If there’s one thing that hurts more than a huge knife in your back, it's someone on top of you whispering sweet nothings in your ear with a huge knife in your back.

“Gotcha now, ya sneaky sweet,” said a hog, his slobber pooling in my ear. This had to be the driver who'd ‘gotten away.’

I struggled to yell, but the knife had taken up residence in a lung and I couldn’t breathe, let alone call for help. Where was Yuri? Where were her MODs?

I tried to pull my space ball out but the guy had me face down, prone in the dirt, his knees on my forearms. Neither type of ball in my arsenal would do much good if I couldn’t launch them. My thumb candle wasn’t accessible, I needed to blow on my thumb to make that work. I could open my outhouse again but had no idea where it would appear, being pressed in the ground as I was. Plus, what kind of loser uses the same gimmick twice in a row?

“Let’s try a different hole now, shall we?” said the hog in a growly, yet tender whisper. He pulled the knife and stuck it back in a different spot with a wet thunk. I felt blood shoot up the back of my throat. “Maybe you’ll like it better over here, eh?” He twisted it, and I twitched. “Ooh, yeah, that’s right.”

Was this guy seriously making penetration innuendos right now? What kind of a sick douchebag programmed this asshole’s dialogue algorithm?

My body twitched and thrashed on autopilot. My lungs still refused to do their job. The hog’s hand over my mouth didn’t help much either.

I mentally accessed my outhouse, but it took four, five attempts to wiggle my hand free to make the required gesture, which was thankfully nothing more than an upward flick.

To my surprise, the door appeared horizontally, literally underneath me in the dirt. Our combined weight was enough to snap it open. I fell in the hole, hitting the back of the room—in this instance the floor of the room—so hard my face bounced off the wood.

I expected a shower of hog dust to follow but it never came. My attempt to inhale felt like sucking air through a wet, pinched straw. I’m pretty sure I had a displaced rib now too. Maybe a few.

It took every bit of umph I had left to twist my head to the side enough to peer upward. Couldn’t quite get my body to follow suit.

The first thing I saw was the night sky. It was so packed full of alien stars. I could just see the edge of the rings around that awesome planet that came out at night. Beautiful, really.

A face appeared.

“Jack,” yelled Yuri. In the dark she was all but shadows. “Are you okay?”

What I tried to say was, “Oh, hey there, Yuri. How are you? Doing well? Having a nice night? I’m fine, thanks for asking. By the way, do you still happen to have one of those full-heal potions laying around? I could really use one right about now.” But what came out was: “Fuuuuuuuuugggrrlll.”

“My MOD grabbed the guy just as you fell. Do you need a rope? It’s so dark in there, I can’t … Why aren’t you moving, Jack? Jack, are you okay? Jack! Shit, here, dropping you a potion now.”

Hey, look at that, she read my mind.

I hadn’t sent Yuri an invite to my outhouse yet, because, well, to be honest I couldn’t figure out how to do it in a non-creepy way. Hey, wanna join me in my one-man pooper? Who says that? And there really had been no need to invite her anyway. So, Yuri was just as vulnerable to the room’s invisible barrier as anyone. She knew this, so when she dropped the potion, she dropped it from high above.

At that moment my dexterity wasn’t, shall we say, up to par. So when it fell, it bounced off my ass and plopped into the hole of endless void. Much like the doorway’s barrier to entry, things that went in there never came out. Not in one piece anyway. The only difference was the doorway didn’t disintegrate items. Only living things. The hole, however, ate all that shit up (yes, pun intended.)

“Gdmmmmmit Yuuuurrr,” I hissed.

I pulled up my inventory and scanned through my options using only my eyes. I sucked in a breath that rattled so wet and so hard in my chest that it scared me even more than it hurt.

Hey, look at that: I had a full-heal potion. One left. I mentally selected it and it appeared in the air over my hand. It bounced off the back of my wrist and then, as if sucked in by some otherworldly vacuum, flew into the hole.

The sound that came out of my mouth after that was something of a bloody mouth shart followed by a wet, hysterical laugh. Not a fun kind of laugh. The kind that only comes out when there’s nothing left to do but laugh.

“Jack!” yelled Yuri. “Did it work? I can’t see, dammit. I only have one full-heal left but I want to make sure you can …” she drifted as she dug through her back of tricks. Then she froze, apparently interacting with her interface.

Notification

Chat Alert

Yuri: Jack. Are you seeing this chat?

Oh duh, we had a mentally dictated chat feature. Why didn’t I think of that? Oh, I know, because I was on the verge of death—not in the best frame of mind for solutioning. I had to figure this one out, though. No way was I going out face down in an upside down porta potty. That would be a real shitty ending.

Jack: Help!

Yuri: How?

I growled, could feel my innards growing colder. My skin, however, felt warm from the pooling blood.

There was only one obvious thing left to do.

Notification

Confirmation Invitation

You are sending Yuri2 an invite to join you in your Outhouse pocket dimension. This invitation requires you to attach a welcome note. Please dictate a minimum of two-hundred characters to complete your customized invitation.

Jack: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Confirm and send your invitation? Yes or no.

***

I had no idea how long I’d been laying on the ground before I could comprehend the world around me again. I’d completely passed out after Yuri pulled me up by my ankle. Well, her MOD did the actual pulling, thankfully. Apparently, the invitation extended to her minions. Not quite sure how I felt about that.

The full-heal potion was taking much longer to do its job this time around. Or at least it felt like it was taking longer. Then again, I’d never been this close to death before. Being squished by a giant cyclops was a close second, but being stabbed through the back—twice over—really took the cake.

I’d gained enough consciousness to review my notifications with my eyes still closed. I’d never done that before, didn’t know I could.

Notification

Congratulations

You are a breaker of chains.

Look at you being all heroic, saving people and shit. Good for you! Hope they don’t get eaten on the way back to their homes. Bet you didn’t think about that, now, did you, Jack? Oh well, what’s done is done. They’re only NPCs. Not like you or I really care about their pointless lives and general well being anyway.

You’ve earned 5 experience points. These points expire if not applied to an ability within 48 hours.

You’ve earned a “half-assed hero” reward chest.

Hmm, that 48 hours bit was new.

Notification

Congratulations

You cheated!

You killed an NPC with an Outhouse pocket dimension. Who do you think you are? You’re not supposed to do that. And you tried to do it twice, too. Who the hell kills someone with an outhouse? What is this, Impractical Jokers? I can see that Todd1 is rubbing off on you. No, not like that, I mean like he’s having a bad influence on you, you little pervert. That was a clever move though, I’ll admit. You can have five experience point, but no chests. Next time, no experience points, cheater.

When I slowly opened my eyes I found Yuri kneeling next to me. She was just … staring down at me. Her face was cold but otherwise unreadable.

“Is this where we kiss?” I said, puckering my lips.

Yuri blinked, then stood up with a scoff and an eye roll.

“What? I said, coughing. “Haven’t you ever seen sleeping beauty?”