Sprint, walk, sprint.

  Margo kept up just fine, and she did it with a smile. Sometimes a laugh. She loved sprinting and running and fighting. She apparently felt young again, her body no longer betraying her with age.

  I was only thirty and still in good shape, and even I felt that way. Not getting tired, not needing to eat or sleep or pee—it was actually pretty awesome. You just kept on keeping on. Nothing interrupted your flow. And if you wanted a break, so be it, but you didn’t have to fill rest time with a natural bodily function.

  If I didn’t hate all this and what it might mean for our world, I’d slap the aliens five for that little detail.

  We met two more clearings with enemies, one with five, and one with four. It was obviously for the people who couldn’t handle six. We walked into the second while a group of two were attempting to tackle the challenge. One of them, an older man with a hunch, got double whacked and dropped bonelessly to the ground. He almost looked like he was melting.

  “That’s the faint,” Tyler murmured.

  “Should we jump in?” I asked, but I needn’t have bothered. The other attacker, a middle-aged man with a belly, finished with his two enemies and was able to take out one more. The older man respawned while the last enemy was going for the chubby guy. He pushed to his feet and then got the ogre in the back. The fight ended with a long butt-raspberry.

  Tyler grunted, his eyes calculating.

  I didn’t ask what new facet of this place he’d gleaned. He’d tell me if I needed to now.

  The chubby guy noticed us. He flinched and said something to the older man. They both scurried around quickly, grabbing up the dropped weapons and loot, sending us furtive gazes as they did so.

  Once done, Chubby Guy held up a sword in warning, making eye contact with me. His eyes were wary and his expression nervous. He ushered the older man behind him, and they exited to the side.

  “I don’t like that,” I murmured, watching them go.

  “What?” Tyler asked.

  “The fear, and the people obviously taking advantage of a place with no repercussions. Did the aliens accidentally create a situation to showcase the worst of human nature, or is this by design?”

  “We need a bigger team,” Margo said, watching the others go. Her customary smile was nowhere to be found.

  “We do,” I agreed, and for a different reason than I’d been contemplating before. Strength in numbers.

  After about ten minutes, the ogres respawned. This clearing didn’t have a fire or forge or even logs. We divided up quickly, not taking too long to analyze, and knocked them out with quick economy. Once done, Margo motioned toward the path, and I noticed someone watching us.

  “Hey.” I waved. Might as well try to make friends.

  The woman’s eyes widened as she startled. She pulled her hands up to her chest, a defensive flinch, before she half ran down the path away from us.

  “You shouldn’t be the welcome party.” Tyler grinned at me.

  He was kidding, but it was still true.

  “Margo is probably the best one for that.” I fed a plain bat into my inventory and added another Tetanus Tickler to my arsenal. We could only fit six weapons into our inventory at a time, so I chucked a few sticks.

  “I don’t know.” Margo tossed away the poker. “I tried to get people to help with several ogres along the way and no one would do it.”

  We got on the main path again.

  “Was it because you were outnumbered?” Tyler asked.

  “Of course. I didn’t need help with one or two at a time.”

  I huffed out a laugh. “I think you have a lot of courage, Margo, and I don’t think that is necessarily common. I didn’t at first, until I realized we couldn’t die.”

  She gave a little grunt, acceding that observation.

  “I don’t think people are quick to figure out that they need to participate in all this,” Tyler said. “After meeting you and Quinn, and realizing how very little non-gamers know about all this, they couldn’t have any hint of what they are actually supposed to do. They were brought in here and they don’t know why, they don’t know what progression mechanics are, and they don’t naturally decide that killing scary ogres is the most practical solution to their way being blocked.” He looked at me out of the corner of his eye.

  “Its job was to attack me. Obviously we were supposed to kill it.”

  Margo nodded in agreement.

  Tyler took a deep breath. “A lot of people are looking for answers, and they don’t know that those answers are in the form of hints and clues within this world.”

  “Except…to even get out of the stone room, they had to figure out the puzzle,” I replied.

  “Figuring out how to get out of a room is a far cry from battering a strange monster that’s trying to kill you.”

  “Is it, though?”

  He gave me a bewildered look. “For most people, yes, Quinn, it is. Those are two very different things.”

  “I agree with Quinn.” Margo shrugged. “They were leading a horse to water. It was pretty obvious we were supposed to kill the monsters. They even have that little meter thing on their head telling us how close we are.”

  Tyler put up his hands. “I managed to end up with the two most hardcore women in this place.”

  “Lucky for you, eh?” I gave him a thumbs-up.

  He rolled his eyes, trying to hide his grin. “Until you loot me in my sleep, sure.”

  “Ah, nah. We won’t loot you in your sleep—we like ya too much.” I nudged him.

