That had been an awfully terrible nightmare. There was no way the cave and the monster could have been anything other than a hallucination. Damon would’ve chuckled if he didn’t feel like he’d run two marathons back to back. Had they made him do the fifteen kilometer march all over again? Couldn’t be. He’d never been this thoroughly bruised. What time was it, anyway? His hand moved in search of his watch.

“Wait.”

He was lying on cold, uneven stone. This wasn’t his bunk bed.

He was naked and sticky.

“Oh, no.”

There was no way he would open his eyes and risk going back to the nightmare. But he knew what he would find, and feared it. His skin felt gooey, the air was thick with the stench of rotten meat and mold. There did not appear to be an escape from this. So, with a deep grimace, he opened his eyes to the darkness of the cave. The first thing he noticed was that the blue glow was gone. But the darkness wasn’t absolute. There was a pale orange light from the tunnel he’d tried to take during the fight.

A glow that, hopefully, would lead outside.

“This can’t be real,” he said. The words were hollow when his body ached like he’d insulted a biker gang and they used him as a punching bag. Again.

But he couldn’t just sit there and hope things went away. He stood, uncomfortable and groaning, but alive at the very least. His gaze wandered through the cave’s shadows, looking for anything that might be of use. Either to answer questions or at least serve as clothing. His eyes stopped at the object laying where the monster had died.

In place of a corpse, there was a huge skull and an equally large pelt. He approached carefully.

The skull was bleached white, and broad enough someone could just curl into its maw and use the thing for shelter. Its shape was similar to a wolf’s, except far larger, broader, and with a hole in the back, where the orange eye had been. There was little about it that felt reassuring, the very fact it existed irrefutable proof that things weren’t going in any direction he would’ve wanted them to.

“This can’t be real.” This time, the words were filled with disbelief rather than delusion.

Damon’s uncle had a farm and went hunting deer or hogs now and then. He’d spent enough time with the old paranoid gun-nut to at the very least be absolutely sure it took from months to years for an animal’s skull to end up this clean on its own. The thing was white, with no blood, no flesh, no fur clinging to it.

Damon’s focus shifted towards the only other present item: a pelt. It was a massive thing. It looked like a large bluish bear skin. One with dark blue scales that added a layer of protection to its spine. The object felt far lighter than it should have, and upon closer inspection, the underside was smooth. It had the sort of finish one would expect to get after giving the piece a first treatment. Something that should have been impossible for it to happen on its own. Even less within the span of a single blackout.

Still buck naked and with nothing else to wear, he draped it over his shoulders. It was too large, however, almost half of it would drag on the floor. Damon had to twist and move it around his body until he was comfortable. The thing was a massive fur toga with the ‘head’ serving as a fuzzy helmet.

[...]

CONGRATULATIONS!

YOU ARE ALMOST PROPERLY CLOTHED!

GAINED: 1 SURVIVAL POINTS (BUT YOU CAN DO BETTER). TOTAL: 1

YOU CAN REDEEM POINTS IN EXCHANGE FOR UPGRADES!

NEAREST BOOTH LOCATED AT: 5͟͠҉&̶̴̡_̀͢:̶̀̕̕͢ȩ͝2̷̢͜2̸̨

[...]

Three things happened at once. The message popped into existence out of nowhere. Then, Damon may or may not have shrieked. But he jumped and slammed against the wall all the same. The monster pelt cushioned the impact enough it barely registered, but his pride had definitely taken a blow.

“Mother fucking...” His hands waved in front of his face, trying to get rid of the message. “Go away.”

The window vanished. He promptly decided that thinking about this potential hallucination was something best left to after he got a better bearing of what was going on. “Questioning your sanity comes later.”

Just as he’d been about to leave the cave, he glanced at the skull and the wicked long fangs. He grabbed some of the smaller fangs and yanked them out. They snapped like a dry twig, barely weighing anything on his grip, and pointy enough, they’d at least work as improvised weapons.

“Feeling like a caveman right about now.”

[...]

CONGRATULATIONS!

YOU “MADE” YOUR FIRST WEAPON!

GAINED: 2 SURVIVAL POINTS (MAYBE GIVE IT A GRIP!). TOTAL: 3

YOU CAN REDEEM POINTS IN EXCHANGE FOR UPGRADES!

