So, yeah. I wasn’t Isekai’d, but I was definitely, one-hundred percent dead.

EdenFRAMEs were post-mortem virtual realities, heavily regulated by governments and corporations. Living people couldn’t upload to EdenFRAMES, and gladiatorial combat starring tentacled shark-panthers was definitely not a feature. That meant this was an illegal, unofficial FRAME run by a hacker… or worse, an organized crime outfit. Logically, that implied that not only was I un-alive, someone had forcibly uploaded me here.

Tail lashing, I opened my menu and searched for some hint, some clue as to why I had been sent to ‘Sorvival’ of the Fittest. There were three menu tabs along the top of my character information window: Odds, Channel, and Messages. I clicked Channel first.

The requested tab appeared above the other three screens. It was a video streaming management interface with an active livestream in focus. The video gave the viewers a magnificent view of my sandy black ass, complete with a long whippy tail, a cat-like butthole, and a nice pair of peach-sized nads. At least they hadn’t neutered me. There were other features of the interface. A clicker, a live chat, but no option to turn the video off. Three people were watching my stream, and one of them had even left a super-helpful comment:

“Hey, you! Captain Spelling Bee! Can you tell me what the fuck is going on?” I tried telepathically posting to the channel.

[Your comment has been rejected. Reason: Breaking Immersion and compromising Spectator experience.]

Ugh. I tried again: something neutral this time. “Hi! Hello!”

[Your comment has been rejected. Reason: Breaking Immersion and compromising Spectator experience.]

The fact I couldn’t post on my own video feed pretty much cinched it. Somehow, I knew that there was a high probability that I’d been murdered, and that my brain data—my consciousness, my personality, my memories—had been trafficked.

Next up were Messages. I wasn't expecting anything to be in there, but there was one message, already opened and read. That explained the lack of alerts. The message was titled: 'Ur mine now Сука'.

"The hell...?" I hadn't read any messages. Nostrils flaring, I opened it up and scanned the interior. It was written in Russian, which I could read and understand fluently.

"If you're reading this, you've arrived in Arcadia, the Fourth Realm of Survival of the Fittest. MY world. Hope your cage is nice and cozy. We made sure to make it just the right size.

You’re in my world, now. You can't get out. You can't leave. You're stuck here. We cut your body into pieces and threw each chunk out into the Sound. We ripped your brain data out and crushed your head under the front wheels of my BMW, and then we sent what was left of you to your little 'agency' in a box. Probably the first and only time you flew first class in your life.

Everyone you knew, everyone you served, everyone you loved, we pulled all of that from your mind. My guys found your dogs and shot them. Then we burned your house down, with your dogs inside. By the time you read this, we’ll have tracked down everyone else. 'Valkyrie', whoever she is. Your dad. Your fucking krav maga coach. And most of all, your sister. You really love her, don’t you? Well, don't worry. I'll make sure you get to see to her again.

This is what rat bastards get for fucking with me. With the Solonovs. I want you to think of this message as I put the control collar on you. I asked the Society to leave your mind intact so you could read this.

Bitch.

Love, Dimitri."

I read it again, and as I did, my head began to throb as fleeting, sharp memories lanced up behind my eyes, blinding me with brief flashes of the past. Darkness and pain. Me, staggering out of a warehouse into a parking lot, holding my guts in with one hand. Me, hands bloody, behind the wheel of a black SUV. Other SUVs closing in from either side, slamming into my vehicle, driving it off the road. I could feel my mouth moving as I yelled at someone over a comm link, but I couldn't hear the words.

The car went off the road, rolling and smashing. When I opened my eyes, a man was leaning over me, leering, a cigarette clamped in the side of his mouth. He was slim, with a face so perfect it could only have been sculpted by a surgeon. White hair, worn short and slicked. Elegant inlaid platinum cyberlines on his face, sweeping back to his datajack. Piercing golden eyes, bright with cruelty. His nose was bloody, dripping as he leaned over me. He had tattooed hands. I fixated on the symbols on his knuckles as he made a fist, reaching for my neck with the other hand.

