Michael Wade knew he was already dead the second he woke up.

  Because he felt well-rested—which meant eight full hours of sleep.

  Which meant he'd slept through his alarm.

  Which meant he'd missed work.

  And that meant kissing goodbye to his chances for the full-time position at Hobby Froggy's.

  His brain went from all-clear to cardiac arrest in half a second. He jerked upright, eyes snapping wide open, hand scrambling for his phone—before realizing he wasn't in his room. He wasn't even in his bed.

  Surrounding him was a cave filled with discarded mining picks, sledgehammers, wooden support struts, and, deeper in, a faint golden glow as the only source of light.

  That, and a giant blue textbox in front of his face:

  Under that blue box were two smaller ones:

  Most people might feel more panic waking up in a damp cave with strange glowing text. But Wade wasn't most people—to him, this was the best place he could have woken up in. Because weird caves and floating textboxes ended in one single conclusion: "A lucid dream. I didn't miss my alarm yet."

  He started laughing out loud in crazed bouts like someone who'd narrowly avoided a car accident while his brain went right back to mission status: All-clear. Head splashing back down onto the mud, followed by a minute of sporadic chuckles and relief.

  Crisis averted, his hand reached out to test the text next. It was translucent, as he discovered: His thumb sank through the blue box by accident—which promptly vanished.

  Ah. He'd accidentally tapped 'Accept' with it.

  Wade thought about it for a moment, then promptly stopped caring. It didn't really matter if this was all a dream, did it? But the little blue box returned a moment later to pester him again. This time with a string of single sentences:

  Welcome MICHAEL VALENTINE WADE to THE GAME

  New System quest: Survive THE GAME - Defeat or subdue all other players. Rewards: ???

  New System qu--

  "Yeah, yeah, great, okay, whatever." He mashed the X button multiple times with his index finger as more quests and one 'boon' notification popped up, including a detailed stat screen to his side, which he closed out of sheer habit. Even in his dreams, the X button on the right-hand side still followed regular logic.

  He had bigger problems than some dream-game nonsense. Namely: "Is it actually a good idea to wake up?" Getting up off the muddy floor, he considered his options. "If I wake up now, that's bad sleep, which means worse sleep later, or even no sleep at all."

  Low sleep was already an issue. It meant underperforming, which threatened his full-time position chances. He'd learned tricks for working while sleep-deprived, but if his boss caught him micro-napping between shelves or in the storage closet, his full-time chances would be gone. And the upcoming truck shift would not be nap-friendly.

  Wade would die ten times over before he allowed anything to threaten that chance. He needed the money for rent, bills, debt, paying off the mafia—oh, and food too. Money made the world go round, and Wade never had enough to go around.

  His phone buzzed in his work pants, exactly where it would have been in real life. He'd gone to sleep in his prior gig's business casual—collared shirt, pants, and socks. No shoes; he'd taken those off before he'd gone to bed. If he was already dressed for work when he woke up, he could add those few minutes to his sleep.

  Out of habit, he slid the phone out and checked the notification. A textbox had taken over the screen.

  You got bigger problems to worry about than sleep, don’t you think?

  Wade stared at the screen. It wasn't an app he recognized. He fiddled with the buttons, trying to identify where the text was coming from, swiping away other apps in search of this one.

  Aww, you already want to get rid of me? ?╭╮?

  "That'd be correct." He deadpanned, finally finding the app on the last possible page and swiping it away. Compulsively, he opened up his alarms next. Last he checked, he had four hours and twelve minutes to sle—

  The text filled his screen again, superimposed over his alarms.

  Well that was just rude ￣ー￣

  Wade stared at the text for a moment, then up at the mining cavern he'd woken up to, filled with work equipment and no sunlight or a way out. "Look, I don't have time to figure out whatever unresolved, deep-seated metaphorical cry for help this shit is, okay? So how about you let me sleep the few hours I got in peace, and I promise I'll book a therapist sometime in the future. Good enough compromise, brain?"

  lololol, don't think you got that in the budget last I checked Michael

  "Maybe if I get fulltime, I will." Frustration was building inside him. He knew it was already a little unhinged to be talking out loud to himself. "We good with the compromise here or not?"

