There were zero clues telling me how to get out of the room.

  I began to search the walls with my hands, looking for any hint of a door or some sort of latch. I looked for a button or some kind of recess or even used my torch to see if something responded to heat. Anything that would give me an indicator of how to get out of the room.

  Nothing.

  The book had been nothing but disappointing with its stupid help section and I decided to leave it out of the equation. I pulled on the holders the torches had been in, searched the floor, the ceiling I kept coming up blank.

  Scanning the wall with my eyes and pausing on different sections with no luck. Despite probably looking like a total and complete idiot I still came up with nothing.

  “How do I get out of here?” I asked the air. “I’d like to leave now.”

  A beam of light shot out from the wall behind me. The bright blue beam was about a quarter in size and reminded me of the lasers that had scooped up so much of my planet… a few days ago? A few weeks? Last year?

  I had no idea how long I had been out and yet it felt like it all happened yesterday.

  My attention snapped back as the light ran up the wall about 8 feet then over about 6 and then back down again. Where the light had been there was now a recess to the stonework.

  A deep rumbling filled the room, and the rectangle of stone that the light had cut out began to move in a shuddering motion. It then immediately sank down into the floor like the pedestal had, leaving a doorway in its place.

  “Huh, I guess that means someone is listening,” I said, surprised that it had actually worked.

  I approached the open space that the light had left. At first it looked completely pitch black on the other side, but I realized that there was some sort of force field over the doorway. It was blocking my view of whatever was out there, and I felt a sinking sensation in my stomach.

  Literally ANYTHING could be out that door. Hell, it could be an open portal to space, though this seemed like a super elaborate way to send people into infinity. Of course, given how things had gone so far, who knew what these assholes were into.

  I got closer to the doorway and could see an oil-like shimmer swirling over the surface of the portal. Or maybe it wasn’t a portal, and was just some sort of privacy film – just a super high tech one.

  I took a step back. So far, I had been told we had been kidnapped by aliens. That we were being forced to participate in some sort of insane ‘adventure game’ of survival on a spaceship that was… in space?

  I realized I wasn’t even sure what to believe. I had been told I could be turned into a zombie, that some things might or might not have the fucking plague.

  Moreover, I had already been attacked by a two foot tall goblin with a razor blade face. There were no clues as to where my son was - or anyone else for that matter - and no idea if I would see anyone ever again.

  I took a tentative step towards the portal and paused at the opening. I had to find Troy. There just wasn’t any other choice. He was alone, he was scared, and he was possibly having to do the same insane shit I was doing right now.

  Or worse.

  And I loved the kid, but he wasn’t exactly tough and I doubted he would be doing well in a place like this. I hated thinking something like that about my own son, especially given everything he had been through with his mom, and especially me, but it was the truth.

  He was a super smart kid and really good at computers and electronics. It just wasn’t going to serve him when it came to fending off hordes of goblins or whatever else.

  I tilted my head left and then right, cracking it on both sides. That used to gross Trisha out and I hadn’t done it in a long while. It felt good.

  I jumped up and down on my toes a bit, shook my hands at the wrists. I was trying to pump myself up like I was back on the BJJ mat about to spar someone.

  I had no idea what was going to be out there, but I would not let Troy face it alone. Not while I was still alive. With a yell that should have sounded a lot more ferocious than it was, I leapt through the doorway and out into whatever was about to greet me.

  I sailed through the doorway and slammed into the opposite wall at an unreasonable speed. There was a longer than necessary pause as I seemed to stick to the wall, Wiley E Coyote style, before peeling myself free.

  I checked my HUD and saw that I hadn’t taken any physical damage with that stunt, just mental. Not that I needed to inflict any of those on my already iffy psyche.

  I looked back at the doorway and saw that it wasn’t there. It didn’t appear to have ever been there, and was replaced by the same stone the rest of the hallway was.

  “Awesome.”

  Hopefully finding the player spaces the system had mentioned wasn’t going to be that difficult. Would I even know what they looked like?

  They said they would be obvious but leaving the starter area certainly wasn’t. Was I supposed to just start hollering ‘I’d like to come in’ while I wandered the halls?

  Standing, exposed, in the hallway while I worked through the least of my problems wasn’t going to help me either. I looked quickly down the hallway in both directions.

  The corridor seemed to go on for a while without any breaks of any kind. Every 20 or 30 feet torches were implanted into the walls on both sides.

  These torches looked different than the ones I had found in the room earlier. Would these hallways stay the same or did they shift around? They were the same plain stonework the room had been. They were about 10 feet by 10 feet, and I felt some claustrophobia creep its way around the edges.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  I wasn’t typically claustrophobic, but I could feel it mixing with the general sense of panic and anxiety that was welling up below the surface. I was startled out of this by a pop up:

  Achievement Unlocked!

  And So It Begins!

  You have survived the tutorial and started on your grand adventure. We will admit it took a little longer than expected to get this show on the road but it’s finally happening!

  Good luck!

  (Silver Reward)

  Now I’m earning achievements? What do the rewards mean? They really weren’t kidding about this being a game. Opening my book while I was standing there, vulnerable, in the middle of a hallway didn’t seem like a good idea. Not like the book would be any help in telling me how to open the rewards at all.

  It wasn’t clear which way to go and I had no idea if it even mattered. I decided I was going to go down the left most corridor. Or at least I thought that was the left. The wall had fully vanished and I was second guessing which side I had come out of.

  I pulled out the Rat Sticker, and used it to scratch an X stone about eye level. There was no way of knowing if that was going to even help, but I figured it would keep me from getting turned around. That was, if the scratches stayed there.

  Yet another achievement filled my vision:

  Achievement Unlocked!

