Fantasia
Second Shot
by Simon Vale
Chapter 1
I swear she was the most beautiful woman in the world.
And she was laughing.
“Three huge wet fish,” I said. “I’m not making this
up, I swear!”
That laugh! And I was laughing along with her. Not at
my own story, which was mediocre, C+ at best. Out of sheer happiness.
The waiter came over and she immediately buried her
nose in the menu. She was embarrassed that she had spent the time allotted for
studying the menu chatting with me instead. Her red ears stuck out from behind
the folded menu, and by God, in that moment, she was the most beautiful woman
in the whole wide world. I felt breathless. I needed a moment of respite from
my overwhelming joy. I asked the waiter where the restroom was.
“Past the front desk and to the left, by the meat
display counter.”
I stood up and she tracked my movement with narrowed
eyes. As if I was throwing her to the waiter to eat for dinner. I grinned
maliciously. But all my malice involuntarily slipped into the smile of a happy
fool, and she reveled in triumph.
I turned and swaggered down the hall as if in a
drunken stupor. An elderly couple at a neighboring table studied their menu
scrupulously, while further down, a pair of five-year-old twins picked at a
basket of french fries. Their sandals lay under the table.
I made it to the display case and saw a white door. My
head was swimming. I pushed the door open and turned on the cold water tap.
Raising my eyes to the mirror above the sink, I saw my own reflection. And the
forest. And then just the forest.
The forest was an undeniable and mind-boggling
hallucination. It was just like the real thing, and I saw each detail
distinctly: every blade of grass, every leaf. I tried to keep my head as still
as possible, afraid that the wondrous vision would vanish, but I moved
nonetheless and realized that the hallucination was three-dimensional.
I stood under a tree, sunbeams shining through the
canopy above my head. I spun and felt a breeze on my face. The forest was all
around. And it was a summer forest. A summer forest in mid-November. I reached
out and touched the bark of a nearby tree. The sensation was faint, not real.
But there was a sensation.
What I experienced over the next few minutes defies
all description. My mind was trying to work out what had happened and was
coming up blank. I was in a forest. Alone. Oh my God, Yana! I left Yana back at
the table. And I’m in a forest. A completely incongruous smile bloomed across
my face. What a stupid prank! This is simply impossible!
I looked down at my hands and was completely
dumbfounded. They were no longer mine. There was something very unnerving in
those slender hands covered with smooth, yellow-tinted skin. I hastily glanced
around and felt my body. With each passing second, a feeling of horror and
strange disgust grew stronger within me. This was not my body, and it was a
very strange body, as if someone had forcefully shoved my consciousness into
someone else...It carried out the signals sent by my brain, but all of my
senses aside from sight and hearing were dulled. My sense of smell was almost
completely gone, and the sensation of touch lacked any variation. But most
importantly: if I was here, then where was my real body?
And then I saw the window. It hung in the air directly
in front of me, and bore the following message:
Find your true body within 7 days
The message disintegrated into a thin stream of golden
sand, which then flowed through the air towards me. I flinched in fear, but the
sand was quicker. It gathered itself into a tiny pyramid, froze mid-air, and
took the shape of an hourglass amulet around my neck.
I grasped at the hourglass. Minuscule grains of sand
slipped slowly from one side to the other. Seven days! What, I’m just supposed
to spend seven days wandering around this forest in—and here, I shuddered at
the thought—this body?!!
A golden glow illuminated the bottom of the window,
and suddenly, a new notification popped up:
You require weapons
Below the message hung miniature replicas of a sword,
bow and spear, all of which were slowly rotating. Maybe it was the woody
surrounds that made me jab my finger at the bow. The sword, spear and message
disappeared. The bow began to grow until it reached the appropriate size and
continued to hang in the air. I reached out a trembling hand. Weapons? Why do I
need weapons? Hold on, stop. A stranger’s body, weapons, weird pop-up notifications.
Why do I get the feeling that I’m inside a computer game? But that’s just
absurd. VR games can be quite spectacular, but the technology to embed VR chips
in the brain simply doesn’t exist. Or does it? But for God’s sake, I don’t have
one of those chips, and the bathroom of a restaurant can’t be a VR capsule.
It’s complete insanity!
The bow was in my hands. A flexible bough with notches
to hold the thick bowstring in place. I tested it out. It wasn’t strung too
tight, and was clearly not a toy, but a combat weapon. But what about arrows?
Acting on an unknown reflex, I felt around to touch my back and felt something
rough. Reaching in, I pulled out an arrow. A long arrow, adorned with grey
feathers and fixed with an iron tip.
I had never shot an arrow in my life. Why did I choose
the bow?
Because I require weapons.
Why did I require weapons?
* * *
I took a few steps forward, then stopped. I didn’t
want to wander too far from the place I had spawned. What if the door suddenly
opened again and I was far away? But there was nothing there. I had searched
the area thoroughly. I stood there for an eternity. What do I do now?