I flinched, dragging myself back to the present. Yikes. Big yikes. On a scale of one to crazy, we were sitting at a big fat ten.

"If you're reading this, you've arrived in Arcadia...?" I tilted my head. Chorus had just told me I was in some place called The Jungle. "Damn. Someone needs to lay off the cocaine."

Disturbing as the message was, it gave me valuable information. I now suspected I'd been law enforcement, someone working for an 'agency' against these ‘Solonovs’ and possibly the ‘Society’, whoever they were. The word Dimitri had used to describe the people I’d worked for was important: 'agency', not 'precinct' or ‘office’. That meant I'd been a fed, maybe FBI. So putting it all together, I was a Fed of some kind who did Krav Maga, spoke and read fluent Russian… and who had been undercover in a Russian Mafia outfit? That would explain why this crazy motherfucker killed my dogs and burned my house down. Now he was going after my family, and possibly my girlfriend – if that’s who ‘Valkyrie’ was.

"Well. Fuck." Frowning, I started a third re-read. I was about halfway through when my Odds tab beeped and flared bright yellow.

My stomach twisted with nausea as I opened up the third tab. Yup. It was a betting panel with a list of odds. People were gambling on me. Needless to say, virtual blood sports with real human data wasn’t legal in any country or territory.

First up were my odds on making it alive through the night. The next was the chance I’d be ‘tamed’ within my first day of being ‘on the island’. All the odds were shit. One person had made a bet anyway—they thought I’d live through my first twenty-four hours. That was big of them.

Even as I watched, another bet description appeared. “Killed by a Hyperboar in the next ten minutes.” The odds on that one were good. Four, then five, then six people joined my channel. The clicker kept turning, and people started laying money down on whatever a ‘Hyperboar’ was.

It was the closest thing to a warning as I was going to get.

I got all four feet under me and stumbled forward into an awkward run up the beach. Made it about fifty feet before a piercing squeal tore the air behind me. Still running, I switched the camera so I could see over my shoulder without needing to turn my head. A huge royal blue razorback—a pig bigger than an SUV—exploded out of the jungle, ropes of drool swaying beneath its jowls. The monster fixed blazing white eyes on me, and as it did, a bright red highlight appeared over its head: [Hyperboar (Lvl 10)].

[You have identified a new Legion: Hyperboar.]

[The universal, wild and unfortunately powerful Body/Air/Fire Legions are known for their fearlessness and strong build.]

Before I could puzzle out the poorly translated description, the giant porker bucked and squealed. Electricity rippled up along its legs, frying the sand black and blowing the burned-plastic stench of ozone into the air. Snapping and crackling harder than a bowl of Rice Krispies, it charged after me, and I did what every sensible tentacle-beast who’d just woken up on Crazy Murder Island would do.

I put my head down, tucked my tail, and ran like a schoolgirl.

The tentacles still had a mind of their own as I blundered down the sandbar, sprinting for the tree line. Ferns and rotten logs crushed under my claws as I tore a trail through the ass-end of the jungle, flapping around like a whacky inflatable arm-tube man. Behind me, the snapping and squealing grew closer.

I charged through vines that would have strangled the real me, tearing them from the trees. Birds whirled up in a screeching chorus from the branches. Birds with teeth and clawed wings, and long lizard-like tails. Dinosaurs. I got one startled look at them before the Hyperboar came crashing through the ferns behind me, throwing smaller trees to the sides with its tusks.

Panting, I floundered up a hill, my stamina meter dropping from green to yellow. As it did, a huge heartbeat filled my ears, double pulse tripping beneath my tongue. I charged through the undergrowth, barely able to see, until some instinct brought me to a skidding halt just before the hill dropped off into a steep ridge. There was a dry gully full of rocks below. No water.

“SQUEEE! SCREEEEE! WREEEHH!” The Hyperboar was closing in, surrounded by the stench of burning hair.

Before I thought about it too hard, I put my shoulders down, charged the cliff, and took the leap of faith.