  Rocks are generally not a comfy place to sleep, but you do you (￣▽￣)ノ

  Wade looked at the ground. "It's a dream. If I believe it hard enough, this rock might be the most comfy place I could ever sleep on."

  He tapped it with his foot. Solid as the rock it looked like.

  That sucks. The phone's backlight turned on again. New message.

  Oh, but it's not a dream, Michael. This is all very, very real.

  "Floating text boxes, weird caves and some kind of introspective self-therapy through a text app that doesn't exist on my phone isn't exactly normal life. Good try."

  Fine, fine. I'll be back later to tell you I told you so. I need to make some popcorn ?(>??)

  He stared at the text for a second, then closed the screen and put it back into his pocket. If his head wanted to mess with him with some random ominous texts and a spooky cave, this was rather weak. He'd walked into toilets that would have required a hazmat suit by law. A damp cave with a bit of mud all over was nothing compared to the nightmares his head could have drawn out.

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  But right now, he knew exactly what he had to do: Absolutely nothing.

  He found a stone to lean against and got to waiting it out. This would all fade away, and he'd get his precious four hours of sleep undisturbed.

  The phone buzzed repeatedly. Wade ignored it.

  The lucid dream hadn't sped up or faded away after a minute. The mining cavern remained stubbornly real, that dim golden gloom still beckoning from ahead. Plus, he was starting to feel cold. He checked his phone again—messages were all gone, no history, nothing. Very user-unfriendly, but it’s all dream logic, so whatever.

  His mind drifted back to those floating blue boxes. Quests, abilities, stats—all neatly organized like a video game menu. Why video games?

  He'd been pretty active playing video games in the past. Like, very active. No more time these days for that, and even if he had time, he'd sold his gaming PC a while back.

  Maybe a part of his brain missed it. That was plausible enough, right? Why not? Nothing else to do so far.

  "Quests?" It was a wild guess. And it paid off.

  System Quest: Survive THE GAME - Defeat or subdue all other players. Rewards: ???

  System Quest: Tools of the Trade - Level each stat attribute by one. Rewards: One storefront coin.

  Storefront coin? Gacha mechanic or cash-shop thing? His head was really messing with all the tropes here.

  System Quest: Glasses of the Trade -Use Identify thirty times on unique targets. Rewards: One storefront coin.

  System Quest: One Round Won -Survive one full day in Azdrial. Rewards: One storefront coin.

  Azdrial? Just another fantasy zone name, probably.

  Divine Quest: Market's Big Scheme - Search for and extract followers of Market back safely to Earth. Rewards: One storefront coin per follower smuggled into Earth. One gold bar per follower smuggled into Earth.

  Some cult about capitalism? No, Market sounded familiar. It was… "Oh! The crazy homeless guy from yesterday!"

  Some insane old grandpa in rags with a bottle of vodka in one hand and an IOU for gold bars in the other. He showed up on his shift at the checkout, rambling about being a god of fortune and trade, begging for help to smuggle his people out since his world was doomed, dying, breaking apart at the core. Or something along those lines. Wade pulled his phone out with practiced habit, eyeing the dark screen. "And the texts are supposed to be from Market?"

  Was that how his subconscious connected the dots? The phone lit up in his hands.

  You really think I'm Market??? Absolutely heartless, I don't drink that much (;￣Д￣)

  Wade narrowed his eyes. "Then who the hell— you know what, nope. Not doing this. You're a figment of my sleep-deprived imagination." He shut the phone and put it back into his pocket.

  Not important right now. He opened up the next panel, looking for a distraction to pass the time. Something about a boon?

  Huh. It looked more like an ability from an FPS game. His eyes roamed around the small cavern for any starting weapon: Not a single bow, sling, or crossbow anywhere in sight, not to mention his limp would make jumping difficult. Which meant this boon was functionally useless.

  Well, he might find a bow and arrow somewhere if he really wished for it. It's his dream, after all. Hell, maybe he could jump high just by willing it. So he checked the last item. "Stats."

  The plus 10 was in green, while all the minus 1's and 3's were in red. It seemed like the leftmost number was the sum total, and everything in parentheses was the base number with some modifier.

