Chương 9: Zone One

The power snapped back on. Plaxx told us to go downstairs, sounding flat and businesslike. All that manic showman energy was entirely zapped out of him as he padded down the hall to the stairs. My hand kept drifting to my chin, still expecting to feel the gash that was no longer there. The healing salve had done its job on me. The house wasn't so lucky. Downstairs, the destruction was somehow worse. Seeing it all at once, with the lights on, only served to highlight how badly it had been trashed.

The broken banister, shattered glass, muddy boot prints, and bloodied bodies had turned the place into a Grindhouse splatter film set. Mom would've been devastated. She'd kept everything spotless. Even when she couldn't remember my name, she'd still neurotically straighten throw pillows and wipe down the kitchen counter. Plaxx led us to the living room, pointy tail dragging behind him. He turned to face us.

"Before we go live again, let's do a reset." He snapped his fingers. And everything changed. The banister repaired itself with a series of soft clicks. The Strongman's body vanished, as if someone had simply removed it from reality. Even the blood was gone. Behind me, glass rose from the floor. The shattered sliding door reassembled itself. Shards of glass reversed upward with a sound like wind chimes played backward, snapping into place piece by piece.

The muddy boot prints lifted from the carpet and disappeared, leaving it looking freshly steam-cleaned.

"Can you do the same thing to my apartment?" Tre asked.

"Please." I looked down at my shirt, damp and cold against my skin a moment ago, now miraculously dry. The bloodstains on my jeans were gone; the fabric looked freshly washed. Darkness shifted outside the windows, like living oil being sucked back into the earth. Then it was dawn; it just fucking arrived. Golden light erupted across the lawn and blazed through the windows, making me squint. I looked away, eyes watering. It was all utterly astounding to witness. Magical.

And so beyond comprehension, my brain viscerally rejected it.

"Did you just… skip time forward?"

"Does it matter?" Plaxx replied dully. I blinked. Something in his tone caught me off guard.

"What about the bodies?" Tre asked, looking anxiously at the empty spot where Strongman's corpse had been.

"Where did they go?"

"Away." The imp dismissed the thought with a hand wave.

"Wait," Tre's voice got smaller.

"If I get killed, do I just disappear like them?"

"Yup. Like you never existed," Plaxx answered.

"But your companions get your inventory, so it's not a total loss." An image of Tre's funeral slammed into my mind: I saw myself, numb inside, standing by his child-sized casket, knowing I wouldn't last a day after he was gone. Then the words ' never existed' pinballed around my skull. Would he even get a funeral? Would I remember him? My hands clenched, nails biting into my palms.

"Listen, we don't have a ton of time, so I'll level with you." Plaxx rubbed his face with one clawed hand, then looked directly at me.

"It's going to get exponentially harder from here on out, mentally and physically. You did great in the tutorial, but you two need to take this seriously, or you're gonna be on the chopping block before you know it." I wanted to ask why he was dispensing advice all of a sudden. But the exhaustion in his tone made me pause. He looked genuinely depleted, not in a performative way.

"Oh, and this is the last time I'll do that clean-up trick," Plaxx added, gesturing to the house.

"No more handholding. Going forward, injuries remain unless you find something to patch yourselves up with. Or, you know, just die." The imp spread his hands, as if to say What can you do?

"You're responsible for your own survival now." Plaxx let that sink in, then spun away from us, twirling the mic by its cord. The lights dimmed and those sourceless "stage lights" returned.

"Welcome back!" Plaxx's voice took on that same entertainer's boom.

"The tutorial is cleared, and our players are still alive!" His eyes lit up.

"Isn't that exciting?"

"No," Tre swept a hand at the room, then back at Plaxx.

"Also, the lights, the mic, all of this pageantry. Who's it even for if there's no audience?"

"It's all for Maltheris." Plaxx snapped.

"Now, the Q & A is over, Toy Story." Tre gasped in offense. Plaxx ignored him and spread his arms wide above his head. Enormous words materialized above him, hovering in the air like the title card of a '70s slasher movie: Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. ZONE ONE: SUBURBAN SLASHER The imp beamed up at his work, proudly admiring the title card.

"The retro aesthetic was my suggestion." The title was made of white, angular letters, and dripping blood oozed off each word. Suburban Slasher. The casual alliteration made it sound like a fucking theme park ride where guests die horribly in middle-class comfort.

"This is fucking bullshit."

"Language, player." Plaxx let out a bored, disciplinary tsk.

"Anywho… A few more things you need to know. First, all unlocked achievements now apply buffs, debuffs, or modifiers. It's a real mixed bag, though, and you'll never know what you might get." So even my achievements can hurt me. Fantastic.

"Next: companions." Plaxx turned to Tre. The imp's expression shifted to something more predatory.

"As discussed with our players, companions are killable too, so don't get too attached, m'kay?"

"Alright!" Tre squeaked with indignation.

"We get it! I can die. Sheesh." Something about the casual, callous cruelty of Plaxx's "don't get too attached" joke stirred within me, a feeling I'd never felt before. A red wave began to form in the back of my skull. But this was just the initial pull of the tide. And I was fucking terrified of it. Plaxx continued with the smooth, empty patter of a guy who'd said the same thing ten million times.