NEAREST BOOTH LOCATED AT: 5͟͠҉&̶̴̡_̀͢:̶̀̕̕͢ȩ͝2̷̢͜2̸̨

[...]

“Dismiss. Dismiss. Dismiss.”

The message vanished. He turned to glance at the rest of the cave. It was too dark to make out anything specific, but he remembered there had been someone else there during the fight. He shuffled about and found a crevice with its walls chipped away by claw-marks. But it was empty. Whoever had been there left, and they likely took the useful stuff that had been lying around the place.

The memory of the severed hand flashed through his mind. It didn’t take him much to find the owner splattered and torn to pieces. This monster hadn’t just killed them, it had made the unlucky sod into minced meat. The green blood would have surprised him if not because of the poor state the corpse had been in. The sight of it made Damon’s gut roil. He doubled over and heaved, but his stomach was empty. Nothing more than a spittle of bile came out.

The smell of blood and shit was pungent but relatively fresh, it meant he hadn’t been unconscious that long. Damon pushed through his queasiness and tried to see if he could get answers. To no luck. The body was far too mangled, and his clothes were some sort of tunic, but torn and tattered beyond use.

“Poor bastard.” he muttered under his breath, wiping his chin.

With nothing else he could find out, he turned towards the exit.

CRUNCH

“Fuck!”

Cursing, he glanced downwards to see he’d stepped on glass. It was a vial that had already broken. It lay within a small crater, carved out of the stone and filled with dust and sand. Damon glared at it, touching the impossibly smooth edge of the hole for a moment before checking his foot for the injury. It had fortunately been only a shallow cut.

The vial was just another question to throw onto the pile of things to get answers to. He walked down the tunnel to the outside world.

Sunlight greeted him, merciful and warm. The gust of wind was far less friendly, a cold chill that bit deeper than he’d expected it to for what should have been mid-summer in Houston. And the more he saw, the clearer it was this was an entirely different place. For one, the mountains were blue. Cyan kind of blue. The very dirt under his feet looked like someone had painted it with markers, and the vegetation wasn’t any less alien. Trees were sparse, but their foliage was of a bright neon color that seemed to glow softly under the sunlight.

“Wherever this is, it ain’t Texas,” he said as he stared at the sky, at the two suns that hung next to one another. The first was the normal white he was used to, the other far smaller and a dim red. “That can’t be right. Is this place broken?”

[...]

QUERY ANSWER:

NETWORK ARRAY: OFFLINE

DIAGNOSTICS: UNAVAILABLE

THALARING PORT REQUIRED FOR ACCESS

[...]

“That’s, uh... something.” Damon frowned, waving his hand against the screen. But it was not real. Even when he closed his eyes, he could still see it as if it were floating in the void. Which had some uncomfortable implications. “Does this have a map?” At his words, another window popped up.

[...]

QUERY ANSWER:

NETWORK ARRAY: OFFLINE

MAP: UNAVAILABLE

LOADING FROM MEMORY

ERROR

MAP: UNAVAILABLE

RECONSTRUCTION MODE: ENGAGED

[...]

The only thing that showed up was a large blank square with only a tiny dot of blue at the center. Damon reached out and gesticulated. “Zoom, dammit.” And as soon as he spoke, the speck of color expanded until he got a blue blob with a cave symbol at the side and a single dot with some text attached further to the cave. “JANUS ENTRY POINT #241.” He read out loud. “What’s a Janus?”

[...]

QUERY ANSWER:

JANUS: FOR ALL YOUR EXPLORATION AND ENTERTAINMENT NEEDS.

[...]

Next to the name, there was a logo of some sort. A white background with a stick figure walking through an arch. The other side having the symbol for a twisty planet with rings. Damon frowned. “What is a Janus Entry Point?”

[...]

ERROR

QUERY ANSWER NOT FOUND

[...]

“Where am I?” His question only got the mostly blank map to pop back up. “How do I get back home?”

[...]

ERROR

QUERY ANSWER NOT FOUND

[...]

Damon frowned. “How did I even get here?”

[...]

QUERY ANSWER:

JANUS ENTRY POINT #241.