  Total Rebel!

  You vandalized a wall! And you didn’t even have to. Maybe don’t do that anymore, it’ll bring property values down. Or could result in a gang war. Which would still bring property values down.

  (Bronze Reward)

  I sighed.

  I really wish this fucking place would give me more information. I needed to get moving, and I was getting worried these things would display in the middle of being attacked.

  My stomach grumbled loudly, echoing down the corridor, and I took a glance at my satiation. It was now creeping towards orange and was below halfway. Man, that thing really started to sink fast once it got going.

  Thankfully it just seemed to be food I had to watch out for and not hydration. I wondered if that was lumped together or something.

  Right as the thought crossed my mind, I felt the slight buzz in the back of my brain. A water bottle icon appeared in my HUD next to the sandwich icon. I was concerned the HUD would be getting crowded with all this information but so far, that didn’t seem to be happening.

  Even with the abundance of icons and inventory and everything else, when I looked closer at anything it seemed to just shift around to be viewable. I supposed that made sense given the fact it was all a part of some sort of advanced neural programming I didn’t understand.

  The water bottle icon was, thankfully, full. I wasn’t sure if it would start to deplete like the food icon had. Was it always visible even when it wasn’t getting lower? Either way, starving and dying of thirst didn’t sound like any kind of party I wanted VIP tickets for.

  I started moving.

  As I passed the torches I noticed they were definitely different than the ones I had taken. They still produced a flame but seemed to be burning fuel that was not a part of the wood of the torch. It was like something was being pumped out of them and creating fire that way.

  This made for a clean flame that was free from soot and smoke, which I was thankful for. I could only imagine what the hallway would have been like if these had all been regular torches.

  I had made it maybe about a quarter of a mile when I started to see a break in the corridor. It looked like the corridor opened up to the right about another quarter of a mile down.

  I wasn’t sure if I was seeing that correctly or if I was just making assumptions. Distance seemed to be weird here.

  There was a lack of torches near that area, making it appear extra dark. I slowed down and made the decision to stow my own torch in my hotbar. I pulled the Rat Sticker back out, feeling only slightly better even though it was still just a butterknife.

  I crept up another 30 feet or so before remembering the book had a map. With my free hand I pulled it out, thankful I could use it without putting it down. Awkwardly, I thumbed over to the map, and could see the corridor branching in front of me.

  It looked like there was, in fact, an opening coming up. There were no dots on the map and no information about what was in that area.

  I put my Rat Sticker away and tried the same pinching technique on the map I had used before with the inventory. Surprisingly, it actually worked. I expanded the map out, and was even more surprised to see that there was a small icon back up the hallway I had come.

  There was a little star right about where I had made the mark on the wall back near the start. Apparently, I could create waypoints on the map which was really good to know.

  First, I needed to get some food and then I could mess with all this a bit more. On the far side of the map was a small key and next to it was the new icon with the word ‘waypoint’ next to it.

  I closed the book and put it back in my inventory. It was going to be more helpful to me than having another free hand if I ended up coming upon a bunch of goblins or whatever else. I continued to creep up the hallway trying to be as quiet as I could.

  I wanted to move slowly and be cautious, but I imagined I could feel the satiation slowly draining with each step. I really didn’t want to find out what happened when it hit zero.

  I remembered watching my son play a game that had food and water and other survival components to it. Something about a city called Tarkov.

  Just watching him play it had given me anxiety, and I was pretty sure I would not find any pleasure in playing a game like that.

  Even back when I played Dungeons and Dragons with my friends, we would do away with the minutia of detailed survival components because it felt like it bogged the game down.

  It was freaking me the fuck out seeing an icon slowly descend into blood red without knowing what would happen. My stomach growled again, as I hugged the wall, announcing my approach. My stomach never made sounds like this when I was hungry.

  I pulled the map out and could see that I was really close to the opening. Maybe 15 feet or so. There weren’t any new icons but I wasn’t sure if enemies would be seen on the map unless I could physically see them.

  There was a scraping noise and I dropped the book.

  The book hitting the stone was easily the loudest thing I had ever heard in my life outside of the beating of my heart rattling around inside my chest.

  I quickly grabbed the large tomb and pulled it back into my inventory. I gripped the Rat Sticker in both hands like somehow that would make the butterknife more threatening and effective.

  There was no time to turn back now. While I still didn’t know what would happen when that little sandwich ran out, I could feel a deep, empty pang of hunger slithering around my belly.

  I heard another scrape followed by a louder one. It sounded like there was more than one thing making sounds ahead. I was close enough now I could see the far side of the opening. I guessed it was maybe 20 feet across though I couldn’t see inside it at all yet.

  Now that I was closer I could see that there was some very faint light coming from the area that the sound was coming from. It was like someone was taking a plastic fork and lightly scuffing the stone with it or something.

  With a reverse grip on the knife, I gulped like a cartoon character. I gave it a couple practice swipes and felt stupid. I changed my grip again to be able to do a stab motion.

  As quietly as I could, I jabbed the air a few times before changing it, again. Moving back to a reverse grip, I held it like some action star in a movie.

  I could feel the pulse of my racing heart throughout my body like needles. It made a deep vacuum pump sound in the back of my ears. Once again I changed the grip of the knife and settled on holding it like I was cutting meat. It was dull, but I was hoping that whatever I came across would be easily punctured.

  I gripped the knife tighter.

  Despite the fear, there was part of me that very much hoped whatever was around the corner was going to be easy to kill. Somewhere in the back of my panicked mind I wondered at that thought.

  With a scream that this time sounded at least a little more aggressive and less terrified I lunged around the corner.