I looked at the impossible door and hesitated to go through it. Once I did, my life would change forever. Glancing to my left and right, I noticed the others were also staring in awe, not quite ready to make the final step.


    The door in question was about the size of a wide-open garage door. Around its edge were black and yellow stripes and thick stenciled letters painted on the floor reading, “Warning! Do not cross.” The door itself was in an underground bunker a dozen floors beneath the earth''s surface, built in an aging bomb shelter turned government research lab. I could only marvel at how ridiculous it sounded, but there I was, staring right at it.


    Even more ridiculous, on the other side of the garage door, was an open field of knee-high grass waving in a gentle breeze. In the distance stood a corpse of trees and a glittering orange sun suspended in a bright blue sky. Thin wisps of clouds marred an otherwise perfectly clear sky. Birds could be heard merrily chirping somewhere.


    Slade, always cocky, asked, “So, this is the game?”


    Colonel Kane stood, looking very stoic in his military fatigues. His pinched face always looked either angry or constipated. I hadn’t decided which yet. He nodded his bald head and said nothing.


    I glanced at the others around me, trying to read their reactions.


    Tiny Emma looked nervous. She was my age but a head shorter. While she claimed to know video games, it was apparent in any conversation with her that she’d only played single-player collection games. Fear was written easily across every feature.


    Intense as always, Max stared. He tilted his head this way and that, trying to get a good look at the grass on the other side. He studied every detail, probably wondering if his eyes were deceiving him or how to reverse engineer the graphic fidelity.


    And then there was Slade. Wide of chest and thick of thought. In the short time I’d known him, which thankfully counted in days, he’d bragged about playing in just about every game imaginable. Add every sport imaginable and endless hints that he’d seduced every girl imaginable, and that about summed him up. He was nothing more than an infinite flow of braggadocio mounted on perfect pectoral muscles.


    I wanted to ask anything to delay taking a step forward, but Slade ruined the moment by exclaiming, “Hell to the yes! I’m going in!”


    He then sauntered across the warning messages and into the grassy field.


    Colonel Kane yelled after him, “Don’t forget your one item.”


    Slade hooted wildly. A guitar, all angles and vibrant colors, was now in his arms. He lifted a hand high in the sky and brought it down across the strings in one motion. I had to admit, something was soothing, downright calming, about that sound that could only have come from an electric guitar. It drew me towards Slade, who still hadn’t turned around.


    Max rushed past, eager to cross the threshold. Once on the grass, he knelt, peering at individual blades.


    “One item!” Kane yelled out.


    Jumping back up to his feet, Max held a wicked-looking katana. He whipped it from its sheath and marveled at it for a moment. The blade was so dark it swallowed all light that touched it. Max nearly pressed an eyeball to the thing, inspecting it from every angle.


    I signed up for this. I walked to the door, looking at the Colonel, who held up one finger. I was tempted to return the gesture with another finger, but he was paying really good money for me to play this game, so I spared him. I crossed the boundary and felt grass at my feet. Wind caressed a cheek, and warm sunlight touched my face. The air felt and smelled cleaner somehow.


    As Emma joined me, I heard Kane call out, “One item!”


    I looked back and saw Emma, but there was no door. Instead, grassy fields stretched as far as I could see, occasionally interrupted by clusters of trees. The door had vanished once we were all through it. We were now in The Game.


    Looking back at Emma, I saw that she was wearing a baggy beige sweater that she hadn’t had a moment before. It was easily several sizes too large. She crossed her arms and hugged herself, looking around at our new landscape.


    She saw me watching her empty-handed and reminded me, “Victoria, don’t forget to think about the one thing you love most.”


    “Ack!” I replied, desperately trying to think of the one thing I loved most. Here’s where the gamey starts. I had been thinking about this for a few days. I could game the system and imagine something incredibly useful, like a battle axe or bag of gems. Truth was, I didn’t really have any one thing in life that I truly loved. Things were things; they came, and they went. And honestly, to take this gig, playing a video game for the next few months, I had to give up everything. I had no home, no possessions, and not even any money until the job paid out in the end. Things were not my thing.The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    Something I did love, however, was my dog Ron. It broke my heart to leave him with my parents. Oh, they had a million questions: where was I going, how much did it pay, how can you trust these people? Truth be told, I didn’t have a lot of good, solid answers. I was promised a lot of money to play a video game on-site for a few months. I couldn’t afford rent without a job, so I had nowhere to keep a dog. And more importantly, I couldn’t think of anyone but my parents to care for him. Thoughts of just abandoning Ron made my chest tighten, so I took a deep breath and cleared my mind.


    It was about then that I noticed something in my hands. At first, I thought it was a football, but it was hard, not leathery. On closer inspection, it looked more like an egg than anything else—a really big one.