[...]

Stomping his foot, he waved his hands through the text. “Why the fuck am I even here?”

[...]

QUERY ANSWER:

APOCALYPSE THREAT DETECTED

COUNTERMEASURES: NOT ENGAGED

ENGAGE COUNTERMEASURES

[...]

“Look bub, I sure as heck am not equipped to handle an apocalypse, I’m no marine.” The answer was only making more questions bubble within his head. “Does solving this thing let me go back?”

[...]

ERROR

QUERY ANSWER NOT FOUND

[...]

“What even IS this ‘apocalypse threat’? How do I engage in ‘countermeasures’?”

[...]

ERROR

QUERY ANSWER NOT FOUND

[...]

“This fucking thing has the company motto loaded up, but not the answer of how to avoid a supposed apocalypse!?”

Damion tried to ask it for more details, changing the wording of his questions a couple dozen times before eventually just giving up. Whatever this ‘system message window’ was, it was about as clueless of what was going on as he was. “I really hope this doesn’t count as going AWOL. I’ve met people saying they’d been kidnapped by aliens and this is definitely not the experience they described.”

With a defeated sigh, he glanced around and tried to figure out what direction to take. As far as he could see, there were only mountains and more mountains, in varying shades of blue and with bright blue vegetation scattered all over. He’d been just about ready to head uphill to find some usable vantage point when a thought occurred to him.

“Do you know what else was in the cave before I passed out?”

[...]

QUERY ANSWER:

1x d҉̷̧̛4̢̧̧̧͝$̕f̸͞:̵҉͟_̛͘2̵̧͘͢z̶͏̢̀

1x c҉̧́͘5̸̴̵_̶̧͝͞_̢́͟͝6̷̸̡͠͡!̛͜#̡̛*̵̡͜͝

1x d̡͟͢f̴́͘͜͝6̷͜͡c͢͝`̨҉̡҉́^͞͞͏̨(̧̛3̀͟

[...]

“Ok, just... I can’t read that. First one looks like the monster thing was called. Let’s say the first thing was a wolf monster. What were the other two? Any other information about them?”

[...]

SYSTEM UPDATE:

d҉̷̧̛4̢̧̧̧͝$̕f̸͞:̵҉͟_̛͘2̵̧͘͢z̶͏̢̀ RENAMED TO “WOLF MONSTER”

CONNECT TO NETWORK ARRAY OR THALARING PORT TO UPDATE DATABASE

QUERY ANSWER:

d̡͟͢f̴́͘͜͝6̷͜͡c͢͝`̨҉̡҉́^͞͞͏̨(̧̛3̀͟ NAME TRANSLATION: ARLEN [STATUS: DECEASED]

c҉̧́͘5̸̴̵_̶̧͝͞_̢́͟͝6̷̸̡͠͡!̛͜#̡̛*̵̡͜͝ NAME TRANSLATION: IDINA [STATUS: UNKNOWN]

[...]

“Progress.” He nodded. “Ok, first, let’s drop the all-caps. It feels like I’m being shouted at, and I had enough of that in basic. Second, let’s call the two... um... ‘locals’. Third, do you know anything about what happened to this Idina?”

[...]

System Update:

All-Caps changed to standard capitalization in Administrative System.

c҉̧́͘5̸̴̵_̶̧͝͞_̢́͟͝6̷̸̡͠͡!̛͜#̡̛*̵̡͜͝ renamed to “Locals”

d̡͟͢f̴́͘͜͝6̷͜͡c͢͝`̨҉̡҉́^͞͞͏̨(̧̛3̀͟ renamed to “Locals”

Connect to Network Array or Thalaring port to update Database

Query Answer:

Access User System recording or give glossary of content?

[...]

“Brief version.”

[...]

Receptors: Touch / Hearing / EM TAG.

ADMIN passed out. ADMIN heard Idina walking. ADMIN felt Idina press sharp object against ADMIN neck. No injuries incurred. ADMIN felt Idina press sharp object against ADMIN chest. No injuries incurred. ADMIN heard Idina scream. ADMIN heard Idina walking. ADMIN detected Idina moving South until no longer within range.

[...]

“This raises a lot more questions and concerns than answers, but let’s just stick to one crisis at a time.” His gaze drifted over the blue mountain. There were no apparent sources of water, settlements, or anything he could immediately recognize that might help him. “I don’t want to have to follow the woman who put something sharp against my neck, but it doesn’t seem like there’s much alternative here since there don’t seem to be any Wendy’s nearby. South it is. Dismiss window.”

He began to walk, working to put his thoughts in order. A lack of monsters trying to eat his face was doing miracles to his nerves. It let him take his time to look around, trying to figure out whether he was able to spot clues or hints that might betray the passing of this “Idina”, but besides blue pointy rocks and weird trees, he couldn’t really find anything. So he had to trust that going downhill would get him somewhere.

“Oh, if Idina or anything else enters detection range, would you give me a heads up?”

[...]

Query Answer:

Yes

[...]

“Then please do.”

One of the core foundations the army had drilled into him during basic training had been a sense of his physical and mental limitations. And after two hours of walking down the mountain, Damon was certain something fucky was going on. His steps had felt too light, his body too full of energy. He had attributed how he’d been able to move during the fight to some sort of adrenaline super-high, but now it was apparent it was the environment. He was definitely lighter than he thought he should be, maybe by a third or a fourth, and he was so energized he had a sinking suspicion the air might be different as well. Of course, asking ‘SYS’ for details regarding the world’s gravity and air didn’t help, only getting “Error” for his efforts. The same happened when he tried figuring out whether it knew if there was anything edible nearby. SYS was a Swiss cheese with too many holes.

“Must definitely be some sort of alien planet. Maybe higher oxygen content? Why would the little green men drop me here?”

Still, it was a welcome bonus. Compared to a forced march, this was a breeze.

Well, almost. His naked feet were hurting from all the small rocks and pebbles, and the priority to continue down hill was shifting towards looking for a possible temporary solution so he could continue his search without fear of crippling his feet in the process. He also had to pay some attention to where he was walking, as every now and then he’d spot some shallow holes on the ground, maybe half a meter deep and twice that in width.

His gaze eventually fell to the surrounding vegetation. The blue trees appeared to be pines, the branches stiff and the foliage not something he wanted to step on. But there were some bushes every so often that had bright red berry-sized fruits and long, soft leafy branches.

It took Damon a couple of destroyed bushes before he’d fashioned himself a set of improvised shoes. Using the fangs as knives had mixed results, but better ones than without them. Half an hour later, he’d made a bundle he could step on that looked like a set of bloated shady sandals.

[...]

CONGRATULATIONS!!

YOU HAVE MADE REALLY UGLY FOOTWEAR!

GAINED: 4 SURVIVAL POINTS (UGLY FEET MATCH BONUS +1). TOTAL: 8

YOU CAN REDEEM POINTS IN EXCHANGE FOR UPGRADES (SERIOUSLY)!

NEAREST BOOTH LOCATED AT: 5͟͠҉&̶̴̡_̀͢:̶̀̕̕͢ȩ͝2̷̢͜2̸̨

[...]

“You don’t get to judge shit.” He growled. “Wait, didn’t I say to remove all-caps? How come it came back?”

[...]

Query Answer:

Setting had only been changed for Admin system.

Would you wish to extend settings to User system?

[...]

“Sure, go with that.” He tapped his chin. “If I’m an admin... can I alter things?”

[...]

System Update:

Changes applied to User system.

Query Answer:

Network Array: Offline

Diagnostics: Unavailable

Thalaring Port required for access

[...]

Damon took a moment, frowning as he rubbed his chin before dismissing a few considerations. There was little sense in getting himself lost inside his own head when he didn’t even know where to find food or water. So he kept marching his way downhill, finding some calmness in the quiet cool breeze and warm sun. Until eventually another pleasant surprise popped up.

[...]

System ‘heads up’:

Idina EM-tag has entered detection range

Distance: 300 meters

[...]

“Well, would you look at that? Display Idina location on the map.”

Damon stared at the map, noticing the small red dot pointing ‘Idina’ and her relative position to him. She was South-East of him, and not moving at all. If he hurried, he figured he’d reach her within a couple of minutes. But considering the current set of circumstances, caution sounded like the better option.

“Time to see what I can find out.”