“Excuse me?” I asked. “The fire did what?”


    “I heard a voice in it. And it told me what we need to do next.”


    “Cool. So which way?” Slade said.


    “What? No. Wait a second,” I interjected. “Aren’t you at least curious who is doing this or why?”


    Slade scratched his jaw and shrugged, “No. Why? It’s obviously part of the game.”


    “So is getting killed,” I said.


    “Look, the developers aren’t going to want us wandering around in circles. Of course, they’ll hint at what to do next.”


    “The developers also built in a death mechanic. Aren’t you a little curious about that?” I said.


    “It’s probably a bug.” Slade tilted his head like a dog but continued stroking his square jaw. “Or maybe it''s an unintended feature.”


    I realized I’d just be spinning in circles with Slade all day on this issue. “Max, any thoughts on this?”


    Max narrowed his eyes deep in thought but said nothing.


    Emma spoke up, “It seemed like a friendly voice, like it was helpful, you know?”


    “Helpful how? Did it offer any other advice? Tell you where an exit was?”


    “Well… No.” Emma looked at the ground. “But it did mention the sky. When I looked up, there they were. The arrows leading the way.”


    “Arrows?” I looked up through the opening in the trees around us. All I saw were a few scattered clouds in an otherwise clear sky.


    “Yeah. There.” She pointed to one of the clouds. That arrowhead cloud, it''s pointing in the direction that whispers told me to go.”


    The cloud I was looking at, and I was pretty sure it was the one Emma was pointing at, did not look like an arrowhead. It was an ordinary, fluffy white cloud as if someone had plucked the legs and head off a sheep and set it gently in the sky. The game obviously showed her something completely different.


    Finally, Max chimed in, “We may as well. We’re supposed to test the game, and most players would take either of those as a sign to follow.”


    The temptation to convince them this was a bad idea lingered, but I was outnumbered three to one. We’d be following Emma’s whispers, possibly into a trap. I didn’t like the idea of following along to possible doom, but there was no way I’d be able to survive an increasing number of goblins and things like the barghest all on my own. As much as I hated it, I knew I’d be following along.


    It was the following along that bothered me. We were an unfocused group of testers, of explorers with no real goal other than getting out of the game and returning home. Somehow, I felt that I’d missed an opportunity here. If I’d played the group a little better, I could have changed the inevitable course of action to follow signs in the sky.


    I was resigned to follow, but damn it, I was going to start guiding this motley crew a little stronger in the future. “Very well. Onward to our doom.”


    “That’s the spirit!” Slade said. I wasn’t sure if he was being honest or sarcastic.


    We did a quick once-through of the woods. I found both of the spears I’d dropped the day before but little else of value. One went into my inventory, the other in hand like a walking stick.


    “Is anyone hungry?” Max asked as we gathered one last time at the dead campfire.


    There was a round of no’s from the rest of us, which I didn’t really think about. I was fixated on where those clouds would be guiding us.


    “Strange. I haven’t eaten since yesterday.” Max went on. “Seems like I’d be starving by now.”


    He was right. I should be famished, especially with all our running around and walking.


    “I guess that works different here.” Slade said. “Let’s go while there’s still light.”


    Emma followed Slade while Max and I brought up the rear.


    “What made you bring up food?” I asked Max.


    “It’s odd that we wouldn’t be hungry. Especially when there is food in the game. I looted a bunch of jerky from the goblins.”


    “Same here,” I said. I still wasn’t hungry even though it had been a full day since I last ate. “You have thoughts on it?”


    “Developers wouldn’t include an asset in-game if it didn’t offer some benefit. If we don’t need to eat, what is food for?”


    “In the games I play, food isn’t necessary, but it does provide healing. Sometimes buffs.”


    “Buffs?” Max asked.


    “Benefits. Like extra health or damage resistance.”


    “I guess I could try it and find out.” Max offered.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    “You really want to eat something goblins were carrying around?”


    “Hmm, hadn’t really thought about that,” Max said. “What I was thinking about, though, was that our bodies have been swapped out.”


    “What do you mean by swapped out?”


    “We’re not hungry, even though it''s been a full day since we last ate. We can go invisible. Messages appear in our vision. Our wounds can be healed with a touch. These aren’t things our bodies are capable of, so they had to be switched.”


    “Switched when?” I asked. “I’ve been awake the whole time we’ve been here. Even before we went through the door, we were all up for hours. When could they have been switched?”


    “At the door, I think,” Max said slowly.


    “I stepped through it and didn’t notice anything different. It was still me.”


    “I don’t know about that,” Max explained. “I don’t remember anything feeling different, but that doesn’t mean things didn’t change. Our memories could have been altered. We could have been hypnotized or roofied. I remember seeing the door. I recall going through it. But when we all looked back, there was nothing there.”


    “You think it wasn’t ever there?” I asked.


    “Possibly. It’s the only place where we crossed a definitive boundary.”


    “I don’t know. The week of training was pretty slow. I’m pretty sure each of us fell asleep at some point in that. They could have dumped us in the matrix then.”


    “I didn’t fall asleep during the training. I was fascinated by everything they said. I had my fingers crossed that the game would be even a little close to what was promised.”


    “Is it?”


    Max nodded, “Oh yeah. There is no difference in feeling from the real world. The only thing that reminds me I’m in a simulation is being able to open the menus. Otherwise, I’d think we were still in reality.”


