated. I don't need it, I weakly thought to myself, as I continued moving my mouse with my right hand. I clicked on the option to "Set self ablaze".

My character combusted in less than a second, and I winced, preparing myself to meet the same fate in real life. But I didn't. I was fine. I didn't feel the scorch of fire against my skin. And within moments, the inferno had extinguished, as had the eleven candles which encircled my character.

He was no longer drowning in the darkness. My black-silhouetted effigy was now a white silhouette.

riprip78: Good. It should be white. That means the first step of the ritual worked. You've severed the tie between your insides and the doll's insides. But we can't stop there. You're still connected. Your character has been reduced to a shell, but its outer body still has a connection to you. The game can still hurt you from the outside. Give me your address. I need to call an ambulance for you. Your injuries sound serious. When this is over, you'll need help.

As if "The Real World" had read riprip78's message, another window suddenly displayed itself on the screen:

"Complete challenge for 1M Tokens?"

I didn't even have any options to choose. The window simply disappeared, replacing itself with one that read:

"You selected 'Yes'."

The black landscape reverted back to the white one with which I was so familiar. My white silhouette had a black outline, much like the objects that were now forming across the game's environment.

riprip78: That means it's rewriting part of my code. The lake should be safe for now. I protected it. However, time is slipping away from us. This is the last part of the ritual. Enter the lake, cleanse your character, and it should safely disintegrate, severing your tie with the game once and for all.

That was all well and good, but riprip78 couldn't see what I could see. A maze was starting to build itself before me. And I had a feeling that "The Real World" was concealing the lake right at the heart of it. This was the challenge.

riprip78: Don't trust the game. It doesn't want you to reach the lake. It wants to keep you trapped. Forever.

I ignored riprip78's warning and pressed forward into the labyrinth of threats that I was sure awaited me. Sprinting down a long tunnel, I entered the white, featureless maze. I had no idea which way to turn, but the game had a sadistic solution for that.

"The correct route will now be highlighted, and obstacles on dangerous routes will be activated."

I sobbed in terror, looking at my broken wrist and tenderly raising my right hand toward my mangled left eye. There were two passageways before me, and spikes suddenly protruded from the floor and walls of the right-hand route. Drawing a deep breath, I started to move my character towards the left passageway, but then I stopped. What had riprip78 said? Don't trust the game.

I realized it wanted me to avoid the dangerous route. It wanted me to take the safe one. Looking down at my real-life feet, I felt my lip quiver in fear.

"This is going to hurt," I whispered to myself.

I seized my last shred of bravery and charged along the right-hand route. The spikes were small, but they were sharp. Each step inflicted a new wound on my skin, bombarding me with waves of searing pain in the nerve endings of my feet. I could feel a puddle of blood starting to form across the study floor, but I didn't look down. My eyes were firmly fixated on the game and the challenge ahead.

Reaching the end of the spiked passageway, I cried from a mixture of relief and horror. With renewed confidence and purpose, I pushed forward. The next "dangerous" (correct) route was filled with the slivering, pixelated outlines of small snakes. A pop-up window appeared:

"Take the safe path to avoid a penalty."

I ignored it and ran through the narrow tunnel of hissing snakes. Weaving my character in and out of them, I believed I might actually make it through the passage unscathed. I was wrong.

"FUCK!" I screamed.

One of them bit me. It didn't actually hurt as much as the spikes, but I'd been psychologically prepared for those. I hadn't prepared myself for the possibility of being bitten. My character hopped from side to side in pain, and I let out a long exhale, deciding to keep moving.

But the game informed me of something dreadful.

"Whoops! That snake was venomous. It looks like you need to administer an antidote within the next 60 seconds."

I was feverish, and I had a feeling that it had nothing to do with the wave of fear coursing through my veins. Something else was coursing through my body.

• "Buy an antidote (-1M Tokens)"
• "Sacrifice a friend (+0 Tokens)"

A black silhouetted figure fell from the top of the screen, landing on the floor before my character. A voice started to sound over the speakers.

"Archie!" the man's voice cried. "It's Steve! I mean… riprip78. Fuck! I need your help, man. If you type the following sequence on your keyboard, you can override this hex. X9b-"

His talking ceased. Steve's pleas continued, but they were reduced to muffles, as if the game had sealed his mouth or simply turned down his volume. Before I had a chance to act, the game chose for me.

"You do not have any Tokens. You have chosen to sacrifice Steve."

I didn't know whether I could live with another death on my conscience. Filled with terror, I begged the malevolent game to reconsider.

"WAIT!" I yelled. "May I choose to not receive an antidote?"

There was a pause, as Steve's silhouette squirmed on the floor of the maze, pinned down by some invisible force. The game presented another text box:

"Death is not an option. You have chosen to sacrifice Steve!"

Was he a friend? I didn't know him. Not really. But I'd heard his voice. He'd fought to save my life. He certainly felt like a friend. And his death was a truly harrowing spectacle. Steve's silhouetted body wriggled on the ground, and his arms and legs were plucked quickly and cleanly from his torso, as if some demented psychopath were butchering a microscopic ant on the playground.

Without the antidote, I was starting to fade. Maybe that was a blessing. It meant I barely registered Steve's final, torturous moments of life. His screams, though muted, were deafening. His torso and head were all that remained of his body, and the invisible force hoisted his squirming, mutilated, pixelated form into the air, presenting it to me as his movements slowed. His screams started to quiet. Seconds later, he was still and silent.

"Payment has been received. Antidote has been administered."

I was alive. Barely. It was still impossible to ignore the pain in my eye socket, wrist, and feet. Everything was throbbing. But I couldn't quit. The deaths couldn't be meaningless. I wouldn't let that happen.

I turned a corner, and I saw it. The lake. A blue pool with a black outline. Much like the golden doorway, it shone vividly in the heart of that lifeless landscape. There was an empty passageway leading toward it.

The entity became desperate.

"Turn back."

I didn't listen. I strolled onward, but one final text box stopped me before I reached the lake:

"Resurrect Darcy for 0 Tokens? Veilbreaking is a free bonus feature of this incredible simulation. Her soul can be retrieved from beyond the veil."

My heart pounded ferociously. I closed my eye and saw Darcy's face. Her luscious red hair. Her pure smile. And then I saw something else. The dripping black liquid to which she'd been reduced. I thought of riprip78's message.

Don't trust the game.

"Fuck you," I whispered.

On the verge of passing out from a mixture of traumatic stress, pain, and excessive blood loss, I moved my character forward, striding into the lake.

A piercing synth note rang through the speakers, pummelling my eardrums. I'm not sure what caused it, but it sounded as if the game itself was crying in agony. I ignored it, continuing to stride into the watery pool before me.

I submerged my character beneath the surface of the lake, and the synth screech faded away. His black outline slowly started to break up in the water, and the white silhouetted body faded. In a matter of moments, there was nothing left of the effigy. I collapsed to the floor from my desk chair, barely clinging to life, and I realized it might have been pointless. I was free, but I might still die.

"Fuck it," I groaned, hoisting myself back onto my desk chair. "You're dying with me."

One last pop-up appeared:

"DON'T DO IT. YOU'LL NEVER BE FREE. YOU'LL ALWAYS BELONG TO THE REAL WORLD."

I closed the game window. Reaching beneath the desk, I pressed the eject button on the CD drive. Picking up the disc that had caused untold suffering over the past twenty-four hours, I was overcome with a feeling of dread. What if it kills me?

Before I had a chance to reconsider, I squeezed the disc in my right hand.

It snapped.

But that wasn't enough. I had to burn it. Fire cleanses everything, Steve said. I reached for the lighter on my desk. My dad's lighter.

"Thanks, arsehole," I muttered.

Flicking it on, I held the tiny flame to the disc. It scorched the label a little, but it wasn't sufficient to burn through the plastic. I practically crawled into the kitchen, grabbed a half-empty bottle of vodka from one of my late-night drinking sessions (it seemed like a lifetime ago), and drenched the disc in it.

I looked at the microwave.

"Now, there's a fucking idea," I mumbled.

I opened the microwave door, threw the disc inside, added a little more vodka for good measure, and looked at the lighter. I didn't want to reach my one working hand in there and burn it. I set an envelope on fire, threw it into the microwave, and slammed the door shut. Flames started to roar within the enclosed space, but it wasn't good enough. I turned the microwave on.

It's safe to say that carnage ensued. I remember crackles and bangs. I remember smoke. I don't remember much else because my eyesight started to fade, and I fell to the kitchen floor. I do remember hearing sirens, though. Ambulance sirens.

I woke in a hospital bed. The staff were concerned to see me again, of course. There had been no sign of my father, and I'd been to the hospital with severe injuries two times in the space of a day. My dad was no stranger to domestic abuse charges, so I let the hospital staff and the police draw their own conclusions.

It was harder to lie to Darcy's parents. They told me that she'd gone missing and asked whether she'd contacted me. The coincidental timing of my hospital trip wasn't lost on them, but no charges were ever pressed. I don't think they truly believed I would ever do anything to her. I think they're still hoping that their girl is coming home.

Right now, I'm lying in a hospital bed, typing this story. My left eye socket is bandaged, so I'm relieved I don't have to see the gory mess beneath. My left wrist has been fitted with a metal rod to match the one in my left ankle.

This morning, I asked one of the paramedics whether the disc had been destroyed. She said the entire microwave had been destroyed. That sounds promising to me.

I don't think I'll ever find out where my dad bought "The Real World". I want to know. I want to find whoever sold it to him. Right now, I'm back on the "XI" Discord. In honor of Darcy and Steve, I'm looking for answers.

Is it all over? I think so.

Still, every time I feel a pang of hunger or I start to yawn, I can't help but shudder at the slight possibility that I'm still tied to that horrifying game.