  “And we need you,” Margo said without inflection. I blurted out a laugh.

  Tyler snorted. “I used to think you were hot,” he told me, his cheeks turning crimson. “Now you’re just scary. You’re too scary to be hot.”

  “Story of my life, Tyler, trust me. I’ve heard that a time or two.”

  “Oh.” His smile faltered. “Oh, sorry, no! No, I didn’t mean—”

  I held up my hand. “Only funny ’cause it’s true. If we ever find Kym, you’ll see what I mean.”

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  “We’ll find her.” Margo patted me on the back. “We will.”

  She was courageous, ruthless, and incredibly kind and positive. I was only one of those things on a consistent basis, and another when I knew I couldn’t die. If she didn’t make me aspire to be a better person, I’d be super depressed that I was such a turd in comparison.

  Ogres and plant monsters came more often, and fully clean and wary people did, too. They pushed away from us when we neared and wouldn’t speak to even Margo when she tried to make contact. Some were in pairs, but most were solo, wanting nothing to do with our group.

  “Maybe I should’ve rethought the blood.” I pulled my lips to the sides. “I should respawn, maybe. Clean up a bit.”

  We stopped along the edge of the path for Margo to grab an acorn.

  “You’re just going to let a monster throttle you until you die?” Tyler asked in befuddlement.

  I shrugged. “Yeah, why not? Or one of you can just spank me or something.”

  Tyler’s face turned an alarming shade of red.

  “I’ll spank you.” Margo walked over.

  Tyler choked on his spit before turning away and coughing into his fist.

  Margo took out a club. “Or I can just hit you with this. That’ll probably be faster.”

  “No.” Tyler held up his hand, coughing. “No, wait.” He wheezed, coughing again. “No, don’t kill her. That’ll give us the option to loot. I don’t know if she’ll respawn before she’s looted. There is a trade function, but it’s not currently highlighted, so we might not be able to easily give her stuff back. She’d be without her meals and pantry and everything. Let’s just find a plant monster.”

  Margo and I both shrugged and continued on the path. It wasn’t far up the road that we noticed a man off to the side, leaning against a tree trunk. He had meaty arms crossed over a thick chest laden with chub but overlaid with muscle and coated with coarse black hair. His bald head reflected the low light, and his legs were spread wide, in a power stance.

  His gaze turned our way, and immediately my skin crawled with the off-kilter light in his eyes. Margo didn’t raise her hand in salute. She’d clearly picked up on his vibe. Intuition said this was not a guy we wanted to befriend. If there was a street, I’d be crossing it.

  My fingers tingled, itching to reach for the handle of my sword. Thankfully, I hadn’t switched it out from the last skirmish. This was the strongest weapon I had.

  The guy pushed off the tree trunk. Tyler tensed beside me, falling back a little to give me room.

  “Hello there.” The man walked to the center of the path, blocking our way. He clearly didn’t know my resolve when something—or someone—did that. “What have we here? An old woman, a scrawny kid, and a pretty little toy.”

  The sexual threats. Dickheads like this always reached for those. The fear was if they’d follow through.

  It was funny how quickly a sword negated the terror of helplessness.

  “The only toy you’ll play with is that tiny thing between your legs,” I said. “And based on your ugly mug, you’re the only one who plays with it.” I drew my sword. “Move.”

  He sneered. Violence gleamed in his eyes. “You’ve got a smart mouth.”

  “You don’t got smart anything. Move.”

  He braced. I saw the anticipation for action in his eyes. When he stepped forward, I was already moving.

  “I’m going to—”

  He cut off as I advanced on him. When you were the smaller, often physically weaker party, it was never wise to play solely defense. You had to turn defense into a good offense…and then get the hell out of there if they wouldn’t stay down. Big, muscled guys were hard to keep down.

  But this place was different. Take them down, and their depleted health would keep them there. All I had to do was get in quick strikes.

  I held my sword halfway into a swing. This was the position that other guy should’ve held his bat.

  Ugly Mug pulled out a bat. He’d clearly decided that looting was the best way to get things in here, and he hadn’t looted anyone who’d taken down the harder clusters of enemies. Not that a bat was any worse than a sword. He would be able to swing that thing hard enough to break a bone. I had to hope he was a coward when it came to pain.

  “You think you can take me, Momma?” he sneered.

  I rushed forward. He braced, ready for me. I stopped quickly and feinted. He flinched, swinging his bat to block. Now I engaged, my sword angled in my hands to slice into him. Rather than hitting and retreating, like a blunt object, this time I slid the end along his upper arm where I’d made contact and across his chest. A red line followed the blade.

  He hollered and swung in self-defense. Damn, he was used to fighting.