  And under all that was a list of buffs and debuffs.

  "Har har." They all appeared on the side of his vision in neat little red cubes with icons now. "Even in my dreams, I've got neck pain and need food."

  Malnutrition was debatable; a diet of lukewarm tap water and discount ramen hadn't killed him yet. Plus, he'd learned seventeen different ways to make instant ramen almost taste like real food through trial and error, and he wasn't about to stop until he'd discovered three more. He dismissed 'Mania' as a quirk of his dream; obviously, he was functional, thank you.

  His eyes turned to his phone, screen black.

  … All right, perhaps mania had a slight potential.

  That said, neck pain and a literal pain in his ass wouldn't stop him from getting full time. All his years in retail hell had prepared him. Hobby Froggy's paid seven dollars more than his gas station gig, and corporate's unofficial fifteen-hour max policy could kiss his ass once he went full time.

  A guaranteed thirty-five-hour minimum each week, with paid time off. (Though he'd never take it. That was an obvious trap.)

  Intelligence set to zero felt like a small self-insult here. Was his self-conscious trying to tell him he was being a dumba-

  Why was he even focused on any consistency in a lucid dream anyhow? None of this would remain consistent. FPS, RPG, MMO, shit-talker texting him — it was all mixed together in a weird hodgepodge typical of a lucid dream that would change the moment he walked anywhere.

  He tested his neck and leg just to verify, and the pain matched his stat screen. He found, with some mild depression, that it had all followed him even in his own dream. A small experimental jump sent the usual dull ache through his left hip, and there was already something in his neck hurting from lying down. Best not to test that further.

  Wade was worried he was moving in his sleep, which meant more pain for tomorrow. Wrong movements always messed him up during the day; power walking, being mindful about how he moved, and desperate immediate stretching were his only real defenses. He was twenty-five, and it felt like he was goddamn seventy sometimes. Rough.

  "All right, brain, I give up.” He took out his phone and stared down at the screen. “Where am I?"

  The phone buzzed. A text showed up as expected.

  A parallel world to Earth that should have died off centuries ago.

  His eyebrows raised. "Some strong opinions there. What did this place ever do to you?"

  Let’s put it down to personal reasons on my end. But enough about little old me, we’re here for you!

  Definitely some weird kind of self-therapy attempt. Wade sighed, trying to get things rolling back on track. “Look, creative approach with the texting, but I've got a job to not lose and bills that won't pay themselves. So, how about you be a good bundle of repressed workplace trauma and stay bottled up where you belong?"

  You keep telling yourself this is all a dream. Like I warned you before, it's not.

  Hopefully, you realize that before something eats you ☆(>??)

  Wade’s answer was to navigate through the root menu and kill the app for good in one swipe.

  Idly, he called up the quest menu again, more surprised that it remained exactly the same, wording and all. Survive the game, defeat or subdue everyone else, blah-blah-blah, all the same as before. Some part of his head was already jumping through the logic — subdue meant negotiate and discuss things. Which meant alliances. Whatever game this was, it wasn't a strict beat-em-up, but probably more about social maneuvering before the final brawl.

  Behind him, the path was winding out to a larger cavern with four different tunnel directions. No light anywhere on that end. On the other side, among the scattered picks, hammers, and signs of civilization, he found a landslide blocking the tunnel's end, with golden light leaking through a gap in the rocks.

  Deeper into the spooky tunnel or out into the light. What a hard choice.

  He limped closer to the cave-in. Most of it was loose silt and dirt. With some digging, he could probably squeeze through. That'll do.

  Pulling rocks and dirt off with his hands, he opened up a big enough gap to start wiggling through. A bit claustrophobic, but he could move his hands and feet enough. He took a break halfway through to catch his breath. "Feels awfully realistic..." And of course, the phone buzzed.

  Believe me yet?

  "Not even for a second."

  ?╭╮?

  Wade shuffled the phone back into his pocket, then with one final push, popped himself out of the hole and fell face-first into a shallow stream puddle. The chill of the water and sharp rocks against his cheek felt unnervingly real. Then text appeared in his vision.

  Note on grammar: