Chapter 3

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Floor 1 – Day 2

It was a strange thing, to take stock of my house. There it sat, perched in the middle of a beautiful field, with a landscape of forests and meadows as far as my eyes could see. My truck still waited in the driveway, which abruptly ended in grassland. It even still worked: I could turn my truck on, and if I had anywhere to go, I was reasonable sure I could drive it around. The broken windows from whoever had thought I might leave something useful in the back seat were still there, and somewhat deflated tires were exactly as I remembered them. As were a few bullet holes near the backdoors.

I didn't though. The driveway cut off at the edge of my lawn, and just turned into grassland, which eventually turned into forest. There was nowhere I could go with it, and I seriously doubted it would make it very far before getting stuck.

Past that, my mailbox leaned, just as crooked as it had always been, with no purpose at all, considering the complete lack of roads for which a mailman might deliver something. Not that mail had been delivered for almost a year anyways. I checked anyways, finding an old letter about a back statement. Why the mailman risked life and death to deliver it, I wasn't sure. That bank's local office had almost certainly been destroyed, anyways.

The statement indicated I had a thousand dollars in my checking account. No real loss there, I supposed. Money hadn't been good for much, past a certain point.

Looking around, I looked over the unmaintained lawn. The patchy crab-grass was as it had been, but it was my shed and backyard fence that really seemed comically out of place. The old wooden panels were no longer separating me from my neighbors. No longer did it section off my lot from the rest. Instead, the panels were simply an eye-sore in the way of a truly scenic view. One, which penned in my small property, against a backdrop it didn't deserve.

[Domicile] was exactly how it had been described in the post. My home and property had come with me to... well, here. Wherever this was. From what I understood, the alternative was likely waking up wearing whatever I happened to have been wearing, with nothing else.

At least, that was what the internet post had warned me about.

I pushed aside the thought, undecided if I was lucky or not, and set myself to work. In the first few hours, following my panic attack, I dug down with shovel from my shed. It seemed important that I go about testing a few theories. The answers seemed obvious, but I wanted to be sure.

I found that things were mostly as I expected.

There was nothing connected to the house. The wires were cut, the pipes were too.It was just the house, stopping right at the property’s edge and turning into grassland. Downed power and phone lines were snipped cleanly, with their remainders settled on the lawn. Same for the water pipes and the gas, underground. No matter what I checked, it seemed that nothing but my house and the immediate property, made it over.

I had to wonder what would have happened if I'd owned more land. What if I'd lived in a million-dollar mansion, or a military base? Or maybe, one of those people who lived where they worked? Would it have taken a lot more? But after pondering this for awhile, I gave up. There was no way for me to find out, and as I was, the best I could do was speculate.

After wandering around my home, confirming it was in fact, exactly as I'd left it, and there was nothing unusual, I had finally found myself in my shed. Pushing aside whatever happened to be in my way, I dug free the ladder, and after expanding it as far as it could go, I started the careful climb onto my roof.

I needed a better look.

Step by step, rung by rung, I got one: my questions fell away as I stopped and took in the sight. The Trial called this the 1st Floor, but it didn’t seem much like a “floor” in any traditional sense. It seemed far more than just that. Overhead was a cloudless sky, the sun beating down. Wind came, slow and cool, as leaves rustled in their wake. A peaceful forest waited, endless in almost all direction.

I couldn’t really understand why it was a “Floor” at all. In all honesty, it just seemed I was in the middle of nowhere. A beautiful nowhere, certainly, but a nowhere nonetheless.

Looking out, I tried to find any aspect of the landscape that seemed to indicate civilization, and found there was nothing. There were no buildings, or smoke, or anything of the sort. The only things present were grassland and trees, and a single snow-topped mountain in the far-off distance that seemed to rise, almost like a painting of Mt. Fuji.

If Mt. Fuji was impossibly large.

God damn, that looked like a big mountain. I couldn't even fathom how large it must be. For it to rise so high, and still be so far away...

[Ping]

A sound effect that wasn’t a sound rang out, rattling my skull ever so slightly. Like a small bell had chimed, only inside my head. As I sat there, on my roof, I was presented with a new message.

[Floor 1 – Task to complete – Climb the mountain]

I let out a long sigh.

Of course.

Of course it was.