"Each Zone has its own storyline. You'll be given objectives to complete; some mandatory, others optional. They differ for each new area, but all are carefully crafted to give our players something to really sink their teeth into." What a load of shit.

"For the first zone, you have two main goals." Plaxx tapped the air with one clawed finger, and fresh words appeared, glowing softly: OBJECTIVES >SURVIVE UNTIL DAWN >UNMASK THE KILLER"The rules are simple," Plaxx explained.

"Once dawn breaks, anyone still alive moves on to the next zone. If you complete the secondary objective before dawn, you'll advance directly to Zone Two." I frowned.

"So, can we just hide until sunrise?"

"Excellent segue, Nora, it's like you already know the script." The words "SAFE AREA" blazed above his head.

"Safe Areas are exactly what they sound like... safe from combat or danger. Some of them even come with little bonuses for you, because even the Architect of Agony can be generous sometimes." Tre blew a raspberry at that. Plaxx continued.

"But there's a catch: all Safe Areas have a strict fifteen-minute cap. When the clock runs out, poof, you're teleported out at random." He leaned in, teeth first.

"You could end up on a random sidewalk. Or right in front of a masked madman. Anything can happen!"

"Safe Areas are temporary. Got it." I gave him a firm thumbs-up.

"Good girl!" Plaxx chirped. I'm going to kill this little monster.

"But while you're inside, even your self-destructive, intrusive thoughts can't hurt you. And yes, that includes keeping out any demonically possessed companions as well." He gave a short, dry laugh.

"We learned that lesson the hard way. Actually, that's not true. We knew that from the start. We're the ones who make the rules." He laughed maniacally. The imp leaned in, breath like rancid poultry.

"But don't confuse 'safe' with 'private.' There is no place you won't be seen. Maltheris sees, hears, and feels all, babycakes." A demon was watching us run for our lives purely for his own enjoyment. Even though we were the only three in the room, a prickling awareness washed over me, though I'd never seen him; Maltheris' eyes felt like they were boring into me from somewhere I couldn't see.

"What if we have to take a shit?" Tre asked.

"You're made of vinyl, my boy, so that won't be a concern for you." Plaxx shifted his creepy eyes to me.

"As for Miss Price, she'll be delighted to learn we've removed most bodily necessities, such as eating, drinking, or eight hours of sleep." I was not delighted to learn any of that.

"That's not to say you won't feel exhaustion," Plaxx continued.

"You definitely will, and resting in Safe Areas will provide relief. But Maltheris has no interest in watching you defecate or sleep for eight hours. Naps are limited to an hour, but you'll still wake up feeling like a million bucks." Tre raised his hand.

"Do I also get to nap?"

"Nope!" Plaxx snapped his fingers, and a glowing neon-yellow thumbs-up symbol appeared on my front door.

"These symbols indicate a Safe Area. They'll be marked on your map as well, once you get access to that feature in later zones." They'd stripped us of the basic functions that made us human, left us with no privacy. Our every movement, thought, or breakdown was part of his Harvest. That was a ton of effort to "feed off fear" or whatever this Maltheris asshole was doing to us. But I understood we were cattle for his consumption. It made me want to run away screaming. But there was nowhere to go.

"…will fast-travel you into your Safe Area," Plaxx was saying as I pushed the thoughts away and focused on the little imp. Shit. I'd momentarily zoned out, missing something about fast-travel. I glanced at Tre, hoping he'd been paying attention. He was hanging on Plaxx's every word.

"And that's about it." Plaxx smoothed the coif of wiry black hair between his horns.

"The rest of the rules are discovered via trial and error." Tre made a sour face.

"Trial and error?!"

"Show, don't tell, and all that." Plaxx nodded.

"Good luck, you two. I'm rooting for ya!" He snapped his fingers with a flourish and vanished in a puff of smoke before either of us could respond. The living room fell silent. Just me and Tre, standing in my mother's perfectly restored house, with morning sunlight streaming through the windows and a glowing thumbs-up symbol on the front door.

"Nora, are you okay?"

"I honestly don't know, dude." Tre confirmed with a slight nod, real fear in his voice.

"Yeah. Me neither. I keep thinking about how that Old Woman got in your head like that. I don't know if I can handle the game coming after me that hard."

"You won't do it alone," I promised, forcing confidence into my voice.

"I'll be there for you, like you were for me."

"You were so tough back there," he insisted.

"The way you—""I didn't feel strong," I interrupted.

"It felt like I was going to break apart and never put the pieces back together."

"But you didn't," Tre stated firmly. I wanted to argue, but what was the point? We were wasting time. I walked to the front door, my hand hovering over the handle. Through the frosted glass panels, shadows and colors moved outside.

"Ready?" I asked, looking back at Tre.

"No." I opened the door, and was slapped with the too-sweet smell of artificial vanilla mixed with fresh-cut grass. We stepped out onto the porch. The neighborhood sprawled before us, so bright and cheerful it hurt my eyes. Identical houses lined identical streets in perfect symmetry. Kids rode around on bikes. A mailman walked down the sidewalk whistling. Sprinklers created little rainbows over immaculate lawns. We were in a postcard for Small Town, USA.

Tre stared out at the cul-de-sac, his small body going very still beside me.

"Oh, hell no," he said, voice small.