Say: “Character Sheet”
I stared blankly at this message for some time, unable
to comprehend its meaning. But no thought was required: as soon as I had read
the full phrase, another, more detailed slide filled the window:
Please enter name, level 2 (2 experience points)
Strength: 1 (base level)
Dexterity: 0
Intellect: 0
Wisdom: 0
Constitution: 1 (base level)
Damage: 1x6
Armor: 0
Health: 10 HP
Speed: 5.5
Stamina: 50
Mana: 0
Available:
1 character point
I considered the slide carefully. At one point I had
devoted a considerable amount of time to video games, and what I saw made
little lasting impression. Because the technology was so primitive! There’s no
way such a crude system would ever be able to support such a high level of
graphics! Another puzzle was the fact that the program’s analysis of me gave me
a base level of strength and constitution, but found me lacking in intellect or
wisdom. I’m not pretentious or anything, but it kind of hurt. In my head, I
wished that my intellect was higher, and it immediately increased by one point.
New Intellect skills available
“View!”
Build a bonfire
Cartography
Languages
Magical damage 1/2
Prepare a trap
View five more skills…
No further explanation. I turned away from the
message, deep in thought.
The sun was low on the horizon. The light was
beginning to turn crimson. God, what am I supposed to do? Play the game! And
then it dawned on me. With all my mental capacities, I thought, “Exit game!”
Nothing happened. I tried several more variations, but in the end, all I had to
show for it was a headache. The damn pixels (or whatever they were) in my head
actually hurt, just like they did in real life! So they couldn’t find a way to
render smells, but they really pulled out all the stops with the pain sensors.
For the love of Christ! I was on a date with the most beautiful woman in the
world, and now I had no idea what to do, didn’t even know who I was, and hadn’t
an inkling where I was standing. And the program was in no hurry to answer any
of these questions. Save for the last one. I returned to the list and made my
selection.
Open Cartography skill
Not a single
damn thing happened! I thought, “Map!” and a wide black rectangle appeared. In
the bottom left quadrant, pressed up against the edge of the map shone a tiny
white speck, and I realized that this was the very place where I stood.
But then
where was the map? There was no map. In its place, a new golden message
twinkled:
Your hunger gauge is at 20%. You only have a few hours of strength left
to go hunting!
Long-term starvation may lead to your ultimate demise!
* * *
My ultimate demise. In other words, I’m already practically
dead, but not entirely? What, am I in a coma? And this is some sort of glitch
in the astral plane? God, anything but that!
In a clearing, I found a thick-trunked tree and
decided to try out my archery skills. It turned out I only had ten arrows. I lost
three of them rather quickly, and was only able to recover one. Some of them
somehow managed to hit the tree. But these skills would only catch me a rabbit
under a very opportune set of circumstances. I’d have to invest a point in
Dexterity. And I’d have to actually go somewhere to hunt. I turned towards the
tree that I hadn’t let out of my sight for the past several hours, and thought
the words: “Mark a spot on the map”
Name?
“Entry Point.”
* * *
Birds. If you step carefully, there are an awful lot
of birds in the forest. I didn’t think I’d be able to bag a bird. But I did it
on the second shot. With a heavy thud, it fell from the branch where it had
been sitting. It was big, with red and ochre plumage. Standing above it, I
wondered what someone who chose the sword would have done in the forest. Toss
it at the bird? Go after a boar instead? The bow seemed like the best choice.
Then I remembered the “build a bonfire” option in the list of skills where I
had chosen cartography. There were no fires in the vicinity. The sun was now
completely obscured by three trees, and dusk hung heavy over the forest. My
hunger was growing. It was odd, but I thought I actually felt something almost
like hunger.
I wandered through the forest until I came across a
small clearing with two fallen trees. I plopped down on one and gave the bird a
sniff. It had no odor. I tried to pluck the feathers off the carcass and
succeeded rather quickly. I used the end of an arrow as a knife, and soon held
a hunk of bird meat in my hands. I didn’t want to eat it in that state, but
what else could I do? I automatically opened my character sheet and spent some
time perusing it, until I noticed that I had already reached level three. When?
After a brief parley with the program, I gave the command, “Open activity log.” Aha! The bird was
apparently level five. Killing it gave me only two experience points, but that
was enough! How quickly do you gain levels in this game?
I used a point on “build a bonfire” and a flint and
firesteel appeared, held in the newly-created inventory. It could hold a small
number of items, which had to be arranged within a small flat plane. Almost
like pin the tail on the donkey.
I quickly built a bonfire and must admit that it
instantly improved my evening. I laid the bird on the fire and, although the
meat had no taste whatsoever, my hunger pains subsided and I warmed up a
little. As it turns out, the forest gets pretty cold!
I lay by the fire and thought about Yana. How
wonderful it would be to fall asleep now and wake up next to her!
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