    Slade and Emma were chatting ahead. At least Slade was doing most of the talking. Max and I slipped into silence. I was wondering if Max had a point. What if my body was in a tube somewhere? I repeatedly played the moments I stepped into the game, wondering if it had all been smoke and mirrors to pull the ole switcheroo. The blisters on my feet screamed otherwise.


    We trudge through the grassy plains for a few hours. Slade talked non-stop while the rest of us listened. Occasionally Emma would laugh at something he said, sadly not in mockery. She seemed genuinely entertained by his buffoonery. One thing was certain, they’d make a terrible couple.


    Slade was laughing at stories of his juvenile phone crank antics when he pulled this, “Operator!”


    “Go for operator,” Kane said almost immediately.


    “Hey! We’ve been walking for a while, and this is getting kind of boring. This game is going to bomb if you can’t keep it exciting for players.”


    Slade’s insanity took me by surprise for a moment. I had no interest in risking my life for his entertainment. And that was exactly what he was doing, asking Kane to throw more monsters at us.


    “Shut up!” I yelled at Slade, then took a more civil tone for Kane, “No… no… we don’t need any excitement, this game is just fine how it is.”


    Max interjected, “What exactly is the point of this?”


    It took a moment before Kane replied, “The point of what, Mr. Pendergrast?”


    “This game!” Slade shouted, “We fight like two monsters and then it’s a walking simulator for hours. The pacing is all jacked up.”


    “Who’s the target audience?” Max yelled back.


    “What do you mean by target audience?” Kane replied.


    “Who are you going to sell it to? Who is the intended audience?”


    There was a pause, then Kane replied, “Well, that’s, umm, classified, actually.”


    “Your marketing team has classified the target demo?” Max asked.


    “I’m afraid so.” Kane seemed to be struggling for an explanation. “Consider this a training tool of sorts.”


    “Okay,” Max was dogged on this, “But for who?”


    “Well then,” Kane said, “That’s the thing. Who it''s for is the classified part.”


    I couldn’t help myself, “A training tool? I’m sure academics will be lining up around the block for a chance to get killed by goblin mobs.”


    Kane responded, “It is an unfortunate side-effect of the simulation.”


    “Something you can’t fix?” Max asked.


    “Due to the classified nature of this technology, I am not at liberty to discuss it.”


    That had us all stunned into silence. Of course, Slade was the first one to recover, “So what are we supposed to be doing? Getting real tired of this walking simulator.”


    “I’m sorry to hear that Mr. Peterson. The Game is designed to guide you to the main objectives. It is also built to ensure that you are cognitively capable of interacting with those objectives. Failure to survive a simulation that is rudimentarily like the real world would prove that you are incapable of resolving the final objectives.”


    “Oh, yeah, that sounds great,” Slade said. “Could you repeat it in English?”


    “If we’re dumb enough to get killed by goblins, we don’t deserve a half million dollars,” I said.


    “Miss Price is essentially correct on that interpretation,” Kane replied


    Slade grumbled, “Well la-di-da, ain''t you soooo smart, Missss Price.”


    I ignored him, “I don’t suppose you could tell us what that main objective is?”


    “I’m afraid not. It would taint the results, thus potentially ruining the conclusion.” Kane said.


    “Do you feel good about yourself?” I snapped. “Sending students to their possible deaths for some… what? I don’t know, experiment?”


    “We all have our roles to play, Miss Price. Operator out.”


    And like that, his voice was gone. I literally gnashed my teeth in rage. While Slade had initiated this whole conversation as a joke, it left more questions in my mind than anything resembling help. I could die in here, and the guy with the knowledge that could save my life wasn’t helping as a matter of principle. It blew my mind that boomers could be so callous, so cold, so ugly.


    “Did you catch that?” Max asked.


    “Catch what?” I asked. But as I said it the gears in my head were already spinning. “Wait a second, Max. Your last name starts with a P?”


    “Yeah, Pendergrast,” Max said. “But there was…”


    “Holy crap. Emma, what’s your last name?”


    “Padilla,” she said.


    “We all have last names starting with the letter P. Think it''s possible we’re not the first ones sent in?”


    Max stammered a moment, then recovered, “I… didn’t consider that. There could be fifteen other teams they sent before us. Maybe they’re sending in twenty-six teams… or…”


    “Or what?” Slade said.


    I finished the thought, “Or they all died.”


    That stopped us all in our tracks. When Slade started walking again, there was little enthusiasm among the whole group. I was already thinking about the natural progression of massively multiplayer games. The tutorial is pretty easy, but the difficulty ratchets up pretty quickly. There could literally be sixty dead players that traveled these same plains before us.


    Thankfully Max interrupted any further morbid thoughts. “There was something else Kane said that was interesting.”


    I was the only one to nibble, “Yeah? What’s that?”


    “He said they couldn’t fix the game. That dying was an unintended consequence.”


    “Yeah? So?” I said, still fixated on the pile of corpses we might very well be walking over right now.


    “If they don’t know how to fix it, doesn’t that imply that they didn’t create it?”


    “So what?” Slade said. “I got a car, and I don’t know how to fix it. What does that add to this?”


    “Right, you have a car that you did not make. You bought it from someone else, who either made it or bought it from someone else who eventually made it. The original owner, the maker, would know how to fix it.”


    “And?” Slade mocked.


    “The army flew us to a base, a pretty big base. They then take us to a bunker, where we train for a week. We go twelve stories underground to get to this. And they don’t know how to fix it.”


    “I’m going to die of old age before you get to your point,” Slade said.


    “Fine. I not only don’t think they made this simulation. I don’t think they even know how it works.”