  I didn’t brace for the blow, instead swinging again.

  A shout preceded Margo and Tyler both descending, Tyler swinging wildly and Margo darting around to the guy’s back and laying into him with her club. My shot didn’t even land. His health meter bled into nothing instantly. His body melted away, and his bat flew through the air, clipping my side and then rolling away.

  A cartoonlike sack, tied at the top, floated near the ground, glowing within a cloud of soft red. His loot.

  I froze for a moment, emotions rolling through me: disgust at the disappearing body and red loot, relief that his swing didn’t land, awe in how all that went down, and gratitude at my team for rushing to my aid. My momentary shock was broken when Tyler looked at the sack and said, “That was gross.”

  I laughed and stowed my sword. “It was. This place is reminding people of what they are doing, even if it is fairly cartoony.”

  “I think it should be more realistic.” Margo looked at the loot in distaste. “Maybe that would stop some people from doing it.”

  “Agree.” I stared down at the loot, too. “Do we take it?”

  Tyler put away his weapon. “On one hand, I’m curious to see how quickly he respawns if we take the loot. On the other hand, if we don’t take the loot, does he stay dead? I’m also curious to see how much he had and what it was, exactly. But, in the end, I’m worried about the karma if we do take the loot.”

  “That’s a lot of thinking.” Adrenaline still pinged around my body. It wasn’t in me to back down from adversaries like that, but it was still terrifying, especially when a man started throwing around those sexual threats. It withered a part of me I didn’t know how to strengthen, mostly because a lot of those guys tried to make good on their threats.

  “Let’s leave it.” I turned away. “The best he had was a bat, and he wasn’t wearing sandals. I doubt he has anything we don’t.”

  Mutually agreeing, we continued on, half trudging at first, weighed down with looting someone, and then starting our walk-sprints. We passed more bloodied people now, almost always solo. They didn’t shy away from us as much, but they didn’t rush to talk to us, either. No one wanted to team up.

  The latter surprised me. These people weren’t scared of our appearances (I’d decided against respawning in case we met more Ugly Mugs), and they still didn’t want to work together to combat this place. I mentioned it on one of our walk cycles.

  “If I’d known about looting people, I doubt I would’ve joined up with you,” Tyler told me. “The risk would be too great, especially knowing you have no trouble fighting. Joining up with three people? I think I’d shy away from us if we walked down the road.”

  Margo glanced over at me and then Tyler. “I’d say hi.” She shrugged. “You two seem to have camaraderie, and you seem like nice people.”

  “You just have no fear,” Tyler told her.

  She shrugged again. “When you progress to your later years in life, you start seeing loved ones die, friends—you start thinking about your own mortality. Life does not go on forever. Eventually, we must face that. I decided to let go of the fear. I decided to see the good in people around me. To look for the positive side of life. I find I’m often rewarded with just that, good people and kindness. But I also think it is a conscious choice. We’re so often told to be afraid these days that we have to actively try to embrace the good side of humanity, not the bad. That’s all I do. But I’ve had over sixty years to get to this stage of my life. Many people here are still on that journey.”

  I nodded, thinking that through.

  “But this place is inherently terrifying,” she went on. “We were taken from our homes and placed in a strange alternate reality. We’re being presented with technology we couldn’t dream of, pitted against strange creatures who want to do us harm, while learning the hard way that other life forms do exist. Sure, many of us looked at the stars and thought, If all of those stars have planets, then the probability of other life out there is high, but we certainly didn’t think they could visit us. I think a great many people are scared and confused. With that is a fear of trusting. We’re strangers, and we look dangerous. Many people would rather stick with what they know than extend their trust to danger.”

  All good points.

  I thought about that as we continued on, deciding maybe we should stop sprinting when we found someone else, staying close and chatting. Maybe they’d warm up to us after the initial shock and shyness wore off.

  I didn’t get a chance to float that idea to the others, though. We came to a little berm that descended into a meadow. Grass and wildflowers surrounded a little dwelling with a straw roof and wooden walls with beams to support it. Smoke made a lazy gray squiggle out of each of the two chimneys. Empty chairs lined the front, and a pot squatted over a campfire to one side, encircled by logs. A cartoon-looking dog wagged its tail out front, walking first one way, stopping, and then walking another. After a moment, it repeated the loop.

  “What do we bet there’s a bunch of monsters inside there?” I asked quietly, having drifted to a bush. The others had followed me without a word, crouching down to look.

  Tyler licked his lips, his eyes darting to and fro. They lingered on the dog for a second before he looked behind.

  “I’m more concerned what sort of people we’ll find,” he murmured.

  After a silent beat, Margo said, “Only one way to find out.”