    “Oh, my freaking gawd!” Slade exclaimed. “Given a chance to have anything, you two are useless. An ugly sweater and a big bird egg. Totally useless.”


    “Shut up. They’re not useless. They’re the things we love.” I spat at Slade while looking over to Emma. Okay, maybe a giant sweater was useless, but I had… an egg. If nothing else, we had the makings for a really big omelet.


    “Even beanpole here,” Slade jabbed a thumb at Max, “brought something of value. What are you going to do with a sweater? Smother enemies to death with it?”


    We all knew there would be enemies to defeat. Kane had very specifically spelled out that it was that type of game. Our pay at the end of the game would also be doubled if we managed to make it to the end without dying. A sweater could keep one person warm if it got cold, but what could an egg do?


    I was struggling to find a snappy comeback other than telling Slade what a jerk he was, when Colonel Kane saved me. His disembodied voice called from the air above us, “Testing… Can you hear me?”


    “Loud and clear,” Slade called back.


    “Good. I’ll be your guide when possible. Just yell out Operator, and I’ll reply if I can.”


    “If you can?” I asked. “Why wouldn’t you be able to answer?”


    Kane said, “The Game is about exploration. As much as possible, you need to solve problems on your own. I see that you all have your one item, that’s a good start. Let’s test out the systems real quick. Open your inventories.”


    Just like the three days of training we had, I blinked my eyes and imagined my inventory opening before me. As I did, a glowing square appeared in front of me. I lifted the egg and dropped it inside, where it remained. I blinked again, and the glowing box with my egg faded away. Another blink and the box returned with the egg sitting there waiting to be taken.


    “Good… Victoria, Max, excellent. Emma… there you go. And Slade… there it is. Outstanding, inventory is working. All the other systems work the same way. Blink, think about them, and they will appear. If you get the wrong thing, swipe your hand in front of you to switch to the system page you need.”


    I had to try it out. I blinked and thought of stats. A glowing page appeared. A long list of statistics floated on the page: Total Kills: 0, Experience Earned: 0, Leagues Travelled: 0, Creatures Encountered: 0. The list was incredibly long, so long in fact that I got bored scrolling through it, which I found I could do by waving my hand up and down.


    “Okay, what do we do next?” Slade asked.


    “What would you do in any other game?” Kane said.


    “Play the tutorial,” Max said. We all looked at him. His words were so simple, and he was right.


    “That’s how I can help. I can answer any questions you have until you level up. At that point, I’ll only be available to report bugs or other serious issues.”


    “Do we have an immediate goal?” I asked.


    “Yes. Find resources and make weapons.” Kane replied.


    “Where do we find that?” Slade said.


    Max pointed to the cluster of trees in the distance. “We can probably gather wood and make spears over there.”


    As Max spoke, glowing words appeared at the top of my vision, Find resources, make weapons. They faded away after a moment, but I found I could make them return by blinking and consciously thinking about goals.


    “Someone is coming,” Emma said.


    We all turned to follow her gaze. Four figures approached, still distant, maybe a football field or two away. They were squat, almost pyramid-shaped, and bouncing around quite a bit.


    “What are they?” Max asked.


    As Kane had mentioned, we were already in The Game. They could be literally anything.


    I lifted a hand to shield my eyes from the sun, and my vision seemed to zoom in. There were four, no, now I could see five creatures approaching us. They were dogs, large dogs, at least waist high. As they got closer, I could tell there was no fur. Scales covered the creatures. They weren’t dogs at all but some sort of galloping lizard creatures. On top of two were squat humanlike creatures, but green-skinned and armed with spears.


    “Goblins,” I said. They looked perfectly rendered. These were better than any game I’d ever played.


    “You can see them?” Slade asked. He had the electric guitar in his hands.


    “Yeah,” I squinted, bringing the goblins back into perfect focus. “Five lizard mounts and two goblin riders.


    Slade stepped forward, swinging the guitar around to hold it like an axe. “Our first fight, and we’re unarmed. Not very sporting.”


    I glanced over at Emma, who moved behind me. Max drew his katana from its sheath and crouched down in the knee-high grass. As he did so, he faded away, becoming harder to see in an instant. I thought about getting my egg from the inventory… yup, that wouldn’t help if this was our first fight.


    Stooping down as Max had done, I squinted under the cover of my hand again. It wasn’t needed. The goblins were so close now, nearly right on top of us. I was just glad that Slade had stepped forward in front of the rest of us, egotistically playing the hero. The goblins seemed to be focused on him.


    Maybe we can talk our way out of this, I thought. The lead goblin held up his spear and threw it.


    So much for talking.